You're playing on Prince difficulty? Really?

[eMCee]

Being new, I'm a bit confused by the backlash aimed at those playing on Prince difficulty. However, I'm equally confused by those playing on Prince and complaining about how dumb the AI is.

How does the community really feel about this?

If someone plays on Prince, do they have a basis for complaining about the AI--for example, chess programs on easy mode make stupid moves because the logic is intentionally hindered. Why would you expect this game to be different?

Shouldn't thread discussions be separated by difficulty level? A tip or strategy on Prince may not work on Immortal, right?

Would it be good if every post started off with your game overview? e.g.

411: Difficulty / Victory Condition / Civ / Game Style / Mode / Map Size / Map Type / Speed
411: Prince / Cultural / Siam / Builder / Single Player / Standard / Continents / Standard ... or ...
411: Immortal / Domination / Germany / ICS / Single Player / Huge / EastWest / Quick​

 

[Tokira]

To me it seems that the AI is as bad at tactics on all difficulty levels (Though I never tried anything above emperor). The only thing that changes is the bonuses on production, maintenances, techs and the units that they get when the game starts. I just finished playing a king game and started a warlord game to get it finished faster and the AI seemes to be just as hopeless in their war tactics on both of the levels :/

I think that its good to mention at which difficulty levels people are playing when they tell about their games, but I don't mind it that much.

 

[Dralix]

Sometimes it's important to know the difficulty level and other settings, such as map size and speed to properly discuss an issue. But at no time should someone be flamed or ridiculed for what difficulty level they are playing on.

 

[NukeEm]

Personally I think prince is perfect for one reason. Zero bonuses. So the questionable AI is seen for what it is. Now, if the AI were better, then it would show on prince... for me, ideally, the mark of a good AI in Civ would be an AI that doesn't need bonuses to beat players.. it just needs to play better. But that is my opinion and probably why I don't design games. But as it stands, it is my understanding that the AI is the same across all difficulties... it's really the bonuses that carry the Civs on higher difficulties. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Fabien]

The AI does not change its behaviour much on the higher difficulties, it just has more units to begin with and this makes it harder anyway.

People are right when they complain that the AI is stupid (which is the norm, I've never ever seen a good AI in any game, while I ahve seen horrible, horibble things) even when they're playing on Prince, but they shouldn't complain that the game is to easy to beat when they're only playing at prince .

The tatcic used to defeat the AI on higher levels are more extreme in most cases, i.e. you can't just sit back and build stuff like the manual would suggest, you have to have a clear and singular focus all the time and do not have the time to make detours. This is most extreme in Civ4 Deity, where the game no longer feels "natural" (atleast to me). I started at Warlord in Civ4 BTs and managed to beat Immortal in the end and I'm sure nobody was just born with the ability to win at the highest difficulty without any training . And I was really really bad in the beginning, I never built units because I was afraid that they would be outdated by the time I was at war...

Besides I'm a bit of an elitist regarding game balance - people who haven't played the game to it's full potential shouldn't comment too much on the gameplay balance since they obviously don't know the finer details, but I think this is quite irrelevant in Civ 5 since there are not many ways to play better instead of microing and rexing. The problem is that the initial balance should somehow make sense and this does not yet fit CiV. In Stracraft 2 I find it midly disappointing when someone not in the top 1000 comes around the corner and states that X is the horror and overpowered beyond belief .

 

[NukeEm]

Besides I'm a bit of an elitist regarding game balance - people who haven't palyed the game to it's full potential shouldn't comment on the gameplay balance since they obviously don't know the finer details,

Well, there is a part of me that understands where you're coming from, but I see it slightly different. For me, balance can only be truly tested in multiplayer. Where human players use all the mechanics at their disposal to win. I mean, the AI can be "gamed" which some players might refuse to do or just don't enjoy doing. You can't "exploit" (I am using the word very loosely) in multiplayer. So to each their own.

 

[eMCee]

To me it seems that the AI is as bad at tactics on all difficulty levels (Though I never tried anything above emperor).

A) With respect, you can't say "all" because you just said you don't know.
B) I apologize for not being clear ... I wasn't asking how you feel about the AI ... I was asking about the backlash and why people post unfounded, damaging comments without playing on higher difficulty levels first? And, therefore, shouldn't threads be separated or tagged by playing difficulty / game style / etc?​

 

[Tokira]

A) With respect, you can't say "all" because you just said you don't know.
B) I apologize for not being clear ... I wasn't asking how you feel about the AI ... I was asking about the backlash and why people post unfounded, damaging comments without playing on higher difficulty levels first? And, therefore, shouldn't threads be separated or tagged by playing difficulty / game style / etc?​

I said all due to what I've read. Also I doubt that any game would have the same kind of AI tactics for the easy and medium difficulty levels and then suddenly make the AI tactically better for the hard difficulty levels. If their tactical play would improve depending on the difficulty level, then it would be harder on the medium levels than on the easy levels.

I am not saying that the game is easy, I am just saying that the AI has bad tactics when it comes to handling war situations. Still it can manage with its huge amount of troops on the higher difficulty levels to take over your cities. Though even when they have massive amounts of troops they still might send the siege/archery units before the meelee units just because their tactical gameplay is poor. However, since they have so much more troops and much better productivity they would still be hard to beat.

 

[Venereus]

I like Prince because I like competing in equal terms with the AI. It sucks to lose out on a good early wonder just because of the cheat-o-factor.

 

[hardcore_gamer]

Being new, I'm a bit confused by the backlash aimed at those playing on Prince difficulty. However, I'm equally confused by those playing on Prince and complaining about how dumb the AI is.

How does the community really feel about this?

If someone plays on Prince, do they have a basis for complaining about the AI--for example, chess programs on easy mode make stupid moves because the logic is intentionally hindered. Why would you expect this game to be different?

Shouldn't thread discussions be separated by difficulty level? A tip or strategy on Prince may not work on Immortal, right?

Would it be good if every post started off with your game overview? e.g.

411: Difficulty / Victory Condition / Civ / Game Style / Mode / Map Size / Map Type / Speed
411: Prince / Cultural / Siam / Builder / Single Player / Standard / Continents / Standard ... or ...
411: Immortal / Domination / Germany / ICS / Single Player / Huge / EastWest / Quick​

The AI doesn't change once you increase the difficulty level, it just gets bonuses instead. And no, this is not just guesswork and is in fact confirmed to be true.

 

[Windsor]

The AI doesn't change once you increase the difficulty level, it just gets bonuses instead. And no, this is not just guesswork and is in fact confirmed to be true.

Where is that confirmed?

Ed Beach @ civilzation5.com:

Spoiler :

EB: I think one thing the AI is going to do is – we have it set up so when the AI is trying to make a decision – so it's trying to decide what to build in the city, trying to decide what technology to pursue next – we go ahead and we look at all the possibilities based on where they are in the tech tree right now and we rank them according to which ones we think are the best choice for a strong Civ player at that given point in time. Now what happens is when you're playing on the higher difficulty levels we almost always pick one of those top choices just because we want that civilization to be as competitive as possible with you. When you're at a lower difficulty, one of the things that we do is we start opening that up to some of those other lower ranking choices and we pick from those choices as well. We're also looking at kind of a different depth of analysis in terms of the military and tactical game when you go and you have a higher difficulty setting. So rather than just looking in the immediate area of a city when you're playing on the higher difficulty levels the AI is gonna be thinking a little bit deeper, looking further across the map and using that to kind of come up with decisions like, “oh wow I'm actually 10 tiles away. Maybe I have 3 or 4 units that can reinforce the situation.” I'll pull those in and that will strengthen my military right in the nick of time here.

 

[DaveGold]

The problem with difficulty balance is straightforward. You can run rings around the AI militarily. This means you push up the difficulty level giving the AI more and more ridiculous bonuses. You keep doing this until the AI can beat you.

Whatever level you settle on, the AI overpowers you with bonuses or the AI is still so stupid militarily that you win. Either way the game is frustrating.

 

[CivFanaticMan]

Being new, I'm a bit confused by the backlash aimed at those playing on Prince difficulty. However, I'm equally confused by those playing on Prince and complaining about how dumb the AI is.

How does the community really feel about this?

If someone plays on Prince, do they have a basis for complaining about the AI--for example, chess programs on easy mode make stupid moves because the logic is intentionally hindered. Why would you expect this game to be different?

Shouldn't thread discussions be separated by difficulty level? A tip or strategy on Prince may not work on Immortal, right?

Would it be good if every post started off with your game overview? e.g.

411: Difficulty / Victory Condition / Civ / Game Style / Mode / Map Size / Map Type / Speed
411: Prince / Cultural / Siam / Builder / Single Player / Standard / Continents / Standard ... or ...
411: Immortal / Domination / Germany / ICS / Single Player / Huge / EastWest / Quick​

the AI is dumb no matter what difficulty you play on. The difference is, is that the AI cheats.

 

[MrCynical]

Being new, I'm a bit confused by the backlash aimed at those playing on Prince difficulty. However, I'm equally confused by those playing on Prince and complaining about how dumb the AI is.

How does the community really feel about this?

If someone plays on Prince, do they have a basis for complaining about the AI--for example, chess programs on easy mode make stupid moves because the logic is intentionally hindered. Why would you expect this game to be different?

Shouldn't thread discussions be separated by difficulty level? A tip or strategy on Prince may not work on Immortal, right?

The key point you're missing is that the AI - the algorithms and the tactics it uses - are identical at all difficulty levels. The difference in difficulty is produced by giving the AI bonuses (e.g. making production and research cheaper) above Prince level, and penalties below Prince. This is no secret, and is one thing that hasn't changed from Civ 4. At higher levels the AI will be able to build more units as they are cheaper, but it will still be no more competant at using them than it is on the easiest difficulty level.

The reason for that is quite simple - the best AI they can program still isn't much good relative to even an average human player. There are games (Gal Civ 2 for example) where the easy difficulty level are produced by deliberately making the AI play badly, but that tends to result in levels so easy that no one uses them.

This also means that discussions about how the AI behaves are perfectly valid regardless of difficulty level. You may need to consider if the bonuses the AI receives will render your strategies non-viable at higher levels, but if you see the AI do something stupid at Prince, it'll still do it at Deity.

 

[alpha wolf 64]

i just had 3 cases of how bad the AI is on emperor.

1) the AI attacks the middle of 3 cities with 5 artillery and at least 7 melee units (cav/inf). it was a newly conquered city so the flanking cities were only 3 hexes away but I had no units nearby. at no point do the arts ever setup and pound the city, instead just moving around every turn. eventually, i got my mech inf to the area along with 2 destroyers, and then bought a tank. after taking out 5 or 6 units, the AI starts a retreat which allows me to pick off another 5 or 6. the battle lasted at least 30 turns, and only a hand ful of shots on the city were ever made by the arts. that city should have fallen easily on the 2 turn.

2) after the above victory, i managed to get reinforcements (2 mech/khan) over to that continent, and was gifted an art. i started picking off an ai city every few turns and wondered where all the defensive units had disappeared to. i notice that an allied city state is now under attack by 8 inf, 1 art, and a antitank, and expected any moment to get the notice that it had fallen. but each turn i'd look at it was still at full strength. it took at least 40 turns for that city to fall because the AI tried to bombard it but wasnt causing more damage than was being healed each turn. the ai never once attacked with any of the infs, until the art finally started wearing down the city. even a conservative atack probably could have taken that city in 3-4 turns with minimal losses. as was, the city actually managed to kill an inf.

3) fresh from their victory, the AI sends it's forces to the area where i'd just liberated 2 CSs and was healing up behind a marsh area. the ai has 2 avenues of attack, thru the line of marshes or around some mountains and hit my flank on the plains. because all 3 of my mechs were upgraded chu-ko-nu, they can hit and run. the AI sends over a dozen units thru the marsh, no more than 4 at a time. the closest they ever got was a 4 mech assault but w/o any ranged support of any kind. altho they did considerable damage to my mechs, my art and tank easily picked off the survivors. my khan (gotta love gifted khans) quickly healed up my mechs in time for the next piecemealed assault. the ai never brought any of their generals to the battle, nor any of the large number of arts that i could see. as the AI ran out of units, i used a few workers as scouts, and every once in a while, an art would take one, only for me to pick it off.

from examples 1 and 3, it appears that the AI was using the arts as melee units, whereas, example 2, the art was used correctly, but the AI refused to use melee units to quickly weaken the city. i did later see lots of cases where arts were used effectively in coastal cities to fight off naval bombardments, alto in those cases, the AI let 5 destroyers get picked off 1 by 1 w/o ever moving.

 

[Horizons]

At Prince level the AI gets plenty of bonuses, why do some people think otherwise?

 

[Tokira]

from examples 1 and 3, it appears that the AI was using the arts as melee units, whereas, example 2, the art was used correctly, but the AI refused to use melee units to quickly weaken the city. i did later see lots of cases where arts were used effectively in coastal cities to fight off naval bombardments, alto in those cases, the AI let 5 destroyers get picked off 1 by 1 w/o ever moving.

This is exactly what I noticed in my game too. They use the siege units as meelee units, putting them to front line. They also just move the siege units around, not even trying to fire anything :/

 

[Beef Hammer]

At Prince level the AI gets plenty of bonuses, why do some people think otherwise?

There's a post here somewhere that shows the xml file, they get very small bonuses to barbs and unit making on prince, some think they get happiness bonus but i think that was proven wrong.

 

[phantomkp]

There's a post here somewhere that shows the xml file, they get very small bonuses to barbs and unit making on prince, some think they get happiness bonus but i think that was proven wrong.

The XML has leftover lines from Civ 4, so any suggestion that Prince level gets bonuses is misinformed.

John Shafer verified that Prince doesn't cheat or get bonuses other then occasional cheaper unit costs.

 

[phantomkp]

from Jon shafer himself:

"Just to clear some things up - on Prince the AI plays by almost the exact same rules as the human. It receives a marginal discount to unit gold and supply costs, but that's pretty much it. There's no cheating with construction, gold production, happiness, puppet rules, research agreements, visibility, combat odds or whatever else. It has basic insight into the total military strength of other players, but no more so than what's available to the human via the demographics screen.For anyone digging throught the XML files: there's actually a number of fields from Civ 4 which we never cleaned up, and some of them misrepresent what effects there are on various difficulty levels - so don't take all of those numbers as gospel. The values in the AI strategy files are for steering AI preferences, and have nothing to do with bonuses.

If it seems like the AI has a lot more cities/happiness/units than the human at that level, it's merely that the AI focuses much more on those aspects of the game than a human does (perhaps too much so, in fact - at the expense of buildings and gold, in particular). One of our goals going forward is to shore up some of the biggest and most obvious AI deficiencies. The new rules added to Civ 5 pose a pretty big AI challenge, so we're spending as much time as possible working on this part of the game."