What Difficulty Level Do You Recommend?

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starmonkey

Recruit
To a starting player? To an experienced player?

I started off using the defaults, then switched to full damage, normal AI, normal speed, 100-battle size..... and I got nailed. I was scratching around in the dirt for a long time before giving up and switching back to 1/4 self dmg, 1/2 allied dmg, normal AI, normal speed. Now I can actually win battles and tournaments! And I can solo large numbers of the enemy. On full damage, one or two solid whacks would end me, and my troops would drop like flies :sad:

My character's level 18 now, with around 40 troops.

I guess my question is: what difficulty settings do most of you play on? I was contemplating 1/2 damage to self, full damage to allies, normal AI, normal speed, 100 battles. I don't think I can handle full personal damage.

Am I "cheating" ? :smile: If you start a new campaign on full damage etc, how do you even survive the beginning? All it takes are a few archers going for you and you're a gonner!

// SM
 
If you play with the full settings (as I recently started doing), you can't pull off the heroics that you usually can.  Your just a regular soldier that way.  Basically, only fight those with less people than you, try to get good armor, and get high trainer ability so you get high-tiered troops to protect you
 
Given enough practice, you can hero your way through M&B. Although compared to the last time I've played, I couldn't even beat more than 10 or 12 people in the melee arena anymore on max settings with a good character.
I'd recommend using the easiest settings, barring battlesize when you first set out, this is a must if you want to survive past the first few encounters. Enabling cheats is also a good way you won't become frustrated during the game.
 
But seriously it may FEEL like cheating when your playing on low difficulty but it really isn't you just need to train your way up until you can play the highest difficulty you like. remember you don't have to go Max difficulty just because other people are doing it. just stick to the difficulty you prefer.
 
I'd say max out everything except damage to self. Keep that at half. When you get better, change it to full.

The game changes a lot when you take full damage.
 
The personall damage is by far the toughest thing to change on M&B.

I just started a new char, and soloed first to get good stats and some armour, weapon and money, then join up with the faction I like (Vaegir). I had allied damage on full, but I found it to be very hard since I could not possible fight alongside the Vaegirs in war with 3 other factions without relying on mercs, cause my recruits would simply die, and basically none of them even got to skirmisher...

So, now I put it back to easiest, and are slowly starting to build an army and a garrison, but once I have a stable garrison and army I'll try to flick it back to full damage to allied.

I do not remember all the different settings, but I'd say that the hardest ones to increase would be damage to player and battlespeed. Just think to fight khergits on full battlespeed!! After this I'd guess that changing the AI performance would be a bit tough...

But as said, you don't need to play on hard because many other do it.. I play to have fun! And right now I have fun playing on easy, 26% to be presice..

Have fun, and screw they guys calling you a noob : )

I'll be raped on warband, and that's fine with me : P
 
I'm having lots of fun with difficulty between 40% (all easiest setting) to 66% (easy setting). I won't survive for long in higher difficulty.

I made my mod too hard for myself  :sad: .
 
stygN said:
I do not remember all the different settings, but I'd say that the hardest ones to increase would be damage to player and battlespeed. Just think to fight khergits on full battlespeed!! After this I'd guess that changing the AI performance would be a bit tough...

In my experience, the Combat Speed option only affects the weapons speed, not the movements.

I would recommend using the Combat AI option on good, because it affects both your troops and enemy troops. The AI is not the stronger side of M&B, so no need to make npc's stupider that they already are. :smile:

This game learning curve is steep at the beginning. Could be discouraging to be KO'd a lot when you start your character, not to mention that the starting poor weapon proficiencies do not help at all. For a first try on M&B, I would say start with 1/4 damage to player and 1/2 to friends. Increasing difficulty as you feel the game becomes easier.
 
It depends a bit on your playing stile.
If you want your game to be more realistic you should set damage to normal, if you want to feel like Conan (or another heroine of your choice) put the damage to player and friends at the lowest setting.
As long as you are not familiar with parrying keep it on automatic.
Use whatever troop size you want, in my opinion the more the merrier.
I do not use realistic saving but that has more to do with my editing in the Custom Settlements mod than the need for it.
 
I set everything as high as it went before I even started the game. I got my **** ruined for a short time and avoided most battles, but I think it helped my learning the game overall. It's been quite some time since I've had any trouble winning tournaments or melee fights (Unless they stick me with a bow)
 
Well, I myself set mostly everything to the max after just few battles with looters. :razz: Well, blocking I left to automatic but doesn't really matter because it's pretty much the same anyways as I use shield. I chose the easier saving policy and that was the right choice, I believe. From the start I were pretty easily able to handle harder settings and when I sometimes do something stupid I just load the game. Currently I'm trying with harder saving policy as I have more experience. So, myself I like it with hard settings but being able to load the game. It helps to learn and it isn't so frustating when you get beaten, but that's just me and you can of course try to learn with easier setting slowly changing to harder...
 
Alright, I played for a little while on the easiest settings, how it starts, but the guilt of seeing "33% difficulty" or whatever it is soon weighed on me.

I made a new account, pumped the things up to max (almost) and found the game much more enjoyable.

Turn everything up except for battle speed, turn that to average, instead of max, that should put you at around 97% (or that's what I'm at.)

I prefer this because it feels like I'm a mortal. I had several occasions were I'd just rush into a village and massacre them by running in circles and herding them like cattle. That was all good and dandy, but it was boring. I find now that with 30 good men, at level 13~ with good armor I can raid just about any town without casualties. I often see larger groups flee from me, this is because instead of just recruiting from towns, I spent money at taverns recruiting better men, and upgrading them in battle. A majority of my men came from a raid on sea bandits that had around 10 mercinary blades on them, I took em' all, and upgraded them to hired blades. These are very useful! Also, grab some of the "unique" people, like Rolf for instance.

I think that I enjoy this more because if I rush right up to my enemy blindly without my troops wielding nothing but a horse and an axe I get my ass kicked. Instead I let my troops charge, I flank them with archery, and seperate a bit of the herd. When they're all scattered I start picking them off with my bow, if I run out of arrows I run up with a two handed axe and deliver deadly blows. It's a very useful tactic.

Although some of your soldiers may complain, STEAL LOTS OF RESOURCES, AND LOTS OF CATTLE. NOM NOM NOM. Butcher the cattle for fresh meat, value 103~. You get 2 per cow, I've stolen up to 7, and pillaged up to 12, so 14-24 x 2 and that's the amount of fresh meat you get.

Scrap most things besides Honey and Butter, there good for moral.

Most importantly, do not take people on that chase you, really, it's normally a bad idea.
 
zarmazarma said:
I often see larger groups flee from me, this is because instead of just recruiting from towns, I spent money at taverns recruiting better men, and upgrading them in battle.

Scrap most things besides Honey and Butter, there good for moral.

Good post, just wanted to disagree here.

#1: You can upgrade raw troops from villages, too. Plus, if you improve your relations with a village, they'll let you hire high level troops much more reliably than hoping for mercenaries to show up in taverns.

#2: Honey and butter overlap. You want meat, fish, bread, AND fruits/veggies to stack up the morale bonuses. If you've got constant action, it doesn't matter much, but it REALLY helps for those long treks through calm territory.
 
Their strength lies in heavy armour, like the Swadians. They last for a good while, but I'd say they are not worth it.

But, when you face heavy losses, and the campaign is still on the roll, I would not mind paying heavy for some fresh blood that were heavily armoured and quite able to fight.

When you loose 20 elites you cant replace them with 20 recruits and feel that your army have the same strength.

Mercs are indeed a short term solution, get good men fast.
 
I keep my all my settings at highest except for speed(obviously), that I keep on normal. I've been playing that way sense I first started playing. It's because I always want a new challenge and the fact I hate cheating. It ruins game play value.
 
One thing you should know is that mercenary type troops cost more (I think 67% more) than kingdom troops with the same level.
 
I started a game a while ago on everything the hardest (also mouse-directional parry), and it's a good idea to start with a merchant character (this way you can get a lot of trade and leadership skill, to increase your income and military might) and in the beginning be a couched lance lamer with a backup one-handed sword/axe. Once you have the money to sustain an army you can join a faction and get money by killing ppl. Once my renown reached 21 and leadership and trade both 7, I started upgrading my strength to 12, so I could wear most equipment and later agi too. I also saved up all my proficiency points and spent them later on two handed weapons. Ever since, just upgrading my combat skills.

This way i can fight my preferred style: dismounted and two handed (backed up with some throwing axes, and in a castle siege I take a one handed battle axe with a shield so I don't get overrun by 5 enemies. Now I've got a level 30 plate armor dude who is a vassal of the Nord Rebels of Lethwin. One thing I've learned from this: playing on hardest is in the beginning utterly boring. You have to avoid larger parties and you can't be the hero (unless if you like couched lancing). But once you can start developing your combat skills and your army is large enough, it shouldn't be too hard as long as you play a bit smart. And it just feels great for your ego to play on hardest :lol:.

If you are a beginner, I would say you put damage to self rather low, but the combat speed and ai on hard. This way you can learn how to fight fast without taking too much risk. Once your proficiencies are high enough, you can try mouse-directional parry. If that works, and you can block most attacks (at least in a duel), you can start reducing the damage to self. At least, that's what I prefer.
 
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