Complete list of Difficulty differences

Frostyboy

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I wonder if someone with vast knowledge could tell all the excact differences between the difficulties from Chieftain to Sid.

That would have been mostly appreciated:goodjob:
 
Look in the editor under difficulty levels.
 
The best way is to look in the editor, it has all the information on difficulty levels, including maximum numbers of turns in anarchy, bomus units, etc.
 
I'll do the Vanilla/PTW differences (for the benefit of non-C3C'ers), and let someone else to the C3C ones :)

What the things mean:

Additional Units:

Defensive - How many defensive units the AI gets automatically at the start. This can be either Spearmen, or warriors, depending if they have bronze working.
Offensive - How many offensive units the AI gets automatically at the start. This can either be archers, or warriors, depending if they have warrior code.
Start type 1 - How many extra settlers the AI starts with.
Start type 2 - How many extra workers the AI starts with.

Unit support bonuses:

Additional free support - Regardless of how many cities the AI has, they will be able to support at least this amount of units, without paying!
Bonus for each city - How many more units they can support for each city they build.
Note: These are ontop of the normal govermental circumstancial thingies ;)

Max Govt transition time - The maximum amount of time it takes for them to switch goverments. If '0', then it's just normal.
Cost factor - How much cheaper/more expensive it is to make/create/build things. '10' is normal
AI to AI trade rate - (copied from help) Determines the percentage multiplier used in AI – AI trade sessions on the selected difficulty level. This value is a percentage (acceptable values range from 100% to 1000%) which is multiplied by the total value (in gold) of the initiating civ’s offerings, which is used by the "other" AI civ to determine whether a deal is acceptable or not. For example, with a rate of 120, an AI civ offering 100 gold to another AI civ for something would actually be worth 120 gold to the other AI civ.

This rate directly affects the frequency and aggressiveness with which AI civs trade amongst themselves.

General stuff

Number of citizens born content - self explanatory.
Number of citizens quelled by military (copied from help) Determines how many rioting-citizens are quelled with the presence of military units.
Attack bonus vs Barbarians - How much your attack is amplified by when attacking barbs.
Percentage of optimal cities - If this value is 100%, the optimal number of cities will be equal to the default setting for the given world size. At 50%, the optimal number of cities is halved. At 200%, the optimal number of cities is doubled. You get the idea :)

Chieftan

AI bonuses

Additional starting units:

Defensive - 0
Offensive - 0
Start type 1 - 0
Start type 2 - 0

Unit support bonuses:

Additional free support - 0
Bonus for each city - 0

Max Goverment Transition time - 0
Cost factor - 20
AI to AI trade rate - 110

General stuff for all players (inc AI)

Number of citizens born content - 4
Number of citizens quelled by military - 1
Attack bonus vs Barbarians - 800%
Percentage optimal cities - 100%
Corruption level - Default

Warlord

AI bonuses

Additional starting units:

Defensive - 0
Offensive - 0
Start type 1 - 0
Start type 2 - 0

Unit support bonuses:

Additional free support - 0
Bonus for each city - 0

Max Goverment Transition time - 0
Cost factor - 12
AI to AI trade rate - 120

General stuff for all players (inc AI)

Number of citizens born content - 3
Number of citizens quelled by military - 1
Attack bonus vs Barbarians - 400%
Percentage optimal cities - 95%
Corruption level - Default

Regent

AI bonuses

Additional starting units:

Defensive - 0
Offensive - 0
Start type 1 - 0
Start type 2 - 0

Unit support bonuses:

Additional free support - 0
Bonus for each city - 0

Max Goverment Transition time - 0
Cost factor - 10
AI to AI trade rate - 130

General stuff for all players (inc AI)

Number of citizens born content - 3
Number of citizens quelled by military - 1
Attack bonus vs Barbarians - 200%
Percentage optimal cities - 90%
Corruption level - Default

Monarch

AI bonuses

Additional starting units:

Defensive - 2
Offensive - 1
Start type 1 - 0
Start type 2 - 0

Unit support bonuses:

Additional free support - 4
Bonus for each city - 1

Max Goverment Transition time - 4
Cost factor - 9
AI to AI trade rate - 140

General stuff for all players (inc AI)

Number of citizens born content - 2
Number of citizens quelled by military - 1
Attack bonus vs Barbarians - 100%
Percentage optimal cities - 85%
Corruption level - Default

Emperor

AI bonuses

Additional starting units:

Defensive - 4
Offensive - 2
Start type 1 - 0
Start type 2 - 1

Unit support bonuses:

Additional free support - 8
Bonus for each city - 2

Max Goverment Transition time - 3
Cost factor - 8
AI to AI trade rate - 150

General stuff for all players (inc AI)

Number of citizens born content - 1
Number of citizens quelled by military - 1
Attack bonus vs Barbarians - 50%
Percentage optimal cities - 80%
Corruption level - Default

Deity

AI bonuses

Additional starting units:

Defensive - 8
Offensive - 4
Start type 1 - 1
Start type 2 - 2

Unit support bonuses:

Additional free support - 16
Bonus for each city - 4

Max Goverment Transition time - 2
Cost factor - 6
AI to AI trade rate - 160

General stuff for all players (inc AI)

Number of citizens born content - 1
Number of citizens quelled by military - 1
Attack bonus vs Barbarians - 0%
Percentage optimal cities - 70%
Corruption level - Default

Hope that helps ;)

Edit: There were no posts when I started writing :lol:
 
Nice work Gainy bo:goodjob:

You are obvioulsy more patient than most(myself included);)
 
To use Gainy bo's style for sid and demigod level the parameters are as follows:

Demigod

AI bonuses

Additional starting units:

Defensive - 6
Offensive - 3
Start type 1 - 1
Start type 2 - 2

Unit support bonuses:

Additional free support - 12
Bonus for each city - 3

Max Goverment Transition time - 2
Cost factor - 7
AI to AI trade rate - 160

General stuff for all players (inc AI)

Number of citizens born content - 1
Number of citizens quelled by military - 1
Attack bonus vs Barbarians - 25%
Percentage optimal cities - 70%
Corruption level - Default

Sid

AI bonuses

Additional starting units:

Defensive - 12
Offensive - 6
Start type 1 - 2
Start type 2 - 4

Unit support bonuses:

Additional free support - 24
Bonus for each city - 8

Max Goverment Transition time - 1
Cost factor - 4
AI to AI trade rate - 200

General stuff for all players (inc AI)

Number of citizens born content - 1
Number of citizens quelled by military - 1
Attack bonus vs Barbarians - 0%
Percentage optimal cities - 50%
Corruption level - Default
 
Good reply Gainy bo.

There are however a few items that can be misunderstood, so I'll comment them by using Emperor as an example:

Originally posted by Gainy bo
Emperor

AI bonuses

Additional starting units:

Defensive - 4
Offensive - 2
Start type 1 - 0
Start type 2 - 1

Unit support bonuses:

Additional free support - 8
Bonus for each city - 2

Max Goverment Transition time - 3
AI to AI trade rate - 150
All of the above apply to the AI player only. So Max Government Transition time means that the AI will never be more than 3 turns in anarchy - the human player may still be there for 8-9 turns if non-religious.

The AI-AI trade rate needs special mention. What it generally means is that if one poor AI wants to buy something from another AI (say a tech), then first the normal tech cost is calculated. If the buyer can pay this, it must pay as normal, but if the buyer lacks cash, then the seller will accept a discount. When the AI-AI trade rate is 150, it means that the seller will accept to sell the tech for as little as 100/150 = 66.7% of the calculated cost. Note that this is someting the human is free to do as well (I regularly sell old techs very cheaply to backwards civ).


Cost factor - 8
This one's a bit special. It applies to city growth, build cost and (slightly differently) to research.
First, when the cost factor is above 10 (levels below regent), it means that the AI must multiply its cost with this number / 10 for the three items. Ex: A cost factor of 15 means that if a unit costs 50 shields for the human, it costs 75 shields for the AI, if a tech costs 1000 beakers for the human, it costs 1500 beakers for the AI.
If the cost facot is below 10 (above regent), the same is true for city growth and build cost. Ex: A cost facot of 8 means that if a city needs 20 food to grow for the human, it needs 16 for the AI. However for the tech cost, the AI uses the same tech cost as on regent, while the human tech cost is multiplied by 10/(cost factor). So the tech that needed 1000 beakers on regent will require 1000 beakers for the AI, but 1000 * 10 / 8 = 1250 beakers for the human player.


General stuff for all players (inc AI)

Number of citizens born content - 1
Number of citizens quelled by military - 1
Attack bonus vs Barbarians - 50%
Percentage optimal cities - 80%
Corruption level - Default
Its misleading to write that those are for both AI and human player. Those 5 applies directly to the human player as selected by difficulty level, but the AI always plays on Regent when it comes to those 5 items.

What it means is that all AI civs always have 2 citizens born content (the regent setting) and all difficulty settings, while the human player has 4 on chieftan, 2 on regent and 1 on Emperor.


Additionally, there are a few additional things that are affected by difficulty setting, but not found in the editor:

One is that the AI will increase the trade cost for the human player a bit depending on a combination of the difficulty level, AI aggression level and the AI's attitude towards you. This means that when selling something to you, the AI will demand from 0 to 20% more than the calculated cost, due to the three mentioned factors. For an exact study, look at
this thread.

Another is that what you get froom goody huts is dependant on difficulty setting. On the higher levels, the chances of getting barbarians increases and the chances of getting something good decreases.
 
There is one error in Gainy's list. Only 2 citizens are born content on regent.
 
Correct it is the same as Monarchy 2. It drops to 1 for all levels above Monarchy.
 
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