Difficulty differences?

Hi, does anyone have a list of what the actual benefits are the computer gets at each difficulty level? I'm talking about what extra units they start with, what extra techs they start with, how much faster percentage-wise their research and production is, etc.

Thanks!

I always wondered about this too. I think all the variables are stored under your Civ4 directory in 'Assets\XML\GameInfo\CIV4HandicapInfo.xml'. Some of the XML tags are straightforward (ex. which free techs you/AI start with) and others are somewhat cryptic (ex. iAIPerEraModifier). From what I have gathered from these forums, 'Noble' seems to be the most appropriate level where you are considered on equal footing with the AI.

HTH

Try reading the manual..........

Ramboost said:

Try reading the manual..........

Click to expand...

IIRC, it doesnt help much.

Ramboost said:

Try reading the manual..........

Click to expand...

The manual does mention some of the freebie units the AI gets, but it doesn't go into detail regarding specifically what / how many techs they get per difficulty and any other speed bonuses.

carltoncold said:

I always wondered about this too. I think all the variables are stored under your Civ4 directory in 'Assets\XML\GameInfo\CIV4HandicapInfo.xml'. Some of the XML tags are straightforward (ex. which free techs you/AI start with) and others are somewhat cryptic (ex. iAIPerEraModifier). From what I have gathered from these forums, 'Noble' seems to be the most appropriate level where you are considered on equal footing with the AI.

HTH

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info carltoncold. I think this is what I was looking for.

No offense but I say try and see. I'm sick of the mathematics. Bleh

I went ahead and extracted the info in CIV4HandicapInfo.xml into a spreadsheet and formatted it for comparison between the difficulty levels.

I got the impression that the AI was more agressive at Prince than at Noble, but can't find any evidence. The most significant difference at start is perhaps that the AI gets a scout at Prince but not at Noble.

And for those who are immediately curious or don't have Excel, there's a jpg with the same info.

Wow, thank you Robert. That is most fascinating and informative. Well done!!

Very nicely done , thanks a lot man!

Agree, I´ve been looking for this for a while. very useful, Thanks RobO

Well, thanks
It didn't actually take more than ½-1 hour.

Now, can someone tell me if the AI really is more agressive on Prince than on Noble, and if it is, point out the reason? I'd be interested in setting up a difficulty level that's harder than Noble economically, but doesn't hit me with brainless AI bullies.

I suspect that there's more to the difficulty level differences than can bee seen from the table above, though. Perhaps the (in)famous SDK can shed more light on that.

The most obvious thing i can think of is that the higher up the difficulty level, the less the AI has to pay on unit cost, supply and upgrade. For example, at Emperor, the AI pays only 85% of the upkeep, 20% of the supply and 15% of the upgrade cost that a human player pays. Less upkeep means more units, less supply means those units don't have to be kept at home and less upgrade cost means more current units. Then the AI needs something to do with all those units, and that of course means war. The AI also gets a lot less war weariness (only 50% at emperor), which encourages it even more to declare war with all those units it made.

In fact, i think i'll try to tweak these values to see if i can get more aggressive AI players. This would make the game more challenging and more entertaining for a warmonger such as myself. Maybe with 0 cost on all the above, and 0 war weariness, the AI will get interesting! Or i could just turn on "agressive AI". Does anybody know if this option restricts you in which leaders you can expect to meet (i don't want that) or make whatever leader you do meet more aggressive than he/she would otherwise be (more interesting to me)?

Edit : typo.

RobO, you kick ass. Thanks!

thanks alot robo, should come in handy

I've only played a couple Noble games pre patch 1.52. Most games were Prince. I didn't notice anything that would help determine if Prince AI's were more aggressive. However I have noticed that my in-game decisions have had a direct impact on how aggressive the AI civs were to me. When I've had a weak military, my neighbors appear to be more likelly to attack. If I've blocked off a civs expansion with my culture and then closed my borders, this seems to increase the likelyhood of an AI attack. When my cultural boundries overtake the AI's, this also appears to increase the possibility for attack. etc..

Post patch 1.52 is a whole new ballgame. I've only played a few Monarch games and I can't say as if the Monarch AI is more aggresive than the Prince. But I do know that the barbarian rate has increased drastically. I'm also playing a Noble OCC-SG and a Prince PBEM. Both games were started before the patch and the barbarian occurance for both games increased after the patch. Perhaps the increased rate of Barbarism causes the AI to build more offensive units. Which in turn causes the AI to become more aggressive. Rather than disband units once the local Barbarian tribes are under control; the AI might use the units to make attacks of oppurtunity.

I haven't played enough games with a consistent strategy and similar scenario to have noticed anything that would quantify an understanding of the aggressiveness of the AI based on difficulty. There is just too many variables. One would have to set up a series of test games using the exact same maps, resources and civ placements. And then attempt to play the game the same way every time. If you set up such a test scenario RobO, I'll volunteer to help you test it.

White Elk, I think you'e right - there really isn't one significant difference and it's hard to clearly distinguish a change. It's most likely a combination of many factors - I have more difficulty keeping up, the AI has an easier time building units, and they tend to prey on weaker civs. I had one occasion that annoyed me greatly, where Alexander decided to attack me even though we weren't neighbors and he seemed to have room for expansion. It was obviously a loose-loose proposition.

I'm starting to think that my prefererred difficulty settings for single player are the Prince or Monarch setting for my own handicaps and the Noble settings for the AI. I definitely would like to get rid of the scout they get at Prince.

I hadn't thought of changing the AI's difficulty level. Thats a great way to customize the difficulty settings.

I like the 1.52 Monarch challenge so far, but I am very unhappy with the Barb rate (especially on huge marathon maps- my current preferance). It's just too much and it limits my gameplay options. The begining of every game seems to be the same. I'd like to modify the barabrian appearance values somehow.

White Elk said:

I'd like to modify the barabrian appearance values somehow.

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That's easy enough. In my current game I've edited Prince (taking a copy of CIV4HandicapInfo.xml to my CustomAsstes folder) to have the Monarch settings from iStartingLocPercent down to iUnownedTilesPerGameAnimal and the Noble settings from iUnownedWaterTilesPerBarbarianUnit down to iAIPerEraModifier (with some exceptions which I left unchanged). It seems to work well, but I haven't gotten that far yet (AD 600 or so). I tried using some Barbarian settings from Monarch, but it just got to be too much. Take a look at the enclosure.