Summary of BtS Changes to Difficulty and AI

[Gaius Octavius]

But think about it this way: now that the AI is teching slower, there is less reason to have to attack everybody. Normally it was sine qua non if you wanted to stay ahead on higher levels. Now it's not so important. I, for one, am very glad.

 

[Bigben34]

Does anyone know at which level the AI plays with maximal intelligence? I hope at Monarch again like it was in Warlords. I dont' want to have to play Deity just to have the AI's intelligence maxed out. Does it max out at monarch, and then at difficulties above this it just gets research/production bonuses to make it harder?

Bigben34

 

[Bigben34]

Am I the only one finding it quite a bit easier, since the ai now techs more slowly due to the massive amount of troops it builds? I'd agree its harder to take cities overall though.

Are you really Drew? I spent 14 years living in Walla Walla. Hard to meet anyone online from Walla Walla.

Bigben34

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Are you really Drew? I spent 14 years living in Walla Walla. Hard to meet anyone online from Walla Walla.

Bigben34

Yes, Im really Drew, but probably not the Drew you meant

@Gaius:- I have been playing with the no tech brokering option, and agg ais though. With these options, you really do have to watch your back constantly.In my first 2 full length games, I've been in over 10 wars, only 2 of which I started,

I completely agree with you though on not needing to fight "I the player fear your are a peacemongering shmuck,and you are teching to fast for me, and therefore, Im going to have to attack you, no offence" wars.

The ai still unfortunately give all their tech to voluntary vassals for free though. No tech brokering I think shold really become the standard game play option.

 

[Danielos]

I don´t really understand. Why did the remove some of the AI bonus handicaps? No matter how much improved the AI is, it shouldn´t be able to compete with a human player on equal terms anyway. Just keep the AI handicaps AND the improved AI! If you want an easy game there are already difficulties for that (beyond Noble), but why make the game LESS hard and challenging??

 

[Danielos]

Does anyone know at which level the AI plays with maximal intelligence? I hope at Monarch again like it was in Warlords. I dont' want to have to play Deity just to have the AI's intelligence maxed out. Does it max out at monarch, and then at difficulties above this it just gets research/production bonuses to make it harder?

Bigben34

As far as I know, AI plays to the best of its´abilities from the easiest difficulty setting. The only differences is AI handicaps (negative beyond Noble, positive above Noble).

 

[Yakk]

I don´t really understand. Why did the remove some of the AI bonus handicaps? No matter how much improved the AI is, it shouldn´t be able to compete with a human player on equal terms anyway. Just keep the AI handicaps AND the improved AI! If you want an easy game there are already difficulties for that (beyond Noble), but why make the game LESS hard and challenging??

You can mod in infinite handicaps yourself.

Their goal is that Diety will be barely doable by the best players -- and with enough handicap, even a dumb computer can beat a skilled player.

But, as the computer gets better, the level of handicap at Diety gets harder. So their goal is to make Diety difficulty stay roughly the same.

It is really easy to use an earlier handicap setting with the new AI. And the results will likely be really really scary.

 

[Todd Hawks]

What I like most is how the AI will not simply fold half-way through the game and let me sail to whichever victory I feel like. Instead it keeps up and continues to improve its empire using all the stuff available. Just played a game on Noble on a (randomly chosen... I wanted a larger one, but oh well...) duel map with only one opponent and he was always close to me or often even ahead of me in all areas. We were on different continents roughly the same size and we had no wars (still trying to figure it all out, so I kept friendly with him).


About the handicap: Some handicaps simply change the rules so much that it's better to get rid of them if possible. E.g. it's not just a simple bonus when the AI can upgrade its whole army for (nearly) free when you declare war. It's very noticable and therefore annoying, so I'm glad this was greatly reduced. As long as I don't win on Deity all the time I surely rather have it this way.

 

[mice]

But think about it this way: now that the AI is teching slower, there is less reason to have to attack everybody. Normally it was sine qua non if you wanted to stay ahead on higher levels. Now it's not so important. I, for one, am very glad.

I agree with this. You have to think about whether or not it's a good idea to declare, whereas in WL you almost always benefited from declaring if you could.

 

[vicawoo]

Holy crap, deity was 5% unit upgrade cost? No wonder.

 

[Ammar]

One thing I noticed is that it's more easy to get the AI to Capitulate. Had good luck with building a large army, sending it straight to the capital. Either the enemy would put most of his army inside the capital do defend or try to incercept me and fight me on the field.

Anyway, after the capital falls he's usually willing to surrender. I used this on the three Civilizations bordering me, to create a safe buffer zone between me and potentially hostile Civs. Even liberated their Capital back to them, since it was usually too deep in their cultural zone.

 

[Dida]

I just won a Monarch game on water map whereas I got wiped on Nobel otherwise. The AI still cannot effectively wage naval battle or amphibious assault. Playing as the English, I easily crushed Ghandi, whose military was twice my size. While I had about 6 or 7 destroyers and 2 battleships, his navy had about 25-30 ships. He never attempted to launch an invasion, nor to send out his fleet to meet mine. As result, almost all of his ships were destroyed in port.

 

[mice]

One thing I noticed is that it's more easy to get the AI to Capitulate. Had good luck with building a large army, sending it straight to the capital. Either the enemy would put most of his army inside the capital do defend or try to incercept me and fight me on the field.

Anyway, after the capital falls he's usually willing to surrender.

It may be that we can learn who is more likely to capitulate, go after them , and then make them colonies. This might be better than taking on the aggressive civs in the old domination game.

Does anyone know if colonies contribute to domination limit?

 

[DrewBledsoe]

The ai just did something a little stupid. Portugal dow on me and a big stack appears near one of my cities, Stack consisted of 5 horse archers, 4 chariots,a spear, 3 axes and 6 swords. I had actually been expecting them to attack soon, so the city was very well defended. I had approx 3 cats, 5 axes ,2 swords, an archer, 4 spears and 3 horse archers. Their territory(on the corner) was 2 tiles from my borders and thats where they ended their turn (before the dow).

The next turn they move the stack adjacent to my city and now the stupid bit. All the foot soldiers are out of moves for that turn, but they attack the same turn with all the horse units. The city had 40% culture, so it was basically suicide (even though the last Horse archer took a defending axe out). Now because of the rock scissors paper system, its easy for me to take out every unit, because the horse archers (who would have beaten any of my units had they still been there) were dead. Cats first to weaken, then axes, then swords, then horse archers to mop up. They lost the entire stack, and I lost one axe. (I think the last couple were taken down by horse archers on their way from another city)

It basically ended the war there and then. Thought I'd point it out, as it was really quite dumb.Even if they hadn't been expecting such a large defensive stack, the first horse unit should /could have moved to where the stack died, seen the defense and retreated back. The stack could then have manoevered elsewhere, instead of giving me a whole GG from one stack (my first I was Byzantium-IMP bonus). Had it stayed intact, I wouldn't have dared to touch it in the field, because of the r/s/p combat system.

 

[Antilogic]

Hmm...I'm glad to see the mixed stacks. Or, I should say, the AI is smarter to use mixed stacks (my troops aren't going to like it). However, the attacking with the horses against a strong city sounds like the good old AI again!

 

[jkp1187]

Please Delete Post

 

[LAnkou]

Wow.

Simply wow.

Simply, wow.

Well, talking about World of warcraft on Civfanatics is quite fun i think....

But i admit that saying:

Civ.

Simply civ

Simply, civ.

would be quite strange too

 

[largedarryl]

Well I've noticed that the ai is capable of prioritizing techs. Instead of researching a bunch of useless techs, they will research up the tree a little ways. Something I never saw before BtS.

Also I had the mistake of playing the way I always do, and have had 2 coastal cities captured in 2 seperate wars. One Churchil DoW on me and then run a 4 galleons full of troops up to my city and captured on the same turn. It was a little bit of a suprise. Even to seem kind of , I left my capital undefended (well 1 warrior and 2 archers while brennus was using knights and maceman), he snuck up to my borders and captured my capital. Wow did I feel stupid after that, and I was barely able to launch an attack against him because he actually had a navy!!!!! I couldn't even get close enough with 3 frigates to even try to get a troop transport there.

 

[Juriel]

I'm so stupid, I only now realized what happened in my game.

I and Gandhi shared the same continent, but there was only a 3-square wide bit of land connecting our halves, so I settled a city of mine there to block his settlers. Since he kept peaceful (even with -3 from different religion, and -3 from random events), I opened borders with him, figuring there would be no harm in that, as long as he didn't send any settlers over.

I thought he just acted randomly, as he sent workers over to my side, to build roads north of that thin connecting land, and they also built a fort there.

All the time I thought 'weird AI, why did you do that', and only now realized what his overall goal was. A defensible outpost for when the war WOULD break, and he'd be able to attack me from more than one direction. I realized this when I quit the test game in the 1800s, as he kept moving ships to the fort, and I only now got it that he was shipping spies to-and-fro...which explains a lot.

So much new to get used to, this is neat.

 

[magicalsushi]

Has anybody yet noticed whether or not the AI really is aiming for victories other than Space Race, as promised? Any signs of Cultural or Domination victory attempts?