Historical battles - ridiculous "very hard" difficulty discrepancies

[Ramsay Bolton]

Hello! I am not usually the one to complain...but i believe that this needs some investigating - have the historical battles been playtested yet?

I mean, i was able to win all the historical battles (the highest difficulty, of course) in shogun 2 on my first try - the only one a bit problematic was the naval battle, but still, it was fine. In the original rome:total war, i had a problem here and there, but it wasn't that difficult and most battles could be won after a few attempts - i managed to win them all.

Now, my skills have even gone up - and some battles cannot be won by me- why is that?

Don't get me wrong, Ascalum is manageable, though sometimes "random" (enemy has phalanxes, superior archers, superior cavalry AND elephants on top of that).

Sparta is a piece of cake thanks to your phalanxes - easily won on the first attempt

Telamon is difficult, but with a few attempts, it can be done without much issues (especially by camping on that steep hill near the edge of the map)

River Trebia is ridiculously easy and can be won on every attempt that you take thanks to your phalanxes, cavalry and elephants

Lake Trasimene is also difficult (and kinda ridiculus that you start with half your army gone/routing, but positioning yourself on that one hill and dealing with the annoying cavalry using your triarii should make you victorious)

Raphia can be pain due to the Pharaoh's bowmen, but running to the map's corner on a hill = victory

Cynoscephalae is very easy and can be won on every attempt

But Carrhae = no way. Running to the hill even in loose formation, chasing off enemy cavalry, even killking the enemy general - nothing. Even if you somehow manage to destroy the cataphracts, the persian cavalry just destroys you. Then i tried it in RTW and i won it on my 2nd attempt without much issues - wtf? EDIT: it can be won, not with much difficulties, if you withstand the 2 minute cutscene...after that, some of the cataphracts have already died and they start up tired........which does not happen if you skip it - a huge oversight by the devs and it hsould be fixed.

Same could be said about Gergovia - i took about 70 tries to no avail, though i got kinda close on 2 of my attempts....then i did it on my first try in basic RTW - wtf???!!!! I won it even decisively compared to some youtube tries. Edit - I've finally managed to beat it, but it was pain nonetheless.....and i've maintained just about a third of my army...

I haven't even tried teutoburg forest, but i remember it was the most problematic one to me in the base game.

Alexander's battes are pretty easy though - if you know what you are doing (Except for the terrible first one that can get very random - but you can check out my guide for the rest of them and you'll find them very very easy).


So, my questions are: Do you guys have similar problems with those battles? Even after enabling the "Classic settings"?
and Have those battles been playtested? Because it doesn't seem so to me and it takes extreme luck in some cases to win them...which is not right, i believe.

I believe some battles should be adjusted a bit - the easy ones made a tiny bit more difficult, but the final 3 should be made much easier (e.g those persian horse archers in Carrhae should have no attack upgrades and you should have more legionaries (or better armored ones), celtic units should be a tiny bit weaker in Gergovia and there should be like 2/3 of the current berserker numbers in Teutoburg forest)

[Ramsay Bolton]

No wonder the battles feel different since i must be one of very few playing them, especially on very hard

[SyndicatedINC]

I'll be honest, on TW titles I play the tutorial, then play a long campaign intermixed with custom battles to test stuff out. Then typically play the faction short campaign, then replay the long campaign to try to perfect the errors I made in the first play through, then I play a campaign short/long on another faction to get feel of differences. Then I typically start playing the scenarios/historical battles, then after I am comfortable with all of that I start playing online amidst other campaigns.

So I likely won't be playing the historical battles for another week or two. Not that this is a "new title" but just out of force of habit.

[Mayer]

Too hard for me, I only tested them on Medium difficulty and it was still a challenge, especially Carrhae.

[Ramsay Bolton]

Originally posted by SyndicatedINC:

I'll be honest, on TW titles I play the tutorial, then play a long campaign intermixed with custom battles to test stuff out. Then typically play the faction short campaign, then replay the long campaign to try to perfect the errors I made in the first play through, then I play a campaign short/long on another faction to get feel of differences. Then I typically start playing the scenarios/historical battles, then after I am comfortable with all of that I start playing online amidst other campaigns.

So I likely won't be playing the historical battles for another week or two. Not that this is a "new title" but just out of force of habit.

I understand, i do it the other way around - first the "annoying" historical battles, then the pleasant campaigns:) To save the best for the last;)

[Skatan]

Originally posted by Ramsay Bolton:

But Carrhae = no way. Running to the hill even in loose formation, chasing off enemy cavalry, even killking the enemy general - nothing. Even if you somehow manage to destroy the cataphracts, the persian cavalry just destroys you. Then i tried it in RTW and i won it on my 2nd attempt without much issues - wtf?

Just tried Carrhae on VH and got absolutely smashed. Killed 38 of the enemy and lost everything. The old trick of running up the closest hill didn't help, heh.

I'm not much for historical battles, and I am too lazy to boot up the classics, but I noticed everyone had massive upgrades for armor and weapons etc. The persian cataphracts had gold/gold for example. Not that it mattered though, even their horse archers took down one of the legionary units in 3 volleys which was faster than I can remember.

So what changed? I really don't know, but I felt no inclination to try that battle a second time, hehe..

[Ramsay Bolton]

Originally posted by Skatan:

Originally posted by Ramsay Bolton:

But Carrhae = no way. Running to the hill even in loose formation, chasing off enemy cavalry, even killking the enemy general - nothing. Even if you somehow manage to destroy the cataphracts, the persian cavalry just destroys you. Then i tried it in RTW and i won it on my 2nd attempt without much issues - wtf?

Just tried Carrhae on VH and got absolutely smashed. Killed 38 of the enemy and lost everything. The old trick of running up the closest hill didn't help, heh.

I'm not much for historical battles, and I am too lazy to boot up the classics, but I noticed everyone had massive upgrades for armor and weapons etc. The persian cataphracts had gold/gold for example. Not that it mattered though, even their horse archers took down one of the legionary units in 3 volleys which was faster than I can remember.

So what changed? I really don't know, but I felt no inclination to try that battle a second time, hehe..

The upgrades and unit counts are the same. The main differences are that in the original rtw:
1) once you "chase" the persian cavalry away, they would "stay" away for most of the time and would come back slowly, giving you time to prepare your troops and to beat the cataphracts without their archer support. In here, they keep following and harrassing you.
2) the cataphracts charge immediately, whereeas now they prepare and wait a moment before charging, which gives the harrassing cavalry archers more time.

Also - it might not be the case - but i feel like the arrows in original rome dealt a little less damage to legionaries:) But i might be very wrong

[Skatan]

Perhaps then it's the improved skirmishing capabilities in remastered that affects the outcome. I don't remember reading there's any difference to arrows vs armor, only javelins.

[Ramsay Bolton]

The problem is that even the "original" settings yield different results than the original RTW.

[Ramsay Bolton]

Congratulations for being a beast! I too have 3 battles left (badon hill, which i'm gonna take on in a moment), teutoburg forest, which i'll do after that...and then carrhae, which i'll just do as the final one, i've had enough so far :D....How did you win that one on very hard? of course, without modifying the game files....that would be cheating, as we all know;)

Just to let you know, only the first Alexander's battle was difficult, the rest was piece of cake;)

[elixEtneicnA]

Originally posted by Ramsay Bolton:

Congratulations for being a beast! I too have 3 battles left (badon hill, which i'm gonna take on in a moment), teutoburg forest, which i'll do after that...and then carrhae, which i'll just do as the final one, i've had enough so far :D....How did you win that one on very hard? of course, without modifying the game files....that would be cheating, as we all know;)

Just to let you know, only the first Alexander's battle was difficult, the rest was piece of cake;)

Nah, Alex's last battle was a complete monster for me as the river has two points you need to attack simultaneously. After you clear the choke points, then you have to face the forces that appear out in the plain area to the North West (A substantial amount of your units are gone by that point). It took me 4 tries to tackle that one and I essentially had to keep Alex and one other cavalry unit in reserve until the final showdown. Also, the first two tries I lost Alex very early on so maybe I should of avoided the chariots even though they appeared to be frozen even when I attacked them. Anyways, I wish you luck because they were very frustrating especially for an old dog from the original Rome days....

[Ramsay Bolton]

Originally posted by Good Ole Rebel:

Originally posted by Ramsay Bolton:

Congratulations for being a beast! I too have 3 battles left (badon hill, which i'm gonna take on in a moment), teutoburg forest, which i'll do after that...and then carrhae, which i'll just do as the final one, i've had enough so far :D....How did you win that one on very hard? of course, without modifying the game files....that would be cheating, as we all know;)

Just to let you know, only the first Alexander's battle was difficult, the rest was piece of cake;)

Nah, Alex's last battle was a complete monster for me as the river has two points you need to attack simultaneously. After you clear the choke points, then you have to face the forces that appear out in the plain area to the North West (A substantial amount of your units are gone by that point). It took me 4 tries to tackle that one and I essentially had to keep Alex and one other cavalry unit in reserve until the final showdown. Also, the first two tries I lost Alex very early on so maybe I should of avoided the chariots even though they appeared to be frozen even when I attacked them. Anyways, I wish you luck because they were very frustrating especially for an old dog from the original Rome days.... :shcflag:

In that case, check out my guide for Alexander's battles...it's ridiculously easy and even with 1 wrong charge, i kept over 800 (870, i believe?) men alive....

What about Carrhae though?:) i can consistently kill 200 enemy units, but then i lose...is the "escape" before battle problem? because if i keep the cutscene, the enemy cataphracts become winded and lose about 10 men :D

[JAVX_MAGNETICS]

LOL Teutoburg forest on VH, the beserkers are completely nuts. I can have 4 units surrounding them and one of the cav cycle charging them (if its the general he can isnta die). They literally murder everyone with about 10-20 beserkers surviving. I find the only way of wining this now is kiting them with archers around the map so they are constantly distracted and kept away from everything else.

[Ramsay Bolton]

Originally posted by JAVX_MAGNETICS:

LOL Teutoburg forest on VH, the beserkers are completely nuts. I can have 4 units surrounding them and one of the cav cycle charging them (if its the general he can isnta die). They literally murder everyone with about 10-20 beserkers surviving. I find the only way of wining this now is kiting them with archers around the map so they are constantly distracted and kept away from everything else.

Precisely what i did in the base game.....and i was really angry that i had not won it by defeating everyone else, because my "personal" goal is to kill the enemy general, rout/kill the entire army and keep my own general alive (preferably achieve heroic victory as well)....but i guess it can't be helped here, in the remaster, and the same strategy will be necessary:)

[Ramsay Bolton]

Finally did carrhae....it is not that difficult if you manage to waste 2 minutes of your life watching the cutscene and letting the cataphracts exhaust themselves....

then chase off the archers (click NEXT to them and attack only when close)...i routed (and smashed) 3 archers like this (the second one always breaks after the first one breaks, so that helps), and returned in time to strike one general in the back (killing him) - he was fighting 2 of my cohorts that i send after him, whereas my other legionaires dealt great damage to the cataphracts using pillums and close combat - then i even managed to score another charge with my cavalry and general from behind that finally broke all of the badly beaten cataphracts and killed the other general.....

next up was testudo and when the missile cav got close, close combat

I'll try to win teutoburg forest now by killing everyone, instead of the lousy way of escaping :D

[SyndicatedINC]

Originally posted by Ramsay Bolton:

Finally did carrhae....it is not that difficult if you manage to waste 2 minutes of your life watching the cutscene and letting the cataphracts exhaust themselves....

then chase off the archers (click NEXT to them and attack only when close)...i routed (and smashed) 3 archers like this (the second one always breaks after the first one breaks, so that helps), and returned in time to strike one general in the back (killing him) - he was fighting 2 of my cohorts that i send after him, whereas my other legionaires dealt great damage to the cataphracts using pillums and close combat - then i even managed to score another charge with my cavalry and general from behind that finally broke all of the badly beaten cataphracts and killed the other general.....

next up was testudo and when the missile cav got close, close combat

I'll try to win teutoburg forest now by killing everyone, instead of the lousy way of escaping :D

Gave it a try last night to see. This is definitely more difficult than in the original. I note three changes that seem to be the issue. First is that the horse archers are killing more legionaries per volley than the original (compared two battles over dozens of arrow volleys, there is definitely a higher casualty rate in the remaster). Which is odd as I recall that the remaster toned down archer strength.

Second is that the AI behavior has the horse archers returning to position much swifter than in the original (thus you likely won because you engaged them with the side click then attack trick). In the original one could chase them off and gain some breathing time, but not the case here.

Third is the AI aggression is higher than in the original. If an infantry unit gets separated it is dead, whereas in the original so long as you were semi close together the AI didn't risk getting stuck in melee with you and flanked, here they will sacrifice a unit to tie up your forces.

I found that the old up the nearest hill trick didn't work anymore, and only had luck holding the initial spawn position. The trick was whether or not I could keep my general alive.