Difficulty level

ruby_maser · November 4, 2002, 12:27

Starting out with a handicap (ie emperor level) in SP is almost necessary to create a challenging gameplay experience against the AI.

My question is:
Do we need to handicap every team in relation to
the AI for the MP teams to be happy?

I had someone telling me that, in one of the PTW games, the level was set at Regent and the AI's turned out like vassalized states almost. This may be a little excessive, but maybe we should consider bumping the difficulty down to Monarch so that we do not have to expend so much energy in competition with the AI as we do with each other. Just an idea.

Anyone have an opinion about this?

Randolph · November 4, 2002, 12:32

I think the AI is going to need all the help it can get. 4 AI, 4 Humans... I'm sure each team can deal with at least 1 AI civ. On anything bellow emperor they'll just be building cities for us.

IMHO

Donegeal · November 4, 2002, 12:41

Good topic. Added to the UN.

I'm not sure what type of opinion I have on this subject. We don't want them to be push-overs but we also don't want them to get in the way of dealing with humans.

Any AI will effect how we deal with each other. Any info (tech or map or whatever) sold to the AI will be able to be gotten from that AI at a much lower cost than what a human would place on that info. I guess I'd be against any AI.

ruby_maser · November 4, 2002, 12:42

Originally posted by Randolph
On anything bellow emperor they'll just be building cities for us.

There you go

DAVOUT · November 4, 2002, 12:56

The levels of difficulty have been programmed in order to make the competition with the AI more challenging. When all players are human, there will be no need to artificially strengthen the difficulty; they will take care of it! So the question is: will it really increase the fun to have the AI playing in a MP game? The danger is that the presence of the AI can have a significant strategic effect on one or several gamers, which could be extremely frustrating.

GodKing · November 4, 2002, 19:10

Diety. Lets see what we can do to win this one the hard way. It will force us to make teams, then once the AI's are gone, we can sift through the rubble and stab each other in the back.

Togas · November 4, 2002, 20:05

Originally posted by GodKing
Diety. Lets see what we can do to win this one the hard way. It will force us to make teams, then once the AI's are gone, we can sift through the rubble and stab each other in the back.

Oooo ... I like this! I think we'd have more fun in a game like this than we'd have just warrior rushing our nearest human neighbor.

We humans are forced by the massive AI advantage to band together just long enough to get our civilizations established, then the real backstabbing and world conquest begins!

--Togas

Jon Shafer · November 4, 2002, 20:20

Originally posted by Togas
Oooo ... I like this! I think we'd have more fun in a game like this than we'd have just warrior rushing our nearest human neighbor.

We humans are forced by the massive AI advantage to band together just long enough to get our civilizations established, then the real backstabbing and world conquest begins!

--Togas

I also agree, sounds very intriguing.

Arnelos · November 4, 2002, 23:59

Agree with the growing consensus here. We'll have to watch those warmongers carefully, but they'll be forced to be our buddy pals in the early going

DAVOUT · November 5, 2002, 04:28

Seeing this consensus, I cant help thinking that the three other human teams will reach the same conclusion : lets unite against the AI. If only one human team, led by early war experts - they exist - choose to destroy early a human team busy against the AI, the consensus strategy fails. At this point we know only that the danger of early wars comes mainly, if not only, from humans, and from the beginning any strategy must take this point into account. The presence of AI civ in the MP game makes things much more difficult, because we have to anticipate two completely different behaviours. The deity level will just compound this difficulty. I personnaly think that the very first game in MP should focalize on human teams and forget the AI teams.which would be introduced later to add complexity.

Randolph · November 5, 2002, 07:52

Wouldn’t it be funny if we all stabbed each other in the back and the AI ended up winning

DAVOUT · November 5, 2002, 08:08

This cannot be excluded.

:

ruby_maser · November 5, 2002, 09:11

: well I thought I started this thread to get the difficulty dropped

Its not a bad idea though... as long as every team would be cool with early wars against the AI. This might influence the choice of civs along more aggressive or militaristic lines which may not be in keeping with the original intention of this experiment. I wonder what the builder team is thinking right now

DAVOUT · November 5, 2002, 10:22

As usual, the builders will undertake early wars ... of necessity !

Randolph · November 5, 2002, 11:35

I'd prefer emperor myself. Enough so the AI isn't a complete pushover, but also isn't the focus of the game. The one thing I don't like about having AI in general is that it will skew the research rate. On deity (emperor to a lesser extent) the pace of early research will be much faster than with no AI (because: 1. the AI will research very quickly, 2. we will crush them and take their research). I’d also hate to see AI nations being used as “GL factories”.

DAVOUT · November 5, 2002, 12:22

Originally posted by Randolph
I'd prefer emperor myself. Enough so the AI isn't a complete pushover, but also isn't the focus of the game. The one thing I don't like about having AI in general is that it will skew the research rate. On deity (emperor to a lesser extent) the pace of early research will be much faster than with no AI (because: 1. the AI will research very quickly, 2. we will crush them and take their research). I?d also hate to see AI nations being used as ?GL factories?.

I agree Randolph.

Those who want the AI participating in the MP game are more or less conciously attempting to postpone the serious confrontation.

alva · November 5, 2002, 14:34

mmm, I still think there shouldn't be any AI

IMO if an ai is present, it's gonna be race to take them out asap, to gain as much as is possible and deny other humans civs the opportunity to do the same.

WHY have AI's running around, now that we finally have MP

Donegeal · November 5, 2002, 14:39

Originally posted by Arnelos
Agree with the growing consensus here. We'll have to watch those warmongers carefully, but they'll be forced to be our buddy pals in the early going

MUWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

realpolitic · November 5, 2002, 14:54

I vote empororer. Although we're likely to win in the CivIII democracy game, it took to the mid-Middle Ages before we lead in the stats, so we'll have to build & be cautious in the beginning. Once a human player attacks the AI he becomes a target, but if we aren't aggressive enough with the AI, then they become dangerous at this level.

Jon Shafer · November 5, 2002, 15:04

I agree with Emperor. It gives the AI enough bite to make things interesting, but I really don't think dealing with the AI should be the focus of this game...

I'll set up a poll.