What's harder - international Hard or Maniac mode?

[Seafarer]

I've been playing Path of Radiance a bit recently, and I was wondering what the general consensus on this question is. Obviously Maniac mode has higher enemy stats and density, plus it lacks the critical bonus on a couple of classes, but the international Hard mode has some extra restrictions on forge and (iirc) shop availabilities, plus it lacks the glitch-forge option, and the critical bonus could be seen as not particularly relevant given how bad the classes that get it are.

Obviously I expect Maniac to be considered harder, but I figured I'd ask just in case anyone has Thoughts on the situation.

[SnowFire]

Maniac mode is probably harder, even if you're abusing the glitched forges (which...  you probably shouldn't be...  if you wanted it easier, why not just downgrade the difficulty instead?).  The main reason is that Maniac mode sends around Eleventy Billion enemies at you whose strategy is to break your cool forged weapons with their face, Zapp Branigan style:

So good forges can't ENTIRELY carry you on Maniac.  The way you'll run into trouble will still be letting a unit somehow take too much heat on enemy phase, which even if they're crit-KOing everything back on the counter, is more likely to happen on Maniac due to the slightly buffed enemy offensive stats.  (I guess Maniac with glitched forges will have an easier time with some of the boss killing, but meh, that usually isn't a problem in PoR anyway.)

Critical buff isn't that relevant, yeah.  Good for the player if anything for the rare enemy Snipers / SMs / Berserkers, and making Shinon's chipping safer when kill-feeding in C4.

[Uscari]

Maniac Mode is clearly harder if you don't cheat and use crit glitch.

However with crit glitch, a sage with vantage and forged thunder tomes might be able to solo the game pretty easily. I'm sure someone has tried that but I don't know if it's been recorded.