EB is far too difficult

[nein]

I have always wanted to get into this mod, but the crippled economy and 'kill da hooman' AI mentality makes it nigh on impossible without the forced diplomacy mod.
If you make a mod as wonderfully detailed as EB wouldn't you want it to appeal to a wider audience? So that more people can see the amazing amount of effort put into it? As it stands the game is way too hard... AI s attack you early on and thats it game over. Alliances are worthless, isn't there a way to make it impossible for the AI to betray you like in medieval 2 mods? I played a baktria campaign today and my seleucid allies attacked the capital a few turns in (what a surprise), it is sparsely defended as my main army is trying to hoover up regions (I have acquired two so far) to drag my ass out of debt. Immediately I have to resort to cheating because of the AI's murderous anti-human mentality and force a ceasefire

Mods like broken crescent and third age are challenging but in a fair way... EB feels like the mod devs hate your guts. Most factions feel hopeless, and the only way to survive would involve lots of trial and error aka getting wiped out a dozen times before figuring out how to do things perfectly just to survive. Either that or force some diplomacy...

EB is trying way too hard to be hardcore, and it has drastically limited the appeal of the mod to the TWC community. I think this is just shooting yourselves in the foot, like opening a wonderful museum and then limiting the amount of guests to a tiny amount. You can make a mod challenging without going completely overboard

[King of the Ring]

AI in mt2w mods is a big ass traitor

baktria in this mod is quite a challenge

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Hi nein,

What difficulty levels are you playing on?

The EB team did originally recommend Very Hard campaign and Medium battles, but I agree with you, that is too hard a campaign for most factions. VH campaign makes the human player 'Public Enemy #1', the 'Adolf Hitler' of the ancient world - diplomacy will be almost useless and any faction sharing a border with you will attack you relentlessly. Plus, if you have battle difficulty higher than medium, the AI units get massive bonuses to attack and defence, so Medium battles are the way to go.

I play EB on Medium campaign, Medium battles - and it's much better. AI factions will generally only start a war you if you have towns they want, or if your border towns have weak garrisons. Diplomacy works much better, although it still requires a hefty bribe (in the thousands, not the hundreds of mnai) to work well. The best way to make neighbours happy is to arrange to pay them a small, but regular and very long term, tribute - e.g. 200 mnai per turn for 80 turns (that's 20 years.)

The Force Diplomacy mod is still helpful for making peace once a war has started, though - the AI can still be unreasonable in refusing peace when they are down to their last town.

Also, on Medium campaign, the AI hardly ever hires mercenaries, leaving them for you to use and making it harder for the AI to raise huge armies quickly.

The economy can be difficult to manage at the start for most factions, many barbarian and nomad ones go deep in the red at the start - the solution to this is to use your starting army to take over a few enemy towns, reducing your army in size and therefore upkeep and increasing your income. I wrote a guide a while back suggesting which towns to take early for each faction:

http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showth...or-new-players

Finally, a policy of 'protect the weak, attack the strong' will serve you well. Cutting strong factions down to size is good practice, especially if you are a neighbour of the massive and wealthy Seleucid Empire. Attacking them at the start while their army is still weak may be the key to your long-term survival.

[nein]

medium medium

I forced a ceasefire and fresh alliance with the seleucids... and after a few turns they relentlessly sieged baktra. I made them a protectorate to stop this nonsense once and for all. I might try the casse as they are isolated... I expect swarms of gallic tribes to cross in boats unfortunately, anything to eradicate the human.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

medium medium

I forced a ceasefire and fresh alliance with the seleucids... and after a few turns they relentlessly sieged baktra. I made them a protectorate to stop this nonsense once and for all.

I've had that problem too.

Once a Seleucid spy or diplomat reaches Baktra, that's a bad sign - the Seleucid armies will keep coming after it. You have to set up blocking units to stop the Seleucid agents seeing it, because once they see it they want it.

My solution was to attack the Seleucids right at the start, take Antiochia-Margiane, Alexandria-Ariana and Propthasia (don't worry about the two towns to the north, Saka will keep them busy). Once that's done the Seleucids tend to leave you alone, apart from the odd raid.

[Mr Kriegtooth]

Play on Easy/Easy, or Easy whatever Ive noticed that the AI isnt super evil in battle as it is on the map, so I usually play Easy/Hard or Easy/Very hard

Ive had successful campaigns as the Casse, Epriotes, and Carthagenians

Just stay the hell away from Roman lands if you arent ready. Rome will chew you UP. Even on Easy they have extreme hatred for you, and infinite stacks

Feels good to hit them with nothing but naked Celtic spearmen though

[The_Judge]

It is not a shame to choose an easier difficulty level or an easier faction, especially if it is your first (and thus learning) campaign.

[The_Judge]

@Titus Marcellus Scato and off-topic: Adolf Hitler was not everyone's enemy during the Second World War. He had many 'friends' (Spain...), 'allies' (Japan, Italy...) and 'satellite states' (Croatia, Slovakia...). No insult intended.

[Theo]

Inclined to disagree with you nein. I'm playing a Hayasdan campaign right now (VH/VH, no force diplomacy or exploits/cheats) and starting to feel the campaign is actually far too easy. So long as you play smart, utilize spies as much as possible, and know how to win battles with minimal losses, there is nothing a human player can't accomplish in an EB campaign. By the time the Seleucids declared war on me I had every rebel settlement captured except Ani-Kamah and Phraaspa (which I used as buffer kingdoms). Two years later I had beaten four full Seleucid stacks and taken Arabela, Karkathiokerta, and then Ani-Kamah (which the AI wasted a stack taking). Now (260 BCE), I'm positioned to take Mesopotamia and the AI has no army capable of stopping me.

Once you beat the initial wave in EB its smooth sailing. VH/VH should be difficult. The truth is the Shogun 2 legendary campaigns are actually much more difficult than any Rome total war campaign could ever be.

EDIT: also giving the Seleucids a 100/per season tribute for a little while tends to delay their betrayal by a few years. Sometimes.

[BroskiDerpman]

EB was hard?

That's strange. I end up steam rolling the world all of the time.

[Entropy Judge]

I have always wanted to get into this mod, but the crippled economy and 'kill da hooman' AI mentality makes it nigh on impossible without the forced diplomacy mod.

It's not like the "anti-human player" diplomacy is new to EB; VH Campaign on Vanilla had its share of sociopathic AIs that would declare war at the drop of a hat and not sign a peace treaty even though you had thirty units besieging their last FM in their last pitiful settlement.

AI s attack you early on and thats it game over.

Eh, depends on the faction you're playing; Rome and Carthage are much beefier than their neighbors, Casse and Sweboz are isolated from other factions, Aedui/Arverni are closely-matched enough that you can drive them off relatively safely, Epeiros just needs to drop Taras because it can't afford a two-front war, Makedon just needs to make peace with Epeiros (doable, if somewhat reliant on luck) and then take a few turns to take out KH. That's pretty much the factions I know well enough to comment on, though KH has some safety nets (Krete and Rhodos), Saba is also isolated early on, the Ptolemies and Seleukids should both be powerful enough to handle each other.

That leaves the Iberians (similar to the Sweboz) and the Getai (same), the Saka and the Sauromatae (also in a similar position), and the Baktria/Pahlava/Hai/Pontos, who have to deal with angry Seleukids.

So, most of the factions can deal with the early game pretty well.

Alliances are worthless, isn't there a way to make it impossible for the AI to betray you like in medieval 2 mods?

Not really, AFAIK. Vanilla Rome had the same issue.

I played a baktria campaign today

And Baktria is one of the "Play this one only if you really know what you're doing" factions. Notably, these factions are all single-region starts near the Seleukid Empire.

Most factions feel hopeless, and the only way to survive would involve lots of trial and error

Or actually planning things out. Most factions do not start off next to an Ancient Superpower and are close enough in power to their immediate neighbors to fight them effectively. Now, it might be rather difficult if you just assume it's like Vanilla and jump right into the harder factions instead of starting with one of the easier factions to figure out how the game is supposed to play.



By the way, don't make comparisons to other mods. It's really rude, you know? I mean, I don't tell you that you suck at combat because you can't beat back the Seleukid Sissies, dont' tell the modders they suck because the game they're modding uses a different system than mods based on a different game.

[nein]

been playing a casse campaign, damn they have it easy

After sweeping away the pesky rebels in britain and ireland you can can sit back and do as you please. I plan on taking the rebel town to the south of london and fighting the green guys nearby. My kingdom is the wealthiest in the world, plus it has plenty of soap unlike the so-called civilised people. No idea why the casse are considered 'very challenging'

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

No idea why the casse are considered 'very challenging'

Wait till you encounter the Germanic hordes (Sweboz), then you'll find out.

[Joekai]

I recently started my first EB campaign (playing with Makedonia) and every time I play, things make more sense.

I cant really remember how, but within 5 years all of Greece was mine while I offered ceasefire to both KH and Epiros. Couple of turns later Getai offered me ceasefire followed bij Ptolemai so I had no enemies left. I guess you just have to wipe some of your enemies of the map and then the others will change their mind :-P

But you definetly have a point with the diplomacy, I spend a lot of money on gifts to AS (my ally) and the Romanii. But AS attacked me after I got a province of them due to rebellion. I offered it back in return for ceasefire, but they refused (makes no sense AT ALL :?). And the Romanii dont seem to be interested in an alliance.. Carthage did offered me an allianice tho, so now I got what I want I guess :')

[Aenima]

I remember dominating Asia Minor as Pontos once...didn't understand how they were difficult, it was a walkover.

For me, the biggest hindrance to a Roman campaign (5 years since I found this mod, I will complete a Roman campaign!!) is expanding far away enough that armies can't be reinforced/retrained quickly after battles. Roman armies in Asia Minor defeat 1-3 Ptoly armies, get retrained, come back, and then the Hydra's head has grown some more. That's about as frustrating as it gets for me.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Yes, Pontos is much easier if you take the three Seleucid towns in Anatolia right at the start, while they are still weakly-garrisoned. If you then take Karkathiokerta too, and immediately give that town to Hayasdan, you won't share a border with the Seleucids anymore, and you can easily make peace with them because of that. This allows you a long quiet period to develop your towns while the Seleucids are busy with the Ptolemies and Pahlava.

Roman recruitment is a problem until you get the Marian reforms. I use the historical Roman system of having half-Roman, half-allied armies. I build a lot of Type IV governments, and recruit lots of foreign levies in my newer conquests, plus hiring lots of mercenaries. But even so, I have to build up reserves of Roman units before starting an offensive - I have half my Roman units in the front-line armies, plus an equal number back in reserve, which I bring forward and merge with my depleted front line units after a battle to bring them back up to full strength. If possible I try to fight battles in such a way that the locally-recruited allied units take the heaviest losses.

[Bob Doad]

I remember dominating Asia Minor as Pontos once...didn't understand how they were difficult, it was a walkover.

For me, the biggest hindrance to a Roman campaign (5 years since I found this mod, I will complete a Roman campaign!!) is expanding far away enough that armies can't be reinforced/retrained quickly after battles. Roman armies in Asia Minor defeat 1-3 Ptoly armies, get retrained, come back, and then the Hydra's head has grown some more. That's about as frustrating as it gets for me.

I had that problem until I was able to afford like 15 full stacks. Then I just rolled over them. Super unrealistic but it was fun.

[seleucid empire]

I have always wanted to get into this mod, but the crippled economy and 'kill da hooman' AI mentality makes it nigh on impossible without the forced diplomacy mod.
If you make a mod as wonderfully detailed as EB wouldn't you want it to appeal to a wider audience? So that more people can see the amazing amount of effort put into it? As it stands the game is way too hard... AI s attack you early on and thats it game over. Alliances are worthless, isn't there a way to make it impossible for the AI to betray you like in medieval 2 mods? I played a baktria campaign today and my seleucid allies attacked the capital a few turns in (what a surprise), it is sparsely defended as my main army is trying to hoover up regions (I have acquired two so far) to drag my ass out of debt. Immediately I have to resort to cheating because of the AI's murderous anti-human mentality and force a ceasefire

Mods like broken crescent and third age are challenging but in a fair way... EB feels like the mod devs hate your guts. Most factions feel hopeless, and the only way to survive would involve lots of trial and error aka getting wiped out a dozen times before figuring out how to do things perfectly just to survive. Either that or force some diplomacy...

EB is trying way too hard to be hardcore, and it has drastically limited the appeal of the mod to the TWC community. I think this is just shooting yourselves in the foot, like opening a wonderful museum and then limiting the amount of guests to a tiny amount. You can make a mod challenging without going completely overboard

If your starting eb and you choose a faction like Bactria, then you will most likely lose. EB is not a hard mod but you need some experience before you jump into one of those one city factions bordering superpowers. It is very balanced in both battles and campaigns. For example, as hayasdan, you can actually get some good alliances against the Seleucids

Here's my advice, play a Carthage or roman campaign to get the feel of everything. Then move onto an Epirus, Macedonia, aedui or arveni campaign. These campaigns are really good for learning what to do in those crucial first turns. Finally, when your confident enough, go for one of the harder factions like hayasdan, Pontus, Bactria

And I disagree about eb being too hard and not attracting fans. It has its own forum after all so there must eb a few people who love it. I guess the thing that sets eb apart is the economy. For example in rs2, you have a positive even if you start with one city. In eb, one city = 30k debt by turn 4. Many players don't like starting in the red. Instead they like to spam stacks and superstomp their neighbours.

So in other words, those other mods have an easy beginning and easy mid game until you get to the stage where there's 3 super powers left and everyone has 10 battles a turn (because of larger economy). In eb, you start off hard, midgame is challenging especially with factions pressing down on you on different sides and late game , you have to take the initiative because the ai likes to entrench itself by using a wall of fullstacks. NOW THAT is good gaming imo

[yuezhi]

this is reminding me of my saba campaign which i gave up on because AS and Ptolemioi suddenly allied and went against me despite both being 10 times bigger in total.

I think that was my first attempt on VH even after hearing that all kinds of weird things happen.

[seleucid empire]

this is reminding me of my saba campaign which i gave up on because AS and Ptolemioi suddenly allied and went against me despite both being 10 times bigger in total.

I think that was my first attempt on VH even after hearing that all kinds of weird things happen.

For me, this usually happens when AS or Ptolemies take one of those stupid north Arabian rebel Towns which then revolt to you