New Game Options (Difficulty)

[Gelvan]

With 0.34 there are new Game Options that change the Difficulty Level while playing. What do you think about them?

- Speed of Change of Difficulty (too fast, too slow)
- Logic of Change of Difficulty (3 best, 3 worst in a 6 player game)
- Result in AI behaviour (building cities, Attacking, Diplomacy)
- Result in Barbarian behaviour (spawning, strength, xp-boost for your units)

Personally I think it's too fast. I started with chieftain and ended up in Deity by turn 170 or something, and thanks to the barbarian hordes (on Pangaea) I had only 3 cities by that time.
On the other hand: the AI now builds many cities and I'm not longer on first place, so mybe it's not really too fast?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

umh, I wrote a post about this but I can't find it anymore. so far I've just tried Flexible Difficulty. awesome but don't think you can start at Noble and let the flexibility handle things. the starting techs and stuff that the AIs get for free on higher difficulty level are what really makes the difference, and without those you end up dominating very soon creating the scenario you described ( difficulty skyrocketing to deity, and still not being a challenge )

btw, I think that Flexible Difficulty has an issue with barbaran trait civs... it's gonna make it less likely that the barb declare war on you, since as your score gets high the difficulty increases and going a lot higher than the 2nd civ becomes a lot harder. I actually quite like this, but it IS something to consider ( I dislike the current implementation of the barbarian state DoWing anyway ) .

while we're talking about new game options, I'll say again that a new game option that doubles the amount of lairs on the map would be awesome

 

[Gelvan]

What about a Difficulty that would change regarding the place your on, so if you are place 1 it is deity, if you are place 3 it is monarch etc. - alas, the places are maybe not the best indicator to show how good one is? (military much to low weighted, population to heavy).
Does higher difficulty only change the starting buffs? I was in the imagination that also the needed production for construction and science is lower for the AI on higher difficulty?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

a higher difficulty level indeed does give the AI tech, xp, production etc. benefits, and those are HUGE at deity. but still they're not quite enough to set it on par with a good player. the starting bonuses OTOH make a huge difference that allows them to fare much better, but imho they tend to force a certain playstyle ( very aggressive early game basically ) . I agree that the score is often misleading btw..

 

[Gelvan]

well I suppose a really good player will play it with deity anyway and the new option is more for the mid range and beginner player who has encountered that in late game he is always too good, and the AI ain't no fun anymore, but who can't get a pure deity game starting, because he gets wiped out by the Illian at turn 15.
so what would be a better indicator then score - and can the score counting be changed?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

sure, the score counting can be changed to value some things more than others. IIRC it was changed in 0.33 so that it would value military power more. it could still be improved of course. for example I think that population is still a really big factor in score, probably too big.

 

[Caradoc]

It does not appear that the distribution of Goodies changes along with the difficulty.

 

[Blackmantle]

i find rising one neat for harder games. Starting deity seems quite tendious and highly random. Starting emperor / immortal and having it go up to deity at around turn 50/100 plays out rather neatly for me as an in-between (Whouldn't without the free XP per difficulty but with it, its does make quite a difference. 3 free promotions are tough...) + shortens the long earlygame a bit.
And that one step of difference (immortal to deity) at start is really huge (one settler + one worker do one hell of a difference.).


Problem with flexible i think whould be that at immortal / emperor in the very start one usually falls back right at the start only to come back (if things turn out well) midgame so for me rising one works rather well... I rather think that flexible is a good setting if one wants to start out hardly, have a playable midgame and perhaps a bit more of an entertaining endgame or for players new to / unexperienced with the mod to find a good-flowing gameplay adapting to their level of skills (in that case a start at prince might seem apropriate...).

Instead of noble as noted above try monarch for a start. That might rather play out a bit more like a game of progressing dificulty from playable / easy at the start to a bit longer entertaining in midgame. Noble is definately to low for either settings to play out imo (unless someone has really few clues or doesn't want any serious challenge from their game).

 

[xienwolf]

Goodies ought to change with difficulty. At Chieftan you have about a 1 in 3 chance of a settler IIRC, and at Prince+ you have NO chance for one, among other changes (I think that settlers and strong barbarians are the only ones which are removed from the list completely as you go through the difficulty list though, and strong barbarians isn't always easy to tell apart from weak barbarians since either one can technically spawn 8 orc warriors). If you are finding that the Flex difficulty has popped you up to Diety and you still get settlers from Goody Huts on occasion, then something has certainly gone wrong with the difficulty shift.

And the OP stated in a 6 player game the top 3 move up a notch and the bottom 3 move down a notch meaning your difficulty always shifts. That is not the case, it is the top 1/3 of the score and bottom 1/3 of the score. So in a 6 player game you need to be 1/2 or 5/6 place, and in an 18 player game you need to be 1-6 or 13-18 to shift. Also the check for where your score is will only happen every 80 turns or so, starting at turn 40. (might be remembering wrong, most of them are every 100 turns starting at turn 50, but I think this one was the exception)

 

[Gelvan]

thanks for the further information about 1/3
it seems to me that the turn when this is checked, changes with world size, I played small tectonics with 30% land. maybe that's why I was under the imagination that it is too fast?

 

[Gelvan]

Also the check for where your score is will only happen every 80 turns or so, starting at turn 40. (might be remembering wrong, most of them are every 100 turns starting at turn 50, but I think this one was the exception)

I'm right now playing normal speed with tectonics 60% 7 players as Shaeim with Chieftain and flexible and on turn 100 I'm already at Monarch. Maybe that's a good thing, after all I am still at first place (I suppose) but somehow it feels a bit fast..

 

[xienwolf]

Ah, I remembered 40 right, but in the wrong spot. Just checked the code and it changes your difficulty every 40 turns, starting with turn 20.

 

[Kael]

Flexible difficulty checks every 20 turns.

 

[xienwolf]

Doh, Kael's right (one would hope that happens more often than not ). I was reading a changecounter() as setcounter(), thus the doubled followup timers in each of my posts. They are just a flat 20 or 50 turns for each counter.

Good thing I haven't posted the manual yet with quite wrong information

 

[SerialK]

I just played my first 0.34f game (as the Illians) with the adaptative difficulty settings activated. Quick speed, normal sized Erebus map manually edited to remove 2 or 3 peaks, with 10 computer players. Started at Noble (or prince, unsure).

After about 50 or 100 turns i was in Deity difficulty level. And 2 goody goody CPU where killed by the barbs and an utterly enraged Balseraph CPU. I was able to stay in the top 3 during about 50 additional turns.

But during this time 2 other CPU where vassalized by the Balseraphs with about 2 or 3 cities lefts a much lower score than me. One another evil was vassalized by another big CPU and i ended up heavily lagging behind every single CPU (more than 1000 points) except of course, the 3 vassals, and the difficulty level was still Deity.
The game isn't finished yet but the Bals will go for a conquest / domination victory very easily now, and i'm totally unable to fight or ally with the remaining CPUs who haven't been killed / vassalized yet. All are way more powerful than me and doesn't want to mess anyway with the big mad leader of the Bals.

Funny and challenging game, but not adaptative at all

Imho, this difficulty level should check the scores of the various Civs instead of the raw position of the human player to work efficiently (it would also prevent possible issues in games with less than 6 cpus).

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

Imho, this difficulty level should check the scores of the various Civs instead of the raw position of the human player to work efficiently (it would also prevent possible issues in games with less than 6 cpus).

seconded. it should also take into account the score of the team ( i.e. perm allies like Basium, maybe vassals ) imho.

 

[Caradoc]

Goodies ought to change with difficulty. At Chieftan you have about a 1 in 3 chance of a settler IIRC, and at Prince+ you have NO chance for one, among other changes (I think that settlers and strong barbarians are the only ones which are removed from the list completely as you go through the difficulty list though, and strong barbarians isn't always easy to tell apart from weak barbarians since either one can technically spawn 8 orc warriors). If you are finding that the Flex difficulty has popped you up to Diety and you still get settlers from Goody Huts on occasion, then something has certainly gone wrong with the difficulty shift.

It appears that this is so. I have been at Diety for at least 40 turns and still get goodies from the Monarch list where I started. I know this is true because I am getting High Gold.

 

[xienwolf]

Yes, it was tested and reported in the bug thread. Kael had an item in one of the recent patches saying he adjusted how difficulty level changes are updated across the game, I assumed it was a fix for precisely this. So if you find that you are still getting the base Goody Hut results after the difficulty has increased on Patch G, report it again cause he must have fixed something else

 

[rusty217]

(it would also prevent possible issues in games with less than 6 cpus).

Why would there be issued with less than 6 players?

The top third would be the top 2 and the bottom the bottom 2...

 

[Caradoc]

Yes, it was tested and reported in the bug thread. Kael had an item in one of the recent patches saying he adjusted how difficulty level changes are updated across the game, I assumed it was a fix for precisely this. So if you find that you are still getting the base Goody Hut results after the difficulty has increased on Patch G, report it again cause he must have fixed something else

Thanks for the update. I'm not yet at patch g and have not been following the bug thread. Just havin' a good time playing.

Till now I have not played on Diety. Being able to develop a bit at the lower levels is a big help, especially since the AIs don't start with all those bonus techs.