Prince or Monarch?

[hgthechinese]

When I play prince, I get double the score of the closest rival by around 1200AD....seems way too easy there after since their knights are nothing compare to my gunpowder units.

But when I play at monarch, I can barely survive 'til 1000AD and I would fall behind the worst AI's score by a lot.

Does anyone else experience this jump in AI's advantage between those 2 levels? What difficulty do y'all play at?

 

[largedarryl]

Well when you play at levels above Prince, you will almost be close to the bottom of the score sheet. Many high level players will tell you that they are almost always close to the bottom of the list.

Since the ai gets such large advantages at those difficulty levels, you will unable to just build and tech faster than them. In all of my monarch wins, I would be low on the score until around the industrial age, where my score would start to pick up because of conquest and production advantages over the ai.

 

[Naismith]

I was playing at Monarch level when the Warlords patch came out with AI enhancements. For me, Monarch became quite a bit more difficult at that point. If you are looking for an in-between level, there is a fairly simple way to tone Monarch down. One of the main advantages given to the AI at Monarch is a free worker at the start of the game. If you look at the handicap XML file, it's fairly easy to remove the free worker. Once you get accustomed to playing and winning at that level, you could add the free worker back to Monarch. Then you can get used to the AI advantages on Monarch in two pieces, which might make the whole process less overwhelming.

I personally hate playing catch-up all the way to the Industrial Age, especialy if catching up involves endless warring. Being well behind at 1200 AD doesn't make for a very fun game, at least not for me.

I know there are plenty of players who are skilled enough to play peacefully at Monarch and still win consistently. I'm not one of them.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

Piggy-backing what Naismith said, you should consider downloading the BetterAI mod and its modified BetterAI Handicaps.

From what I understand, BetterAI will be an integral addition to BtS, so it may be beneficial to adopt it now anyway.

BetterAI essentially turns the whole difficulty up a notch. Many Monarch players report backing down to Prince after updating to BetterAI.

The BetterAI Handicaps 'fix' some of the AI Handicaps to better reflect their more intelligent nature due to the BetterAI mod -- chiefly removing the free Worker at Monarch!

 

[largedarryl]

I haven't played the current version of the betterai mod, but the last one that was released by Blake resulted in me going back to Noble. This is after playing the warlords ai and never losing a game on prince and winning on monarch with a challenge. I think the betterai mod is the way to go because it doesn't seem to give the ai an unfair advantage (the higher levels just feel like the ai is cheating).

I am hoping that in BtS, Blake will have done alot of work (hopefully a ton of play testing by firaxis) to make the ai smarter.

 

[the_dong146]

Just installed the BetterAI mod myself - it's strange, but the game after was my highest scoring one by far (on Prince)... And right now looks like I'm about to break that record easily.

AI is definitely making fewer dumb mistakes though... great mod! Guess I'm just getting lucky.

 

[hgthechinese]

hmm, i'll try out the mod....i like better AI in general, not AI cheats

 

[coffeeholic]

I am also stuck on Prince. I can win a Prince game 90% of the time but get kicked on Monarch.

There is certainly a large jump between Prince and Monarch

AJK

 

[IbnKhaldun]

coffeeholic I feel the same way.
On Prince, which was once a challenge for me, the game is now kind of boring. I can win in almost any way I want, though not always as soon as I would like.
Monarch is a completely different beast! I am behind early and can only very rarely make up the difference. While early military excursions often end favorably, the middle to late game campaigns never do!
I get so frustrated at the way the AI behaves in trading technologies on Monarch!!! GAAAAAAH!!!

 

[mudphud]

I get so frustrated at the way the AI behaves in trading technologies on Monarch!!! GAAAAAAH!!!

A key on the higher levels is to leverage tech trading. It is kind of annoying but you have to get used to how the AI techs and choose to research a tech that will be a monopoly (or use a lightbulb at the right time - say to get philosophy). Then trade this tech around to a bunch of the AIs to help catch up. With their advantages and trading it is more difficult to stay up with tech without smart trades. An early war is also quite helpful to grab more good land (capitals always have nice things). Of course who knows what it will be like when BtS comes.

 

[hgthechinese]

coffeeholic I feel the same way.
On Prince, which was once a challenge for me, the game is now kind of boring. I can win in almost any way I want, though not always as soon as I would like.
Monarch is a completely different beast! I am behind early and can only very rarely make up the difference. While early military excursions often end favorably, the middle to late game campaigns never do!
I get so frustrated at the way the AI behaves in trading technologies on Monarch!!! GAAAAAAH!!!

I was playing a Earth map and I gathered the Americas under my control by 800AD at Monarch.....THEN i realized that there are 16 other civilizations that I have NEVER even met until then in the Old world who are almost 2 ages ahead of me technologically since their trading basically allowed them research together Now I know how the native americans felt.

 

[Tegvtec]

I was playing a Earth map and I gathered the Americas under my control by 800AD at Monarch.....THEN i realized that there are 16 other civilizations that I have NEVER even met until then in the Old world who are almost 2 ages ahead of me technologically since their trading basically allowed them research together Now I know how the native americans felt.

that was great!

 

[Antilogic]

It's about what happens. It also sucks if you get a random continents map with all the friendly traders on one continent, and you are stuck with Monty and Isabella on yours. It has happened to me!

 

[largedarryl]

It's about what happens. It also sucks if you get a random continents map with all the friendly traders on one continent, and you are stuck with Monty and Isabella on yours. It has happened to me!

I like to play continent maps as well, and I almost always get stuck with a roman, a greek and a japanese. Well by looking at those characters, I ussually lose my monarch games, I've actually started moving towards pangea maps because its easier to win.

 

[Antilogic]

Same here. I stick to Pangaeas because everybody can interact with each other, and therefore the trading playing field is as equal as it can get (of course, excluding the AIs' penchant for cutting each other fantastic deals).