What is the best unit size/difficult for playability?

[PhoenixFury23]

A veteran of MTW and RTW, I just got MTW2 and am wondering what I should play the campaign set on...

Unit size: What have you found to be the best mix of visual size with wieldability? Clearly the AI of formations is bugged so that even on normal they can have trouble getting all their men into combat, which brings into question whether all you gain by having larger groups is a larger headache trying to micromanage each one to ensure they are properly positioning themselves after engaging an enemy.

Campaign Difficulty: Which is best?
I don't want to roll over the AI, I want them to require more intelligence and tricks to bring down than simply steamrolling with stacks with units; but I also don't want to feel cheated where everything seems like an impossible uphill battle against an AI that has the deck impossibly stacked in their favor at all times.

Battle Difficulty: In RTW, normal proved to be far too easy. I routinely got 10 to 1, and in worse cases 5 to 1, kill to death ratios. I didn't have to really leverage anything else for victory over the map because my armies were so unbeatable.
While I, in princible, am against the idea of arbitrarily making the AI tougher instead of smarter, I started to see the merit behind such a thing as the only way I'd ever get a challenge. But I also don't like feeling like the AI is cheating too bad, always being unfair in situations I rightfully should have had, so I'm wondering what is best for MTW2.

Thanks for the help in advance.

[tuore]

Unit size depends on how good your computer is. If it's a über gaming machine, then put it to large or huge. If it is a "normal" computer, leave it on normal. And if you have played RTW and MTW on Hard/Very hard, i suggest that you use the same difficulty.

Welcome to the forum! +rep

[Niterider1784]

I'm a veteran of most of the games too, and I just recently started playing with the larger formations. I was expecting it to affect the game play, but to be honest, their is not much of a difference.

My machine does start to lag more a bit more than before though. In the end my formations are just bigger, but it's fun watching a train of cavalry steam roll through some poor souls.

[Kratos]

Large unit scale. H/H difficulty.

Any computer less than three years old can handle decent settings.

Have fun!

[Conquistatore]

I'd recommend starting off with normal unit scale, just to get a feel for the game and the units. Once you are confident you can increase to large or even huge for some truly epic battles. For difficulty I would recommend Medium for the campaign and hard or very hard for the battles. Setting the campaign to medium should make the AI pretty reasonable in diplomacy and in the world. Setting the battle difficulty to hard will make your units just about on par with AI so they tire as easily and have the same or a little less morale.

Seriously though, try out the vanilla game for a while, and when you want a bit more of a challenge, you need to download yourself a good mod to your taste or use someone's CAI and BAI.

Welcome to the forums! Enjoy MTW2!

[snrub_guy]

Hello all. From playing RTW, the main reason I wouldn't play on huge settings was the a.i's inability to govern its towns. If unit size was set too large, they would completely decimate the populations in its cities building units. Does this problem carry over to M2TW? Cheers.

[Viking Prince]

Unit recuitment does not affect population. You clearly cannot increase population by demobalization. The old transfer cheat does not work in M2TW.

[Conquistatore]

Rest assured, this feature is not present in MTW2. You can freely recruit units and not have to worry about sacrificing population.

[snrub_guy]

Cheers guys.

[Silent Assassin]

IMO the units size dosen't change the difficulty at all play your battles of VH you'll have fun, your units will route faster

[PhoenixFury23]

Are you sure the AI is aggressive and tricky enough on "normal" campaign AI?
I found that in RTW, the normal AI was passive and never did anything with agents besides displomacy, but read that on higher difficulties they would engage in all kinds of tricks using agents.
I want to experience an AI that will use all the tricks up it's sleeve, but also won't feel like it is being overtly unfair because it has access to cheating piles of money or something.

...

My computer power isn't a problem... If huge unit sizes don't effect your combat, how do you deal with formations of infantry engage with one corner and then leave the rest sitting spread out in formation, refusing to break ranks and envelope the enemy? There's also the problem I noticed of cavalry not always properly charging into a small group if they get slightly tangled with another unit, It happens on normal, but to a lesser extent it seems. I never had trouble with calvary AI in rome, although I did occasionally come across phalanx formations that would behave this way, but only because they were set on guard mode.

[pozine]

sorry for this very noob question but how to change the unit size?

P

[Silent Assassin]

Are you sure the AI is aggressive and tricky enough on "normal" campaign AI?

Just so you know he was asking if the units size made battle AI better ro worse which it doesn't change anything at all execp for the number of soldiers

sorry for this very noob question but how to change the unit size?

P

When you launch the game go into the option menu, then advance option and you should have in the second or 3rd colum the option named units scale. Be awarre that you need to have a good PC/videocard to play on bigger scales

[pozine]

ok thanks,

i have an Nvidia 8500gt (256 mb)

is it ennough to run the game on decent graphic with unit size set to the highest setting?


Edit: also how to have more than 20 units in an army???

[Manoflooks]

Hello all. From playing RTW, the main reason I wouldn't play on huge settings was the a.i's inability to govern its towns. If unit size was set too large, they would completely decimate the populations in its cities building units. Does this problem carry over to M2TW? Cheers.

Actually, in Rome, the AI doesnt lost population for recruiting.

i have an Nvidia 8500gt (256 mb)

is it ennough to run the game on decent graphic with unit size set to the highest setting?


Edit: also how to have more than 20 units in an army???[/quote]


Just try out a battle with 1 full stack on each of two sides in custom. If it works, great. If not, try it wil large. If not, medium will have to do.


You cant have more than 20 units in an army. For the ai it sometimes looks like they do, but there are only 9 unit cards in each row, not 10.

[Conquistatore]

I'm playing the game on an Nvidia 6800 on mostly maximum detail running everything fine on normal unit size.

[Sunday213]

I'm playing the game on an Nvidia 6800 on mostly maximum detail running everything fine on normal unit size.

Lucky i have a 6600 and i cant run it on the lowest settings :/ i can but i have uber lag if im fighting city battles.

[Conquistatore]

Hmm well im also running a dual core cpu and 2gigs of ram, what is the rest of your system like? Maybe your card is a lot better than the rest of your system or vice versa?

[Sunday213]

Hmm well im also running a dual core cpu and 2gigs of ram, what is the rest of your system like? Maybe your card is a lot better than the rest of your system or vice versa?

I have dual core and 1.5 gigs but 500 mb shouldnt be enough to make the game not playable and im not sure about all the things inside my comp :/

[pozine]

ya maybe your prossesor, i have a intel Dual Core and on highest setting with normal unit all is ok with very rare lag.
sometimes, the game start to freeze, i happen more when theres big battles...
all my computer freeze i cant do annithing exept reset...
someone have the same prob???