tu_79
Deity
Hi,
since the very beginning, Firaxis designed Civ V difficulties changing AI bonuses, instead of player bonuses. I strongly think this was the wrong approach. As we can easily check, AI victory condition timings change across difficulty levels, so it's almost imposible to achieve a fine balance that works in every difficulty. What we have now is a fine tuned balance VC for Emperor, and whatnot for the other difficulties, hooked by some tech requirements to avoid strong differences.
Problem with this method is that once the proactive conditions are met, the rest of the game is reactive. In other words, just hitting Next button while defending against the despairing AI.
Swapping handicaps now so they scale in difficulty for the human player, but not for the AI is potentially risky. I'd rather see Emperor handicaps untouched, and just tweak costs for other difficulties.
This could be done by running a few AI games, checking how long it takes for the mean AI to get 18 policies, and modifying policy costs (if such thing is posible to code) for every difficulty level so the mean AI gets the same policies around the same turn than AI in Emperor. Then, doing the same for 60 techs. Modify tech costs for every difficulty level so the mean AI gets the same number of techs around the same turn than AI in Emperor.
So, what changes if AI behaves the same across different difficulties? Human player progress. By altering culture and science costs, we're allowing human player to research and get policies faster than normal in lower difficulties. So playing at lower difficulties would be like fighting against the same AI, but on steroids. The variable strength of the human player is still going to change the timing of the victory conditions, but this will come more from the different player skills (a human player good at military tactics but not at economy management makes domination victory more likely).
The real benefit of such change is that imbalances for victory conditions can be spotted by players at any difficulty level. If a Deity player thinks that domination is too weak, and a Prince player thinks the same, then it's probably true. That's something we cannot say with current system.
since the very beginning, Firaxis designed Civ V difficulties changing AI bonuses, instead of player bonuses. I strongly think this was the wrong approach. As we can easily check, AI victory condition timings change across difficulty levels, so it's almost imposible to achieve a fine balance that works in every difficulty. What we have now is a fine tuned balance VC for Emperor, and whatnot for the other difficulties, hooked by some tech requirements to avoid strong differences.
Problem with this method is that once the proactive conditions are met, the rest of the game is reactive. In other words, just hitting Next button while defending against the despairing AI.
Swapping handicaps now so they scale in difficulty for the human player, but not for the AI is potentially risky. I'd rather see Emperor handicaps untouched, and just tweak costs for other difficulties.
This could be done by running a few AI games, checking how long it takes for the mean AI to get 18 policies, and modifying policy costs (if such thing is posible to code) for every difficulty level so the mean AI gets the same policies around the same turn than AI in Emperor. Then, doing the same for 60 techs. Modify tech costs for every difficulty level so the mean AI gets the same number of techs around the same turn than AI in Emperor.
So, what changes if AI behaves the same across different difficulties? Human player progress. By altering culture and science costs, we're allowing human player to research and get policies faster than normal in lower difficulties. So playing at lower difficulties would be like fighting against the same AI, but on steroids. The variable strength of the human player is still going to change the timing of the victory conditions, but this will come more from the different player skills (a human player good at military tactics but not at economy management makes domination victory more likely).
The real benefit of such change is that imbalances for victory conditions can be spotted by players at any difficulty level. If a Deity player thinks that domination is too weak, and a Prince player thinks the same, then it's probably true. That's something we cannot say with current system.