Aedui vs Arverni

**jvasss** · October 29, 2015, 07:43 AM

My exams are almost over so i will have time to start a proper long campaign soon, in light of this i was thinking about what faction to play, which lead me to the question:
"Is there a game play difference between the Aedui and Arverni except starting position?"
Also, what is the recommended difficulty for this current version 2.05c.?

**z3n** · October 29, 2015, 02:21 PM

Recommended campaign difficulty is hard as the AI does not on lower difficulties will not hire mercenaries except in rare situations (solely perhaps due to it's new decisions/priorities CAI).

Battle difficulty can be set to either medium or hard depending on player preference.

Medium gives a small bonus to the morale/fatigue of the players units but no bonus to the AI. The AI is functional on this level but no truly 'special' tactics except for one or two new ones applied and released in the 2.05c. (likely with more to come).

Whereas hard gives a small bonus to morale/fatigue for the AI's troops, in my opinion a balancing one although it's hard to say for certain to what extent the bonus applies. Very hard gives a larger bonus to the AI and easy difficulty gives a larger bonus to the player. There's also a few tactics exclusive to hard/very hard difficulties like withdrawing its units upon realizing its strength ratio is too weak to continue the battle. Personally I've only seen this on VH as I do not test on H but it may also occur on H, I can say that as far as I have seen it doesn't occur on medium, at least with the default or minimally modded configuration of the AI.

**Thuycidides** · November 23, 2015, 05:06 AM

Originally Posted by z3n

Medium gives a small bonus to the morale/fatigue of the players units but no bonus to the AI.

And here I thought the whole point of 'medium' was to avoid bonuses of any kind. Thanks for the info.

P.S. my guess is that everyone wants the AI to use the full suite of tactics, but doesn't want that coupled with AI bonuses.

**jvasss** · October 29, 2015, 05:07 PM

thanks for the detailed reply, i think will play hard/hard.

**Stalfo** · November 22, 2015, 11:38 AM

I believe Auernoi begin with level 2 armor upgrades, whereas the Aedui begin with level 1 armor upgrades. I generally play keltic factions and as far as I can tell these are the only two with such upgrades. This is one of the reasons I love to play them, as the upgrades show in the battlefield.

**myarta** · November 22, 2015, 01:27 PM

Sweboz get two tiers of armor upgrade, at turn 60 and at turn 201, tied to the two Theuros-reforms of the broader Hellenic world. From reading the code, it looks like Aedui and Arverni have the same setup where the Confederation building offers the armor upgrades at those time markers. Numidia and the Boii also have these same events. The Getai and Arevaci get the level 1 upgrade at the turn 201 event instead of 60 and don't get the level 2 upgrade. EB 1 had a more robust system differentiated by faction, but these are reasonable placeholders for now.

The starting config file doesn't show that the initial units for the Arverni have any bonus armor. What gives the impression that they already have level 2 armor?

**Stalfo** · November 23, 2015, 05:14 AM

Originally Posted by myarta

The starting config file doesn't show that the initial units for the Arverni have any bonus armor. What gives the impression that they already have level 2 armor?

If you start a new game with either the Auernoi or Aedui, place one of the Bataroas (sp?) in your city and retrain them, it provides the armor upgrade immediately (bronze for Aedui and silver for Auernoi), or you can just recruit a new unit to the same effect.

Interesting to know about the Sweboz and the Boii, I wasn't aware the Boii had upgrades, and never played too far into games with the Sweboz - I'll have to try.

**QuintusSertorius** · November 22, 2015, 04:59 PM

In the autumn release, Carthage will get a late upgrade on several of their units via this, too.

**QuintusSertorius** · November 23, 2015, 05:09 AM

Trust CA not to have a "no bonuses to either player or AI" option...

Anyway, the balancing factor for choosing Medium is that the AI gets the Command-star-boosting AI General trait (with higher levels of it on higher campaign difficulty levels), which ensures they almost always have more than the player. Which will more than make up for that small bonus you get to morale and fatigue.

**myarta** · November 23, 2015, 04:23 PM

Huh. I'll have to try that. From reading the files, it doesn't seem possible. I just started a game as Aedui, and I see that I have several units of 'Batoroi' aka 'Gallic Swordsmen', who say that their next armour upgrade is '1st Reform'. But I've moved everyone nearby into my capital of Bibracte and retrain isn't an option.

Then I recruited a new unit and it also starts with the base level 0 armor and there are no options to retrain.

Perhaps something is the matter with your install? Mine is functioning correctly where that armor is not available yet.

**QuintusSertorius** · November 23, 2015, 04:49 PM

Yeah, you shouldn't have any armour upgrades available until after turn 60 with the Thureos Reform event.

**Stalfo** · November 24, 2015, 05:06 AM

I just tested it again, and you're right, the upgrades are not present. The last Auernoi game I played where the armor upgrade was present was on 2.05c, it seems; so it was either fixed by the updates or fixed when I finally moved my steam from Program Files x 86 - they were both around the same time. Apologies on that.

**QuintusSertorius** · November 24, 2015, 05:12 AM

Originally Posted by Stalfo

I just tested it again, and you're right, the upgrades are not present. The last Auernoi game I played where the armor upgrade was present was on 2.05c, it seems; so it was either fixed by the updates or fixed when I finally moved my steam from Program Files x 86 - they were both around the same time. Apologies on that.

It's the latter; armour upgrades have been set since one of the 2.03 iterations.