Difficulty

**naq** · April 04, 2014, 08:38 AM

Can anyone tell me the differences between difficulty levels of campaigns? Do they give any bonus to AI or not?
I wonder about it for a long time but have not found any clear answer yet. Should know before staring a new campaign because some factions in this mod look hard while others seem easy.

Thanks.

**baradona** · April 04, 2014, 02:47 PM

What i know is that Al gets bonus in h/vh difficulty. Like they get extra money.

**Cyning Sigebryht of Suð Sussex** · April 05, 2014, 09:52 PM

If its the same as vanilla then it goes like this...

Campaign
Easy: You get a bonus to income, public order, less likely to be attacked by a neutral faction and an advantage in auto-resolve + the chances of an agent's success (Spies sneaking into cities, Priests purging heretics, etc.).
Medium: No bonuses or disadvantages.
Hard: Slightly less income, public order, neutral factions are more aggressive towards you and a slight disadvantage in auto-resolve + the chances of an agent's success. All A.I. factions also get an income boost.
Very Hard: Income has been halved, public order will be more problematic, neutral factions bordering you will be your natural rivals, auto resolving would be near suicidal and the chances of an agent's success are hampered greatly. All A.I. factions also get a sizable income boost.

Battle
Easy: Your troops receive a bonus to morale and attack.
Medium: No bonuses to either side.
Hard: Enemy troops receive a bonus to morale and attack.
Very Hard: Enemy troops receive a monstrous bonus to morale and attack.

I personally do Campaign on VH and Battle at Medium for a challenging and semi-realistic campaign, but to each their own.

**Geoffrey of Villehardouin** · April 09, 2014, 10:33 AM

Just a quick note: Battle AI on very hard does not actually get a morale bonus per se. You can test this with two equal units in a custom battle. Rather, on easy the computer player's morale is very low, on normal low, on hard a bit better and on very hard approaches or equals the morale of the human player's units. But the human player often has better generals, so even on very hard you rarely have parity on morale.

Campaign-wise, as far as I could see there is only a very marginal increase in difficulty in diplomacy going from hard to vh. Anything else, is generic, depending on the engine rather than in the mod-specific files. Income, basically, and autoresolve. Any effects on AI aggressiveness would be due to it having a relative higher income on vh, hence more units, therefore a higher probability to be aggressive. There is nothing beyond that in the scripts.

**Iguanaonastick** · April 07, 2014, 06:09 PM

No, the AI only got attack and defence bonuses in Rome: Total War. In Medieval 2, increasing the battle difficulty mostly makes troops get tired and rout due to low morale more quickly. The morale effects, moreover, apply to both you and the enemy, so on very hard difficulty battles will result in routs more often. (But less so in Broken Crescent, where many troops have high morale bonuses. Or at least they did in the last version I played which was a while ago, admittedly.) Because your troops get tired more quickly than the AI's you have to be a bit more careful and your troops will eventually lose a straight-up slug-fest, but the disadvantage is very minor. Mostly you just need to be a bit more tactical. I quite prefer the very hard battle difficulty setting for this reason.

It's possible the difficulty setting has more (subtle) effects, but nobody seems to agree on what they are. Testing in custom battles, however, suggests that on Normal difficulty your troops generally win a 1 on 1 battle between identical units, while on Very Hard they lose by a small margin. So perhaps Normal is actually biased in the player's favour. (Although it's hard to be sure. So many variables at play.)

I also never noticed Campaign Difficulty affecting your income at all. Yes, the AI gets a lot of help at that setting, but in Broken Crescent the custom scripts gives the AI a lot of extra cash anyway. But your income is unchanged. The effects on AI aggression and auto-calc results are very real, though.

**naq** · April 09, 2014, 03:32 AM

Originally Posted by Iguanaonastick

No, the AI only got attack and defence bonuses in Rome: Total War. In Medieval 2, increasing the battle difficulty mostly makes troops get tired and rout due to low morale more quickly. The morale effects, moreover, apply to both you and the enemy, so on very hard difficulty battles will result in routs more often. (But less so in Broken Crescent, where many troops have high morale bonuses. Or at least they did in the last version I played which was a while ago, admittedly.) Because your troops get tired more quickly than the AI's you have to be a bit more careful and your troops will eventually lose a straight-up slug-fest, but the disadvantage is very minor. Mostly you just need to be a bit more tactical. I quite prefer the very hard battle difficulty setting for this reason.

It's possible the difficulty setting has more (subtle) effects, but nobody seems to agree on what they are. Testing in custom battles, however, suggests that on Normal difficulty your troops generally win a 1 on 1 battle between identical units, while on Very Hard they lose by a small margin. So perhaps Normal is actually biased in the player's favour. (Although it's hard to be sure. So many variables at play.)

I also never noticed Campaign Difficulty affecting your income at all. Yes, the AI gets a lot of help at that setting, but in Broken Crescent the custom scripts gives the AI a lot of extra cash anyway. But your income is unchanged. The effects on AI aggression and auto-calc results are very real, though.

Thanks.

It seem I should play on medium campaign since I use auto resolve in sieges very often.

For battle, fatigue might result in slightly longer battles but low morale means troops will rout sooner so I don't see any advantage for AI in any difficulties.

**Cyning Sigebryht of Suð Sussex** · April 07, 2014, 11:06 PM

My bad, I presumed it would be similar to RTW's difficulty settings. If it only affects morale and troop weariness then it sounds way less intimidating then super buffed peasants tearing your elite troops apart.

I personally don't think Medium is biased towards the player since Hard and Very hard just make up for the A.I.'s inability to use tactics properly and make it so their headstrong nature is justified with the fact your men won't be as tough as theirs, and you'll have to use your head more often. Thanks for telling me how the battle difficulty truly is, think I'm gonna bump it up to Hard as my new default.

As for the income difference I just tested it prior to writing this section of the response. I went on The Last Kingdom mod (Instinctively, I meant to do it on native but I presume there is no true difference) and tried the Mercian campaign in both Medium and Very Hard. Medium yielded a starting income of 3960, while Very Hard gave 3207. Here is a screenshot providing further details, the left finance tab being Medium difficulty and the right one being Very Hard.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**Iguanaonastick** · April 08, 2014, 03:16 AM

I'll be damned. Seems we both learned something new.

I tested it on vanilla also and the same thing applied: higher income on lower difficulty. Expenditure was the same, but that probably was because in the starting vanilla empire there was 0 corruption. Corruption is the only expenditure that increases in these tests, while all kinds of income are higher on easier difficulties.

**the man, the myth, the legend** · April 11, 2014, 03:17 PM

"...sounds way less intimidating then super buffed peasants tearing your elite troops apart"

Why does everyone say that if, playing with very hard battles is barely noticable compared to "easier" levels, whether it is RTW or Med2, you surely wont be beaten by peasants even if you have a peasant army. Try it, I'm sure you'll find your fears completely unfounded, it may just be CA version of psychological warfare.