On Difficulty Levels...

[ZEE]

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[Willem]

Look in GameInfo/Civ4HandicapInfos.xml. You'll see the differences there. If you're playing BtS, be sure to look at that folder, not the Vanilla/Warlords ones. The handicaps have been changed.

[ZEE]

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[Wiglaf]

You are adorable.

[Wiglaf]

Well, I didn't believe AAHZ at first. In fact, I thought this thread was only another example of him being bat**** insane and obnoxious.

But then I looked in the handicap XML files. As it turns out, there is a startling confession in there by Soren. Says something along the lines of "I am a lying, cheating bastard, and so is everyone I work with = 1".

I set the value to 0 and got an amazingly improved, lifelike AI that did not need to cheat. It was as if my dual core laptop from mid 2006 suddenly had the intelligence of a human being. Thanks for finding this XML file for us, AAHZ. You might be completely crazy, but your discovery will change the way AIs are constructed for generations to come.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
You are adorable.

He actually makes you look like a kindly saint Wiglaf.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Thanks for finding this XML file for us, AAHZ.

Hardly. This file has been known about for a long time. And I was the one who told him where to look in case you didn't notice.

[Wiglaf]

I was being sarcastic. It is good to know you think I'm more sane than AAHZ though

[Blake]

Sarcasm used appropriately .

To answer seriously, in case anyone who actually wants to know is reading this thread.

Over Prince, Monarch gets free Archery tech (this extends to starting with archers rather than warriors). That is the main difference.
Otherwise it gets ~5% more discount on various things (ie where prince is 5%, monarch is 10%).

Compared with Warlords, Monarch has lost the free worker and has had the bonuses to unit supply, unit upgrades, war weariness and inflation *significantly* reduced.

[MikeH]

On Warlords I was winning regularly on Monarch (under slightly idealised conditions), with "A Better AI" I was getting mullered on Monarch and having very competitive games on Prince.

With BtS I started my first game on Noble to have a nice relaxing look at all the new options and because of my inattention Shaka sneakily attacked me and captured my capital! I captured it back and razed his civ to the ground (well.. the crap cities, I kept the good ones) but still, an AI capturing a City is shocking enough, but on Noble? The whole thing set me back enough that winning this game is going to be a struggle.

Which is excellent, I feel more like the AI is playing a decent game rather than winning by 'cheating' and war against someone with a similar sized military is actually a dangerous pursuit now. On the downside, I am going to actually have to concentrate... especially when I start my next game on Prince.

[Unimatrix11]

One of my favorite new options in BTS is definetely "Tech brockerage off". Before the AI would swap techs like crazy and i had to give all (within the limits of fun) just to keep up with it even on noble. Now i play prince and it is just my level. My last (and first BTS) game was so awesomely close. Hammurabi started the ship first, but mine arrived before his did. Meanwhile Mensa was getting quite close to a cultural win. In order to slow Hammurabi down, there have been two big wars. In the first i took his uranium, while he used up all his nukes to pulverize (but not invade) my non-nuclear vassals - i refrained from using any nukes in that one. Then a bit later, i started the second war with 3 tacttical nuke strikes on 3 of his islands (the continents-map-script is great btw) - as he had no nukes (no uranium) left, both wars did see the use of nukes, without retaliation-strikes...