Keith Larson
Jul 17, 2003, 09:58 AM
I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the way the game currently handles difficulty levels. I am currently at the Deity level of play and find the only way to win is by warmongering. What frustrates me so much is that at Deity level the game actually encourages the human play to adopt a playing style that pits the human’s greatest strength against the AI greatest weakness: Warfare. At a 40% production advantage to the AI it is pointless for the human to try to build wonders or go for cultural victories. But when it comes to warfare this 40% production advantage only gives the human player more units to kill and create great leaders from. Rarely will the AI defend a city (except the capital) with more than 4 units, the rest of the units wonder around the map waiting to get reduced by bombard or destroy themselves in piece meal attacks against your nearest city in which you have placed a super stack of defenders. The AI behavior is so predictable that the human player always have the upper hand.
I propose that Firaxis give the AI a combat advantage vs. the human player similar to the combat advantage it now enjoys against barbarians. This advantage would not extend to just attacks, but also defense. So for example at Deity the AI will attack at 200% bonus and defend at 100% bonus. No whose cities that you know are only defended by 2-4 spearmen become a hard nut to crack. With horsemen you are attack at a 2 to 5 ratio rather than a 2 to 3 ratio and with swordsmen you are attacking at a 3 to 5 ratio rather than a 1 to 1 ratio.
With such an advantage in combat, I think the production advantage could be safely backed off and human players could feel free to follow peaceful paths to victory again.
I hope that Firaxis will give this so serious thought for Conquests or at least add this to the editor for players who desire to give it a try.
I propose that Firaxis give the AI a combat advantage vs. the human player similar to the combat advantage it now enjoys against barbarians. This advantage would not extend to just attacks, but also defense. So for example at Deity the AI will attack at 200% bonus and defend at 100% bonus. No whose cities that you know are only defended by 2-4 spearmen become a hard nut to crack. With horsemen you are attack at a 2 to 5 ratio rather than a 2 to 3 ratio and with swordsmen you are attacking at a 3 to 5 ratio rather than a 1 to 1 ratio.
With such an advantage in combat, I think the production advantage could be safely backed off and human players could feel free to follow peaceful paths to victory again.
I hope that Firaxis will give this so serious thought for Conquests or at least add this to the editor for players who desire to give it a try.