Naokaukodem
Millenary King
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2003
- Messages
- 3,939
This is not a feature; this is a bug. Your notion of "honest" number of units seems flawed to me; it's "honest" if you think everyone should be warmongers and the game should reward that, which are not premises I agree with.
A bug? LOL. That's not the only time you reffer common Civ4 mechanisms as bugs, and I think you are obviously too extremist in that. No, that's not a bug. And, apparently, it is still possible to win a cultural victory in Deity.
So you think AI have too many units in higher difficulty levels? That should make you happy, as it is more difficult to conquer them. If warmongers had the same lattitude of movement in Deity than they have in Noble, then war would be overpowered. Then, we could go into war without parcimony. Then, war would be one good if not the only one mean to win. With AI increasing its number of units, "warmongers" have to be very carefull of what they do. And to say all, I don't see anymore "warmongers", they are just players like any other one, using the thin possibilities they have in Deity, Immortal or Emperor. In those difficulty levels, you can't engage a successfull war anytime. Yo have to be very carefull of the strategic situation, in order to make those wars the shorter possible, the more efficient possible. You can't just throw your troops into war anytime because you are a "warmonger". In this regard, you should know that winning a war in higher difficulty levels is as difficult as winning by other means. Again, more troops in higher difficulty levels lower the range of action of "warmongers".
Of course, if you want to conquer the world with the Bible, you may be disappointed. First because culture can't go very far in Civ4. You would be surprised that i militate for a deeper culture in Civ5. That would be the premise of a culture conquest. But I do not deny the utility of wars, as it is a good alternative to other means, the more when you have to do strategic choices about what you want to build in your cities: buildings, or units.
What i like in wars is their violence. You take what you want by force. And I have to say that in Civ4, the violence of wars is pretty damaged, due to the must-have combination of artillery and usual troops. It's not the same in Civ4 than in Civ2. I prefer when you can kill directly a unit with another one. In Civ2, when you built Legions or Howitzers first, you could conquer the world. That was fun. And that's really the only thing I can ask from a game like Civ. I do not call fun the fact that we have to reverse-engineering the game in order to win. Some find it fun that way. I do not. And I prefer to win than to lose anytime. So it would be cool if Civ5 would be much more "organic", instinctive, in order to beat the game without reverse-engineering it. It would mean a much more logical AI and diplomacy, call it smarter or whatelse, in all cases more adaptative. (in opposition to scripted and obscure personnalities)
So as you see, I do not see war as the ultimate thing to do to beat higher difficulty levels, far from it. I even find it too soft, for particular reasons I tried to figure out above.
Chance of cultural conversions of each individual unit depending on the difference between attacker's culture and defender's culture, for one thing. Then see how it plays and tweak it.
And how would you do, in higher difficulty levels, to conquer the last civ that was protected geographically by others, when they nearly reach the cultural victory? Ah, my bad, that's precisely what you want: no wars at all, only cultural and buildings (! how boring and horrible).
Be just awared that wars, in higher difficulty levels, are just another mean the player have, among all the other means. If that last one to be soften, then this is all the balance that would go, as Civ is about building wonders, buildings AND units.
The balance is already pretty good in Civ4.