I used to find King a reasonable challenge (I would not always win), but now something has changed. By about 1000BC some of the civs have armies of 12+ units, which if I was to try and replicate I would be totally bankrupt on maintenance costs. Now I just get routinely crushed, not a 'challenge' any more - just a frustrating impossibility. Have maintenance costs been drastically reduced for the AI along with production and happiness bonuses etc? Will have to go back down to Prince or else uninstall Civ5 - think I have about had enough now.
Has the difficulty level been increased in a recent patch?
- Thread starter Horizons
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Care to elaborate more on you game settings and/or provide some screens of your games? King is still rather reason to walk away with any victory of your choosing and wonder hog pretty easily. With some screenshots we can probably provide some tips to help you improve your game so King becomes your new Prince setting.
Military heavy AIs don't build many buildings.
Since they aren't building many of them, they don't have much building maintenance and so can afford the unit maintenance.
Now the AI has always gotten happiness bonuses.
Since they aren't building many of them, they don't have much building maintenance and so can afford the unit maintenance.
Now the AI has always gotten happiness bonuses.
Montezuma (predictably) but also Assyria which launched a full assault about 800BC with no less than 5 of those siege towers backed up by a horseman, several warriors and two spearmen. I didn't stand a chance lol - the siege towers have a strength of 12 and can take an ancient city with two or three hits.
Enrico Swagolo
Deity
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If you mean BETA, yeah, I noticed an increase in difficulty - everyone seems to tech faster now. Could be just my imagination, though, but they do seem to be all doing much better now, probably because of the change that made them more likely to build science stuff.
If their aggresiveness and willingness to war was slightly increased (so they attack when it's obvious they're going to win) , Civ 5 BNW would be even more challenging.
If their aggresiveness and willingness to war was slightly increased (so they attack when it's obvious they're going to win) , Civ 5 BNW would be even more challenging.
I haven't noticed a difficulty increase, as you say but I have noticed;
a)The AI takes notice to your dominance towards the end of the game. My last game as Venice (BETA Deity, Dom VC, Epic Speed) just today. I was friendly with everyone up aside from Bismarck and Atilla up until they all opted to go Freedom. I went on a capital-hunting spree, and after the 2nd they all decided to attack me (aside from Bismarck). I figured they knew I was too strong at this point and needed to all attack me.
b)The AI is quicker to be your friend. I drop a few free luxuries, and some 5gpt to neighbours and usually always get a DoF some turns later (usually on the 2nd give-away).
c)They're organizing plans in the WC better. The Venice game I spoke of, I fought back 2 votes for Freedom Ideology. The un-happiness would have crushed me since I was teetering back and forth, from red to green.
You'll get early wars if you're forward expanding, stealing with great generals, etc. Also a good way to provoke a war, so you don't take an ugly war monger penalty. Make sure to tell them to shove it, they'll be DoWing you in no time.
a)The AI takes notice to your dominance towards the end of the game. My last game as Venice (BETA Deity, Dom VC, Epic Speed) just today. I was friendly with everyone up aside from Bismarck and Atilla up until they all opted to go Freedom. I went on a capital-hunting spree, and after the 2nd they all decided to attack me (aside from Bismarck). I figured they knew I was too strong at this point and needed to all attack me.
b)The AI is quicker to be your friend. I drop a few free luxuries, and some 5gpt to neighbours and usually always get a DoF some turns later (usually on the 2nd give-away).
c)They're organizing plans in the WC better. The Venice game I spoke of, I fought back 2 votes for Freedom Ideology. The un-happiness would have crushed me since I was teetering back and forth, from red to green.
You'll get early wars if you're forward expanding, stealing with great generals, etc. Also a good way to provoke a war, so you don't take an ugly war monger penalty. Make sure to tell them to shove it, they'll be DoWing you in no time.
I've been using the beta patch today--started up 3 different civs on emperor to see how the changes worked. I didn't notice any great increase in difficulty--at least playing up to medieval era. Possibly a bit more early war--at least, early wars in 2 out of the 3, but it is too soon to tell if that is really a new trend.
So does this boil down to the fact that I play casually (and occasionally) and that I don't play 'optimally'? I had only built two cities by 800BC and only had a handful of units. I am losing my passion for Civ, which could also be a factor. It does seem that every version of Civ (at least since Civ4) gets patched and tweaked based on the gameplay experiences of 'optimal' players, and the corresponding fun factor is reduced.
So I keep hearing about strategies to rush to the NC and develop your cities ... which sound great ... but then when you actually play the game you get rushed by 10 units in the ancient era in addition to the regular barbarian attacks, and I just don't understand how you even have time to build a library in between having to rush out units to defend yourself. You guys must be playing on huge maps with great distances between the civs. 
Gamewizard
Emperor
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You should be able to defend against 10 units with half that number. Use rough terrain to your advantage, don't let gravely injured units get caught in the enemies zone-of-control so that you can pull them back and heal up, make sure units are utilizing their promotions to full effect, don't let the enemy retreat injured units.
Another thing is to manually assign citizens in the city view. The game loves to work food tiles and sometimes you need those hammer tiles instead.
Another thing is to manually assign citizens in the city view. The game loves to work food tiles and sometimes you need those hammer tiles instead.
Well I must be missing something because the difficulty is outrageous ... the AI anticipates you at every move. Trying to focus on religion? There is always an AI that spams missionaries twice as fast as you. Trying for a culture win? The AI will always build wonders before you and there is always an AI city that is producing 10 tourism (and probably an insane amount of culture) by the medieval age. Trying for military win? Unit costs will stop you dead in your tracks and the late game will be brutal. If you leave it too late i.e. don't do a pre-historic era rush, there is always an AI that has three times as many units as you for the rest of the game. Continents? Don't even think about it, you will get at least one runaway AI. City states? The AI has twice the gold you do and can buy them at will.
The difficulty is just brutal and frankly it isn't fun
The difficulty is just brutal and frankly it isn't fun
Such a bewildering array of things to BUILD ... but you don't have TIME because you have to keep pumping out units to ward off constant AI invasions! And before you know it, the eras fly past and you don't get a chance to build half the buildings or use most than a tiny number of the units ... and spend the tedious modern age doing catch-up because science is so slow!
mediobogdum
Chieftain
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I came here this morning because I'm having the same problem.
I've backed down from King and am still having trouble on Prince.
Roads don't seem to pay for themselves anymore, I consistently run a deficit.
I gain 3(!) gpt for "connections to cities" another 1gpt from my trade route.
I spend 13(!) a turn on the tile maintenance.
Three cities used to be no problem balancing the books.
I end up getting routinely beaten to wonders which is no real surprise to me as I cannot afford to
expand much and end up pretty far behind the curve by 200 or so.
I've backed down from King and am still having trouble on Prince.
Roads don't seem to pay for themselves anymore, I consistently run a deficit.
I gain 3(!) gpt for "connections to cities" another 1gpt from my trade route.
I spend 13(!) a turn on the tile maintenance.
Three cities used to be no problem balancing the books.
I end up getting routinely beaten to wonders which is no real surprise to me as I cannot afford to
expand much and end up pretty far behind the curve by 200 or so.
Well King is still pretty easy for me. I play it since I find the high level Ai a pain, killing endless fields of braindead zerg swarm is just annoying. I have been attacked a good deal though. In my last German game got attacked by old G&K classical rush by Oda, and he actually managed to take Munich for a turn as my local forces were off killing a camp for City-state quest and German ability. Within ten turns of that war ending I got a Boudicca attack with Pictish warrior, archer and catapult attack that came within 1 turn of taking my cap. I'm seeing a trend of warmongers being aggressive and peacemongers building up. Japan was at war pretty much all game until I crippled them. Overall I find it better than GK and BNW. Not guaranteed an attack every game and not guaranteed peace every game.
This is where I disagree, because these AIs still have time to grow big cities, keep up with tech, and have positive happiness. I can't prove it because I can't find a way to open up the Worldbuilder and examine the stats of AI cities, like you used to be able to do in Civ2. But it feels like the AI at higher difficulties doesn't need to make opportunity costs because it gets sooo many bonuses that it can just pump out everything - oodles of units and all the buildings and wonders under the sun - without having to pay or worry about happiness.
Are all your cities connected to the capital? You should be gaining at minimum same amount of GPT as total population in all connected cities.
So I keep hearing about strategies to rush to the NC and develop your cities ... which sound great ... but then when you actually play the game you get rushed by 10 units in the ancient era
Have you tried a Liberty opener NC first? Goes something like spy~>monument~>shrine~>granary~>library~>archer~>archer~>archer. Finish NC at about turn 60 with 5+ military units. You can start settling additional cities from there.
If I recall correctly, there are a few threads on it floating around the strategy sub-forum. A little bit more difficult to abuse since you cannot get bulk trades in the early game, but still viable.
For me, the game lost something when the gold was taken out of the rivers. It has been a struggle to stay financially stable. Then I found a mod that gave back the gold where it used to be. on Really big maps its hard to get caravans up early game.
I dont care if its called cheating. If it wasnt for that one mod, I would have probably stopped playing CiV.
I play on King-huge (sometimes giant, another mod)-Elizabeth-raging barbs-marathon. There is some tedium early on, but its great for empire building. I suggest maybe a slower game and larger maps to help you along?
I dont care if its called cheating. If it wasnt for that one mod, I would have probably stopped playing CiV.
I play on King-huge (sometimes giant, another mod)-Elizabeth-raging barbs-marathon. There is some tedium early on, but its great for empire building. I suggest maybe a slower game and larger maps to help you along?
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