Is it intended that Pictish Warrior doesn't get the Formation I promotion?
Yes; they didn't get the regular Anti-Mounted before, either.
For anyone that wishes there were additional difficulty levels higher than deity, one could try to adapt the following mod (
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/deity.25865/) to VP, that adds two new difficulty levels.
That's just a simpler way of editing the DifficultyMod file, but by all means, mod away.
I play on epic and I’m just wondering what aspects in your opinion make it that much easier? I understand about the greater time to maneuver military but are there other aspects of the game I should be aware off? (I’m also not someone that goes for domination victory). Thanks
Humans are better than the AI at general trend analysis and coordination, so larger maps can be better for humans because they have more complexity, though that isn't necessarily the case when warmongering as capturing and vassalizing your neighbor, for example, gives you relatively more power on smaller maps and humans are better at waging war; plus, it takes longer for the human to exert significant control over a larger map, such that he can steer developments in the "right" direction. Slowing time (Epic, Marathon) amplifies the human's warmongering advantage (literally more tactical decisions) and gives the human more opportunities to make better decisions than the AI in general and particularly hurts the AI's ability to react to potential threats effectively, because things take longer to build and research, so the fact that it's worse at anticipating a problematic development, which has to lead to even earlier countermeasures, again gives the human the advantage.
I think the problem with the case presented by
@Cokolwiek lies less with Deity difficulty in general as with the playstyle: relatively small map (can be better for warmongerers, as they'll control more of the world faster), Epic speed (better for humans, especially when warmongering) and, of course, the warmongering itself, which humans are better at. So rather than boost the Deity bonuses in general there should be more focus on countering that playstyle; I've given some examples in this thread already, as well as an idea for a
tiered "anti-runaway" system in another thread that should focus the AI more on useful aggression; once such a system were implemented, one could introduce a mechanism that increases coordination among AI in other ways...like once at least 3 fairly closeby AI (also counting Open Borders to the warzone, so they don't have to be neighbors to the runaway) have "bonded" against the imminent runaway they put extreme focus on building military for 10-20 turns and then jointly declare war. For this to be maximally effective, however, it needs to allow for exceptions in the strategic considerations as well, such that they actually throw everything they have at the runaway and attempt to wipe him out. No doubt this would generate more complaints about "killHuman.exe" but this is exactly what a bunch of humans would do against an AI-runaway. Perhaps this rather extreme mechanism could only trigger if the (prospective) runaway has a significant warmonger score or vassals, to give peaceful players a chance at only having to deal with "normal" victory competition.
