AI bonuses and penalties per difficulty level

[Dis]

Does anyone know what effects difficulty level has on the AI? I mentioned this in the war thread. But I find myself amazed at how the AI can field such large armies at warlord level and still find time to build city improvements. So I'm curious how they can do this.

Or is the AI just that good? . They do seem to have a better AI than any other civ game I played. It's good you can't just roll over them. But sometimes rolling over the AI is so much fun. Right now I can do it when I'm technologically superior. But right now, my cavalry can barely take a city with longbowmen defending it. And it takes a lot of them, because the AI builds a lot of longbowmen.

[Aileron]

Apparently at Noble the computer gets no bonuses or penalties with respect to the player. If that's true (read it somewhere, can't remember when or where), then yeah I agree the AI is really good. Or I suck, which is probably more likely.

[Dis]

I have beaten noble games (space race). But I'm playing warlord because I want to kick some ass militarily. I'm doing so on the egyptians. But as I said, they only have longbowman (which I still have to soften up with my frigates) There is no way in hell I could think about taking a city defended by rifleman. Yes I'll be doing a warmongering mod in the near future. The game is not balanced in terms of builder, conquerer, and hybrid styles. SMAC is still the best balanced game in this regard.

[Aileron]

I think the comabt system is screwy. It really favors defenders. That and the AI being less agressive favors the non-combat victories.

If I have more than double the amount of attackers than the guy has defenders in a city (same unit, say Longbow), then I think I should have a good chance of taking the city. But that's definately not the case in Civ 4.

The "cultural walls" thing, or whatever people are calling it, makes cities really hard to take too. Do you know if that culture defense bonus is reduced by catapults and canons, or only the physical defense bonus (walls, castles)??

[Handel]

Originally posted by Aileron
I think the comabt system is screwy. It really favors defenders. That and the AI being less agressive favors the non-combat victories.

It's just like in the real warfare - the attackers must have either a huge air and artilery superiority, or have at least tripple infantry superiority to have a fair chance.

As for the other ways of winning - they are added just to "have something". I bet someone there it is politically correct
Actually who wants a peacefull economic challenge will just play some of the peacefull economic games instead. Guess Firaxis will never make GTA, because it is not "politically correct"

[Melboz99]

Yeah, the game favors defenders.

I had my Rifelman defeated by a defending longbowman. He was on a hill, but so was I.

I've had no trouble taking down Alexander on Warlord.

He had Longbowman and Grenadiers, but I had Calvary and Cannons.

4 Cannons seemed to be just the right amount for a stack. They could take out defenses in a single turn, leaving the city available to my Calvary.


I took about 15-20 Calvary and 4 Cannons and marched my way around Alexander's civ. I would bombard the city, take it with the Calvary, and then move 2 or 3 Infantry in from my core.

Once the Calvary healed it was off to the next city. I never lost one of them.

Round about 50 turns later his entire civ was destroyed. Or rather, captured. I only razed one city, which was off on some far flung island.


The thing is though, many a time my Calvary had a real hard time taking out simple things like Catapults, Knights (I lost one to a Knight), and Longbowman.

You would thing with First Strike not applicable against a Calvary they would have had an easier time with the Longbowman. Unfortunatley they didn't.

Dan O.

[LordShiva]

Dis and Aileron raise good points.

The AI builds too many defensive units (like, 8+ for cities, which is ridiculous - I mean, how many human players do that?), and too few attacking units (the odd annoying pillagers that you need to take out every now and then).

[Blake]

The Noble AI is actually fairly weak in my opinion. I havn't found a map type that really favors it, other than luck of the draw island type maps that could leave me without vital resources. I've also seen it do some pretty braindead things, like not improving terrain. And it seems to have a complete lack of awareness on Terra maps.

Still, it's a lot better than SMAC AI, and a lot more enjoyable than Civ3 AI.

[gakkun]

This game doesn't favour defenders you just have to attack properly.

For example choose the right civics, get the right promotions, barrage their defenses, do some collateral damage, and even with surperior units you have to overwhelm with numbers.

For example I would bring as many seige units as needed to get bombard their defenses down to 0 in one turn. Bring 1.5 times the number of defenders when you are superior units and more than 2 times if your units are inferior. Always check your odds before battle so you can watch out if you're attacking across a river or something that you might not notice. Afterall this is a maths game, if your Rifleman had lower odds than the Longbowman then it's useless to complain when the odds are already there before you even attack.

[dearmad]

The AI gets cheats at ALL levels- it is total bull**** the line firaxis has been feeding people about it being "equal" at Noble.

70% bonus v. barbarians.
upgrades units CHEAPLY (less than human)
big bonus vs. animals.
cheaper unit supply in enemy territory.
MUCH LESS war weariness.

[Backpack]

Dearmad -
Can you point me at an XML file or similar in game documentation of that?

Thanks

[Melboz99]

Speaking of AI cheats,


On my last game on Continents I shared a continent with Alexander.

We were very peacefull for the entire ancient through industrial ages. As such, we had open borders.


Somewhere around my middle ages, he plunked down two cities on the opposite side of my territory, right on my borders.

It didn't bother me much until I dicovered the tech that revealed Uranium.

Yep, sure enough, both cities were within 1 square of 2 of 3 Uranium deposits on that continent.

One city happened to be sitting directly on top of the Uranium.


Thing is, he wasn't even out of the Ancient age when he settled those. I finnally captured them at the end of the Great Indian/Roman War. He was still defending them with Longbowman, and this was about 100 turns after he put them there.

Dan O.

[dearmad]

Originally posted by Backpack
Dearmad -
Can you point me at an XML file or similar in game documentation of that?

Thanks

\Assets\XML\GameInfo\CIV4HandicapInfo.xml

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by gakkun
This game doesn't favour defenders you just have to attack properly.

Really? Explain...

For example choose the right civics, get the right promotions, barrage their defenses, do some collateral damage, and even with surperior units you have to overwhelm with numbers.

Err... So the attacker has to pick certain civics, get the right promotions, barrage defenses, do collateral damage, and even with superior units has to overwhelm with numbers. What about this doesn't favour defenders?

[Dis]

and I'm still not big on choosing the right civics to attack. Did the U.S. have to convert to a fundamentalist police state to take over Japan? Or to help conquer Germany?