Medium to Hard, no difference if u ask me

[Bluice]

What is the significant difference between Medium and Hard for Campaign difficulty.

The battle difficulty is obvious but to be honest I found the AI are just harder in the diplomacy field on Hard. I personally cannot say that there is more smarter stacks or bigger stacks attacking for that matter. Just diplomacy...

Any1 else feel different about this

[loquar]

I found them to have more money at their disposal ( slightly bigger stacks) and to be slightly more aggressive.

This made them easier to beat as they would siege with 3-4 units against somewhere with 8-10 inside so sallying was easy.

Even when down to 1 city the AI seemed to be able to have 6-7 units defending and a full stack attacking, no way that could be supported normally.

I didnt personally find much difference in the diplomacy side but thats probably more down to me being a bit of an isolationaist anyway so your most likely right about it.

[Grimmy]

I always play on m/m so I only have what I've read in this, and other, forums to go on but...

I seem to recall something about the diplomatic relations decaying faster and requiring more care and feeding to remain positive at the harder levels.

[toysoldier30]

Its mostly a morale thing. You tend to notice the difference when you say... charge an enemy gate and your army is surrounded by their army in their gate. On Medium you might just push through them. On Hard you might get punished.

[Black Prince IV]

I was reading on another TW forum which said that the differances were not in AI but in stats. On the campaign the AI gets more money and higher pulic order. They are more agressive and diplomacy is harder but I think thats it.

[Mythre]

Same thing i have heard... just tougher to keep relations and they get more money... i don't recommend playing on VH... they get waaaaaaaaaaaay too much money.. hard is a good balance... in battles the difficulty only effects the morale of your troops and the rate they fatigue... and the enemy might get a small morale bonus.

[Lost Crusader]

I played most of my campaigns on M (VH battle), just to avoid diplomacy issues. Now I started HRE campaign on H/VH, because I find M to be way too easy.

What I noticed so far, is that the rebels spawn much more frequently. I've encountered 3 almost half-stacks, and a few small armies by the turn 14. And one of them was composed of Swiss pikemen, pavise xbows and feudal knights! I've never seen so many rebels before.

As far as diplomacy is concerned, I didn't see any difference compared to Medium. By the turn 14, I made 2 Marriage alliances, and 2 ordinary ones. My relations with those factions improved from so-so to good/very good. But since the game is in very early stage, this doesn't have to mean anything....

[DisgruntledGoat]

Campaign difficulty effects a few things farming modifiers, modifiers that effect reputation etc. Medium settings these modifiers to 1.0 basically while Hard will set them to anything between 0.80 and 1.0. Basically it lowers your income, makes it harder for you to keep a good reputation/relationship and then increases rebels, pirates and general gives the AI a little more spending money. Very Hard lowers these multipliers even more.

[Bluice]

So 1.0 on medium is the fairest modifier but then you get stupid stacks that aren't really thought out beforehand.

[DisgruntledGoat]

Medium will put you on the same financial ground as the AI. The AI generally sends the same stupid stacks no matter what difficulty. On Very Hard you are just going to see MORE of the stupid stack sooner.

[Bluice]

So more units, not smarter stacks...

[Darkarbiter]

So more units, not smarter stacks...

Short answer: AI Is dumb and the only thing difficulty does is make the AI cheat and makes diplomacy more like trying to convince a packmule to go up a hill.

[Evolution]

When on Very hard, Factions will expand faster and harder. The diplomacy is harder and it will almost be impossible to gain a 'Vassal' on this stage of difficulty. Rebel settlements on this difficulty will not last very long either.
On Very hard difficulty their stacks do not grow any larger, instead they DO grow wiser/smarter, Now I don't mean they will get smarter in the Strategy area, I mean their units will have: More experience, Can gain experience faster than you, will have better armor and maybe better weapons, Oh and they also use better units.

On Medium the Factions will pretty much keep to themselves for quite along time, now of-course there will be fights, but they should not loose any settlements.


Their are differences in all the difficulty settings. I'm sure the TW team wouldn't have placed them there, if there were no changes.

[nikolai1962]

Most of the differences have already been mentioned--the AI also produces less units on the lower settings and is less aggressive (possibly because of fewer units). VH they sometimes bankrupt themselves with units so they can't upgrade their cities as much as they do on medium.