What is more difficult?

[Ming]

I was kind of hoping that too since even the designers admit that Aggresive AI makes the game harder

I have really mixed feelings on the tech trading issue. I think it depends on the game conditions. When I used to play the standard world with two large continents, I always thought it made it harder. I would spend my time eliminating potential trade partners early on my continent, while the other continent, far out of reach in the early game was busy trading their butts off as many times, they were all the same religion. But on single continent games, I'm not really sure.

[DaveV]

For what it's worth, here's what Blake said after working on the BtS AI:

Because Aggressive AI does not so easily fall victim to trivial rushes, it does play significantly harder - or at least, promotes a balanced game.

(As for why this is: There was way too much whining about the AI training too many units. So the default AI is pretty wussy, much like the default player. Aggressive AI embraces unit spam in all it's glory).

I would have liked to remove the Aggressive AI setting and replace it with Peaceful AI setting, making aggressive AI the default and making it clear what the suboptimal setting (for challenge) is, but that wasn't high on my list of things to get changed...

edit:
So to just spell it out.
Non-aggressive AI is non-competitive. It's what players wanted.

I think it depends on playstyle - if you're not going to rush or attack the AIs, but you build enough military to keep the AIs from declaring on you, then aggressive may well cause the AIs to spend too much of their economy on troops.

Tech trading off: makes the game easier if you're playing at a level you usually win (harder for the AIs to catch up, and they can't trade for the basic techs which they should research but don't). If you're playing at deity/immortal, a lot of the strategies seem to revolve around researching some tech the AI usually ignores, and trading it for a couple dozen techs. So, the game becomes harder at high levels.

Vassals - depends too much on playstyle and map type to make a blanket statement.

[rah]

I'd love to here from someone that wins consistently at immortal or deity.
I know at the settings I play, a win at either of those levels would be a shock to me.

[slnz]

I'd love to here from someone that wins consistently at immortal or deity.
I know at the settings I play, a win at either of those levels would be a shock to me.

I guess I'd fall into that category. From the top of my head I'd say I win 90% of Immortal/Marathon, 75% of Immortal/Normal and an occasional Deity/Marathon here and there on Random/Shuffle or Fractal starts. Haven't won on Deity/Normal yet.

On Deity I cannot conceivably see a win without tech trading - you just can't stay on the tech sled when the AI era bonuses start to kick in on top of the ridiculous default bonuses. On Immortal it's definitely doable even for me. In either case it makes the game significantly harder.

Any kind of settings that favor warfare, like Marathon speed, can make the early game harder but late game easier if/when you can stabilize from the worse starting position to tech parity and kick off the vertical growth. Agg AI emphasizes this, as if they start next to you with a Copper in their BFC it can be as definite curtains as Vedic Aryans on turn 10.

Vassals off would make things easier, as the low unit-prob AIs just love to peacefully vassal (-> instant techswaps) to high unit-prob ones due to the high unit numbers and hence high power ratings, but never to you since there's almost no way to rise to equal power rating before the Industrial/Modern era.

EDIT: If Blake says it's harder, then it's harder Though on the upper levels the "trivial early rushes" stop being so trivial sometimes. I guess I haven't utilized the setting enough to get a proper feel for it (majority of my games are all default setting).

[Felch]

I play at Noble/Epic, love vassals and hate tech brokering. Vassals are great for those late game world wars, like Blau pointed out. Tech brokering always seems to give the AI a huge advantage in my games, since I generally don't initiate diplomatic contact. I suppose at higher levels things change, but I can't micromanage enough to get into playing at that much higher of a level.

[wodan11]

I almost always play at Immortal. I've been trying to complete Ozzy's challenge game on Diety but it's been tough mostly because it's boring as get all, the second time around. I'm up to 1400AD or so. Anyway Immortal's where I usually play.

Frankly I don't put too much stock in score, or game level. To me the game's all about experimentation and different strategies.

[rah]

Immortal huh. What settings and map type/size?

[Hauptman]

Im consitently winning emporer, And going to have to bump it up to imortal here soon. My last emp game i was still blowing up longbows with infantry....

As far as settings, i dare say aggresive makes it easier simply due to the fact, you know whats comming. non aggresive ai rushes are in fact a supprise and have sent me scrambling more than once. But i havent played without agresive AI in years...

I always play with no tech brokering. Simply because i want the ability to gift military techs to friends without fear of them giving it to my biggest rival. Anything that limits tech trading however slows the AIs down. so this makes things easier for me to play without micromanaging tech trades every single turn to maintain an advantage. IE easier gameplay, not easier competition.

Vassals and alliances add dynamics to the game. Dynamics can swing either way and change from game to game. Ive had terra games where i sat in north america and watched Justinian vassalize the entire old world, thinking to myself "what the hell am I going to do now?". Then other games where I vassalized everyone and cruised to an easy victory.

[Theben]

I consistently win at Monarch, and have won 1 or 2 at Emperor. And I play with Agg AI and raging barbs as pretty much the only notable changes. Pangaea, fractal, or continents... rarely big/medium and small. I agree with Hauptman as far as vassals, and feel that any competent player will be able to handle barbs with or without GW. So as to tech trading:

I figure if a civ is smart enough to utilize a tech thruout its empire it's smart enough to trade it to someone else. To those who feel a player can manipulate trading better than the AI, I'd say that a player is also better able to manipulate espionage and G Spies to make up for tech trading being limited or off. May as well leave it on.

[wodan11]

Immortal huh. What settings and map type/size?

Varies. Usually huge with a couple extra AIs added. I switch between brokering and no.

[Ming]

I guess I'm still surprised that people say that aggresive AI is easier, when even the designers claim it's harder.
I think a little reality check is needed by some

[slnz]

I guess I'm still surprised that people say that aggresive AI is easier, when even the designers claim it's harder.
I think a little reality check is needed by some

Have you considered the possibility that it makes things harder on levels most people play, but on the highest levels, where the AI ends up with tons and tons of more units even without it, it can just hamper them?

Judging by your (I assume half-quoted) comments about "wonderspamming, never building an army and staying miles ahead of the AI" or "trivial early rushes" (both of which obviously don't apply on the higher levels) these claims are meant for the game in general and the bulk of players ("it's what the players wanted"), not the higher levels where the players have learned how to exploit the idiotic war AI more and where the AI doesn't need help to fight credible wars in the first place and can focus more on the things it doesn't suck so bad at.

[wodan11]

Yep what slnz said.

For example, Ozzy's game which as I said I'm replaying on diety. Every single turn I get as many as 30-40 units battering against my defenses. Every single turn. This is the first game, ever, that I actually turned off combat animations.

There comes a point where more AI units and more wars does not really mean anything. Either you're prepared for an onslaught or you're not. If we graphed preparedness vs # of AI wars/# of AI units, it'd probably be a decreasing curve of diminishing effect. At the extreme, it's simply a constant, and at the far extreme (as I'm finding now) it's actually annoying. (Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.)

(For those who don't know, Ozzy set up a game with variable leaders, all aggressive/combat oriented, OCC, always war. The first time I played it I left it on the settings he had set it on, which was Noble or Monarch or something. This second time I put it on diety.)

Anyway this doesn't say so much about me as it does about aggressive AI (or always war). Think about how many resources are expended wasting thousands of hammers every turn. If the AIs would have spent those resources on research, would I have a prayer?

[Ming]

Have you considered the possibility that it makes things harder on levels most people play, but on the highest levels, where the AI ends up with tons and tons of more units even without it, it can just hamper them?

Have you ever consdiered the possibility that you are wrong... especially since the game desiginers and the person that did extensive work on the AI disagree with you

Again... I'm surprised how people can defend what the designers say is a lamer AI. Frankly, if you want to play an easier version, why don't you just lower the level you are playing at

[slnz]

Have you ever consdiered the possibility that you are wrong... especially since the game desiginers and the person that did extensive work on the AI disagree with you

Yes, I have. Have you thought if these game designer remarks actually apply to the conversation at hand?

This conversation obviously doesn't serve any purpose, since you just bypass my arguments without notice and retort with the same sentence for the fifth time. I'll just say this one more time: Saying 'this makes the game harder' doesn't mean it makes every level harder for everyone, just that it makes it harder on average, for the most people, and on average people play something like Noble, where the AI is obviously incompetent in almost all ways, especially militarily. The designers knew this, so they made the higher difficulty level AI handicaps complement this shortcoming by giving them huge tech&production bonuses and more starting techs&units instead of just making them do more units (which doesn't help the AI in the long run, as they fall behind in tech).

If I had any sense I would have stopped this fruitless argument 5 posts ago, but I guess I can't help myself. After all I'm a newbie in denial who just wants easy wins.