AI Cheating at King & Prince level ?

[moof]

After reading the boards here for over a year there is question about the AI cheating/advantage.

While well aware of most of the AI's cheats, since prince & king levels were skipped over in favor of deity level it has come up that maybe the AI does not cheat the same on every level.

Can anyone confirm that there are less cheats to contend with at King or Prince than there are at Deity or are there any differences ?

If King level gives a more level playing field than Deity we would consider switching.

 

[duke o' york]

I am unsure of it myself, but starlifter claims that the AI contact bribe (ie, a bribe by any unit in contact with one of your own, not necessarily a dip or spy) only applies at Deity, although maybe that's the only level he has seen it on. I've never seen this happen though. The AI will never sink triremes or have to land their planes in their cities on any level. I don't know if their helicopters lose energy at the same rate as ours do though.
The reason people claim that King is a level playing field is that both you and the AI require the same number of shields to fill the production box, and the same number of food to grow the cities.
This does mean then that the game will be decided by the strategy of the human player. Guess who wins. The unhappiness level is also in the middle, but since this is an integral part of the game I wouldn't consider it a cheat. The AI never has unhappiness problems on any level, but their cities sometimes do go into disorder. I don't understand how, but they do.
Not sure if anyone else knows any cheats that I have forgotten....

 

[funxus]

Originally posted by duke o' york
The unhappiness level is also in the middle, but since this is an integral part of the game I wouldn't consider it a cheat. The AI never has unhappiness problems on any level, but their cities sometimes do go into disorder. I don't understand how, but they do.

They do experiece happiness problems sometimes and their cities seem to go into disorder if there are more reds than lightblues. Sometimes when I want to bribe an expensive city, I check if it's possible to take out any happiness improvements the turn before to make it go into disorder the next turn and bribe the city then.

 

[moof]

Originally posted by duke o' york

The reason people claim that King is a level playing field is that both you and the AI require the same number of shields to fill the production box, and the same number of food to grow the cities.

Thanks Duke, didn't know that, always thought the AI had a smaller shield & food box on all levels.
That would certainly help with the project here.
We are showing a pal how to play Civ & want to do a multi player game but are looking for a way to keep the AI from causing him so much trouble the first few games.

Originally posted by duke o' york

The unhappiness level is also in the middle,

Now are you saying that the AI on King level has 4 citizens start out content instead of the regular 3, but that it does not make a difference because the disorder the AI experiences seems to not be connected to the unhappy people ?

Also just did some checking, sometimes the mac version has small differences.

We forgot all about the Emperor level.

In confirming the food & shield boxes were the same quanities we noticed that on King the boxes are the right size but the AI gets to carry over any extra shields when something is built instead of starting with an empty box.

& Thanks again for the info Duke.

 

[Old n Slow]

I've had cities bribed away from me at king level , but I think that the activity is less frequent than the higher levels.

 

[Ace]

Originally posted by Old n Slow
I've had cities bribed away from me at king level , but I think that the activity is less frequent than the higher levels.

I have had the same experience at king level, but I have not noticed any difference in frequency at higher levels, well at diety, I skipped emperor when I realized you always get two settlers at diety level

I always believed that the only difference between the levels was the stuff listed in the manual. And those are not really cheats, just advantages given to or taken away from the AI to effect the difficulty of the game. The real cheats, like nukes showing up anywhere on the map, or settlers irrigating anywhere etc are the same at all levels, at least, I think thats the way it works.

 

[Dell19]

On emperor, I only ever have cities on their continent bribed and it doesn't seem to be that frequent.

 

[kefra(tm)]

Originally posted by duke o' york
The reason people claim that King is a level playing field is that both you and the AI require the same number of shields to fill the production box, and the same number of food to grow the cities.

This isn't always true, actually. I found that on King level the AI opponents only need 8 shields and 8 food for every 10 I needed. The same is true of science beakers. Apparently Prince level is equal in this regard. (Just so you know, on Deity the rate is 6 per 10, making it all the harder.)

 

[duke o' york]

So if they require 6 to your ten at Deity then how would it work?
Deity-----AI 6----Human 10
Emperor-AI ?----Human 10
King------AI 8----Human 10 - according to kefra(tm)
Prince----AI 10--Human 10
Warlord--AI ?---Human 10, etc.

Surely it would be 8 shields per line for the AI on Emperor level and 10 at King. They'd then need 12 at Prince, 14 at Warlord and 16 at Chieftain! I knew Chieftain was easy but even so!

 

[CaptBoulanger]

I knew there was a reason I only play at King or higher when starting on a premade map from an isolated position.... I always get whomped early on when I try the upper levels with AI's close enough to matter.

 

[CaptBoulanger]

edited out - posted in wrong window