Is Ancient Empires mod too hard?

[Brutalist Ape]

Hello everyone. I've downloaded the Ancient Empires mod for Attila. However, my experience with it so far has been frustrating, stressful and I need some tips/advice.

I tried playing as Egypt. However, I quickly came across the following problems:

1) Public order is so bad that I can't even maintain my core provinces.

2) Income is so low that outlying settlements can't be defended. It would not be worth the cost of an army to defend them.

3) Every faction on the map hates me. Even on the easiest difficulty level, within a few turns every faction declares war on all sides - Greeks, African tribes, the Seleucid Empire, the Arabs - I am overwhelmed. I can't deal with so many enemies at once.

4) Even if I win battles and capture settlements, public order is so low that my units won't replenish. This means I have to retreat my army back to Egypt to heal up - but when I do, any gains I made are immediately lost again. Taking them back is expensive, and the same situation just repeats itself. It feels futile as I'm not gaining any traction and the AI is just overwhelming me from all sides. It's insanely stressful.

Eventually I quit and started again, things went slightly better but I still ran into the same problems again, every nation declaring war on me and insufficient resources to deal with so many different threats on all sides.

In the end I gave up and started a new campaign as Pergamon, but that went even worse. Before I could build up enough men to attack the nearest city (Ephesus), Egypt sent a full stack to protect it. At this point, I was like "WHAT?!?!" I had literally just played Egypt, and there is no way in hell they can afford to send a full stack across the Med to a remote settlement, while already being at war with multiple other factions.

My disbelief got even worse when not one but TWO full stack Egyptian armies show up. At this point, I'm like "There's no way in hell the human player could possibly support that number of troops, I could barely even defend Egypt let alone send massive expeditions of that size just a few turns into the campaign."

It was also obvious that the AI was sending its armies directly at me, to frustrate and prevent me from taking the city that I needed to take. I hadn't even declared war on them yet.

It just seems like the game is set up in such a way as to deliberately frustrate the human player and screw them over as much as possible. Well I don't find this fun or enjoyable. I find it stressful, irritating and frustrating. It's also obvious the AI is massively cheating - they are getting free armies, scripted stacks and all the rest. It's clear that the AI is no way playing by the same rules the human player has to.

This made me pretty fed up with the whole frustrating experience. I just want a sandbox kind of campaign where I can make buildings, recruit armies and head out to conquer my neighbours. I don't particularly want to be dealing with this level of stress.

The crazy thing is, I actually like the Western Roman Empire campaign in Attila. That campaign is hard. You get attacked by a lot of different factions and it is difficult to hold on, to make enough money and have enough forces to hold. But I can do it, even on the harder difficulty levels, and enjoy it a lot.

This Ancient Empires though, seems to be an exercise in sadomasochism. I think I'd rather pull my own fingernails out than go through that again.

So does anyone have any suggestions? Is this mod worth trying again? And what techniques do you use to get the best out of it?

Thanks

[Anisvara]

I heard that it is hard to play. Maybe you should search on YT to watch how other players manage it, or not.

[XenoGames48]

Added

[derp12332112]

Ancient Empires is VERY rough. There's a reason why theres a billion mods out there to make it more fair. When you're playing as anyone but the Imperial factions(Rome, Carthage, Selucids, etc), you're at a huge disadvantage.

Best to install some mods that will even it out a bit.

[BRAN MAC BORN]

You can use this as it has better public order on Normal difficulty. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2449152779

[Boumi]

after playing Ptolemaic Kingdom I agree it is too hard. No chance to keep up with AI in saving money for good troops. Has to defend towns against overwelming troops. 2000 defenders vs. 6000 attakers and win Heroic at the Walls. What do I get for this .... Why not give us Players for a Battle win 10 Turns Bonus like reduce recructing cost -20%, lower upkeep -10% or my favorit better public order +10 .... next I try Bran's mod

[Boumi]

Bran's mod solves the public order and money problem. start a new campain

[Brutalist Ape]

Yesterday I tried to play AE again after a break of three weeks. I started a new campaign, on the easiest difficulty level.

In my first battle against Macedon, I lost. My entire army routed. The enemy's units were greatly superior in both quality and quantity. About 3,000 level 3 units, against about 2300 of my units, mostly tier 1.

I raised a new army and actually won against Bithynia, taking my first city from the enemy. Then Macedon attacked my capital with about 5,000 men. Despite being overwhelmingly outnumbered, I managed to win, largely by sinking their fleet as it tried to land.

Then the third battle took place: I moved my army to beseige the Macedonian capital Pella. After an epic, close-run battle against unfavourable odds, I finally managed to narrowly win a decisive victory.

I clicked "end battle". The game crashed to desktop.

All my hard-won efforts were dashed. I was... seriously annoyed. I had no intention of fighting the battle again. Tbh I'm wondering whether it is really worth the stress. It's bad enough having to fight with the mod for every inch of ground. But if it's then going to crash on me as well, rendering it all for nothing... frustrating is the least word for it.

[BRAN MAC BORN]

The solution was given so maybe should use it.

[Johan]

The ai gets a massive discount on unit upkeep. Playing the mod as is (mostly on easy campaign/normal battle difficulty), I've found that specializing provinces either for commerce income or food production yields a comfortable income once you get a few provinces going and built up. The modifier for a province going into negative food production is constant regardless of how much it goes into the minus on food, therefore I build trade ports and markets in every settlement in 'commercial' focused provinces. The modifiers on commerce income from markets stack and give a lot combined with ports and this is one way a few provinces can produce a lot of income. Early game tends to be a bit tight though.

For public order I build racing tracks which synergize with the 'bread and games' edict to grant extra public order. Additionally keep an eye on the main building in settlements as most of them decrease public order through a modifier. Certain events can give massive public disorder for a few turns from slave population (vanilla immigration mechanic), be prepared.

Try to get non-aggression pacts and trade deals if possible to limit the ganging up. Haven't tried Egypt yet, but Rome is in a similar spot with settlements in Hispania/Spain (where I'm giving very hard a go to see if my general strategy is viable).

A single stack may struggle in sustained offensive operations, unless you wipe the enemy out in one or a handful of battles. Don't be afraid to use cheap troops to fill out the numbers. A full stack of pikemen could instead be half a stack of pikemen and about 1.5-2 stacks of levies. Also I would prioritize holding on to the core/capital provinces early on while building up instead of trying to defend everywhere or going on the offensive. I'll give Egypt a run myself to see how it holds up.

[sam.pidgeon]

Try cimbri tribe campaign or iceni easier factions

Here a mod you could try using hope it helps and improves campaign a little reduces amount of food consumption and squalor penalties

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2576828968

[King Of Kings]

I CANT AGREE MORE.

[닝닝 공주님의 기사]

it is better when you coop with a friend