So, AI can't use carriers?

[Khamul]

Ok, I thought that AI can't use Carriers. I have seen one or two of them, but they have always been easy to destroy - until yesterday...

When AI Qin declared war first time, he had 5 carriers. I had two. I selected all my fighters and attacked - and I basically lost them all (I like the new air battle system)! So, I just got Industrialism and I had to build battleships to get rid of those carriers (Qin didn't have battleships yet). I still took over ten turns, so almost all my mines were destroyed. Luckily I had oil and iron underneath my cities. War ended, and no serious harm done. This was a fun war.

Next Qin's target was Julius, my worst enemy. Julius was quite strong, and he had took out two civilization. In that war Qin had 6 carriers, and lot of transports and ground units. Qin took 5 Julius cities, and Julius capitulated (Julius still had over ten cities). Great! I thought. I'm the next target. I started to build more ships and fighters

Well, in next war Qin had 8 carriers(!), and lot of battleships, destroyers and submarines with missiles. Not fun anymore! I was seriously outnumbered, and one by one my fighters went down (Qin already had jet fighters, I just got advanced flight). Then arrived Qin's 15 transports and land forces. They immediately took my Heroic epic city, and next turn their paratroopers and helicopters where everywhere destroying my improvements (I had increased the paradrop range). It was time to retire.

This was my first Monarch game, and it was pure struggle. I like it what they have done to the AI! Although there is still some small things, I think the new AI is really good!

 

[Arlborn]

Now THAT is what I consider a fun game! It is obviously in the right difficult level for you!.

I gotta go up a level too.

 

[Bino]

Just finished my first game at Monarch...feared the new difficulty level a little...put it short i ended in 1970 with a cultural victory, 4 good cities and 2 crappy, on Archipelago...never shooted once in all game, Free religion saved my day

But i bet you Khamul had a great time until the odds turned so bad :-(

Next game i'll do again a military strategy and hope to have a similar game too!

 

[Soneji]

Man I must just plain suck, ruled at everything prince level in Warlords and was considering a move up until BtS... now I am finding prince increasingly hard. AI unit spam mainly, must build units.. must build units.. I keep telling myself!

:/

 

[Evil Twin]

Yeah the unit spam is a pain in the ass. Back to the bad old days of Civ III and the AI pulling 876596543904394 units out of thin air.

 

[Soneji]

They are not pulling them out the air, I know that much. It is, however hard to combat them even in the long run if they are expansive/aggressive and spam melee units all day. If you are trying to beeline a tech, or go WW building even trying to pick up say a religion and the great wall, it puts you at such a disadvantage now. Ok, I could spam units to the high heaven to defend but what about the world wonders, do they go out the window with a unit spam happy aggressive leader?

I am about this far from checking WB everygame to make sure I have either Iron or Copper in my first two cities... (not doing it yet, but I feel its getting close).