Real game at highest difficulty levels?

[remconius]

I wonder if Civ IV will be more balanced so you can have a real game at higher difficulty levels.

What I mean is that if you played civ III at Deity or higher, the only chance you'd have would be to use the AI's strengths (lower build and science costs) against it. You could play with concepts like:
-Zero-science Gambit (get techs from AI)
-Lot's of early aggression (to take over cities the ai builds faster then yourself)
-Dont even attempt wonders, especially early on (conquer them).
-Micromanage shields and food to not waste any, especially in the first turns.

I always find it a big shame that you have to play this extreme type of game if you want to have a chance at higher levels. You basically ignore many of the games' foundation, like science and wonders and are forced to focus on building units and wage war.

I hope this will be improved for civ IV, although I am uncertain if you can make the AI stronger without giving it theses bonusses.

 

[Meleager]

You just descibed my playing style

I think it would be interesting if higher difficulty levels had more inherent strategic difficulties, rather than just better AI bonuses.

Unfortunately however, the AI will never be as good as a human. And must be given some sort of bonus to compensate.

 

[Drakan]

I wonder if Civ IV will be more balanced so you can have a real game at higher difficulty levels.

What I mean is that if you played civ III at Deity or higher, the only chance you'd have would be to use the AI's strengths (lower build and science costs) against it. You could play with concepts like:
-Zero-science Gambit (get techs from AI)
-Lot's of early aggression (to take over cities the ai builds faster then yourself)
-Dont even attempt wonders, especially early on (conquer them).
-Micromanage shields and food to not waste any, especially in the first turns.

I beg to disagree. You can beat C3C Deity easily on a huge pangea map with 15 random AIs with my strategy as a builder. I'm trying it for Sid currently. Click on my signature with american saves to all 4 eras explainning it: How to win on Deity Builder-style, step-by-step.

1. On point one I research until I learn Literature (GL)
2. No early aggression whatsoever. (on Sid I agree with you, declare war straight away at first contact)
3. Attempt Wonders by all means.
4. True, MM all the time.

So out of your 4 points one can beat Deity doing exactly the opposite from what you write in the first three points.

In fact I believe it's a german player named Kronic who has perfected a way of winning on Sid without building a single military unit (not even for garrison purposes). It was in the HOF forum in some thread.

 

[MeteorPunch]

One thing the Civ series has never let me down on is difficulty level. Always a real easy (chieftan) and insanely hard (deity/sid). All victories on sid are possible, but not always depending on map/start postition.

 

[remconius]

That is excellent to hear, didnt know about it.

That is the way the game should be possible at least. I prefer builder mode with controlled wars. So I am very interested in reading the Deity builder guide.

 

[Drakan]

I believe there are plenty of players who can win consistently on Deity but I doubt any player can claim he can win on Sid consistently (without deck stacking heavily all his games: map tweaking)

 

[Drakan]

Yeop. I believe that playing Builder style is more "truthful" to the game's spirit, that is, you do your own research, you trade, you build Wonders, you expand, etc...

In Sid I find myself doing such weird things in order to win that I feel kinda betraying the game's spirit.

But heck, it's a game, everyone plays it how they feel best.

 

[Leprechaune]

What I want is an AI that can beat me or make a decent comeback when it's set at "Equal" so that there are NO advantages given either to myself or the AI. If the AI can put up a decent fight when it plays by the same rules as I do, I'll be happy.

I'm more motivated to play Mult-Player this time around though, so the AI in single player isn't the most important thing to me this time around. ((Important, just not the MOST important))