Hard Empirical Data On The Differences Between Campaign Difficulties [Updated 9/11/13]

[Silven]

Update:

Thanks to the outstanding efforts of crzyrndm, we have the data for the differences between Campaign Difficulty settings. Be sure to pass on some rep to him.











Easy Difficulty:
AI Penalties/Bonuses:
Order: +10 per Province
Agent Success Rate: No Change
Agent Critical Success Rate: -2%
Administration Cost: No Change
Recruitment Cost: No Change
Tax Income: No Change
Unit Upkeep: No Change
Recruitment Slot Bonus: No Change

Player Penalties/Bonuses:
Order: +14 per Province
Agent Success Rate: +15%
Agent Critical Success Rate: +6%
Administration Cost: No Change
Recruitment Cost: No Change
Tax Income: No Change
Unit Upkeep: -10%
Recruitment Slot Bonus: No Change

Normal Difficulty:
AI Penalties/Bonuses:
Order: +10 per Province
Agent Success Rate: +8%
Agent Critical Success Rate: No Change
Administration Cost: No Change
Recruitment Cost: No Change
Tax Income: No Change
Unit Upkeep: No Change
Recruitment Slot Bonus: No Change

Player Penalties/Bonuses:
Order: +10 per Province
Agent Success Rate: +14%
Agent Critical Success Rate: +4%
Administration Cost: No Change
Recruitment Cost: No Change
Tax Income: No Change
Unit Upkeep: No Change
Recruitment Slot Bonus: No Change

Hard Difficulty:
AI Penalties/Bonuses:
Order: +13 per Province
Agent Success Rate: +12%
Agent Critical Success Rate: +2%
Administration Cost: -100%
Recruitment Cost: No Change
Tax Income: +15%
Unit Upkeep: -10%
Recruitment Slot Bonus: No Change

Player Penalties/Bonuses:
Order: +8 per Province
Agent Success Rate: +12%
Agent Critical Success Rate: +2%
Administration Cost: No Change
Recruitment Cost: No Change
Tax Income: No Change
Unit Upkeep: No Change
Recruitment Slot Bonus: No Change

Very Hard Difficulty:
AI Penalties/Bonuses:
Order: +15 per Province
Agent Success Rate: +14%
Agent Critical Success Rate: +4%
Administration Cost: -100%
Recruitment Cost: -10%
Tax Income: +25%
Unit Upkeep: -20%
Recruitment Slot Bonus: +1 per Province

Player Penalties/Bonuses:
Order: +7 per Province
Agent Success Rate: +8%
Agent Critical Success Rate: No Change
Administration Cost: No Change
Recruitment Cost: No Change
Tax Income: No Change
Unit Upkeep: No Change
Recruitment Slot Bonus: No Change

Legendary Difficulty:
AI Penalties/Bonuses:
Order: +20 per Province
Agent Success Rate: +15%
Agent Critical Success Rate: +6%
Administration Cost: -100%
Recruitment Cost: -20%
Tax Income: +40%
Unit Upkeep: -25%
Recruitment Slot Bonus: +2 per Province

Player Penalties/Bonuses:
Order: +6 per Province
Agent Success Rate: No Change
Agent Critical Success Rate: -2%
Administration Cost: No Change
Recruitment Cost: No Change
Tax Income: No Change
Unit Upkeep: No Change
Recruitment Slot Bonus: No Change


This will be updated as more information becomes available.

Original Post:

I've been looking all over the place for this information. Really, I've scoured the web and the forums, and I can't find anything. Does anyone have any information on this topic?

The long running assumption has been that higher difficulty levels simply make the AI act more aggressively towards the player as well as ignore attempts at diplomacy. It's also been assumed that there are financial and statistical bonuses given to both the CAI and the BAI.

But what I seek is Hard Empirical Data on the actual stats and percentage values that are changed. It's beyond me why CA didn't just add a simple tooltip to the difficulty slider detailing this information, and the changes that take place are even more ambiguous now that CAI and BAI difficulty have been merged into one slider.

There was only one source I could find where CA even spoke about this at all, and the only thing that they mentioned that wasn't already assumed or obvious, was that playing on Normal difficulty actually gives the AI negative modifiers, that are then slowly removed as you turn up the difficulty. That article can be found here.
http://www.vg247.com/2013/08/01/rage...ar-rome-2s-ai/

Can anyone provide actual specifics? I want to know just how badly the AI is cheating on all levels, so I can decide what I'm okay with and what I'm not, and then select the most challenging-yet-balanced option possible.

[Chopy]

Playing on Legendary , diplomacy seems harder.Also you are more likely to get unrest in your regions , since there is base + public order modifier (6 on legendary , 10 on hard). In battles AI seems to get a little morale boost , you get restricted camera and no-minimap. Also manual saving is gone. That's my observations.

[Naked Emperor]

I play on Very Hard, happiness modifier is 7, else it feels like easy. If units get a morale boost on this difficulty then I cant imagine how normal is because the enemy runs like little girls at the point of impact

[Silven]

We should all be aware of the Battle Restrictions that come with Legendary. There's a ton of info in the In-Game Manual on it. But what about the rest? And not just for Legendary, but for Very Hard, Hard, etc.

So far the only Hard Data we have on numbers being changed is the Happiness Modifier for the player, which is seemingly arbitrary? One user has said Very Hard was 10, the other said 7.

What else do we KNOW? (Speculation is certainly welcome, but if you have hard evidence on a change please be sure to mention it first.)

[Metallistic]

I am very interested in these details as well. Also why are there no separate Campaign AND Battle difficulties?

[walterbarrett]

I am very interested in these details as well. Also why are there no separate Campaign AND Battle difficulties?

I'm not completely sure, but I think you choose your campaign difficulty when you start the campaign, but if you go into the options menu -> gameplay there is a slider for battle difficulty that you can alter at any time during the campaign. At least that's what it is called, battle difficulty.

[Silven]

I'm not completely sure, but I think you choose your campaign difficulty when you start the campaign, but if you go into the options menu -> gameplay there is a slider for battle difficulty that you can alter at any time during the campaign. At least that's what it is called, battle difficulty.

This was the case in some earlier TW games (I think Empire and Napoleon?) but is not the case for Rome 2.

The 2 difficulties have been merged into one parallel difficulty

[walterbarrett]

This was the case in some earlier TW games (I think Empire and Napoleon?) but is not the case for Rome 2.

The 2 difficulties have been merged into one parallel difficulty

Have you used the battle difficulty slider in the options menu after starting a campaign? I haven't messed with it enough to know it if only effects battles or if it changes the campaign map modifiers and things.

[GussieFinkNottle]

There is a factor in population happiness, that changes with each one, simply called 'difficulty'
On easy it is a happiness bonus, on hard it is a penalty

[BunnyPoopCereal]

mods where are thy?

[Lord Dakier]

I'm enjoying the game but the AI could benefit from serious roid rage. I'm Rome and haven't been attacked once yet. Normal feels like Easy dare I say Very Easy

[Hadro]

I'm enjoying the game but the AI could benefit from serious roid rage. I'm Rome and haven't been attacked once yet. Normal feels like Easy dare I say Very Easy

How far into the campaign are you? I am playing as Rome on very hard. To start with, I would have agreed with your post.

Now that I am 10 hours in, I completely disagree. I have stretched slightly into spain and north africa. But a barbarian tribe actually captured a italian region, and I had to pull out from Spain. North Africa is almost being overrun.

The limited army option is very clever, and when you combine it will unhappy provines, it makes it challenging to expand and leaves you vulnerable to smaller factions with a higher concentration of troops.

Eg/ I have 2 north african armies. One in carthage, and the other closer to spain. All of a sudden, three full stack armies march out of the desert and destroy one of my armies. So I march my Carthage army over and defeat them (Roman soldiers OP'ed) only for carthage to fall prey to forces from the east.

Keep playing, it gets much harder as factions are knocked out.

[sinople]

Having these informations would be great.

[Silven]

Bumpity bump. Is there any possible way that a modder would be able to discover these values we seek by rummaging through the games files? Or better yet, an official response from CA?

[crzyrndm]

Will be possible once the db editing tools are up to date again. I can see the required table, but I can't view it as yet. It looks like one of the new tables also includes the effects of battle difficulty (again, can't view as yet, I can only see the name).For anyone interested, the campaign difficulty is probably in the db table "campaign_difficulty_handicap_effects" and the battle difficulty appears to be "battle_difficulty_modifiers"

[Silven]

Will be possible once the db editing tools are up to date again. I can see the required table, but I can't view it as yet. It looks like one of the new tables also includes the effects of battle difficulty (again, can't view as yet, I can only see the name).For anyone interested, the campaign difficulty is probably in the db table "campaign_difficulty_handicap_effects" and the battle difficulty appears to be "battle_difficulty_modifiers"

Thanks for this, this is the step in the right direction towards finding what I'm looking for, which again, is HARD EMPIRICAL VALUES as to the changes between each setting.

I'd like to politely ask that posters don't side-track or derail my thread with PURE speculation or complaints irrelevant to the topic.

[PROMETHEUS ts]

I am playing on legendary and the diplomacy is practically useless, they refuse any kind of contract unless they offer to your .

the battles are heavily cheated as the units are superbuffed, I have seen horsemen pass throught spears and the like if they were not there and beat them , I have seen a single swordman unit face other 5-6 of mines and route a couple of mines as well , basically the whole game favors mass spam of armies over one other nihilating any form of strategy .

rebellions are every turn a constant for most provinces if you do not manage at 110 % perfect having full food and happy people all tim e.

[PROMETHEUS ts]

I am playing on legendary and the diplomacy is practically useless, they refuse any kind of contract unless they offer to your .

the battles are heavily cheated as the units are superbuffed, I have seen horsemen pass throught spears and the like if they were not there and beat them , I have seen a single swordman unit face other 5-6 of mines and route a couple of mines as well , basically the whole game favors mass spam of armies over one other nihilating any form of strategy .

rebellions are every turn a constant for most provinces if you do not manage at 110 % perfect having full food and happy people all tim e.

[Flandez]

I am playing on legendary and the diplomacy is practically useless, they refuse any kind of contract unless they offer to your .

the battles are heavily cheated as the units are superbuffed, I have seen horsemen pass throught spears and the like if they were not there and beat them , I have seen a single swordman unit face other 5-6 of mines and route a couple of mines as well , basically the whole game favors mass spam of armies over one other nihilating any form of strategy .

rebellions are every turn a constant for most provinces if you do not manage at 110 % perfect having full food and happy people all tim e.

Ok, I have about 40 hours logged in Legendary with 4 different factions and I could not disagree more.

First, diplo..on legendary you really have to plan who you want to fight or eventually will. You CAN get trade agreements but you have to pay for them (hence being the highest difficulty) so you have to make sure they will pay themselves back. Would it be difficult if you could just get trade with everyone and make a ridiculous amount of money? No, you HAVE to manage your income to support your armies and infrastructure.

Battles, I haven't seen any "super" units at all. My spears absolutely crush cav, especially if they have Anti-Cav tactics. The battles do feel a bit spammy, I think due to no guard mode, but phalanx units seem to work well and keep in line.

Rebellions? I've had ONE slave rebellion, because I had to choose public order or letting Pella fall to Epirus, I chose to give up Antheia. You aren't building right if you are facing rebellions every turn.

There ARE problems with this game, victory point in field battles for me is literally one of the dumbest game design decisions I've ever seen, family trees or lack thereof. However, I see people faulting this game for things that simply aren't true. Don't want quick battles? Stop using militia/levy units. Probably the best example of this is the jump on Suebi from Spear Levy to Spear Brothers, seriously do a custom game and test it, the levies are decent at the beginning but Brothers are a very capable and affordable mainline unit. People need to stop playing one battle and writing this up as the worst game ever.

[AlexCouceiro]

What I know for sure is that in Shogun 2 the AI on harder levels received extra bonuses (more cash, better accuracy, one more recruitment slot etc.). On Medium, believe it or not, the opposite happened and the AI was penalized. Concerning diplomacy, I remember Jack Lusted saying somewhere that on Medium mode the AI would recognize the human player as any other faction (neutrality), whereas on harder levels the AI would acknowledge the human player as a threat, which in plain words means diplomacy is broken. If you play on harder levels, you will take note of strange things happening like vassals attacking your own allies, vassals with +200 relationship back stabbing you. Or a certain faction allying to one of your allies, declaring war on you and your ex-ally always joining that faction's side. Or almost everyone being prone to attack you for no apparent reason, deals being regularly refused or broken etc. But those are no news indeed. Since Rome 1 it's been like that. All in all, only good mods are capable of creating interesting harder levels. If you play vanilla, you have to choose between a handicapped AI with neutral diplomacy (Medium), or a stronger AI along with broken diplomacy (Harder levels. In fact, on Very Hard there is no diplomacy at all. It's you against the rest of the world).

mods where are thy?