Battles too easy

[Penegrin]

Hi there!

After a long time I wanted to play Rome II again and started a new game with DEI as Rome. I love the new additions and but now I am about 120 turns in (Grand Campaign) and I have to say that battles are way too easy. I fought 83 battles of which I won all but 4 and those were settlements an enemy attacked with overwhemlming force. I never lost a field battle even when outnumbered 3:1 and most of the time the casualties were about 1:10 in my favour. The only enemy that gave me a hard time were greek/spartan elite hoplites but I never faced more than a few per battle.

As recommended I play on normal/normal and I understand that the mod is balanced on these settings. But I wonder if there is a submod out there that makes the battles a bit more of a challenge. Any tips would be much appreciated

PS: I have all the big DLC except of an Empire divided (if that makes any difference)

[Darth Salat]

In all honesty...you'd expect to much from an AI driven intelligence. This is not Skynet...

One way of raising chances for you to actually loose battles, is giving the AI time to build up armies from the start on campaign, so that the overall pressure, from all combined enemies, is higher, thus making you loose more battles, thus giving the enemys chance to build up quality armies, thus raising the chance to loose battles more often in a lengthy campaign etc. etc. etc.. You get my point once the Arverni start steamrolling your Roman empire in round 150+...

Either that, or you raise battle difficulty, which basically enables the AI to cheat on you. I don't like that.

Also, playing aggressively expansionistic, will reduce your chances of winning battles often. If you take your time, and conquer provinces with patience and strategy, it's highly unlike for the AI to ever beat you at all, both, in battles, and strategically. It's just the benefit of veteran/pro players...

A (ch)easy way to enable higher battle difficulty would be to mod a limit to the size of your armies via empire state, but I think this is not possible at the moment? So with empire level 1, one could mod it so, you're only having access to 10 units...with level 2=20 units, etc.. Maybe Dresden can chime in and state if something like that is possible, and/or an attractive solution?

[Penegrin]

Thx for the quick reply

I know the AI is a terrible tactician (while on the strategic map he surprised me quite a few time) but it seems to me that also the enemy units are inferior? I had Pyrrhus attack one of my towns in turn 3 and lost to the garrison alone even with his elephants. That was a surprise for sure

I also don't mind following some house rules to make the game a bit more of a challenge. I stopped using artillery since the AI wont use it and it's just too easy to decimated the enemy before they are even in range. I like the idea of limiting my armies to a certain amount of units so maybe I'll give that try. Do you have any advice which number works well? With 10 units I guess I'd go with 1 general, 1 triarii, 3 princeps, 3 hastati and 2 velites/archers. I'm just afraid that with so few units I am the one who gets flanked in no time

[alhoon]

To be fair: You're playing with Rome in the Era of Roman military dominance. You put in strategy and have a good view of the field etc and you're a veteran player of many many battles. If the AI could challenge you, it would be unrealistic.
What I mean is that when you get a good, disciplined and well equipped army and put it under the command of a good general (you that gives the orders, not the general unit), you should expect to win. The answer is in what you said "120 battles". You are a pro and you have a good army. Of course you will win.

Perhaps play against other players?

[Darth Salat]

Oh, you take Pyrrhus as example? Well, portrayed historically correct, the guy is not necessarily a quality example for good army composition, and thus to win battles. I mean, there's a reason why it's named Pyrrhic victory, right?

Just started my second playthrough yesterday, and he tried to steamroll me with a 7800+ combined army against my 4000. I broke his fingernails with townguards, and finished him of with core troops after 15 minutes, utilizing a classical Hannibal. So this is really not very unlikely. Try that for any Carthaginian, or overwhelming odds against the northern Barbarians. You might still win, but often with a whole different outcome in numbers lost.

[Grabbin_Megroin]

Sometimes I'll just set my own rules and play within them, because once you reach critical mass in this game, as in any TW game, you've basically won despite the fact that there are still 75+ settlements left to capture. For example, I'll limit elite units in my army to just 2 or 3, I will always attack into an enemy army when I am the attacker (because it's easy to always aggro enemy armies into your defensive position even if they are the defender), I won't take advantage of AI armies doing the thing where they just idle in place while being bombarded by artillery, etc.

For me at least, the game becomes a lot more fun and interesting when limiting myself.

[Achilles Lacedaemon]

Creative Assembly's AI will always disappoint, they dont develop nor invest in it, so forget about making battles challenging.


If you want that kind of experience, try other titles like Field of Glory II or Ultimate General Gettysburg.

[geala]

If you could not win with the Romans who have rather good heavy units, wealth and recruitment potential, it would be strange. In Europa Barbarorum and DeI I mostly played as a Hellenic power and it was similar, hard to lose with core armies.

Try to use another faction. I like the Medewi who are not of the "hairy-face trousered barbarian" type (which I don't like) but are quite often unarmored or use few armor what makes some battles more difficult. Additionally I have the habit later in the game to form only two or three armies from good core troops, the rest of the armies mainly consist of AoR units only. Armies of the AI with good units can beat such armies easier which can create problematic situations regionally, if your empire is far stretched.

[Penegrin]

Thx for all the input. I really want to play this game and no an other one since I love that period and the features the game has. Also I kinda want to play as Rome since it's the most awesome faction

I'll try to limit myself a bit and see how that works. Is the AI in Attila any better or can I expect the same there?

[~Seleukos.I.Nikator~]

You can also try to raise the battle difficulty level to hard. That shouldn't really break the very balance of battles while it will make your opponents a bit more sturdy if not any wiser.

[Swarbs]

Bear in mind that whilst battles are balanced to normal, campaign is balanced (relatively speaking) at all difficulty levels. Playing Rome on N/N is pretty much playing on easy because, as others have noted, Rome is set up to be the dominant military power in the Med.

Changing the campaign difficulty to VH and / or using the Hardcore submod will make a huge difference to battles. Not the battle itself, but the situation going into the battle. Fighting any battles where you have a combined strength of 4,000 is likely to be a win, even against twice that many enemies, simply due to the inability of the AI to concentrate that large a force against a small front.

The fact you manage to raise an army of 4,000 without having first defeated Pyrrhus indicates that campaign difficulty would have a big impact on your army. With a VH Hardcore campaign you will be waiting a loooong time before you can reach that level of army strength. In my experience, it's much harder to defeat an enemy stack of 2,000 when you have only 1,000, and half of those are militia / socii units as you can't afford the top quality units yet. And on a VH Hardcore campaign you are more likely to be fighting not only three times the number of enemy units, but also they will bring their best troops whilst you struggle to recruit (and replenish) a half / half mix of good and average forces.

[waidizss]

Try Data Venia, it doesn't allow for mass routes if one unit indeed routes. Battles are much better, even if AI is still incompetent!

[Penegrin]

Try Data Venia, it doesn't allow for mass routes if one unit indeed routes. Battles are much better, even if AI is still incompetent!

I looked into that Mod but I kinda dislike the 12 tpy and also the huge armies. But I installed DEI Realism and changed the battle diff to hard. Gotta say it's now quite a challenge and my war with Carthage doesn't seem to end any time soon. Massalia became sort of a regional superpower and sucker punched me a few turns ago. I'm not sure if I'll survive it and that's awesome

[meerkatology]

at least play campaign on VH

dei is balanced for normal BATTLE difficulty, not campaign.

you can play any campaign difficulty. play on VH , its actually not that easy. at least pre imperium 5