Starts way too hard, ends easy

[Legacy66]

What makes their start so difficult right now is that Macedon cannot recruit pike units with the base level 1 barracks, where as I believe the other Greeks at least Epirus can. So you have to wait 6 turns for more pikes where as before you could hire a few from the start and have a strong base to work with.

[TheRazaman]

Why? Whats the purpose of having a difficulty slider if its not going to be used for something? It used to be you had to play on Hard or even Very hard to even get a minor challenge in 1.1. So, instead, in 1.2 I wanted to make it so that the difficulty actually did something. Now, for small factions and most players, you should choose Normal. But, if you want a more aggressive campaign you can choose Hard. If you want a slightly less aggressive one you can choose Easy. I wanted to sort of build in the hardcore/softcore submod concept with the difficulty slider, rather than requiring an entirely separate submod for that.

I think for some reason players see playing on Normal (or even Easy) as some sort of slam against them or something But I don't see it that way, I feel like we are now using 2 difficulty levels that were really never used in 1.1.

Exactly this. Players will adjust and develop new algorithms to begin a campaign, then once they've mastered Normal they'll try again on Hard and maybe even VH or Legendary. Jumping into a game and immediately setting the difficult to the highest mode available (usually the actual hardest mode is locked until NG+) is something people are used to with most games these days because they're too easy on Normal. Difficult selection should be meaningful and Normal should be where you need to start a game at until you're proficient enough to increase.

People are having a tough time adjusting now because the CAI used to be so weak in all prior versions. Stay calm, play Normal.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Factional merc pools are awesome and perhaps they should be added at a smaller scale to some of the other major/unique factions in the game.

I like the idea. Do you have any suggestions in mind ??

[Ygraine]

I like the idea. Do you have any suggestions in mind ??

For example Boii could have access to two or three boii merc units in a small factional merc pool and this is fairly easy to mod. Same could be done for the Mauryan faction, adding a small factional merc pool that has indian elephants and some indo-hellenic troops perhaps. We're not talking Carthage-sized merc pools here, rather small ones similar to the Epirus one that only has the elephants.

Not sure how this would work balance-wise though, but considering mercs are quite expensive the player wouldn't be able to abuse it early game. And later in the game you have enough money to buy mercs occasionally.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

For example Boii could have access to two or three boii merc units in a small factional merc pool and this is fairly easy to mod. Same could be done for the Mauryan faction, adding a small factional merc pool that has indian elephants and some indo-hellenic troops perhaps. We're not talking Carthage-sized merc pools here, rather small ones similar to the Epirus one that only has the elephants.

Not sure how this would work balance-wise though, but considering mercs are quite expensive the player wouldn't be able to abuse it early game. And later in the game you have enough money to buy mercs occasionally.

Sound good to me. What other factions have special merc pools at the moment ???
Epirus for sure.

[Dresden]

As far as I know you have to deconstruct the startpos into xml files to add faction mercenary entries to factions that don't have it. Its possible to do but that always makes me worried about causing instability in the startpos everytime I do that.

[dahooscarl]

Has the Hardcore sub mod been updated to 1.2? I started a Selecuid campaign on n/n but zero satrapies broke from me and even Egypt wanted to be friends. Tried again on hard with softcore mod for first 40 turns and the campaign is finally heating up.

Would it be better to run a hard campaign and turn off softcore, or a normal campaign with hardcore sub mod?

[Dresden]

Yes its been updated. In terms of what mods you want to choose, thats entirely up to you. You don't need to use either of them if you don't want. The one good thing about the submods is they can be turned off/on, whereas difficulty can't be changed mid-campaign without editing the save.

[dahooscarl]

Running the Hardcore sub mod on hard campaigns seems to help slow down ai aggressiveness to more manageable degree since building cost and times limits it a recruitment.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Running the Hardcore sub mod on hard campaigns seems to help slow down ai aggressiveness to more manageable degree since building cost and times limits it a recruitment.

You should try Hardcore NoCAI changes as well.

[popovic]

Erm... I recently updated to the newest 1.2.1 version (the 25th May one), and well, the AI all of a sudden looks very timid. They are hardly sending any stacks my way. Also, there haven`t been any declarations of war (though the latter is probably due to the fact that I`m already at war with almost every faction I have knowledge of).

What has been changed exactly about AI aggresiveness?

[Dresden]

Nothing was changed with AI aggressiveness. Some CAI diplomacy values were changed in regards to war declaration on friendly+ factions, thats it though.

Its probably just random luck. The CAI is very random in Rome 2 no matter what you do to the variables. Its still a dice roll most of the time, just weighted.

[Starship Trooper]

Well after an abortive campaign where I couldn't handle upkeep costs, the second go-around with the reduced upkeep mod has been very challenging so far. Carthage has finally been squished and the more bothersome Northern neighbbors are no longer a problem. I had some very tense periods early on though. I'm now using a lull to upgrade my legions to Marian standards.

I anticipate a very challenging mid-game, the Nervii and Lusitanians both have very large empires that will be some serious work to take down. Late game is hard to say but overall I thing the new CAI is huge upgrade over previous versions, two thumbs way up!

[Oskar_GD]

I always play on Very Hard/Hard as minor factions and I want say that we have extraspecial sort of game - survival strategy. Something like antique "Walking Dead" ) But if we talk seriosly small factions get nothing historically. Hundred years fighting to conquer one region. I found this realistic and interesting anyway.

[Ritterlichvon86]

Started 2x Macedon on N/N. Both times Larissa and Sparta declared war after the first turn. I beat them within 5 turns. I will have to restart on H/H or H/N.

I don't know what you guys were complaining about, but yeah, it may just have been random luck

[john909]

I had a very interesting experience with Getae on N/H a game I had to restart 3 times to figure it out. As Dresden correctly points out even the "seemingly insignificant" details now matter. Diplomacy is very important as I found out. I was proposing even with Low chances and getting back Counter offers! Found it a very interesting aspect in the game.

In my 3rd attempt with Getae I had to start by annexing the Dacians on the West as soon as they declared war on Scordici. It seems like the AI does not give you much of attention when you are on war with nations of small importance or so I understand it. When I was raiding I was forgetting to check which trade agreements I was harassing - this is another detail I overlooked and produced some negative relations with neutral nations.

Finally to people saying it's easy I would suggest to try some small barbaric nations on Hard and no mods, get to round 50 then tell us what you think. The game is brutal and I kinda like it cause it makes me think and plan ahead a lot more.

[meerkatology]

this has always been the case, i think some potential house rules maybe - the best i've come up with is when u reach ur last reform / turn x, you must go to war with every single faction.

its a shame that alot of the cool endgame units only become available long after you've beaten the game, this is kind of reason i've been advocating for less imperium requirements on reforms.

the other issue more specific to this game is that at beginning of the game, there are alot of 1 settlement factions and these still have 2 full stacks each due to AI having no money/supply restrictions, so when u have 3x one settlement factions near u at war, u have to deal with 6 stacks + 3 garrisons.

for bigger factions, like a 6 settlement faction, there army isn't porportionally bigger due to imperium requirements so one 6 settlement enemy is much much easier to deal with than 6 one settlement enemies

[theLuchii]

This may seem fairly intuitive to some but my solution to the easier late-game is to just limit myself to one stack per front (or at least, per faction I'm fighting, since by the late game most territory will be consolidated between a smaller number of factions). This has two effects: one, the campaign in much more interesting. I used to find myself waiting for two stacks to take walled cities and always waiting until my troops were replenished to attack, but with only one stack I'm forced to take gambles, attack when not at full strength, and put a significant amount of thought into my strategy. The second effect is the campaigns occur at a much faster pace and are much more interesting, as having 3-6 fronts open at a time with each fight hanging in the balance and reliant upon a single stack makes things variable at the least, and setbacks occur often. This combined with stopping save scumming has made the game much more enjoyable for me.

[Fedual]

I am playing Egypt on Hard with just DeI, no softcore or hardcore. Is Seleucia gonna get more friendly or less friendly towards you as the game progress? i have had all of palestine completely undefended for 86 turns now. I just think they should have invaded by now since they are bitter rivals. To my surprise though I actually managed to get a trade deal going at around turn 70ish (needed that silk for my library of alexandria ).


One nice thing about the Seleucia passive stance is that I have the most awesome military campaign in the south against the Ityopia province, the battles are still pretty easy but the attrition combined with running out of food in the different areas of the province makes it a challenge to passify and beat that province into submission, 30 turns and i still only have 2/3 regions in Ityopia, but i am getting there

[Satansblofish]

This may seem fairly intuitive to some but my solution to the easier late-game is to just limit myself to one stack per front (or at least, per faction I'm fighting, since by the late game most territory will be consolidated between a smaller number of factions). This has two effects: one, the campaign in much more interesting. I used to find myself waiting for two stacks to take walled cities and always waiting until my troops were replenished to attack, but with only one stack I'm forced to take gambles, attack when not at full strength, and put a significant amount of thought into my strategy. The second effect is the campaigns occur at a much faster pace and are much more interesting, as having 3-6 fronts open at a time with each fight hanging in the balance and reliant upon a single stack makes things variable at the least, and setbacks occur often. This combined with stopping save scumming has made the game much more enjoyable for me.

I do my GC campaigns just like this. I recently started using 41 unit armies and, for me, has made it feel much more immersive and rewarding. I always felt like with 20 units armies, or roughly ~2700 men with some elite units, just didn't bring that grand scale feeling when taking an army on campaign. It felt appropriate to bring a second force just to have that feeling I am actually bringing an a​rmy. Not to mention, my armies just moved with too much precision in battle even without using pause, so losses are minimal. Even with balanced stacks facing off you can expect 5-10% losses, less if you an especially effective/gamey battle strategy. With 41 v 41 (and no pause spamming) the battles are more difficult to manage and more punishing when you commit mistakes. I haven't adjusted the economy/supply/manpower from the original mod so this adds also adds a whole extra layer of challenge. I'm reluctant to advocate for this though as even very experienced players find it frustrating, so while I am a big fan of 41 unit armies, YMMV. In my experience, it works well for me while the drawbacks are not prevalent enough and, thus far, are no where near outweighing the advantages.


It can be very difficult to replenish when on campaign so that requires constant attention and careful decision making.

To expand on that:

-Makes fighting in 1v1's (which is the most common type of battle to happen) with less than a full stack/a sizable discrepancy in stack size still really fun. It limits the players ability to use gamey strats, like say in a normal 20 v 21-60 where the enemy units are spread across multiple armies all entering the field individually and the player would fight them individually/isolate one/take advantage of them not being preset/etc.
-Use of control + m. Sometimes it's not worth having units that are not going to replenish collecting their dead comrades pay checks.
-Use of mercs and especially AoR. I will often replenish my forces with local AoR units. I like how this forces my army's composition to change over time.
-I love how it makes me face tough decisions regarding settlements and weighing the well-being of my army vs the most efficient route to build my empire. Do I keep it peaceful/occupy and try to start replenishing in 2-3 turns or do i sack/loot, recruit AoR, and keep marching to beat winter?(I play 12 tpy), etc
-Army composition. Early game, I have the same amount of gold but I need it for twice as many men.
-Makes fighting empires risky early on since they can fill their stacks much quicker and with quality units.