Difficulty settings

[Garbarsardar]

Sorry if it's a stupid question but what settings do you use. I use M for the battles (in order to keep the units balanced) and until now M for the campaign.

• Has anyone played with H or VH in the campaign (while retaining M for battles)?
  
• Does this change the way the AI expands?
  
• Does it interferes with the scripted (EBBS) bonuses?

Thanks

[Lysander13]

Originally Posted by Garbarsardar
Sorry if it's a stupid question but what settings do you use. I use M for the battles (in order to keep the units balanced) and until now M for the campaign.

• Has anyone played with H or VH in the campaign (while retaining M for battles)?

• Yes, this is how i play. VH/Campaign & M/Battles is actually the recommended setting.

• Does this change the way the AI expands?

• In general terms, i don't believe so. It's more a case i would say that the AI is very aggresive towards you as the human player even the slave faction has been known to come after you on this setting.

• Does it interferes with the scripted (EBBS) bonuses?

• I could be wrong but i believe the script provides monetary bonuses when AI factions get under a certain amount of money and gets these bonuses no matter the campaign setting.

[PriestLizard]

I play on M (battles) and VH (campaign map). I only have experience with a long baktrian campaign untill now and its quite a challenge. I think thats the right setting.

Like Lysander said, I think the AI gets extra money every turn on VH. However the AI isnt so smart to use it in a way to crush you immediatly. Its still OK.

[Garbarsardar]

Thanks guys.

I ask about the AI expansion, because I read that VH is bound to make the eleutheroi (slaves) more aggressive.

In my campains there are always factions line Pontus, Armenia, Getai that fail to expand beyond the initial settlements or barely expand.

I am afraid that aggressive rebels will make the situation even worst for the small factions.

On the other hand they could pose some problems to the Seleucid monster...

[konny]

Like Lysander said, I think the AI gets extra money every turn on VH.

The AI gets the extra money regardless of the difficulty settings. The hughe Eleutheroi armies are there, too on M difficulty; for example that full stack near Numantia; so are the strong garrisons of the free towns.

[Juba1]

i play VH/VH, and i saw rebel armies trying to take back cities that i took from them...(quit nice), but the thing is that they attack only when my main army is far away...

[PriestLizard]

My mere experience from playing only one campaign yet:

(1) The eleuthereoi aren't aggressive, they do not attack settlements or marching armies at all -- even on VH.
(2) The rebel settelements that I have seen are usually protected by a rather large rebel army. I do not know if that depends on the difficulty level but its a fact on VH. Like I said I was playing on Baktria and I had to choose very carefully which rebel settlements I attack.
(3) The seleucid monster will not be stopped only by rebels. I can tell though that, by now, in the year of 240 BC, the seleucids are finally in danger as they are attacked from all sides (Ptolemaioi, Pontus, KH). I dont know how things will develop though.

[Mathias]

I play VH/H and the rebels don't attack much, or at all. This is the first time I play EB, so I haven't tried any other settings, but I must say I really enjoy it and I think this is the best setting. Despite just having started to play EB (have had some troubles getting it to work), I am a RTW veteran and I like to have a challanging battlefield AI, so medium is probably too easy. As a human player I have the edge i tactics, so I must give the enemy an edge when it comes to unit stats to try and even it out. VH would just be annoying though, I had a hard enough time killing those bloody Gaesatae on H, I don't won't know how much punishment those guys can take on VH

[chomskola]

im nearing the end of a campaign using the romans on m campaign and medium battles. Im fine with medium battles but the campaign is too easy, ive broken the back of everyone except the seleucids and they are not gonna be able to withstand me which is a pity cos now i have the marian reforms and i dont really need them. Im gonna wait for the next build and play with the romans on Vh in campaign. the main thing is that ive garissoned all my cities with slingers and they are unbreachable. Ive heard people say you should play EB slowly but i am not sure if i can make sense of this, for one, you wont grow as fast as the actual roman empire did, and secondly you will be fosterin the creation of one or more super powers like selecids macedonians or carthage...if you spend half your game trying to wipe one out it just creates another and this can be veryboring, is there any way round this??

[johnhughthom]

I believe that VH gives the AI factions 10000 per turn, this is on top of the scripting bonuses the AI gets regardless of level. The game is designed to take this extra money for the AI into account, though, which is why VH is the recommended campaign difficulty.

[Primvs Sextvs Loverlord]

Aww man, playing at VH battle difficulty has ruined it for me. I'm gonna restart my entire campaign.

I play VH/H and the rebels don't attack much, or at all. This is the first time I play EB, so I haven't tried any other settings, but I must say I really enjoy it and I think this is the best setting. Despite just having started to play EB (have had some troubles getting it to work), I am a RTW veteran and I like to have a challanging battlefield AI, so medium is probably too easy. As a human player I have the edge i tactics, so I must give the enemy an edge when it comes to unit stats to try and even it out. VH would just be annoying though, I had a hard enough time killing those bloody Gaesatae on H, I don't won't know how much punishment those guys can take on VH

So how is it at Hard battle difficulty? What bonuses does that AI receive? The excellent morale units at VH will take out half your army on their own before routing, it's quite annoying. The only way to beat a decent army at that difficulty is by out-numbering them by about 2:1.

Where does it say, by the way, what the recommended campaign and battle difficulties are?

Garbarsardar, as far as I can tell, the rebels usually increase in size quite fast but they're not much of a problem. I've only been seriously threatened by one rebel move and I'm well over 100 turns in my campaign.

[Ludens]

At hard the A.I.'s units get a +4 attack bonus. Not sure if there is a morale bonus, though.

The recommended difficulty settings are in the FAQ. However, one EB member mentioned they were discussing to make hard (rather than very hard) the recommended campaign setting, as diplomacy works better.

[Aketi]

Easy: +4 morale and +4 attack for your troops.
Medium: No bonuses. The borders stay historical for a longer time and the AI expansion sometimes is not that uncontrolled. Diplomacy is relaxed and flexible.
Hard: +4 morale and +4 attack for ai troops.
Very hard: +7 morale and +7 attack for ai troops.

on vh the AI defiantly gets
- attack and morale bonus
- +10k denari/mnai per turn for every faction
- more money from cities, you get less money from cities
- much more aggressive army movements on the campaign map
- unreasonable diplomacy
- autocalc battles produces mean illogical results for the player

on vh the AI apparently gets
- a defense bonus
- suffers less demoralization, less exhaustion
- a slight boost for missiles
- players troops are also more sensitive to charges

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

I chose Hard Campaign because I wanted a challenge, but without the AI factions treating me as Public Enemy #1 right from the start.

On VH Campaign the AI factions all hate you and are unresponsive to diplomacy - which depending on which faction you are playing, can be a much less historical way of playing.

So I'd only pick VH Campaign if I was playing a barbarian faction that didn't rely on diplomacy historically (like the Germans or the Saka, for example).

For battles, I always pick Medium. It's enough of a challenge provided you attack enemy armies that outnumber yours by a reasonable margin (at least 50% more units than you.) So if the enemy army has 12 units, I'll attack with 8 units or less.

This ratio can be adjusted up or down on a case by case basis if the enemy's units are of a much higher or much lower quality than yours.