Question concerning switching leaders in MP

[Imuratep]

I got a question concerning switching leaders during MP games. I was the first one to research infernal pact so I wanted to switch to Hyborem. But if you reload the game (which you have to do because of OOS), you automatically play on Noble Level and I don't know how to change this. This way Hyborem and Basium never can be played in MP, as it's quite unfair if one plays at Noble and the others play at Immortal. Has anyone an idea what to do?

 

[Imuratep]

Noone who ever tried to switch to Basium or Hyborem in MP? How do you solve this problem?

 

[SwordofStriker]

This is not exactly a fix, but you may find it more fair.

Flexible Difficulty

Although you could end up on settler or deity while everyone else is still at immortal.

 

[onedreamer]

Noone who ever tried to switch to Basium or Hyborem in MP? How do you solve this problem?

the one who switches should load the game and should inherit the difficulty it was originally playing on. Also, do you have the take-over-AI option turned on ?

 

[Niveras]

I'm a bit confused as to how you can have a variable difficulty level across human player civilizations in an MP game. It seems impossible, for example, that the computer players could somehow benefit only from the Noble-level difficulty settings when targeting the Hyborem player, versus Immortal when targeting the others, since so far as I know the difficulty setting does not affect combat odds, except against barbarians. Even more unfathomable is the bonuses AI gets: does this stay at an immortal level difficulty for everyone?

In the end I'm guessing you just mean the penalties levied against players on higher difficulties, such as health and happiness caps? That is moot as far as Hyborem is concerned, and almost as much with Basium since he shares the summoning civ's resources. Are there any further penalties, perhaps additional unit costs/lower free unit cap, that might have a real effect on gameplay?

 

[Imuratep]

Good idea onedreamer. We'll try to let the switching player load. I think we have take-over-AI on, but I'll ask my brother if he has turned it off.
@ Niveras: The tech costs are lower on Noble than on Immortal. On Immortal on a large map you pay about 672 for Knowledge of Ether whilst on Noble you pay about 560. For the later technologies the difference become even larger. For Omniscience on Immortal you pay 16125 and on Noble 13440. For Hyborem the other points are really pointless, as you already said, but paying less for your technologies is especially for Civilizations with which you can conquer quite easy in the hand of a human player a bonus they shouldn't have. Good in our game Hyborem has the worst preconditions he can ever have (only good civilizations around him), that's why we consider to ignore it, but for later games it would be quite interesting to know.

 

[onedreamer]

@Imuratep:
when the summoner of Hyborem switches, HE will know the new settings but the other players won't. That's why there is an OOS and it should be him to load the game.

there any further penalties, perhaps additional unit costs/lower free unit cap, that might have a real effect on gameplay?

Yeah, maintenance costs (units and cities) are higher, as well as techs IIRC. The AI is not concerned as you said, it's the human player who will have advantages compared to other human players playing at higher diff. level.

 

[Niveras]

Ah, I didn't know that difficulty levels also affected tech costs. That's a pretty major difference. I thought it was mostly just efficiency (e.g. higher inflation/maintenance) and minor benefits, like the aforementioned health and happy caps.