Hotseat changing difficulty?

**xRossTheBossx** · March 22, 2019, 04:02 PM

So just to keep it short, I'm trying to play hotseat with a buddy. And I notice that when I start my turn (I'm first btw) it says the campaign difficulty is very hard. When I end my turn and start my friend's, it says it very hard. But immediately after, another popup message comes up again and it says it's medium difficulty? Anyone have idea why it's doing this? Should I worry about? Is it actually changing the difficulty to medium?

Second question is the default config file. So I saw a thread by "bane" about how to defend during hotseat. I copied his hotseat example, meaning the hotseat text sequence into the config. Will this allow me to defend during hotseat just becuase I pasted that in? I saw a thread of people saying that you need to disable the player scrolls and that's what enables defense battles against ai.

Note: that I'm playing a makeshift coop campaign so we wont be attacking each other, so the passwords and defense against human players isn't relevant.

If any other information is needed I'm willing to clarify.

Thanks for any help!

**Dekhatres** · March 22, 2019, 09:39 PM

at very hard changing capital costs 5000, at medium or lower 2000, try test how much money it takes

i've never played a hotseat against other players but if you have this "autoresolve_battles = 0" in the default file then yea you should be able to fight against the AI

my settings for single player hotseat campaign, everything plays pretty much like a normal campaign

Code:

[hotseat]
turns = 0
scroll = 0
autoresolve_battles = 0
disable_console = 0
disable_papal_elections = 1
save_prefs = 1
update_ai_camera = 1
validate_diplomacy = 1
[multiplayer]
playable = true

**xRossTheBossx** · March 23, 2019, 12:16 AM

Oh well the weird thing is that it even says medium difficulty cost 2000 and very hard is 5000 when i hover over the change capital. And even weirder thing is when i change my capital it wont cost any money. For either player. So I guess hotseat you can change your capital for free.

**Dekhatres** · March 23, 2019, 12:39 AM

just push the button to change cpital and look at your treasury

EDIT: capital change works as supposed in hotseat mode, for me atleast

https://imgur.com/a/D8pMwEr

difficulty is indeed changed to medium when switching factions, i think the only way is to put difficulty on VH VH, then select all factions and then start the campaign, should work that way, dunno if it would work for player vs player hotseat, i guess you will have to find out

to swich factions type in console "control faction_name" ex: i started the campaign as venice but now want to play with kwarezm, i type "control kwarezm" to gain control of the faction then i type "control venice" to give venice to the AI

**xRossTheBossx** · March 23, 2019, 10:39 AM

I did look at my treasury for both players.
Neither lost any money. I even waited an extra turn to see if the charges were delayed for some reason. Not the case.

Well, anyway, thanks for the help dekhatres. It's not that important of an issue, just wondering if anyone knew the "why" it's doing that. I will basically just survey and see if one of us gets harder/easier experience or the ai acts wonky overall for some reason. Truth be told, this is my first hotseat so I'm not sure how the ai acts. Since medieval 2 wasnt designed for coop like the modern titles we see today, I wouldn't be surprised if we have an... unordinary experience.

I will update this thread if i notice any noteworthy changes worth mentioning.

**Dekhatres** · March 23, 2019, 12:23 PM

have you tried a single player hotseat mode with those settings ? try see if capital change costs money that way

i am quite sure the AI bonuses to growth income trade etc remain intact btw

**xRossTheBossx** · April 12, 2019, 04:39 PM

Sorry for the hiatus, but unfortunately i was unable to solve the issue regarding the changing difficulty. I start my turn - Its VH/VH; i can confirm it by selecting "change capital" option - I lose 5000. But as soon as the next human player starts their turn - the stainless steel message pops up and says medium difficulty(???). test capital change - lose 2000. Confirmed medium difficulty (not sure if this effects battle difficulty, but i feel like it does a bit). second human player ends his turn - ai does their turns. It gets to my turn (turn 2 now), the first/original player whom selected difficulty, it is now suddenly medium for me as well

.

Im not sure what in the coding is reverting the changes like this but im almost certain it has something to do with the second player. Perhaps its because the second player didnt "select" their difficulty so the game just reverts the difficulty to medium to counteract the balance. This is a frustrating problem because the game is already inherently easier since im playing with a human ally player; (we are forced to play far apart so the ai doesnt share wars with us). And even additionally easier because the ai is on medium difficulty and is hardly aggressive at all even on gracul! Every campaign we try feels like a steamroll, only exception was an Aragon/Lithuania campaign, where we actually lost and the ai actually played like the gracul ai stated!

I suppose i can work around this issue if I can go in the files somewhere and change the ai aggressiveness, or something of the sort, but im not sure where to look.

**Losthief** · April 12, 2019, 05:51 PM

have the 2nd player set there difficulty in the medieval2preferences.cfg file (not the ss one, but maybe both) and set it to 'read-only'. See if that fixes it. Aggression isn't decided by m/m or vh/vh irrc. Bonuses, money, morale, etc are. But, the ai might be changed too by the cfg file being off.

**xRossTheBossx** · April 12, 2019, 07:34 PM

Well, I looked in both cfg files and I didnt see a difficulty modifier in any section.

And if that aggression statement is true, then maybe it just feels easier because its a coop game. Perhaps hotseat games make the ai react different though? Well, at the very least, I can change the campaign script so the medium and very hard diffculty AI bonuses are the same so there's a partial indirect solution.

**Losthief** · April 12, 2019, 08:32 PM

hmmm...must be mixing up games, thought you could but i may be wrong. Yes campaign script would fix it by adjusting the ai settings. Also you could try this.

You can mod it using this mid-campaign: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...TW-Mod-Manager
(make sure to read instructions first).

see if that fixes it (or if your really want, just do it each turn but that be hassle).