Recommended Difficulty

[Cryoshakespeare]

Hey, I was searching around a bit but I couldn't find any recommendations for the difficulty level I should set my campaigns to be. Obviously medium battle difficulty (my preference, at least), but are there any special ai differences with the higher difficulty levels?

At the moment, on medium difficulty, I'm playing a game as Pergamon, just starting. After taking the two Ptolemaoi cities south of the capital, I was essentially just able to sit there. No big successor stacks, nothing more than an assassin hanging around my capital doing nothing, who I promptly counter-espionage butchered. It was a similar situation with my Carthage game, the AI seems to have a really hard time expanding (which is fantastic, by the way. I like to leave lots of factions and independent land on the map) - but moreso, it seems to have a hard time taking the initiative to do anything to its enemies.

Is this just a factor of the difficulty setting?

By the way, I took a break from this mod in 2.02 I believe. God damn has it improved by 2.06, even with all the missing content this is an exceptionally solid game! Kudos and many, many thanks to the EBII team - and looking forward like crazy to this fabled "Autumn Release"

[QuintusSertorius]

Hard campaign difficulty - or the AI doesn't hire mercenaries. Medium battle difficulty (though z3n thinks Hard).

[Cryoshakespeare]

Ah, I see. Thanks for the speedy response!

[NosPortatArma]

I play a romani campaign on battle hard and campaign very hard. By around turn 50 I have conquered my way along to coast to spain, taken carthage's holdings in north africa and wiped them out, and taken half of greece. It depends on how you play, wheter you RP or not. I don't roleplay, and if you don't the game is definitely easy. I put all money into armies and conquer everything as fast as possible. The key is to besiege cities with a force of equal size to the defenders, causing them to sally out, then just rush up to the gates and surround them and fight until they rout, then city is yours. In field battles, I've noticed that you can pretty much hit and run their skirmishers with with your cav with impunity, and they will leave your main force alone in the meantime. My battles start out with me taking out their skrimishers that way, and then I just shoot everything I have at them, then I enter melee and surround them, charging cav into their rear. Most battles are slaughters, and one can easily win most battles, unless the enemy outnumbers you very much.

I have no idea what difficulty does to the AI, but I know that the game is too easy even on the hard difficulties. So unless you RP, play on H/VH unless you want a very easy game.

[QuintusSertorius]

Bum-rushing the AI like that makes the game even easier - blitzing is an exploit in favour of the player. It takes the AI time to work out what it's going to do, expanding that fast gives it no opportunity to do that.

If you actually want a challenge, you need to expand much slower than that and give the AI time to respond.

[Cryoshakespeare]

I've been playing a game as the Arverni, I decided to disband the starting army in favor of the slow development of my one province. I find it's helpful to take mechanics from Crusader Kings II, most notably where you need a Casus Belli to declare war, and to simulate them to some extent in game. In my case, the levies were raised to respond to two forces of the independent tribes to the north and south of me. They figured they could continue their raids, that the status quo would be maintained, as if we were another of those weak tribes with limited authority and limited ambition. They were wrong, and three heroic victories later I took my first settlement to the north of me.

I am now up to five provinces, I have tenuous trade relations with the Aeudi. The Romans are expanding aggressively, the already have unified Middle and Southern Italy, have one province on Sicily and are currently at war with Carthage. My only issue is that the Auedi are not expanding at all, while they have a large force, they are remaining as stagnant and irrelevant as the other tribes around me. Well, at some point they will all owe allegiance to the Aueranoi Federation.

@QuintusSertorius ,if you read this, do you have any idea on what would be a realistic roleplay strategy for the government types I choose as I expand? My first three provinces, the capital, the one north and the western Pictish province, all have the confederation (type 1) government type. Should I perform the slow integration process on even immediate Keltic tribes, or could I take all of France and immediately add it to the confederation? I do like slow growth and historical roleplay, and you seem to be the one with the answers for this kind of stuff.

Edit: Figured I might have to quote you for the forums to notify you of this post -

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[Genghis Skahn]

I've been playing a game as the Arverni, I decided to disband the starting army in favor of the slow development of my one province. I find it's helpful to take mechanics from Crusader Kings II, most notably where you need a Casus Belli to declare war, and to simulate them to some extent in game. In my case, the levies were raised to respond to two forces of the independent tribes to the north and south of me. They figured they could continue their raids, that the status quo would be maintained, as if we were another of those weak tribes with limited authority and limited ambition. They were wrong, and three heroic victories later I took my first settlement to the north of me.

I am now up to five provinces, I have tenuous trade relations with the Aeudi. The Romans are expanding aggressively, the already have unified Middle and Southern Italy, have one province on Sicily and are currently at war with Carthage. My only issue is that the Auedi are not expanding at all, while they have a large force, they are remaining as stagnant and irrelevant as the other tribes around me. Well, at some point they will all owe allegiance to the Aueranoi Federation.

@QuintusSertorius ,if you read this, do you have any idea on what would be a realistic roleplay strategy for the government types I choose as I expand? My first three provinces, the capital, the one north and the western Pictish province, all have the confederation (type 1) government type. Should I perform the slow integration process on even immediate Keltic tribes, or could I take all of France and immediately add it to the confederation? I do like slow growth and historical roleplay, and you seem to be the one with the answers for this kind of stuff.

Remember the costs of a confederation. Your faction leader will lose 1 authority for each tribe/territory that joins the confederation due to the increased amount of polities, which will ultimately limit centralized authority. It depends on what you want out of a province, for myself, I usually start with either an allied government(fast install, good public order, cheap, client ruler and regional troops but it's not under your direct control) or a protectorate for areas that I want to quickly pacify and give a governor to(if I feel I dont need recruitment there), if you're not under threat of attack. There is the future possibility of converting some of these allied territories to protectorates or confederations in the future. Remember, you can always destroy any government type after its built if you feel it would better perform under another government. Confederations should be strategically placed and chosen, you dont just want any old tribe becoming your equals in arms. Confederation recruitment options are the best and your government has the strongest authority over these territories. Remember, confederacies take 8 turns(10 with military occupation) protectorates 4(6 with occupation) and allied governments either 2 for oligarchy(4 with initial allied gov) and 6 for democracy(8 with initial allied gov), it will take more than 2 whole years to convert a province to confederation government, and you want to place these in areas where recruitment is good and where the good quality troops can easily defend against invaders and protect nearby provinces. Too many confederations will cause your faction to fracture from internal threats due to your leaders poor authority, too few will leave you defenseless against other factions.

I'd recommend making a confederate out of one of the rhone valley provinces so you can recruit gaisatoi(naked fanatics) from the confederation government, alongside your usual good options of gallic recruitment.

I don't believe that it's too unhistorical to conquer a region, convert it to an allied government, recruit a client ruler, wait for him to die of old age and then install a more direct government in the province.

You could take all of france and add a bunch of those provinces to your confederation, just prepare for the drop in authority your leader will have to deal with and the monetary/time cost of establishing that level of authority. You will get good recruitment from Gaul, but remember to choose wisely which provinces to make part of the confederation, because not every province will give the same troops. If you want a larger Gallic empire, however, I would suggest spreading out your confederacies, and have a rich weave of allied govs, protectorates and confederations. Most of them being strategically placed. If you do decide to unite many of your french provinces into confederacies, you will probably have a very strong nation that will be hard to beat in a war, but if you decide to expand beyond that you may find yourself overextended because confederations provide your best troops, and having them packed up in one end of the map will make supply lines of good troops long and difficult to deal with. You sound like you want to build your faction slowly though, so do whatever you feel is best for the growth of your faction. I think having a few more protectorates rather than making all confederacies might be wise and not too unhistorical. You might want at least 1 allied gov too, since allied client states were and still are a very real thing with nations, just for historical reasons. Ideally in a place where you think you might need a little more help controlling, I guess, and whom might slightly differ from you in culture. Massalia has some greek and western med. culture I believe, you could always place an allied government there to represent the historical cultural difficulty you might have with directly controlling such an area.

[QuintusSertorius]

Don't forget the Migration government option if you don't want another Confederacy undermining your central authority, but want some proper recruitment options.

[Cryoshakespeare]

"All the stuff you said"

Awesome, thank you for the response! Though, I have to ask, does that authority penalty apply only to the current leader, or does it apply for all successive leaders too? My first faction leader lived until about 78 and was considered a god amongst men, so he didn't really have any issues with authority anyway.

That's a very good idea about the larger Gallic empire, in fact, very good ideas all around .... I have donned my roleplay-scheming hat c:<

[V.T. Marvin]

It is supposed to carry over to the next FL so if you have a large confederacy - good luck to your new inexperienced leader to keep it intact!

[Genghis Skahn]

Don't forget the Migration government option if you don't want another Confederacy undermining your central authority, but want some proper recruitment options.

Haha damn, I'd only been using migrations to convert culture quickly :O, I'll have to try it out on an already high culture province to see how the unhappiness plays out. Thanks for the tip.

[Genghis Skahn]

Awesome, thank you for the response! Though, I have to ask, does that authority penalty apply only to the current leader, or does it apply for all successive leaders too? My first faction leader lived until about 78 and was considered a god amongst men, so he didn't really have any issues with authority anyway.

That's a very good idea about the larger Gallic empire, in fact, very good ideas all around .... I have donned my roleplay-scheming hat c:<

From one Keltoi player to another I suggest having some eastern Celt confederacies besides what you're already used to. Then you can recruit some Boii elite units for your army too :3, besides the usual continental celtic roster. You'll want them if you want that great Gallic empire I was talking about

[Lucio Domicio Aureliano]

To make the game difficult, what is needed - in accordance to the team guidelines - is something close to BGR V... and then play on vh/vh... it will not be easy, it will certainly be fun (not that it is not fun already).

[QuintusSertorius]

Personally, I'm not interested in playing in VH/VH at all. Especially not VH battle difficulty; I always fight outnumbered with balanced army compositions, I don't need the AI getting hardcoded bonuses as well.

[Sarkiss]

Personally, I'm not interested in playing in VH/VH at all. Especially not VH battle difficulty; I always fight outnumbered with balanced army compositions, I don't need the AI getting hardcoded bonuses as well.

when i tried BGR, and it was a looong time ago, one aspect that really appealed to me was that it wasnt that much about the battles but about actually being able to field a decent force and keep it in the field in the first place. unfortunately, with TW titles we often overlook the difficulty and stretching of the resources the war effort requires. you should give BGR a try, if you havent already.

[Cryoshakespeare]

From one Keltoi player to another I suggest having some eastern Celt confederacies besides what you're already used to. Then you can recruit some Boii elite units for your army too :3, besides the usual continental celtic roster. You'll want them if you want that great Gallic empire I was talking about

Oh yes, my Brihentin cavalry, elite Boii retainers, and perhaps some Belgae spearmen thrown into the mix. Glorious. (But seriously, I actually like fighting with sub-optimal levy comprised armies which I raise only when going on campaign. It just feels right).

[HaHawk]

Personally, I'm not interested in playing in VH/VH at all. Especially not VH battle difficulty; I always fight outnumbered with balanced army compositions, I don't need the AI getting hardcoded bonuses as well.

Isn't the only difference in battles at "Very Hard" difficulty a boost to the AI's morale? Strangely enough, if you play a custom battle at VH with two of the same units against each other, the AI still almost invariably loses to the player, even if you don't use any special tactics. This is one of the reasons I always play VH/VH. Confirmation would be nice, but this has been my own experience with the difficulty settings.

[Sylon]

On VH battle difficulty in M2TW:

The enemy gets a boost to morale and stamina.
Your troops gets a penalty to morale and stamina.

Your units will tire faster and rout faster in VH. At least, that's my experience with vanilla M2TW.

[QuintusSertorius]

Isn't the only difference in battles at "Very Hard" difficulty a boost to the AI's morale? Strangely enough, if you play a custom battle at VH with two of the same units against each other, the AI still almost invariably loses to the player, even if you don't use any special tactics. This is one of the reasons I always play VH/VH. Confirmation would be nice, but this has been my own experience with the difficulty settings.

On VH battle difficulty in M2TW:

The enemy gets a boost to morale and stamina.
Your troops gets a penalty to morale and stamina.

Your units will tire faster and rout faster in VH. At least, that's my experience with vanilla M2TW.

Morale and stamina, as Sylon says. It means your line troops get beaten in melee by their levies. Which when you're outnumbered, means you lose before you get a change to envelop, since your cavalry is invariably bogged down in melee with theirs or drawing some of their units away and otherwise not charging to the rear. Plus repeated charges are less effective at achieving their main goal of breaking enemy units, rather than having to actually kill them. Every battle being a slog simply because the AI has hardcoded bonuses is not my idea of fun.

[Lucio Domicio Aureliano]

Morale and stamina, as Sylon says. It means your line troops get beaten in melee by their levies. Which when you're outnumbered, means you lose before you get a change to envelop, since your cavalry is invariably bogged down in melee with theirs or drawing some of their units away and otherwise not charging to the rear. Plus repeated charges are less effective at achieving their main goal of breaking enemy units, rather than having to actually kill them. Every battle being a slog simply because the AI has hardcoded bonuses is not my idea of fun.

I respectfully disagree... i am playing stainless stell with BGR5 on VH/VH and even then the human player, greatly outnumbered, can easily win against the computer... i understated stats are different on EB but, at least in MTW2, VH are actually far from difficult.

As someone said, the difficulty with BGRV is not the battle per se, but the logistics of training and fielding an army.

Thx