Difficulty... or lack thereof

**miyadaman** · October 03, 2012, 08:36 AM

Long time TW player but only recently picked up Rome on the $1 Steam sale. Loving this mod and have really been enjoying my time with the game. However, what I've noticed is that the AI is really, very, extremely passive. It makes the game play so that they just sit around in their cities doing nothing of any value until I come along with an army, seige the city, and take it. So, I'm wondering if the game is very easy throughout and people enjoy it more for the historical aspects of it or is there some kind of struggle somewhere along the lines?

I play on VH/M with the Romani. I've thought about simply trying another empire but 1) I love the fact I'm playing as Rome and 2) I'm afraid the game will play somewhat the same after I take a settlement or two.

Thoughts/tips?

**Stath's** · October 03, 2012, 08:50 AM

Some tips:

1) Try Jirisys' mega mod. It is for Alexander, if you have it. Makes A.I. somehat smarter.
2) Play VH/H.
3) In Jirisys' mega mod, there is a realistic movement mod. But you can edit the movement points yourself. Making them a little more than double (or just double) as they are now, will help A.I. expand more, cos' the strong rebels inside rebel cities will start to leave cities undefended (you'll see a big difference). I think the file you 'll have to modify is the "descr_character". It has a line at the start saying sth like "starting movement points". It is 60, make it 120 or 140.

4) Romans and Carthage are "easy" factions. All the others are more challenging. And some are much more.

5) Playing with a different faction cannot give you the same feeling as playing as Romans, cos' there is a big diversity between all factions. Keeping an eye (or both

) on traits does add to the different feeling very much.

**Jive** · October 03, 2012, 09:15 AM

Originally Posted by hannibalbarca13

Some tips:

1) Try Jirisys' mega mod. It is for Alexander, if you have it. Makes A.I. somehat smarter.
2) Play VH/H.
3) In Jirisys' mega mod, there is a realistic movement mod. But you can edit the movement points yourself. Making them a little more than double (or just double) as they are now, will help A.I. expand more, cos' the strong rebels inside rebel cities will start to leave cities undefended (you'll see a big difference). I think the file you 'll have to modify is the "descr_strat". It has a line at the start saying "movement points". It is 60, make it 120 or 140.

4) Romans and Carthage are "easy" factions. All the others are more challenging. And some are much more.

5) Playing with a different faction cannot give you the same feeling as playing as Romans, cos' there is a big diversity between all factions. Keeping an eye (or both

) on traits does add to the different feeling very much.

Definitely agree on #2--play VH/H. And if you don't have Alexander, if you have Barbarian Invasion try the BI execute. There's a world of difference between that and the vanilla RTW exe. For example, in my current Koinon Hellenon campaign, the AI has amphibiously dumped nearly entire stacks (up to 19 units, including phalanges and FM's) on Rhodes and Sardinia. Never had anything like that happen before. It's been quite a challenge simply holding them off.

**75Antons** · October 03, 2012, 02:05 PM

Originally Posted by Jive

try the BI execute.

I am kinda new to this mod (and it is fantastic, been playing The Long Road on M2TW for ages and this is right up my street) So I was wondering how do I do the BI execute, where do I find it?

**Jive** · October 03, 2012, 08:22 PM

Try this 75Antons; it's Ferromancer's installer for BI execute: http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showth...arian-Invasion

**miyadaman** · October 04, 2012, 02:42 AM

Originally Posted by Jive

Definitely agree on #2--play VH/H. And if you don't have Alexander, if you have Barbarian Invasion try the BI execute. There's a world of difference between that and the vanilla RTW exe. For example, in my current Koinon Hellenon campaign, the AI has amphibiously dumped nearly entire stacks (up to 19 units, including phalanges and FM's) on Rhodes and Sardinia. Never had anything like that happen before. It's been quite a challenge simply holding them off.

Yeah, I tried to do that. The problem is I have the Gold edition through Steam so it's a must that it's installed through program files. Therefore, the installer doesn't work. I spent the better part of last weekend trying to get stupid BI to run on EB to no avail. Unfortunately, if you have the game for Steam, it seems that it's impossible to get it to run EB on the BI engine. If there is a way to do it I haven't seen.

**Jive** · October 04, 2012, 03:35 AM

That's a real shame miyadaman. Sorry but I can't help you with that. Anyway EB with RTW exe is still lotsa fun. Good luck and maybe somebody will come up with a surefire way to do BI exe with Steam. Cheers.

**Taedius** · October 04, 2012, 08:49 AM

To the OP: Not meaning to be rude if you did, but have you remembered to activate the script when starting and loading a game? Without it, the AI will go bankrupt within a turn or two, thereby inactive.

**Xerrop** · October 04, 2012, 12:47 PM

As others have said Rome is one of the easiest faction. Try e.g. Pontos and you will face much troubles holding out against your enemies.

The next thing is, that the AI needs some time building up it's economy and armies. A human player specializes his cities and can sooner get more money and better troops compared to an AI building most things more random. So blitzing the map makes things easier for the player. And don't know in which year you are current, but once you are fighting in modern turkey you will face mighty eastern factions (mostly the Ptolemaians). That gives even a Roman player some sort of challenge.

Originally Posted by Taedius

To the OP: Not meaning to be rude if you did, but have you remembered to activate the script when starting and loading a game? Without it, the AI will go bankrupt within a turn or two, thereby inactive.

Well yes this is vital to the game. If one is not familiar with Rome:TW Mods he might forget this.

**Principe Alessandro** · October 04, 2012, 02:38 PM

Somebody has tried both the Alex.exe and Bi.exe engines? Which is better?

Regarding the Alex.exe AI I can tell you that it is really aggressive and expansionist even at M/M difficulty level which is more realistic because H difficulty on campaign is simply overkill and not suited for somebody who wants to take a slow approach to the game.

Well if you are instead the hardcore kind of player then H on campaign is already suited for you.

**War&Politics** · October 07, 2012, 05:00 AM

First of all, if you are going to play as the Romans, you definitely need to play according to some strict house rules! Secondly, have you been playing long enough? The Romans are never really "hard" in the sense that your empire is ever under threat of extinction, but as your empire gets larger it can become an enormous challenge to keep it all together in your different theatres of war. Especially if you play according to the guide I posted in the link.