Suggestion: spread out AI Bonuses on high difficulties

[Lazy Knight]

While i don't know the exact numbers, it seems the AI on emperor and higher difficulties starts with an extra settler, some units and the extra yields. This leads to the AI starting with a big lead and I know this has been the case in earlier games as well.

However, this makes some early game actions really frustrating. You can not build any early game wonder, I also find it very hard to found a religion. If you focus on either of those things, you loose out on units / expansion and barbarians / the AI civs will exploit that.

On the other hand, as soon as you have survived the first 50 turns and established a number of good cities and units, you will usually manage to win the game as the AI can not keep up with a human on focssing the victory conditions.

To take the pressure from the very early game and make the late game more challenging, I would suggest removing some of those early boosts for the AI and replacing them with more boosts throughout the game, free builders, extra housing per era, yield increases, you name it.

What do you guys think? Has anybody worked out the detailed AI bonusses yet?

 

[ilker]

That is great idea, I always find it difficult at start but when you catch up even in deity, there is no more competition afterwards to motivate you further in the game. And it is also near to get a religion and thus religious gamplay which is 1/4 of the game is not available for human player

 

[ichbinsehselber]

This can probably be modded realtively easily by modifying the content of the below table. Unfortunately I don't know the basics of modding in civ 6 yet. Maybe a modder knows where the appropriate sql statement would have to go to.

CREATE TABLE "MajorStartingUnits" (
"Unit" TEXT NOT NULL,
"Era" TEXT NOT NULL,
"District" TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT "DISTRICT_CITY_CENTER",
"Quantity" INTEGER NOT NULL DEFAULT 1,
"NotStartTile" BOOLEAN NOT NULL CHECK (NotStartTile IN (0,1)) DEFAULT 0,
"OnDistrictCreated" BOOLEAN NOT NULL CHECK (OnDistrictCreated IN (0,1)) DEFAULT 0,
"AiOnly" BOOLEAN NOT NULL CHECK (AiOnly IN (0,1)) DEFAULT 0,
"MinDifficulty" TEXT,
"DifficultyDelta" REAL NOT NULL DEFAULT 0,
PRIMARY KEY(Unit, Era, District, MinDifficulty),
FOREIGN KEY (Era) REFERENCES Eras(EraType) ON DELETE CASCADE ON UPDATE CASCADE,
FOREIGN KEY (Unit) REFERENCES Units(UnitType) ON DELETE CASCADE ON UPDATE CASCADE,
FOREIGN KEY (MinDifficulty) REFERENCES Difficulties(DifficultyType) ON DELETE CASCADE ON UPDATE CASCADE,
FOREIGN KEY (District) REFERENCES Districts(DistrictType) ON DELETE CASCADE ON UPDATE CASCADE);

 

[civplay]

Additionally I always thought it would be cool if civs got different buffs based on their attitude. Like military civs got buffs that more had to do with military. Industrious (wide) got buffs starting with an extra settler, build settlers faster, and get extra productions from tiles, whereas traditional tall civs got buffs in city growth.

It would annoy me in civ V when India would have like 15 cities... Like what?

So i guess give more static buffs, like extra tile yields, stronger units, so that the buffs would be more constant.

 

[rubble]

I like that idea. One thing I hate that high difficulty level on all Civ games is the head start the AI always get. For example it was nearly impossible getting any ancient wonders in Civ 5. I had started a thread with the idea of being able to create a custom difficulty level, but I do like the idea of the AI getting boosts throughout the game as well. How about every time the AI reaches a new era it then gets it's "free" units, production bonus, ect.

 

[Grotius]

I really like this idea. I especially like idea of giving the AI new goodies at the start of each era.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

I'm noticing the same pattern as you--the AI starts really strong, and then quickly peters out. By the Renaissance Era or so I'm usually well ahead. I can get early wonders if I really want to though. Stonehenge is the only one that tends to go very early.

Anyway, I would be amenable to reducing the AI's starting Settler/Warrior component (3 Settlers and 5 Warriors is crazy!) and instead giving it more long-term bonuses. It's strange how little science/culture even very large AI empires are generating in the late game.

 

[ilker]

By the way, as far as I understand from how the difficulty bonuses are given to the AI, They allready thought of it somehow. as the handicaps being percentages in science, culture etc. However I still hate they are starting 3 settlers right at the start, two would be sufficient and still they can get era specific extra bonuses to keep them challenging after we catch them to allow comebacks

 

[blciv4]

I'm noticing the same pattern as you--the AI starts really strong, and then quickly peters out. By the Renaissance Era or so I'm usually well ahead. I can get early wonders if I really want to though. Stonehenge is the only one that tends to go very early.

Anyway, I would be amenable to reducing the AI's starting Settler/Warrior component (3 Settlers and 5 Warriors is crazy!) and instead giving it more long-term bonuses. It's strange how little science/culture even very large AI empires are generating in the late game.

Can you please direct me to where you found this information?

 

[Trox]

I completely agree with this, it always feels like the game is basically decided after the ancient/classical era. The early-game lead also creates problems with diplomacy:

-Most leaders will hate you as soon as you meet them because of agencies, such as hating low culture/low science/small army/small empire...of course you are weaker than them in all of that, because they cheat!
-They will also consider you weak and easy prey since you will have much fewer units, and the AI doesn't factor in its own military incompetence. Combined with point 1 this makes early war pretty much inevitable. While there's nothing wrong with an early war per se, having it happen in literally EVERY game on high difficulties is annoying.

By the way, another problem with high difficulty is the amount of units. The AI just spams military so much that literally every hex in their country is filled. And then every turn they move around randomly for no reason...it's annoying, unrealistic and bad for performance. Maybe they should give bigger buffs to their units' combat strength or HP instead of having them build so many.

Of course, an even better solution to all of this would be an AI that is actually, you know...CLEVER, instead of having to cheat like crazy to be a challenge. But I guess technology isn't there yet...

 

[rubble]

Of course, an even better solution to all of this would be an AI that is actually, you know...CLEVER, instead of having to cheat like crazy to be a challenge. But I guess technology isn't there yet...

Not sure if I am ready for Skynet yet.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

Can you please direct me to where you found this information?

Sure, you can find the AI bonuses by difficulty level here.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Those bonuses are as old as Civilization itself and they celebrated their 25 years!
They were acceptable when the game was much more simple and more creative bonuses couldn't be implemented but they are really becoming old now.

It's totally possible to make them more gradual, making the AI less overpowered early but much better later. Acken did this in his Civ5 mod. Unfortunately so far we don't have access to the c++ source code so such a mod can't be created and we don't even have a lot of options on the Lua side (so far only "get" methods have been identified, no "set" or "create" for adding units). Simply changing xml/sql variables could remove bonuses but not give them a free settler at a later turn to compensate for example or force upgrade their atomic era warriors . We need coding to do this (either c++ or Lua)

I really hoped when i read about the combat bonuses they had learned from the various Civ5 mods, but obviously they are way to attached to their outdated starting bonuses to even consider better alternatives

 

[Alesson]

Those bonuses are as old as Civilization itself and they celebrated their 25 years!
They were acceptable when the game was much more simple and more creative bonuses couldn't be implemented but they are really becoming old now.

Someone give this man a medal!

It's about time the veterans divorce the AIs too, though that's more likely never going to happen.

 

[Animist7]

I'm loving both the suggestion of bonuses at the beginning of each era except the Ancient area and the suggestion of bonuses being tailored to a civ's strengths / attitude. Having said that, we wouldn't want it to be too easy for human players to steamroll over nearby AI civs in the first few turns since the only thing going for them defence-wise at that stage is their extra military units.

 

[Lazy Knight]

So, there now is a mod that does something like what I suggested:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/smoother-difficulty.25423/

It replaces the starting bonusses with (better scaling) production, gold, culture and science bonusses.(please no argument about the plural of bonus)

Did anybody try it?