Challenging but realistic play options?

[unmerged(8313)]

The difficulty settings make the game harder, but less realistiic. I can do well on the hardest setting, but at the price of routinely losing battles in which I outnumber the enemy 2:1, even 3:1. The second hardest setting offers a happier medium -- you can't expect to run roughshod over computer opponents, and you know you'll lose some battles, but not unrealistically so. But this setting allows regular dominance over the computer -- it might take time, but you are guaranteed to win wars without giant setbacks.

So I'm thinking the most realistic game might be on Hard with some house rules. Here are ones I've played with:

No building armies larger than you can support.

No deliberate bankruptcy.

No taking peace from computer unless it is a peace you'd accept if you were playing that country.

No getting BB below Tarnished. IF it slips below that, must avoid all BB until it is restored.

AI Aggression -- it needs to be set at normal to avoid unrealistically huge AI empires (gobbling all the HRE, e.g.). Does this make it to easy to play though? I'd like to see the AI coming after me with coalitions when I'm too strong -- is there any happy medium between this and the ridiculous BB wars of the hardest difficulty.


What I'd love is to be able to play a major power and find that I really have to fight to get ahead... something where when I declare war I don't feel that I WILL win my objectives with certainty before the war ends. I want the satisfaction of detroying the AI in revenge for it beating me around!!

Any suggestions?

 

[Vynd]

I agree that one of the disappointing aspects of the game is that the computer can't seem to compete against an experienced human player. Still, this is a common problem in all sorts of strategy games. Furthermore, since the countries reflect their historical strengths, a country that did well in real life ought to do extremely well if run by a human player. You can limit yourself, certainly, but I don't really see much difference between playing within self-imposed limits or playing on the highest difficulty setting and watching the AI countries get huge advantages. They're just different sorts of handicaps.

If you want a really challenging game, I think you'll have to accept the fact that you won't find it with any of the historically great European powers. They can still be fun to play, of course, because of all the events and because the game is just fun period! Still for more of a challenge I think your best bet would be to try a non-European country; a smaller European country like Prussia or, heck I dunno, Pskov; or maybe a larger country that suffers from highly unpleasant events like China, the Timurids, or Poland (if they fix the Poland events).

 

[Vormaerin]

Btw, the difficulty factors don't affect the combat results, IIRC. The AI gets resource advantages, various tasks like merchants and colonists are harder, etc. Combat isn't one of them, though. If you are losing battles, thats just because the game has a very high random factor in the early goings when all the armies are fairly poor.

Aloha
Vormaerin

 

[unmerged(8313)]

My impression on the hardest level was that player morale dropped very quickly in battles. So I guess AI was the same, casulties were the same, but it seemmed my armies retreated at the drop of a hat. Anybody have similar experience?

Is there anywhere that lays out exactly what the effects of the various levels of difficulty are?

Vaecvictis

 

[unmerged(5459)]

What terrain were you fighting on? Defending armies have advantages in mountains, etc.
And if you fight Shia countries, they have a morale bonus which is important early in the game.
And were you fighting enemy leaders (i.e. generals with good stats)?

 

[unmerged(8313)]

20,000 man Turkish army attacking Hellas in 1419 -- clear terrain, no named enemy leader. Seemed there were many such examples.

 

[unmerged(3921)]

If you REALLY want a realistic and hard difficulty setting, there is already one readily available. It's called, "Play without using the Pause key"!

Playing without using the Pause key is a great way to simulate the actual time delay that occurred between events that happened in the field and the reception of such information by the monarch. Moreover playing w/o the Pause key is a terrific way to simulate the difficulty monarchs in this time period had of controlling larger empires (the bigger the empire the more the "no pause" restriction hurts your effectiveness).

Think conquering the world is easy? Try doing it without using the pause key! Muhahahaha.....

 

[Idiotboy]

Actually keeping a low BB-score is a way to make things simpler while playing more historical. Read the Danish AAR that is on and see what trouble you get in when you play to aggressively.

 

[unmerged(5626)]

I have a solution. Give all your province (excepting, of course, your capitol) to your enemy. Then switch your enemy's ai to napoleon ai. This will make it hard enough

 

[celedhring]

Originally posted by MacroEconomics
If you REALLY want a realistic and hard difficulty setting, there is already one readily available. It's called, "Play without using the Pause key"!

Playing without using the Pause key is a great way to simulate the actual time delay that occurred between events that happened in the field and the reception of such information by the monarch. Moreover playing w/o the Pause key is a terrific way to simulate the difficulty monarchs in this time period had of controlling larger empires (the bigger the empire the more the "no pause" restriction hurts your effectiveness).

Think conquering the world is easy? Try doing it without using the pause key! Muhahahaha.....

I only discovered that you could pause the game and still give orders after I already conquered the world twice

That was EU1, of course

 

[Johan]

Difficulty does not affect battles at all.

 

[unmerged(8313)]

Thanks for the info about the difficulty and battles.

Playing without the pause key for realistic difficulty sounds great -- what speed do you find best for this?

 

[Vinraith]

Actually, since I started playing on Vhar/Agressive in 1.04 I haven't found any need to impose artificial restrictions on my activity, the game's plenty challenging by itself.

I do still avoid anything I consider an actual exploit, and to a degree I still try to role play the nation I'm controlling, but beyond that nothing seems to be needed...

 

[celedhring]

Originally posted by Vaevictis
Thanks for the info about the difficulty and battles.

Playing without the pause key for realistic difficulty sounds great -- what speed do you find best for this?

I used to play with 1 minute per month minimum, although you could consider 1 minute/2 months, my "cruising speed". Of course, I speeded it up during boring periods.

 

[chegitz guevara]

I have found the game much tougher, especially when the BB wars kick in. As the Ottomans, I found myself in deep sh*t when half of Europe went to war with me, while I was at war with half the Muslim world at the same time. I had to basically surrender to Hungary and Venice and pay off Genoa just so I could complete my conquest of Armenia and Trebizond.

Same thing happened to me as Burgundy, when the HRE declared war on me while I was fighting off an attack by Savoy and Helvetia.

 

[unmerged(2826)]

I have an idea, try to convert the world to Buddhism as Tibet, that'll keep you busy...

 

[Aetius]

Try a pure colonial approach. No provinces that have a culture different from your state cultures.