I was wondering if it was possible to do the following (most likely in a mod, but possibly as a direction for CiV AI in general):
-Remove the AI bonuses (extra settlers,workers, units) and most of their economy bonuses (reduce this to enough that AI bad decisions are compensated somewhat, but not to the point where entire player strategies are shutdown because the AI is just much more efficient at building/techs). In particular there are levels at which players basically refuse to build wonders until the modern era because the AI hammer bonus makes that an outright losing strategy.
-Give every single AI unit a flat out combat bonus based on difficulty 25/50/75/100?
-Have the AI be more aggressive at higher difficulties so that you have a hard time staying at peace all game or even for the early game. If the AI has a 100% bonus, those 12 attack warriors are going to be rather intimidating, not to mention the companion cavalry being stronger in base strength than a doubled pikemen.
-Close a lot of the fire-sale loopholes (AIs should not pay for luxuries unless their happiness is say <=2, AI's should not pay cash for open borders unless they are interested in moving a unit to land behind your borders)
So for example if you're playing 4 levels above equal that bonus might be 60% (if its 15% a level).
My rationale is that I find it more fun to have options and the high levels of difficulty as currently implemented take this away. If it were possible to just improve the AI military dramatically to make up for its bad decision making (much of which is combat related - pathing through vulnerable locations, improper use of support, etc) then it would allow for more interesting starts (Is it worth building wonder X now that the AI doesn't automatically beat you to it?), and more interesting strategies, while keeping the AI competitive.
Obviously if there are ridiculously unbalanced strategies the AI doesn't use then there will be problems (for instance libaries with ICS is currently very overpowered and the AI just doesn't take advantage of this).
Anyways it would take a lot of work to make this balance properly, but I was wondering what people thought about this approach to AI advantages?
-Remove the AI bonuses (extra settlers,workers, units) and most of their economy bonuses (reduce this to enough that AI bad decisions are compensated somewhat, but not to the point where entire player strategies are shutdown because the AI is just much more efficient at building/techs). In particular there are levels at which players basically refuse to build wonders until the modern era because the AI hammer bonus makes that an outright losing strategy.
-Give every single AI unit a flat out combat bonus based on difficulty 25/50/75/100?
-Have the AI be more aggressive at higher difficulties so that you have a hard time staying at peace all game or even for the early game. If the AI has a 100% bonus, those 12 attack warriors are going to be rather intimidating, not to mention the companion cavalry being stronger in base strength than a doubled pikemen.
-Close a lot of the fire-sale loopholes (AIs should not pay for luxuries unless their happiness is say <=2, AI's should not pay cash for open borders unless they are interested in moving a unit to land behind your borders)
So for example if you're playing 4 levels above equal that bonus might be 60% (if its 15% a level).
My rationale is that I find it more fun to have options and the high levels of difficulty as currently implemented take this away. If it were possible to just improve the AI military dramatically to make up for its bad decision making (much of which is combat related - pathing through vulnerable locations, improper use of support, etc) then it would allow for more interesting starts (Is it worth building wonder X now that the AI doesn't automatically beat you to it?), and more interesting strategies, while keeping the AI competitive.
Obviously if there are ridiculously unbalanced strategies the AI doesn't use then there will be problems (for instance libaries with ICS is currently very overpowered and the AI just doesn't take advantage of this).
Anyways it would take a lot of work to make this balance properly, but I was wondering what people thought about this approach to AI advantages?
