Huge Jump in Difficulty from One Faction To Another...

[AnonMilwaukean]

Now, obviously WRE and ERE should be more difficult than normal, given the history books. But it goes way beyond that in terms of how wildly different the factions are in difficulty:


Sassanids are a cake-walk so long as you know TW games and their basic mechanics. Already beat my first Attila campaign as them, and did it on Hard. Sanitation was at +11 or +12 in almost every single settlement.

Huns are incredibly difficult. I started a campaign with them on Hard, got maybe 100 turns in, and had virtually 3/4 of the map at war with me. Well, in the past this would be no big deal, since in the past only factions actually near you would hunt you down (logical enough). But now? Now I have Dacia, ERE, Abgasia, and even the Sassanids sending armies at me despite me withdrawing back into the largely devastated Steppe (illogical).

Visigoths and Ostrogoths are around where most R2 factions were in difficulty. Good rosters, capable of settling where they want to try and gain an advantage of sorts.

Geats, Danes, and Jutes are in a pretty tough spot. Not impossible by any means, but where do you expand to? Britannia tends to be too strong too quickly, and if you go south you run into the quagmire of tribes that will likely bring in still other tribes against you. Stick to the coast and you'll do well due to their rosters, but there actually aren't so many settlements on coasts except in the Med. Sea area. Plus their early units often are garbage (had flashbacks to Eastern Spearmen). At least the Geats start with two settlements, so they can do well enough to be in okay shape by the time the admittedly powerful mid- and late-game Norse units appear. But other than that, have to rely on navies in an area of the map with fewer coastal settlements than one would imagine.

Franks, Saxons, and Longbeards all have to deal with a bunch of factors. For one, the cold from the north encourages you to go south, but if you go south you likely get smacked by the Huns coming through, or end up having to wait and turtle up a long time as WRE finally withers away after a number of turns.


In contrast, in R2 I remember only one or two really tricky/easy factions (Suebi were really difficult for the start, and Seleucids were also tricky). But here, there's a lot of factions that actually feel like I'm playing a whole difficulty level up from what I chose (Huns in particular, even though I sat down and analyzed the horde mechanics before giving them a go).

Is it just me? I mean, Attila's been out only a few weeks, so maybe it's just me, but it seems like factions vary a great deal in terms of difficulty compared to R2, and in general tend to be tougher by a good amount. Only the Sassanids seem easier than usual, while the Goth factions (I played the Visigoths till about 410AD) seemed to be easier in many ways if you ventured into the area between WRE and ERE.

Thoughts?

[the_mango55]

Keep in mind that any barbarian faction could have the same advantages as the Goths. You can choose to become a horde at any time. Sure, you don't start with already built up horde buildings like the normal migrating factions do, but on the other hand you don't have to wait ages to get enough spare population for a new horde because every army becomes a horde, and you should have the ability to field 4 armies in just a few turns. Also when you start migration every unit in each army gives one population point.

You can even cheese/exploit this to gain a bit of an advantage with many factions. Let's say you have 2 full stacks when you want to start your migration, instead of starting it immediately, fill 2 stacks with Nordic band or Bagaude (both super cheap to create) and then start migration. Then you will have 4 stacks with 20 population surplus to do what you want with, and you can disband your cheap units if you want.

[Caligula's_Horse]

I don't really see a problem here. It makes perfect sense that you'd have an easier go at things playing as the king of the Sassanid empire then as a tribal leader in early dark ages Germany or emperor of the failing Western Rome.

Personally I like how most factions are harder then in Rome II. With a rare few exceptions like the Suebi or Epirus, Rome II was a cake walk without cranking up the difficulty once you got a hang of things. I much prefer Attila's approach, makes you feel like you actually accomplished something, even if it does lead to some false starts while you're still learning.

[Ariamanesh]

I don't really see a problem here. It makes perfect sense that you'd have an easier go at things playing as the king of the Sassanid empire then as a tribal leader in early dark ages Germany or emperor of the failing Western Rome.

Personally I like how most factions are harder then in Rome II. With a rare few exceptions like the Suebi or Epirus, Rome II was a cake walk without cranking up the difficulty once you got a hang of things. I much prefer Attila's approach, makes you feel like you actually accomplished something, even if it does lead to some false starts while you're still learning.

Sorry but it makes no sense at all for me!
You may not know that the real life of the persian kings of the sassanids dynasty was as challenging as the life of the emperor of the WRE(if not was harder)!And yes if you look at the history you will notice that sassanids had their eastern borders so dangerous and they had to be at their toes all the time with so many steppe hordes around their eastern and northeastern and north western borders!
While the ERE and WRE had goths and visigoths and huns and german tribes to wary about the persians themselves had their own deadly enemies like white huns or turks or kidarites or hephtalites or so on!
In fact this is the CA's fault who cut off the eastern part of the map and leaves sassanids without any threat from their their true fears!
Yes if you look at history you will find out that sassanids was rarely able to set western campaign against ERE because they feared that if they leave their eastern borders unprotected they will get struck from the hordes.
In reality the biggest threat for the sassanids was not from the west but from the east and that is why romans could easily have conquered western provinces like Ctesiphon itself several times because the bigger part of the standing army was always at the east(about 70% of sassanids standing army was at the eastern and north eastern borders!)

[RedGuard]

Sorry but it makes no sense at all for me!
You may not know that the real life of the persian kings of the sassanids dynasty was as challenging as the life of the emperor of the WRE(if not was harder)!And yes if you look at the history you will notice that sassanids had their eastern borders so dangerous and they had to be at their toes all the time with so many steppe hordes around their eastern and northeastern and north western borders!
While the ERE and WRE had goths and visigoths and huns and german tribes to wary about the persians themselves had their own deadly enemies like white huns or turks or kidarites or hephtalites or so on!
In fact this is the CA's fault who cut off the eastern part of the map and leaves sassanids without any threat from their their true fears!
Yes if you look at history you will find out that sassanids was rarely able to set western campaign against ERE because they feared that if they leave their eastern borders unprotected they will get struck from the hordes.
In reality the biggest threat for the sassanids was not from the west but from the east and that is why romans could easily have conquered western provinces like Ctesiphon itself several times because the bigger part of the standing army was always at the east(about 70% of sassanids standing army was at the eastern and north eastern borders!)

makes sense. I beleive the Sassanids are far too easy. This is on normal, and I've already conquered 2/3rds of the ERE in 402 AD.

[Caligula's_Horse]

Sorry but it makes no sense at all for me!
You may not know that the real life of the persian kings of the sassanids dynasty was as challenging as the life of the emperor of the WRE(if not was harder)!And yes if you look at the history you will notice that sassanids had their eastern borders so dangerous and they had to be at their toes all the time with so many steppe hordes around their eastern and northeastern and north western borders!
While the ERE and WRE had goths and visigoths and huns and german tribes to wary about the persians themselves had their own deadly enemies like white huns or turks or kidarites or hephtalites or so on!
In fact this is the CA's fault who cut off the eastern part of the map and leaves sassanids without any threat from their their true fears!
Yes if you look at history you will find out that sassanids was rarely able to set western campaign against ERE because they feared that if they leave their eastern borders unprotected they will get struck from the hordes.
In reality the biggest threat for the sassanids was not from the west but from the east and that is why romans could easily have conquered western provinces like Ctesiphon itself several times because the bigger part of the standing army was always at the east(about 70% of sassanids standing army was at the eastern and north eastern borders!)

Well, the borders of the map have to go somewhere. I'll give you that the Sassanians have too easy a time, and that CA should have placed something nasty on their northern border (say, the white Huns as opposed to the black Huns plaguing Europe) to compensate for the loss of their eastern one.

Bad examples aside, my argument still stands. A German tribal leader starting out a short walk from the Hunnic invasion would have a much harder time keeping his kingdom in one piece (never mind expanding outwards) then say, the eastern Roman empire whose position was quite tenable.
Think about it as the son of a rich man, and a poor man. All other things being equal, the rich man's son is probably going to have an easier time in practically any undertaking. Life isn't fair, and its perfectly fine for the game to reflect that.

[Ariamanesh]

Well, the borders of the map have to go somewhere. I'll give you that the Sassanians have too easy a time, and that CA should have placed something nasty on their northern border (say, the white Huns as opposed to the black Huns plaguing Europe) to compensate for the loss of their eastern one.

Bad examples aside, my argument still stands. A German tribal leader starting out a short walk from the Hunnic invasion would have a much harder time keeping his kingdom in one piece (never mind expanding outwards) then say, the eastern Roman empire whose position was quite tenable.
Think about it as the son of a rich man, and a poor man. All other things being equal, the rich man's son is probably going to have an easier time in practically any undertaking. Life isn't fair, and its perfectly fine for the game to reflect that.

Agreed about sassnids in the attila's campaign map but even if you place some hordes to the north still they can not match the huge empire of the sassanids with all of its vassals and they can steamroll them again.
In fact the eastern borders and eastern steppes hordes like kidarites or hephtalites or even mighty kushan empire needed so much to balance the sassanids campaign difficulty!
And about the real life challenge i should say that its true that a tribal leader have very hard time on keeping his small tribal kingdom alive against so many dangers with a small tribal army but you should consider that as bigger your country get the bigger your problems will be but in different types!
See i really love sassanids in many ways But i should say that making a small tribal kingdom to a world wide power(Just like some german kingdoms)are much much much better and more challenging and funnier than sit on a huge throne who made by your damned ancestors and just rule whatever they have got and left for you instead of going and get something for yourself(just like sassanids)!

[veverčák]

Well, "natural" difficulty for any faction could be also subjective, at least to some degree. For example: If I should pick easy factions I would go with Sassanid Empire and Burgundians. Sassanids are tricky only in case you get early a rebellion of your subjects. Burgundians have advantage in making food in Poor regions, war with universally hated Varians and enough room for doing whatever you think is fitting for them - migrating south, creating Germany, pillaging and raiding your neighbours.

On the other hand I would not any Great Migrators as particular easy. Your stating roster is weaker then Rome's and you need to raid and pillage Romans city to have enough money. Usually the AI manage to face you with army and battle is usually pretty tight and decided with that one particular swing of the sword.

Saxons and their Northmen cousins are tricky mostly due to weak starting roster. Nordic band just brings memories of Rome I peasants hordes of doom.

[AnonMilwaukean]

Oh, I don't mind false starts, and I actually like the difficulty being higher.

But the range of difficulty is just startlingly wide. Sassanids are like playing as Egypt in R2 while having a bunch of client states. And then the Huns are like the Suebi thus far, except worse in my opinion.

Again, not saying this is a bad thing, actually, but just surprising after how R2 played out. Goes to show that R2 was not really that diverse with factions outside of roster differences, while here things feel different with every other faction. Which is a good thing.

I just think for Attila they needed to say that 'Normal' rather than 'Hard' is where TW vets should start for a bit, because I actually think Attila is harder than even Shogun 2 in many ways, let alone R2.

[Damocles]

Personally, I found even the WRE on Vhard as a cakewalk. And I'm just your average TW vet. I had to make a houserule to auto-calc sieges for the AI (unless a family member/general was defending), to make it interesting.

Sassanids have it a bit too easy. They supposedly had many barbarian problems of their own in the 5th century. Playing as the Alans, I always make a point of messing with them.

[Lugotorix]

Opinions of factions before 425 when Attila starts wrecking things, can be inaccurate. He continues wrecking things until 445 unless you kill him manually in battle 3 or 4 times, and I was about at the end of my rope by the 432 chapter ending. In that respect Visigoths are easier than Ostrogoths, because their victory conditions aren't right in the crossfire of Attila programmed invasion. I just received victory for Ostrogothic Kingdom on Hard, and it was no-where near as hard as a R2, H campaign. It was harder, for logistics reasons.

[veverčák]

I would agreed that sassanid campaign start to be interesting after you defeat ERE around 420. Your relations with basically everyone go to south, some vassals could rebel, your family become very large and restless, Huns start to be threat, winter is coming and you need start slowly cutting some more fancy building back due to lack of food reserves etc. it is basically the same situation as Roman faced prior the game start. True, some hordes for East would be nice, but not all campaign should evolve the same.

Oh, and could we stop using this "My king was harder working then yours" argument? I mean it is not even an argument! Or how can we messure the hardship of ruling over Ptolemaic Egypt and Sasanid Persia, or Roman Empire?

[Arbitrary Crusader]

The "vikings" starts aren't too bad at least on normal.

Just ally or sign non-aggressive pacts with factions you don't want to conquer on the first turn.

Recruit some ships and land units. Next turn move all your starting units to one of the Scandinavian factions and declare war and auto resolve or fight it out. Then decide your adventure.

If you want Britain, you can force march from the get go or capturing your second city and fight the near empty garrisons of Roman Britain. Then decide to sign non-aggressive pact with most of the tribes in Britain then pick them off one by one. Although it really a pain in the ass to hold Britain due to revolt then again, same could be said to any conquered province that isn't your religion.

Then if you want you can raid Europe from France.

[surg3on]

Don't they all show a 'starting difficulty' when starting their campaign? Is OP disagreeing with the starting difficulty or just that some factions should have a different starting difficulty?

Also, no mention of the Alans? I think they got V Hard spot on for that ones starting difficulty!

[Gwayn]

(VH difficulty)Alans are a pain in the back imo. Thx to your alliance with the Vandals, you start out having discovered lots of factions - which in my games, once they hate you, means they come running across the whole map to get you. You already have 3 enemies - ERE, the faction in Egypt and the one NE of Turkey. Tried several strategies but finally decided to get somewhat rid of the most problematic "feature" of Attila and dowloaded a mod to reduce imperium penalty to diplomacy. Seems to work so far. If anyone has any experience with Alans on VH, I'd be happy to hear about it. Using that mod feels a bit like cheating but I have spent so much time trying to play Alans without it - all I got was headaches :-(

[Mountain_Commander]

Campaign is much to easy so far having played as the Danes and Jutes. I just move South each campaign and take Northern Germany without too much resistance. The little friction I get from the Huns is never that threatening, and WRE and ERE are always weak. Once I start to take Northern Germania, everyone other faction in diplomacy hates me and the game becomes one dimensional. Just taking empty settlements and building things and clicking next turn. Steamrolling any nation on my borders as I go along.

[Mountain_Commander]

Just tried the Danes on VH with Radious Mod and I die in two or three turns....Scratch that last post...

[peoplescavalry]

Haha well done, I admire your honesty! ( Saxons V/H died, Jutes H died a bit more, Ostrogoths N still hanging in there )