How I Make SS Much More Difficult

[Maximus Newbieus IV]

First, play until you have the largest army, about 20 new Providences, and a huge economy with lots of money. (usually a 100 turns)

Then buy ceasefires with all your enemies, offering huge cash sums and tribute which will probably keep you bankrupt for about 2 years.

Disband entire army/navy, minus the generals, and proceed to destroy every building in every city/castle, including churches.

What's left is a shell of an empire on the verge of collapse. Most cities are about to revolt, your priest are turning into heretics, and your flat broke with no production or army for at least 2 years.

Hopefully, your huge payment/tribute for a ceasefire bought you a couple of years of peace. But it wont be long before one of your bitter rivals attacks you with heavily armored, elite troops boasting gold chevrons, against your inexperienced, unarmored militias.

Now try to build a glorious empire.

[meese]

I really don't know why anybody would do this. It's not just unproductive, it's counter-productive - after all that time building your empire, you go and destroy it. If you want it to be really hard, why not just do that straight off in the beginning? Destroy everything and then try and rebuild it again. Even that I consider to be an incredibly stupid way to make things "much more difficult". It defeats the purpose of the game which is to create an empire, not destroy it.

[gewehr36]

I really don't know why anybody would do this. It's not just unproductive, it's counter-productive - after all that time building your empire, you go and destroy it. If you want it to be really hard, why not just do that straight off in the beginning? Destroy everything and then try and rebuild it again. Even that I consider to be an incredibly stupid way to make things "much more difficult". It defeats the purpose of the game which is to create an empire, not destroy it.

It's also a fun way of testing your skills and roleplaying that you're an king trying to rebuild your country after a civil war or something.

[bɑne]

You can also increase the difficulty by upgrading to 6.2 or using BYG III/IV.
The Real Recruitment1.3/Real Combat1.8/CBUR/BFTB/BGR IV Compilation is another way.

[meese]

Way to be helpful bane_tw! But yeah, those do make things a lot more difficult. I've heard the KoJ is quite challenging.

[bɑne]

Sorry, in what way was pointing out SS-versions that simulate the difficulty he creates manually by driving his empire into the wall "way to be helpful"?

[meese]

Well, what you said was helpful and I was joking by comparing that to my completely un-helpful post above. If you took offence, sorry, but it was only in jest.

[bɑne]

Not your fault - didnt really get that as I thought my post was a complement for yours

[meese]

You could easily do that by selling off provinces at the very beginning. For example, as England, pretend you got kicked out of England and have just one castle left at Caen. Simple as that. Zero income, surrounded by the Franks and if you really want to, you can destroy all the unit production buildings so you can even have no unit production possibilities. If you do that, you've achieved your roleplaying aim by setting up the scenario (though you didn't play it) and it is a fun way of not quite testing your skills but patience and luck.

I suppose another way to do it, if you wanted to have a civil war in the middle of your campaign, would be to play as, say, France or the Holy Roman Empire then literally go to war with everybody around you and be excommunicated. Then if you find that too easy, pack your best generals off with full stacks over to Jerusalem as if they'd decided you weren't worth fighting for and try defending your empire without your generals while paying upkeep.

But really, if one is so good at this game that they can beat "heavily armored, elite troops boasting gold chevrons" with "inexperienced, unarmored militias" while being "flat broke with no production or army for at least 2 years", or have fun fighting against those odds, good on them and this thread is great. Maybe I'm just terrible at this game but I find it hard to get a sense of accomplishment by demolishing something I've built over hours and then losing the game.

[gewehr36]

You could easily do that by selling off provinces at the very beginning. For example, as England, pretend you got kicked out of England and have just one castle left at Caen. Simple as that. Zero income, surrounded by the Franks and if you really want to, you can destroy all the unit production buildings so you can even have no unit production possibilities. If you do that, you've achieved your roleplaying aim by setting up the scenario (though you didn't play it) and it is a fun way of not quite testing your skills but patience and luck.

I suppose another way to do it, if you wanted to have a civil war in the middle of your campaign, would be to play as, say, France or the Holy Roman Empire then literally go to war with everybody around you and be excommunicated. Then if you find that too easy, pack your best generals off with full stacks over to Jerusalem as if they'd decided you weren't worth fighting for and try defending your empire without your generals while paying upkeep.

But really, if one is so good at this game that they can beat "heavily armored, elite troops boasting gold chevrons" with "inexperienced, unarmored militias" while being "flat broke with no production or army for at least 2 years", or have fun fighting against those odds, good on them and this thread is great. Maybe I'm just terrible at this game but I find it hard to get a sense of accomplishment by demolishing something I've built over hours and then losing the game.

Whenever I start a new game, I sell off or purposely lose all of my settlements, especially when playing as a faction with a ton of starting regions like HRE. With smaller factions like Lithuania, I migrate them to a different part of the map and try to build up from there.

[Maximus Newbieus IV]

Whenever I start a new game, I sell off or purposely lose all of my settlements, especially when playing as a faction with a ton of starting regions like HRE. With smaller factions like Lithuania, I migrate them to a different part of the map and try to build up from there.

So you start your campaign by selling off all your buildings, giving away all your Providences for cash then become a nomadic horde in search of a home which may take 8-10 turns to find? Now that sounds tough!! I'm going to give that a try on my next game...thanks!

[bɑne]

So you start your campaign by selling off all your buildings, giving away all your Providences for cash then become a nomadic horde in search of a home which may take 8-10 turns to find? Now that sounds tough!! I'm going to give that a try on my next game...thanks!

Not for cash - let them revolt and turn into rebels by removing garrisons/buildings and high taxes.

[Tacitursa]

Just edit your files depending on the faction you want to play.

Edit all the other factions so they hate you and are at war with you on the first turn. Completely remove starting cash so you start with 0

Factions will start attacking you from the very start of the campaign and your budget will be very low.

Getting attacked by france,genoa,venice,denmark,hungary as HRE before turn 5 is about as difficult as it gets lol

[Staffen]

I usually make it more difficult by playing with one hand, an eye-patch and an upside-down monitor.

But that's just me.

[meese]

You should wear a lime on your head too. The juices make everything blurry.

[Sir Walter]

Actually, to experience the full difficulty of SS, download BGR IV Enhanced with Byg's AI, play VH/VH, never build anything that will make you money, only fight using militias, kill off all good generals, and only play at 5 in the morning after drinking eighteen beers.

:

[bɑne]

Actually, to experience the full difficulty of SS, download BGR IV Enhanced with Byg's AI, play VH/VH, never build anything that will make you money, only fight using militias, kill off all good generals, and only play at 5 in the morning after drinking eighteen beers.

:

That is of course out of the hospital as you had a blood alcohol level of 3,4%o - so better use autocalc for your battles.

[Sir Walter]

That is of course out of the hospital as you had a blood alcohol level of 3,4%o - so better use autocalc for your battles.

You'd have to autocalc all campaign battles, yeah. And I'sh never had a shingle drop of that beer, offisher... Also, as I'm 13, it'd be higher than that

[Goofy]

You'd have to autocalc all campaign battles, yeah. And I'sh never had a shingle drop of that beer, offisher... Also, as I'm 13, it'd be higher than that

There's someone younger than me???

[bɑne]

You'd have to autocalc all campaign battles, yeah. And I'sh never had a shingle drop of that beer, offisher... Also, as I'm 13, it'd be higher than that

Maybe... it could be 0,2l beers or 0,3l - my calculation was with 0,3l (total 5,4l), 80kg and trinking everything in one hour - which is unrealistic as hell (any sensible person would just trink 1l vodka for the same result). Ok, enough inciting the youth... Lets just agree that with that number of beers it be game over.

There's someone younger than me???

I think there are more in your age group here then you think - maybe just not as active as you two.

In an effort to bring this a bit back to topic - game starts with selected empires at the verge of collapse and overpowering enemies are pretty easy to create. Is there any real interest in such a thing? And if yes - what scenario (based on existing campaign starts [late/early]) would it be?