Very Hard/Legendary Is not challenging: it is excruciatingly annoying

[Arch]

Been playing every release since M2TW

Normal is the same steamroll it has always been since every player got the hang of how to flank

Hard is like normal but with more units to flank

Very hard, well I dont know, since I havent left the campaign map for a even battle yet. I'm an empire fan so I'm playing them on VH. Every campaign start is the same - you capture Grunburg and win the starting historical battle with ease. Then there is an orc 'skullsmasher army' at Eilhart. You cannot capture it without it razing/sacking your cities.

On normal speed, you cannot catch it, it will always run away.

On March speed, you cannot initiate combat, so even if you do manage to catch it, there is nothing you can do.

If you prioritise something else, it will sack and raze ur cities until eternity.

If you do prioritise it, something else will invade and sack you from the side.

Very hard isn't about strategy, it hell isnt about smarter AI, it's playing snake on the campaign board.

CA, if you ever read this, I want you to know that your complete failure of creativeness (wow ur most creative title so far was already made by modders. SUPRISE) has lost me slowly, but this is it.

Anyone have a good idea how to make VH campaigns less about catching small armies and more about fighting hard battles?

[Goumindong]

Huh. I never had that issue.

[HouND_DoG]

Seems odd, on VH/VH campaign, I kill the first succession army, take the settlement, recruit new lord recruit few swordmen and take succession capital with karl franz and kill orcs with newly raised army, that's how I do it anyway, if your having trouble catching up to the orc army if hes running right out of range, theres a mod to increase owned territory marching distance by 10% to help with that.

[Påsan]

Yeah get a mod. I did not have those problems either but the 10% movement should help.

[Frost, colonel]

Been playing every release since M2TW
Anyone have a good idea how to make VH campaigns less about catching small armies and more about fighting hard battles?

There is a mod that deals with players being tired of chasing stacks. There are many aspects of CA's games I don't like, look on steam, make the effort to look through the 1000+ mods, doesn't take as long as you think because they can be split into types ie graphical, campaign, units etc. Tailor the game into what you want. Without the mods I would struggle to be interested in Vanilla games for long.

Also if you want hard battles try the no morale mod, I just had the AI throw 3 stacks at mine, a fight to the death, no one runs, the winner is the one who has anyone left standing, real messy with the blood DLC and the keeps blood on the field mod!

[Aenerion1]

Get a campaign movement mod, there are plenty out there, each with their own flavor/solution to I think nr 1 annoyance of this game.

[RGA]

If you want challenges, VH is all about luring enemy AI into battle against a seemingly inferior force. Yes, AI does attack if it senses that your force is weaker. It runs away if your force is stronger. Quite logical, right?

[Arch]

Get a campaign movement mod, there are plenty out there, each with their own flavor/solution to I think nr 1 annoyance of this game.

Yeah get a mod. I did not have those problems either but the 10% movement should help.

There is a mod that deals with players being tired of chasing stacks. There are many aspects of CA's games I don't like, look on steam, make the effort to look through the 1000+ mods, doesn't take as long as you think because they can be split into types ie graphical, campaign, units etc. Tailor the game into what you want. Without the mods I would struggle to be interested in Vanilla games for long.

Sigh,

I'm only 5 hours in and I already need mods to enjoy the game, well it is total war after all

If you want challenges, VH is all about luring enemy AI into battle against a seemingly inferior force. Yes, AI does attack if it senses that your force is weaker. It runs away if your force is stronger. Quite logical, right?

It's not about fight or flight logic but about the fact that very hard is more about boring gameplay then actual strategy challenges

Seems odd, on VH/VH campaign, I kill the first succession army, take the settlement, recruit new lord recruit few swordmen and take succession capital with karl franz and kill orcs with newly raised army, that's how I do it anyway, if your having trouble catching up to the orc army if hes running right out of range, theres a mod to increase owned territory marching distance by 10% to help with that.

Yea I've been trying that too, problem is that as Frank goes on to take the rest of the rebel settlements, that leaves two more open for razing. On very hard, you are most likely to grow a rebel force after taking the whole province (Some youtuber said it was inevitable) so that is another army that will grow the longer you wait and requires Frank, leaving ur support army to handle the orcs, which it cannot as orcs have tunnel movement, and if you grow another third army you will most likely go bankrupt

Once I thought I catched it but instead It just went underground and razed anyway, oh lord

Atleast the AI is good at finding unprotected settlements

Also if you want hard battles try the no morale mod, I just had the AI throw 3 stacks at mine, a fight to the death, no one runs, the winner is the one who has anyone left standing, real messy with the blood DLC and the keeps blood on the field mod!

SOunds awesome, I'll try that out when I've given up on vanilla

[Ichon]

I do find the repetition to get annoying plus the AI's instant map wide knowledge of settlements but you can't say there isn't strategic choices in having to choose where to send armies and defend vs attack. The only thing I don't like about Legendary is how many options are limited diplomatically as despite giving 10,000+ in gifts can't even get anything past non-aggression pact.

[COOBelisarius]

There are a few ways to deal with this on VH/Legendary. I'll also preface by stating that a mod isn't necessary (for people who want mods, go for it, but it seems CA did test/consider more than people give them credit for), and the action is smart by the AI (I'd stay out of range of superior forces too).

The ways to deal with it are 1) play more patiently. You now get severely penalized in the game for over-extending. If you ignore some starting orc armies, they'll sweep in and raze settlements. Either make sure they're far enough away or ensure your garrison can handle them or at least deter them long enough to bring in reinforcements. Sometimes you have good luck, and sometimes you have bad luck with how the AI moves armies, but you can't let the AI catch you off guard and raze settlements because it costs money, time, and population to fix.

2) Raise another army (I don't prefer this due to finances but it definitely works the best in terms of crushing opposition.

3) Ambush stance. It seems this is severely underused. Optimally sit near a forest and use ambush stance. I also do this while warring with Marienburg or any superior enemy really.

4) Agents. I know these aren't available early on but they work to reduce movement. Honestly I only like to use them for Chaos because ambush stance works for normal enemies with a more linear game plan.

[Goumindong]

This is what I said on another site in response to the same question:

There are four ways to deal with raiding armies. Patience, ambushes, blood, and walls.


The primary thing is to think of it like a war. In war prior to recent times the "win condition" was when an enemy got an army between your capital and your main army. Because it would make it to the capital before the defending army.


This leads to the first and most reliable but also the least swift tactic:


Slowly move an army towards the enemy such that you can intercept if they attempt to move to a position where they can attack from. Making sure you're between them and your cities is imperative because they will retreat away from the direction you attack from if you attempt to engage. It can be very useful to enter ambush stance even if you think they might avoid you because it can make it harder for the enemy to position in a way to avoid a fight.


The goal isn't so much to crush them as to simply force them to leave your territory when raiding. A fight is ideal but if you try to force it really hard you will probably get run past.


So that is he slow and "sure fire" way. But sometimes you have trouble setting that up or want to finish things faster. The fastest method to win a fight is to we an ambush. And the easiest way to guarantee the enemy will walk into your ambush is to set it up in reinforcement range of a settlement.


If you're defending a settlement, unless you're there for a long time or there is no enemy around the ideal way to do so is just outside in ambush stance(inside gets you XP and better replenishment, but you don't get replenishment till the start of the next turn so it's no help in defending). If an attack is coming unless the settlement has walls there is pretty much no reason to be inside.


If this doesn't work then you can move to the first tactic and start pushing the enemy slowly out of your space.


Ok well what if you're too far away? Then it's time to bleed the enemy. This works in one of two ways. Either by mustering a small army and sending them out to die. Or by heroically defending a settlement. The goal here isn't really to win just to make it so that the enemy doesn't have enough cards to attack a(nother) settlement. That way you can start using settlements as pressure points instead of things to be defended. This doesn't work perfectly because retreating enemies can move through zoc(and you should take this into account when pursuing them). But it's better than nothing.


It's semi-important when doing this that you focus on killing entire unit cards and not simply forcing them to rout off the field. 20 half stacks will be full in a turn or two outside where you want to bother following. 10 full stacks can take 10+ turns to get back to full strength because the cards themselves have to come from global recruitment.


Skirmishers are generally best for this type of thing because they will be able to split off lone units to kill. (Remember to put them into melee mode when killing routed units as they will have higher dps if they're normally ranged). Sure they're not balanced enough to win the whole fight but winning the whole fight isn't the point.


I recall that I did this as dwarves vs a large army led by grimgor recently. I used the vanguard deployment of a unit of miners to get to the enemy doom diver and kill it entirely. They wiped the floor with me but being able to take the arty out (and one cavalry unit) completely meant that the next fight I could win (and did!)


Of course the best way is to have settlements be pressure points before the fighting starts. Garrisons and walls are key to keeping enemies locked down in two ways. The first is that enemies will avoid cities they can't sack and the second is that enemies usually cannot/will not sack a city in one turn and additionally will not retreat from a seige. So you can use walled cities to sucker enemy in that you might kill it. The downside of this is that it takes time. But time is on your side.


Additionally don't spend a lot of money on marginal settlements that are likely to get sacked. Just wasting money.

[gregnaar]

Everyone is whining about catching the armies... You can use the damn ambush stance, you dont have to actually ambush them, but that puts your troops out of sight for the AI, and it will move closer, or even attack seemingly undefended settlement, you can even assume that stance rigth next to the settlement. If you cant handle basic game mechanincs dont blame CA, try to think for a minute...
Legendary is hard because you cant save, and you are at a disadvantage in everything, not because magically the AI becomes a superb tactician.

[PROMETHEUS ts]

I agree, The Legendary difficulty is just annoying anti player cheat spam , whith armies rising out of no reason just to annoy the player and pretend "its hard" . ITs not challenging it doesn't require smart thinking because whatever u do pacify a region and use the game tools the AI will ignore and rise again armies !
The last time I enjoyed playing a legendary game was in STW2

[drillmaster]

Ive started over 5 campaigns as Empire on VH and i always hold the entire province in 5 turns. No more no less. The orcs usually get killed off by other imperials and if they come.close you can see it and react the way others have described before

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[geala]

So it is. Ignore the Orks. In my first vh camapign they robbed the settlement twice, then took a look for a more decent booty. After some turns they got destroyed. In my second vh campaign the Orks were my slightest problem because three Empire factions declared war on me at turn two. Sometimes you have to accept a loss of one or two regions for a certain time. I got Reikland maybe at turn 15 or so, then I took Marienburg in a desparate struggle. Thereafter you are saturated usually and the real game starts.

[Arch]

Well I got rid of the orcs by going at them with a somewhat even army, however it severly delayed my expansion.

I thought I was finally gonna enjoy a challening very hard campaign but then another hard lesson crashed that reality: Do not create, nor trust, subjects in Very hard.

Why do I even bother

[Slaists]

Just use ambush stance to lure the raider army closer. You probably won't ambush them, but they are likely to stop somewhere where you can catch them.

[emcdunna]

1. you need maximum garrisons in EVERY settlement
2. use agents to block movement of enemy forces
3. use ambush stance to make AI move within range of your attacks
4. trap AI with 2 or more armies moving in from different directions
5. Use smaller armies (not full stacks of 20 units) and the AI wont run away as often. The AI runs from you when you have overwhelming strength and fighting would just yield and easy autoresolve anyway.

[Carlucio]

I found it fun with VC, easy with dwarfs, cheap with the Empire and completely retarded with the Chaos hordes.

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

I've never understood the appeal. It doesn't make the AI more intelligent, it just gives them a ton of buffs. It's incredibly boring.