AI difficulty settings in Worldbuilder?

[Veristek]

Hey guys,

I generated a random map in Worldbuilder and saved it. Now I have a list of civ's and city states, and they have their difficulty level set as Chieftain as default.

I want to know if I have the AI civ's at Chieftain difficulty setting, does that mean they enjoy the player's bonuses at Chieftain, or play terribly as if I picked the Chieftain difficulty for a normal new game? In short...

AI setting in Worldbuilder = Chieftain = very wimpy AI
AI setting in Worldbuilder = Immortal = very hard AI

OR

AI setting in Worldbuilder = Chieftain = hard AI with human player's bonuses
AI setting in Worldbuilder = Immortal = wimpy AI with human player's difficulty penalties.

Which one is it? I want to make the AI's give a fight, but at the same time not get steamrolled- I want Immortal level AI's while having Warlord or Prince level bonuses for myself with no severe penalties.

[Spatzimaus]

Originally Posted by Veristek

I want to know if I have the AI civ's at Chieftain difficulty setting, does that mean they enjoy the player's bonuses at Chieftain, or play terribly as if I picked the Chieftain difficulty for a normal new game?

Handicap level does not affect the AI's playstyle. The AI doesn't play any smarter at the higher difficulties, it just has better resources available to it.

This level does the following:
> Depending on their handicap level, an AI will get a discount to research times, production costs, building and unit maintenance, unhappiness, and so on. For instance, a civ playing at Chieftain has only 0.6 unhappiness per population, instead of the default 1.0 for Prince and higher.
> Depending on YOUR handicap level, the AIs get an additional discount to several of these factors. If you're playing on King, for instance, all AI opponents pay only 80% of the normal research costs for technologies, giving them an obvious edge. Also, when you play on anything higher than Prince, your AI opponents begin the game with additional techs (Pottery at King, plus Animal Husbandry at Emperor, plus Mining above that).

That's it. The AIs' behavior doesn't change with this level, at least not directly. Now, with the ability to produce and maintain a larger army the AI can obviously play much more aggressively, so it WILL impact the behavior indirectly. But it's not like the AI is skipping some logical steps on the easier handicaps.