Does adding more playes increase or decrease the difficulty?

[TheMeInTeam]

Not necessarily. The AI also deals pretty badly with too much space, especially if it sudently appears in the middle of the game. In fact the AI can enter in a settling frenzy that can be far from being a good idea for them.

Very, VERY difficulty level dependent.

That's why it's frustrating to try to play those land-heavy maps with standard AI counts on immortal. The AIs all get 15+ cities but 1 or 2 wind up with 30+! How do you expand to keep up with the smallest AI empire being 15 cities? How do you attack an immortal or deity AI that has quickly and cheaply settled triple your city count?

On noble it's probably not any harder, other than you having to deal with more barbs than normal.

 

[Antilogic]

Not necessarily. The AI also deals pretty badly with too much space, especially if it sudently appears in the middle of the game. In fact the AI can enter in a settling frenzy that can be far from being a good idea for them.

If you are talking about a Terra map where the AI has to deal with colonial maintenance, I can see this being an issue. But they get enough of a maintenance bonus so that settling on their home continent doesn't hurt them.

Case in point is Joao--he settles and expands like mad, a true REX AI, and yet he is usually in the top 3 until somebody gets the stones to attack him.

 

[r_rolo1]

To be clear I was thinking specifically of when a war with razes opens a lot of space near the AI in question.

 

[Antilogic]

To be clear I was thinking specifically of when a war with razes opens a lot of space near the AI in question.

I tend to capture cities instead of razing them, but I would guess you wouldn't want the AI settling territory that may already have tile improvements. That just hastens the setup period for their new empire.

Have you had games where the AI just didn't know what to do with recently opened up territory?

 

[r_rolo1]

I tend to capture cities instead of razing them, but I would guess you wouldn't want the AI settling territory that may already have tile improvements. That just hastens the setup period for their new empire.

Have you had games where the AI just didn't know what to do with recently opened up territory?

I think you are missing the point... the AI enters in settler spree when sees open land regardless of their war status. Just fire a AW ( just for the extreme ... it happens without it ) game, raze some of their cities , and you can see the AI literally zerging settlers into the open space, most of the times lightly defended ( if the AI can , it will escort settlers with 2 move units, that normally are not that good in defending ). In that situation you just have literally to stay near the ruins of old cities to see a AI coming to settling it... free gold or free workers, depending of if you let it settle or not. if A AI is in war, this is probably the worst behaviour it can have, because it both hampers troop production and dilutes the military into defending cities with little native defense, if any. But that is what the AI gets for being too much land hungry....

I have a lot of examples posted in my games, but this one is probably the one that marked me more due to the sheer number of pop one cities I needed to raze in the same area in the french territory ( that and a guy that is losing a war badly building the Great Library ). If you checked the replay it would look like popcorns in the end

 

[FriendoftheDork]

Kudos to guys finishing games. I seldom do as the challenge becomes nonexistant after awhile or I'm happy with my Empire and don't feel the need to own 3 continents of the world including Asia to win, I can settle with something like the Roman or Brittish empire to call it a dominatio n victory

Also, If I have tanks when the best AI have medieval units I'd also call it a win. No need to bore myself with building spaceship components.

 

[Antilogic]

I think you are missing the point... the AI enters in settler spree when sees open land regardless of their war status. Just fire a AW ( just for the extreme ... it happens without it ) game, raze some of their cities , and you can see the AI literally zerging settlers into the open space, most of the times lightly defended ( if the AI can , it will escort settlers with 2 move units, that normally are not that good in defending ). In that situation you just have literally to stay near the ruins of old cities to see a AI coming to settling it... free gold or free workers, depending of if you let it settle or not. if A AI is in war, this is probably the worst behaviour it can have, because it both hampers troop production and dilutes the military into defending cities with little native defense, if any. But that is what the AI gets for being too much land hungry....

I have a lot of examples posted in my games, but this one is probably the one that marked me more due to the sheer number of pop one cities I needed to raze in the same area in the french territory ( that and a guy that is losing a war badly building the Great Library ). If you checked the replay it would look like popcorns in the end

If you are there to immediately attack their new cities, then sure, their military will be spread thin. No different than when a player founds a new city (same number of military units at the beginning of the turn now covering an extra city, unless you draft on that turn). In the long run, taking extra land, especially land that is already improved and doesn't require a costly siege to take over, objectively increases your productive capacity at the lowest cost.

Nobody's doubting the fact that the AI can be easily outsmarted by a human in a wartime scenario. But there is a large difference between this and starting the game with a greater or fewer than the recommended number of AIs, where everyone (assuming you don't always play with AW on) isn't in a state of war.