At what difficulty level does the AI start cheating ?

[Skybuck]

Any ideas ? Or let me ask this in another way: at what difficulty level is the game "fair", no handicaps and no bonusses for AI, my guess would be king level ?

 

[dom111]

I think that regardless of the difficulty level, the game mechanics change at least at 0AD when if the AI was paying the same amount of resources as you, they'll start paying less or if they were paying more, they'll start paying the same. I think King is probably about balanced though in terms of early game coats and bonuses, however I believe the AI still gets free trade routes, wonders and all that. Others will probably have specifics, this is mostly from memory!

 

[Mize]

The short answer is indeed 'King'.
The long one is that in order to be any sort of challenge for the player, the civ AI cheats in many different ways on all difficulty settings.
The difficulty setting doesn't really affect the ways the AI cheats. It mostly regulates the rates of research, city growth and construction.
Like dom111 said, below King level the AI will need more food to grow its cities, more lightbulbs to make science advances and more shields to build things than the human player. On Emperor difficulty it needs less. The ratio is 8:10. It drops to 6:10 in the AD years if the player is the strongest civ on the planet.

 

[Valen]

As Mize says, the AI enjoys many cheats at all levels. A couple examples: AI triremes can cross open ocean without risk of sinking regardless of the difficulty level. AI caravans "beam" to their destinations.
In that sense, AI starts cheating at Chieftan level.

 

[MiGaNuTs]

Any ideas ? Or let me ask this in another way: at what difficulty level is the game "fair", no handicaps and no bonusses for AI, my guess would be king level ?

The game is never fair, the player is supposed to be more intelligent than the AI

 

[dmoffett]

I am trying to figure out how many cities I need to overcome AI "cheats" is it 5 or 10 or 15 or 20? At 10 cities I seam to be doing quite well. At 20 cities I seam to be totally dominant Prince or king Level, I haven't tried Emperor yet. When I was a kid this game used to beat me a lot.

 

[MiGaNuTs]

If i remind correctly, the AI can build 16 cities max, but in late game, can conquest more by war against it neighbors. So the strat for the human player is to had more than 16 citias asap, and after the game become easy.