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What difficulty level should I play on? I am kicking everyone's butt in detailed battles, WAY too easily. AI does not seem to want to coordinate its attacks. Doesn't use line/skirmishers very well either. No matter what the odds are, it advances against me and attacks. I repluse them, rout them and send the cav to wipe them out. Too easy thus far.....how do I make it harder? (Strategically, the game is challenging (playing as France) -- but tactically no).

adamc6, WCS are looking an a range of enhancements to AI behaviour to make it more competative - there are some tuneups in the first patch (currently in late beta), and more coming.

In the meantime, I usually play the game at Napoleon level of difficulty. The AI's advantages in economics usually mean they outnumber me in battle, often with a better mix of troops, which makes hexwar extremely challenging.

Between those two things (I am testing the patch at the moment), I am not 'walking over' the AI in hexwar at the moment.

Ralegh,
Sounds good to me! Thanks for advice. I really want the AI to kick my butt one of these days! A good *ss whipping occasionally is good for the soul!
AC

Hi, When the AI has even or greater numbers I find it fights rather well. However it tends to be caught by forces 2 or 3 times it's number and as a result suffers a few thousand men killed and then routs losing 10k more. And then another AI army enters the region and gets the same treatment. The result is I normally have enough POW to field a major Army (if they could be so organized) Instead they build barracks for me. (resulting in further herds of slave labor)
The AI needs to do better recon and run away before getting involved in battles against larger forces. Prehaps a retreat before combat?
The retreat trigger is all right in my opinion (seems to be between 10 and 25 percent of total force) However when 40k face 120k the 40k rout very soon. Why fight in the first place? It really needs to learn to cancel movement orders after losing a battle rather then send another force to the slaughter. (This is not a case of being able to call reinforcements. In phase 1 AI moves and loses battle. Then in phase 3 a new force arrives. It was too far in phase one (in phase 2 it moves to where it could have been a reinforcement) but in phase 3 it should halt rather then continue to where it will now be outnumbered and know it.

I've had the enemy perform a few neat tricks on me which I've learned from, but once I learned, they aren't much of a challenge unless outnumbering me more than 3-1 in which case they usually just slaughter me unless I can hole up in a fortress. But then, I slaughter them...

I've thought the "napoleonic" tactics in this game sucked pretty bad before I adjusted my thinking to take into account it's at a divisional level. At that level, then, well, I still don't think it's very challenging but at least I can accept it's abstract enough to not try to judge it versus historical accuracy.


I eagerly await a new patch to address this matter.