Difficulty Setting options

[Goodgimp]

What do people think of having additional difficulty setting options enabled? I'm talking about stuff along the line of "No AI Building Requirements"?

-Free Magic: Allows the AI to build Mages directly from Mage Guilds, Archmages with a later tech.

-Exp Scaling: With this option checked, higher difficulty settings provide a boost to AI unit EXP gain. This could be done in a few ways (not saying all at once, just different ways of accomplishing it):

- Percent Exp modifier for each combat. (i.e., 50% extra Exp gain on Emperor)
- If unit is produced by AI player, unit begins with N Exp. (i.e., 10 free Exp on Emperor difficulty)
- If AI produces a unit, the unit receives +1xp per turn up to a set ceiling.
​

Any other thoughts or ideas? Personally, I love playing against a brutal AI. With Civ difficulty settings, while the AI does get bonuses, it increases the difficulty by handicapping the player as well. I'm not so much of a fan of being handicapped artificially (with increased maintenance, unhappiness, etc). I love the AI No Building Requirements option, and would love to see more things implemented along those lines

 

[oyzar]

Try playing diety with wildlands raging barbs and all the AI's with the barbarian trait. Will be fun i am sure... Build upgrades directly(which is what the first option really is). Seems like a decent idea though..

 

[Goodgimp]

Try playing diety with wildlands raging barbs and all the AI's with the barbarian trait. Will be fun i am sure... Build upgrades directly(which is what the first option really is). Seems like a decent idea though..

Yea, that is a lot of fun playing like that I'd just like to give the AI a leg-up somehow, especially in the magic department, at least until a point in time where it's able to utilize the magic system more effectively.

 

[Roghar]

I'm in favour of the mages, just would require the Sorcery tech also to keep it reasonable

 

[Goodgimp]

I'm in favour of the mages, just would require the Sorcery tech also to keep it reasonable

Yea I agree, Mages right off the bat after Knowledge of the Ether would be a little insane. I think keeping the tech requirements the same would be good.

 

[onedreamer]

Very good feedback, Goodgimp.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'm actually thinking it might be better for spells to have tech requirements (need sorcery tech to cast sorcery spells, summoning tech to cast summoning spells, Divination/Alteration/Elementalism/necromancy to cast tier one spells (actually, it might be better to make these techs prereqs for the promotions, since the spell xml can use only 1 tech prereq), for Strength of will (or maybe just Arcane Lore, to make Govannon and Hemah more valuable) for Sorcery III spells, and Soul Debt for Summoning 3. Then the level requirements could be reduced a little; I don't think that the AI is good at xp farming for their arcane units, so they rarely get them to the top tier. Plus, when they do, their high level makes it harder for them to buy level 3 spell spheres. I think that lowering the level requirements would improve the AI's use of magic, plus make the game more fun for human player since they can play around with higher level spels sooner. Still, I think the tech requirements would be needed then to prevent spells from becoming available too soon.


Of course, giving xp scaling sounds fun too.

 

[xienwolf]

I read it as them proposing to allow the AI to build Adepts at Knowledge of the Ether, Mages at Sorcery, Conjurers at Summoning, Summoners at Soul Debt and Archmages at Strength of Will.

Meaning, build those units directly, not having to promote anything, so they can spend a couple turns producing, and then have a level 1 Archmage pop in thier city with appropriate free spell spheres from mana and 1 free promotion. No need to have ever had a Mage before that, let alone an Adept. But Ideally with the "must promote to have" restriction lifted, the AI might send a stack of Mages at you someday.

 

[onedreamer]

I read it as them proposing to allow the AI to build Adepts at Knowledge of the Ether, Mages at Sorcery, Conjurers at Summoning, Summoners at Soul Debt and Archmages at Strength of Will.

Meaning, build those units directly, not having to promote anything, so they can spend a couple turns producing, and then have a level 1 Archmage pop in thier city with appropriate free spell spheres from mana and 1 free promotion. No need to have ever had a Mage before that, let alone an Adept. But Ideally with the "must promote to have" restriction lifted, the AI might send a stack of Mages at you someday.

Wait, they would still need promotions. A newly built Archmage would have 1 free promo, plus Yxp according to civics. Generally one more promotion, so unless you have 2+ of one mana type he wouldn't cast tier 3 spells right away in most cases, or only one, and need more xp for various promotions like combat.

Btw I think the real problem with Spellcasters is that there isn't a "strategy_spellcaster" the AI can use. And the strategies for melee/attack, siege, defend , etc aren't exactly the best suited.