Is it all too easy?

[Cronos]

I have been playing around with the demo and have spent some time with all the playable civs. My initial thoughts are as follows:

• Its a lot of fun
• I haven't noticed much of a change in difficulty through the levels. I have played on chieften through to king (the second highest one I think its called king) and they all felt the same. I have just finished 100 turns on King difficulty and took all 3 capitals on my continent. For those with the full game has anyone else found its just not that hard?
• For those that are interested, I concentrated only on building companion cavalry. I built one worker. I pillaged for gold and farmed a few barbarians. I built no settlers. I built no roads. I stole workers. I had heaps of surplus gold due to focusing my citizens on gold. All gold was used to buy more units. I built no monuments but I built a granary. I made friends with Oslo who gave me food and then horses when I allied with it (achieved through attacking Egypt).
• Companion cavalry are lethal units capable of insane blitzkreigs across the map. I just used promotions to heal and move on and the ability to hit and run just seemed to make it all a walk in the park.
• Why can't my great general keep up with my forces? Aleander the great had a great horse...not a donkey! He should be able to attach himself to a unit. But I guess then it makes those cavalry units all the more fearsome.
• AI makes some strange tactical decisions. Like parking units within bombard range of 2 cities and not moving. Or attacking a city state, getting wiped out by me, then demanding that I cease relations with the city state and leaving the CS to their control!
• I would like some more feedback on what is going on under the hood. Ignoring the demands etc of other civs doesn't feel like it has any impact on anything.
• The AI is too reluctant to make trade deals. For no discernable reason they have turned down deals for 2 equal luxury resources + gpt sweetner on my part. That is a good deal I'm offering you Bismark!
• Overall diplomacy feels a bit light on unfortunately. Especially when you have a strong, mobile and invincible force of cavalry at your fingertips
• Immortals also seem to work really well in taking cities. Elizabeth had no answer to my insta heal packs of immortals and taking her capital seemed equally easy.
• What do pacts of secrecy or cooperation do? I have no idea and it seems to make no difference if I take them, politely refuse or tell them to go away.
• I actually like the look of the rivers. Most organic.

Anyway, hopefully others with the full game can offer some feedback? I don't think I ever wiped out 3 civs within 100 turns on Immortal in Civ 4 and im no elite player here. Is it just that the companion cavalry are overpowered? Or does the AI just have no answer to the strategy of rushing units at it?

 

[Celevin]

I found King kind of easy. The AI made some bone-headed moves. I've played on Emperor, and those seem to disappear, as well as some funky new ones.

Companion Cavalry must be massively overpowered, even though I haven't seen them. The battlefield landscape totally changed when I got regular horsemen, who seemed to be able to move endlessly.

It also sounds like you were on a fairly tight landmass. You didn't need to build a single other city?

 

[Shinian]

I'm wondering about these too. Although the demo doesn't give me time to war against anyone with my playstyle, it seems like there is a lot of hand holding going on that maybe isn't necessary. maybe it's just the demo..

 

[Shinian]

I found King kind of easy. The AI made some bone-headed moves. I've played on Emperor, and those seem to disappear, as well as some funky new ones.

Companion Cavalry must be massively overpowered, even though I haven't seen them. The battlefield landscape totally changed when I got regular horsemen, who seemed to be able to move endlessly.

It also sounds like you were on a fairly tight landmass. You didn't need to build a single other city?

The tutorial puts you on a pretty tiny map

 

[Cronos]

Pic

 

[Olleus]

The AI seems to completely ignore anything remotely military. I took out two civs as Greece using just hoplites - with a respectable capital you can build one every 4-5 turns which just utterly overwhelms the AI. (When playing as greece in the tutorial, move your inital settler SE 3 tiles and build a city on the north side of the river - 6 resources easily grabbed from there).

 

[Celevin]

Every post saying "too easy / hard" needs to include the difficulty level. I definitely cannot spam units to win wars.

 

[Olleus]

But I'm already playing at the same difficulty as I played BtS at. Thats despite having spend only about ~5 hours on this game.

Admitedly, I did play BetterAI Mod which did make things a lot hard, and the BtS AI was much much better than vanilla civ. Ill see if its different on a bigger map with more civs when I can play the game instead of the demo.

 

[Shillen]

The AI is too reluctant to make trade deals. For no discernable reason they have turned down deals for 2 equal luxury resources + gpt sweetner on my part. That is a good deal I'm offering you Bismark!

He doesn't like you. Look for the facial expression. I had that issue in my game, but once I improved relations they would swap resource for resource the rest of the game.

 

[ProphetofProfit]

Greece do start in a very good position compared to the other Civs. But I agree with the OP about Companion Cavlary, there are unstoppable when used well. I spammed about 4 of them, and with a GG they took Hamburg, Berlin, Helopiolis, Thebes, Elephantine, Rome and Antium. On Emperor level.

 

[Ahriman]

This would seem to be an issue with Companion UU and the availability of horse resource, not game difficulty.

 

[J-man]

I've seen a lot of reports in the forums that the AI is very stupid concerning military matters.
Obviously Firaxis has to fix that ASAP.

 

[Cronos]

OK so round 2 and I stepped it up to Deity level. Playing the demo again, I chose the Egyptians...and was promptly wiped off the map by turn 72 haha.

First Alexander declares a sneak attack just as I was sizing up the Romans. Bearing in mind I had a spearman, 3 horsemen and a war chariot at this time!! Hoplites step up and cut apart my horsemen and war chariots, then companion cavalry storm in and sack Thebes. Then germany got in on the act and cut down Memphis. Lastly, the Romans jumped in for a good old fashioned dog pile and within 5 turns that was it!

It was like I was playing a different game!! Love it! There was lots of activity going on. Lots of city states under attack and the Greeks and Romans went at it for a time as well. I got the impression that there is a level of strategic variety just lying under the surface that will take a long time to dissect. I had the feeling that I was living in a very dangerous world where every decision was vital and that the AI was a malevolent and capable adversary, a distinct change in impression from last playthrough!

 

[lilnev]

Emperor was feeling fine. And I think it would be, if the AI's only DoW'ed me one at a time, or at most two. But I've been gang-tackled by four AI's plus two city-states, and I think I'm going to lose.

 

[PotatoOverdose]

keep in mind that the civ IV AI around noble isn't too hot anyway and it needs massive advantages to stay competitive.

 

[ProphetofProfit]

I hope Firaxis tweak the AI soon to encourage them to upgrade units as soon as they become available. Running around with Warriors when Spearmen and Horsemen are available is not a smart idea.