[GS] Why give bonuses to AIs rather than penalties to humans?

[MiniatureDeathRobot]

Currently playing with the Smoother Difficulty mod on Demi-God difficulty, and mostly it's a ton of fun (I seem to have finally found my sweet spot in terms of not too hard, not too easy), but it's really striking how absurdly fast the AIs race up the tech and civic trees on higher difficulty settings. I'm playing with Gathering Storm which means the Ages mechanic is in play, and we've consistently been getting new ages after the smallest possible number of turns. We just officially started the Renaissance in 200 AD, and a few civs are already showing up as being in the Industrial era on the tech / civic tree display screens. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if a Scientific Victory became feasible some time around the historical Renaissance. And from a game play perspective, it means the game isn't quite as leisurely as I would have expected given that I set things to Marathon speed. I think it should be easy enough to change this in the XML files for my next game, but why is the game designed this way in the first place?

 

[Ownsya]

I saw on the page of one of the difficulty smoothing mods they recommended that it be used with a game pacing mod. I assume it's to address this issue. I guess that (AI boosts + game pacing) = (Player nerf), same end result?

 

[MiniatureDeathRobot]

I've tried Historic Speed, but found the increased unit maintenance cost annoying—in the early game it was straining my empire's budget just to maintain enough units to protect from barbarians. Maybe I'll try 8 Ages of Pacing? But TBH I might be happier with a pacing mod that just increased science and culture costs by ~60%.

 

[Ownsya]

8 ages of pacing sounds like it does something very similar to what you're looking for: https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/8-ages-of-pace.25408/

 

[XplosiveLun]

The Pacing mods were created before production boost that were introduced in the September Patch. That means it was not only tackling with fast era advancement but also low production rate. That becomes a problem because with beelining industrialization, spamming industrial zones, and Magnus' Vertical Integration, you can suddenly went out of things to build. Now that the Pacing mod it just make things drag on.

 

[Sostratus]

Why is the game like this in the first place?

Well, because it makes the player empire act consistently on all difficulties. You always know that if you have a city with 20 production, it can build a horseman in four turns. Etc. timings, development, research, is all the same as you move up to a new difficulty.

Remember, the opponent is supposed to get better. Just like playing chess programs against harder AI doesn’t suddenly mean your bishops can only move 3 squares.

It does create some weird stuff on really high difficulty when they get the extra settler, like how conquest is more rewarding on hard because there’s more to capture, but I am most surprised that players largely don’t complain about the AI’s direct combat bonus against you on harder levels. It’s a decent bonus for them to have just with how crippling 1UPT is but that’s the kind of thing players usually scream about.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Currently playing with the Smoother Difficulty mod on Demi-God difficulty, and mostly it's a ton of fun (I seem to have finally found my sweet spot in terms of not too hard, not too easy), but it's really striking how absurdly fast the AIs race up the tech and civic trees on higher difficulty settings. I'm playing with Gathering Storm which means the Ages mechanic is in play, and we've consistently been getting new ages after the smallest possible number of turns. We just officially started the Renaissance in 200 AD, and a few civs are already showing up as being in the Industrial era on the tech / civic tree display screens. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if a Scientific Victory became feasible some time around the historical Renaissance. And from a game play perspective, it means the game isn't quite as leisurely as I would have expected given that I set things to Marathon speed. I think it should be easy enough to change this in the XML files for my next game, but why is the game designed this way in the first place?

On Marathon speed there is no surprise if a Norway manage to get SV on classical era.

 

[MiniatureDeathRobot]

Why is the game like this in the first place?

Well, because it makes the player empire act consistently on all difficulties. You always know that if you have a city with 20 production, it can build a horseman in four turns. Etc. timings, development, research, is all the same as you move up to a new difficulty.

Remember, the opponent is supposed to get better. Just like playing chess programs against harder AI doesn’t suddenly mean your bishops can only move 3 squares.

It does create some weird stuff on really high difficulty when they get the extra settler, like how conquest is more rewarding on hard because there’s more to capture, but I am most surprised that players largely don’t complain about the AI’s direct combat bonus against you on harder levels. It’s a decent bonus for them to have just with how crippling 1UPT is but that’s the kind of thing players usually scream about.

The chess analogy doesn't really work I don't think—playing chess programs against harder AI also doesn't turn bishops into queens. Civ's approach to balancing harder difficulties is weird and I don't think the right direct to go there is obvious.

On Marathon speed there is no surprise if a Norway manage to get SV on classical era.

Heh, did not come anywhere close to happening in my game (it's Germany that's on track for a weirdly early scientific victory).

 

[MonkeyPaw]

Because penalties aren't fun