Difficulty

[Coxy]

I was wondering what difficulty players are on - and how are you finding it?

I'm on normal - as Rome - but find the battles far too easy, and nobody will trade with me via diplomacy. I'm hoping the battles get tougher when I face Carthage etc, but I played a quick battle on custom battles and normal still seems far too easy against a great power.

So...anyone on hard? How is it - does the AI 'cheat' at all?

Cheers for any input

[omzdog]

VH-Macedon.
Easy enough.

Pikes have that same RomeI bug when attacking in phalanx but its tolerable unless you want to win battles.

[Mathiask1]

Legendary as Sparta which was already rated a hard faction to play, but i dont find it hard at all.

[Sebt1890]

Rome as Hard. Took me a while to get the Public Unrest thing figured out but I have 4 armies, 2 which are relatively small and being used to deal with rebellions and 2 which are my Expansion Armies.

[Coxy]

Rome as Hard. Took me a while to get the Public Unrest thing figured out but I have 4 armies...

What's that?

How are you guys finding alliances on hard / very hard - can you get them?

[Sebt1890]

Pretty much in every city there's population control and one of the big factors is the culture of the people. Sort of like in FoTS where you are Imperial and they are Shogunate vice versa. Except as Rome since you're Latin everyone else is something different so it's best to get the population under control before expanding rapidly.

[Coxy]

Pretty much in every city there's population control and one of the big factors is the culture of the people. Sort of like in FoTS where you are Imperial and they are Shogunate vice versa. Except as Rome since you're Latin everyone else is something different so it's best to get the population under control before expanding rapidly.

Ah yes I'm trying to understand public order better. As the julii whenever I take over somewhere there is a -25 hit, and then I struggle to get the smiley face green - I know you can build culture buildings etc - but it's one facet of the game I'm struggling with understanding at the mo...

[Mathiask1]

Ah yes I'm trying to understand public order better. As the julii whenever I take over somewhere there is a -25 hit, and then I struggle to get the smiley face green - I know you can build culture buildings etc - but it's one facet of the game I'm struggling with understanding at the mo...

From my experiences in the game then you'll get a small boost of happiness if you have a military force in the city, you could also try to remove the taxation in that region

[TheJokerr]

Playing Parthia on hard, the start was a bit rough and slow but now around turn 35 it is not really hard. If you play battles right you can easily win even if outmatched (Thanks to instant rout when charging in the flank/back) I just thought Parthia would have more than 3 Melee Infantry Units

[lilalex20]

Playing as Macedon on Hard. Its easy enough though all I have faced has been barbarians with untrained militia for the most part. Galatia was the most difficult province to capture though that was because of celts with the strength of Hercules throwing flaming ing javelins at my hoplites and slingers.

[DimeBagHo]

Rome on "hard", and it's been easy so far. Disposed of the Etruscans and captured Sicily without facing a difficult battle. No one wants to trade but money isn't too bad. Carthage seems to be tied up with it's own problems. I captured Lilybaeum without going to war with Carthage because they lost it to one of the African factions just before my army arrived. The Gauls are still quiet. Epirus got wiped out by Athens. So the campaign hasn't exactly given me a feeling of playing out history.

[Tullius Tiro]

double post. please delete.

[Tullius Tiro]

Rome on legendary. Turn 67, I cotrol 20 provinces and counting. I have about 8 trade partners, one defensive ally and control massalia as client state. The more powerfull you get, the easier. But that's no big news for total war veterans...

[Cruzz]

Egypt on legendary, gave up after 60 provinces around turn 100 because I couldn't be arsed to cap another 60 to win. Much easier than the easiest clans on Shogun 2 on Hard.

[Gaizokubanou]

Tried legendary but on turn one got war declared on by everyone around me... so to others who found legendary too easy, umm... how did you deal with that?

[Medina]

Playing Macedon on very hard. It is very hard!!! Everyone declares war on me. I have two allies, Athens and Sparta, thats it. It's actually not much fun. I am just running arround defending for 20 years already. Stagnant...

[Medina]

I am now in war with Rome, Seulucids, Egypt and what not. I don't even interact with them. They where yellow and just out of the blue: pop, war...

[Jackie Chan's Brother Wang...]

I tried a Rome very hard campaign, but I hate how everyone declares war on you one at a time, I want the game to be challenging, but I want it to make sense too, not be obviously against me.

[2gutter67]

I've been playing on Hard as Carthage. As the Barcids I found the campaign impossible. Absolutely no way to get trade rights, non-aggression pacts, alliances, etc. By turn 25 I'm at war with practically everyone around me and things started falling apart rather quickly under massive hordes of Garamantines from the desert and Lusitanians from Iberia, at which time Rome would decide to invade. Then I picked the Hannonids and it's been a piece of cake. I control all but 1 region in northern Italy and Iberia will fall anytime I choose to expand there. The only real problem is that my client states can't keep public order at acceptable levels, so I'm going to do a blitz on them in a little bit where I wipe them off the map and just rule their lands myself.

[Naked Emperor]

I have a Rome game that I have played 100+ turns on very hard and it´s the easiest Total war game that I´ve played on VH. So I started up a Egyptian game on Legendary, that was easy as well but I didn´t like that I can´t use slowmotion so there is no way to enjoy the 3 minute battles. That led me to start a VH Spartan campaign which is easy as well. I have Thracia, Macedon and Hellas unguarded the last 30 turns or so and nobody has taken advantage of it...hell nobody has declared war on me yet. At least in my Roman game a faction or 2 declared on me. The A.I has thrown nothing but levies and cheap missile troops at me, the hardest fight I have had so far was against the Odrisians in Thracia, they had like 6 or 7 thracian infantry and they managed to do some damage against my hoplites...else this game is so easy it isn´t funny.

The BAI is so sorely lacking. I managed to get the A.I to attack me with two stacks while I was in fortified stance just to test it out, the A.I just tried to rush their troops through my hoplite phalanx to capture the victory point and they lost 4000 men against my 87!!!! I have now played the game for 63 hours and I haven´t seen the A.I field a decent stack...only cheap infantry and cheap missiles sometimes with a hoplite or two