self made rules for extreme difficulty[no jokes]

[aznflea]

for optimal campaign experience for pros who find campaigns too easy

1) after getting 6000 pop in ANY city you must fight on 2 fronts at once. after getting 12000 you must fight on 3 fronts at once. at 24000 you must constantly fight on all 4 fronts all the time. no excuse/exceptions. im not exactly sure what 1 front means but 1 front means 1 faction. you may not keep alive a faction as a buffer state because you will be conquering the cities beyond. on the rare case that there are more than 4 factions bordering your faction you must attack them too. for example if you are the greeks you must fight at least 1 faction and since macedon is close by you might as well.i think they already have 6000 pop city so you may as well get the romans in sicily. when you reach 12000 you must start expanding into carthage or asia minor. when your city reaches 24000 you must fight against rome, carthage, asia minor, and macedon. although they are likely to have died by then its just an example

2) trade rights - yes. alliances - no. cease fires - no. protectorates - no. no mercy will be shown.

3) all towns that have rebelled and declared their independance must be exterminated when they are reconquered.

4) when conquering the enemy factions main historical capital you must exterminate them. e.g carthage for the carthage. roma for the romans. athens for the greeks. alexandria for the egyptians. if you dont know the historical capital just exterminate their current capital. you do not need to exterminate the same factions capital twice.

5) you MUST NOT WITHDRAW FROM ANY BATTLE. if someone attacks you and you see the stupid white flag in the corner of the text screen and you are heavily outnumbered you still have to fight or autoresolve. you may choose to withdraw when deciding not to attack but when attacked you must face the enemy with your forces.

ive lost many campaigns with these rules on vanilla. yes. vanilla. the easiest form of rtw possible. these rules are nigh impossible on harder mods like darthmod. i dont recomend playing vh/vh with this because its just brutully hard. fighting 4-7 stacks of macedonians on the same turn with the 1 stack is brutully hard when the black plague has taken root. not only this but fighting on 4 fronts at the same time just doesnt work.

i just thought itd be interesting to post this because it makes easy campaigns painfully fun. heroic victories are not uncommon. strategy is abvsolutely essential and tactics even more so. each unit of hastati is a godsend and must beat many times its number. your units usually end up with gold chevrons and your generals with 10 stars after innumerable heroic victories...or crushing defeats. with these rules you will find your very existence as a faction is often at risk.

[Entropy Judge]

Frankly, the only one of those rules that up the difficulty at all is the first one, and depending on who you are (Scipii, Brutii), even that won't be difficult. My take on the other rules:

2) Standard modus operendi. Alliances and Protectorates are jank (except the scripted Roman Alliance), so even asking for them without a Force cheat/mod is idiotic. You shouldn't ever be in a position where you would *need* a cease-fire either unless you're pulling a crazy move (Severous's "Defense of Germany" comes to mind).

3) Again, if you play well/carefully, you can get through an entire Imperial campaign without *having* a town rebel.

4) Uh, okay .... Most of the time the Capital isn't anything special compared to the other cities anyway (Carthage and Rome are the only two real exceptions).

5) Why would you? Get a decent army and it can take all the comers the AI has ready to throw at it.

[Valerius Tiberius]

i think SPQR TW with houserules and script would be something for you

if you follow the rules, it'll be the damn hardest Roman campaign you ever faced

[Legio]

i think SPQR TW with houserules and script would be something for you

if you follow the rules, it'll be the damn hardest Roman campaign you ever faced

Yes it will. But persevere and you will finally defeat Hannibal.

[Valerius Tiberius]

and then, the rest of the campaign comes

[Draugdur]

Uhh, you sure that these rules would make a campaign more difficult? Cause:

after getting 6000 pop in ANY city you must fight on 2 fronts at once. after getting 12000 you must fight on 3 fronts at once. at 24000 you must constantly fight on all 4 fronts all the time. no excuse/exceptions. im not exactly sure what 1 front means but 1 front means 1 faction. you may not keep alive a faction as a buffer state because you will be conquering the cities beyond. on the rare case that there are more than 4 factions bordering your faction you must attack them too

Well, on very hard, this happens anyway, even in vanilla. I'm almost always in war with all of my neighbours, regardless of the game version (i.e. vanilla or a mod).

2) trade rights - yes. alliances - no. cease fires - no. protectorates - no. no mercy will be shown.

What Entropy said. Good luck on actually making an alliance on vhard

3) all towns that have rebelled and declared their independance must be exterminated when they are reconquered.

Errrr, this actually makes things easier. Keeping order in a border town with foreign culture and 20k population is what's really tough. Same goes for point four, especially in vanilla, growth rate is so big that extermination causes virtually no trouble at all.

5) you MUST NOT WITHDRAW FROM ANY BATTLE. if someone attacks you and you see the stupid white flag in the corner of the text screen and you are heavily outnumbered you still have to fight or autoresolve. you may choose to withdraw when deciding not to attack but when attacked you must face the enemy with your forces.

Not a problem, unless you play with a faction that rellies heavily on missile troops, like Scythia/Sarmatia. And even then it's fine, as long as you're in mid or late phase (i.e. have a strong economy to back you up).

[Saint_jimmyz]

Nasty! I normally follow the approach of sending one full stack with a general to attack an entire faction. That stack cannot be replenished, except with the occasional mercs, and is the only one that will attack the particular faction until it wins or is wiped out. If I am attacked, I will stay in my cities and fight any sally battles I need to.