I hope you realize you mercilessely killed 2 AI's and totally snowballed the game before the AI's stopped considering you as worthy target and at that point the diplomacy aspect of game was irrelevant anyway?
Fact of the matter is that I was barely stronger, and for 50+ turns was slightly weaker. I'm not sure it's been documented what AI considers for DoW under kmod in the kind of detail DanF gave us for the base game, but it's different in some respects for certain (since AI actually does try to win militarily). Number of cities MIGHT be a factor, but it might not be.
I admit it can be fun game if you're into the warmongering aspect of civ, but streamlines a bit too much the experience of it for me and is actually the biggest reason why I stopped playing Civ V
I argue that this position is wrong. Not because it forces civ into a military game, but because base civ is balanced as a military game. If not for the AI doing nothing while someone grabs a W, other victory conditions would not be viable very often (at least, not without beating down the opposition so much that you can take your pick how you want to win). This is also what typically happens in MP too, unless collateral initiative forces a stalemate that eventually gets broken by tech. There *is* still diplomacy, but it's a lot more realistic when compared against the game's rules.
If you wanted a stronger AI with non-war aspects of the game still emphasized, you'd have to somewhat drastically how the game works outright. Civ IV was designed as a military game 1st, whether or not that was the intention.
And you're completely wrong if you think the AI plays to win, or is military-oriented only in civ V. Quite a lot of those AIs are also of the "do nothing at all" variety, tailor-made to let other civs run away.
Deity is a setting that only exists cause Sid doesn't have the money to make a better AI.
1. Sid wasn't a major force in civ IV's design.
2. Given that jdog & co made a huge improvement on the AI for free, a dedicated team of paid programmers could have done at least as well (if not better - kind of like having 5, 15 or 20 jdogs instead of just 1). It's not that they couldn't afford it, it's that the community doesn't care about it enough for its existence to helpfully impact sales.
No, instead people prefer a shoddy slow-running engine, long turn times, and a broken UI with everything being good as long as the picture looks kind of nice to them. Failaxis learned from civ IV that broken controls and incomprehensibly bad UI flaws aren't a serious issue when they went tons of patches without touching known issues and few so much as said a word about it, and didn't even bother trying to make a good one for V. Enjoy your 8+ inputs to add something to the queue!
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. I was playing it with Peachrocks a few months ago and after rushing 2 AI dead sat there without heavy defenses for 80+ turns without any DoW on me. I think its power thresholds are different from stock BTS, because its needs a better ratio to actually take cities and as a result power as a deterrent is slightly more viable...but i've also seen long peaceful periods depending on what strategy it's pursuing.
