+ CIV
+ Warlords

Patches 1.74 and 2.13w - nothing changed
BtS spreadsheet to be posted soon

Here is a full scale Excel spreadsheet of Civ4HandicapInfo.xml. This file defines differences among Civ4 Difficulty Levels. The only change in Warlords is iAnimalAttackProb. Vanilla values are in brackets.

All elements of the Civ4HandicapInfo.xml:
http://nm.civfanatics.ru/ref/civ4levels.gif
http://nm.civfanatics.ru/ref/civ4levels.gif

List of available Goodies (20 entries for each level):
http://nm.civfanatics.ru/ref/civ4goodies.gif
http://nm.civfanatics.ru/ref/civ4goodies.gif


And the Excel spreadsheet :

Nice, I hadn't seen these numbers before. It is interesting to see what parameters Firaxis chose to ramp up the game's difficulty. Good job making this clearer. :goodjob:

Apart from many of the others I note that "igold" is zero on all counts. Any idea what this is for?

I'd be guessing that's the starting gold amount, however, don't we start with 10 gold in lower levels??

I made new reference charts for difficulty levels. The charts now represent all elements of Civ4HandicapInfo.xml. Check images in the first post.

This is great but I need more help in explaining it haha :P

Can you explain the modifiers for AI a little more in depth? I'm trying to figure out the growth rate for AI at each difficulty level. I usually play Noble, and it seems like no matter what I do the AI always grows faster. The modifiers as shown in the spreadsheet don't make much sense. It seems like the numbers are opposite what they should be, but I'm probably not understanding the meaning of each percentage.

For example, the iAIconstruct percentage for Settler is 160% for AI? Can't be true.

160% means 160% time, so it is true;) Lower means better here.
Congratulations to everyone who can win a Deity game:)

Deity... right. I can barely scrap by in Noble. Now, according to the modifier, the AI growth rate is 100%, as you say, time. Does that mean it is equal to the human player rate?

Interesting that you get 5 free wins against barbs in settler... I thought there were no barbs at that level!

IUnitCostPercent is 50 on noble, while iAIUnitCostPercent is 100... does this mean that the human player get cheaper units than the AI at that difficulty?

A description of the various variables would be great. (The obscure stuff like IStartingLocPercent)

necro. I'd like to find a modern version of this, or if it's changed. I *could* just look at the xml files.. yawn.

Sorry for the bump but I seriously got tired of looking in the xml file every time I wanted to compare difficulties.

Here's the same table with values for BTS v3.1.9
Orange rows contain modified (new) values.
Taken from ..\Steam\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization iv beyond the sword\Beyond the Sword\Assets\XML\GameInfo\CIV4HandicapInfo.xml

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii182/Transsive/games/civ4bts-hcap.png

Big thanks to NeverMind for his work.

I find most of this very helpful. I can't understand some parts like the iStartingLocPercent, and I don't get why there's an i before every factor, but other than that, I find it very helpful.

I can't understand some parts like the iStartingLocPercent

:confused: i can't see this value anywhere.

and I don't get why there's an i before every factor

That just shows that this value is an integer value, a whole number (in contrast to float values = decimal values).

One question I have. How does a scout affect the percentages when popping a hut?

The Barbarian Weak and Barbarian Strong choices are removed when using scouts (so on Emperor you're left with 14 goodies at 7.14%). Distribution stays the same.

The i stands for player in the XML code while AI stands for, well you guessed it, the AI.