Is it just me or has this game got a ton harder?

[Horizons]

I pretty much lose most games at Prince now and the tech tree ends before Tanks are researched 9 times out of 10 in the games that I do win, it's impossible even for the AI to get a tech victory at Prince now. Are all these tweaks to gameplay based on community feedback?

 

[Adjuvant]

I'm not great at some things, too.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

It's definitely longer. I can't conceive of a course of action where I would lose on prince though. You must be doing something very, very strange.

 

[Gamewizard]

I've been getting my bum handed to me on Immortal, which I use to be able to win regularly.

 

[PhilBowles]

I've stepped down to Emperor, I have to admit; I can still usually win it, but Immortal does seem quite a lot tougher.

Part of it may be the more peaceful focus of games now. All the complaints about Civ V being a walkover? From warmongers who exploited the AI's weakness with the new combat mechanics. Civ V's AI has always been better at peaceful victory conditions than either military conquest or past Civ games' AIs, and it seems to have been programmed to exploit the new culture system fairly well.

 

[reddishrecue]

This game is harder in military whether it is defense or offense particularly in level 8.

 

[Osama Bin Davis]

To be honest I think it has gotten easier. I usually play in the mid range difficulty levels, but I have found myself going higher due to the lack of a challenge since post patch.

Maybe I am just getting better, but I doubt that. Been playing the same since Civ 1 so can't see it magically changing over night.

 

[reddishrecue]

To be honest I think it has gotten easier. I usually play in the mid range difficulty levels, but I have found myself going higher due to the lack of a challenge since post patch.

Maybe I am just getting better, but I doubt that. Been playing the same since Civ 1 so can't see it magically changing over night.

I guess it is easy sometimes.

 

[GhostSalsa]

To be honest I think it has gotten easier. I usually play in the mid range difficulty levels, but I have found myself going higher due to the lack of a challenge since post patch.

Maybe I am just getting better, but I doubt that. Been playing the same since Civ 1 so can't see it magically changing over night.

I'm playing primarily immortal now too, whereas before BNW I usually played Emperor - most my games fall apart in the first 70 turns but those that make it through are a lot more relaxed than Immortal used to be, since the AI doesn't focus on science/spaceship by default anymore. Plus BNW immortal has a lot more war than Emperor so there's usually a few choice warmongers to go steal wonders from - what I hate about Emperor is being surrounded by low-science friends who aren't even giving me much return on RAs.

 

[Zaimejs]

Since when?

 

[PhilBowles]

I'm playing primarily immortal now too, whereas before BNW I usually played Emperor - most my games fall apart in the first 70 turns but those that make it through are a lot more relaxed than Immortal used to be, since the AI doesn't focus on science/spaceship by default anymore. Plus BNW immortal has a lot more war than Emperor so there's usually a few choice warmongers to go steal wonders from - what I hate about Emperor is being surrounded by low-science friends who aren't even giving me much return on RAs.

Hmm, I'm only now playing my first full post-patch game, and the AI seems much better at staying in the lead technologically; one noticeable change from pre-patch is that several civs now favour Rationalism (I was astonished to be beaten to Porcelain Tower, with Darius building it before I even unlocked the policy branch). it's the 20th Century and I'm just into the Atomic Era while Darius just completed his first spaceship component.

I was actually neglecting science somewhat to focus on tourism (never yet won cultural victory in BNW, and the patch added game effects for different levels of influence that I wanted to test), but while I'm well ahead in terms of overall influence, I've been unable to keep up in generating extra tourism. My early boost was from Sacred Sites, and I'm being beaten to almost all Wonders - another thing I never used to experience on Immortal. The fatal blow was that I was beaten to first place in the International Games.

Chances are I'll have to go for diplo victory at this point, since I've retained host status in the Congress/UN since the start (not sure how choosing hosts works with ties - I was one of three civs with the same number of votes in the first vote, but still ended up as host).

 

[GhostSalsa]

Hmm, I'm only now playing my first full post-patch game, and the AI seems much better at staying in the lead technologically; one noticeable change from pre-patch is that several civs now favour Rationalism (I was astonished to be beaten to Porcelain Tower, with Darius building it before I even unlocked the policy branch). it's the 20th Century and I'm just into the Atomic Era while Darius just completed his first spaceship component.

I was actually neglecting science somewhat to focus on tourism (never yet won cultural victory in BNW, and the patch added game effects for different levels of influence that I wanted to test), but while I'm well ahead in terms of overall influence, I've been unable to keep up in generating extra tourism. My early boost was from Sacred Sites, and I'm being beaten to almost all Wonders - another thing I never used to experience on Immortal. The fatal blow was that I was beaten to first place in the International Games.

Chances are I'll have to go for diplo victory at this point, since I've retained host status in the Congress/UN since the start (not sure how choosing hosts works with ties - I was one of three civs with the same number of votes in the first vote, but still ended up as host).

I still only see between one and two ever take Rationalism - maybe in your game it was a reaction to your early gain on tourism output? And of course since science is key to wonders now they're beating you on tourism too. Sounds like a takeover of Darius is in order imo, especially if he's got FP.

 

[Sturmgewher88mm]

I pretty much lose most games at Prince now and the tech tree ends before Tanks are researched 9 times out of 10 in the games that I do win, it's impossible even for the AI to get a tech victory at Prince now. Are all these tweaks to gameplay based on community feedback?

What do you mean by "the tech tree ends before Tanks"?

 

[PhilBowles]

I still only see between one and two ever take Rationalism - maybe in your game it was a reaction to your early gain on tourism output? And of course since science is key to wonders now they're beating you on tourism too. Sounds like a takeover of Darius is in order imo, especially if he's got FP.

Not sure why the Rationalism focus - I think Bismarck's going for it as well. I met Persia fairly late (I'm adjacent to Byzantium, Denmark, Ethiopia, and met an adventurous German trireme early. Not sure if Persia or Greece was the next civ I met), so I think he was already heading in a science direction.

Not sure who's got FP - possibly Maria Theresa, who keeps level-pegging with me on votes (she hates me, and is weak, but is surrounded by allies, Darius included). Ramkhamhaeng is actually now the one with the highest tourism output. I was planning to hit Theodora, my closest neighbour and - with Darius - joint leader on points, who's amassed a few of the culture Wonders, since she's at war with Darius and surrounded by my allies. However as my denunciation of MT has caused relations with Darius to deteriorate, I may actually have to pitch in to help Theodora (who's probably losing - certainly the fact that she's using frigates and Darius is killing them with submarines is not encouraging).

On the subject of combat, I'm seeing some very painful battles through my embassies - post-patch the AI no longer seems to bring ranged units or siege units to attack cities at all; my spy in Athens spent a lot of time watching Persian riflemen bashing themselves against the wall; in my last - brief - war with Haille Selassie Harald just chucked Norwegian Ski Infantry at Adwa.

The AI must be doing something right, though - at one point Harald took Adwa (not sure how Haille Selassie got it back - part of a peace deal?), Persia took both Athens (eventually) and Ur, and Theodora grabbed Antananarivo.

I've run across very few CSes, though - in fact only Colombo and Jerusalem survive of the ones I have met. I haven't explored the interior of North America (Earth map, naturally) or Europe, but it may be that MT grabbed many before I met them (it was from her that Theo took Tana) and the fact that most civs only have their base votes in the Congress suggests I'm not missing many.

EDIT: Indeed, it proved that those were the only two CSes left, and with a World Leader vote about 25 turns away, I was 1 vote short with a vote coming up regarding making my ideology - Freedom - the world ideology. I promptly bankrupted myself bribing Harald and Theodora to vote for the motion so that I could rely on getting the motion passed, and then counted down to the leader vote. Cunningly, Theodora did ally with Jerusalem the turn before the leader vote - taking me just below the necessary threshold - but I quickly sold a couple of luxuries to my Freedom-loving friends and bribed it back in time.

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

I feel like emperor and down got easier but immortal and deity got a little tougher. Mostly because on emperor and down you can almost ignore military for quite a while and just build enough to protect from barbs. The AI are so busy building trade units and guilds and avoiding attacking trade partners they usually aren't a threat early on. This lets you focus on whatever your VC is with very little worry about harassment.

On immortal and deity they seem to have no problem cranking out troops and keeping up on their civil stuff. That means you have to split your focus more while still playing the catch up game.

I don't think much has changed other than they added a lot more stuff to build which means more juggling than you used to have to do. Of course the AI has to do it too and it only seems to handle it well when it has a lotta bonuses.

 

[Horizons]

Wish I'd done a save in that last game I played before I made the game-defining choice of who to make war on. Dang. There are parts of the game - such as the AI having 20 tourism in its capital city by the Renaissance - that I just have no idea how I'd be able to replicate even if I tried. Most of the strat guides are out of date because of how frequently the game has been patched.

Is there a DEFINITIVE strat guide out there or am I going to have to download Youtube videos of top players playing games and sit and watch and listen to their terrible jokes for hours on end?

 

[EK834]

What do you mean by "the tech tree ends before Tanks"?

I'm pretty sure he meant most of his games end when no one including him has gone through the modern era techs, the bottom of the tree anyway. Quite a few Prince players have complained about either this, some have even reported it as "a bug", or about the AI falling so much behind it's ridiculous (eg: all of them end up two full eras behind the human by Modern).


I played my first two BNW games on Prince to get a feel of the new features and I indeed found it slow, if not quite as slow as Horizons and others have described (I played on Immortal/Emperor on G&K, so I rather had the super-runaway human, super backward AI situation). On the King games I played before getting back to Emperor, I noticed it's already much better balanced, if still slower than pre-BNW and post-BNW on Emperor and above. But it's only back on Emperor that I really started to experience how the tourism/ideology systems were really designed to work, the TR from science etc. It's like King is the new Prince - with the new mechanics and a bit of advice to optimize the growth/science aspect of your game it's now easier to perform well on King and definitely more fun to do it on King than Prince, without the problem of the AI falling so much behind and giving you really boring games (unless you're satisfied with running away and playing in your sandbox toward the victory of your choice).

IMO, that might be a side effect of the new mechanics. On Prince players (human and AI) have zero science benefits from early Trade Route, so they go through Ancient and Classical eras much slower than it's done on higher levels, where the science lead of the AI carries you along (having saved you tons of research turns by the mid-game, while the AI also kept up). Depriving one of the AI of the GL seems to reduce the odds even one AI can become a runaway (and thus of at least one target for spying, and for RA, and beakers from TR), so the human takes a science lead very early in turn #, but by doing so to advance in the tree he must rely exclusively on his own beaker production (and occasional GS) for the rest of the game. The average human player also has little hope of stealing techs on Prince, by Renaissance there's very few ever available unless you follow the strategy of teching up the tree to let the AI research the bottom first, and even then.. it's so backward it's not that great an idea), and RAs are more than worthless on Prince (which doesn't stop the AI from spending its gold on that). None of this helps the Prince players advance fast in science, and rapidly their game fall behind the "historical times" (ie: they get Riflemen in the 1900s, tanks barely start to appear by the endgame etc.). It seems frequent on Prince that by the endgame (early by diplo win, or a bit later by culture, or even Time) many of the AIs have not yet picked an Ideology.

Other factors that don't seem to help are that the AI on Prince can't expand as much, because it doesn't have the extra happiness for it. It plays with much fewer cities, but not necessarily following a good tall-tradition strat but going Liberty or Honor (and as a side effect, on large maps this means games in which the warmonger penalties will be very steep: not enough cities for each AI, not enough cities settled on the map until very, very late game = much higher penalties than on higher levels where the large map is full by mid-game). None of that helps the AI much with its science Culture-wise, the AI can't have many buildings for GW, for lack of cities, and on Prince it's almost a fluke that it gets Wonders, so in most games the AI has low tourism, which trivializes the whole Ideology system (it's easy to win it even without the Internet) and the teching is so slow it's normal the game ends with a few AI not even having picked an Ideology. All that also means the AI runs out of options to increase its happiness: no Wonders, few cities = few buildings plus it techs too slowly to get the late game ones, the player also doesn't let it keep CS allies for long.


Horizons seems to describe the type of Prince game played very casually without an emphasis on growth, with early bulbing of GS to needlessly start building Wonders you're certain to bag anyway - neglecting getting those 3 academies for the capital - or else too few Specialists, or the wrong ones, assigned. Also, opening Rationalism too late, not having enough early CS allies or neglecting to adopt Scholasticism, etc. Not playing a great sandbox science game on Prince seems to result in those ultra-slow science Prince games post-patch.

OTOH, Prince players who adopt the growth-science emphasis do keep up (ie: in reaching techs earlier, if not as fast as on the highest levels) but for lack of any AI competition they become totally overpowered by the Renaissance and have boring, slow or sandbox endgames.

 

[The Massacrerer]

To be honest I think it has gotten easier. I usually play in the mid range difficulty levels, but I have found myself going higher due to the lack of a challenge since post patch.

Maybe I am just getting better, but I doubt that. Been playing the same since Civ 1 so can't see it magically changing over night.

This.

I used to play King most of the time because it was a good, challenging balance. Now King and Emperor are a cake walk. I moved up to Immortal and won my first 2 games on that difficulty as well (a Science victory as Venice on a Huge map, and a Domination victory as the Inca on a Large map).

My only assumption is that it is easier, as I hadn't played for over 8 months per BNW and subsequent patch.

 

[holywar]

I have been running roughshod over the AIs on Emperor since the changes. I have a game as the Ottomans right now where I can win diplo, conquest, cultural or science. I have dominated the world in every way possible. And I did not even get a particularly good start.

The patch seems to have eliminated my biggest weakness, which is being DoWed when I'm not prepared. I've found that the AIs are much more passive and reluctant to DoW. Unless they perceive that they can absolutely crush you in a swift blow, they usually hold off. I also do a fairly good job of keeping my military above the water line and securing defensive pacts.

Also, before the patch, a runaway civ could zoom to a science victory in no time flat. Usually that civ had conquered 3 or 4 other civs by the lste game, making it difficult to conquer mikitarily. Science victories take a lot longer now and their are fewer runaways.

I think the game is better than the old version. In the old, once you completely conquered another civ, you were virtually guaranteed victory. The science, land, and gold accumulated for conquest outweighed any downside to war. Now, warmongering and genocide will severely hurt you if taken too far.

I may step up to Immortal for more of a challenge, but I want to win to get the achievement so I am leery of making it too hard. The main problem with immortal is that the early wonders go so fast. It's hard to build a strong foundation.

 

[Koiranputki]

The patch seems to have eliminated my biggest weakness, which is being DoWed when I'm not prepared. I've found that the AIs are much more passive and reluctant to DoW. Unless they perceive that they can absolutely crush you in a swift blow, they usually hold off.

This is what I find as well.... I typically play at the Emperor level. Early in the game now it seems the AI just won't attack...no guarantee, but it seems that way. In fact I'm finding that you can, though it is situational, often be quite aggressive with the nearby AI and they don't seem to be able to do much about it....

If they are close enough, it seems that sooner or later they are going to be a problem....either they will be denouncing you or they will be sending settlers into the area you wanted to expand into.

In my current game....back again as Spain...I founded Madrid near a wonder after exploring for about six or seven turns....I didn't know it then but Istanbul was within about five tiles.... And he quickly grabbed one of the luxuries, Cotton, that I had wanted..... So I was "livid"...

I noticed, though, that he had left the second tier tile open near his capital...I bought that tile and then decided to take the GG policy in Honour....I always take the Honour opener after the Tradition opener...mainly to strenghten my Scouts and Warrior against the Barabarians, and also for the culture points.... This time it made sense to get an early GG...

So now I had a Citadel which had grabbed two Cotton and another luxury. ... Sulieman denounced me...I built a second Archer and along with the Warrior and a Scout for the "final kill", I declared war and after about ten turns...[actually probably more like 15 or 16 turns]... in which the AI stupidly tried to kill of the Warrior in the Citadel...I ground him down and used the Scout to take his capital..... [The final three or four "shots" were after I had upgraded the two Archers to Composite Bowmen.]

I, of course, wasn't sure what the outcome would be, but it seemed safe enough to at least try what I did. Retreat would have been easy enough if I had taken too much heat. [I was even able to put a worker to work on the second luxury right next to his capital...partly as "bait" which he never took, he just kept trying to kill the Warrior which ended up with "double range protection" in the end ...]