Apollo difficulty ?

[m15a]

So, you reckon they just messed up and failed to make their Deity-equivalent as difficult as Civ 5's Deity?

MadDjinn reckons that you'll be fine on Apollo difficulty if you're capable of winning regularly at Emperor in Civ 5, which is two difficulty levels lower than Deity.

I think is plausible that they "messed up". Even in Civ V, you can choose starting options that make the game seem about 2 levels easier/harder, right? Since BE is (sort of) like having drastically different starting conditions, it's possible that the Apollo AI is similar to deity AI but the game as a whole still feels "emperor" level. Or MadDjinn could be wrong. (I trust his opinion, but he can't actually speak for every emperor-level player's abilities.)

Personally, I think either of those possibilities is more likely than the developers just blatantly lying, i.e., that they secretly want Apollo level to be as hard as emperor but don't want to tell the players that for some reason. I mean, why would they do that?

 

[Lord Shadow]

Yeah, I'd sooner expect mistakes than blatant lies from Firaxis.

There's also the strong possibility Apollo will be tweaked and made harder for the release version.

 

[Haggbart]

So, you reckon they just messed up and failed to make their Deity-equivalent as difficult as Civ 5's Deity?

MadDjinn reckons that you'll be fine on Apollo difficulty if you're capable of winning regularly at Emperor in Civ 5, which is two difficulty levels lower than Deity.

Yes.

For example the trade routes; I think there's potentially a whole difficulty level's difference there if the AI can use it efficiently or not.

From what we have seen the AI is clearly able to win the game pretty early, only problem is the human player can win it even earlier. So seems the best sollution is to nerf the strongest tools the human players have, and atm that seems to be trade routes. Also I don't think the AI gets enough out of the huge health bonuses it probably has, because the penalties for negative health aren't big enough (and can the AI even take advantage of the bonuses/penalties to espionage from health?)

 

[edingess]

As (probably) a non-Apollo player, I just want the AI to take basic steps as described earlier in this thread. I'd rather have a dumb to meh AI take a diverse array of steps than an epic AI so restricted in its methods of combat that make it practically useless.

Yeah, I'd sooner expect mistakes than blatant lies from Firaxis.

There's also the strong possibility Apollo will be tweaked and made harder for the release version.

You have a point, Firaxis are the good guys in the industry these days.

 

[Acken]

Anyway yes, with a lack of proper play testing strategy games in their infancy are always subject to huge changes following release.

 

[sherbz]

Anyway yes, with a lack of proper play testing strategy games in their infancy are always subject to huge changes following release.

Its all well and good play testing a game, but when you wide release it you open it up to a whole army of people who actively collaborate with each other to find the optimal strategy. Modding can be a god send here. But sometimes lazy developers rely too much on the modding community. Fortunately Firaxis are usually quite good and release some chunky patches after release.