This game is so difficult (playing as Mercia)

[Pawel]

I'm playing as Mercia. Being TW veteran and having played most games of the series a lot I find this game insanely difficult.

First 30-40 turns I can afford only about 20 units, due to food limits. Increasing food limits is very slow. But 20 units seems quite nice to start conquering, so why not do that...

As soon as I take opportunity to conquer somebody (either a viking faction on the east or welsh to the west) and grab few of their villages I get backstabbed by someone else. They easily take few of my undefended provinces (where btw I had spent a ton of gold for building upgrades) and suddenly I have negative food and have to start disbandng units.

Armies move slow af, which isn't itself bad as a design but I can afford only 1 large stack or 2 medium stacks, so I can't be everywhere. It takes forever to even engage the enemy, while even a small stack can plunder my areas and occupy village after village causing further damage to food limits. There just doesn't seem to be any way to defend in this game against more than one opponent, other than having a lot of armies, but this is not possible due to very strict food limits.

I had games when I actually beat the crap out of povis but then Wessex attacked me from the south. Literally any declaration of war while I'm engaged elsewhere means I can load game and start anew because further playing doesn't make any sense. Same goes for getting a random rebellion in recently conquered territory while I'm attacked by someone else. It's physically impossible to defend, I've had a rebellion pop up in 2 my provinces - rebel stacks grow 4 units per turn while I'm moving my 20 units to engage two 20-unit stacks of welsh (who randomly declared war on me 2 or 3 turns after I concquered small viking faction and still had large penalties to happines). Aghrr.

It all just seems extremely random because it depends a lot on diplomacy which is completely chaotic and unpredictable. Sometimes Wessex offers friendship, sometimes it just declares war on me and ♥♥♥♥♥ me up while I'm fighitng welsh/vikings. Same goes for welsh factions - sometimes they are busy fighting each other and sometimes they declare war on me when I'm fighting somewhere else. But my point is, playing as Mercia, whenever a 3rd party declares on me while I'm fighting with someone else I can load game and hope this does not happen again. It's just not possible to deploy enough troops to fight on more than one front in this game, and by front I also mean "recently concquered province" - because not having a stack there means instant ♥♥♥♥♥♥ when rebels pop up.

[Blue Boogers]

What difficulty are you playing on? On Normal/Normal I'm finding it pretty relaxed over in Ireland. Britain looks pretty chaotic though.

[Pawel]

Playing on very hard. Maybe this has something to do with crazy AI aggressivness. I recently played both parts of warhammer, finished the game with all factions on hard or very hard and found it challening enough and enjoyable. Here it seems just impossible...

[Royal Fusilier]

Yeah Mercia is in a horrible position with potential enemies on all sides. I would ratchet the difficulty down to H/H. I haven't played them yet but when I do I will try to wait until either West Seaxe or Northymbre are at war with someone else before I declare war on a target. Problem is that everyone wants a piece of Mercia!

[bearfieldlee]

I'd try securing your flanks as best you can and checking out the state of alliances before you take anybody on. Early game Mercia has to make a friend of Wessex or at least get as friendly as possible before attacking anyone else. Try taking out some small, diplomatically isolated nearby factions and then let the smoke clear for a while when you've got what you want out of them.

[Pink]

The difficulty overall really depends of your starting postion I guess. As Wessex on Legendary, the game was a breeze... rich lands, lots of food, lots of money. Easy to build up and expand.

As Surdreya (?), the Sea Kings on the north of the map it took me a long time to get my feet under me. Had to kill my ally and all the surrounding factions just to have a small flow of everything.

[samael75]

Originally posted by Pawel:

I'm playing as Mercia. Being TW veteran and having played most games of the series a lot I find this game insanely difficult.

First 30-40 turns I can afford only about 20 units, due to food limits. Increasing food limits is very slow. But 20 units seems quite nice to start conquering, so why not do that...

As soon as I take opportunity to conquer somebody (either a viking faction on the east or welsh to the west) and grab few of their villages I get backstabbed by someone else. They easily take few of my undefended provinces (where btw I had spent a ton of gold for building upgrades) and suddenly I have negative food and have to start disbandng units.

Armies move slow af, which isn't itself bad as a design but I can afford only 1 large stack or 2 medium stacks, so I can't be everywhere. It takes forever to even engage the enemy, while even a small stack can plunder my areas and occupy village after village causing further damage to food limits. There just doesn't seem to be any way to defend in this game against more than one opponent, other than having a lot of armies, but this is not possible due to very strict food limits.

I had games when I actually beat the crap out of povis but then Wessex attacked me from the south. Literally any declaration of war while I'm engaged elsewhere means I can load game and start anew because further playing doesn't make any sense. Same goes for getting a random rebellion in recently conquered territory while I'm attacked by someone else. It's physically impossible to defend, I've had a rebellion pop up in 2 my provinces - rebel stacks grow 4 units per turn while I'm moving my 20 units to engage two 20-unit stacks of welsh (who randomly declared war on me 2 or 3 turns after I concquered small viking faction and still had large penalties to happines). Aghrr.

It all just seems extremely random because it depends a lot on diplomacy which is completely chaotic and unpredictable. Sometimes Wessex offers friendship, sometimes it just declares war on me and ♥♥♥♥s me up while I'm fighitng welsh/vikings. Same goes for welsh factions - sometimes they are busy fighting each other and sometimes they declare war on me when I'm fighting somewhere else. But my point is, playing as Mercia, whenever a 3rd party declares on me while I'm fighting with someone else I can load game and hope this does not happen again. It's just not possible to deploy enough troops to fight on more than one front in this game, and by front I also mean "recently concquered province" - because not having a stack there means instant ♥♥♥♥up when rebels pop up.

Seems like you dont use diplomacy at all. Just sign DoF with all neighbours cept one you want to attack, EZPZ

[air805ronin]

I had 3 armies that I balanced maxing out with units as far as food and fyrd would let me. It led to some really really memorable battles. Try to limit how many neighbors you enter into a real war with so you can keep 1 army to cover against backstabs, and 2 on your chosen front. Once you conquer a good chunk of wales and/or the midlands you'll find yourself over the hump and able to field bigger stacks.

Your mileage may vary.

[madlarkin8]

Some people have claimed they went entire campaigns without anyone declaring war on them. AI makes the decision to declare war based on:
{(AI_strength+AI_allies-AI_enemies + AI_war_exaustion + starting value)-(player_strength + player_allies - player_enemies)} - (Diplomatic_relations/2)
The higher the value, the greater propensity to seek war with a given neighbor.
With different starting values between every given faction in game. usually corresponding to starting diplomatic values, but with the key fact of never changing. IE wessex hates east engle, relations start negative, but even if you do everything to boost relation with them, there is still a hidden value making them more likely to declare war on you.

In what units faction strength is measured... I do not know. possibly regiments fielded?

[Blue Boogers]

I think difficulty affects AI aggressiveness, it's genuienly hard to cover large territory though. I like how long it takes armies to get anywhere, adds a bit of a logistical challenge.

This is the only game I've played where Ireland feels massive :O

[Pawel]

Originally posted by samael75:

Seems like you dont use diplomacy at all. Just sign DoF with all neighbours cept one you want to attack, EZPZ

I do use diplomacy.
1) I try to have at least one friend on my borders before going to war (which is sometimes difficult as they just don't want to declare friendship, or do it randomly)
2) I usually try to declare war on factions that are already at war with somebody else.
3) I rarely use 'declare war' option, more often I'm using "offer to join war against...." which makes his allies stay neutral (this almost seems like a bug)
and so on.

[Hoellenbote]

Wales seems like a horrible first target. But i went for the smaller viking factions first.

Oh and btw: You can go over the food cap ;) Its not that big off a deal, just get started on the farms and it will balance out, before you can get into real trouble.