How Difficult do you find the game currently?

[BiteInTheMark]

Playing now emperor for some month and I get used to it. The step upwards from king feeled hard, maybe cause of the extra worker at start for AI, which allows AI capitols to be more efficient and fast forward settling harder.
I think even average civ player are better in tactics and combat than AI, giving an advantage to warmonger play over peaceful. I think I could be better if I would play more aggressiv and use those dirty tricks, the AI is unable to do.
For me the, the time between the early and the mid stage is the difficultest. Iam mainly focusing on creating my infrastructure and ignore my military, giving some AI the impression of vulnerability, even I can beat them easy. The midgame is the easiest one, while lategame is often a mess, war declaration against me while I normally want peace end often in conquest and vassallization.

 

[Owlbebach]

Thanks for the reply, CrazyG. So how would you change the game to make it harder/more balanced? How would you change God of all creation (just remove the culture or something else as well?)? How would you nerf inspiration (max 5 culture per city or something else)? What A, B and C values would you introduce? Anything else you'd do?

GoAC: remove culture and its is okay
Inspiration: Make 1 per 3
As for ABC - not sure, but some small changes are needed, i would start with +10%*C, +15%*B -15%*A

 

[tu_79]

About changing ABC values, it is of the utmost importance to set them in order. The flat value, I believe it's currently C, sets the difficulty for the early game, but also the rest of the game. So, by raising C, both B and A need to be lowered if the difficulty must remain similar. Even then, I would tweak B and A so they give the same handicap as now in mid to late game, since a harder early game will make the rest of your game harder by itself.
Once you are fine with C, the same test must be conducted on B value for the midgame.

 

[Owlbebach]

So, by raising C, both B and A need to be lowered if the difficulty must remain similar.

Mathematically - yes, but it does not matter. Handicap will not be significantly more difficult in the end if you increase C, just because in Modern C account for like 10% of total handicap

 

[Gazebo]

About changing ABC values, it is of the utmost importance to set them in order. The flat value, I believe it's currently C, sets the difficulty for the early game, but also the rest of the game. So, by raising C, both B and A need to be lowered if the difficulty must remain similar. Even then, I would tweak B and A so they give the same handicap as now in mid to late game, since a harder early game will make the rest of your game harder by itself.
Once you are fine with C, the same test must be conducted on B value for the midgame.

Mathematically - yes, but it does not matter. Handicap will not be significantly more difficult in the end if you increase C, just because in Modern C account for like 10% of total handicap

I've fixed the equation so that it works as intended:

iYieldHandicap = iHandicapBase * ((iHandicapC * iEra * iEra) + (iHandicapB * iEra) + iHandicapA) / 100;

Ignore the superfluous parentheses they keep me sane when walking the stack.

New values of:

<DifficultyBonusA>100</DifficultyBonusA>
<DifficultyBonusB>145</DifficultyBonusB>
<DifficultyBonusC>275</DifficultyBonusC>

are testing well enough.

G

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

I've fixed the equation so that it works as intended:

How was it working before?

 

[Gazebo]

How was it working before?

C and A were flipped so 'C' (the late game value in the XML) was the constant and 'A' (the early game value) was the exponential era scaler. It was a mistake in my implementation.
G

 

[chicorbeef]

GoAC: remove culture and its is okay
Inspiration: Make 1 per 3
As for ABC - not sure, but some small changes are needed, i would start with +10%*C, +15%*B -15%*A

About GoAC: should it even exist? I mean, a pantheon that says "Screw Religion, just take the free yields" is not good design imo and I never see the AI pick it.

Going to take this to pantheon discussion

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

C and A were flipped so 'C' (the late game value in the XML) was the constant and 'A' (the early game value) was the exponential era scaler. It was a mistake in my implementation.
G

Thanks. So what effect will this have? What part of the game will be easier and what harder?

 

[YukiN]

iYieldHandicap = iHandicapBase * ((iHandicapC * iEra * iEra) + (iHandicapB * iEra) + iHandicapA) / 100;

<DifficultyBonusA>100</DifficultyBonusA>
<DifficultyBonusB>145</DifficultyBonusB>
<DifficultyBonusC>275</DifficultyBonusC>

Given that C is significantly greater than A, this means that the early game gets easier and the late game gets potentially much harder compared to originally. Is this the intended effect since the general sentiment seems to be that early game is easy while AI gets too much late game?

Also curious if iEra is just +1 per era starting at 1 or if the scaler is different.

 

[Owlbebach]

I've fixed the equation so that it works as intended:

iYieldHandicap = iHandicapBase * ((iHandicapC * iEra * iEra) + (iHandicapB * iEra) + iHandicapA) / 100;

Ignore the superfluous parentheses they keep me sane when walking the stack.

New values of:

<DifficultyBonusA>100</DifficultyBonusA>
<DifficultyBonusB>145</DifficultyBonusB>
<DifficultyBonusC>275</DifficultyBonusC>

Eeehh, are you sure that there is no mistake here? It is now Cx^2+Bx+A, which means A shoulb be the biggest number and C should be the smallest number

 

[Unearthly]

To add my own data point, I play on Prince and I can have trouble, usually in the later part of the mid game when whoever hates me decides to try and run me over. This is mostly because I find war tedious and I build far too little army, so I'm basically baiting the AI constantly into attacking me (even though I just want to be left alone). I understand that warring is really powerful, but lands battles are just such a slog I wouldn't want to try and win that way most of the time.
Though games where I've been able to establish a big navy and conquer all nearby coastal cities went far better. Naval combat is much easier because of no rough terrain and much higher movement speeds.

 

[Gazebo]

Eeehh, are you sure that there is no mistake here? It is now Cx^2+Bx+A, which means A shoulb be the biggest number and C should be the smallest number

I posted the old XML by mistake.

G

 

[andersw]

Well I probably don't challenge myself often enough but a new beta often means I'm back to king and gradually try to optimise for emperor, another beta rinse and repeat ....
It also depends on what civ I play.
Most problematic are runaway civs.

 

[matlajs]

Difficulty seem to me in right spot, thought i have some personal problems with some decisions about AI being prone to become a science/culture sluts for another civ again. I don't see reasoing behind that. We have friendships, research agreements and defensive pacts. Everything except culture can be traded another way than that and if someone want justify it behind one civ being protected and financed by their master for fair exchange so, nope, they do not protect them more nor less as they have simple def. pact. If an AI could be actually and truly learned, how to fullfill defensive pact by sending some troops to help each other in case of need, that would be really lovely to see. And not this not even well hidden try to push one civ into finale.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Difficulty seem to me in right spot, thought i have some personal problems with some decisions about AI being prone to become a science/culture sluts for another civ again. I don't see reasoing behind that. We have friendships, research agreements and defensive pacts. Everything except culture can be traded another way than that and if someone want justify it behind one civ being protected and financed by their master for fair exchange so, nope, they do not protect them more nor less as they have simple def. pact. If an AI could be actually and truly learned, how to fullfill defensive pact by sending some troops to help each other in case of need, that would be really lovely to see. And not this not even well hidden try to push one civ into finale.

Agreed. Voluntary vasselage is stupid.

 

[Elberith Logos]

For me it's the skill gap between King and Emperor. On King I'm usually near the top by AD, on Emperor I'm usually near the bottom all game. I've played on every level except Diety, and the gaps all seem about right except that one. Anyone know why?

 

[BiteInTheMark]

For me it's the skill gap between King and Emperor. On King I'm usually near the top by AD, on Emperor I'm usually near the bottom all game. I've played on every level except Diety, and the gaps all seem about right except that one. Anyone know why?

Extra worker + extra scout.
Your chance getting a ruin is massivly reduced, and gainig gold or a free tech is in the early stage a massiv advantage.
Additional, most player build a shrine and monument first, before they build/buy a worker. If you are able to start your first improvement, they can already have build atleast 3 farms (a triangle on a river = +9 food) this is a major advantage in producing settler. The chance is high, they have build even more, cause their workrate is also higher.

 

[Grassland Farm]

For me it's the skill gap between King and Emperor. On King I'm usually near the top by AD, on Emperor I'm usually near the bottom all game. I've played on every level except Diety, and the gaps all seem about right except that one. Anyone know why?

Agreed... I posted a few days ago that I handled Emperor, but it turns out I just had the stars aligning for me (Or maybe Ottoman's UA is overpowered? That's what I was playing). But my next Emperor games saw my ass getting a thorough spanking. All my neighbours DoW me sooner or later, They pump out tons of units (That I can fight back, but at what cost...), and the speed at which they put out settlers make me wonder if they're building anything at all in their cities!
King is fairly chill, however. The skill gap to Emperor is huge!

 

[black213]

My experiences on Emperor have been such that peaceful expansion/turtling is often times difficult to win with where as warmongering (doubly so if you have an early UU) feels very easy, provided no runaways are about.