AI happiness = difficulty balancer?

[MadRat]

huh? the ai gets all sorts of cheats in all civ games, especially on higher levels. so giving he ai huge bonuses on deity in cIV is "great" but giving the ai some happiness bonuses in ciV is terrible?

Nice try with the straw man. The argument in this thread isn't between civ IV. It is about how unbalancing the happiness bonus for the AI is in ciV.

I did not say that the AI didn't cheat in any previous civ game, nor did I say that cheats were "great". Given that, my criticism (as per earlier posts), the AI happiness cheat is too much and goes beyond simply a difficulty bonus to an outright "I win" for it on higher levels. Having the AI get +1/+2 resources or and extra unit here and there is nothing compared to having the AI get up to +60 happiness. The latter provides the AI with almost no limit to its ICS spam, conquests, and no need for it to buy happiness buildings.

Rat

 

[SuperJay]

Don't play diety then.

Its meant to be a level where the AI cheats so outrageously that even the very best human players find it hard to win.

And it fails miserably at that objective, unfortunately.

You're right, of course - the deck is supposed to be stacked against the player - but currently, the difficulty levels in Civ 5 are a joke.

 

[elthrasher]

Nice try with the straw man. The argument in this thread isn't between civ IV. It is about how unbalancing the happiness bonus for the AI is in ciV.

I did not say that the AI didn't cheat in any previous civ game, nor did I say that cheats were "great". Given that, my criticism (as per earlier posts), the AI happiness cheat is too much and goes beyond simply a difficulty bonus to an outright "I win" for it on higher levels. Having the AI get +1/+2 resources or and extra unit here and there is nothing compared to having the AI get up to +60 happiness. The latter provides the AI with almost no limit to its ICS spam, conquests, and no need for it to buy happiness buildings.

So your argument is that deity is too hard? Take this stuff away and it would be too easy, IMO. I could maybe even be persuaded that it already is too easy and the AI needs to be buffed more. Too hard? No way. It doesn't just outright win. A number of us have won on deity.

 

[MadRat]

So your argument is that deity is too hard? Take this stuff away and it would be too easy, IMO. I could maybe even be persuaded that it already is too easy and the AI needs to be buffed more. Too hard? No way. It doesn't just outright win. A number of us have won on deity.

The Point that is being missed is the AI IS NOT HARDER at higher levels at all it just gets insanely stupid happiness bonuses that are disproportionate. You nailed it on the head - the AI needs this bonus as it is otherwise brain dead. Beating deity isn't much of an accomplishment - just go domination and Raze. This is the core of the argument - you arent fighting an AI - but one simple mechanic the AI doesnt even need to consider. To counter it you have to ignore it as well.

Hence the title of the thread - the happiness mechanic isn't a game "rule" per se (as all players need to follow the rules) but rather a handicap for the human player(s). It allows the AI to do things the human can but much much earlier. It is like playing monopoly where one you start off with $200 and everyone else starts off with $10000.

Rat

 

[elthrasher]

The Point that is being missed is the AI IS NOT HARDER at higher levels at all it just gets insanely stupid happiness bonuses that are disproportionate. You nailed it on the head - the AI needs this bonus as it is otherwise brain dead. Beating deity isn't much of an accomplishment - just go domination and Raze. This is the core of the argument - you arent fighting an AI - but one simple mechanic the AI doesnt even need to consider. To counter it you have to ignore it as well.

I can get behind saying the AI should be smarter - in fact it's improved somewhat with the patches, but still has a long way to go. I fail to see how that leads to complaining about a happiness bonus on the highest difficulty (which is meant to be hard).

I think the AI should be smarter and still have the happiness bonus. I'm totally cool with the deity-level AI not being encumbered by unhappiness. I would much rather use my CPU cycles on better battle tactics, smart city planning and something resembling diplomacy.

 

[MadRat]

I fail to see how that leads to complaining about a happiness bonus on the highest difficulty (which is meant to be hard).

It is because the AI happiness isn't a challenge, it is a frustration which makes the game tedious and limits the strategies you can use to win.

Rat

 

[elthrasher]

It is because the AI happiness isn't a challenge, it is a frustration which makes the game tedious and limits the strategies you can use to win.

Does it? Or does it just make those strategies harder? I assume you're talking about some kind of happiness-denial strategy here. Seems like it would be tough to get much mileage out of that over your garden-variety violence on any difficulty. Can you explain how your strategies are limited by the happiness bonus?

 

[Slowpoke]

AI cheating like crazy doesn't limit strategies. Imbalances like scientists giving triple normal population science, conquering being too easy, maritimes, etc, do. AI is always going to cheat like a beast. I fullheartedly support AI cheating and have personally made higher difficulties where it cheat its butt off even more.

 

[Paradigne]

OK, it's one thing for the AI to cheat and suffer no happiness problems. It's another ENTIRELY when they pop up and insult you because your happiness dropped to -1 after taking an enemy city

 

[Callonia]

may we recommend you check out how City States work?

how would allying with the city state make you very unhappy? being friends or allies to city states does not impact your happiness. annexing them would but not allying.

taking a city state away from another civ, by having greater influence, will make them mad but as you were (are) already at war with them, it won't make much difference there. won't get you any more killed than you would be without the city state as your ally

Allying with maritime city state = extra food for cities = my cities growing beyond what my happiness would allow = penalities for unhappiness.

And Yes, I am researching telegraph, i've been keeping up to date successfully, militaristically, and that picture is currently outdated.

U know that tech intake is quite slow with roughly 6-8 cities when your ai have 20-50, it kinda throws stuff out the window ya know? Because science depends on how much population you have.

And so, infinite happiness = infinite population as long as you have the food to afford for them which in turn translates into infinite science.

 

[elthrasher]

Allying with maritime city state = extra food for cities = my cities growing beyond what my happiness would allow = penalities for unhappiness.

And Yes, I am researching telegraph, i've been keeping up to date successfully, militaristically, and that picture is currently outdated.

U know that tech intake is quite slow with roughly 6-8 cities when your ai have 20-50, it kinda throws stuff out the window ya know? Because science depends on how much population you have.

And so, infinite happiness = infinite population as long as you have the food to afford for them which in turn translates into infinite science.

I think the piece you are missing is the snowball effect in this game. Yeah, the extra food will grow your cities, which has the side-effect of producing additional unhappiness. But this extra population helps more than it hurts! Now you can produce more and tech better and get more happiness buildings in, get more gold to buy or trade luxuries. Or you can build wonders that help with happiness or you can build culture buildings to get more SPs. I've had games where I controlled more than 25 cities with three or so maritimes without serious happiness problems. The more you have, the more you can do.

Generally allying with a maritime city-state is 100% good. If you're down to -9 happy and further growth will completely scuttle your war effort, you can always hit the "avoid growth" option.

 

[Callonia]

I think the piece you are missing is the snowball effect in this game. Yeah, the extra food will grow your cities, which has the side-effect of producing additional unhappiness. But this extra population helps more than it hurts! Now you can produce more and tech better and get more happiness buildings in, get more gold to buy or trade luxuries. Or you can build wonders that help with happiness or you can build culture buildings to get more SPs. I've had games where I controlled more than 25 cities with three or so maritimes without serious happiness problems. The more you have, the more you can do.

Generally allying with a maritime city-state is 100% good. If you're down to -9 happy and further growth will completely scuttle your war effort, you can always hit the "avoid growth" option.

I'm on Avoid growth. Allying marittime is expensive and not benefitcal to the situation that i shown on screenshot.