"Fair" Game

[Randawl]

After looking at the information regarding modifiers for each difficulty setting in C4BtS_reference, I wondered why there is no setting where all modifiers are at x1.00 for both AI and players such that no party receives any bonuses or extras of any sort.
Is there a small mod that exists that can achieve this? If not, could any of you explain how one would go about making these changes? I'd really like to play "fair" games.

[Hauptman]

I thought noble was "fair". Even if it isn't, its darn tootin close.

[Sabre2th]

My understanding is that Noble was carefully balanced to make it as fair as possible. The modifiers aren't exactly x1 because the AI does still need tweaking in a few areas to make up for the lack of actual intelligence.

[Krill]

Ai should in all fairness be renamed to AS though, at least until sentience is achieved.

[MJW]

The AI has to cheat in the extreme early game in order to not killed by the barbs. This helps grow a little faster in the early game (it still can not hold a candle to a decent player.) The bonus are nominal otherwise.

[Krill]

Nah, the AI has to "cheat" so that the player doesn't rush it and beat it to a bloody pulp.

[Randawl]

The reference sheet shows the following for Noble difficulty:
research ×1.00
unit cost ×0.50
distance maint. ×0.75
civic upkeep ×0.80
inflation ×0.90
AI costs ×1.00

Unless I am misunderstanding, this means that all AI costs are x1.00 and the player receives reduced costs on units, distance maintenance, civic upkeep, and inflation.

It is not until Deity that all costs except player research and all AI costs are equal:
research ×1.30
unit cost ×1.00
distance maint. ×1.00
civic upkeep ×1.00
inflation ×1.00
AI costs ×0.60

This is of course ignoring other changes in difficulty levels in regards to barbarians, health/happiness, attitude, and free techs/units.

Do any of you know of a way for example to change Noble's modifiers for the player to also be x1.00 to make things truly even? Or is there something I am misunderstanding?
I also once read that the AI receives significantly reduced unit upgrade costs, is there a way to remedy this as well?

[LDiCesare]

You misunderstand. Look at the Civ4Handicapinfo.xml file:

Deity:
InflationPercent 100% = x1.
AIInflationPercent 20% = x0.2
The ai inflation on Deity is 5 times less than the player's.
Your x 0.60 is wrong. The AI factors vary widely at a given level.
At noble, inflation = 0.9 for players, 0.7 for ai.
On warlords, inflation = 0.8 for both, so the fairest inflation difficulty level is warlord.
For civic upkeep, the fair point is between prince and monarch...
So, no, there is no fair level for all parameters.

The best thing to do if you want fair play is to edit the Civ4HandicapInfo.xml and put every figure to 100%, or the figure and AI equivalent to identical values (not all values have an ai counterpart, research for instance).

[Randawl]

Thank you for the information!

I've modified all relevant values to 100 but I am curious how changing health/happy bonus and free units will effect things. Is it safe to assume that these values apply to both player and AI or is there some hard-coded AI value at each setting?

Thank you for your time.

[LDiCesare]

how changing health/happy bonus and free units will effect things. Is it safe to assume that these values apply to both player and AI or is there some hard-coded AI value at each setting?

I've only cast a quick glance at the code, but I'm pretty sure health/happy bonus apply to both players and ai (CvCityAI inheriting from CvCity).
I strongly doubt there's much that's hardcoded in the game, so I figure it's quite safe to assume all such values apply to both players and ai.

[Randawl]

Much obliged!

[Egbert]

Originally posted by Randawl

I also once read that the AI receives significantly reduced unit upgrade costs, is there a way to remedy this as well?

A work around I sometimes use is to give my surplus obsolete units to a small civ that is fighting a large civ. (I can rarely afford to upgrade all of my units so I build new ones and use some of the old ones for "proxy wars").

The small civ will trash its science spending to afford the upgrades so I also give him a tech or two, maybe the military tech tech it needs for an upgrade.

I do this to "add to the carnage".

[Randawl]

Interesting idea

[snoopy369]

Note that making all values 1 is not going to give a 'fair' game, it is going to give a very easy game for the player. The AI is not a particularly good player, so it needs the bonuses to stay competitive