How is everyone's difficulty experience?

[Mrtotot]

So i'm brand new to the title, and I opted to try the Sea people for my first play through. i picked up the Peleset who have a hard starting difficulty. I also started with the campaign and battle difficulty on hard. I wouldn't say it's been too easy of an experience so far, but definitely not difficult.

Dealing with resources is easy, I steal everything I need

I focused on my labor force and army replenishment initially, as a result I build everything I want and going on the warpath is inconsequential.

Combat due to the time period, is very simple, which makes it easy to manipulate wins unless the odds are terribly against me.

The Sea people seem to have a 1 on 1 mechanic, where prior to battle you can duel an enemy general, they almost always lose which weakens the enemy force or saves me from being attacked as the army always retreats upon losing. So getting interrupted while trying to build or recruit basically doesn't happen.

Due to building chains, my recruits come into existence somewhere in silver rank.

I'm about 4 years in and I feel kind of untouchable, how is everyone else doing?

[Defmonkey]

Varies from campaign to campaign.

Sea peoples are easier than other factions, though peleset is the harder of the two. The Sherden is super easy. That said it takes some time to adjust, ive lost on turn 3 on normal difficulty with peleset before.

Other factions can be much more difficult to start. Try Bay for example (one of my favorites).... you wont be getting all those easy goodies the sea peoples get.

[Kendji]

Insane, at my most difficult loadout I lost maybe 8/10 campaigns. Some by going bankrupt by turn 40. Now though, got sick of it and I would say the current loadout is 'difficult', I win maybe 2/3 of my campaigns. Lose enough to sweaten every win.
In original twp when I played legendary last I won maybe 3/4 of my campaigns, though in comparrison, legendary still feels easy, it really hard in the beginning, once you snowball the AI can't stop you. Though with mods and settings you can have long term difficulty.

To do this I use campaign settings and mods. Like there is option you could try to spice things up. Not everyone likes that though, some like it chill.

In my current game as Merneptah faction, I've lost the Pharaoship and Amenmesse is over 60 settlement strong and I'm less ghan half. Turn is 135-140.

[Lenny_Froggins]

Sounds like you have the mind to be an effective battlefield commander. At that point, you're right that unless the odds are very much against you, it's hard to lose. Especially if you've been playing TW for 20+ years like me lol. Even on Veteran/Veteran difficulty.

My current campaign, turn 93, I have locked down Egypt so hard that I have several devoted, powerful vassals that couldnt possibly get enough Legitimacy at home to challenge me for civil war. So I have a literal horde of ~20 full AI armies that crushes everything in its path and I have my lands fully garrisoned with Rank 9 troops and enough food income leftover to stoke my vassals with the excess and keep 100k in the bank. Gonna see if I can make the whole map owned by my vassals by turn 150, and by then one of them may be able to make enough legitimacy to start a Civil War which I will quickly win with my home guard armies of Elite Rank 9 troops.

I dont know if the game could possibly ramp up the Collapse Mechanics enough to stop me! My first time this far in a camp. :)

I'm working on a fully lethality-roll based battle mod right now and the goal is to make it so that the AI doesnt get cheesy advantages, but it's actually difficult to win a battle with a badly composed or low-tier arm. Ive already had quite a few invader-vs-garrison battles that came down to the wire and a couple I even lost. Gonna call it Killing Blow, keep an eye out.

@Kendji In my Merneptah game I am playing right now (above), the trick was to rush as many slinger armies out to the ruins as fast as I could, ignoring tresspass (ill bribe it back later). Then I focused on building max Legitimacy with Khufu Legacy and there was never a point any Egyptian faction could declare a civil war. I wonder how hard it would be if I hadnt max-cheesed the start like that.

[pyremind]

Originally posted by Defmonkey:

Varies from campaign to campaign.

Other factions can be much more difficult to start. Try Bay for example (one of my favorites).... you wont be getting all those easy goodies the sea peoples get.

Hello fellow Bay enjoyer.. about to go into my campaign with him. Very interesting campaignya

[Defmonkey]

Originally posted by Lenny_Froggins:

Sounds like you have the mind to be an effective battlefield commander. At that point, you're right that unless the odds are very much against you, it's hard to lose. Especially if you've been playing TW for 20+ years like me lol. Even on Veteran/Veteran difficulty.

My current campaign, turn 93, I have locked down Egypt so hard that I have several devoted, powerful vassals that couldnt possibly get enough Legitimacy at home to challenge me for civil war. So I have a literal horde of ~20 full AI armies that crushes everything in its path and I have my lands fully garrisoned with Rank 9 troops and enough food income leftover to stoke my vassals with the excess and keep 100k in the bank. Gonna see if I can make the whole map owned by my vassals by turn 150, and by then one of them may be able to make enough legitimacy to start a Civil War which I will quickly win with my home guard armies of Elite Rank 9 troops.

I dont know if the game could possibly ramp up the Collapse Mechanics enough to stop me! My first time this far in a camp. :)

I'm working on a fully lethality-roll based battle mod right now and the goal is to make it so that the AI doesnt get cheesy advantages, but it's actually difficult to win a battle with a badly composed or low-tier arm. Ive already had quite a few invader-vs-garrison battles that came down to the wire and a couple I even lost. Gonna call it Killing Blow, keep an eye out.

@Kendji In my Merneptah game I am playing right now (above), the trick was to rush as many slinger armies out to the ruins as fast as I could, ignoring tresspass (ill bribe it back later). Then I focused on building max Legitimacy with Khufu Legacy and there was never a point any Egyptian faction could declare a civil war. I wonder how hard it would be if I hadnt max-cheesed the start like that.

Why not go for full map completion without vassals?

My current best map paint is 161 turns.

[Defmonkey]

Originally posted by pyremind:

Originally posted by Defmonkey:

Varies from campaign to campaign.

Other factions can be much more difficult to start. Try Bay for example (one of my favorites).... you wont be getting all those easy goodies the sea peoples get.

Hello fellow Bay enjoyer.. about to go into my campaign with him. Very interesting campaignya

Yeah i can play Bay, Currently going through another legendary campaign and has not gone to plan. My previous run was for ultimate victory by turn 150.... not sure i will do that this time. Set my sights for turn 200 but lets see.

[Silent]

I played (Ramses) on default hard preset with max battle difficulty. It was pretty boring from the start till the end. I conquered everything I wanted without much of resistance.
I tried legendary, it was OK only AI was over aggressive because it had 3-4 armies against my 1. I used to play legendary in other TW games and Pharaoh feels very different. Probably because I'm not used to new resource system and lack of mercenaries. But I think it should be manageable with barters (shame that barter limit is 10 turns, it is annoying to keep an eye on it and renew).

[Swaggaccino]

Originally posted by Defmonkey:

My current best map paint is 161 turns.

HOW??

I'm playing the game for the first time as Mycenae and the game is pretty easy so far, already got the second highest victory. Didn't abuse any of the new mechanics. The snowball effect started for me at around turn 70-80 which I really wasn't going for. I went to go paint the map and realized 80 turns later that there's too many settlements and it got super boring -> capturing, fixing, building, diplomacy for more food, rinse and repeat. There's very little resistance but I just filled up Anatolia, still got the Middle East and Africa to go. I'm just bored out of my mind. There's zero resistance just a ton of maintenance and upkeep.

Did you just vassal everyone or did you paint paint the entire map through pure conquest?

[Defmonkey]

Originally posted by Swaggaccino:

Originally posted by Defmonkey:

My current best map paint is 161 turns.

HOW??

I'm playing the game for the first time as Mycenae and the game is pretty easy so far, already got the second highest victory. Didn't abuse any of the new mechanics. The snowball effect started for me at around turn 70-80 which I really wasn't going for. I went to go paint the map and realized 80 turns later that there's too many settlements and it got super boring -> capturing, fixing, building, diplomacy for more food, rinse and repeat. There's very little resistance but I just filled up Anatolia, still got the Middle East and Africa to go. I'm just bored out of my mind. There's zero resistance just a ton of maintenance and upkeep.

Did you just vassal everyone or did you paint paint the entire map through pure conquest?

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2421340867428662536/4F4349FD953FBCDD06C0E0A90C45E8D5B01515C6/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

I believe a full map conquest

[Kendji]

Vanillaites playing easy mode... ...

[[-TWR-]tajl]

Originally posted by Kendji:

Vanillaites playing easy mode... ...

Yes if game feels too challenging you can always use mod that removes all bonuses AI will have in vanilla game.

[Kendji]

Originally posted by -TWR-tajl:

Originally posted by Kendji:

Vanillaites playing easy mode... ...

Yes if game feels too challenging you can always use mod that removes all bonuses AI will have in vanilla game.

Or just re-balance them