Higher difficulty level = Smarter AIs?

[martindo]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=378410

EB: I think one thing the AI is going to do is – we have it set up so when the AI is trying to make a decision – so it's trying to decide what to build in the city, trying to decide what technology to pursue next – we go ahead and we look at all the possibilities based on where they are in the tech tree right now and we rank them according to which ones we think are the best choice for a strong Civ player at that given point in time. Now what happens is when you're playing on the higher difficulty levels we almost always pick one of those top choices just because we want that civilization to be as competitive as possible with you. When you're at a lower difficulty, one of the things that we do is we start opening that up to some of those other lower ranking choices and we pick from those choices as well. We're also looking at kind of a different depth of analysis in terms of the military and tactical game when you go and you have a higher difficulty setting. So rather than just looking in the immediate area of a city when you're playing on the higher difficulty levels the AI is gonna be thinking a little bit deeper, looking further across the map and using that to kind of come up with decisions like, “oh wow I'm actually 10 tiles away. Maybe I have 3 or 4 units that can reinforce the situation.” I'll pull those in and that will strengthen my military right in the nick of time here.

That seems to contradict the Difficulties chart someone posted on this forum a while back. I noticed it showed "options" for Tech and Policy *increasing* as game level got higher. In other words, the AI was becoming more flexible.

 

[martindo]

There's another consideration, which Better Days addressed 13 years ago:

So how I would set up the difficulty levels- at the lower levels, instead of giving bonuses to the player, I would make the AI play dumber. If Civ 5 was my fist Civ game, I would most certainly play at the lowest difficulties, and work myself up as I improved. Personally, I would like to know that the computer wasn't playing as smart,as opposed to me starting with extra workers/settlers etc. at the lower levels.

It's marketing. I'm not sure if Steam acts as a monthly toll collector/gatekeeper, but I paid money ONCE, downloaded the offline version, and am happy with that arrangement. That was in fact the pre-Steam sales tactic for Civs 1-4.

So, what would you experience as a newbie? Difficult at the start, then new difficulties when playing at higher levels after you get the basics. If you survive, then you can win due to AI being less clearly "directed" late in the game.

Would it really sell more games to make the AI smarter in the late game? I doubt it. For people like me, the sale was already done.

Also, the heuristic was never clear -- at least that's what I heard 10+ years ago. Namely, the best tester players couldn't agree on ideal strategies. They programmed a few tactics into battles (e.g., Civ 3 or 4 had long lines of troops replacing weakened ones as they moved closer to the battlefiedl). So they gave % discounts to AI in order to make the game more challenging at higher levels. Maybe someone can find an Aspyr or Sid Meier interview that actually explains this approach?