Campaign difficulty choice, and why?

**Delicate Strawberry** · November 11, 2015, 06:10 AM

As the title says, I'm curious. I usually play normal just because I don't like the AI getting 'cheats' when I don't, but I've been considering upping it, even though I'm pretty content with how the normal AI plays.

**philler** · November 11, 2015, 06:47 AM

Originally Posted by Delicate Strawberry

As the title says, I'm curious. I usually play normal just because I don't like the AI getting 'cheats' when I don't, but I've been considering upping it, even though I'm pretty content with how the normal AI plays.

I usually play on hard/very hard and I dont think, that bonuses given to AI could ruin the experience. In fact it seems even better gameplay-wise decision to me than to play at recommended difficulty. Off course it gets complicated sometimes, but I kinda like the situations, when you really feel endangered by AI, not to mention situations, when you clearly overestimated your military power

it is more fun for me and still well playable, if you dont rush. The only thing I percieve as setback is public order after conquering a city, thats somrtimes pain in the ass

**Saga89** · November 11, 2015, 06:52 AM

I usually play on normal too, because my faction of choice usually has a really hard starting position (ex Pergamon, Odrysion, Massilia, Epirot)

**Aeimnestus** · November 11, 2015, 06:56 AM

I play on Very Hard, in the old DeI it had the best balance between challenge & stack spam imo, so I kind of stuck with it. I often forget to change the battle difficulty to normal though when starting a new campaign, leading me to bang my head against the wall during the first battles "They are completely surrounded and have taken 70% casualties, why don't they bloody route!!!"

**Ygraine** · November 11, 2015, 07:07 AM

Playing with a modded "normal "difficulty which is harder than very hard. The AI gets tons of bonuses, as I find the game way too easy otherwise. The reason why we modified "normal" to be super hard was because that way it works in coop/head-to-head as well.

**Delicate Strawberry** · November 11, 2015, 07:09 AM

Originally Posted by Ygraine

Playing with a modded "normal "difficulty which is harder than very hard. The AI gets tons of bonuses, as I find the game way too easy otherwise. The reason why we modified "normal" to be super hard was because that way it works in coop/head-to-head as well.

Your own modified or DEI normal in general?

**Ygraine** · November 11, 2015, 07:31 AM

Originally Posted by Delicate Strawberry

Your own modified or DEI normal in general?

My own yes, should have specificed it better! Wouldn't be able to have that in the main mod since many people would find it way too hard

**Delicate Strawberry** · November 11, 2015, 07:38 AM

Originally Posted by Ygraine

My own yes, should have specificed it better! Wouldn't be able to have that in the main mod since many people would find it way too hard

I thought so, just double checking.

**JCB206** · November 11, 2015, 12:24 PM

I play on Very Hard, with Normal battles. I use "Annabasis Realistic Campaign movement for DEI" and "DEI better Campaign AI" Mods. It brings the AI alive and getting to turn 20 is not always assured. Plus it doesn't take me three turns (9months) to walk from Pella to Apollonia or 7-8 turns to get from the top of Italy to Sicily. It also allows the AI to bring all of its armies to a single spot. Depending on the size of the faction, there are 1-4 truly epic battles per faction.

**BMLlednar** · November 11, 2015, 08:16 PM

Easy / Easy, and I've never actually won a campaign. I guess I must just be astonishingly bad at these games or something. I enjoy them anyway though, so, oh well. In theory I'll get better eventually if I keep trying long enough.

**AstroCat** · November 12, 2015, 06:14 AM

I play Hard or Normal Campaign depending on the faction and Normal battles. Seems to be a good balance for a fun/"challenging" game.

**Samir** · November 12, 2015, 10:56 AM

Battles normal.
For campaign I went along normal for a long time, I like the slow and steady development and very slow expansion, so it suited well with a more or less passive AI. But recently I changed to Hard. Its far from impossible, but especially if you stick to house rules a bit, hard is very rewarding. Wars actually last a while now with the supply system as you really prepare a stratgic approach towards a war campaign. I had a bogged down campaign on the balcans as Rome where I literally invaded teh enemies lands and due to agent actions and army attacks my army was stuck for 2 years at the same spot, with a

of factions throwing stacks at me until I retreated, regrouped and revisited the whole thing years later with a bit better prepared invasion forces. Also you still have a chance for diplomatic solutions on Hard (at least sometimes)

Anyway, if you like to play slow and are bored by normal, hard is really nice entertainment. Above that I find its more a series of tedious battles that never end cause the AI will fight unless you burn down their city...

**KAM 2150** · November 12, 2015, 12:55 PM

I mostly play at Hard/Very hard campaign depending on a nation.

For battles I suggest to start of at normal and around 100 turn change it to hard so your elite armies will have a bit more challange.

For total newcomers to the mod or trying a nation out I suggest normal difficulty.

**Delicate Strawberry** · November 12, 2015, 01:30 PM

Thanks (so far) for the input.

I'll restart on Hard, partly because my save got corrupted.

**pwill8** · November 12, 2015, 05:33 PM

I have to say I'm pretty shocked that people play on anything other than very hard campaign difficulty. To me, the game seems to be entirely too easy and the AI don't protect themselves well enough on hard. Even Very Hard is too easy. However, the game is just horribly unbalanced if you turn the battle difficulty to anything other than normal.

**Samir** · November 13, 2015, 12:41 AM

Challenge is not nescessarily a fight against endless stacks of AI (which you again probably win all the time cause they send all the time the same stacks and you always counter the same move). I find diplomacy so spoiled above hard as the AI rarely makes a deal that does not involve total annihilation on one part. Hard has (for me) the best challenge vs reward especially if sticking to house rules. Very Hard with self imposed dos and donts, is not fun to me. But again, its everybodies choice. I personally dont see any fun in very hard or legendary. You always go for the best builts in army, economy and thats it, cause one mistake and you are pretty much done. Might be true for the Averni, but not for Rome, Carthage, the Seleukids or or or...

**DengoPhortis** · November 14, 2015, 11:06 AM

Played all my campaigns on hard/normal so far, didn't win a single one in R2 vanilla or DeI so far.

To me it's a nice experience in DeI because the AI's stupidity on the battle map is compensated by the buffs it receives on the campaign map (higher recruitment rates and so on). I have not played that much using 1.1 though.