On what difficulty do I have to play for the AI to be challenging?

[hardcore_gamer]

I started a game on a tiny (but not THAT tiny) map with 3 other AI players on prince (normal difficulty) with game speed set to quick. The game started in the industrial era.

I had loads of fun at first, trying to compete with the other AI players in terms of money and resources, and it had even built more cities then me after a certain point! But then the list of the world's most powerful (that is, who had the strongest army) civilizations was shown I was shocked that I had almost twice as many points as the AI player who was in second place.

So I decided to invade my neighbor whom was disliked anyways by his other neighbor and to my horror I discovered that my years (that is, many many turns) of vast buildup was more or less totally not needed since the AI had almost no units to speak off. Now granted, that I did drop 4 atom bombs on his cities prior to attacking, but as far as I could see he only had 2-3 units within the blast zone so I don't think that's the reason.

I mean, I already knew after reading the forums a lot that the AI isn't very good at the tactical combat part yet, but I was still under the impression that it would at least try to construct a large number of units and then attempt to just throw them at me, but it did not even do that, and thus I just effortlessly streamrolled them in a short amount of time facing very little if any real resistance.

Also, is it just me or does the AI never build any air units? Granted I have only finished 2 full games and neither took place on large maps with a dozen or more AI players but I have yet to see the AI use any air units against me at all.

On what difficulty do I have to play for the AI to be challenging? It doesn't have to be super smart at everything, but it simply isn't worth playing the game if the AI can't even be arsed to build a enough units to protect its own damn borders. Even if it has to result to primitive zurge rushes to do so it would still be better then nothing at all.

 

[MadRat]

King or better - for a more aggressive AI. But be warned the AI cheats like a 3 year old and has about the same strategic depth. You'll probably never see air units w/o a mod patch and the naval wars will be variants of the great Marianas turkey shoot.

Rat

 

[Generals3]

To be honest i find the AI's to become simply more annoying with higher difficulty level's . I easily won against King AI's and than moved on to Emperor and i felt like fighting against nerd-raging 3y olds using cheats .

Sure it gets challenging to beat off huge swarms of armies but when these swarms are sent to you for no reason and the enemy seem to be cheating on all level's it gets annoying. (nothing worse to discover that the other continent in a large map is entirely (and i do mean "entirely") colonised by one AI who not only has an army 10x as big as yours but also has a production high enough to let the units swarm at you turn after turn )

Let at least the AI get penalized for having high amounts of cities/population just as much as us. What frustrated me the most is that i simply could not expand further due to the unhappiness while the AI was capable of filling almost every hex on his continent .

 

[jjkrause84]

I find King "fun" for now. I can typically win but the AI does pose a challenge.

I hated 'Prince' in Civ4 because the ONLY way to get ahead was military conquest (otherwise the AI would out-tech you)....Kin in Civ5 allows me to take any victory path I like.

Of course, the AI is still bad, but that can't be helped right now.

 

[dannythefool]

You'll probably never see air units w/o a mod patch and the naval wars will be variants of the great Marianas turkey shoot.

Augustus Caesar attacked me with bombers in my last deity game

 

[Moss]

For me, it's probably King.

Which is strange, because I quite frankly stunk at previous Civ games.

 

[loveandpolitics]

King, Prince is just too easy, after that the AI cheats like crazy.

 

[Infantian]

I find King "fun" for now. I can typically win but the AI does pose a challenge.

I hated 'Prince' in Civ4 because the ONLY way to get ahead was military conquest (otherwise the AI would out-tech you)....Kin in Civ5 allows me to take any victory path I like.

Of course, the AI is still bad, but that can't be helped right now.

lol it's crazy how people can have different experiences in the same game. For me Prince on Civ IV was very difficult to compete with the AI militarily and I would just build up powerful cities and sit back defending, usually winning a Space Victory or sometimes Cultural. I don't think I ever won a domination or elimination victory on Prince.

 

[Biz_]

immortal/deity is pretty tough

longbows at turn 16 was really fun

 

[Chong Warrior]

Prince is too easy.

Currently on turn 150 on Emporer and have wiped out 2 of the civs closest to me already.

 

[rbj2001]

lol it's crazy how people can have different experiences in the same game. For me Prince on Civ IV was very difficult to compete with the AI militarily and I would just build up powerful cities and sit back defending, usually winning a Space Victory or sometimes Cultural. I don't think I ever won a domination or elimination victory on Prince.

You had to be smart about it, and conquering your neighbours was the best way to get ahead.

I found Civ 4 Prince pretty easy after a while. Monarch was the best level for me and I won maybe 50-60% of the time. Emperor was a challenge and you had to be really aggressive and conquer your neighbours early on to stand any chance. Once you'd done this and built a strong economy, you'd be up there in parity with the other players and it played pretty similarly to the lower difficulties.

As for Civ 5 - I've played 3 games, first on Warlord, then Prince, now King. I haven't completed any of them but that's down to boredom rather than being defeated! On the latest, I conquered the two civs sharing my continent using 3 or 4 units, while they just sat back and let me. There are two civs left but they're on other continents and I don't know if I have the patience to try to finish this game off.

My conclusion, however, is that King is pretty easy compared to Civ 4, where it took me a long time to be good enough to beat Monarch.

 

[adamsolo]

Emperor is still easy. At Immortal I fall behind in tech in one game, and in another I was attacked early and lost my second city.

I would say that AI starts to be challenging at Immortal. Again, Emperor is too easy.

 

[cembandit]

These threads always turn into an epeen debate.

 

[jjkrause84]

lol it's crazy how people can have different experiences in the same game. For me Prince on Civ IV was very difficult to compete with the AI militarily and I would just build up powerful cities and sit back defending, usually winning a Space Victory or sometimes Cultural. I don't think I ever won a domination or elimination victory on Prince.

Ha! That's great!

If you're ever in the UK you're comign over to my place and teaching me how. It seemed like no matter HOW far ahead I got (bulit ALL the early Wonders, huuuuge tech lead wel lthrough the Middle Ages) the AI gold and science bonuses would eventually catch up to me and surpass me.

 

[Darvon]

Anything below Immortal isn't even trying.

 

[the343danny]

Civ 4 didnt always build a huge military either. Late game even if I dont have a massive empire the only reason I dont have the biggest empire in the world (on immortal so even with the huge production cheats) was because I didnt want to micro all the individual units coming out of my cities every single turn, as well as the fact that I only fought with a few units.

 

[Sir Sir]

Emperor is still easy. At Immortal I fall behind in tech in one game, and in another I was attacked early and lost my second city.

I would say that AI starts to be challenging at Immortal. Again, Emperor is too easy.

This is quite true. Emperor is too easy. But Immortal gets kinda lame - one will be at war for something like the entire game.

A typical (standard sized map, pangea, epic) start for me will be build a warrior, worker and a settler and some 10-20 turns after this I will be attacked by 1-2 AI´s. And from then on it´s attack attack attack. Then when the first AI dies. Sadly the same army that took out the first AI - will still be strong enough to take out the second AI and by then it´s a steamrolller (of course it takes its time killing the high amounts of units the AI has on Immortal). I wish the AI would build more horseman for one. And I also wish that horseman had a huge penalty attacking cities.

Playing immortal level on a standard sized continents map, means fighting on your own continent untill your last standing - then finding some insane AI on the other continent (who like you owns all or 95% of his continent). By where you have an small but highly XP army. The AI has his entire continent filled with army units. And the coming battle takes an insane amount of time to play out - I tire of it and restart.

 

[V. Soma]

Reading this thread - I come to the conclusion that maybe King will be the level for me.
So far I am learning the new know-how, and I have not much time to play,
so I have my 2nd game so far - on Prince.

Someone above said that on King you can go for any type of victory you want,
and that is important for me.
I don't want to be faced with "go to war heavily or lose the game" situation...

Of course, later, hopefully Firaxis will come with patches to change this for the better...

 

[gunter]

I would suggest you to try with Prince first. 2-3 games would be fine because not every game is the same of the previous one.

On Prince you might be easily win or you might be involved in situations where you have to apply lot of efforts to compete.

I am also sure that above King the AI cheats like a kid so that is not an option.

 

[aimlessgun]

Someone above said that on King you can go for any type of victory you want,
and that is important for me.

I agree, I think king is a pretty solid difficulty if you just want to play, build a civ and not worry about exactly how you win.

EDIT: As for people saying they don't like the computer "cheating"...it's the computer. It has to cheat. What is wrong with that? It get's an unfair advantage because you are cheating and getting a ridiculously unfair advantage just by being human.