Higher difficulty levels force you into 1 playstyle.

[noto2]

Grr...Firaxis. As I've moved up difficulty levels, I'm currently dabbling in emperor, I've noticed something. When I started playing this game at noble I used to love the financial trait and going for wonders, etc. I found it curious that the more experienced players liked philosophical and creative, for example, and also wondered why so many of them talked about their games ending before the industrial age. Well now I know.
Back on noble difficulty I could win by different means. Culture, space, domination, you name it. On emperor, however, it is quite a different story. It is still manageable to win by domination/conquest. Usually I war and tech and grow slowly until cannons, at which time I start drafting/whipping and go for an all out war to end all wars. I win. Game ends. If, however, I choose to pursue a space victory it rarely goes well. I always wondered how the AI can be very far behind me before the industrial age and then catch up and launch a space ship a few turns before mine. I finally know - era bonuses. Firaxis programmed the AI to have era bonuses (I think on emperor that means the AI gets a 15% production bonus by the modern age). This is why it's easy to win the game before the industrial age, because the AI hasn't yet been beefed up. If you allow the game to go to the modern age the AI gets ridiculous bonuses.
When notching up the difficulty level I would hope that all victory types would become more difficult. Instead what has happened is warfare becomes a little more difficult but launching a space ship becomes much, much, much, much more difficult. Boo. I don't want to have to play the same way every time.
Not only that, I find certain traits to become nearly useless as you go up in difficulty (financial). On noble, when everyone is equal, a financial civ of the same population as another will be able to tech faster. On emperor all the financial trait means for you is you will be a little less behind the AI than usual. It's a trait of incremental strength. A 20% boost is meaningless when the AI gets a 20% boost - you're even. That's why on the higher difficulty levels other traits such as creative seem to make more of a difference. The creative trait can be used to block off land and box an AI in, for example. Has anyone else found higher difficulty levels causing them to lean more towards warfare, and away from space ships, and away from the financial trait?

 

[DaveMcW]

I think you are mistaken about era bonuses.

Try an Industrial Start game, you will have a bonus too.

 

[noto2]

I thought the way it worked was the AI gets a bonus based on difficulty level and then also gets another bonus based on the era. It's in the XML files, is it not? I have to find the poster who was saying this...

 

[ABigCivFan]

Era bonus (5%/era) is not significant. In this game, we are much more intereted in stacking +100%, 50%, 25% bonues into one city.

The reason why AIs catch up so quickly late on high levels is because:

1. ALL powerful cottage enhancing techs and civics
2. Trading.

Since they grab land faster, have more cottage, it is very logical their tech rates pick up when stacking these factors with their heavily discounted techs.

I agree with you that Financial is rather weak for human on high levels; unless your capital has multiple flood plains/river grass with food or multiple seafood. The reason is you typically get more early techs (if not most) by trading/bulbing, the little commerce boost offered by Financial is just not compariable to strategic bulbing, tech whoring and general play the map.

Creative and philo helps a lot early, but after liberalism they starting fading; Financial fades even faster when cottage enhancing techs/civics kick in.

But traits like Organized/Spiritual/Charismatic stay strong and get even stronger.

 

[noto2]

Yes Org, Spi, and Cha are all late game power traits. I've used 2 a lot, but the one trait I haven't learned to use much yet is Spiritual. Can anyone point me to a thread on the use of the spiritual trait? Looking for some tips...thx.

 

[ABigCivFan]

Try play a spiritual leader on a Pangea style map, use it for religion/diplo/empire development/war. Only more experience will tell.

 

[civvver]

I have a question sort of related to this topic:

Is the only difference between an emperor AI and a noble one the reduced unit costs and the inclination to build more units? Or does emperor AI actually have a different personality (more aggressive, more apt to backstab etc) or are they actually smarter (better land improvement for example)?

Also does emp AI get more health + happiness than a noble AI (kind of like how low level the player gets these bonuses)?

I would really like a difficulty where the AI is just plain smarter without having actual numbers bonuses against me like happiness and cheaper builds.

 

[noto2]

I think the AI always gets "noble" level health and happy levels at the start of the game. The levels only change for the human player. I'm not sure about personality and aggression. I'm pretty sure the AI is just as "smart" at any level, the only difference is the bonuses. As for making the AI smarter, search "better AI" in the forums for a mod. I'm currently using the better BTS AI mod, but have only played 1 game with it so far, so I can't yet really comment on its effectiveness.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

All difficulty levels are open. There are games I've had, on immortal, where space was far easier than actually conquering.

 

[noto2]

TMIT, if you say so, I hope I find out you are right. So far in my emperor games if I do win by space it's incredibly close, usually me resorting to razing the enemy capital, and my conquest/domination wins are wins by a mile, with me owning the world by cannon and grenadier.

 

[shyuhe]

Play an isolated start. The peaceful victories will be a lot easier than the war based victories.

 

[fjordan]

I play the same style as you (emperor,cannon/draft and war) but sometimes I am not quick enough. I get a late space win as a consolation price pretty often then. There are two tricks that work nicely: 1) beeline the Internet and research the last tech yourself and 2) pump up your espionage (especially when 1) worked), locate a crap city of your main space competitor (infest with your religion if possible) an destroy his space parts. Attack submarines are ideal if you need to cross the ocean.

I will only lose culture then because I find that much harder to stop.

 

[noto2]

ah isolated start...that's true.

 

[PaulisKhan]

The biggest change to the higher difficulties is that tech trading and diplomacy are no longer minor inconveniences impinging on your game. They ARE the game.

Inspired by harsh criticisms of certain strategies, peoples dislike of financial at higher difficulty levels and other peoples criticism of DykeLove, I just finished a deity space game last night without building a single cottage, the national epic wasn't built until after the national park, and the only WW I was able to build was the GLH (actually I scored the space elevator at the end too). So CE, WWE and SE are all entirely optional styles of play even at the higher difficulties.

Winning becomes less about how you play your game, and more about how you make the AI play their game.

For the record it was in the region of a 1940 AD space victory, which might sound rediculously late for a deity game, but highlights the power of controlling the game through diplomacy. Being in Organised Religion for almost the entire game without actually having a state religion might sound insane, but it's the sort of thing you need to learn to do.

You'll find that there's always someone bemoaning the worthlessness of a particular strategy or trait or UB or UU at a particular difficulty. Ignore those people, keep challenging yourself to get better, even if it means losing lots of games at first, keep pushing the difficulty slider up. You'll get there eventually.

Also, I just downloaded the full BUG mod.

WOW!!! <3 <3 <3

 

[Gliese 581]

As for warfare, perhaps. On deity it's very difficult to rush early unless you have an early UU that helps you out.
If the game goes to renaissance and beyond you often need to start a war because you didn't expand fast enough earlier to get the land you need. This can be mitigated to an extent by creative and imperialistic, which will typically net you an extra slot or two and sometimes allow you to choke of a huge area for a dramatical increase in land.

 

[Shurdus]

Your point of view seems very strange to me. It sounds like you are just a good war mongerer (sp?) and a poor trader. I suck att war but my diplomatic skills are on par and I find UN victories so much more easy to get than domination wins...

Also, I heard the BUG mod slows the game down too much. Do you notice any slowdowns with the mod? What solid functions dows it have that one would really need?

 

[ds61514]

Has anyone else found higher difficulty levels causing them to lean more towards warfare, and away from space ships, and away from the financial trait?

I play immortal and I've never won a domination victory (well, unless FFH counts...).

I have learned that higher difficulty levels demand "better" warfare, that is warfare that doesn't hurt your economy too much. I'm a huge fan of Rusten-style Cavalry rushes, because the a) AIs don't prioritize Rifling b) 15 strength
c) Upgrade from Cuirassiers is cheap (80 gold) d) Two moves means the war ends quicker. Assembly Line is also good because you can get the full suite of WW-reducers.

When it comes to asking who the "best" warmonger is, I don't care so much how the leader actually performs *in* the war (this is why I dont' care for Imperialistic) as opposed to how fast the leader gets me a to a position where I can leverage a military-defining tech such as Rifling, Assembly, HBR (if Elephants) or even AH (if Egypt/Persia).

Yes Org, Spi, and Cha are all late game power traits. I've used 2 a lot, but the one trait I haven't learned to use much yet is Spiritual. Can anyone point me to a thread on the use of the spiritual trait? Looking for some tips...thx.

1. In the beginning, keep microing between slavery and decentralization (the low upkeep). This helps you avoid those slave revolts and saves you a few coins (probably very few...but it does help).

2. Accede to civic-changes.

3. A whipped temple replaces itself in happiness very quickly.

Also I'm glad ABCF pointed out that Financial isn't an endgame trait. It's a stronger early/mid trait, but the difference between Financial town and non-Financial town is miniscule.

 

[PaulisKhan]

The biggest advantage the BUG mod provided for me (as a first time user) was the smiley faces next to the score so that I could keep track of my relationships in real time after every action/trade/refusal etc.

This prevented my relations dropping down without me noticing (because I'm too lazy to open up the diplo window after every single action to see what the result was) and getting a surprise war dec thrown at me.

I managed to keep pleased with all civs for most of the game (until near the end when "you refused to help us" modifiers really started to stack up. This is something that I have always had trouble with until now and essentially fixes a major weakness in my gameplay for very little effort on my part.

If you're already a diplomatic expert then I expect you'll find the mod less helpful than I did, but I can't speak highly enough of it for a player like myself.

I was already used to the "XX is willing to trade YY tech" updates from parts of BUG implemented in the HoF mod but to someone who hasn't used that already, it's another huge advantage that saves a lot of annoying micro that can take away from the fun of the game at the stage when your computer starts to struggle to load diplo windows up in a timely fashion (I'm sure most of us have been there before).

 

[mc-red]

Don't forget the fist to show WHEOHRN in BUG. A true time saver !!!

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

^^ Not to mention that it also shows the fist, so you know when somoene is WHEOOHRN

And the slave reminders are priceless too. I assume they are in HOF?