Recommended campaign difficulty setting?

[TouchyAndalou]

What difficulty do you guys play on? I'm looking to start a new campaign tomorrow and basically want a challenging game, but one that doesn't seem too unfair or like I'm perpetually at war with EVERYONE.

I tend to avoid auto-resolving battles and I'm happy with the battle difficulty at very hard, but I just tried a Tully game with the campaign set at very hard as well, and it was getting slightly ridiculous with all the huge stacks my enemies were throwing at me and just how generally aggressive they were. The sneaky Arryn's took one of my settlements, as they always seem to do, so I sent a full army led by the Blackfish to their capital, hoping to catch them unaware. Big mistake. I had to stop my march just before I reached the Eyrie, and upon finishing my turn I was immediately surrounded by 4 armies. Gah!

So in your experience, what setting offers the best gameplay? I'm thinking either medium or hard, but I'm open to any ideas.

Thanks.

[Heart of Madness]

I used to play Medium/Medium on all the mods I played, but then I discovered it made the AI retarded, so I am now Very Hard/Very Hard, but if you do that, the Arryns always attack you as the Starks and the Tullys.

[TouchyAndalou]

I used to play Medium/Medium on all the mods I played, but then I discovered it made the AI retarded, so I am now Very Hard/Very Hard, but if you do that, the Arryns always attack you as the Starks and the Tullys.

They always seem to attack me anyhow.

I can't bear Very Hard. I like the idea of the challenge, but I just get too bogged down fighting constantly and lose interest. What's it like on medium in your experience? Is it too easy? Do the AI besiege you with stupidly small armies, as I heard somebody say? And are their armies composed of much poorer quality troops than in hard/very hard?

[Pyres Δt Varanasi]

They always seem to attack me anyhow.

I can't bear Very Hard. I like the idea of the challenge, but I just get too bogged down fighting constantly and lose interest. What's it like on medium in your experience? Is it too easy? Do the AI besiege you with stupidly small armies, as I heard somebody say? And are their armies composed of much poorer quality troops than in hard/very hard?

Something like that

[Timur Amir]

Something like that

actually, I find that the troop quality isn't too bad on medium. I still run into large contingents of Guards of the Rock, and the Arryns always have massive knightly forces of notable competence.

[Super-Soviet]

If you play easy, you can just have fun from the joy of how many famous characters you can kill in the first few turns.

[Sandy]

I haven't actually played as the Tullys yet but i imagine with their central positioning it could be a problem as you are likely to get attached from at least two factions (Lannister and Joffrey) and probably more (Arryns, Greyjoys, Tyrells maybe?)

If you're starting off your first campaign I can reccommend that playing starks is fun and they are one of the most developed factions in the current release. also as they are at the top of the map you have at least one safe border and can kind of choose who you're going to attack first - Greyjoy? Lannister? Joffrey?

To a certain degree the same can be said for the Arryns and Greyjoys. you can choose who you're gonna pillage! which makes recampaiging pretty fun!

[vozd]

Try VeryHard/Medium. If you like to play all your battles!
AI makes good armies,big and strong,but you have chance to win on the battlefield. In the first few turns you must save your money if you think to do anything at all!
I'm new here,but i play tw since Shogun...

[TouchyAndalou]

Try VeryHard/Medium. If you like to play all your battles!
AI makes good armies,big and strong,but you have chance to win on the battlefield. In the first few turns you must save your money if you think to do anything at all!
I'm new here,but i play tw since Shogun...

Thanks for your suggestion and welcome to the forum.

Do you mean very hard campaign/medium battles? I don't think that would work for me, as I find very hard battles fine, but don't like the overly aggressive A.I. in a very hard campaign. Maybe the opposite is what I'll try: medium campaign/very hard battles.

[Heart of Madness]

I think you've got it the wrong way around. VH/VH if you want to play all your battles, and VH/M is you don't want to have to fight every last one. Just the ones that count.

[Mr.Lannister]

VH/h Enemy tends to make suicidal charges.

[Stannis Baratheon]

I usually play VH/VH in any M2TW game. I never autoresolve, i prefer not fighting small armies untill they gather into large one. I don't know what bonuses AI gets in battle in M2TW, in RTW engine it gets such ridiculous bonuses that i play VH/M lately there, but in Westeros i never found VH to be especially unfair. AI actually tries to flank and does not acts as stupidly as in RTW or M2TW vanilla... worst battle AI ever...
Campaign i always play on VH anywhere so to give poor AI money at least.

[Lord AcidRocker]

VH campaign / H battle for me

I find that VH for battles gives too many unfair bonuses and what not for the AI, but H seems to give them just enough intelligence to not act like General Custer

[ButtSwag]

I play on medium difficulty, and i find that if i make the biggest army possible at the very start of the game, before i make any enemies or allies, without going bankrupt im able to expand my territory with ease, and hardly any struggles. I rarely find an army that i cant beat with auto-resolve

[Lord AcidRocker]

^Try moving up to hard; it's not much of a difference but it will make it a bit more challenging (and enjoyable in my opinion)

[Lordinquisitor]

What people have to understand: The a.i won`t get smarter on hard or very hard. Instead..

The campaign difficulty determines how much extra gold the a.i gains and, iirc, makes it more prone to ganking up on you.

The battle difficulty determines how many bonus stats the enemy soldiers get.

Personally i think hard/hard is a pretty even difficulty. Ofc, after some time even VH/VH doesn`t even offer a challenge, too, but i think hard/hard is the most enjoyable difficulty- On the battlefield the enemy units will be stronger, but your brain can compensate for that and makes the battles more challenging. I, for one, can win VH battles easily enough- But something puts me off about the a.i getting too many bonuses.

In the 1.0 version we will use germanicus, or one of the other, great battle a.i.s the don`t make them perfect but more challenging.

[Wowwars]

oh Great to hear that /

[OberynMartell]

I also play hard/hard, and I find it very interesting. As Lordinquisitor said, it gives Ai a little bonus, but you can compensate with your brain.
Also good thing you will be using germanicus ai... i think that Stainless Steel mod uses it. Enemies tend to make more logical decisions.

[Trot]

I don't like vh/vh because once i took Kingslanding I got besieged every turn by another full stack so I prefer h/h not as much unit spam

[concannon23]

VH/H for me!