mike^_^ said:
What are the effects of the difficulty levels?
All I could find was that above normal your soldier population takes losses from war, is this accurate?
What other effects are there?
Soldier population takes more losses in war. On very hard, it is 4 pops dead per KIA (at normal it is 1).
You suffer constant -20% decrease in combat efficiency, both on land and sea. That is not a big deal on plains, but when attacking a forest-mountain province even against opponents not dug in, the -70% becomes -90% - your troops will fight at third strength...
It is even worse at sea. Much, much worse. Only masochists (like me) play on VH. Stacking penalty decreases efficiency of your ships by 2% per any ship above 1. Stacking penalty will lower your efficiency to a minimum of 26% on normal. On Very hard, it will be 20% less... so you end up with 6% efficiency. When UK Grand Fleet will engage you with 200 ships, they will be at 26% efficiency. Your choices will be:
a) Engage them with a huge fleet fighting at 6% efficiency. That means you will need more than 4-to-1 numerical advantage to be even with them...
b) Engage them with smaller fleets (say, 11 ships - fighting at 66% efficiency each). That small fleet will be fired upon by the whole goddamn Royal Navy and get obliterated just like your navy with choice a.
c) Hunt down lone British ships, hoping to grind them down to manageable size... good luck with that!
d) Somehow land on British coast and defeat them on land... give up on the seas.
I think AI pops are more productive and/or yours are less productive.
Your BadBoy will decrease very, very slowly.
