Is it just me, or is Rome harder than Medieval II?

[Lethe]

Medieval II has been crashing frequently and for no apparent reason, so I shelved it today and dusted off Rome.

I've been playing Medieval on very difficult the last few times, and I've not had much trouble expanding my territory and holding off invaders.

So when I started up Rome today I set it to very difficult, and man was that the wrong decision.

I started off with the Selucids (sp?), and got my ass handed to me by Egypt and Pontus within 20 to 30 turns. They completely annihilated me.

So I decided to step it down a notch to difficult and started a campaign with Carthage. And it's still pretty darn tough.

I've got two of the Roman factions after me and they were kicking my butt, killing off one of my family members within the first 10 turns. I was able to get some income coming in early, though, and was able to rally back and beat them off taking one of my starting island settlements. But, man, I really had to play smart.

And in my early attempt to take over Sicily, I barely managed to edge out Greece in a battle for their city, but I then chose to occupy it instead of enslaving, and was immediately overthrown the next turn.

I don't know if it's because there's a difference in how to play the game, and I'm so used to Medieval II, or if the AI "cheats" more in Rome, but Rome is a heck of a lot harder than Medieval.

Now that I think back on it, I had a relatively difficult time beating my first Rome game on medium difficulty with the Scipii, and I pretty much breezed through my first Medieval game with Spain.

Anyone else noticed this, or is it just me?

[Xavier Dragnesi]

Hmmm, I'm not sure. I think it might be just the adaption that's the part of the problem. Maybe you've just gotten so used to the M2TW interfaces and stuff that Rome seems quite a bit different especially in the way the AI works and stuff. Play for a while and you should get used to it. But I'm not entirely sure. Wait for a M2TW player to come along.

[Jackster]

Rome is hard early game when you dont get your good units and you have people trying to kill you, after you conquer like 10 cities it gets pretty easy.
Medievel is easy early game, you just go around killing rebels and such, receiving cash from your nobles as you do so, it gets rough mid to late game when you are fighting other big nation and when mongols/timurids invade.

[Lethe]

Yeah, I think you're right.

I've hung in there and now I'm starting to whip the Brutii's butt. Shoulda stuck with it on very hard...

[merged posts]

Okay... never mind. The Romans have not only come back, but they've taken over Sardis and have repelled my three attempts to take over one of their cities on Sicily. I don't know how they did it, but they were outnumbered 2:1 and managed to route my entire army out of their city. They only had 1/6 stack of Halsanti left, but it gave them all the time they needed to land another large army on the island. Those bastards...

I'm kicking into high Elephant Production mode, though, so it should only be a matter of time before I make a comeback.

[yoyomayomama]

I don't really think ROme is harder than M2-in the lategame M2TW gets really hard as other large factions fight you. Rome is harder in that you'll probably have multiple enemies, but the objectives are quite easy to reach compared to M2TW-getting to Jerusalem all the way from England can be a PAIN.

[Benz282]

What I have found is that battles are much slower in M2. I'm not sure why, but I assume it is due to CA's attempts to properly display the era's system of fighting by promoting 1 vs 1 fights between men, as opposed to entire units. A particularly annoying feature is that 90% of the men in a unit will "back up" while engaged, while the remaining 10% fight. In Rome, its full-on battle and things tend to go much faster.

That might be the source of your problem (becoming accustomed to slower-paced game-play and then suddenly switching to faster-paced), though there might be other factors as well.

The Selucids are probably one of the hardest factions to play in early game, but if you know how to take advantage of their units' abilities, then it is actually pretty easy. Rome is the easiest to play, since they have the best of just about everything.

I think you just need to get used to the game-play of Rome again. If you continue to have trouble, try toning down the difficulty.

[Cmdr_Sdxo]

Well some factions are harder in Rome of course because quite many weren't designed to be even playable in the first place. And even with the playable factions, most have a very limited tech tree.

The M2TW factions were designed to be more balanced against each other(excluding the Timus and Mongols of course) and a human player obviously has a huge advantage over the A.I in many regards. Also, defending castles is piece of cake, as the A.I fails in sieges. In Rome, there is just 1 set of walls so the chance they'll screw up horribly are smaller.

But have you tried RTW: Barbarian Invasion yet? Now that's a blast on vh/vh ^^!

[Oglethorpe1983]

Rome might be harder...

Im replaying as the Julii and I dont get it the spanish and the Germans just wont stay down...there coming at me with army after army. plus I think the AI is somewhat more agressive then in MTW2...

[chizabc]

BI on med/med is tough for me atm, I'm playing saxons and finding it pretty tough. I can play on vh/med in Vanilla and rape the world with most factions.
I need to get m2tw soon =)

[NobleNick]

For me, it seems that M2TW is harder. Going from VH/VH RTW 1.5 vanilla to H/H M2TW 1.2 vanilla was about the same difficulty. And there are dirty tricks which worked for me in RTW that do not work so well in M2TW.

[sumaznguy]

For me, it seems that M2TW is harder. Going from VH/VH RTW 1.5 vanilla to H/H M2TW 1.2 vanilla was about the same difficulty. And there are dirty tricks which worked for me in RTW that do not work so well in M2TW.

This.

In RTW, I just have a mass of spearmen with missile troops behind. Works great.

In M2TW, not so great due to the enemy have huge amounts of cavalry.

And in sieges, for RTW, all you need are some infantry clogging up the gate entrance and the enemy will pretty much never enter your city. But in M2TW, I find the early units far too weak, and the same strategy works poorly due to enemy having tons of cavalry, and the early infantry troops having no armor.

So in RTW, I can leave most of my cities garrisoned with only like 5 troops. But in M2TW, I need like nearly a full stack garrisoned in each city to fully fend off enemies.

[Yojimbo]

Rome is easy since there's not so many factions out for you at once. MTW1 is the hardest if you ask me. units have much less morale there and money is tighter.

[NobleNick]

I have noticed that some of the Eastern Factions are not so elementary on VH/VH. I have a game in progress that I shelved after a while (will return) wherein I play Parthia, and the other eastern factions have ganged up on me. Survival is definitely not guaranteed.

[Yojimbo]

I have noticed that some of the Eastern Factions are not so elementary on VH/VH. I have a game in progress that I shelved after a while (will return) wherein I play Parthia, and the other eastern factions have ganged up on me. Survival is definitely not guaranteed.

As the Seleucids I was attacked contantly by parthia Egypt and pontus but parthia/pontus kept making loads of useless eastern infantry so it wasnt as hard as it coudl hav been.

[FreshDunks101]

BI is harder then both M2TW and RTW on VH/H but dont even ask about ALX, unless you play as India, which you can by serious modding.
For a good tough battle play on VH/H custom battle as India against Persia or Macedon.
That is a long and tough one!
Seleucids are good against Pontus, the thing is to blitz!

[the_mango55]

It's just you.

Having Phalanx units in your army = insta win.

and

Fighting against the AI who has no idea how to use Phalanxes = insta win.

[movemove]

It's just you.

Having Phalanx units in your army = insta win.

and

Fighting against the AI who has no idea how to use Phalanxes = insta win.

haha, I agree 100%, I swear in my last battle I had 1 unit of hastati and the AI's phalanx didn't even change position, just stood there while my hastati walked behind them and charged.

[Celsius]

Rome is harder regarding money, but i think med 2 is harder with battles

[TheTrueGreek]

i find the money kindve easier in rome, be cause once you get 5 or 6 cities with roads and traders, your in the green quickly, but in medieval, i have to constantly fight for the money if im not italian.

also, brutii and greeks are best financial do to their ability to rather quickly own the adriatic,
Sparta making 5000 a turn is great

as to battles, rome is easier as well, pick greek cities and your pikes will win every battle you fight, just make sure your on defence so they come to you

[Nevski]

Selucia is rich, has phalanx and chariots early in the game, it's not very tough to develop with their money flow. It's certainly not easy, because of Egyptian stacks and so many factions around.
Numidia and Dacia, - are the toughest imo.

I was very disappointed with MTW2 after some playing for the first time. The AI isn't smarter - and thats the main drawback for me.