Is it just me or the AI "cheats" on Prince (normal) difficult

[Dark Paladin X]

When I got the "People they like to smile the most" in early game, I've noticed that the AI had like 11 points of happiness while I only got 5. Keep in note that this is "normal" difficulty. Is it just me or the AI have a tendency to cheat on the happiness side of things on every difficulty level. They even expand their cultural borders must faster than I do.

God forbids if I try to play this game on a much higher difficulty scale. No wonder why they designed the AI to love the ICS strategy despite the fact that they nerfed every aspect of it.

 

[EulerMcE]

The AI gets bonuses on every level. It's just that you also recieve a few bonuses up to (but excluding) Prince. The AI gets then gets more bonuses for each level between King and Deity.

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ5/difficulties

 

[rkade8583]

This has been happening since Civ 1 for dos...?

Welcome to Civ, bucko!

 

[joncnunn]

The main key to mastering Prince is to stop emulating the bad AI moves. Basically the AIs handicaps are on those areas in which the AI was worse at.
With BNW, that's seen on the "AI handicap level", which allowed them to get a bigger science bonus than the human would on Cheftain (Low science flavor AIs don't even build Libraries in all cities and so actually slow their own science down); but also gave them the ability to give the AI a different happiness handicap than Vanilla / G&K where the AI basically played on Chieftain.

 

[ilik]

DUDE, you think 11 is a lot? On emperor Darius had 8 ing cities and FIFTY EIGHT HAPPINESS!!!

 

[n00bxqb]

As long as they don't go into full-on expand and conquer mode, it doesn't matter. The AI is stupid, no matter how much they cheat.

 

[Ninakoru]

The AI has no production bonuses and such, but their "normal" status like you playing on Cheftain, so they get some bonuses after all.

The AI is so stubid in their decissions that once you have some knowledge of the game you can ramp up over them on prince.

 

[black213]

Simply put, the AI requires bonuses in order to remain atleast half competitive against the OP human brain.