Anybody Else Moving Up a Difficulty Level w/BNW?

[dexters]

I'm confused. In Vanilla and G&K diplo win involes just having lots of money and buying off city states right before the vote.

Diplo victory in BNW is a long process that rewards long term planning to get extra votes. There's certainly things they can do to adjust it, say, requiring globalization for diplo win to occur, changing globalization bonuses to reward all Civs with diplomats, but giving researcher of tech bonus to delegates, and cutting down city state delgates to 1 for the modern era and making up the vote difference elsewhere - new wonders, allow AI vote splits etc.

The diplo VC is definately better, NOT easier. What's perceive to be easy is the ease in which the AI lets to get that VC. That's an open debate.

Also diety can be easy if you stack the deck in your favour with a non-standard game speed, non-standard map size and settings such as archipelago for example or playing a civ well suited to a map setting while throwing in stand-in AI- variables often not mentioned. And most of its difficulty was basically the AI killing you off early because it was so much larger with so many more units.

If the game mechanics has shifted such that the AI is more tolerant of small weak Civs, then it will naturally be easier because the human player essentially has the rest of the game to catch up and plot to screw the AI and win. But I'm not sure we just want one flavour of diety AI. The problem AFAIK is getting that balance just right so that builders don't feel like they have to always prepare for war, and people who got used to G&K and Vanilla Civ5 doesn't feel like there's a lack of agression. A possible solution is to tie the early warring more closely to the Civs themselves, with a small dose of RNG, so that the signals are clear to players. If you see Attila, prepare for war. Rameses not so much.

As Aristos put it, AI behavior is more variable in BNW. Rather than coming in one flavour.

 

[InDubioProReo]

I'm in a tough spot. Immortal feels easy enough, but Deity feels too hard. Not sure what I need to improve/polish to get my play to that level.

 

[Vidszhite]

I'm in a tough spot. Immortal feels easy enough, but Deity feels too hard. Not sure what I need to improve/polish to get my play to that level.

I've heard from others that increasing the number of civs makes the game harder because there's not enough room for everybody, so wars start breaking out and factions start forming. On standard settings, though, I'm finding Immortal plenty challenging, just right for me, and that took dozens of games looking for strategies to get to where it is now. Honestly, I started right where I was at the end of GNK, Emperor felt too easy but Immortal was a challenge. That remained right up until I figured out all the nuances and learned not to give up just because I was behind in the Modern era, because you CAN catch up no matter what time it is, which was totally not the case in GNK.

 

[elijahfire]

I can't go any higher than Diety.. and BNW seems to have made diety less dangerous.. They still get alot of bonuses, but diety feels to me alot like G&K emperor.

Play as Boer in SFA scenario.

 

[elijahfire]

I've now completed three games under BNW and I find myself blowing out the computer on King (standard speed and standard size continents maps). I've won a cultural victory as the Shoshone, a diplomatic victory as Venice, and science victory as the Mayan. 2 of the 3 (Venice and Mayan) were sub 400 turn wins which for me is rare. The Shoshone victory probably could have been sub 400 if I had focused more on culture but it was my first game in BNW and I couldn't focus my strategy as I wanted to try out all the new toys.

Anybody else had a similar experience?

I find that many of the new social policies and the new tech tree layout (especially in the later eras) really allows you to super specialize like I have never been able to before.

The problem with difficulty levels with Fraxis is that all they do is throw more resources at the AI and make them all blood crazed psychopaths instead of actually having increased strategy levels.

Also, AI has zero desire to win on Deity, for example the one I am playing now number 8 and 10 are fighting to the death while number 1 is 3000 ahead of number 2 who are both at peace.

I am number 3 and numbers 2,4,6,7,9 and 10 are at war with me.

This is not unique to this game, 10/10 times I lose on deity it is because some out of reach civ expands uncontested outstripping everyone by 2k or more. This is not increased difficulty it is psychotic AI and random.

My advice is just stick to emperor and enjoy it as much as you can.

 

[Dai]

I feel like I definitely have more wiggle room at the beginning of the game. In G&K, I felt like the early game had to be carefully managed, playing my cards right to avoid not getting crushed right away or falling behind and getting crushed shortly after that. In BNW, I feel like that's only the case when I start all completely surrounded by very aggressive AIs, a situation that in G&K would probably be just a game loss for me regardless. BNW allows for a TON more flexibility in starts, since you can cut out so much of the defense you'd have to normally put up.

The other big difference is that I felt like in G&K, I basically had to plan a victory condition from the beginning. BNW is not only more flexible in terms of when you have to "move into" various victory conditions (most tourism is generated post-industrial, for example), but you can always fall backwards into an accidental diplo victory regardless of whether or not you were aiming for anything in particular.

So I haven't technically moved up a difficulty since BNW, but I've been taking advantage of the fact that things are significantly more relaxed to explore different paths.

 

[simonthesinner]

I think I may move up to emperor from king, but I don't know. I play with good amounts of self-nerf, as I try to RP a leader of a civ, rather than being a player, always making the best decitions.

And I want to be able to get a few wonders even if I don't beeline them, put an outpost city in a non-optimal location. I have, however had a pretty comfortable tech-lead in most of my games and I could mange lower happyness, but the production bonus may mean that I can kiss wonders goodbye.

 

[bdporter]

It definitely seems easier. I recently won my first game on immortal; with Venice. I was able to get several good wonders fairly easily and maintained a tech lead for the first half of the game. I won a diplomatic victory.

 

[Hippocrates]

I moved up several difficulty levels. In GnK, I normally played on Warlord and I'm not a serious player and liked to play easy wins although I could win on Prince. In BNW, I've won all the way up to emperor (actually immortal but I cooked the conditions just so I could get an achievement). Now it doesn't even seem fair on Prince and King is ok. It should be noted that I usually play as peacefully as I can. For players that are pure warmongers I'd say it has gone up in difficulty.

 

[z284pwr]

Been a King player for a long time. With BFF (for the majority) early Civs now, it's too easy to focus on other items and neglect military for a while longer. Just finished a Greece game, absolute domination, Stealth figthers against 80 City Defense and Frigates vs. Missile Cruisers is just laughable. 20+ tech advantage by games end. Thinking it's time to move up.

 

[sonicandfffan]

I usually play on a large map but yes I've increased my difficulty setting.

Perhaps that has more to do with the fact I've played more games since BNW came out than I did before BNW though.

 

[HeraldtheGreat]

Thinking of moving on up to emperor, but I haven't been playing very much Civ to give me more reason to do so. Perhaps after a few games...

 

[Falconiano]

I went from regular Deity to "Super Deity" (I gave AI twice the EXP/Promotions), plus I made Cover I and II available from lvl 1 so AI units get like 15-20dmg from rangeds.

It's much more challenging now.

 

[Syagrius]

All this doesn't feel right...In my first game BNW I am playing with the Terra huge map (all civs on the same continent). I play with Domination and Cultural (alway plays Domination but wanted to try Cultural with all the new stuff in BNW) Well its around 1970 and I am crushing everybody, nobody putting a decent opposition (on King) and also I am the only civ who has new cities on the other continent; that's strange because usually (in previous expansion) the AI is very active colonizing, sending settlers everywhere. OK I realize with Cultural victory settlers isnt to be its priority, but being the only one founding new cities? Something is wrong or I should stop playing Cultural?

 

[dojoboy]

I'm certainly playing better (winning), moved up to King as my default. I can think of a few reasons why.

(1) My interest in Venice led me to MadDjinn's LP w/ Venice on Deity. Just watching his game play led me to make better decisions in my games.
(2) BNW's late game features has dialed me in with greater focus. I find the play out to be much more interesting.
(3) The new trade route mechanism feeds into by builder preference.

 

[sendos]

Currently, I think emperor is a decent challenge, so I might continue with emperor for the time being until it is no longer a challenge.

 

[Syagrius]

Well, I am am a longtime Civ player (since Civ I) and I never saw a drop in AI opposition like this. The new commercial routes are maybe too generous in contrast with what the AI can do.

 

[Arachnofiend]

I've moved up to Immortal but I was getting ready to do that anyways before BNW came out. I still struggle pretty bad when I don't get a particularly good start, though that's less "Alex is knocking on my door with Hoplites" as it would have been in G&K as it is "Sejong is an era ahead of me and still getting farther".