CB Droege said:Would you be willing to play against a group of humans who all got their productions costs halved? poly not. It wouldn't be fun.
Reminds me of when I played World of Warcraft. There were different classes that all had unique abilities/spells/etc. When it came to dueling (1v1 fighting) certain classes clearly had an advantage over other classes. Whenever I was dueling against another class that I had the advantage over I would handicap myself somehow, whether I didn't use a certain ability or what. Tipping the scales so they're more balanced made the duel more enjoyable for both parties. I think that analogy fits perfectly with the AI's bonuses on prince and above. The human starts out with an incredible advantage because it can think. So in order to tip the scales so they're more balanced you need to give the AI's some advantages, or the player disadvantages (one in the same thing). That makes the game more fun than if one side is clearly dominant over the other. Now it depends on player skill as to how many advantages you need to give to the AI in order to balance the scales. For some people that's prince, others it's immortal, etc. Of course if the player isn't very skilled at the game it could be the player that needs the bonuses...that would be warlord and lower difficulties. But I honestly don't understand the aversion to playing on a more balanced setting just because the AI needed some bonuses in order to balance it.