STIM too easy? Nope!

[Dzib]

Hi, first of all I'd like to say thank you to Silven for this great mod

Right now I try to compare Silven's modifications and Close Combat mod regarding the battles and after switching from one to the other and fighting the same first battle of a new campaign with Macedon against Tylis (Normal difficulty), here are the results:

Macedon: 1 * Foot Companions (General), 3 * Hoplites, 2 * Javelinmen
Tylis: 1 * Oathsworn (General), 2 * Thracian Warriors, 2 * Levy Freemen, 1 * Light Horse, 3 * Celtic Slingers

Which is 880 vs 1240... not an impossible battle I'd say

First test, with STIM: Clear victory, 43 casualties and 854 kills (If I had cavalry I coud have chased the routing units and increased the bodycount )
Second test, with CC: Close defeat, 557 casualties and 623 kills
I even did a third test, with STIM on hard difficulty: Clear victory, 78 casualties and 903 kills

As you can see, it's a huge difference between the two mods regarding the battles. I have also to admit that I'm not a very good tactician, I surely could have won the battle with CC with a few efforts but I wanted to use the same strategy than I used with STIM (very basic strategy).
All this to say: On which difficulty is STIM better to play? True that I didn't tried very hard or legendary but on these difficulty levels, the AI have bonus in campaign or battles? I don't really like the idea... No need to say that trying CC on harder difficulty levels will result only in bigger defeats for me.

[The Guy With No Imagination]

Fight on extreme or legendary battles and you'll have a much harder fight, both in campaign and battles.

[SD_Man]

Fight on extreme or legendary battles and you'll have a much harder fight, both in campaign and battles.

I think the point of this thread is to promote balance on normal/hard difficulties, not to give the AI bonuses.

[Tsar Brodsky]

I've just always felt like battles were just like that, regardless of mods used. I play on Very Hard battle and while I'm definitely noticing more casualties than you I also can't recall losing a "fair" battle in vanilla, this mod, or any other mod for Rome 2. It definitely has to do with the battle AI. The AI just doesn't try to flank with their infantry. They mash their heavy troops into three or four spots against my line, have their skirmishers do their thing and occasional send their cavalry to flank my engaged infantry. By the way, this is the only mod where I've experienced the AI outmaneuvering my cavalry with their own.

Anyhow, In Close Combat or vanilla the casualties happen much quicker and charges + missiles are far deadlier than with this mod. In STIM; once the main lines engage (and the AI clumps in few a spots against your line) you've got far more time to facilitate micro-flanking across your line and on the flanks. The AI just doesn't do this, it commits and leaves itself open to ridiculously easy to counter flanking maneuvers. With STIM you can absolutely annihilate the AI using very bare bones tactics... because you've got the time to do so. With vanilla or CC the combat is often finished before you have time to completely out maneuver the AI which leaves you on a much more even footing for casualties... especially if you're playing like the AI; facilitating moshpits.

At least that's my understanding or why it may seem easier. The battle AI is just lacking in so many ways and the slowing down the battles/kill rates only highlights it's incompetence.

Edit: Just to clarify, I'm no master tactician either. Battles on Very Hard in Shogun 2 would almost always end with a nail biting victory or a humiliating defeat for me.

[Xaero.xiii]

I tried your above conditions to support your claims of a clear victory with only 78 casualties on hard difficulty and it is in no way in the same result. What occurred was a Pyrrhic victory of 438 losses on 1.0x unit scale on ultra. And that was me on the defense on a land battle so it is assumed that i obviously went on phalanx and outflanked whenever i could. Of course these are all logical assumptions as the enemy army is superior numerically and the battle is also near the area of Tylis. Also the battle could have been worse if i was the attacker.

Needless to say, do you have other Mods activated? as STIM is incompatible with most Mods and things might have been messed up. Also on what settings did you have the battle difficulty on? What you may have done is possibly a hard on the campaign but an easy on the battle difficulty. All in all no way is the above results plausible unless you are defending a settlement with the settings made on STIM.

[Dzib]

Well I had a quite long campaign with Macedon and most of my battles end up with such results, even when clearly outnumbered by 1000 vs 2000, I won with such results... But I wonder, when you start a new campaign, you have to choose the difficulty on the faction selection screen, that's the campaign difficulty, right? Is there another option somewhere to change battle difficulty? I know that these were 2 differents settings in previous total war games but don't know for R2...

[crzyrndm]

Well I had a quite long campaign with Macedon and most of my battles end up with such results, even when clearly outnumbered by 1000 vs 2000, I won with such results... But I wonder, when you start a new campaign, you have to choose the difficulty on the faction selection screen, that's the campaign difficulty, right? Is there another option somewhere to change battle difficulty? I know that these were 2 differents settings in previous total war games but don't know for R2...

Since Shogun 2 atleast, you have to go into the options after starting a campaign to change battle difficulty.

[Dzib]

I mostly play M2TW with Stainless Steel mod, I just tried Shogun2
Anyway, found out the setting and it was on normal, I have to try this battle on hard battle difficulty but what are the differences between difficulty levels? Only bonuses given to the player on esay settings or to the AI on harder settings?

[Xaero.xiii]

I mostly play M2TW with Stainless Steel mod, I just tried Shogun2
Anyway, found out the setting and it was on normal, I have to try this battle on hard battle difficulty but what are the differences between difficulty levels? Only bonuses given to the player on esay settings or to the AI on harder settings?

Try setting the battle difficulty to Hard or if you want an imbalance against you to Very Hard and see the changes(Keep the campaign difficulty to hard-legendary - just see Silven's recommendations to this). If it is still waaaay to easy fighting battles with you getting heroic victories without any effort despite being outnumbered try uninstalling all mods verify your game cache and then re-installing your mods again. Keep in mind the compatibility issues too.

[crzyrndm]

Only bonuses given to the player on esay settings or to the AI on harder settings?

Bonuses mostly. Especially to ranged combat. Melee basically just buffs AI morale, but on VH your units will get trounced in a skirmish (annoyingly, none of this is moddable)

[Dzib]

Ok, so I tried on Hard / Hard, now that's a good challenge I think, I won the battle but with 339 casualties and 960 kills
I'll restart a new campaign and I guess that I'll have a hard time making Mare Aegaeum a Mare Nostrum :p

[Silven]

Well good. I'm glad others were able to explain how to make the battles more challenging for you. Sounds like you were just playing on a difficulty that was too low for you.

As stated in my "Recommendations" section in my main thread, I prefer to play the campaign on either Very Hard or Leg, depending on the faction I've picked, and the battle difficulty (which is a separate setting as crzyrndm explained) is set to Hard. Battle Difficulty set to Normal is too easy, because the AI will never perform as well as the player, and Very Hard is too immersion-breaking for me personally. Hard seems to be the best balance.

[Dzib]

After playing a few battles on hard I can say it's the best setting for me
Thanks again Silven for this wonderful mod!

[Cavalier]

I've just always felt like battles were just like that, regardless of mods used. I play on Very Hard battle and while I'm definitely noticing more casualties than you I also can't recall losing a "fair" battle in vanilla, this mod, or any other mod for Rome 2. It definitely has to do with the battle AI. The AI just doesn't try to flank with their infantry. They mash their heavy troops into three or four spots against my line, have their skirmishers do their thing and occasional send their cavalry to flank my engaged infantry. By the way, this is the only mod where I've experienced the AI outmaneuvering my cavalry with their own.
.

I have to disagree here, as I've seen plenty of occassions where the enemy infranty outflanks my own(mostly due to the fact that they deploy a wider battle line than my own) with multiple units. They wreak havoc on my ranged units until one of my infantry units can break free and engage. I agree with the cavalry, as I am fairly useless with it.

[Tsar Brodsky]

I swear, reports of Battle AI (or the AI in general) are so inconsistent. I'm 300 hours in and I've only been flanked by infantry when I was really outnumbered; usually 2:1. Otherwise the AI just clumps itself up as I described. But then I hear from other people, like yourself, the exact opposite of my experience. I've seen pics on /r/TotalWar where the AI brought onagers to a siege. I've never seen anything like that and I'm a bit jealous. I've really experienced nothing but frustrating battle AI except for the occasional brilliant cavalry ambush on my flanks. Maybe it has to do with how we advance our lines differently... I really don't know. I wish I experienced what you're experiencing, it sounds like a lot more fun than the game I'm playing.

[Cavalier]

I swear, reports of Battle AI (or the AI in general) are so inconsistent. I'm 300 hours in and I've only been flanked by infantry when I was really outnumbered; usually 2:1. Otherwise the AI just clumps itself up as I described. But then I hear from other people, like yourself, the exact opposite of my experience. I've seen pics on /r/TotalWar where the AI brought onagers to a siege. I've never seen anything like that and I'm a bit jealous. I've really experienced nothing but frustrating battle AI except for the occasional brilliant cavalry ambush on my flanks. Maybe it has to do with how we advance our lines differently... I really don't know. I wish I experienced what you're experiencing, it sounds like a lot more fun than the game I'm playing.

Maybe you've just got such a good battle formation that you don't get flanked?

Today I got flanked again, albeit by a bad unit, but still!