BtS WAY to easy???

Gave BtS a second try last night after I had aborted my first game (immortal), this time on deity... ...I picked England, so I could better compare it to the game I´m actually running on warlords here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=230955

...the result wasn´t very good either, althoug I´m VERY far of beeing any good in BtS (like I said, was only my second try, so I didn´t build any of the new wonders, discovered the espionage sceen about 10 turns before I quit):

I was on the big conti with Alex, Huyn and Wash. Alex and Wash decided to go to an early war, in which I joined for obvious reasons on Alex´s side (he was my direct neighbour...)

Not much barb activity either... ...I survided earlygame without bronze and horses, my first strat resource was iron...

I managed to block off more land as usuall (I think I ended up with 9 cities) and used some more units for show(but not much more...) to avoid beeing dogpiled in my farest borderland city

Around 400 AD, I could have reached lib, but I delayed it until around 1000 AD, because the AI´s were teching that slow... ...(I picked rifling as feebee from lib btw)

Alex and Wash not even had Guilds at that time (Wash not even CoL, and CS and Machinery he only had because I gifted it to him, to survive the war agains Alex...), Huyn was doing better, but mainly because I traded exclusively with him (he was friendly) and did some quite ridiculous trades (like printing press for guilds, edu. for banking)

...

Aborted game again... ...not much fun in slaughtering harchers, pikes and lbows with rifles... ...they REALLY should do something about that terrible tech speed of the AI´s

...

I still have the last save before I aborted (880 AD) but no DB space left. If anyone is intereded in it, I can e-Mail it so it can be posted

I heard playing with agressive AI on is the way to go now did you have it on? although this wont change tech speed i would expect it to be more challenging for you

I couldn't agree more. I was hoping Emperor makes a different but it's the same. Only Emperor start is little bit harder. Hopefully they're going to fix this soo. It's too easy to take tech-lead and slaughter with better units what is fun but I did it way too long in Civ 3 and Civ 4 Vanilla on Prince.

Snaaty said:

Aborted game again... ...not much fun in slaughtering harchers, pikes and lbows with rifles... ...they REALLY should do something about that terrible tech speed of the AI´s

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How much would you say the AI tech rate bonuses in the XML file should be upped to get the game back to a competitive level? This could probably be addressed in one of the temporary patches, as long as there is consensus on exactly how much slower the AI is teching than in Warlords.

It's not always teching slower. Espionage slows things down (because the AI puts the espionage slider up to 10%, I guess), but in my current game on Prince, I have had to play catch-up to the Modern Era against Augustus/Joao in a permanent alliance. Also, the AI spends so much more on troops now at the expense of timely city improvements, which is a big factor.

I need to play a few more games before I post an opinion here on adjusting the difficulty levels--so far, I'm still finding Prince challenging enough to keep my interests.

frob2900 said:

How much would you say the AI tech rate bonuses in the XML file should be upped to get the game back to a competitive level? This could probably be addressed in one of the temporary patches, as long as there is consensus on exactly how much slower the AI is teching than in Warlords.

Click to expand...

In warlords, the average AI reaches rifles around 800 AD (on deity), the techclub (Ash, Mansa, Hatschi...) around 600 AD.

In this game I tried on BtS, Alex, and even worse Wash, are about 50+ turns away from rifles at 1000 AD, Huyn will reach it around 1200 AD, so I have no idea how a common consensus could/should be found. They not only tech slower but there is also a HUGE difference between the various AI´s (I think warfare is the main problem here... ...from the point on Alex and Wash went to war, their score staganted and they have researched about 3-4 techs while I was getting about 15 -20)

I think part of the reason is that there are just so many things to do in BTS. There's the spying, the new techs, the new wonders, the corporations, etc, that AI might be too distracted to tech effectively. Good humans knows that you have to focus on a goal and get there before everyone else (like that guy in a strange bar somewhere, only thinking about building GL and SoL). This is probably true before, but the effect is enhanced now that there are so many more distractions.

I don't know. It seems incredible that BTS would be easier. Admittedly, I'm far from being an expert although I've been playing civ for years. I was doing pretty well in warlords at prince difficulty. I find BTS to be much harder at prince level. I have to drop to noble in order to have the same results as warlords.

This isn't the first thread where people are saying BTS is easier. It would be nice to know if this is a commonly held opinion, or is it just the opinion of some of the experts.

I've tried 3 basic strategies at Prince level and get results that fall short of a win.

1 - I've tried an industrious approach, but can't seem to balance building wonders with keeping a sufficient defense force. No matter what I do, someone invades with huge stacks. It's almost as if the wonders are crying out to be conquered. On some occasions when I wasn't invaded, I would just end up being out-teched by an AI that grabbed a ton more land.

2 - I've tried an early war approach - taking out closest neighbor and find myself in one war after another - while maybe one other civ avoids the wars, grabs a bunch of land and out techs me in the long run.

3 - I've tried for an all out land grab keeping an emphasis on a sound economy and sufficient defense force - building no wonders at all. So far this seems like a pretty good strategy - but I also notice that I'm leaving huge holes in my tech path as I race for liberalism. It feels really risky.

I'm playing BTS on Prince level at normal speed - no replays. One positive is that on occasions where I have succesfully grabbed land either through war of settling, I've seen my research go as low as 0 for a half dozen turns or more and still eventually recovered to remain in the tech lead. I have lost a lot of units in that process. It's interesting.

I feel the same. Compare to Warlords, right now the AIs

• expand way too slowly (Warlords too fast but BtS is unreasonably slow)
• stockpile too many military units to the point I guess it breaks their banks (esp. leaders like Bourdica. All she does is building army)
• apparently don't trade tech as aggressively like before
• does declare wars against each other more often
• can't handle the espionage aspect as well as human.

The great spy thing is way way too OP IMHO. One great spy can practically allow the human player to steal 5-6 early techs, which take out the need for human to trade the tech to the AIs. This got to be toned down a bit.

I've found BTS to be much easier. I only play on Prince and sometimes Noble, can't speak for higher levels, and I don't use aggressive AI settings (I might try it eventually).

I think if you are having a harder time with BTS, you might be caught in the trap that the AIs are coded into: feeling you need to use all the new features. For example try a game completely ignoring espionage. Build courthouses as you normally would for maintenance, and you will get enough EPs to basically keep up with a few opponents. But keep the emphasis on tech research. There's just no substitute for having a tech lead and more modern units vs. their outdated ones. I don't care how many spies or espionage points they throw at me, so far it makes no difference.

Limit your wonder building. Pyramids, Apostolic Palace and later on the Cristo Redentor are worth trying for, that's about it. Oracle and Stonehenge are usually easy to snatch up early on, as usual, if you want.

Also, if you stress golden ages more, you can really jump ahead.

Here's Snaaty 880 AD save.

My comments: Pretty much a classic Liz deity game, using riverside cottage capital and several GS to take the lead. As Snaaty noted, the map allowed a bit more bottlenecking than usual. Nonetheless, it's the AIs that are just slow.

I agree with the overall theme here. I've had a much easier time with BtS. Two new powerful features, espionage and corporations are poorly utilized by the AI (prince and monarch). They fall miles behind in tech and expand slowly. They will build more units but they're inferior. So, take a city down to one unit. Heal your troops with medic 3 and wait for the reinforcements to fill the city. Rinse. Repeat.

Perhaps the easier game is a result of a desire to have players continue to increase difficulty and/or try out new things instead of the tried and true formulas. In warlords, I got stuck at emperor. Monarch was a win almost every game, emperor I had a real hard time with, primarily because the level of micromanagement was too high for me.

With BtS, I think I should able to handle emperor and possibly immortal.

Aggresive AI and perhaps not stacking a start in your favor may be ways to handicap onceself. Instead of playing Churchill and going for redcoat domination, set out to win a cultural victory with him instead.

If anything, i'm finding it harder on BtS.

I usually play on Warlord (I admit, i'm shabby) and on Warlords I could win fairly easily. But on BtS, I fall behind in the tech lead, it takes more troops to take over cities... it just seems generally harder.

I'm just wondering that no one tried the "reduced bonusses" as the answer... Because this means that if you dont move up somewhat (not sure if its enough for a full level) the AI actually became better. And well if you do its just natural

Good point. The AI bonuses were significantly reduced. Upgrade discount, for instance, went down from 95% to 50% on deity. I can image Wash and Alex wasting 1000s on upgrades while in war.

Snaaty I don't know why you would abort this game. I cannot really see what route you will take to victory at the point at which your save is, and looks like HC has a significant chance of winning this game. Also you would need alot of rifles to take out the AI which spams units massively. Your production is relatively weak, and by the time you have enough rifles and cats whipped out or build, I believe alex and washinton will have guilds (AI prioritizes guilds).

Another thing, you have really taken a large risk by keeping such a low defense for most of the game, and concentrated on research. Not getting attacked by alex, even on pleased when your army is so small is basically luck IMO.

You had a strong start in this game, but by aborting the game I think you are overestimating your strong start. Try to win this game and I will be impressed, because even with your very good start, its not going to be easy winning this game.

I too have found that ignoring early espionage, skipping medieval warfare and rushing to rifling is very effective. This is not because of the handicaps but because of the different AI strategy.

1) The AI tech priorities have changed, and they don't prioritize rifling as much as they used to, instead it is common to see them rush to democracy and communism to build the wonders and spy buildings.

2) The AI spends a much larger proportion of its economy on military than before in production and upgrade costs. These units don't do much for it unless there is a war (maybe turning aggressive AI on is the way forward)

3) The AI spends some of its economy on spying, although most leaders don't go totally crazy with this.

However the AI tech pace NEEDS to be slower than warlords because it has so many units that you'd never produce enough units to attack with before they went obsolete otherwise.

uberfish said:

2) The AI spends a much larger proportion of its economy on military than before in production and upgrade costs. These units don't do much for it unless there is a war (maybe turning aggressive AI on is the way forward)

Click to expand...

Have the AI Unit Support and Unit Upgrade costs been raised to high? (I'm not at my BtS computer so I can't check the XML).

I know for a fact that XML editing the Warlords AI Upgrade and Support costs to the same level as the player (i.e. 100%, 100%) will cripple even an Immortal/Deity Warlords AI. They end up teching much slower, with absolutely HUGE stacks of longbowmen/maces that end up dying like flies against the players cannons/grenadiers.

@ Quack:

You don´t need production...

Drafting... ...loooots of drafting... ...Wash & Alex both would cave in very quick, guilds or no guilds, because raising an army of 20 rifles and 6 trebs taks only about 10 turns when done like that... ...keep drafting in your globe city and your rifles will soon equal the lbws, pikes and knight is number...

Space Race and Dom should both be possible from that point on...

Your forgetting 7-9 turns to research nationalism + 1 for anarchy. So 20 turns for 20 rifles and 6 trebs which is still a pretty tight estimate. Im giving 15 turns before AI gets guilds. Many of those HA's will become knights, AI will go whip crazy when its in war so while in warlords a stack of 20 rifles was unstopabble, in BTS it is not. I would like you to play 50 more turns of this game and post the save of your position at that point.

If I have time ill play some turns also.