'Very Hard' campaign setting

[smoogs]

Can anyone give me a quick rundown of what changes when the campaign difficulty setting is changed?

I usually played on medium up until recently. I enjoyed the challenge of playing Numidia recently on the very hard setting, but I am not quite sure of what all changes in the increased difficulty. I noticed that the AI was a lot more aggressive, and diplomacy is almost not even an option, but what exactly does the very hard setting change other than those 2 things?

I don't know if it was just because of my crappy Numidian troops, but it seemed as though using the auto-resolve option for battles never worked in my favor. I tried doing an auto-resolve with a full stack of troops versus 500 Roman troops and I suffered a crushing defeat. Does the campaign difficulty alter this too, or is just because my troop quality is kind of poor?

Overall, I enjoyed played on the very hard setting, but having to manage every single battle was kind of annoying.

[Flambard]

These are the things that you should be aware of when playing on vh campaign map.

*Money is harder to come by
*Higher chance of being assinated/bribed
*More offensive AI
*Auto-resolve in AI's favour
*AI gets extra money per turn (Xavier Dragenesi)
*Diplomacy completely broken (Amaranth)

[Summitz]

Less money, more rebellion, more city unrest, more AI gangbang on you, more morale for the enemy, only to name a few

[Amaranth]

Less money, more rebellion, more city unrest, more AI gangbang on you, more morale for the enemy, only to name a few

Hahaha

Yeah Exactly, They charge on your cities as if they have the whips of their gods back at them.

And forget diplomacy, they spit on your diplomats if you try to make any deal with them.

Even the weakest enemy attacks (even suicidal) you just to annoy you etc etc.

If you ask me, playing campaigns at hardest damages your nerves.
But set the battle difficulty to hardest if you want, it'll make you feel the battles more realistic, although battling against a rather superior faction (like Rome, or Seleucids for instance) will be a pain the xxx and victories against them are just miracles.

[Mithradates]

I don't know if it was just because of my crappy Numidian troops, but it seemed as though using the auto-resolve option for battles never worked in my favor. I tried doing an auto-resolve with a full stack of troops versus 500 Roman troops and I suffered a crushing defeat. Does the campaign difficulty alter this too, or is just because my troop quality is kind of poor?

Yes, the harder campaign difficulty makes the autoresolve harder too.

[Seigi]

I think on very hard setting the AI get to cheat. I never played a campaign on very hard setting, too afraid of losing the game

[pirates_say_arrgg]

Not worth it to me, I've been playing on VH campaign difficulty on my AAR and thinking they will have better armies, even if they did, they still just spawn them like crazy. Giving me a unrealistic experience.

[Xavier Dragnesi]

I believe the all the AI factions get extra money each turn as well.

[Flambard]

I believe the all the AI factions get extra money each turn as well.

Yes, I missed this. My post will be updated.

[Amaranth]

AI always cheats.

I block their evey port, defeat their every army and take their most settlements but yet when I give it a break for a turn to attack another faction and send my army elsewhere, they attack my settlements at full flag armies!

How the hell they do that ? Where those units comes from ?

[Kylan271]

Oh ayyyyyyyy,i play VH/VH and yikes......very stressful. I do not know the data breakdown for the various difficulty settings. In TE Gold as well..I had Lvl 9!!! Barbarian Horsemen and Lvl 5 Scythian Archers hunting me..,even get my cities besieged...^_^ ... I did not encounter this when on easy settings..,so another diff.??? Rebels besiege you..

[NobleNick]

Campaign difficulty of VH is not that bad. After single M/M, H/H and H/VH short campaigns, and (IIRC) one H/VH long campaign, all I play RTW on anymore is VH/VH long campaigns. Heh, heh: I am getting my **** kicked in a Parthia campaign which is currently on hold; but generally things end up with a campaign victory in about 90 turns.

Campaign difficulty does not affect battles. It does make the AI more aggressive towards you. (For instance: In the Gaul campaign, on Medium difficulty, England and Germania will fight each other, and you pick up the spoils. On VH, they ignore each other and both attack you.) The AI also gets free money each turn. Yes, as someone said, the diplomacy is virtually totally broken. (Although it is possible to get trade rights and, in some cases, ceasefires and alliances.)

I do not remember ever being attacked by rebels; but am not saying it couldn't happen.

I rarely auto-resolve, as the battles are fun. But, I have heard that to get a better auto-resolve, one should arrange units within the stack such that the units with highest melee stats are first in the stack's roster.

I enjoy the VH settings (except for the diplomacy problems) because it really is hard enough to force you to strategize in sneaky, underhanded ways.

[ReBeLlIoUs LeAdeR]

Every body on VH Campaign just gangs on you
on VH battles AI is smarter

[decimator22]

Every body on VH Campaign just gangs on you
on VH battles AI is smarter

To my knowledge all it does in battles is add them attack and morale, they don't become smarter just stronger.

[phyacis]

I dont think the diplomacy in vh is 'broken' at all. Having played a number of mods where vh is "fixed" and the AI improved they've all been a lot easier on vh than vanilla is. I'd be guessing that's why CA went this route, as it does appear to offer the hardest challenge.

Keep in mind also that vh ramps the challenge up for the 'easy' factions (ie catholic ones) far more than it does for the 'hard' factions (ie orthodox and muslim) - in some ways it just levels the playing field more between all factions in this respect.

[NobleNick]

...Keep in mind also that vh ramps the challenge up for the 'easy' factions (ie catholic ones) far more than it does for the 'hard' factions (ie orthodox and muslim) - in some ways it just levels the playing field more between all factions in this respect.

Umm... I think you are talking M2TW. There are no Catholic factions in RTW.

@ R. Leader ---> The campaign difficulty does not affect AI battle intelligence. In fact neither the campaign NOR the battle difficulty affect the AI forces in battle at all. The battle difficulty applies a sliding morale penalty (bonus for easy setting) to your forces only.

[Halie Satanus]

I enjoy the VH settings (except for the diplomacy problems) because it really is hard enough to force you to strategize in sneaky, underhanded ways.

Like sending a bunch of plague ridden spies to your neighbour and keep rotating them from city to city...

The AI doesn't 'cheat,' it takes advantage, just the same way a human player does. Imagine you couldn't organise your army before a battle, even moving them to favourable terrain if there's a nice rocky out crop near by where your archers can rain down on the battle. I always play H/VH. The advantages the AI gets with VH in the campaign are pretty minimal and the constant unrest is just irritating..The advantage the AI gets in battle though makes things way more interesting..

[draas]

I block their evey port, defeat their every army and take their most settlements but yet when I give it a break for a turn to attack another faction and send my army elsewhere, they attack my settlements at full flag armies!

Then you should concentrate to conquer that faction, why turn arround to attack some other faction ? Concentrate and conquer that faction

[nickod777]

AI gets troops faster

[Scutarii]

They don't get them faster, they get more money so they can recruit every turn in every city....