Please make battles harder on VH difficulty...

[tono4850]

I apply the same tactics all over again and never lose- just put my pikemen in the centre, 1 unit of hoplites on each flank and swordsmen/shock infantry/cav charging in the rear and it works...
I think BAI should have higher stats and morale bonuses as it is now on VH. I know lots of people don´t like seeing praetorians being beaten by some cheap spearmen, but adding these unfair and artificial bonuses to AI (like it was in Rome 1/BI where winning a 1:1 battle wasn´t that easy) is the only way how to make battles challenging I believe.

[xisheng]

If you employ the same tactic over and over again nothing will change it,its a game, thats why you have to create situations yourself, this rear attack charge thing works on normal and on legendary. I personally play on hard/hard all the time, and just few hours back had a 45 minute battle with 1 of my legions and a garrison army defending against 2 invading Carthaginian armies in Italy, just outside Roma, in every battle i try to challenge myself with different formations, different approaches to the battle, not just put line there line there and fight it. I keep a lot of troops hidden away if possible, or just standing in the back of fighting troops and switching units out when they lost more than 60% of their men, i use cavalry to clear out the ranged enemy units, and fight against cavalry, few shock units that i have i keep far away for when i might need to turn the battle if something goes wrong and thats just 1 of million different scenarios you can come up with yourself. Also, dont build your legions or armies from the same troops, i rarely have more than 1 of the same unit in the legion, my legions are always 6-8 (incl general) Roman core units, the rest are aor, mercs or aux. Playing this way, 100 turns in all i have is Italy and Magna Graecia and finally captured Alalia, trying to get to Karalis in next few years. You might lose a lot of battles this way, but one thing is sure, you will be very entertained because every single army you will fight against will have a troop advantage over you.

[KAM 2150]

AI is the same, it doesn't matter what difficulty you pick, only CA can change it, since those stuff are hardcoded. You can put armies in different order at the beggining, but AI will still do his retared shuffle in fron of your lines.

Anyway, with my changes to the completly new battle system for 1.0, winning on normal is now harder so I guess on vh it will be even tougher

[geala]

I would second xisheng. I'm not a good player and prefer normal battle difficulty but I do more or less the same with my armies. As soon as possible in the game I recruit armies from different spots. I only have two or three core armies with the best troops, the rest have some strong units and otherwise mostly AOR-troops (a reason I like area recruitment). I only build military barracks in my core province(s) to avoid recruitment of core troops in unfitting regions. So many battles are different. It also gives some proud to my elite armies when they have to rush to a place where the frontier armies weren't able to clear a situation. If only transport ships hadn't such a ridiculously small range...

[Sealhuntah123]

Anyway, with my changes to the completly new battle system for 1.0, winning on normal is now harder so I guess on vh it will be even tougher

When you work on mods, would you say that you're polishing them ? Since you know.. you're polish !!.. Hehe..he..he..

Sorry terrible joke haha *crawls shamefully back into cave*

[Alu10]

human + pikemen army = easy win. try something less easy

[romanlegion13th]

So is there no difference in normal battle difficulty and hard

[FlashHeart07]

So is there no difference in normal battle difficulty and hard

Not in the way the AI behaves and reacts but there is a difference in the stats of units. Which makes it harder since levy units can hold off elite units. Or at least better

[rick1063]

If vh difficulty is too easy put it on legendary

[KAM 2150]

In terms of stats, legendary and vh give the same bonuses for AI, difference is with no pause, etc.

[ThatWhichThinks]

I personally found that when I played on VH battle difficulty all my pikemen got destroyed by AI levy slingers with insane stat bonuses. The AI would just pump out armies of levies who could stand toe-to-toe with my elites and demolish them. I usually still managed to win with hammer and anvil tactics, but the slinger machine gun was insane. This was back around .8 or .85, though, so maybe now things are different.

[FlashHeart07]

I personally found that when I played on VH battle difficulty all my pikemen got destroyed by AI levy slingers with insane stat bonuses. The AI would just pump out armies of levies who could stand toe-to-toe with my elites and demolish them. I usually still managed to win with hammer and anvil tactics, but the slinger machine gun was insane. This was back around .8 or .85, though, so maybe now things are different.

They still get lots of bonuses to their stats. But with KAM and Gunny's major battle overhaul for version 1.0 even battles on normal will get tougher and therefore also battles on higher difficulties where the AI will still get a bonus to their stats.

[Lieutenant Sharpe]

Tono, how elite are your units? Often the player has better armies than the AI even if he is outnumbered. This often makes battles far too easy. Also the player usually has more and better cavalry which makes victory easy. In the past, playing as Rome I put a limit on my cav to 3 units since Republican legions usually only had 300 equites. 1.0 will rebalance cav so it will be harder to obtain. If the AI armies would recruit more cavalry battles would probably be more dificult for the player. The AI can not be fixed, but it is not completely awful. In my current Seleucid campaign my armies have been worse than the AIs and battles have been difficult. During one battle the AIs missile cav and general cav tied up my own cav for much of the game. Later they used their spearmen to form a reserve force against my cav. I won that battle with only 80 men left on the field. Quite simply the AI can be pretty good, but often the player goes into battles with many advantages over the AI, especially in cavalry.

[Alu10]

Tono, how elite are your units? Often the player has better armies than the AI even if he is outnumbered. This often makes battles far too easy. Also the player usually has more and better cavalry which makes victory easy. In the past, playing as Rome I put a limit on my cav to 3 units since Republican legions usually only had 300 equites. 1.0 will rebalance cav so it will be harder to obtain. If the AI armies would recruit more cavalry battles would probably be more dificult for the player. The AI can not be fixed, but it is not completely awful. In my current Seleucid campaign my armies have been worse than the AIs and battles have been difficult. During one battle the AIs missile cav and general cav tied up my own cav for much of the game. Later they used their spearmen to form a reserve force against my cav. I won that battle with only 80 men left on the field. Quite simply the AI can be pretty good, but often the player goes into battles with many advantages over the AI, especially in cavalry.

Its true. One skill the AI has, they annoy you with their cavalry all the time, sometimes i see an army with no cav and im like "pheww, this i going to be eaaaasy". When they have cav they force you to keep units in reserve, its quite nice. Sure they often charge into spearmen even pikemen sometimes (frontally, once against my getikoi pikemen, they died like flies) like the dumbest idiots.

[Lieutenant Sharpe]

Its true. One skill the AI has, they annoy you with their cavalry all the time, sometimes i see an army with no cav and im like "pheww, this i going to be eaaaasy". When they have cav they force you to keep units in reserve, its quite nice. Sure they often charge into spearmen even pikemen sometimes (frontally, once against my getikoi pikemen, they died like flies) like the dumbest idiots.

This is due to certain units being shock cav, right? If they AI can start recruiting equivalent or greater quality and quantity cav than the player I think battles will become more difficult. Cavalry was often a deciding factor in ancient battles, especially in the hands of hannibal and Alexander the Great. If I recall correctly, Hannibals cav usually came out on top of the roman cav and this often helped him defeat the Romans. With more cav, battles will require the player to deal with the enemy cav first, either through maneuvers or by loading a wing.

[Ritterlichvon86]

The proper solution for you is to play multiplayer-campaign in head-to-head.

We have experienced the most awesome battles in that mode, by far.