Difficulty of Stainless Steel?

[GodofCats]

My question is: Is Stainless Steel difficult? i.e., would someone who played the original Kingdoms Total War find this very difficult comparatively? Could anyone elaborate on the overall challenge of the game?

Any answers are greatly appreciated.

[TemplarLord]

Nah, I guess it is a little more challenging but believe me, you do not want to miss out on this.

[eggthief]

with byg grym III and RR on VH/VH u will have a tough time.

[themoob]

It's tougher than vanilla. Plus a million times better on top of that.

Nowhere near as tough as the opening turns of EB though >.<

[PeteSKTemplar]

Economy is issue here unlike in vanilla. SS has better use of merchants for vanilla had no point in them but corruption takes too much of your income in comparioson with vanilla.
Battle - well vanilla is... vanilla. Longer battles, units dont run when cavalry appears from flank or behind as I know it from vanilla.
Just I "cheat a little" when besieged I wait for the assault made by AI for if I attack laders with cavalry before reaching wall AI wont use them again. So usually I need to concentrate my entire defence on gate which ram will breach but walls are mine what makes assault much more easier to resist.
Also diplomacy means something unlike in vanilla.

[moosey]

it is definitively more challenging than vanilla but in many ways better, as was said, this time around merchants are much more important and corruption will eat away at youre treasury. That and alliances will be much harder to get but once you are allied with someone, they will tend to stick by you a lot more, this can m,ake the game easier if you ally with everyone around you as they wont often attack, but also harder because then youre the one that will have to attack and you will lose faction reliability.

All in all, i find SS a lot better than vanilla

[aarons got funky fresh]

I look at it as the OOO of MTW2.