Difficulty on par with AI

I searched a bit but couldn't find an answer to this directly. All i found was information explaining the handicaps of the difficutly levels, but nothing specific or easy to understand. So my question is, at what difficulty level is the player equal to the computer in terms of cost to produce units/research techs/food to grow city/etc.?

I've read on this forum that it's Noble.

The AI always gets some bonus's. Even on the easiest level. Noble is supposed to be the "equal" setting, but through people delving through the code, its been assertained that this isn't the case.

So, is there really no such difficulty level where its truly equal? If so, is Noble about as close as you can get? I just don't like winning because i have an advantage, nor do i like losing because the AI cheats. I really wish that on all difficulty levels player and AI costs were identical, that all that changed was how good the AI played and for it not to cheat at all even on diety. Much like it works in chess, the AI just plays better. But it's not as if playing on "grand-master" allows the computer to start with 4 queens

jimbob27 said:

The AI always gets some bonus's. Even on the easiest level. Noble is supposed to be the "equal" setting, but through people delving through the code, its been assertained that this isn't the case.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the clarification. I didn't know that.

Thats the thing tho. Civ4 is like a million times more complicated for the AI to work out than chess. A chess program simply works out all the possible scenarios every turn, and then chooses the move that is likely to result in the higest chance of positive outcomes. They advanced ones literally consider every possible combination of moves for the rest of the game; on every single turn.

Theres no way a computer can possibly do this in civ without each turn taking several days for the pc to calculate every possibility. Civ is just way too complicated.

They designed noble so the AI gets enough bonuses to make up for the fact they can't "think" like you can. All they can do is follow pre-programmed routines, and use mathamatical equasions to "decide" which routine is the best one to use. If everything was equal, then your brain power and all the tactics you can come up with counts as a massive cheat, compared to what the AI has.

Well, my point is, the AI really could be alot better. Actually, it hasn't improved very much from the original civ 10+ years ago. They actually mount attacks now (or try to), but thats about it. I realize it would be much harder to program AI for Civ than chess of course...but still.

One other unrelated question though. Its partly a suggestion, but i'm wondering if there's a mod that does what i'd like to see done. The thing is, if you have for instance 1 aluminum in your territory, it's really no better than a civ that has 5 of them. Sure, if they cap that one supply you lose it, but its not a big deal so long as you have at least one of each resource...thats all you really need. I've hardly ever even been able to trade extra strategic resources, since all the larger empires have at least 1 deposit, and smaller empires without them usually don't have anything worth trading for anyway. So my idea is, is there a way to set it up more like a RTS. Each strategic resource you control could provide one unit of it per turn. So instead of horse archers for instance just requiring horses to be produced, they required a specific amount of horses. So if they required 10 horses, you could only produce 1 of them every 10 turns if you held one horse pasture. The same thing would go for iron, coal, oil, etc.(owning 5 iron mines would yeild 5 iron/turn). In this way, there would be a purpose in controlling more than 1 of each strategic resource, and empires with only 1 aluminum in their borders would still need to trade for more at times. Thoughts?

Re the OP query, on noble both you and AI research, build units, have city growth at exactly the same lvl...as stated by others, the AI gets some small bonuses, e.g against barbarians, but Noble is as close as you can get.

No way the AI and you are ever on par... Well not at noble at least....

You are much smarter and more efficient in your strategies and stuff... You should let the AI "cheat" a little at least to make up for that... Try prince

Umm Chess is SUBSTANTIALLY more complex than Civ IV.

No comparison in the least.

The reason that chess AI rocks and Civ IV AI does not is that Chess AI has been devoloped over decades, while Civ IV AI has been developed over months.

The first examples of chess AI were ... well pathetic. For years there was speculation that chess AI would NEVER be able to beat the top chess players. Over years that has been proved to be false.

However that was after years and years of programming... actually more like decades.

What are you, nuts? A Chess AI doesn't have to decide between Market and Grocer and Library and Spearman and Settler and Missionary and which city to spread a religion to and whether to micromanage for food or to go for Philosophy or Feudalism or Music ... oh, and then do that across an entire civilization while taking into consideration up to 15 opponents' moves.

Chess:CIV::Checkers:Chess

glokkonn said:

Umm Chess is SUBSTANTIALLY more complex than Civ IV.

No comparison in the least.

The reason that chess AI rocks and Civ IV AI does not is that Chess AI has been devoloped over decades, while Civ IV AI has been developed over months.

The first examples of chess AI were ... well pathetic. For years there was speculation that chess AI would NEVER be able to beat the top chess players. Over years that has been proved to be false.

However that was after years and years of programming... actually more like decades.

Click to expand...

Nah, CivIV is more complex than chess. CivIV has many more levels for the AI to consider. Chess is just a choice between several possible moves per turn. (BTW I prefer chess )

Civ is more complex than chess in that there are FAR more variables and options. In chess, there are only 6 different pieces and thats it. In civ....well yeah, it speaks for itself. But the thing is, Civ has a TON of randomness and luck involved, where as chess has almost none. Only a fool would deny that chess requires far more skill and tactical ability to play than Civ, even if it is more simple in the number of pieces you have. It would be much harder to program AI for Civ, but chess is still by far the superior game when it comes to tactics and just raw thinking. Civ may be more fun to play for most people, but nothing compares to the skill required to play chess well (an yes, i do suck at chess, but have great respect for those that don't).

Truronian said:

Nah, CivIV is more complex than chess. CivIV has many more levels for the AI to consider. Chess is just a choice between several possible moves per turn. (BTW I prefer chess )

Click to expand...

Actually I don't think Civ is as complicated as it seems. Sure there are loads of 'potential' things to do each move but not everything needs to be analysed and you could break down each move into just a few options,

for example build infrastructure, build military, wage war, group units, move units etc.

The computer could pretty easily select what squares are the most productive in a city radius, and what buildings, improvements need to be made to maximise efficieny. It's just number crunching really.

Waging war should be easy enough as well. Program some AI's to fight with constant waves of a few attackers, program others to stack massive forces before attacking.

To analyse by brute force would be impossible but using this approach its a lot more accessible for the computer to play well.

kjaye said:

Actually I don't think Civ is as complicated as it seems. Sure there are loads of 'potential' things to do each move but not everything needs to be analysed and you could break down each move into just a few options,

for example build infrastructure, build military, wage war, group units, move units etc.

The computer could pretty easily select what squares are the most productive in a city radius, and what buildings, improvements need to be made to maximise efficieny. It's just number crunching really.

Waging war should be easy enough as well. Program some AI's to fight with constant waves of a few attackers, program others to stack massive forces before attacking.

To analyse by brute force would be impossible but using this approach its a lot more accessible for the computer to play well.

Click to expand...

In all honesty, that is what chess programs were until the late 80s. Because they couldn't analyze every possible combination, 'cheats' in the code were utilized to reduce processing time. It wasn't that the a complete brute force strategy couldn't be programmed, it was that the computer processing power wasn't high enough to handle it. Ditto CIV4.

Long time reader, first time poster. Well, I couldn't resist to involve myself in the chess conversation. Chess AIs are more complex than you might think. And I have real experience in programming chess-like AIs.

First of all, it's completely impossible to evaluate all legal moves in a chess game, the guy who said that the Chess AI is simply calculating all of the possible moves is wrong. The first 30-40 moves in a game are already preprogamed in the game in huge look-up tables. It's when the human player makes a move that's not in the book when the computer starts caclulating. And it's calculating only a very, very small fraction of all moves, very small.

The problem is that even if theoretically you were able to calculate all of the moves, it's extremely hard to tell which is the best one, because the move that leads to the most winning positions is the one that can lead to the most losing positions in the same time. Raw computing power is important, but the programming is the key.

In chess absolutely every move makes difference, every move has the potential of ruining your game -- even the most quiet moves like pushing a pawn -- it changes the position completeley. This is not true of CIV. The most of the moves here are just very slightly changing the overall picture. Is it really so important that you build a forge first and then a temple? Could it be crucial for your game? Probably, given an extreme situation, but most of the time, it's not that important. The chess AI needs to make perfect moves all the time, in CIV it does not. All the AI should do in CIV is following the preprorammed guide-lines.

No time to finish my thoughts now, but please don't say that CIV is more complex than chess.

Welcome to the forums Omurtag

Completely avoiding the chess conversation, I'll agree that Noble is the Player=AI level.

Onto the Chess conversation, the question is of whether or not it is more complex than Civ. I'd say no, as there is a helluva lot of things to take into account when playing a turn of civ, from unit moves to economic strategy. However, as Omurtag says, one wrong move in chess can mean utter collapse. I'd rather say Chess was a more strategic or challenging game, rather than complex.

glokkonn said:

The reason that chess AI rocks and Civ IV AI does not is that Chess AI has been devoloped over decades, while Civ IV AI has been developed over months.

Click to expand...

I'd say that this is broadly true. GalCivII is quite similar a game, and the AI is significantly better than in civ4. On the other hand, imo you can see a huge progress between civ 1-2 and 4.

I remember using the 123456 cheat in civ1 and ctrl+k in civ2 just to see how my enemies were developing.. and seing a well deved civ was relatively rare. Even on emperor/deity the AI was significantly less advanced than me, despite its cheats. In civ4, if you don't do anything, the AI will beat you in a space race even on chieftain. There is still a lot to do, but it's perfectly possible IMO. Just look at go AI. It's significantly harder to program than chess AI, yet we still see progress. <on the other hand, even shareware go AI is better than civ4's...>