What´s the most difficult campaign setting?

**Lazy** · December 25, 2011, 03:22 PM

There are a few threads here about how impossible it is to win on medium difficulty...
My opinion is the different... so I am asking:

Which faction, which submod and which settings produce the hardest campaign ever?
I would be thankfull for any propositions!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Stuff like campaign.db => "siege_attack_modifier" to 0.1 is wanted too! Of course this one would be... one attack every 100 turns... with ten stacks at once... no room for that => fail

ps: I never cheat... exept =>
toggle_fow
add_money "not_my_faction" ( I disable stack spam... sometimes I miss it )
add_population "not_my_city_and_far_far_away" ( Limlight Fort beeing a "fort"... )
move_character (after got screwed by pathfinding or clicking somewhere accidently because of sneezing)

and: I do not play with Gondor because of "unrealistic-Harad-Jesus-Mode" ( walking over water ) which simply annoys me

**traxx91** · December 25, 2011, 07:05 PM

Wait: you disabled stack spawn but complain that your campaigns are to easy? This makes no sense to me, sorry.

**Lazy** · December 26, 2011, 07:30 AM

Originally Posted by traxx91

Wait: you disabled stack spawn but complain that your campaigns are to easy? This makes no sense to me, sorry.

Ok I was waiting for that... there are thousend options and someone comes up with that...

Vanilla stack spam:
eats only time... it makes the game not hard!
If you know there are coming 20 stack you start defending...
If I win a battle loosing only like 300 troops while killing more then 1000... I can retrain that within 1 turn!

How is that possible?

I have an attacking army and another one for reinforcements to swap units while the bashed ones go to retrain... this way I would have to fight for HOURS! After that my general has like 10 chivalry and 10 command.

So:
-I disable stack spam
-I change the enemies replenishment rates for crap units to 0.1
-I change the replenishment rate for elite units to more then it was before

Now the enemy has not 20 stacks coming... made of crap units...
he has 3-4 made of elite ones!
Now winning is not easy and I cannot retrain my losses within 1 turn!
That´s it... why I disable stack spam!

And if I miss it i just give the AI masses of money...

Thanks for forcing me to explain that... instead of giving me a hint!

Edit: I play on "normal" unit size... that´s why the numbers are so "small"...

**Gallus** · December 26, 2011, 11:13 AM

Gondor vh/vh with corsair invasions and enabled garisson script and stack spam.

**Mhaedros** · December 26, 2011, 11:20 AM

Stack spam is just an annoying feature as Lazy said. If playing with the Nine Nazgul and invincable Nazgul, now that's much harder. Also garrison script is nice, corsair invasion etc.

**Ekaddon** · December 26, 2011, 11:22 AM

Is toggle FoW so you see the whole map? And all movement etc? Seems like the worst kind of cheating to me. Move character is not a cheat either?

I understand why you use them, but I do not understand a cheating cheater.

Seems to me that you simply start a lot of campaigns (instead of completing them) and also give a VERY vague description of the ones you play.

How do you retrain troops in 1 turn? 30 turn campaign and you have 2 stacks and able to replenish them in 1 turn? That would equal Minas Tirith replenishing 20 units of cavalry and having enough movement points to reach an army in reach of it = not far from Osgiliath. Not to mention the gold to have these armies brought up and standing.

I do not find TATW too hard, but I do find it hard.
I find Isengard the hardest since I rarely have the time I want to expand or overstretching my logistics. I now only play vanilla 3.1. In this campaign I always end up bogged down by Rohan stacks. They do not destroy me, but neither can I move. Whenever I move east or west I get overstretched.
Needless to mention, I have house rules according to lore = slower campaign, no cheating or using the game to my advantage.

**Lazy** · December 26, 2011, 11:36 AM

I toggle_fow to see rebel settlements... the other possibility is to play it for so long until you know by heart where they are... or to find out how factions who are far away are doing.
I like these evil vs good campaigns and if I see that the evil ones rule... evil has won... why should I take the last 3 "good" settlements if I know my side has won already ?

I use move_character only when the game screwd up pathfinding... try to go with a unit from W.Osgiliath to E.osgiliath when you forgot there´s a unit on the bridge...

Who wants to retrain units in turn 1? Where did you get this from?! "within one turn" => the duration of how long it takes is one turn... to replenish the attacking army with units from the reinforcements and sending half-units from the reinforcment army to a settlement... that´s a cirlce... one round takes long but every turn something comes back...

**Ekaddon** · December 26, 2011, 12:31 PM

Originally Posted by Lazy

to replenish the attacking army with units from the reinforcements and sending half-units from the reinforcment army to a settlement... that´s a cirlce... one round takes long but every turn something comes back...

Oh my bad, I thought you said retrain a whole army (stack) at once.