I want to make the campaign REALLLY difficult. Self imposed restriction ideas?

[cheesefacemcgee]

This is a continuation of another post. The hardest mode is still too easy. I have tried playing as Danes and Scotland and gone "full pagan" and tried winning while staying very primitive, not upgrading, using only primitive "tribal" units (Vikings, Huscarls, Highland Nobles, Highlanders, Rabble), no cavalry, no advance armor, not even archers, just giant tribal infantry hordes, with a Generals bodyguard as the only cavalry, no advanced settlements (no advanced farms, ports, buildings etc),

no ceasefires, no alliances, destroy all religious buildings, and even tried roleplaying as being a "raider" pagan faction, retaining the homeland of Scandinavia but just raiding, sacking and burning the buildings for plunder and on to the next, never holding any settlements, just scorched earth and holding my original homeland and see how far I got.

I survived the whole game, against everyone, even with all the restrictions I mentioned. Even when Timurids showed up, they were tougher, but I would still raid their coastal settelments and take and burn them for money. They invaded Arhus, and I beat their advanced Timurid army with a bunch of seasoned Huscarls and Vikings and a couple Generals bodyguard in a simple first level Castle.

I also tried a civil war function where, if no direct male heir to the throne is present when king dies, a "civil war" happens (delete half of all your forces, half of your generals get executed by sending them in suicide charges against enemies) and continue with the new king and his dynasty until/if it happens again. That seems to be the only thing that really makes the game HARD. What about you guys? I'm looking for ideas. Thanks

[Gigantus]

Have you tried other mods? And applied those restrictions?

[cheesefacemcgee]

I've only ever played vanilla. Never played mods for M2TW. I'm sure there are some mods that turn up the heat and make the AI not such pushovers. But at this point, other than the "civil war" self restriction making it hard to maintain my armies, I'm running out of ideas that make sense in vanilla. Do you have any restrictions that you make for yourself? Also, what mods are out there that you think turn vanilla into impossible levels of hard?

[Gigantus]

Most of the large mods have a modified AI setup that might make it more challenging. And then there is Byg's Grim Reality add on (sub mod) that puts some uncommon twists into the game.

Personally my house rules are the other way round - do not declare war (no attacking neutral factions), accept all ceasefires. You'll be amazed how inventive you get if you want to goad a faction into declaring war on you.

[alhoon]

I've only ever played vanilla. Never played mods for M2TW. I'm sure there are some mods that turn up the heat and make the AI not such pushovers. But at this point, other than the "civil war" self restriction making it hard to maintain my armies, I'm running out of ideas that make sense in vanilla. Do you have any restrictions that you make for yourself? Also, what mods are out there that you think turn vanilla into impossible levels of hard?

I would honestly not try to restrict myself out of the best units or cripple my economy. What I believe is good for the challenge is... to have 10-unit armies. Limit yourself to 10-unit armies and all battles will be more challenging. Alternatively, you could try playing with the "one settlement" rule. I.e. at any point in the game you control only one settlement. The moment you conquer a different settlement, you gift away your next one to a faction of your choice.
Want to defeat the HRE? Do it one settlement at a time, while you give their regions to France.

You can RP that as a kind of vassal of the king of ??? that conquers regions for the motherland. Or a mercenary that conquers lands with his roving band and sells them to the highest bidder.

[cheesefacemcgee]

Most of the large mods have a modified AI setup that might make it more challenging. And then there is Byg's Grim Reality add on (sub mod) that puts some uncommon twists into the game.

Personally my house rules are the other way round - do not declare war (no attacking neutral factions), accept all ceasefires. You'll be amazed how inventive you get if you want to goad a faction into declaring war on you.

Interesting. I actually started Denmark campaign, with the rules I described, and I also avoided initiating any wars, and just focusing on attacking rebel settlements to consolidate Scandinavia and build up my economy. The first faction to attack me was England and then I scorched their whole island with a raiding army and that began the domino effect of HRE, and then Poland declaring war etc. So I do not think avoiding declaring war is a challenge, since given enough turns, someone is going to attack you anyway. Accepting all ceasefires, if anything, makes it easier because it relieves pressure on your armies. Its far harder to refuse all ceasefires (unless the faction pays tribute with it)

I did that, and only got two ceasefires with tribute out of the many that came my way throughout the game. Eventually, the factions just don't want to offer tribute and its just eternal war with everyone unless you agree to a no condition ceasefire with them. I don't understand why its hard to get a faction to attack you. Its literally the easiest thing in the world. Just hang around long enough, have mutual borders, move a ship next to theirs a little too long. Even if you try to leave people alone, eventually a handful of the nearest ones will gun for you.

I get the impression that you think the "difficulty" of this would be that you cannot expand very much or for long periods. But actually, the scenario where nobody attacks you and then consistently offers ceasefires (despite you eventually inevitably getting an Abysmal reputation with them) just doesn't happen in this game very often.

And to be clear, I don't end up taking over the world with my self restrictions. But I do end holding my own against all of Europe, despite handicaps, ignoring the Pope and just getting excommunicated etc. Who knew this game was so very survivable, despite being hard mode and having a million self imposed handicaps. It says alot for the devs being overly soft on players

[Dismounted Feudal Knight]

Difficulty has always been, well, difficult for TW to handle, and from a design perspective the answer has been to have lopsided number stacking and volume and in the case of army creation literally tying a hand behind your back and limiting potential forces, never more nuanced strategic differences. Med 2 comes before this went on rails so it comes off as one of the easiest games by default. There are mods that approach the matter differently, some more subtle and some more in your face (a magic full stack in the settlement while sieging! I try to avoid those). On top of scripting these larger projects are backed by modding projects such as Skynet AI, Savage AI various others. bitterhowl somewhere in the med 2 area has been steadily working at revising how the ai behaves on the battlefield in a more vanilla context. These efforts are the future of the game offering something to bite into. As far as house rules I mentioned some of what I do in another thread, but it gets a bit convoluted quickly as there's only so many ways to gimp yourself before you're straight up not playing parts of the game.

[Jurand of Cracow]

Two ideas:
- use home rules as described here: https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...e-deficiencies
- play SSHIP . If you're interested in differences with BGR, see here: https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...-BGR-for-SSHIP
JoC

[kevincompton]

The fact you have to hobble yourself for it to be fun is pretty lame IMO. I've played plenty of other 4X games, including total war games, that are truly hard. I'm not about to follow "house rules" to play this one. Proper modding should make this game harder if not they owe us a new version. What I will say though, is that in just about every 4X game it matters which faction you start as. I almost always choose the weaker positioned smaller factions. This won't always fix mid to late gameplay but at least there's a challenge in surviving at the start.

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

As stated above the Stainless Steel mods mentioned crank the obstacles and slow construction times into the stratosphere. I admire your patience and dedication. My patience is short by comparison. Even though I don't want to go to war without top of the line units (armored up), my campaigns need to be in full gear (huge Cities/Castles) by turn 40 or so. To that end I found a mod that embraces vanilla mtw II with historical landmarks and other nice tweaks...


..Total Vanilla beyond 3.7..


This spans from Mexico in the west to Karakorum (Mongols) in the east. That's a lot of space to "House Rules" in. I can truly say that the distinct factions do play differently.

[kevincompton]

The open map to the new world was an odd choice to say the least, it would be a deal break for me if it weren't one of the few mods that work for mac. Question though, did they fix the passive AI bug for the steam version in this? Or any other AI improvements?

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

The open map to the new world was an odd choice to say the least, it would be a deal break for me if it weren't one of the few mods that work for mac. Question though, did they fix the passive AI bug for the steam version in this? Or any other AI improvements?

Ahhh...well... I play campaign hard, battle hard and like to Turtle, so I couldn't say how Van 3.7 responds on VH/VH. I can however vouch for the fact that with Stainless Steel using the Gracul AI, you've got about 20-25 turns
before the AI throws the kitchen sink at you.