A question on difficulty levels

[James the Wise]

I just have a question on the difficulty setting on ffh2 and how the AI is effected on each level

I usually play on Monarch difficulty level (ffh 0.41n and prior) as I like a challenge
and even though the AI can be pretty dumb (as with most computer games in general tbh) they are still a good challenge for me at this level

They amass huge armies and generally build lots of cities (cassiel and amurites always seem to fail at this)

However in a recent LAN game due to a bug ive been switching through loads of the civs and playing them for a turn or so (explained here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=367102)

I noticed that when I switch to Doviello for example (who are mid table) I am getting minus -150 something gold a turn on 0% science and my units are on strike !?

The exact same problem when I switch to Sheim
I also noticed how the AI can at the beginning of the game can seem to get like 4 warriors in a few turns

How the heck do they maintain this... does the AI cheat at Monarch level and above

Also right at the begining of the game (say turn 10) Ljoslofar had 4/5 warriors each with two upgrades (one star and first strike?) there was nothing in the city or civics or civ trait that allowed this...

Is there some sort of chart/list of the advantages/cheats the AI gets with each difficulty level increase

Just curious

James

 

[Tlalynet]

I don't have a chart, but the AI 'cheats' starting at prince, where the human 'cheats' at warlord (and noble, but its tiny) and under. There are a lot of things it does, and I don't have a table, but what is causing you're problem is that they get quite a bit of unit upkeep and much less expensive city maintainence, where a human gets a city maintainence penalty at Monarch level. You taking over is swinging the bonuses to penalties and thus the -100's of gold at 0%

Its really just playing with different hidden multipliers...

In FFH only high level AI's also get free XP, that is why the beefy warriors are already in the game.

 

[Breunor]

At Monarch the AI advantages aren't that much. There are reports of very odd AI behavior by the Doviello, where they cast their world spell, don't use it correctly, and bankrupt themselves.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[coelocanth]

The free promotions are an AI bonus at higher difficulty levels.
AI gets reduced maintenance (which allows them to maintain a large garrison in every city), and cheap or free upgrades (all the AI warriors turning to axemen on the same turn).
Also combat bonuses vs barbarians

On the human side, difficulty doesn't have such an effect (free health and happiness at lower difficulties, better results from villages and lairs at lower difficulties)

Noble is closest to a fair game (human gets +2 health, AI gets cheap upgrades)
Unfortunately, the AI only does interesting things at higher difficulties where you have to deal with stacks of doom.

 

[ExMachina]

As others have already posted, the difficulty levels are basically different degrees of cheating (the same as in vanilla civ, though I believe FfH tweaked the numbers somewhat). Below Noble difficulty, the human player cheats. Above Noble difficulty, the AI cheats (in addition, I believe maintenance goes up for the human player).

You can see the specific changes of each difficulty level in the CIV4HandicapInfo.xml file in the Gameinfo folder.