The Immortal Challenge 1: Apocalypto

[futurehermit]

I just want to say I agree with Aelf that it is necessary for ALL victory conditions to be available at ALL difficulty levels. You should be able to win a totally peaceful space victory on deity as long as your play is top-notch for example...

 

[DaviddesJ]

I just want to say I agree with Aelf that it is necessary for ALL victory conditions to be available at ALL difficulty levels. You should be able to win a totally peaceful space victory on deity as long as your play is top-notch for example...

I disagree. As far as I'm concerned, why not create 10 higher difficulty levels than Deity? If they are too hard to beat, so what? How do they harm you?

 

[DaviddesJ]

In the end, there will invariably be a disagreement between people who don't like the idea of skewed difficulty levels and people who are perfectly fine with it (like what is happening now).

Your whole argument rests on a totally wrong premise: that, somehow, the improvement of AI capabilities will lead to more "skewed difficulty". This is simply not true. So, when you put words in other people's mouths about what they are "fine with", I think it's rather annoying.

If the AI gets better, then players can achieve the same level of difficulty with fewer AI handicaps. Again (for the tenth time?), it makes no difference what those difficulty levels are called. You can call them A, B, C, D, E for all that I care. What matters is that a player who wants a certain level of difficulty will play against stronger AIs that receive lesser handicaps, to result in the same overall difficulty. And this means that the game is less "skewed", not more. For example, it wouldn't be necessary to give the AIs such large starting advantages, thus, they wouldn't outexpand the player so much at the beginning, thus, there would be less of a need for early aggression just to gain sufficient territory to be competitive.

 

[aelf]

Your whole argument rests on a totally wrong premise: that, somehow, the improvement of AI capabilities will lead to more "skewed difficulty".

I said improving the AI capabilities without reducing the bias towards them will result in skewed difficulty levels.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I said improving the AI capabilities without reducing the bias towards them will result in skewed difficulty levels.

Well, that might be true, if "hard" and "skewed" are equivalent. But so what? What difference does it make if there are some very high difficulty levels that aren't really feasible to beat, at least with most settings?

Suppose Firaxis released a patch with two new difficulty levels, above Deity. Everything else stays the same. Would you have the same complaint? Are those "skewed" difficulty levels doing you any harm? Can't you just ignore them?

 

[aelf]

Suppose Firaxis released a patch with two new difficulty levels, above Deity. Everything else stays the same. Would you have the same complaint?

Nope. It's a different thing. Like I said, if even Monarch requires cheesy strategies, then more people will play cheesily. I don't think that will have a positive impact on the community and the discussion of strategy in the community. The effect on people of introducing two higher difficulty levels while leaving the current ones the same will be different and not quite as harmful.

Anyway, I'm in the middle of playing the next round, and I must say things look bleak I can feel the difference between Immortal and Emperor now.

 

[Elandal]

The handicap file created by Blake offered with BetterAI mod is working towards reducing the AI bonuses as it should be smart enough to not need them. Whether that works out or not depends on the player and playstyle I guess - at least I believe that's an important part of the BetterAI mod and way better balance than simply the mod without modified handicaps.

I don't think Deity was ever meant to be balanced so that should be non-issue for most players - deity is meant to be stacked against humans so that if Alex wakes up on bad mood and sneezes the wrong way, the human player loses.
Other difficulty levels (up to Immortal therefore) should allow all victory conditions to be possible with different playstyles. In all cases though the human player is expected to have some advantages. On large scale, human is capable of long term planning which the AI really isn't capable of. Also, humans understand diplomacy in different way, playing that to support his grand strategy. Due to grand strategy, human player must micromanage most issues (workers and cities) himself - the governors and worker AI do not know the grand strategy and can't work towards that really.

The better the AI gets, the smaller the bonuses it should get. Unfortunatelly not all things can be measured in the bonuses used, so it's very hard to attain proper balance - what is exactly the grand strategy worth? 10% production and commerce advantage? Dunno. But that's the question that will arise if the tactical issues are resolved at some point.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Like I said, if even Monarch requires cheesy strategies, then more people will play cheesily.

Well, this is the essence of our disagreement. As I understand it, you assert that the name of the difficulty level is the most important thing. I.e., if the AI were much improved, and the level at which the AI gets the present Monarch bonuses is called "Monarch", then people will play Civ4 in one way ("cheesy"). But, if that level were renamed to "Immortal", then people would play Civ4 in a different way ("not cheesy").

I just think the name is totally irrelevant.

P.S. And it's still also true that (1) the AI isn't likely to improve all that much, and (2) if it did, Firaxis would probably adjust the names of the handicap levels to keep "Immortal" approximately as challenging as it is now. So the situation isn't likely to arise---in addition to not being a problem if it did.

 

[Melon Head]

Actually, it seems to me that you and aelf are missing each others' argument a touch. You seem to be saying that as long as there is a range of difficulties to play on, it doesn't matter what they're called, and since that is still true, we shouldn't bother fiddling with them. Aelf, it seems to me, is worried that bumping up the AI without decreasing AI bonuses will choke out other play-style options, and that we'll be left with only war as a route to victory.

I, on the other hand, think that there should always be a very easy difficlty (settler) and that at the moment, you're making settler difficulty harder. While that may not seem like a big concern for you, if you're used to playing on, say, Monarch, if you used to only be able to manage settler, then the new patch would be significantly more difficult and possibly less fun. I'm worried that the trend in updatnig the AI will lead to a more and more difficult game, which might ultimately stomp that player out. For example, I used to play on prince/noble, depending on the day, because I liked a fairly easy game I could dominate. I've now moved down to Warlord post-patch because the game has gotten more difficult. If the better AI team keeps making the AI better, then I'll be playing on settler. If that continues, the only way I'll be winning on settler is by warmongering, which I don't particularly enjoy. If i can get through a game with no wars at all, that's an enjoyable game for me. Constant fighting is good for a lark, but not all the time.

I think there ought to be more consideration for the larger body of players. I know four or five other CIV players, none of whom post on forums, visit forums, or have even played an online game. All of these people play on settler or warlord most of the time. I have a gut feeling that that's actually the majority of CIV gamers. Unfortunately, because they don't get on the forums, they have no input into the discussions, and I worry that future game refinements will drive them away from the game. I imagine most of the people who post on here play above prince, even after the patch, and I know there's a substantial body of emperor/immortal/deity people. While for you guys the increase in difficulty isn't so bad, it gets frustrating when you like playing on the low levels and don't particularly want to spend time online to find strategies/update your playstyle, etc. Remember, too, that if these gamers are in the majority, then they're very important to us if only because driving them away drives down sales, which makes future incarnations of CIV less likely.

 

[Winston Hughes]

Surely the names of the difficulty levels have nothing to do with it at all. The problem is that war is far and away the easiest way to win at any difficulty and on almost any map/settings. It's so much easier to win a victory by smiting all your rivals or conquering a monster empire for yourself, that taking any other approach is like going up a level (or two; I can beat emperor with constant war, but I can still struggle to beat prince if I play peacefully - this was not the case on vanilla).

Now, this wouldn't be such a problem if I liked to decide on my strategy (warlike or peaceful) before I start. But, most of the time at least, I want to work out the best strategy and implement it, and as things stand the best strategy is nearly always war, war and more war. If I have to drop down a level or two to even have the choice of playing peacefully, I will always have to decide in advance what kind of game I wish to play (and I might as well just go out and buy M:TW2 for my warlike gaming, since I'm sure it does violence much better than civ anyway).

edit: Just saw Melon Head's post, with which I agree wholeheartedly.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I, on the other hand, think that there should always be a very easy difficlty (settler) and that at the moment, you're making settler difficulty harder.

No, I'm not making anything harder.

If Firaxis makes the AI better, I think they should introduce "artificial stupidity" at levels below Noble. This is easy to do, and it's better than giving the human player even more bonuses of other sorts.

I agree that there's a possible problem if you make the low difficulty levels too hard. But I think that problem is extremely easy to avoid.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Surely the names of the difficulty levels have nothing to do with it at all. The problem is that war is far and away the easiest way to win at any difficulty and on almost any map/settings.

Yes, I agree with that. But that has nothing to do with AI improvements. It's true now, and it will be just as true (no more and no less) if the AI improves.

Perhaps, it might get to be slightly less true, if the AI gets better at defending itself, either directly or indirectly (e.g., by bribing other players to attack you, if you attack it). So, such improvements would be good, not bad, from this point of view.

 

[Melon Head]

Sorry, I didn't mean you specifically. I meant the "you" that is the group of gamers pushing for a better AI, and I just wanted to voice some concerns. Yes, it is possible to introduce "artificial stupidity" and in I think that would be spectactular (I'd rather have it an even playing field where the AI changes between difficulty levels rather than the AI bonuses changing). On the other hand, I have not seen that "artificial stupidity" implemented, and I haven't seen much discussion of it so far.

 

[lilnev]

At aelf: If I understand what you mean by "skewed", it's something like this:

Currently, it's possible to win on Emperor (say) with a wide variety of playstyles/strategies. But Immortal and above pretty much requires substantial warfare -- the diversity of gameplay is reduced. If the AI continues to improve, peacemongering strategies will suffer even more than warmongering. We may reach a point where a wide variety of approaches can succeed only on Prince, while war can still succeed up to Immortal. The tail of low-diversity play will have increased to encompass more levels. More people will find that their "best level" (whether it's the same as pre-improvements or not doesn't matter) is in that tail, and now they can only win by emphasizing war.

Is that an accurate representation of your concern?

It's occurred to me that handicaps could be given to the AI that would make warfare more difficult for the player, rather than making peaceful racing more difficult. Suppose that on Immortal, AIs got Monarch level tech and build bonuses, and +40% in all combats against the human? Sort of reverses the incentives facing the human, doesn't it?

Anyway, I'm in the middle of playing the next round, and I must say things look bleak I can feel the difference between Immortal and Emperor now.

The other continent has come visiting in 200 AD, and they're all a dozen techs ahead? Don't despair. Almost every Immortal game I've ever played has looked bleak at some point. I think you'll have enough land (after finishing Louis ~trebs/maces) to win a spacerace even if everyone else is too advanced to invade. Unless things have really gone wrong (Caesar DoWed you?) ....

peace,
lilnev

 

[Winston Hughes]

Yes, I agree with that. But that has nothing to do with AI improvements. It's true now, and it will be just as true (no more and no less) if the AI improves.

But, in my experience, the gap has become more pronounced as a consequence of both the added advantages to warmongers in Warlords, and the improved AI with the last patch.

It seems to me that if there are new military features to exploit (I don't necessarily mean 'abuse'), then the human gets the best of it, provided they take a warlike approach. At the same time, if the AI gets better at building, the increased difficulty weighs more heavily on the builderish player, since they have to compete directly with the improved AI, whilst the warmongers are merely faced with slightly better developed enemies, but with the compensation of conquering better developed cities.

Perhaps, it might get to be slightly less true, if the AI gets better at defending itself

That would indeed be a major improvement. The main problem, imo, is the AI being so completely incompetent at defending its cities, with the result that warfare represents the single greatest advantage a human player has (a situation which has been made even more pronounced by the AI's improved building powers).

However, I think some extra bonus (maybe a diplomatic one) for those that take a peaceful approach, or an extra handicap for those who pursue a course of relentless aggression, would also help to balance the game better.

For example, and returning to the issue which sparked this debate (iirc ), perhaps the WFYABTA limits could be increased if the player consistently shuns warfare, or reduced if the player frequently starts wars with other civs. If a player demonstrates a propensity for endless backstabbing and violence, then maybe the AI civs could simply refuse to trade with him/her (which would be an entirely rational decision, since that player clearly represents a threat to anyone and everyone).

 

[lilnev]

If a player demonstrates a propensity for endless backstabbing and violence, then maybe the AI civs could simply refuse to trade with him/her.

"We have imposed sanctions on your regime."

peace,
lilnev

 

[Winston Hughes]

"We have imposed sanctions on your regime."

I love it!

 

[DaviddesJ]

But, in my experience, the gap has become more pronounced as a consequence of both the added advantages to warmongers in Warlords, and the improved AI with the last patch.

Well, I don't think this is true. I agree that some of the new features in Warlords have increased the "gap" between the effectiveness of aggressive and peaceful play. But I don't agree that the AI improvements have had this effect. If players are finding that they need to play more aggressively, I think it's only because they are choosing a higher difficulty level (e.g., they are staying at the level called "Monarch", even though that's harder than the "Monarch" they previously played, because of the stronger AI).

 

[aelf]

At aelf: If I understand what you mean by "skewed", it's something like this:

Currently, it's possible to win on Emperor (say) with a wide variety of playstyles/strategies. But Immortal and above pretty much requires substantial warfare -- the diversity of gameplay is reduced. If the AI continues to improve, peacemongering strategies will suffer even more than warmongering. We may reach a point where a wide variety of approaches can succeed only on Prince, while war can still succeed up to Immortal. The tail of low-diversity play will have increased to encompass more levels. More people will find that their "best level" (whether it's the same as pre-improvements or not doesn't matter) is in that tail, and now they can only win by emphasizing war.

Is that an accurate representation of your concern?

Yes. But I'm also emphasizing the psychological impact of the skewed difficulty levels. I don't think we can see players as robotic beings who will naturally 'evolve' to a different difficulty level based on what they are comfortable with. If more difficulty levels (out of the ones currently available) require cheesy strategies, I believe a large proportion of players will be pressured to play with cheesy strategies. This will not have healthy impact on the community and strategic depth of the game overall.

It's occurred to me that handicaps could be given to the AI that would make warfare more difficult for the player, rather than making peaceful racing more difficult. Suppose that on Immortal, AIs got Monarch level tech and build bonuses, and +40% in all combats against the human? Sort of reverses the incentives facing the human, doesn't it?

It probably does. But it's also ridiculous. Why not solve the problem at the root of it by rethinking the difficulty levels?

The other continent has come visiting in 200 AD, and they're all a dozen techs ahead? Don't despair. Almost every Immortal game I've ever played has looked bleak at some point. I think you'll have enough land (after finishing Louis ~trebs/maces) to win a spacerace even if everyone else is too advanced to invade.

True. I'll play the round through and post the update and we'll see.

 

[aelf]

If a player demonstrates a propensity for endless backstabbing and violence, then maybe the AI civs could simply refuse to trade with him/her (which would be an entirely rational decision, since that player clearly represents a threat to anyone and everyone).

Civ3 nearly got it right on this issue with its reputation system. I think it needs to be revived in Civ4.