Difficulty levels

[nmachiavelli]

Hi,

Does anyone know what the bonuses/handicaps for AI/player are for each difficulty level? At what difficulty level are the human player and the AIs on a level footing?

Thanks,

N

 

[Jokemaster]

At any level, the AI gets free shields and gold sometimes, to compensate for the fact that the second-millennium era AI is dumb.

If my memory is correct, Chieftain has production costs at 160% normal for the AI. (meaning that what costs you 10 shields costs them 16 shields) Warlord is at 140%, Prince is at 120%, King is at 100% (making it the ''level footing'' difficulty level both for production and happiness) Deity is at 80%. I don't remember about Emperor.

For d+levels... If I understand correctly D+1 and D+3 is 50%, I remember D+2 and D+4 being at 40% and D+5 is 30%... for military units only. For buildings, it's at 100% for all 5 levels.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

I also vaguely remember having read somewhere that King is the level at which the AI is playing at a level playing field.

 

[nmachiavelli]

For d+levels... If I understand correctly D+1 and D+3 is 50%, I remember D+2 and D+4 being at 40% and D+5 is 30%... for military units only. For buildings, it's at 100% for all 5 levels.

What's d+levels?

I found a very good difficult chart for Civ I: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ1/difficultychart

Does anything like this exist for Civ II?

Also, is there any impact on combat? My military units seem more powerful when I'm playing at lower levels.

 

[Jokemaster]

There is a way to get levels higher than Deity with Classic Civ2. It involves hex editing.

If you are using Windows, go in ‘’Computer’’ and click on your hard disk drive (often ‘’C’&#8217 A list of folders will appear. Click on the one titled ‘’MPS’’ or ‘’MicroProse Software’’ then on the Civilization one. You should now come in a folder containing your saved games, the sounds used in Civ2 and executable files. But what interests us is .txt files. Some .txt files are used by the game in order to set up the game. There is more .txt files than the ones I’m going to point out, but the important ones are cities.txt (edit the names of cities civilizations will build) menu.txt (edit the menu of Civ2) rules.txt (edit the rules of Civ and also add some new units) But the one that actually matters is game.txt Open it. When you open it, scroll down to @DIFFICULTY and add lines of difficulty (up to 5) below the Deity level. Save your file, and open up Civ2. It should now have the option to play D+ levels. These levels are rather unbalanced, with an insane emphasis on happiness (or rather lack of it) and with a turbocharged AI with huge production and growth bonuses for them. Not for the faint of heart.

Also, is there any impact on combat? My military units seem more powerful when I'm playing at lower levels.

Could be because AI barracks/city walls are more common in higher levels. Besides that, barbs attack at higher strength when the level is higher.

 

[starlifter]

The obvious factors are reduction in shield and food box size at higher difficulty levels. But the less obvious is the village count and population count handicaps for the human. Your first citizens can be "born angry", even at first. This forces your emphasis to be on almost pure happiness control, esp. in research and expansion. LaFayette's "three arrows" rule is helpful in expanding with small villages. Also, the "slingshot" that Brian Reynolds used hurts the Human research, particularly in early game. Later, it really makes little difference in a developed democracy.

 

[simpeter]

Not familiar with the "three arrows" rule. Expansion trigger? Minimum viability limit?

 

[starlifter]

The "three arrows strategy" by Lafayette is a way to progress to monarchy fast. It means that you want to find a way to get three arrows of trade per village, immediately, even if you move a little bit looking for the best spot.

The reason is that because your tax/science split will give:

1 arrow: 1 science
2 arrows: 1 science + 1 gold
3 arrows: 2 science + 1 gold.

Getting 3 arrows in effect "doubles" your science rate in the first advances.

Getting to Monarchy early, and in an Oedo year, will help greatly at high difficulty levels, when speed is everything for the human, since the AI has many advantages.

 

[starlifter]

For Civ II MGE, there is no need for complicated things like hex editing for higher deity levels.


As was mentioned, the file called game.txt (in your Civ2 installed directory, use search to find it if necessary).

1. Open GAME.TXT with NOTEPAD (not MS word, or other word processors, unless you ensure it does not put extra formatting into the files).

2. Look for this section:

@DIFFICULTY
@width=320
@title=Select Difficulty Level
@options
Chieftain (easiest)
Warlord
Prince
King
Emperor
Deity 
[B]Deity Bonus
Deity Hard
Deity Challenge
Deity Wrath
Deity Nightmare![/B]

Add the five lines of extra Deity options (I bolded them, above).

If you want more barbarians, then look for and add another line in this section:

@BARBARITY
@width=320
@title=Select Level Of Barbarian Activity
@button=Random
@default=2
@options
Villages Only
Roving Bands
Restless Tribes
Raging Hordes
Hungry Cannibals

You will also get +50 points for Hungry Cannibals (Raging hordes gives +25).


Start the game, and just select from the new options in the menu .

 

[Prof. Garfield]

If my memory is correct, Chieftain has production costs at 160% normal for the AI. (meaning that what costs you 10 shields costs them 16 shields) Warlord is at 140%, Prince is at 120%, King is at 100% (making it the ''level footing'' difficulty level both for production and happiness) Deity is at 80%. I don't remember about Emperor.

For d+levels... If I understand correctly D+1 and D+3 is 50%, I remember D+2 and D+4 being at 40% and D+5 is 30%... for military units only. For buildings, it's at 100% for all 5 levels.

My memory tells me that Chieftain is 130%, Warlord is 120%, Prince is 110% and King is 100%.

On the deity-plus levels (and, perhaps some lower ones), I think that the amount of shields needed for AI production decreases later in the game. Of course, I'm too lazy to actually test this, so someone might want to run a test to be sure.

For Civ II MGE, there is no need for complicated things like hex editing for higher deity levels.

As was mentioned, the file called game.txt (in your Civ2 installed directory, use search to find it if necessary).

Editing classic doesn't require hex editing either; Jokemaster is simply mistaken in what hex editing is (hex editing is actually changing saved game files). I've always thought that you couldn't get the extra levels in MGE. I had never tested it, but it seemed to always be sited as a caveat whenever instructions were made on how to do it.

 

[Jokemaster]

My bad on hex editing then. (I also thought that it did not worked on MGE.)

On the deity-plus levels (and, perhaps some lower ones), I think that the amount of shields needed for AI production decreases later in the game

Just tested at D+3. At turn 165, it is 50%, and at turn 419, 30%, so...

 

[simpeter]

Let me add myself to the list of those who believed that MGE doesn't work with Deity+ levels. Wasn't this the reason that the Deity+ succession games were played on Vanilla? For some reason, I had that idea.

 

[luke2345]

for some reason I was abled to get Diety +7 it was on civ 2 vanilla