DeI difficulty

[Evuuul]

I'm back to Rome after a few months of intermission and now DeI has released it's final product.
Cheers for that, and thanks to the devoted team!

Now I'm about to start a new game and I want to get your opinions about the difficulties.
What campaign and battle difficulty gives you an exciting and realistic experience, yet challenging?
Are the campaign much harder now with the release of 1.0?
I know that DeI recommends normal on battle difficulty and that the mod is balanced for that.



Also, I've found a video that explains the difficulties. It's really helpful, but those this changes concern DeI aswell?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXLXgDXRSds

[FlashHeart07]

I always play on Normal battle difficulty so I dont mess up the balance between units but my campaign difficulty is usually set to VH. This will give me an extremely hard time in the beginning and slow my progress alot making the game longer and ofc more challenging.
I find that on Hard especially for some of the larger factions is just too easy after a few years.
Also I tend to roleplay to make things even more challenging. In minor cities that produce iron, gold, lead etc cannot have farms something that also puts some stress on me at the beginning.
There are a ton of other rules to put on yourself to minimize your expansion and up the challenge a tiny bit.
Just take note that no matter what an experienced player will at some point get big enough that even though the campaign difficulty is set to VH it will be a piece of cake to win.

[tonedog]

In my current rome campaign im playing VH/N. Early campaign was pretty tough but now ive got few more regions it getting easier.

As total war games always do.

To be fair ive not reached the higher imperiums yet which give diplomatic penalties so im probably gonna have a few more enemies soon.

[KAM 2150]

In my current Roman campaign I have almost 30 cities so far at turn 194. In vanilla or in other mods at this point I would have 1/2 of the map as it always took me pretty much 250-300 turns to conquer entire map.

By the way, with 4 standing armies and almost 30 cities my income is at 11 000. If biggest country on the map, Selecuids, will decleare war on me along with allies, I will propably be able to field 2, maybe 3 more armies, I hope it will be enough ; )

[Bloodsucker]

Very Hard for campaign and Hard for battle is "ok" for me. I guess it is challenging. I am playing as Seleucids (but with the dei name).

[Tariq]

In my current Roman campaign I have almost 30 cities so far at turn 194. In vanilla or in other mods at this point I would have 1/2 of the map as it always took me pretty much 250-300 turns to conquer entire map.

By the way, with 4 standing armies and almost 30 cities my income is at 11 000. If biggest country on the map, Selecuids, will declare war on me along with allies, I will propably be able to field 2, maybe 3 more armies, I hope it will be enough ; )

Don't know on which difficulty you are playing , but i had to redo my Macedonian campaign on VH, since on Hard Seleucids who had hold whole Asia Minor and territories all the way to Hecamptopylos (sp?) fielded only 2 armies and 1 semifleet against after they declared war..As i was conquering their cities i have found almost no improvements in them.Only once i got to Seleukea i have found one army there and few small groups coming from Parthawa areas , nothing else...

This was close to your turn number (roughly) and i intentionally didn't want to dabble into Asia Minor so they can get stronger . Other issue that i had (on hard was ) that Rome got eaten up by Gauls and Syracuse early on and Carthage was getting chewed up by Lusitani in africa and Spain, and i am keep seeing CPU troops walking around with red skulls above their heads(i assume due to lack of money and/or food)...

my understanding is that Mitch's mod is not working with current DEI version , so any suggestions

[Mirozero]

Very Hard for campaign and Hard for battle is "ok" for me.

I find this the best difficulty. It brings you more war (sometimes Total War) in the beginning, AI isnt willing to go into diplomacy with you so easy. And the minor stat boost the AI gets makes it bad tactical () decision evening the odds a little bit.

I tried DeI on Legendary once, needless to say, i didnt get past turn 130~

[Alexandre Lange]

my understanding is that Mitch's mod is not working with current DEI version , so any suggestions

It is, I use Mitch's and it is working fine with Dei.

[VektorT]

Well, I would say to dont trust the vanilla suggestion "VH campaing" much. It mainly depends of wich faction are you choosing. If it is Rome, Seleucid, Cartaghe or any other strong starting position faction, go for Very Hard, there will be no problem if you already are familiar with TW games. But if you choose very tiny factions that not even starts with their region capital and worse if they are landlocked, like Getae, Very Hard difficulty is almost impossible. Since you starts very weak you have no easy expansion targets and almost none of the AI will accept any diplomacy with you to build a friendship and you totally lacks the fund to bribe them, so at some point around turn 30 the AI starts to gang up against you because you will be very weak and an obvious target. It's very stressful and frustrating since you start to realize that at every battle you won you only will be avoiding the inevitable: your utter defeat. With some factions in VH it's more about luck and a good arrangement of events to succed than skills.

So, my tip is: very hard for big factions, hard for mid ones and normal for tiny ones. Keep in mind your geography too: landlocked = worse, dont control capital = worse. And if your tiny, believe me, your first turns decisions in diplomacy are vital.

[Vardano]

Well, I would say to dont trust the vanilla suggestion "VH campaing" much. It mainly depends of wich faction are you choosing. If it is Rome, Seleucid, Cartaghe or any other strong starting position faction, go for Very Hard, there will be no problem if you already are familiar with TW games. But if you choose very tiny factions that not even starts with their region capital and worse if they are landlocked, like Getae, Very Hard difficulty is almost impossible. Since you starts very weak you have no easy expansion targets and almost none of the AI will accept any diplomacy with you to build a friendship and you totally lacks the fund to bribe them, so at some point around turn 30 the AI starts to gang up against you because you will be very weak and an obvious target. It's very stressful and frustrating since you start to realize that at every battle you won you only will be avoiding the inevitable: your utter defeat. With some factions in VH it's more about luck and a good arrangement of events to succed than skills.

So, my tip is: very hard for big factions, hard for mid ones and normal for tiny ones. Keep in mind your geography too: landlocked = worse, dont control capital = worse. And if your tiny, believe me, your first turns decisions in diplomacy are vital.

I did couple of DEI campaigns on Legendary, but now I'm having incredibly hard time on VH/N with Battle Realism on. I play as Massalia and I just can't expand more than one region. This is definitely a challenge.

[tigger_t]

Hard/hard seems like an overall good setting. Of course I only play the mini- campaigns (CiG, WOS) so the grand campaign might be to easy or hard depending on who you play

[Daergar]

Up to turn 124 in my latest hard/normal Romani campaign. I consider myself good enough to know which end of the sword is pointy and how to stick it into the hairy barbarian properly.

Barely any challenge, controlling the west third of the map and in complete research and turtle mode for a bit.

Definately recommend going very hard for the campaign, as suggested previously. Everyone and their mother is afraid of starting a conflict with you once you grab some land and get trade agreements and NAPs.

[VektorT]

Up to turn 124 in my latest hard/normal Romani campaign. I consider myself good enough to know which end of the sword is pointy and how to stick it into the hairy barbarian properly.

Barely any challenge, controlling the west third of the map and in complete research and turtle mode for a bit.

Definately recommend going very hard for the campaign, as suggested previously. Everyone and their mother is afraid of starting a conflict with you once you grab some land and get trade agreements and NAPs.

That's my fear of lowering the difficulty... with Getae, Very Hard is impossible, but I'm afraid that by lowering it, when I finally grow a little bit things starts to be too easy.

[IamOdysseus]

I did couple of DEI campaigns on Legendary, but now I'm having incredibly hard time on VH/N with Battle Realism on. I play as Massalia and I just can't expand more than one region. This is definitely a challenge.

Massalia is really challenging at the beginning and the starting position (surrounded by gauls) makes it harder.

[ablebodie]

It really does vary based off who you're playing as - Arche Bosporus is listed as having a Hard starting position, but if you combine deft diplomacy with aggressive military action to the southeast in the first 20 turns, you can stave off fighting horse nomads until after Thureos reforms, and own two entire provinces by turn 30. I've done exactly this on VH/N, and it only gets easier from there. The difference is they're a faction with one of the strongest starting positions in terms of raw income in the game, outside of the big factions like the Diadochi, Rome, Carthage, etc.

Getae, as mentioned above, is extremely difficult to play on VH campaign difficulty - without aggressive movement to the south, you risk fighting horse nomads way too early and get wiped out, assuming you can even leave your home province. Even then, you're hemmed in by unfriendly powers as strong/stronger than you in every direction. Same with Galatia, same with Lusitani, same with Odrysian Kingdom. Even the Arche Bosporus strategy mentioned above can put you at odds with Armenia early in the game, which risks involvement with the Seleucid satrapy spiderweb.

I think for single-settlement factions, H/N is generally going to be the most fair option for the early game - otherwise most players won't make it past one or two settlements. I wish there were a way to change campaign difficulty midgame - converting to VH/N upon acquiring, say, one entire province, would be much preferable than being stuck in a less challenging campaign for 250 turns.

[loony]

I play Sparta VH/N.
Must say it is tense, and a lot of fun, due to financial, recruitment difficulties battles are very important.

I lost 2 first attempts before turn 20.
Now, i think I am surviving.

[Fedual]

Legendary all the time, but i have edited the dei and vanilla packs to make latifundrium (lvl 4 farm for Rome) give 18 (up from 15) in food, and i have made all technologies research in just 2 turns/tech

[=ANTiKES=]

well, like fedual above, I play as well always on legendary.

About campaign AI:
I'm new to DeI but always as athens and so far the campaign AI does exactly the same like in vanilla. Like once my explorer reached knossos sparta will suddenly become allies with them. This was pissing me off already in vanilla GC due to the fact that they do not become allies with knossos if I (as athens) do not discover them. They always ally with egypt as well as long as I don't or can't do that...

About battles:
It seems like a frontal 1v1 takes slightly longer now but with the difference that better units take significantly less casualties. I was attacking a settlement with only hoplites & blocked the entrance path with hoplite phalanx what caused a fairly slow but obvious death for my barbarian opponent who had mostly only trash units. They had about 4000 more units while I lost only about 700-800 of my 20 stack army. Ended up as a herioc victory.

As far as I can say/feel the difficutly hasn't much changed and therefore would just try the same difficulty as in vanilla!

[Dresden]

If you are new to DeI I recommend Normal/Normal on the first playthrough to get a handle on all the new game systems (especially if you are playing a smaller faction). Larger factions you may want to try Hard campaign.

[Tariq]

If you are new to DeI I recommend Normal/Normal on the first playthrough to get a handle on all the new game systems (especially if you are playing a smaller faction). Larger factions you may want to try Hard campaign.

Dresden , here is the problem with Hard (and Normal) campaigns. AI appears to be filling towns and capitals with predominantly military buildings(baracks, temples with military boost, workshops, drydocks,military training buildings) aand that leaves them with no space for food, economy and/or happiness buildings, leading to AI starving or going bankrupt by the mid 100's turns at latest...I was watching Armenians having attrition for several years , even though they had 6 regions in 2 full provinces...and after i conquer them there was no other type of buildings with exception on maybe 1 in all 6 towns.

Same with Seleucids..all ports were drydocks except one and whole territory from Asia Minor to Baktria had same buildings..similar situation was in North (from Greece to Danemark)

I am yet to completely play VH campaign, but based on what i have seen so far, campaign is not quite balanced at this time and AI is killing himself on Normal and Hard.

Please , this is not criticsm , but just mere observation of my expirience..i do like your work and what you did with R2 game , which was unplayable for me