Different Levels of Difficulty

Can anyone tell me how the AI is different as you move up in difficulty levels? As in, does the AI get smarter / faster / stronger on the battlefield, etc.?

I just recently started to try the harder levels, and I notice that the AI seems to expand much more rapidly as you go up. It also tends to win more battles against me. However, I have so far always been able to win by playing the same strategy each time:

1) Focus on defense in the early period, making sure to heavily fortify each city with at least 3 defenders and city walls.

2) Keep expanding, building as many cities as possible until you have at least 30 or so and are on at least 3 or 4 islands.

3) Go heavy on trade once a city is well-defended, until every city has 2 or 3 trade routes

4) Once you have a healthy economy and well-defended cities, go for science at all costs to stay ahead of the AI. Democracy is ideal at this stage.

5) After every scientific advance is discovered, switch to fundy and fiddle with the tax rate so that luxury and science are as low as possible - in other words, maximum cash intake. Build howitzers and mech inf, then wait for war. Use spies to stir things up if necessary - I especially like to plant nuclear devices in enemy cities for as long as you can get away with it.

To be honest, so far this has worked so well, even at the highest levels, that it is almost getting boring.

What are other people's opinions, am I naive here or is this basically the magic formula?

Originally posted by B52
Can anyone tell me how the AI is different as you move up in difficulty levels? As in, does the AI get smarter / faster / stronger on the battlefield, etc.?

What are other people's opinions, am I naive here or is this basically the magic formula?

Click to expand...

Building walls and 3 defenders/city is certainly not the magic formula. It is good to have only if you are playing early conquest and staying in Monarchy, where your 3 defenders are in fact useful for marshall law.
Playing early landing, it is much more profitable to stay at peace and research like mad. Early landers often leave many cities undefended( apart from the SSC, of course ).

About the AI getting better at upper levels, I think most experienced players agree that this is not true: the rules, especially about happiness, make it more difficult, and the AI 'cheats' (unsinkable triremes, knowledge of the map and your units, etc), but once you begin fighting, you can see the AI making huge tactical and strategical mistakes, even at deity level.

This doesn't mean that the game is easy (I guess many people happen to lose now and then, even if they don't post to let us know ). It means that the focus is not fierce battles, but growth in harmony (even if you are aiming at conquest).

Slip a few Dips or Spies into AI cities in Deity level and you will see a big part of AI advantage: AI food boxes, production boxes, and research bars are narrowed. AI is not penalized for breaking peace/CF, and AI gets a "suprise attack bonus". AI seems to always know where your units and cities are, and suffers less from happiness issues.

The big difference as you go up in difficulty levels is the basic contentment of your cities: in Deity level, the second citizen is always unhappy, and when you go over a certain number of cities (based partly on map size), the first one is unhappy. This is a big problem for Rep/Dem governments. Turn lengths stretch out a bit too, but that is not as big an issue.

Winning at Deity is only the first step (actually, winning at Prince may be the first step) -- other challenges await.

Have you been able to construct all of the wonders? In one city?

Both La Fayette & ElephantU are accomplished players and rather than just playing for score they are seeking to complete the game with an early conquest or Launch.

ElephantU also often plays the One City Challenge -- limit your self to only one city (restart any huts that generate an advanced tribe) -- now research the techs to space flight & launch before anyone else…at Deity, with Raging Barbarians of course.

As for me I just enjoy the game, trying different things as I play.

I have yet to play with nothing but caravans defending my cities as Solo does... but then he is probably not telling us about the many games where he gets wiped out by a suprise Barb attack...

B52, try working on understanding the Diplomacy side of the game better. You are wasting a lot of resources building Walls and 3xDefenders for each city; with Roads you should be able to put 1 decent one in each city and reinforce quickly when you detect a threat. Border cities or forts would get two, with reinforcements nearby.

In Diplomacy (F3), be cautious when their attitude slips below Receptive. See if anything you are doing is aggravating them, or whether you can "spare" a gift to bring their attitude up. A great was to pacify them as well as improve attitude is gifting Republic; they also then become better trading partners. Hang onto Democracy for a while; it makes them immune to bribery, although they seem to have trouble staying in it for long periods of time.

If you are a war-monger, wiping out or reducing AI civs to "pet" status as early as possible is your goal. Veteran Elephants are the key, followed by Vet Crusaders when you get MonoTheism. In the first 2-3,000 years the AI civs rarely have more than 2-4 cities. Finding them early is the challenge, but if you do not mind a major reputation hit you can build Marco Polo, make peace and trade maps, then stomp on them. I used to do this, till I found the challenge of trying to work with them...

Yes, thanks for the advice. You are right that I do tend to be obsessed with the brute-force military victory. I will try some of the more subtle aspects of the game.

My weakness is that I always grow too fast, which of course makes all the AIs hate me and want me dead, despite anything I do to ingratiate myself after that. I have been trying lately to grow more slowly, keeping it to a minimum of 5 or 6 cities for a while. This is VERY unconfortable for me, and feels very weird and vulnerable. But, I have found that it pays off since the AI no longer feels threatened by me.

B52,
the difference between difficulty levels are various:

In Deity for example
- AI has smaller food and production boxes (AI pays 8 shields for a warrior)
- Barbs have 150% attack
- corruption is higher
- AI is probably more aggressive (?)
- AI use more cheating

King is neutral, Prince has a reverse effect.
BTW you can try Deity+5: AI pays only 2 shields for a warrior.