Actually, it is cheating, difficulty in a decent strategy games is almost always determined by the choices the AI makes, not by the absurd bonusses it gets.
Which rules out Civs 1-5 as good strategy games (not necessarily an assessment I'd wholly disagree with, but for different reasons). This has always been the way Civ levels have been distinguished.
However, as I've noted in a number of past threads, there are fundamental difficulties in programming an AI that gets better at the game, rather than one that has particular bonuses or offsets. Even if you consider Civ V simplified compared with other Civ games, it remains much too complex for a Civ-style AI to play in the way a human would - the sheer length of the game involves too many variables that can influence the outcome at different game stages for an AI to 'plan ahead' or play well to a predetermined strategy, while a chess-style AI that calculates the consequences of its moves four or five turns ahead would not only be computationally extremely intensive with the number of options in any given turn in the game (and the ability to make more than one move) and extremely time-consuming (chess AIs often 'think' about their moves for a noticeable length of time with fairly basic calculations to master), but it would also make the AI incapable of any long-term planning.
Now imagine somehow programming an AI that could play the game at a reasonable level of skill without 'cheats', and then adjusting the AI so that it can perform strategies at 8 different difficulty levels without any bonuses.
The Civ V AI isn't as good as the Civ IV one in any event, but even if it were (and however simple the game may seem to a human), the AI would perform more poorly because the Civ V engine demands more complex decision-making from the AI than the Civ IV one did - most obviously in the combat system, but also with several new variables to consider in diplomacy.
All told, is it any wonder that Civ games have stuck with the bonus system that was introduced 20 years ago with much more primitive AI technology? The only AI likely to be able to play Civ games is one that can learn through experience, as has been demonstrated by an MIT team - however that's apparently also very time-intensive and its impressive win rate was against dumb Civ V AIs. It's not clear if that would perform equally well against a human.
Regarding the taunts, they always did that kind of comic relief type stuff. Remember looking better with your head on a pole? Classic...
But wasn't that the only one? I think Civ III did some fun stuff with diplomatic exchanges, but Civ V's are definitely characterful, with Civ-specific greetings and sometimes taunts. The one sad thing is that the way the player can respond is rather characterless - "Very well" or "You'll pay for this in time" (and is there any difference in outcome between these selections? I haven't noticed civs becoming less hostile if you refrain from 'taunting' them).
Speaking for the current state of the game I still haven't seen anything that makes me think the AI is particularly bad.
I'm enjoying Civ V and my experiences suggest that the AI isn't *as* bad as is often claimed - I have seen sensible city attacks by archers supporting melee units (I haven't even seen the infamous 'leading with siege' very often), and in some contexts sensible and consistent diplomacy ...
*but*
...I wouldn't go so far as to say that the AI is on a par with that in equivalent games. Fighting a war in the modern era, I saw the AI completely fail to understand that helicopter gunships can't take cities, bombarding Brussels down to 0 HP turn after turn and just moving endless helicopters next to the city, where they got shot down. I had a mental image of Genghis Khan looking puzzled as he tried to work out why the helicopters can't take cities.
Using fighters appropriately (as interceptors) and bombers to bomb things is an issue that was solved by past Civ AI, and can't be blamed on any change in the combat system. Aircraft worked the way they do now in Civ IV and, if memory serves, in Civ III, and the changes to stacking rules don't affect them at all. Yet Civ V AIs are consistently unable to use them with the same effectiveness, and pretty much invariably use fighters to bomb things.
Upgrades, promotions and Great People work much as they used to in older versions of the game. From recollection, the AI used all of them more appropriately than it does now. The AI can only make effective use of Great Generals, and even then seems unable to use the improvement or Golden Age abilities (as it can't with other GPs).
Old AI workers would sometimes make forts as defensive structures (although was often not bright enough to keep them occupied by units). I have yet to see the AI construct a fort in Civ V.
AI cities appear to be less specialised than in previous versions of the game.
And as far as your assertion that the AI just changes it's reaction times, it is just plainly wrong, a easy level opponent will always come at you at a pretty consistent time with a balanced group of units, for zerg roaches, lings and hydra's, which obviously is a very suboptimal build as it forces lair tech.
SC2 AI has a limited ability to learn counters, and to throw better mixes of units at you as one approach fails. However, it still plays in the same way - you can rely on being rushed at 7-8 minutes, and if you've planned to beat it once you can do so again with equal ease; the only change the AI will make is to attack with more units or a different composition. Even on the highest difficulty, the AI will not wall off, a simple strategy learned early by most Bronze players and considered essential against Zerg and Protoss. Starcraft is heavily based around responding based on the race your opponent is playing, since builds that beat one race's rush or other strategy won't work so well against the others. The AI will always adopt the same approach whichever race you're playing. etc. etc.
considering it is a game with a lot more variables to calculate as far as the warring goes (infinite amounts of positions, loads of different unit types and abilities, whereas civ just uses copy's of the same concept though the ages) it still holds up very well,
Poor example. Starcraft's "infinite amounts of positions" don't do anything - you gain no combat advantage for attacking in the flank that you don't attacking elsewhere. It's not a tactical game. There are no terrain or cover effects on combat effectiveness. Unit combinations have little inherent synergy - you've got Roaches and Zerglings vs. Marines and Marauders, all you need to program is that Zerglings counter Marauders and Roaches counter Marines. Zerglings don't counter Marines any better with Roaches backing them up than they do on their own, and vice versa - each unit does its own thing. This is a whole level of complexity below factoring in bonuses for supporting units, or determining whether to concentrate your ranged and assault forces against one unit vs. splitting to attack several. Civ units have lots of special abilities that dictate what they do (such as horses not being capable of attacking cities effectively) - granted the AI ignores them, but when was the last time you saw an SC2 AI use Forcefield or Fungal Growth (does it even build Infestors?)?
Grandadmiral, considering they did quite well in CIV I suspect the diplomatic AI might just be another victim of the rather shoddy work done on this game, especially if you take into account that they made a lot of weird choices post release, almost like the did'nt really conduct a beta.
In its way, Civ V diplomacy is as different from previous games as combat, and yes it does require more complex programming, so yes it can be considered partially the result of technical limitations. Nearly every diplomatic option carried over from past games was either changed in some way or relies on mechanics that have changed in some way:
- Gold and GPT: Diplomatic option identical, value of gold very different. The AI seems to behave much as the Civ IV AI would in its valuing of the gold resource, offering and taking deals that would perhaps be reasonable in Civ IV. But no one's going to accept having to pay for peace unless they're in dire straits in Civ V.
- Research agreements of course work differently from tech trading. Nonetheless, this is generally the area the AI is most capable of exploiting, however it will still offer anyone with the cash an RA regardless of diplomatic relationships (then again, human players will often do the same unless there's a clear risk of war before the agreement completes).
- Declarations of friendship and denunciations are new, and are more complex mechanically than counterparts in past Civ games. The main function of both is to influence relations with third-party civs ("I denounce you, my friend now dislikes you more"). A human would use these to take advantage of changed relations to press a friend for war, say, and would target these actions at common rivals. This is outside the AI's ability to calculate; older games just used a system of "We're friends, you get an extra positive in relations with me". The result is what we see: denunciation seems to be largely random, without any obvious relation to friendly status, or is used against civs the AI has previously been at war with. It is not followed by any action that offers strategic advantage, such as denunciation followed by friendship with that civ's rivals, or joint war declarations.
- Trade. Both types of luxury now work differently. Again this doesn't generally appear to factor into AI decision-making - for instance it seems to treat any quantity of a strategic resource as being more or less equally valuable, and it doesn't discriminate between a resource it needs and one it doesn't. This latter is a step down from Civ IV AI, but the former is defensible as a product of added complexity. A human will trade for specific resources (and may even be willing to part with gold for them) if obtaining one will start a We Love the King Day or if unhappiness is hard to manage otherwise. The AI will trade regardless of this context - it will grab luxuries if it already has plenty of happiness (which, in fairness, is quite reasonable if aiming for a Golden Age, but not usually at the cost of gold), and it will always take the same amount of gold in exchange however valuable it finds the resource. I don't recall past AIs being any brighter in this regard - likewise they'd trade any resource regardless of whether they needed it for happiness or health control.
- Defensive pacts. No change, but an observation: Has anyone actually had a civ they have a defensive pact with go to war if they're attacked in Civ V? I can't recall it happening to me.
- Open borders. If I recall correctly, in the past it wasn't possible to have one-sided open border agreements at all (i.e. I give you open borders but you don't give any to me).
- The overall modifier system rewards and penalises a more complex set of behaviours. "We have the same religion", "We have different civics" etc. is a simple logical check - yes or no. Easy for a computer to calculate, and independent of context. "We want the same land, Wonder, victory, city-state" is situational and so relies on much more complex decision-making. Even apparently similar "Our close borders spark tensions" (Civ IV, test to see if your border square shares culture with my border square) and "You settled near us" (Civ V, doesn't require shared borders, and there is no 'cultural control' system over hexes that allows the kind of shared control of Civ IV) rely on more complex sets of variables in Civ V.
- City-states. The diplomacy system is designed to exploit city-states - several diplomatic modifiers revolve around them, their influence system is designed to allow civs to compete for control over them, the exclusive nature of city-state alliance (if I'm allied with Helsinki, you can't be) promotes inter-civ conflict and the inability to influence civs you're at war with adds an incentive to declare peace every so often in order to rebuild influence. Add decision-making over which CSes to go for - which will be influenced by, among other things, what resources they provide, what your current influence level with them is, what their current mission is, what type of CS they are, how specific CS types benefit your strategy, where they are in relation to your empire, where they are in relation to rival empires, whether they are well-placed to make a good ally in war, whether they are placed where they would be a danger to you if allied with an enemy... - and you have a system which is extremely complicated for any AI to manage.
FURTHER EDIT (having failed to indicate the last edit before subsequent posts...):
Diplomatic ai is far worse with the new philosophy of playing like real players, which comes down to them focussing on making you lose instead of winning themselves somehow.
This is the most succinct summary of one of the key problems with Civ V's AI I've seen from you, Derpy Hooves! Agreed, an AI with the mandate "Kill all humans" is not the same as an AI that's "programmed to win". An AI that grabs all the city states and then declares war on you isn't one that's trying to win a diplomatic victory, although it's a tactic a human trying to win might employ - it's one that's trying to stop you winning a diplomatic victory. You'll rarely see the AIs use the same city-state denial tactic against one another (for instance Arabia and India were both competing for diplomatic victory in one of my games, but never went to war and indeed signed several declarations of friendship - although unlike Arabia and me they were on different continents).