Are the higher levels easier in a way?

[Ringo Kid]

I think maybe they are easier, in the sense that the AI doesnt get smarter units, just a larger quantity of dumb ones. And killing off lots of dumb units gets the human player more promotions to elites which leads to more great leaders, which in turn leads to more Armys. And since the AI is especially dumb in the sense it usually will not attack your army this allows the human to use the army as a shield to cover landing troops, or to move troops into the heart of enemy territory to destroy an important city or resource.

Maybe it was just the way this one game worked out, but after I had survived the early game, I as many as to ten armies attacking , protecting or pillaging some poor AI civ.

Why doesnt the game( AI ) use armies ? Doesnt that give the human a big advantage? Can the game be adjusted or modded in a way that the AI will buld armies.

Or does the AI use armys, but I have just never run across one. ?

Do you think I am right that in the sense of promotions, more dumb AI units is actually a good thing?

 

[PaperBeetle]

I did hear that the C3C AI didn't use armies because it can't fill them properly, but that doesn't quite explain why we see so few poorly-filled armies. I have seen a couple, and I notice that the AI is happy to use armies when given them, as in the C3C scenarios.
The problem with filling armies would stem from the fact that C3C armies have a bonus MOV, but no one told the AI that. It is still stuck with PtW logic that tells it not to add a slower unit to an army so as not to reduce the army's MOV. The result is that it won't add e.g. a second knight to a 1-knight army, because it thinks it will be reducing the army's current MOV 3 to 2.

 

[jeffred1111]

I've seen the AI use armies in Vanilla a lot in my current Emperor game. The Egyptians even fielded 2 (!!!) armies at the same time. Too bad all of them had bizarre or ridiculous unit combos and were utterly crushed by very simple planning (ie. whacking them with a stack of knights). I saw one that had a swordman, a warrior and a war charriot, all regular if memory serves.

You don't get any dumber than this.

 

[Optional]

In Vanilla and PTW the AI used armies regularly, but in Conquests armies got a movement bonus, and then the thing happened that Paperbeetle described.

@Ringo Kid; I wouldn't say the AI doesn't get smarter units on the higher levels. Its bonus also applies to its tech pace, so it should be able to get more advanced units earlier.
Before somebody whacks me on the fingers: it's actually the human player for whom the tech cost rises, and not the AI that gets a discount, so it's the human player that should get advanced units slower.

 

[NickyH]

I think maybe they are easier, in the sense that the AI doesnt get smarter units, just a larger quantity of dumb ones. And killing off lots of dumb units gets the human player more promotions to elites which leads to more great leaders, which in turn leads to more Armys. And since the AI is especially dumb in the sense it usually will not attack your army this allows the human to use the army as a shield to cover landing troops, or to move troops into the heart of enemy territory to destroy an important city or resource.?

My guess is that you'll soon play on Deity level, and then advance to Sid to get a challenge.

Me, I'm just too stupid to exploit the AI in that way. I treat them as rational beings and try to challenge them in an honorable way. I think that gives the game more feeling. I dislike raising cities, and I love to keep all my citizens happy. That's more important than just winning. Maybe I should go back to playing Sim City instead.

 

[Spoonwood]

I really don't think higher levels easier. I use to think that about some of the Sid games I read about... that the AIs would choke on unit support... but really that ends more of an artifact of the conditions people usually play Sid under compared to lower levels. You played archipelago in your game, so you had a slower tech pace than probably an Emperor pangea map under similar conditions, I would guess at least. You do have a point in that since the AI has more units, you have more opportunities for leader fishing. However, the AI has that many more units to kill in general, they replace them faster, they research faster, have more gold, trade more easily, and expand faster in general. So, even though you might end up with armies easier if you use your units intelligently, there exist other difficulties which compensate for this. Also, the army advantage in one way might balance out in another way... at lower levels the AI won't tech very well, so if you have artillery proper, you probably have artillery proper and veteran/elite cavalry vs. rifles (or muskets). On higher levels, you'll probably have to face infantry. In which case you'll want those cavalry armies to balance things out. Lastly, at least as far as I can see (I haven't faced bombers much myself), bombers get worse and worse as you move up levels... in which case armies don't help as much.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

I don't think it will get easier when you move up in the levels. But there are a lot of mitigating factors, which don't let the game get so much harder.

More battles for more promotions and more leader chances is one of those.

The AI builds better and larger empires. And if you are strong enough to annect such an empire, along with cities at size 10, 'ducts, harbours, and other improvements that is quite rewarding. Not to speak of the AI capability to build and have a few wonders quickly.

Then there is AI research. You can get help from the AI wrt reseach, or even completely feed on AI research. Not possible on lower levels.

It is also much easier to trade for missing resources, or luxes. On lower levels it might take an eternity for some AI to have harbours up, but the higher the level the sooner you can import stuff.

And then there is the fact that higher level AI can actually pay you for your techs, if you happen to have some. Try to get some gpt on lower levels.



And one thing on armies. In Vanilla and PTW the AI does use armies, and in combination with the strategy to make all the AI fight amonst each other armies in the hands of the AI are not a rarety (at least not one Deity). On AI-human warfare, they make next to no difference, because whenever you spot one of those AI armies, it is as good as dead. On AI-AI warfare, I think they make some sort of difference, even though it may not be gamebreaking. The possession of armies generally correlates with the upper hand in wars amongst the AI, somewhat.

 

[Spoonwood]

It is also much easier to trade for missing resources, or luxes. On lower levels it might take an eternity for some AI to have harbours up, but the higher the level the sooner you can import stuff.

I thought I had read something weird along these lines before, but maybe it's not correct. Do resources get scarcer as you move up levels? Or does that only happen when you have fewer opponents?

 

[Aabraxan]

I don't think resources get scarcer as you move up, but other aspects simply make it harder to establish trade routes. For water trade routes, for example, the AI takes forever to build harbors at lower levels because of the build penalty. For land routes at lower levels, well, worker turns take just as long, but it takes the AI longer to build them and to replace the pop lost to building them.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

I thought I had read something weird along these lines before, but maybe it's not correct. Do resources get scarcer as you move up levels? Or does that only happen when you have fewer opponents?

There are more resources if there are more opponents. I would guess, in Vanilla, about one per civ. But I heard in C3C resources are generally scarcer.

What could happen on higher levels is that the AI simply settles the spots with resources quicker and that therefore you have less options.

 

[Spoonwood]

I forgot that the AIs also trade more readily among themselves at higher levels. So, if they don't war as much (with lesser aggressive settings), you have fewer resources/luxuries to trade for.

 

[Calis]

I forgot that the AIs also trade more readily among themselves at higher levels. So, if they don't war as much (with lesser aggressive settings), you have fewer resources/luxuries to trade for.

Does the aggression setting also affect the behaviour between the AIs, or only towards the player?

 

[Ringo Kid]

No, I dont think AI agression amongst themselves is affected by that setting, not sure though.

In the game I am playing now the AI finished building Statue of Zuess on the exact turn my units arrived to attack that city. And a few turns later it happened again, they finished the wonder that gives Crusaders as I was about to attack. And in this game I have oil and rubber but the strongest AI civ does not. Also the 2 top AI's decided to turn facist and beat on each other - having left me alone for the past couple hundred years- so I have Aegis Cruisers, Bombers and Mech Infantry defending against Guerillas, Cavs and Ironclads. In fact I am getting so bored watching 63 enemy riflemen march past my beach-head every turn I may quit this game and start another. Its sometimes fun though, because every once in a while 2 or 3 decided to commit suicide by attacking the Mech Infantry Army & Artillery defending my town. If the AI atttacked with all 63 on one turn they might kill my army, I dont know. But they just keep marching past. Silly AI.

So sometimes its just dumb luck - either for you or against you.

 

[Blanchflower]

In Vanilla and PTW the AI used armies regularly, but in Conquests armies got a movement bonus, and then the thing happened that Paperbeetle described.

@Ringo Kid; I wouldn't say the AI doesn't get smarter units on the higher levels. Its bonus also applies to its tech pace, so it should be able to get more advanced units earlier.
Before somebody whacks me on the fingers: it's actually the human player for whom the tech cost rises, and not the AI that gets a discount, so it's the human player that should get advanced units slower.

That is quite right mate!

 

[Argetnyx]

It doesn't matter what the difficulty level is, the AI will always build whatever it wnats and never upgrade anything. Sometimes they get so many units that they have to kill one or two to save their treasury (I've actually had a city saved when the AI had to kill off all of its attacking units, that was AWESOME). They just stockpile the units untill there is a war, then they send them all out, I've had warriors attack me in the Modern age, it's very wierd but an easy kill.