Game Difficulty

[tufanmehmet]

Hello, I wonder that what the difference between difficulties is. What does change if I adjust difference from medium to hard? Is it only the AI? Does computer take economic bonuses in campaign map or morale bonuses in battlefield?

[eugenioso]

Hello, I wonder that what the difference between difficulties is. What does change if I adjust difference from medium to hard? Is it only the AI? Does computer take economic bonuses in campaign map or morale bonuses in battlefield?

use the search function next time.

higher difficulties mean a combat malus to your units, a combat bonus to the enemy's, higher morale for their units, less for yours, higher discontent on your countries, less on the AI's, your king's purse is lower and theirs is higher (the thing that makes people think the AI gets money package bonuses) and your relations and reputation will constantly get reduced regardless of your actions.

the AI does get economic bonuses, however they dont get money packages.

and yes, its only the AI.

[tufanmehmet]

OK thanks for the answer. Next time I'll search firstly.

But i think that's not realistic. I think AI units have to have the same morale as mine. Which difficulty is ideal you think?

[eugenioso]

OK thanks for the answer. Next time I'll search firstly.

But i think that's not realistic. I think AI units have to have the same morale as mine. Which difficulty is ideal you think?

that depends totally on you. medium/medium is ok for an ok level of challenge. on VH/VH you will suffer riots very often and be in war a lot more.

[TheWanderer]

Does diplomacy have any effect on normal difficulty? Does having good relations or being in an alliance with someone have any meaning at all?

I always played on either hard or very hard and I quickly discovered that no matter what you do, you will always have poor relations with everyone and everyone will always attack you so I never bothered with that. Recently I started a game as Sicily on VH with the intention to try to be "a good Christian" - I had great relations with the Pope, successfully completed a crusade - and then Venice and Spain attacked me in the span of about 3 turns. I let them besiege my cities and block my ports waiting for excommunications but since they never came, as soon as I fought back I got a warning from the Pope. In the next turn I was excommunicated so I just went on with my old style of not paying attention to relations with anyone. At some point (around the 75th turn) literally all the remaining Catholic factions ceased their mutual wars, and all of them were at war with me. And I still completed the (grand) campaign in 95 turns

[Nzg]

Well, I am not sure if the difficulty lvl has anything to do with the dyplomacy, but I doubt it. The relations change, for example, atm I play as Egypt, and I attacked Byzantium, the status with Turkey went from so-so to good. After assasination attempt(failed) at Byzantium leader, the relations between Turkey went up.

It is simply easier to get worse relations than build good relations with others. You can build them up by attacking mutual enemies, giving gifts, assasination mutual opponents and such(for example England and France are natural enemies, if you want to get England happy, attack France). The pope get's happy when you get cardinals, churches(gets more happy if more are build in 1 turn) and cathedrals. Crussades and fighting other religions are also important, but fighting catholics(no matter what faction are you playing) always makes him angry.

[TheWanderer]

Eugenioso wrote above that on higher difficulties your reputation and relations constantly deteriorate regardless of your actions.

[UndrState]

Eugenioso wrote above that on higher difficulties your reputation and relations constantly deteriorate regardless of your actions.

I don't think that that's true for relations, only reputation.

[SirRobin]

I just started playing on VH campaign difficulty, and I saw something new for me: A huge stack of my troops (led by a captain to attack a Moorish army nearby) turned to rebels and then walked to their home castle and attacked it.

So in trying to protect my castle from the Moors, I lost it to rebels.

I never saw rebel armies moving around and attacking settlements before. Very neat (and frustrating).

I'm only playing on Hard battle difficulty, as Very Hard gives ridiculous combat bonus to the enemy. I attacked one unit of enemy peasants with the general's bodyguard and a unit of mailed knights. The peasants killed all but 4 of the bodyguards and half of the knights before they routed.

Many people say the enemy only gets a morale boost on VH, this is not true in my experience. I'm playing vanilla with retrofit mod.

[Nzg]

SirRobin - I also can't recall rebels attacking a city/castle, strange thing. I usually play VH/VH so maybe it was a bug, or something that's changing with versions of game? Can't tell.

In battles on VH enemy units can be hard to kill, but a good charge allways works

[themzr]

Nzg and SirRobin- this has happened to me too, but only rarely do my troops rebel against me. Mostly I move my troops around led by a general who won't easily rebel.

[Nzg]

Yeah, that's obvious, but what about rebels sieging/attacking city?

[themzr]

Yeah, that's obvious, but what about rebels sieging/attacking city?

Both have happened to me, usually with cities that are poorly defended but it still happens rarely.

[SirRobin]

The castle was indeed poorly defended (2 half units of italian spear militia and 2 units of light cavalry). The rebel stack was 5 units of armoured sergeants and 5 units of muslim archers, plus a couple of knights. So they took my castle easily and it won't be easy to take it back.

I thought it was brilliant to see the rebels take the initiative for once

Would be even better if they sometimes produced a general of their own.. Like the "man of the hour" event. Basically, every "captain" should be a hidden general, with his own hidden loyalty rating. So you would not know how much you could trust him, it would be dependant on your king's authority too. But if he turned rebel, then he would appear as a general and you would see his abilites and traits.

[Nzg]

Hmm... That would be a nice addition. I've seen some "noble" rebel units, but they usually were just normal units with an icon

[SirRobin]

Hmm... That would be a nice addition. I've seen some "noble" rebel units, but they usually were just normal units with an icon

I have seen some rebel stacks led by a general, but I think they are just the result of an enemy faction general turning rebel..

[UndrState]

I have seen some rebel stacks led by a general, but I think they are just the result of an enemy faction general turning rebel..

Nope, rebel generals do spawn.

[SirRobin]

Nope, rebel generals do spawn.

I stand corrected then, but I would still like to see rebelling army stacks elect a general to lead them

[The Noble Lord]

I play on VH/VH and it's tough to tell you the truth. Especially when you play against a collation and they all declare war on you.

[Jansenfinn]

What is the most realistic difficulty?