Not taking into account land mass, what is the best challenge for competitive AI's?

The problem is, you can't really ask this question without land size being a consideration.

I usually have six AI. :p

I usually put as many as are allowed, makes things even out on higher difficulty...

My answer in mind is not included in the options, so I will voice it here.

When difficulty rises, I like to increase the number of AIs to make the game easier (because I suck :p), but not too insulting-easy.

For example, on Deity I like to double the number of Civs . On Immortal I would go with default + 50%.

18 Civs sounds cool, but I am constantly bothered by AIs request almost every single turn. A little tedious it becomes.

Very few Civs are downright boring, as there are very few oppurtunities of diplomacy (or fooling miserable AIs... :cool:)

I was wondering what was the best challenge, and what was easiest. I figured 2 AI's is much different than 3, because then you get 2:2 opposition, instead of 3:1, or 1:1:1.

I usually play with Maximum minus one, but I'm considering a small pangea with 2 or 3 AI's.

I play max, not because it's easier, but because it's more interesting.

I voted for 4-5

And I'd like to offer an alternative view of things...

Are we sure more AI's is easier? I don't know from personal experience because I've literally never played a game of Civ 4 with less than 18 players--even when I played a duel map just to see the conquest movie. In Civ3, I only played less than 16 on my old computer which couldn't handle more.

But I remember in my one big conquest game of Civ3, the more I reduced the number of AI's, the less tech trading they could do and the more I was able to dominate.

Someone with a broader experience with the game can correct me, but I'd think that more might make the early game easier, but not necessarily the whole game.

And I'd like to offer an alternative view of things...

Are we sure more AI's is easier? I don't know from personal experience because I've literally never played a game of Civ 4 with less than 18 players--even when I played a duel map just to see the conquest movie. In Civ3, I only played less than 16 on my old computer which couldn't handle more.

But I remember in my one big conquest game of Civ3, the more I reduced the number of AI's, the less tech trading they could do and the more I was able to dominate.

Someone with a broader experience with the game can correct me, but I'd think that more might make the early game easier, but not necessarily the whole game.

On easier difficulties, when tech trading isn't important, less civs is much easier. More room, more resources, less pressure from AI. This decreases as you ramp up the difficulty, because tech trading becomes important. I think too many AI's on any difficulty can make it harder though because of crowding.

I just feel that on standard continents 7 civs can be unbalanced cause you have 3 on one continent and 4 on another. The 3 will be very strong as AIs (at Emperor) and the 4 considerably weaker.

That's why I play with one extra in the hopes of getting 4 on each. If the map puts 5 and 3, well, in that case I'll go out and kill that extra one and I guess it will become a normal game with extra gold for me from plunder.

Best challenge is max because the ai's will gang up on me.
It is by far easier to beat one opponent than eight. All my high scores are against one-two on duel maps...:p

The reason why more AIs are easier on very high levels is because one cannot support many cities due to the burdensome health and happiness penalties. So by having more AIs, you limit their size (as they too are squeezed for space) early. Then when you can, you war to expand, and the AI you are warring against will be much less powerful (due its relatively smaller size, due to the squeeze it also feels by having so many "competitors.") than it otherwise would (with normal number of AIs on the map).

You should put Default option in, as that what I beliebe AI optimised for.

I usually pick the maximum possible, since the more civilisations there are, the more crowded things will be. And when things get crowded, things get bloody

thirty-seven

I also think more is harder, simply b/c one's odds of winning are decreased by that factor, all things remaining equal.

I try to build a game map where there is just enough room to expand one city in every direction, without bumping up against another empire.

Too small and you have to war with Axemen and that sucks b/c of the starting bonus the AI gets with higher difficulty levels.

Too large and you wind up having to maintain an empire of 15+ cities, which is a bit tedious for management around this amount.

Which brings me to my point, and sort of why I started this thread - the Domino Effect. When you have 8+ AI's, you wind up having one or two AI's that suck up 2-4 AI's and get wicked bonuses from a huge empire, so you have to rival their Empire's size by conquering AT LEAST as much.

Of course, The Domino Effect is less pressing in CIV4 over CIV3, where every game ended with 1-2 AI's, no matter what.

On a standard map: 11-12 AI, with aggressive AI, and no tech trading. Makes things lively.

On a standard map: 11-12 AI, with aggressive AI, and no tech trading. Makes things lively.

I just tried this, it was quite lively, I must say. But Ghandi ran away with the technology. He was laughably far ahead by the Industrial era, had Apollo by 1850.

I definitely want to play this challenge again.