AI hard cheating

[soynegro]

Hello guys I´ve recently acquired Rome II and downloaded this mod. People in here said that Normal gets boring after a while. Well playing as Rome, I find myself imposible to do something in hard, every time I get crushed by armies that every single time outnumber me, no matter what I do.

I take at least 30 turns to gear my economy up without wars and armies, so I earn about 5000 per turn. Then I create a great army until I get low income but not negative and then go to war and even thus I get battered each time and they are able with only 1 or 2 settlements to field more troops than me because of they being able to sustain that amount of troops.

I´m doing something wrong?

Or this game is stupid as hell and relies again on heavy cheating.

[CristoTheVicious]

I'm playing with AI paying only 50% recruitment and upkeep and I have double the army cap , it's still too easy. You're a new player, so that's why You are finding this as "cheating", but AI needs more money and other bonuses. My suggestion is, play on normal/normal, once that is too easy, switch to very hard/normal.

[Dresden]

If you are new to DeI, it is a very different and more challenging/complex experience than vanilla Rome 2. It may not be the best way to start out for the first game.

We have manuals and other user feedback here to help with the various new systems. You might want to try Normal for your first playthrough also. What you refer to as "AI cheating" is a part of every total war game in terms of difficulty levels. It is just how it is. We have taken steps in this mod to add more difficulty and complexity for the player outside of the normal AI buff route from the base game. However, there will always be bonuses for the AI, especially at higher difficulties, because 1) that is what difficulty does in the game, changes various bonuses and 2) The AI requires some bonuses to compete.

[Dresden]

I'm playing with AI paying only 50% recruitment and upkeep and I have double the army cap , it's still too easy. You're a new player, so that's why You are finding this as "cheating", but AI needs more money and other bonuses. My suggestion is, play on normal/normal, once that is too easy, switch to very hard/normal.

Have you tried the hardcore submod?

[Tariq]

Have you tried the hardcore submod?

I am playing with Hardcore mod , and while it slows you down quite a bit (good) and limits you somewhat (good also) it still doesn't address main issue that i have, which is no one of factions that are rivals declares war to me past turn 50+. Example, I have Seleucids hating my guts at -123 and they are not doing anything to me ,i am Ariadei(sp?) on VH, and yet Aorsi that i have -11 due to cultural aversion(and +3 for having trade with their ally) and have no contact or link to them, nor they are anywhere near me are keep declaring war for no reason.I had same issue with my Lusitani, Macedon and Carthage campaigns, on different difficulties.

Being able to pick and chose your wars without worrying that someone will declare war is making game rather very easy, even with your mod, to the point that i have gave up on all of those campaigns.

Not sure what to do about it, maybe changing Millitary Aggressiveness in Faction tables can make them more active instead of reactive against human player, and that's all i need.

[ptagi]

You can try to declare war to every faction the minute you encounter them. That will give you a challenge for sure. I'm currently 500+ turns in and I'm enjoying it. I've added another difficulty in the gameplay in the sense that i play every battle manually. So no autoresolving. Makes certain battles really tedious.

[ptagi]

Hello guys I´ve recently acquired Rome II and downloaded this mod. People in here said that Normal gets boring after a while. Well playing as Rome, I find myself imposible to do something in hard, every time I get crushed by armies that every single time outnumber me, no matter what I do.

I take at least 30 turns to gear my economy up without wars and armies, so I earn about 5000 per turn. Then I create a great army until I get low income but not negative and then go to war and even thus I get battered each time and they are able with only 1 or 2 settlements to field more troops than me because of they being able to sustain that amount of troops.

I´m doing something wrong?

Or this game is stupid as hell and relies again on heavy cheating.

I guess you have the most difficulties during the battles. These can sometimes be very overwhelming. As Rome you can hold the line with hastati and principes, although hastati will suffer more casualties. Velites or the crossbows from Magna Gracia are very handy. The Aux horses (Hippies) from Syracuse (if you can occupy it and build an aux camp in it) are better then the equites you have from Italy. The Socii Equites Extraordinarii are on par with the Hippies. A good camillian army which I mostly build to start with consist of 4 hastati, 4 principes, 2 triarii, 2 socii equites or hippies, 1 roarii, 1 hoplites. The general I always take it as horses. The hastati, principes and triarii can be divided into the regulars and the socii, but that's all up to you.

With this army you should be able to conquer Cisalpina, illyria, iberia (Spain). The polybian version is mostly the same except i loose the roarii and the hoplites and I mostly change the velites into the crossbows from magna gracia (the best ranged if you ask me, much better then the gaul longbow hunters, iberian slingers or cretan archers).

To conquer Gaul you best wait till you have experienced polybian armies or legionairies. Barbarian Gaul seems to have the tendency to rush into your line and legionairies can hold themselves very well and even break large armies by just standing still.

Tactic wise I mostly go for a line formation with velites in front and the spears (hoplites and triarii) at the sides to counter enemy horses. When the enemy has committed all his infantry (or most of them) I move my velites and horses around, mob up the enemy ranged with the horses and rain death with the velites in the backs. Most of the times this is enough to break the enemy. If you can catch the barbarian general end kill him, the rest of the army (no matter how big it is) will crumble in seconds giving you decisive/heroic victories all over the place.

You may add me as friend on steam, maybe we can arrange something together and we can change information and tips.

[Dresden]

Even with the military aggression turned up in the hardcore mod a smart and experienced player will still be able to game the system a bit. That is why we are exploring other options to increase mid-late game difficulty as being discussed here - http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...nge-discussion

[zonks40]

Hello guys I´ve recently acquired Rome II and downloaded this mod. People in here said that Normal gets boring after a while. Well playing as Rome, I find myself imposible to do something in hard, every time I get crushed by armies that every single time outnumber me, no matter what I do.

I take at least 30 turns to gear my economy up without wars and armies, so I earn about 5000 per turn. Then I create a great army until I get low income but not negative and then go to war and even thus I get battered each time and they are able with only 1 or 2 settlements to field more troops than me because of they being able to sustain that amount of troops.

I´m doing something wrong?

Or this game is stupid as hell and relies again on heavy cheating.

If you are finding it difficult on Hard level, go into the game options and change the battles to normal, that way you get hard campaign / normal battles, DEI is optimised for Normal battles.

[FlashHeart07]

The AI cannot sustain itself without bonuses to food and income. These values can be lowered I believe through the db files.
As zonks40 suggested, lower the battle difficulty and fight every battle yourself to minimize casualties. Then even though the AI can field a few armies more than you, its possible to beat them if you play the game correctly.

[Kjertesvein]

To be fair, the player also gains lots of bonus' during the game from technology, events and so forth that the A.I. doesn't. ^^

~Wille

[soynegro]

Well guys, thanks for your answers. I´ll try with normal, because I´ve failed 4 times in a row... that means something

[antred]

As Rome, I find that it helps not to want too much too soon. For the first 30 year or so, I don't do much at all except build up my economy, try to get trade agreements and maybe a defensive alliance or two and research economy techs. I try to keep good relations with my immediate neighbors and post small to medium-sized armies on my borders. Don't have too large an army / navy, though. Early on, you can really only afford 1 full-sized campaign army ... the other legions are basically just backup for your garrison forces.

Essentially I'm just biding my time until my economy and my diplomatic standing is solid enough to go and bite off a region or two from one of my neighbors who was foolish enough to attack either me or my ally. If I don't outright annex all of his regions, I'll turn him into a client state. Repeat this a few times, and you'll gradually grow more powerful with enough alliances to think about taking on some of your bigger rivals and really get aggressive.

In one word, patience!

[JCB206]

Not sure how it would work with Rome, but I use a lot of militia units. This is how all armies were formed in this time period anyway, so you get a bit more realistic. While quality troops are very important, they are very expensive in the early game. The gods favor the faction with the largest battalions. Easier to not get flanked with more units. Keep a hardcore core of professional troops (4-6) with each army but the rest are militia. This helps until your powerful enough to create a true regular army. 50 peasants call kill a knight. Attack with 2-3 stacks of weaker armies and you will conquer vs 1 stack of good units. Also, never play on anything but normal battle difficulty unless you want to fight super troops. I play VH campaign with normal battles.