AI bonuses

[drambuie]

Sure this has been asked before (if anyone can point out threads then thats cool) but what bonuses does the AI get on Noble?

HAven't played Civ4 for a while, but have come back to BtS and am having trouble dealing with AI unit spam - ie. they seem to have loads more units than me and more than it seems they should be able to churn out considering the number of cities etc. Add on the endless workers and settlers that seem to find every little gap in my hinterlands thereby stealing lots of nice stuff it just doesn't seem to add up.

Thought noble was reasonably easy but it's getting to be a pain getting any sort of progress without resorting to endless wars, and finding several hours into the game I just get jumped on my the combined AI powers having wasted another evening.

Any advice?

Cheers

 

[Silence101]

As I recall, on noble the AI gets a reduced unit upgrade cost, but I think basically everything else is equal - maybe somebody could verify that. It's the most "equal" of the difficulty levels.

Are you playing aggressive AI? You may want to turn it off if you are - just depends on what style you like best. I often go both ways - on Prince difficulty with aggressive AI turned off, I don't think the AI's unit spam is off the chart by any means - maybe six, seven, eight units guarding a well protected boarder city. That's not that bad - siege weapons and a sufficient attack force should have no trouble with that.

 

[Psyringe]

In Noble, you're at pretty equal footing with the AI.

Some AI bonuses exist in Noble: The AI only pays half the cost for unit supply and unit upgrades, it suffers only 80% war weariness and inflation compared to the player, and it gets a higher bonus against barbarians than the the player. It also gets a headstart of 10 hammers. That's about it. The AI does not get any free units, does not get a production bonus for either units or buildings or wonders or anything else, does not get additional income, does not get free techs, does not get a research bonus, does not get a bonus to city growth, does not get a happiness bonus, does not get a health bonus, and does not have a diplomacy bias against the player.

The AI has, however, become pretty efficient over time, and can pose a challenge for many players even without any cheats. This is mainly due to Civ4 being a very complex game. The AI has been taught to use most of the game features, many players don't.