What difficulty do you guys play on?

[Lord Among Men]

I always play on vh/vh and seem to do ok.

I was just wondering what the difference is between each difficulty cos they seem pretty much the same.

Cheers

[MasterOfThessus]

At VH (campaign) the AI gets an extra moneybonus, and thus all the stack spamming.

I often play at H/H to avoid silly bonuses, but I play TIC and FOE in M/M since that is what we balance it for.

[Lord Among Men]

So what about on the battlemap? What difference does the difficulty setting make there?

[MasterOfThessus]

Morale and statsbonus to the AI and reduction for you

[sumaznguy]

VH/VH and I am noticing mods (in general for both RTW and M2TW) are getting harder and harder. Well not harder, just more factions starting int he red with massive upkeep from various armies. To make it worse, rebel settlements have huge stacks making my extra armies mere money sinks. I guess I should try doing lower difficulty for campaign difficulty and leave battle at VH. I have no problems with battles.

[Ichon]

VH/VH and I am noticing mods (in general for both RTW and M2TW) are getting harder and harder. Well not harder, just more factions starting int he red with massive upkeep from various armies. To make it worse, rebel settlements have huge stacks making my extra armies mere money sinks. I guess I should try doing lower difficulty for campaign difficulty and leave battle at VH. I have no problems with battles.

On VH it makes no sense to chase after rebel cities in most cases. The AI is going to hate you anyway so you might as well start fighting it early and taking cities because it won't affect the amount of stack spammed towards you much anyway. Only difference is the larger your empire grows the more directions AI has to send army your way. It is usually less costly to fight the AI than 20 stack rebel city which still takes numerous turns to make profitable.

Split your initial army into a couple stacks and make raids directly into AI empire. Only use one army to hold cities the other for looting. Within 2-3 turns you should have spare gold even if you are still in the red in income. Either that or take those rebel cities and reduce the most expensive units in your stack while taking them. Usually I find loads of cavalry in the game start stacks which after a couple battles I have whittled down to 5-10 horsemen with 3-4 chevrons which cost much less and can still chase routers. Eventually when affordable retrain them, some other few units as expensive but generally cavalry the most expensive and on VH battle where enemy units less likely to rout simply due to cavalry charge they are not as useful until you need to chase routers anyway.

I have started playing on H-VH more often because I find on VH campaign the AI is so insane focused on your empire that whichever AI empire is near you begins to rapidly lose ground against other AI as it sends so many armies to you. Its usually foregone conclusion that you will be able to defeat AI in battle anyway so it merely increases the number of battles in the game, doesn't seem to make it noticeably more difficult. In fact sometimes it makes it easier as the AI sends armies early and less prepared and your units gain massive experience fast which enable you to win later battles even easier.

[Hyperterran]

i went from h/vh to m/m because i found that playing as the romans, I was able to conquer easily the west, but when it comes to the east, not so much. with massive stacks of legionarries coming my way with boosted stats, not really fun imo. also, the ai tends not to backstab me as much

[simplemind07]

Well difficulty on the campagin and battle are also not the difference as well, but which .exe you are playing whether its on Rome, BI, or Alex it makes a big difference, for me H/H or VH/H with BI.exe

[Sir Walter]

I've always played m/m since downloading RTR... the only time I've played h/h or vh/vh is on vanilla. I was playing Julii and realised that even on vh/vh I'd usually conquered Gaul by about 250 BC Then I got RTR and haven't done anything other than m/m and one e/e since

[Tony83]

I always play on M/M, as that was how the original game was designed to be played, and also most mods. It also suits my style of play and I like to enjoy my games, as opposed fighting uphill or downhill on a sloped playing field.

[AncientSoldier]

I prefer M/M aswell it's the perfect balance for me.I lose pretty quickly.I'm more of a battle technician than a political animal.My general's are grizzled war veterans who've seen the worst of the worst, and have total control over their troops.Just not managable, I had to relocate my capital three times because the Romans kept burning my cities to the ground!

[UnfortunateHam]

I've always been a political animal and wanted to manage my own country/city/Empire/Civilization. I think it first started with Simcity 2000. I was only like 10 years old or something.`. . My Dad bought it on Ebay for me. . . It required no CD. . . And I fell in love with the concept of running a city.

Then I thought: Hey, if I can run a city, why not a country?

Then I got Civ III.

Now I'm playing MTW II and RTR and CivIV and all the games from the Simcity series.

Just my own story there.

[Master of War]

Vh/vh almost all of the time. I enjoy the challenge more than anything. Only time I play on h/vh is when I feel vh/vh makes the AI backstab and attack more than is reasonable.. It is just too easy on the lower settings. But everyone has their own taste.

[leemyster]

i play VH_VH but i take advantage of the stupid AI e.g. if you want a decisive battle just postion your army next to a massive mountain and let them attack you then just postion your troops at the top. also, if your underseige just send your missile units out and pepper them (though i think you can only do that once a turn now).

[Lord Thesaurian]

I play on h/vh with RTR. I like the battle difficulty but vh on the campaign map seems to make the AI spam stacks and stab you in the back with such frequency that I dont know how it could be possible other than the AI is cheating like crazy, hence I step it back to h on the campaign difficulty

[Switch]

I often play H/H, or M/H, but lately I've been playing M/M, testing FoE .

[Zorba]

I've always played VH/VH. My first campaigne in RTR was Greece VH/VH. I start dominating quickly and if the setting was any easier it would feel so wrong just to stomp out the AI on a lesser difficulty.

One of my best games was as Numidia, taking all of Carthages' cities in Africa as well as Sardinia and Malta by about 262 BC.

[Lysimachus]

M/M. I noticed when playing VH/VH my troops facing off against the enemy would lose badly unless I sent some cavalry from the flank to rout them even if my troops had equal stats. That really annoyed me, I prefer fair battles. Though I wouldn't mind keeping the morale bonuses for the AI on higher settings. Also, I thought about just playing VH/M but now that I know the AIs will backstab me and aim purely for me I can't really see the point. I'm just worried things are going to get too easy too quickly, though my two stacks of troops seem to be keeping me from getting a flood of income.

[despot_of_rhodes]

Hm, well, if one wants a tough strategy adventure i´d say: VH/VH, but playing on H/M ( or even M/M, but with quite a passive AI ) one can roleplay a bit, not retraining troops, not pushing generals traits and ancillaries with purpose and without blitzing everything that could grant you a cash you need in the beginning to build up a strong basemnent for your future conquests.

[Lord Thesaurian]

I've always played VH/VH. My first campaigne in RTR was Greece VH/VH. I start dominating quickly and if the setting was any easier it would feel so wrong just to stomp out the AI on a lesser difficulty.

Yeah the trick with Greece, for me anyways, is to just take Pyrrhus and own the Romans ASAP, then moving down into Illyria and hitting Macedon from two fronts, since Macedon's overwhelming economic advantage will break you if you try to hold mainland Greece.

I always just try to inflict as much damage as possible on Macedon while they take all of Greece save Sparta, then have fun watching waves of them being smashed against the Shields of Sparta while Pyrrus takes Italy and pincers Macedon from the North. once Pyrrhus is there I can move in with my now super-experienced army of Sparta, retake Greece, and finally deal the death blow to Macedon from north and south.

One of my best games was as Numidia, taking all of Carthages' cities in Africa as well as Sardinia and Malta by about 262 BC.

How did you do that? I can never compete with Carthage financially therefore she always invades within the first 5 turns. also what happens when you accept protectorate status? do you lose?