Multiplayer Question

[Uncle_Joe]

I asked this over at the CivFanatics, but no one seemed to know the answer:

Does anyone know how the difficulty settings work in Multiplayer? Does the AI use the average of each player? The highest? The lowest?

Also, if I am playing with someone else and I select Prince and they select Noble, are they getting more 'free' happiness/health etc than me?

Thanks in advance for any help. If this has been asked and answered before, please post a link and I'll wade through and get it. I tried a Search, but found nothing that answered my question.

Thanks again!

[Locutus]

The AI by default plays at Noble, you can actually see this when you're setting up a new game, so I'm surprised noone could answer your question...

[Uncle_Joe]

Thanks. I understand that the AI plays at Noble by default. But what are the effects of the players selecting differnt levels? Unless I'm missing something, there is no way to change the AI players' difficulty setting directly is there? (that box is greyed).

Thanks again for the input though...I leeast I got a response here.

[Locutus]

Loads of stuff, check Assets/XML/GameInfo/CIV4HandicapInfos.xml

Some things are bonuses against animals/barbs, amount of animals/barbs, quality of starting loc, goody hut results, unit/building/tech/maintenance/civic upkeep costs, starting health/happines, etc...

[Uncle_Joe]

Perhaps I'm asking the wrong question?

In a nutshell:

I start a game via TCP/IP with a friend. By default, we are all set to Noble (us and the AIs). If I change my difficulty to Prince and he leaves his as Noble, what are the effects?

Does he have an advantage over me? Are the AIs playing under different conditions then if I left mine at Noble too?

Thanks again.

[Locutus]

Well, Prince is easier than Noble, so you obviously get more bonuses compared to Noble...

There are some handicap settings that seem to affect global settings, I'm not sure how this is resolved exactly in MP, but rest assured that Noble is still harder than Prince, even for an AI in MP.

[Uncle_Joe]

Prince is easier than Noble? Wow, I must really be missing something somewhere.

Anyways, thanks for the info!

[Locutus]

Okay, so I got the order reversed, give me a break, it's 2 AM over here

[Uncle_Joe]

k...thanks again....just making sure I wasnt going crazy.