What was it about Civ 4 that you found so difficult?

My Civ 4 difficulty went from:

* Vanilla: Prince--> Monarch (x2)--> Emperor--> Deity (1 win, SUPER cheesy)

* BTS: Emperor-->Immortal (a lot...)--> Deity (a couple wins, but let's not talk about win rate here :goodjob:)

* Civ 5: Immortal (x2) --> Deity (I'm 1 for 2!)

In my experience, Civ 5 Deity is a little harder than Civ 4 BTS immortal, at least if you want to get a domination/diplomatic victory. Yet I hear people talk about how they can't win in Civ 4 Prince but can dominate in Civ 5 Deity.

* Are your Civ 5 Deity wins on all "standard" settings? It was pretty easy to get a Civ 4 Deity win, if you a) use a duel size map b) rushed your opponent (Vanilla) or won using AP (BTS).

* What were your strategies in Civ4? Isn't the Civ 5 horse rush = Civ 4 axe rush/war chariot rush? In Vanilla a good portion of my Emperor wins consisted of rushing down one civ with axes, another civ with elepults or cavalry, and then turtling to space. In BTS rushing was toned down, so the default strategy was six-cities--> mass Cavalry whip--> stomp on AI longbows. How is this so different from Civ5?

*What was the most challenging part of Civ 4 that you find dumbed-down in Civ 5? Is it the diplomacy? The city building? The tech path?

Civ5 is very difficult :( It is a man's game and it will put hairs on your chest.

Civ5 is very difficult :( It is a man's game and it will put hairs on your chest.

What if you already have hairs? :D

I just think the AI is weaker in combat, making the same level as Civ4 (ie: C4 Imm vs C5 Imm) easier.

I have to agree with Jerrymander.

as someone who struggled to beat immortal in civ4, ive spent a fraction of the time learning civ5 and already immortal seems impossible to lose to

People really think the Civ 4 AI was better at combat? We're talking about AIs that beeline Scientific Method or Democracy and thus has longbows versus cavalry. And this is on Deity.

I do think that Civ 5 is easier at equivalent levels than Civ 4, but Civ 5 difficulties levels are more compressed (8 vs. 9), so Civ 5 immortal is like Civ 4 BTS emperor+, which seems about right.

But really, I just see a ton of rose-tinted glasses here. What makes Civ 4 so hard? :confused:

Civ 5 has bigger AI cheats on the top 3 difficulties to make up for its terrible AI. This may (i'm not sure yet) make the game harder than civ 4 AI at those last two levels... but if you look at the whole of the difficulty curve I think you'll find it pretty slumping towards 'easy'.

Besides, you don't want to compare the hardest difficulties only, compare each similarly tiered one to the other, and see how many are just soo much easier in 5.

Besides, you don't want to compare the hardest difficulties only, compare each similarly tiered one to the other, and see how many are just soo much easier in 5.

While this is true, it isn't exactly my point.

I know Civ 5 is easier than Civ 4 at equivalent difficulty, just like BTS was easier than Vanilla.

But was Civ 4 really that hard on prince level? Or Monarch? What made it so hard? What was so great about the Civ 4 AI that people had trouble with it? Someone tell me :lol:.

I'm playing with the same settings i used to play in Civ IV : Epic speed, large map . (often continents) . And i must say this game is easier . I used to have hard time in Monarch in Civ IV now King is piss easy and Emperor is kind of hard but thats merely because i didn't adapt my tactics and still tend to expand to much and with the nerd-raging AI i tend to get declared upon by multiple civs early in game .

I found Civ IV easier. My main problem so far has been maintaining happiness once I get just a little big. For those that say it can (and should) be ignored, I'm not seeing it. My production shuts down and my units become virtually ineffective, which pretty much puts the kibosh on offensive action.

to answer the op's question, i think what made civ4 hard was that you had to use serverel different stratagies (from a list of a dozen or so) to be able to elbow out a win. for example you had to

1/ beat the ai to the copper node
2/ make a sucessful axeman rush to get a 2nd capiotal
3/ setup a sience city to slingshot an undiscovered tech and stay in the trading circle untill renaicance
4/ setup a food/globe/draft city to stay in the renaicance game
5/ transition to caste/stateprop/workshops to fuel an industrial conquest

it was fun and compelling to try different things in different sequences to try and come out ontop

in contrast civ5 is simple. you steal gold from stupid ai and spend it on units which invairably kill the stupid ai units. im quite sure there are fun/technical stratagies that can be used but who cares when you can kill everything with a horsie

1/ beat the ai to the copper node
2/ make a sucessful axeman rush to get a 2nd capiotal
3/ setup a sience city to slingshot an undiscovered tech and stay in the trading circle untill renaicance
4/ setup a food/globe/draft city to stay in the renaicance game
5/ transition to caste/stateprop/workshops to fuel an industrial conquest



1) How hard is it to find a copper node? You research bronze working and..voila!

2) It's hard to make an axe army? Double-whips + chops made it pretty easy.

3) Setup a science city? In Civ 4, that was called..."the capital." I think 90% of my games I never move my palace.

4) Was setting up the draft city so hard? 2 food specials, farm up, whip infrastructure+overflow to Globe, grow to max, then draft/whip like crazy.

5) State Property gives bonuses to watermills and workshops. Therefore, to get a state property economy...build watermills & workshops. This is harder?

Reading this strengthens my thought about Civ 4 vs. Civ 5: Civ 4 isn't necessarily harder than Civ 5, it's just that Civ 5 is more accessible to the average gamer.

in contrast civ5 is simple. you steal gold from stupid ai and spend it on units which invairably kill the stupid ai units. im quite sure there are fun/technical stratagies that can be used but who cares when you can kill everything with a horsie

You never sold education to an AI for gold and then immediately attacked him?

I think your comparison is silly. If the AI in CIV 5 got the same bonuses as civ 4 on the same levels it might be a valid discussion.

CIV 5 is harder simply because on higher levels they allow the AI to have so many units it no longer needs to think at all and just has units on every hex. The AI in CIV 5 is a total joke.

I lost over 50% of my games on Deity on CiV 4. In those games the AI got a jumpstart on me and a decent production, gold, and research bonus but it didn't get stacks of units on every space in the game.

I think your comparison is silly. If the AI in CIV 5 got the same bonuses as civ 4 on the same levels it might be a valid discussion.

CIV 5 is harder simply because on higher levels they allow the AI to have so many units it no longer needs to think at all and just has units on every hex. The AI in CIV 5 is a total joke.

I lost over 50% of my games on Deity on CiV 4. In those games the AI got a jumpstart on me and a decent production, gold, and research bonus but it didn't get stacks of units on every space in the game.

Guess you never saw a 50+ unit stack of doom like I did? Only reason Civ 4 AI didn't have units in every tile is because Civ 4 wasn't one unit per tile.

I think your comparison is silly. If the AI in CIV 5 got the same bonuses as civ 4 on the same levels it might be a valid discussion.

FYI, Civ 5 Deity bonuses are much less than Civ 4 Vanilla Deity bonuses. As an example, Civ 5 Deity has 50% upgrade cost reduction, while Civ 4 Vanilla Deity has 95% upgrade cost reduction.

The Civ 5 bonuses are actually equivalent to Civ 4 BTS Deity bonuses, but because of the different game mechanics, the bonuses are IMO much more reduced in Civ5.

CIV 5 is harder simply because on higher levels they allow the AI to have so many units it no longer needs to think at all and just has units on every hex. The AI in CIV 5 is a total joke.

Doesn't this apply to Civ 4? Just imagine if Civ 4 didn't have suicide siege....

But anyways you're missing the point of my post. What I'm asking is: Why is Civ4 so challenging to people, yet those same people are not challenged by Civ 5?

The answer to your question is that Civ4 is more complicated than Civ5. Plus, exploits are much more apparent in Civ5 than they were in Civ4.

The answer to your question is that Civ4 is more complicated than Civ5.

People can repeat this all they want, but this tells me nothing. I think Civ 5 is more complicated than Civ4, but Civ 4 requires a tad more counting + memorization of certain things (WFYABTA thresholds, leaders' peaceweights, various other tricks). Is that more complicated? I'm not sure.

Plus, exploits are much more apparent in Civ5 than they were in Civ4.

This I can agree with. But once again, this has to do with accessibility of the brokenness, not whether the brokenness exists in the first place.

1) How hard is it to find a copper node? You research bronze working and..voila!

2) It's hard to make an axe army? Double-whips + chops made it pretty easy.

3) Setup a science city? In Civ 4, that was called..."the capital." I think 90% of my games I never move my palace.

4) Was setting up the draft city so hard? 2 food specials, farm up, whip infrastructure+overflow to Globe, grow to max, then draft/whip like crazy.

5) State Property gives bonuses to watermills and workshops. Therefore, to get a state property economy...build watermills & workshops. This is harder?

Reading this strengthens my thought about Civ 4 vs. Civ 5: Civ 4 isn't necessarily harder than Civ 5, it's just that Civ 5 is more accessible to the average gamer.

You never sold education to an AI for gold and then immediately attacked him?

You still didn't counter his point. In Civ IV you had options. In Civ V, Domination is so easy that any other strategy is necessarily suboptimal.

I think Civ 5 is much easier because the AI is so bad at combat. In Civ 4, your military was all about economy and how many and what type of units you could pump out to invade. In Civ 5, you have to consider tactics (and the AI really doesn't). Even if the AI has a great economy and generates twice as many units as you do. You can still beat the AI based on pure tactics alone. You couldn't do that in Civ 4.

The AI gets to cheat in a big way on Deity level in Civ V. You simply cannot match it's production bonuses so you have to fight off endless waves of units. Sure, it's tough, but is it fun?

Cool, more comments :goodjob:. Let's see:

I think Civ 5 is much easier because the AI is so bad at combat. In Civ 4, your military was all about economy and how many and what type of units you could pump out to invade. In Civ 5, you have to consider tactics (and the AI really doesn't). Even if the AI has a great economy and generates twice as many units as you do. You can still beat the AI based on pure tactics alone. You couldn't do that in Civ 4.

Are you saying you can't beat the AI based on pure tactics in Civ 4:confused:? In Civ 4, many wars were determined by who could position their SOD so that it could get the first attack. With suicide siege, a battle of "even stacks" could lead to kill ratios of 2, 3, or even 4:1 in the attacker's favor.

And I don't agree how tactics > everything in Civ 5. I don't care how good of a general you are, no amount of tactics is going to save rifles from being destroyed by Rocket Artillery.

The AI gets to cheat in a big way on Deity level in Civ V. You simply cannot match it's production bonuses so you have to fight off endless waves of units. Sure, it's tough, but is it fun?

You do know that the EXACT same thing occurred in going from Civ 4 Vanilla/Warlords to BTS right? The AI spammed more units in BTS than in previous versions, and people were lauding it for being more "intelligent." So why does Civ 5 get all this criticism about unit spam?

Cool, more comments :goodjob:. Let's see:



Are you saying you can't beat the AI based on pure tactics in Civ 4:confused:? In Civ 4, many wars were determined by who could position their SOD so that it could get the first attack. With suicide siege, a battle of "even stacks" could lead to kill ratios of 2, 3, or even 4:1 in the attacker's favor.

And I don't agree how tactics > everything in Civ 5. I don't care how good of a general you are, no amount of tactics is going to save rifles from being destroyed by Rocket Artillery.



You do know that the EXACT same thing occurred in going from Civ 4 Vanilla/Warlords to BTS right? The AI spammed more units in BTS than in previous versions, and people were lauding it for being more "intelligent." So why does Civ 5 get all this criticism about unit spam?

That quote's not mine. WTF? That's someone else's post.

If you want to win basically any level Pangaea (dunno about Deity, but I know on Immortal), all you have to do is beeline HBR and spawn 3-4 Horsemen. The only time this becomes hard is when you have multiple continents. Horsemen can easily destroy all the civs and city-states throughout the continent, so long as you're quick and kill them all before pikes (which isn't difficult, really).

I beat Civ V on deity with standard settings and a cultural victory, but I don't know if it was because the game is "too easy", or because the AI is literally too stupid to go to war with me when I have no military to speak up and I'm about to win.

The problem is not that it's "too easy" to win in Civ5. If that were the root of the problem, then they could simply heap more bonuses on the AI to make winning harder for the human.

The problem is that the Civ5 AI fails in dealing with key concepts of the game (1upt tactics and logistics). It's not very satisfying to win against an AI that can't play the game, just like it isn't very satisfying to win a chess game against someone who just randomly chooses his moves, even if you play with only half your pieces to give him a headstart.

The Ai in Civ4, even on release, was pretty decent in employing the new mechanics of the game. People even complained about alleged AI cheating because the AI made decent use of its promotions, while many players hadn't understood their importance yet and didn't understand why they were losing battles. In Civ5, players make better (than the AI) use of 1upt combat and logistics in their very first game.

That's especially problematic for a game that has been marketed as having a well-designed, multi-tiered, multi-threaded, competent AI that was "playing to win", and removed or streamlined other elements of gameplay. Many old strategy games have horrible AI, but many people still like to play them for the vast amount of options they provide (think SMAC, or Master of Magic). In Civ5, this doesn't work as well because so much content has been removed. Hence, it was imperative that the content that stayed or was added was working well, and unfortunately the AI doesn't.

The big difference is that if you had 10 units in civ4 vs their 100 they could move a giant stack f doom and there wasn't much you could od about it so you had to prevent the war of them getting to that point.

In civ5 your ten units can take out pretty much limitless numbers of enemy units. It isn't really that the AI is worse just that stacking made it easier for it to get away with being dumb, which to be fair has the same effect as worse AI.

because everything is faster in Civ IV. Build faster unit, buildings, and an AI can dominate.

I might lose my first game in Civ 5 soon.

King difficulty, Standard time, Pangaea Large map, starts off in Renaissance era, Modded to limit it to Renaissance era only technology, 25 HP mod that scales cities as well, active city defense mod, Domination only victory.

I usually just steam roll over the AI in King difficulty... but I guess since there aren't many wonders to build or anything to research, they just blitzed out military and settlers. I would have easily won a 1vs1, but they actually grouped up in the beginning with a 1vs2. Then when I committed my army to the south, another AI attacked from the north, making it a 1vs3. So yeah... this is the first game where I was (pleasantly) surprised by the AI being pretty good. The game isn't over yet; the AI still seems to have difficulty attacking my cities.

Edit: the AI actually wanted to make peace but I refused... they're pretty much winning.

You still didn't counter his point. In Civ IV you had options. In Civ V, Domination is so easy that any other strategy is necessarily suboptimal.

You can still do other options even if conquest increases your chances of winning or a higher score.

Just like you can play a civ that doesn't give you the best chance to win for the challenge of it.

Well, one of the things with the combat in civ5 is that you tend to lose very few units when you win. This creates a snowball effect where once you've got an army core, there's really no reason to stop warring until you get the domination victory.

In civ4, if you have 10 90% attacks, you have a 65% chance of losing at least a unit. You couldn't roll across the entire world with a single stack of units, and cities needed to keep building units to replenish the stack, which prevents cities from building other useful improvements, causing you to fall behind other civs.

In civ5, you very rarely lose units, whenever you capture a city you can upgrade any units with available upgrades and then raze the city the next turn, and there's generally no penalty (other than possible attacks from other civs) to having your units stretched far and wide. You usually don't need to keep your cities producing units because of the low combat losses, but even if you do need to produce units, it doesn't feel like there's much opportunity cost because of how weak buildings generally are.

Zelig: Your description actually reminded me to the old Civ1/Civ2 cheese tactics of "build 3 tanks and take over the world". Even the tactical prowess of the Civ5 AI seems comparable. ;)

You can still do other options even if conquest increases your chances of winning or a higher score.

Just like you can play a civ that doesn't give you the best chance to win for the challenge of it.

That's using "house rules", wich sucks. If I have to play with one arm tied behind my back in order to make the game challenging, I'm doing the developers job. Just like the modders finishing this game.

Civ5 is a breeze. Civ4 is definitely more difficult, mostly because of the stacks of doom and the fact that the computer was usually better and more determined at churning out experienced units than I was.

I think the OP misses the point here.

The game is not easyer then Civ IV.It is sure as HELL more DUMB tho.From the A.I. to diplomacy to tile management to policys.Its DUMB.And with that dumbness comes the facerolling hence the "its easy" comments.

Imo wait for the A.I. patch(yes there will be one otherwise SID and his crew can shut doors to their studio) and then judge.

The game is not easyer then Civ IV.It is sure as HELL more DUMB tho.From the A.I. to diplomacy to tile management to policys.Its DUMB.And with that dumbness comes the facerolling hence the "its easy" comments.

How is it dumb? Is dumb = "Not what I like?" Well in that case:

Dumb is realizing that slavery is viable the ENTIRE game in Civ4.

Dumb is realizing that you can break Tokugawa's AI behavior with 100 hammers.

Dumb is seeing how 90% of Deity games have to do with a liberalism win.

Dumb is finding out how that a player cannot actively find their neighbors' religion (thanks Soren, a CORE MECHANIC of the game being reduced to dumb luck).

So unfortunately, Civ 4 is full of dumb too :cry:.


Some more responses:

In civ4, if you have 10 90% attacks, you have a 65% chance of losing at least a unit. You couldn't roll across the entire world with a single stack of units, and cities needed to keep building units to replenish the stack, which prevents cities from building other useful improvements, causing you to fall behind other civs.

Falling behind on other civs doesn't generally happen until at least immortal, and even then you can keep up.

I beat Civ V on deity with standard settings and a cultural victory, but I don't know if it was because the game is "too easy", or because the AI is literally too stupid to go to war with me when I have no military to speak up and I'm about to win.

You can do the EXACT same thing in Civ 4 by abusing leader peaceweights...why is Civ 5 so dumb compared to Civ 4?

The Ai in Civ4, even on release, was pretty decent in employing the new mechanics of the game. People even complained about alleged AI cheating because the AI made decent use of its promotions, while many players hadn't understood their importance yet and didn't understand why they were losing battles.

If the AI was so good at employing the new mechanics, how come they kept dying to axe rushes? In a game with chops, slavery & AI maintenance cheats, having two archers at a border city @ 500 BC is unacceptable :crazyeye:.

Falling behind on other civs doesn't generally happen until at least immortal, and even then you can keep up.

So you don't get ahead as much, in that case. My point was just that there was an opportunity cost to pumping out military and going for domination in civ4, and that opportunity cost no longer seems to exist in civ5.

Simple answer, at least for me.

In any difficulty in IV I could win the early rush and take out the closest three or four AI without breaking a sweat. But then I would not have the infrastructure in place to support all of my captured cities, my economy would collapse, and I would be out of the game.

In Civ V that early rush wins the game. I can ignore science, I don't need more than Horseman, and I certainly don't need siege units. I can wipe the map easily before 350 turns (on standard speed and size). All I need is gold, and I am rolling in it if I'm at war. Heck, I don't even need to worry about happiness.

Civ IV required knowing how to manage and run an economy while balancing it with war. In Civ V you just build some units and win.

Simple answer, at least for me.

In any difficulty in IV I could win the early rush and take out the closest three or four AI without breaking a sweat. But then I would not have the infrastructure in place to support all of my captured cities, my economy would collapse, and I would be out of the game.

In Civ V that early rush wins the game. I can ignore science, I don't need more than Horseman, and I certainly don't need siege units. I can wipe the map easily before 350 turns (on standard speed and size). All I need is gold, and I am rolling in it if I'm at war. Heck, I don't even need to worry about happiness.

Civ IV required knowing how to manage and run an economy while balancing it with war. In Civ V you just build some units and win.

Don't your horsemen become ineffective from all that unhappiness? Happiness is my primary stumbling block in CiV.

Civ IV required knowing how to manage and run an economy while balancing it with war. In Civ V you just build some units and win.

How true, managing the economy is where most people find the fun I guess.
Clearly, the developers decided to appeal Civ5 to the crowd who likes to "buy some units, goto war and win"

I can no longer find that fun feeling from Civ5 anymore...

In Civ4 I actually worried about my survival in prince-monarch difficulty as long as AI had sizeable empires running.

In Civ5 I'm sparing the AI to make the game more interesting in emperor difficulty.

I think the biggest problem is that I can pull off so much from combat. In Civ4 cheating AI's production would simply swamp me in war even if I wage war competently, but in Civ5 I can clear an entire continent with 6 ~ 8 units. And it gets easier and easier as my army becomes veterans.

Maybe the problem is that you WANT to win in V (or that the game sort of forces you to 'play to win').

I struggled mightily just to truly "beat" the AI on normal in IV, but I've already won a deity game (and will shortly win another) on V.... Why?

V has taken a way a lot of the detours that made me, to a large extent, not really care about "winning" in IV. Yes, yes -- I was well aware of the 'rules' to win in IV... rush this, then attack that... convert this to later do that... don't build wonders, capture them.... etc. I never employed any of the 'proven' strategies to win in IV because frankly, I didn't really care all that much about winning. I think I played chieftan one city challenge way back in BTS solely to see the victory movies -- but other than that, I was perfectly fine plodding along mixing and matching different aspects of the game.... Building all the wonders I could, maxing out resource benefits, tinkering with different building build sequences, some war, some religion, some espionage, etc.

You get punished more for "detours" in V -- and V just feels more like the whole point is to win, rather than winning simply being the end result of a really fun journey.

I've now won domination (King), Space Race (Emperor), UN (immortal), and should win a culture victory later tonight on deity.... Once I do that - I guess there's still the science victory - but then what?

I've "beat" the game.... What more will there be to do?

Very interesting answer zonk. :goodjob:. I do have a couple questions:

You get punished more for "detours" in V -- and V just feels more like the whole point is to win, rather than winning simply being the end result of a really fun journey.

I'm curious, what was your Civ 5 tech path? In my (only) Deity standard win, I went domination but my early tech went middle path (horses), upper path (writing, philosophy, education) and segued into middle path (chivalry + banking). I eschewed the lower path (all the military stuff) until after I conquered my continent.

In contrast, in Civ 4, going the middle path (aka liberalism) was HEAVILY favored line. A great scientist can pop philosophy, paper (not recommended..), education & liberalism. You could then trade for all the lower and upper techs as needed. Tech trading reduces the need for specialization since you can backfill everything.

However, maybe you're right in that people are trying to win more in Civ 5 than in Civ 4. The Steam achievements are probably a non-significant reason for that...

In any difficulty in IV I could win the early rush and take out the closest three or four AI without breaking a sweat. But then I would not have the infrastructure in place to support all of my captured cities, my economy would collapse, and I would be out of the game.

Build wealth and/or research? Whip your captured cities? What infrastructure did you need in Civ 4 to succeed :confused:.

@Zonk : Winning Deity in every mode (try a late domination, should be fun ^^). After that you wait for modders to fix the game :D.

Also I find diplomacy victory is way too easy to achieve, you just need some gold and not be too far behind in tech.

In contrast, in Civ 4, going the middle path (aka liberalism) was HEAVILY favored line. A great scientist can pop philosophy, paper (not recommended..), education & liberalism. You could then trade for all the lower and upper techs as needed. Tech trading reduces the need for specialization since you can backfill everything.
That was just because civ IV AI was more sensible than you and actually tried to make a minimally balanced tech path, allowing you to have something to trade for the lib techs. Try the lib path in MP ( even on pitboss, where things are normally that ruthless ) and you will see maces and knights stomping your archers and axes in the moment people see you going to lib ... just because if you go lib, it means you should have little to none medieval units :p

Basically, the lib path is only good because the Ai in civ IV is normally sheepish and dull enough for allowing a parasite to suck their techs and go away with it :D

Don't your horsemen become ineffective from all that unhappiness? Happiness is my primary stumbling block in CiV.

From what unhappiness? I just raze everything.

If the AI was so good at employing the new mechanics, how come they kept dying to axe rushes? In a game with chops, slavery & AI maintenance cheats, having two archers at a border city @ 500 BC is unacceptable :crazyeye:.

I didn't say "so good", I said "decent". ;) Imho, the AI defense strategies in release-day Civ4 were adequate. There were weaknesses of course (the devs probably hadn't expected axemen to be that strong in rushes against cities), and as the players' strategies evolved (axemen rush wasn't conceived on day 1), the AI had to be adapted. That's standard stuff.

Translated to Civ5, if the only complaint was that horsemen were too powerful in early rushes, I'd chalk it up to the same error. And while I'd wonder a bit why the devs made the same mistake twice, I wouldn't be worried that it can be fixed.

However, the complaints about Civ5 are not that a single unit is more powerful than expected and that the AI can be overwhelmed by it. The main complaint about the AI is that it's incapable of dealing with 1upt combat and logistics even on the most basic level. Read the reports about dozens of units embarking piecemeal, two or three per turn, only to be destroyed by the player's ships each and every time. Or the reports about the AI pathfinding being hopelessly out of its depth when trying to move a group of units as a single entity while maintaining sensible army lines. Or the reports about AI ranged units twiddling thumbs when they could fire at enemy units without risk. And so on. That's a very different level of stupidity than "the AI doesn't field enough archers to prevent an early axe rush", don't you think?

The higher difficulty levels don't make the AI better - it just gives it more stuff.

Set up a choke point with a citadel, declare war on the AI. Wait for it to run all of it's units into your choke and use canons(or better) to blow them all up. Then walk in and claim the AIs citys.

It works on every level.

The AI is stupid. Beating the AI because it keeps doing the same fail move over and over is not fun.

[...]

Read the reports about dozens of units embarking piecemeal, two or three per turn, only to be destroyed by the player's ships each and every time...

It's amazing, but true - in fact it actually looks to me as though the AI is sort of trying to attack my ships with embarked ground troops. (It also keeps using them to block one-tile wide straits - which actually works, to be fair, if I don't actually want to start a war just then. But it has to stay lucky.) I think something in its code is telling it that if it floats, it's a naval unit.

Hilarious watching spearmen in boats trying to gang up on a destroyer - I've got to say there are many moments of pure comedy in this game, otherwise I don't think I'd still be playing it.

One good thing about Civ V, is that it gives you greater appreciation for what Firaxis accomplished with CIV BTS.

With people who have not done any software engineering it might be difficult to understand how big of an accomplishment that was. To draw an analogy, it's like putting together a million piece jigsaw puzzle without a picture to reference.

I imagine that given enough time to evolve, Civ V might turn into something just as good.

Translated to Civ5, if the only complaint was that horsemen were too powerful in early rushes, I'd chalk it up to the same error. And while I'd wonder a bit why the devs made the same mistake twice, I wouldn't be worried that it can be fixed.

It's not really only that horsemen are powerful. I don't really think they are *too* powerful. But the AI can't defend its cities very well and will often agree to peace once you take one early city. Rushes aren't working so well because horsemen are strong, they work so well because you can get a huge early advantage without really sacrificing a lot.

For example, I have a 52 turn deity domination win on a duel map where I literally just built warriors and archers and marched them to my opponent to capture his capital. No horsemen involved.

Note that I'm not really complaining about me cheesing a victory - I think it's not entirely valid to complain about early rushes being so effective, we don't have to do them.

Very interesting answer zonk. :goodjob:. I do have a couple questions:



I'm curious, what was your Civ 5 tech path? In my (only) Deity standard win, I went domination but my early tech went middle path (horses), upper path (writing, philosophy, education) and segued into middle path (chivalry + banking). I eschewed the lower path (all the military stuff) until after I conquered my continent.

In contrast, in Civ 4, going the middle path (aka liberalism) was HEAVILY favored line. A great scientist can pop philosophy, paper (not recommended..), education & liberalism. You could then trade for all the lower and upper techs as needed. Tech trading reduces the need for specialization since you can backfill everything.


Well, to be honest - the first deity domination took 2 tries... Initially, I always start as a wonder seeker (masonry - calendar - philosophy). This went horribly wrong, as I was stuck on a continent with Monty and Bismark - and they both DoWed me the turn after I finished the pyramids - and given my wonder focus, I was relatively easy pickings.

I liked the map, though - so I restarted and instead, went immediately for all military. This actually worked out perfectly -- Bismark actually built the pyramids AND stonehenge, while Monty built the lighthouse for some reason. I took them out one at a time, and it was pretty much clear sailing.... I puppeted their cities to start, annexing only when happiness allowed. By the end of medieval - I controlled the best continent and had my choice of 8-10 CS allies to pick and choose from.

From there, it was just a matter of working through the "unit on every tile" AI approach, which really just involved a lot of careful naval positioning.... I had a tech lead by the time I attacked (Research Treaty exploit), so it was relatively easy to get through the spam with superior units (thank YOU, CS militaristic allies). I also got rather lucky with an archipelago chain that had 3 scattered ruins -- each of which popped techs (techs I had largely bypassed - I guess in retrospect, getting a 3 turn tech isn't really that big of a deal).

However, the complaints about Civ5 are not that a single unit is more powerful than expected and that the AI can be overwhelmed by it. The main complaint about the AI is that it's incapable of dealing with 1upt combat and logistics even on the most basic level. Read the reports about dozens of units embarking piecemeal, two or three per turn, only to be destroyed by the player's ships each and every time. Or the reports about the AI pathfinding being hopelessly out of its depth when trying to move a group of units as a single entity while maintaining sensible army lines. Or the reports about AI ranged units twiddling thumbs when they could fire at enemy units without risk. And so on. That's a very different level of stupidity than "the AI doesn't field enough archers to prevent an early axe rush", don't you think?

This.

I feel like I'm playing chess with a child.... as the AI moves its seige unit directly in front of my melee front line, seemingly because its boxed it to the sides and thinks it MUST expend that move this round, I feel like I'm teaching my nephew to play chess.... "Are you sure you want to move that Queen to take my pawn, when there's a rook right behind it? Yes - I know the only move for her is forward, but do you think maybe she should just stay put this round, out of harms way, while another piece moves instead?"

I've run into those "unit on every tile" AI setups -- they look scarier than they are. When you look at the actual composition -- it makes you want to tear your hair out... why are those fast mobile units way in the back? Why are those ranged units upfront? And why are you embarking MORE units when you just saw me whack 3 defenseless pieces in the general vicinity?

cIV5 Is not easier or harder than Civ4.

It's a different game.

RE: AI ranged units not doing anything.

Unless you're in debug and can confirm unit has movement points left, it's speculation.

I've had continental invasions go south because my infantry was obliterated by AI artilerry parked further inland. They can 1-2 hit your units.

AI needs to move groups of units cohesively in a more sensible fashion. I agree, but I sense a whole lot of hyperbole here.

cIV5 Is not easier or harder than Civ4.

It's a different game.

Which game are you playing? Have you even played Civ4?

From my play testing Emperor in Civ V is about the same difficulty as Prince in Civ IV.

The AI just can't seem to adjust to 1UPT as easily as people can.

Which game are you playing? Have you even played Civ4?

From my play testing Emperor in Civ V is about the same difficulty as Prince in Civ IV.

The AI just can't seem to adjust to 1UPT as easily as people can.

Right -

That WAS the plus thing about stacks... You COULD get around the limitations of an AI simply by giving it the ability to support a bigger army, build units quicker and cheaper, and giving it a tech boost.

There just isn't a way around fixing the AI in 1UpT.... you have to teach the AI to properly group and position units because spam isn't an option (though - that certainly seems to be how they attempted to handle it).

Which game are you playing? Have you even played Civ4?

From my play testing Emperor in Civ V is about the same difficulty as Prince in Civ IV.

The AI just can't seem to adjust to 1UPT as easily as people can.



Well they can give Emperor Civ5 AI 10% combat bonus and call it a day. I've suggested the existing method of production bonuses only for Civ5 AI at higher difficulty is not the way to go.

But the 'lets give the AI a larger army' is a crutch the franchise needs to get out of anyways because it leads to really unbalanced play on the top end where all you do find exploits that mitigate AI production bonuses, like for example playing on advantageous map settings or only on certian map types.

Well they can give Emperor Civ5 AI 10% combat bonus and call it a day.

Wh..

*calms down*

Sorry, but if a rules system is so difficult to grasp for an AI that they need a combat cheat to be competitive, then it'd really be better to call it a day and scrap the rules system. So far, no Civ game has ever sunk to these depths, not even Civ1 with its massive arsenal of AI cheats, nor has any other serious TBS game to my knowledge. I hope that Civ5 won't be the first one, and i really can't imagine them doing this. Implementing a combat cheat in a TBS game is basically an AI programmer declaring bankruptcy.

Wh..

*calms down*

Sorry, but if a rules system is so difficult to grasp for an AI that they need a combat cheat to be competitive, then it'd really be better to call it a day and scrap the rules system. So far, no Civ game has ever sunk to these depths, not even Civ1 with its massive arsenal of AI cheats, nor has any other serious TBS game to my knowledge. I hope that Civ5 won't be the first one, and i really can't imagine them doing this. Implementing a combat cheat in a TBS game is basically an AI programmer declaring bankruptcy.

You mean giving AI massive production bonuses in 4 wasn't a cheat?

OMG.

AI being able to build 2 cavalry in the time you build 1 is pretty much like saying you have to kill a cavalry twice.

Well they can give Emperor Civ5 AI 10% combat bonus and call it a day.


That wouldn't help much and it would just make the AI even more of a cheater. Firaxis needs to tap their best AI programmers and come up with some better algorithms.


I've suggested the existing method of production bonuses only for Civ5 AI at higher difficulty is not the way to go.


Bonuses for the AI = cheating. But short of using a super-computer they just aren't going to match the best players with advanced AI algorithms alone.

At levels above Prince some AI bonuses would be OK with me. Like give them them a free tech at King and maybe have give them a 10% bonus to gold, production, science and cultural for the first 100 turns. At Emperor give them 2 free techs and a 15% bonus, Immortal a 20% and so on.

They are still going to need to refine their algorithms.


But the 'lets give the AI a larger army' is a crutch the franchise needs to get out of anyways because it leads to really unbalanced play on the top end where all you do find exploits that mitigate AI production bonuses, like for example playing on advantageous map settings or only on certian map types.

Easier said than done, but certainly there are limits to how much having extra units helps in Civ V.

You mean giving AI massive production bonuses in 4 wasn't a cheat?

OMG.

Please read my post again, I never said that. It would be a silly thing to claim, and I'm not totally daft, you know? ;)

What I'm saying (and maintaing) is that no Civ game ever sank so low to give its AI a combat cheat. Of course the AI in all Civ games had other cheats to help it along - production cheats, maintenance cheats, in Civ1 the AI even got free wonders when it was falling behind (though I wouldn't call this a good way to implekment an AI crutch). But never have they given the AI a blunt combat cheat.

There are several reasons why the Civ franchise (and the other TBS games I know) never did that. The main one is that it's hammering the fact "we weren't capable of doing an AI that can handle our rules system" into the face of the human player with every single attack. Everytime the competent player attacks, he knows he should have a (say) 60% of winning but has only 50% due to a combat cheat. For every single attack. There's no other cheat that makes the AI's incapabilities as obvious and as salient for the player than giving it a combat bonus. Also, judging from the comments of people who suspected the Civ4 AI to have combat cheats (the topic came up repeatedly in the Civ4 forums), it's pretty safe to say that such a cheat would turn off a lot of players.

From what unhappiness? I just raze everything.

Well, that's the tactic I've taken to as well, but I wondered if there was a different way that I was somehow missing.

@Murky

Correct.

I'm not saying bonuses are bad, but production bonuses only may not be the answer.

Agreed on your final point. Diminishing returns on prod bonuses due to 1UPT rule.

I'm not saying bonuses are bad, but production bonuses only may not be the answer.

Maybe something like reduced upgrade costs? I mean, if 95% upgrade reduction cost was good enough for Civ 4 Deity, it's probably good enough for Civ 5. ;)

Are there any 4x games where increasing difficulty doesn't equal AI bonii/Cheating?
Isn't that how you design a game?
You create the AI to be a strong challenge at normal difficulty and then adjust handicaps to get the different difficulties?
I'm not at this point arguing that the Civ5 AI is or is not sufficient at default. Just with the notion that bonuses and AI "Cheats" are somehow poor design. I don't think anybody writes AI to have subroutines shut off or on at different difficulty. And I'd argue that would be even worse since then the AI would in fact be essentially developmentally challenged at easy difficulty.

Are there any 4x games where increasing difficulty doesn't equal AI bonii/Cheating?
Isn't that how you design a game?
You create the AI to be a strong challenge at normal difficulty and then adjust handicaps to get the different difficulties?
I'm not at this point arguing that the Civ5 AI is or is not sufficient at default. Just with the notion that bonuses and AI "Cheats" are somehow poor design. I don't think anybody writes AI to have subroutines shut off or on at different difficulty. And I'd argue that would be even worse since then the AI would in fact be essentially developmentally challenged at easy difficulty.

Galactic Civ lets you adjust how "Smart" the AI plays in addition to setting bonus/handicaps.

Galactic Civ lets you adjust how "Smart" the AI plays in addition to setting bonus/handicaps.

That's really the AI model everyone should be looking to emulate in 4X games... In addition to the 'level' of the AI, you still had other options -- for example, personalities from evil to chaotic evil to neutral to chaotic good to good.

There are always AI limitations, but you're right -- the masochistic AI in galciv is a fairly tough nut to crack. Forget "I notice your troops are near my border" -- the evil AIs would let you know they "knew what you're doing" by launching their own preemptive attack.... then bringing other like-minded AIs into the fray.

Maybe something like reduced upgrade costs? I mean, if 95% upgrade reduction cost was good enough for Civ 4 Deity, it's probably good enough for Civ 5. ;)
Deity AI in here already is with 50% ... and it performs in the way we see. Maybe it actually needs the 95% to be chaleging enough :/

I'll be convinced that the AI is fine when they:

Stop sending workers into my borders while we're at war.

Figure out how to launch a proper land invasion and don't spend multiple turns rearranging their embarked units while I take my time sinking them.

Can have some semblance of knowing what they're doing when it comes to defense.

Try something other than domination victories.

In Civ 4 I was just barely playing at Noble. Now in Civ V I think I'd have a pretty good shot at King or Immortal.

Deity AI in here already is with 50% ... and it performs in the way we see. Maybe it actually needs the 95% to be chaleging enough :/

Cheaper upgrades isn't going to do anything. Upgrades could be free and the AI would still be a pushover on Deity. Same goes for increased production. They can already fill every single tile on the map practically and its still not enough.

What the AI really needs is to use its units in an intelligent manor. It will take a while to get this right I think. In the meantime, what it needs is a direct buff to combat strength. This is far from ideal, but it really is the only thing I can think of that will make it challenging in combat without completely destroying the other parts of the game (at least until they can make it a bit less stupid - which like I said will take time).

Some people have mentioned GalCiv as a good model for AI. I would completely agree. They did a very nice job with the AI in that game. Using it as an example, they did give the AI combat bonuses to keep the challenge too, even though combat was not tactical (on Obscene one of its many bonuses was it got a huge increase to miniaturization which meant they could cram far more guns and shields onto a ship than you could).

Actually increasing the upgrade bonus could lead to the AI to prefer less units , but more powerful than the spam of lesser units. OFC that with the tactical prowesses of the AI as they are now, it would still be going to the drain, but atleast it would probably lessen a bit the blob of death that we already seen in some late deity screens.

Cheaper upgrades isn't going to do anything. Upgrades could be free and the AI would still be a pushover on Deity. Same goes for increased production. They can already fill every single tile on the map practically and its still not enough.

Have you done late game Deity? You're probably a better player than me, but once the AI gets artillery, and especially rocket artillery...ugh ;).

I dont like cheats because it creates situation that im playing other rules than AI. Which sometimes create situation that i have feeling we are playing different games. So maybe we better think of ways how to improve AI instead of how to make so noone notice that AI is cheating.

As an example would be AI signing alliances against strongest player. Or helping weaker ones. And ofcourse changing some bonuses for units like adding horseman negative bonus and siege units huge bonus for fighting with city .

I'm really amazed to see so many comments defending the AI in Civ 5 or finding fault with the AI in Civ 4 or BTS. Let's face it: the AI in Civ 5 is broken.

The analogy someone gave to playing chess is perfect. The AI in Civ 5 plays like a chess player that randomly moves their bishop or queen in front of a pawn. In several Civ 5 games at Nobel, the AI would attack with a ranged unit against a city with no protection from melees. I easily destroyed the AIs entire army in five turns and then they offered a peace settlement which included all of their cities but their capital - in Civ 4 you can almost never get even one city even after trouncing the AI and burning half a dozen cities. It's really not at all interesting to play against such a stupid AI and I've gone back to BTS which I haven't played in months. I really wish I could get a refund for this game and I’m amazed that I would ever have that thought as my Civ playing goes back to Civ 1.

The argument about higher levels is not compelling. Again, this would be like playing chess against a player that started out with bishops and knights in the front row instead of pawns - and then still winning because they move the pieces in idiotic ways.

My question is whether this AI problem is fixable or is the game fundamentally broken. Is this a fix that will take a few months or are we talking years to get a playable game?

Have you done late game Deity? You're probably a better player than me, but once the AI gets artillery, and especially rocket artillery...ugh ;).

The problem, though, is that it's fairly thoughtless in positioning them.... yes - they sting, but they leave them completely unscreened by any melee or response units, so it's simply a matter of having the pieces around to attack. What's worse - on the rare occasion I've seen the AI actually together a semblance of a true 'front' -- it falls apart on a whim.

Even if the initial engagement (and I think it's by random chance, judging from what I've seen) has a somewhat proper setup - melee in front of siege - when I kill the melee, and because of 1UpT, the only move for a siege is to move FORWARD (towards me), it does that!!! What's even worse -- it then wastes its turn because it cannot do the setup/fire sequence in a single turn.

Actually increasing the upgrade bonus could lead to the AI to prefer less units , but more powerful than the spam of lesser units. OFC that with the tactical prowesses of the AI as they are now, it would still be going to the drain, but atleast it would probably lessen a bit the blob of death that we already seen in some late deity screens.

Why would it prefer less units? They all cost the same to maintain. A tank costs the exact same gold per turn in maintenance as a warrior. All that would happen is all those obsolete units would be upgraded to more modern units.

Have you done late game Deity? You're probably a better player than me, but once the AI gets artillery, and especially rocket artillery...ugh ;).

Well, I've never let the AI get to rocket artillery in a Deity game so far. They did get to regular artillery in one. Though this might not be a very fair comparison. Since because of the previous AIs' stupidity my 4 artillery units, which started off as catapults, then became, trebs, then cannons, and then finally artillery were so upgraded that it was a slaughter. They were all range 4 firing 2 times a turn with 60% bonuses to both open and rough terrain (part of this is also because I'm a big fan of the Honor SPs). Any time AI artillery moved into range and tried to set up to fire it died before it got a shot off.

The really silly thing about this game was I wanted a cultural victory (going for Bollywood) but the AI just kept attacking me so I would kill their units, raze all their cities and then make peace. This happened again and again and they never got the message. :)

Svest, you can win before the AI gets artillery? Man, I suck then ;). What map and size were you playing? My guess is just like that Civ 4, larger map sizes are harder. Maybe you should move up to huge?

Anyways Civ 4 was dumb too. The AI just died to mass air or 2-move units. There was even code that said made Rifles defensive only unit so they just sat in their cities while your cannons owned them. So....why don't people knock Civ 4 for this? :confused:.

Are there any 4x games where increasing difficulty doesn't equal AI bonii/Cheating?
Isn't that how you design a game?
You create the AI to be a strong challenge at normal difficulty and then adjust handicaps to get the different difficulties?


Well for games yes. Because computer games do not have good AI. So the best AI they come up with is still not challenging without cheats. In games where AI is good (chess, bridge etc) no cheating is required.



I'm not at this point arguing that the Civ5 AI is or is not sufficient at default. Just with the notion that bonuses and AI "Cheats" are somehow poor design. I don't think anybody writes AI to have subroutines shut off or on at different difficulty. And I'd argue that would be even worse since then the AI would in fact be essentially developmentally challenged at easy difficulty.

Well the problem is that when you start ramping up the bonuses to ridiculous amounts it looks silly. -check all those deity screens with blankets of units. It does already feel kinda bad when you start with one city and AI gets 2, and then wonders right away. And it still loses!- because it gets the very basics of combat wrong

Though frankly there is not many good TBS AI- i havent seen any frankly , total war series ,gal civ etc -all have bad AI

Svest, you can win before the AI gets artillery? Man, I suck then ;). What map and size were you playing? My guess is just like that Civ 4, larger map sizes are harder. Maybe you should move up to huge?

Anyways Civ 4 was dumb too. The AI just died to mass air or 2-move units. There was even code that said made Rifles defensive only unit so they just sat in their cities while your cannons owned them. So....why don't people knock Civ 4 for this? :confused:.

Well, for starters, you could have fun empire building, so you didn't notice the bad combat much. And more importantly, the AI put up a challenge. Dumb and all, it was rewarding to beat it.

Svest, you can win before the AI gets artillery? Man, I suck then ;). What map and size were you playing? My guess is just like that Civ 4, larger map sizes are harder. Maybe you should move up to huge?

Anyways Civ 4 was dumb too. The AI just died to mass air or 2-move units. There was even code that said made Rifles defensive only unit so they just sat in their cities while your cannons owned them. So....why don't people knock Civ 4 for this? :confused:.

I have been doing random map settings/random leader lately. Keeps things a bit more interesting IMO. I think the game I was talking about was continents, probably standard size. When I saw I got Ghandi I decided to go for the 3 city cultural win for the Bollywood achievement. That's the only reason the game made it that long.

I've also done a large earth map, but I got Alexander so that might not be very fair. All of Europe, Asia, and Africa fell to 4 companion cavalry and 2 catapults (I didn't bother finishing the game by going over to the Americas).

Actually lately I've been playing on immortal instead of deity. I found slogging through their billion units to just be more annoying than challenging. So instead I play immortal and hamstring myself in some way hoping to make it more challenging. For example, in my current game I got an archipelago map and I thought it might be interesting to try to win without ever building a single land unit (military - settlers and workers were fine). I figured if I couldn't conquer any cities it might up the challenge a bit. Sadly I was disappointed to find the AI is more than willing to give you all their cities for peace still (which I thought was something that was supposed to be fixed).

Maybe I'll give a huge map on deity a try. If you say it will be a bigger challenge its worth a shot.

--------------
For the second part, the reason people didn't notice the stupidity as much in CivIV was because the SOD mechanics allowed for stupidity. It was harder to use a little thought to gain a HUGE advantage when fighting SOD vs SOD. Yeah, you had to make sure you struck first, but that was about it. If their SOD had 30 units and you only had 10 you were in trouble. In CiV if they have 30 units and you have 10 you are golden.

The added complexity of 1UPT vs SOD really brought the AI's shortcomings into the spotlight.

Well, for starters, you could have fun empire building, so you didn't notice the bad combat much. And more importantly, the AI put up a challenge. Dumb and all, it was rewarding to beat it.

Hahahaha the Civ 4 AI put up a challenge? The AI that wasn't even programmed to win the game until BTS, and even then is only good for cultural victories. It's statements like this that confuse me :confused:.

And there's a reason why people end their Civ 4 games after Renaissance, and it's not because the empire building was so awesome that they couldn't handle it :lol:

Hahahaha the Civ 4 AI put up a challenge? The AI that wasn't even programmed to win the game until BTS, and even then is only good for cultural victories. It's statements like this that confuse me :confused:.

And there's a reason why people end their Civ 4 games after Renaissance, and it's not because the empire building was so awesome that they couldn't handle it :lol:

Excuse me, but I enjoyed empire building until Future Tech and beyond. It was complex, it had choices, each game had a story to tell you. I also had fun with late game war. Sure it wasn't that hard, but it wasn't the roll over AI Civ V has. At least it took time to bring down a whole empire, that alone made the game more enjoyable.

Hahahaha the Civ 4 AI put up a challenge? The AI that wasn't even programmed to win the game until BTS, and even then is only good for cultural victories. It's statements like this that confuse me :confused:.

And there's a reason why people end their Civ 4 games after Renaissance, and it's not because the empire building was so awesome that they couldn't handle it :lol:

That's actually interesting, in my experience on CivIV BTS the AI (on Immortal/Deity) was always much better at Space or UN victories than cultural (the UN victories were really military victories, they just got enough vassal votes before they got the land % needed for domination). When I was building my spaceship there were many times I was racing someone else to their space ship or racing to get it done before the big monster vassaled the last few votes they needed. I don't ever remember racing to beat a cultural win.

Many people had to end their game by Renaissance because if they let it go any longer the increasing AI bonuses in the industrial and modern ages got completely out of hand. Many people could win a quick game on Immortal/Deity but they couldn't handle it if they let it go long.

Hahahaha the Civ 4 AI put up a challenge? The AI that wasn't even programmed to win the game until BTS, and even then is only good for cultural victories. It's statements like this that confuse me :confused:.

And there's a reason why people end their Civ 4 games after Renaissance, and it's not because the empire building was so awesome that they couldn't handle it :lol:
Well , atleast the civ IV AI has no doomsday device that makes them to think that suiciding vs the biggest civ around might be a good idea. Not mentioning that the suposedely "playing to win" on Civ V is probably responsible for a lot of the AI defeats so far :D

Excuse me, but I enjoyed empire building until Future Tech and beyond. It was complex, it had choices, each game had a story to tell you. I also had fun with late game war. Sure it wasn't that hard, but it wasn't the roll over AI Civ V has. At least it took time to bring down a whole empire, that alone made the game more enjoyable.

No kidding. The AARs written for cIV were awesome for the most part. Every game had a potentially great story to tell.

I get the distinct feeling that ciV won't be the same. The stories and tales will likely be quite dull as the victory conditions are so cookie cutter now.

What were your strategies in Civ4? Isn't the Civ 5 horse rush = Civ 4 axe rush/war chariot rush? In Vanilla a good portion of my Emperor wins consisted of rushing down one civ with axes, another civ with elepults or cavalry, and then turtling to space. In BTS rushing was toned down, so the default strategy was six-cities--> mass Cavalry whip--> stomp on AI longbows. How is this so different from Civ5?

I never beat Civ IV on the higher diffs, or even played it on higher diffs. I don't want to use cheese to beat a game (which seems very common in high diff play) and civ isn't a military rush game to me so playing the game such that it requires some kind of early military rush to be successful has no appeal.

In Civ 5 I can beat emperor pretty easily and might bump it up but I still play my way (build a lot less wonders though due to the AI production). With 5 it's more about making the AI more of a challenge since I inevitably put the smack down. If/when they make the combat AI a little more challenging I'm sure I'll have to scale back.

And, I have zero desire to play diety and make the game an early combat rush like Civ IV - that would be zero fun to me. I might do it once to check it out since I'm trying everything with 5...but to me that pretty much renders the game useless since I don't just want to play civ the stone age wargame (pretty much turns Civ into a slow paced RTS wargame clone).