what difficulty do you play?

[wickED_dude]

i began a campaign as the kingdom of aragorn on hard/hard and im wondering it there is a mod to tone down diplomacy.

spain attacked me...so obviously i defended but then the pope sends me a mission not to fight the crown of castille for 3 turns. before that time was up they attacked me again so i defended myself. suddenly i get excomunicated and so i have castille, allied with portugal, fighting me on the east. not to count i was also fighting the moors. to the north west was france and genova (i had to keep my castles filled with standing armies just so neither would attack me. this meant that i spent tons of money on standing armies just so they wouldnt invade (we werent enemies yet)...but then when i got excommunicated they came down on me so i was fighting on both sides.

as if that wasnt hard enough, the muslims made a jihad on toledo(owned by castille) so i had stack after stack after stack of muslim armies coming through my land. well, they took toledo in a heartbeat and then the other stacks that were "jihading?" began attacking me!!! that meant 3 muslim factions were now invading, not my castles but my cities!!!

i understand that it's supposed to be "hard" but this just seems unfair that i have to keep standing armies just so they enemy wont attack and then get excommunicated for fighting off my attacker. i was doing all the things the pope told me up to then, and i was only fighting the moors, so i dont understand why he hated me so much.i began the game with like 10 allies, and by turn 45 had 15 regions. most were under attack (by all my different enemies) however, and i did not have suffient funds, or armies to fight everyone off. THUS i gave up and deleted the game.

what do i do? any mod that makes the pope a nicer guy and the other factions less likely to attack me?...i just dont understand. i mean, if france is fighting england to the north, HRE to the east, and genova to the southeast, how can they afford, both economically and strategically, to attack me too?

im no noob so idk what im doing wrong. really. i have good generals, win bunch of battles...i just cant fight the entire world, so to speak!
~help me obi wan kenobi. you are my last hope.

[Kaledon]

The easiest way to deal with the game on higher difficulties is to use diplomacy as a hammer. Offer money to cause people to accept alliances if they won't accept without it. Try to make sure you're only fighting one person at a time. Keeping large armies as defenders is far more expensive than paying tribute. In the case of my most recent game, Portugal on VH/VH, I zerged the moors with a crusade, and didn't bother to ally with Aragon despite knowing that they'd make things harder. Sure enough they attacked me, breaking my alliance with Leon-Castille. At that point I'd already taken a decent amount of moorish settlements (Murcia, Silves, Marakesh, Granada.) and so I wasn't too worried about giving them time to build up. Therefore I allied with the Moors and began thrashing the other spanish factions. Now, if I'd wanted an easier game I would've just allied with Aragon early and completely focused on the moors instead of splitting my attention like that.

One of the big things to remember is that if you're attacked by a person who is allied to some of your allies, that will likely break those alliances. However, once you get the hang of things it's easy enough to manage alliances and such. As well, temporary ceasefires with one faction while you thrash another is also possible, although less reliable than alliances.

Also I should mention that I play with RR/RC so your mileage may vary. However, I always played SS on VH/VH before getting RR/RC as well.

[ash874]

unlike other games in this game it is mandatory to bribe your neighbors. unless you are in great strategic position like denmark or norway you gonna have many neighbors so you have to pay them money. no way around it really.

and as for your question i play on vhvh only. the reason is that this game is awfully long. and i know that if i dedicate 40 hours to it and win on a medium difficulty than i wont feel like ive truly won. anyway i dont think hard is so much easier than vh so what the hell

oh and i lose about 90% of the time

[wickED_dude]

so basically, in SS (i play 6.2) i have to pay to not get attacked?
got it!

btw when you say "bribe" do you mean i have to arrange a regular payment in the diplomacy screen (by using a diplomat?) or do you mean i have to bribe the attacking army?
i think you both mean the first right? thank you!

[meese]

Most likely seeing as bribing armies costs way too much. But yeah, tributes (whether one-off or not) are necessary to keep relations strong. You'll get used to it and soon find it fairly easy. And then you'll play with BGRIV and feel crappy again.

[Goofy]

SS 6.1 VH/VH (though I started playing my old game with Spain H/H). However I've considered to get RR/RC at last, but I'm not sure... It includes too much stuff I don't like - but I think I'd like them if I had done the mod myself, for some reason.

But yeah, tributes (whether one-off or not) are necessary to keep relations strong.

Right, I support my allies who are in war against a faction I don't want to destroy my ally. Currently I'm paying both Byzantium (Hungary = active enemy, Fatimids = passive enemy) and Poland (Hungary = active enemy) a 10-turn tribute, 2000 florins per turn. That's possible just because I get ~35 000 florins per turn, without those tributes it would be around 40 000 of course. Hooray merchant spam in Sahara!

[Sir Walter]

I played 6.1 on H/M and it was okay, then 6.2 on H/M, got a bit easy, then 6.2 on VH/M, too easy so I'm getting BGR-IV. (I always play on medium battle difficulty because I don't like losing just because the AI is OP to make it harder, I want a level playing field)

[Kaledon]

BGR is pretty cool, and adds a nice level of complexity. Although I don't think it's as hard as people act like it is. I usually don't play it just because it makes extremely large empires even more cumbersome... And I'm already a guy who tends to ditch campaigns once I become the Juggernaut.

[Ichon]

BGR is pretty cool, and adds a nice level of complexity. Although I don't think it's as hard as people act like it is. I usually don't play it just because it makes extremely large empires even more cumbersome... And I'm already a guy who tends to ditch campaigns once I become the Juggernaut.

Yeah I agree... it makes playing a small empire surrounded by different religion somewhat more difficult and also playing as a large empire require much more planning.

Once you figure out the rules which there are many more of it is not so much more hard, just more complex for the most part.

So far in all total war games the single biggest thing which increases difficulty is just sit still for 20-30 turns then start building and playing as if it were turn 1. That way your kingdom is undeveloped vs AI and the AI also has a large head start.

The one thing I do really like about BGR is it forces a bit more planning. Most of the time I just do whatever I want and it is really hard to resist just rushing the AI and the campaign is over in less than 30 turns. I've found with BGR my campaigns more often lasting to 100 turns though ultimately that is about it most of the time. I did do one Aragon campaign were I migrated 4 times just to keep my empire medium sized and fun.

[Kaledon]

Yeah, turtling is a great way to improve the SS experience. Otherwise, it just doesn't last long enough. You end up becoming a godlike empire before heavy mail even appears >_>. I can't remember the last time I played a no-holds barred game where I ended up seeing gunpowder. Nowadays I generally either play Turtle style, or Purist. No reloading whatsoever, no paying large amounts of money to convince people to ally with you, no trading of settlements, no early crusades, etc. BGR is a great alternative to playing with all these silly rules .

[Cyprexinia]

RC/RR is good, makes the game better and no more guys attacking you with 15 knights etc, it makes min.maxing more useful. Never tried BGR.