What are general tips for playing on hardest difficulty?

[Jim Boatley]

This is my preferred difficulty to play, as I like not being able to pause the game and the challenge makes victories feel that much more satisfying to accomplish. I do however have issues with how Im meant to deal with the titanic armies that my enemies field. Like its insane how many troops they can have

[Defmonkey]

I typically play normal but i have played and beaten campaign on legendary also.

That said the initial rush and the AI being able to recruit armies very quickly can be very intimidating. I had two maxed out armies that were raiding my territories by turn 9.

I think the process really don't change all that much campaign wise. I was using the same strategy for both difficulties. Don't make too many enemies and expand with care and deal with one faction at a time.

As for battles i just don't enjoy the stat cheats the AI gets as i find it just a grind fest so i prefer it at normal levels (just hoping that the AI ability is improved with sliders officially at some point), you will probably end up auto-resolving a lot of it once you get enough armies going as it can become insufferable long term on highest battle difficulty. Though do remember that chariots balance of power is terrible for auto resolve.

[Klutch]

Ideally, you want to min/max your first 15-20 turns, just keep starting over and making it a little better each time.

[Kendji]

Libu: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1937780/discussions/0/4200238856302274695/
Sea Peoples: I have two AAR's on this, but in a nutshell; Build forts on the coasts, so that the garrison size is 18-25-ish. I stack the forts with tier one units. Sometimes that is enough to 'funnel' the SP in-land. I always try to have a full-stack within a few turns from the danger zone. Then attack the sea peoples as aggresivly as possible, taking advantage of forts/garrisons if possible.

This ties up a big part of your force. So maxing out your economy is critical to maintain an offensive force.

There will be large amounts of stacks thrown at you, so you need to be ok to also lose some battles or settlements. Having a plan to recover is important. Say having surplus so you can turn to trade can be good backup for losing economic settlements til you rebuild.

@Defmonkey: there are mods that removes those stat cheats but keeps the smarter AI from the increased difficulty

[Tr4cker0]

It depends what house rules you give to you if you allow everything then many cheeses can be done to make legendary campaign ez but i personnaly never used cheese as i play with many house rules. Like :
-Manual battles only when announced looser
-No corner camping
-No trading settlement
-No asking gold or opinion for joining war
-No ambush
-No lightning strike
-No item swap before battles
-No doom stacks
-No bretray allies
-Not farming rebelions or sacking settlement
etc...

If you use all cheeses aboves your legendary campaign will be ez as hell

But if you want just some strategy advice whithout cheesing
-Play small, expand slowly, fight one weak ruler at time
-Trade your stockpile with food in order to field more armies
-Make non agression pact with stronger rulers
-Don't choose a bad legacy like monument builder or princes one
-Try to not expand too much on the coast as sea people will swarm you
-Adapt your army with who and where you will fight
-Don't invest too much in military building until you are rich. When you have 3-4 provinces you can start to specialise one of your province into unit recruitment boost and military building.
-Don't make alliances but only make non agression pact and passage access
-Try to become pharaoh or king only when you have a big gap of legitmacy and are ready to win the civil war.

[Jim Boatley]

Originally posted by Tr4cker0:

It depends what house rules you give to you if you allow everything then many cheeses can be done to make legendary campaign ez but i personnaly never used cheese as i play with many house rules. Like :
-Manual battles only when announced looser
-No corner camping
-No trading settlement
-No asking gold or opinion for joining war
-No ambush
-No lightning strike
-No item swap before battles
-No doom stacks
-No bretray allies
-Not farming rebelions or sacking settlement
etc...

If you use all cheeses aboves your legendary campaign will be ez as hell

But if you want just some strategy advice whithout cheesing
-Play small, expand slowly, fight one weak ruler at time
-Trade your stockpile with food in order to field more armies
-Make non agression pact with stronger rulers
-Don't choose a bad legacy like monument builder or princes one
-Try to not expand too much on the coast as sea people will swarm you
-Adapt your army with who and where you will fight
-Don't invest too much in military building until you are rich. When you have 3-4 provinces you can start to specialise one of your province into unit recruitment boost and military building.
-Don't make alliances but only make non agression pact and passage access
-Try to become pharaoh or king only when you have a big gap of legitmacy and are ready to win the civil war.

I’ve never gotten far enough to do anything with the legacies yet, but why is monument builder bad?

[Iskar]

It's not, it just isn't convenient for all starting positions. E.g. it works well for Seti and Tausret, but not so much for Ramesses and Amenmesse, as they need to conquer vast strips of land before being able to start construction of any monument.

[Tr4cker0]

Originally posted by slime:

Originally posted by Tr4cker0:

It depends what house rules you give to you if you allow everything then many cheeses can be done to make legendary campaign ez but i personnaly never used cheese as i play with many house rules. Like :
-Manual battles only when announced looser
-No corner camping
-No trading settlement
-No asking gold or opinion for joining war
-No ambush
-No lightning strike
-No item swap before battles
-No doom stacks
-No bretray allies
-Not farming rebelions or sacking settlement
etc...

If you use all cheeses aboves your legendary campaign will be ez as hell

But if you want just some strategy advice whithout cheesing
-Play small, expand slowly, fight one weak ruler at time
-Trade your stockpile with food in order to field more armies
-Make non agression pact with stronger rulers
-Don't choose a bad legacy like monument builder or princes one
-Try to not expand too much on the coast as sea people will swarm you
-Adapt your army with who and where you will fight
-Don't invest too much in military building until you are rich. When you have 3-4 provinces you can start to specialise one of your province into unit recruitment boost and military building.
-Don't make alliances but only make non agression pact and passage access
-Try to become pharaoh or king only when you have a big gap of legitmacy and are ready to win the civil war.

I’ve never gotten far enough to do anything with the legacies yet, but why is monument builder bad?

It's bad since countrary to other legacy you haven't buff from start but only in late game when you've already almost win and or are big enough to don't care of Legacy buffs.
But as Iskar said it, some starting position can take advantage of it earlier but imo even with Tausret or Seti monument builder is still the worse Legacy of all as it doesn't help you to snowball and building monument take a longtime + many ressource that should be better invested in something else but pick it if you have fun with it or want to try it just know that it's an extra challenge ;)
If you are setti go for Monogod Legacy as you're the closest character of the Sacred settlement needed to make it worth. As Tausret i would recommand you to take the Trading legacy since she can stockpile many ressource and sell them on marcket node can make you even more rich whithout fighting and expanding so much
BTW if you pick the trader legacy i recommand you to make trades with the closests marcket node since you will be abble to make profit faster and use it to snowball in early game which is the hardest part, then in mid-late game if you did good you may have bridged the gap between you and Ai cheats.