Emperor level needs a rethink.

[Dominae]

What Tall Stranger meant is that you cannot expect to have the tech lead in the Ancient era if you're just a new Emperor-level player. Knowing what to expect is the first step toward beating a difficulty level (and having fun at the same time).


Dominae

[vmxa1]

I think that is most important thing Dom. It was the same thing when I used to ride century rides. Knowing what to expect allowed me to go on during the days you did not feel up to it. You knew you could and so you did.

[Tall Stranger]

Thanks, Dom. You put it far better than I did.

Stuie, I should have been more precise and stressed that the tech race is a major challenge for new Emperor players, and it can lead to directly to the discouragement Jeem was expressing. If you come into the game not expecting a tech lead until the middle ages, you'll play smarter and be less upset when things aren't exactly like they were on Monarch.

As you point out, it is "possible" to get parity by the end of the ancient era. I would hasten to add, however, that it is unlikely for a new Emp player. I guess I went too far when I said not to "imagine it's possible."

[Gibsie]

I don't know why people are so adamant that the AI gets no combat bonus, just because the editor doesn't say so. If the AI does get a bonus it probably runs deeper than the values in the editor, and I agre with Jeem- the kind of battle results that I have experienced on Emperor difficulty simply aren't from chance. The AI consistently defeats my units when it has a lower fight value, such that you can't even be confident of victory when your fighting value is double that of your opponent.

[Jeem]

Firstly, I'm not new to Emperor level. I've been playing at Emperor since the origional Civ3 (the original Civ actually - showing my age here...)

My point is not merely about the difficulty of the game at this level, but at the way in which certain tactics are practically useless.

Basically, a builder game is not suited to this level because the AI is too powerful and aggressive (btw - aggression factor means squat in this game because everyone will pick on you if you're weak)

I have no trouble leading the tech race in the early era either. Philosophy/Literature gets me at least to parity and builds me the GL every game.

What I'm saying about culture is there is no need for it to be so difficult at this level. The production bonus alone (10% at emperor) is not enough for the AI to be almost double my Culture during the game. I build temples and libraries as soon as I can - before granary's usually.

The AI must not suffer so badly with corruption or something at this level. There must be something in the game that is giving them a huge empire-wide bonus.

BTW - I played Mountain Sage's savegame and you can read my report on it now.

[Tall Stranger]

Gibsie,

There are several reasons people don't believe that the AI has a combat bonus at higher levels:

1. It is not in the editor;
2. Most of us do not see wildly unlikely/ improbable combat results on a sustained basis;
3. I believe Firaxis has stated on a number of occasions that the combat system does not change at the higher levels.

I mean no disrespect, but I honestly think you are engaging in selective memory here. It's much easier to remember the time the RNG ripped you off than the times you won against all odds.

If you really believe that an AI combat bonus exists, I encourage you to create a scenario to test it. As I said, I am fairly certain that others have done such tests, but perhaps you will catch something they did not.

[vmxa1]

One of the impacts of emp or higher games is that you do not get very many ancient wonders. This wil cripple culture.

As to selective memory, here is what I do know. Back in 1992 I used to play in a lot of 9 ball tourneys. When I pratcied by myself, I would often think things went well and I was running lots of racks. Ducking very and all of that. But I was not remember things clearly, I was forgetting a miss here or there.

I finally had to use a drill to really see how things were going. A simple drill set me straight. Rack the 9 balls and break. Take ball in hand and run out the rack. Start with any numbe rthat suits your game. When you make a miss of any kind, you must start all over. When you make ten racks, move up another ball. If you get to 6, move it out to 20 racks before adding a ball.

Now you will not be in doubt about how you did. Same for combat in civIII. Human nature will cause us to over look reality.

[Jeem]

It's not that simple. I and others now seem adamant that there is some other hidden factor involved. My personal belief is that the AI gets a combat bonus at Emperor.

When you watch 4 horsemen beat 3 Musketmen, a Medieval infantryman and a Pikeman behind walls 3 cities in a row, you begin to understand that this is definitely happening. What's more - a very noticable thing is the way that on almost every attack (regardless of relative attack/defence, your units always seem to take at least 1 point of damage. Tonight I witnessed 3 Crusaders losing an average of 2 hit points each when attacking archers in the open.

What I believe is that you don't notice it so much if you 'rush' cities with lots of inferior units. This is because you expect to lose loads of them - it's the times where the numbers are even and you have all the bonuses that it tends to go to crap.

This doesn't happen at Monarch and below. It happens more at Monarch than it does Warlord though. I believe there is a constant percentage effect in operation that gives the AI a combat bonus dependent on the level. There MUST be.

[Jeem]

Another thing - goody huts give results depending on level. This cannot be questioned. At Monarch level you can realistically expect one tech and the odd map/unit for every few huts you open. At Emperor level, getting anything except barbarians is a bonus. A rare bonus.

This is not mentioned anywhere in the rules and I'm pretty sure you can't change it in the editor either. Firaxis will probably say that there's nothing in the game that makes goody huts more likely to spit out barbs at emperor level also.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Jeem
Another thing - goody huts give results depending on level. This cannot be questioned. At Monarch level you can realistically expect one tech and the odd map/unit for every few huts you open. At Emperor level, getting anything except barbarians is a bonus. A rare bonus.

This is not mentioned anywhere in the rules and I'm pretty sure you can't change it in the editor either. Firaxis will probably say that there's nothing in the game that makes goody huts more likely to spit out barbs at emperor level also.

Goody huts do give different results according to different difficult levels -- and Firaxis has stated this more than once.

I am sympathetic to your frustrations at Emperor. However, there are no combat bonuses at higher levels. Tall Stranger offered up the perfect advice -- make a map and test it. It is relatively easy to set up a scenario that allows a bunch of your units to attack AI units and compare the results with expectations. In fact, it is so easy, that I did so in 5 minutes while writing this post.

The attached zip file contains a test scenario that removes the terrain defensive value of grassland and places 50 warriors, for each of you and the AI, right next to each other. Each warrior (and each experience level) has 10 HPs. The scenario automatically puts "preserve random seed" OFF, and allows you to play at any difficulty level. Feel free to play at Chieftan, save the game at 4000 BC, and then "stack attack" the AI stack by using "J" and goto. Just total the HPs lost be each side, reload, and repeat until you have a what you think is a sufficient number of trials (probably 4 or 5 reloads is sufficient). Repeat the process at Sid level and compare results. Please share the outcome of the tests!

Catt

Edit: Doh! Added attachment in next post

[Catt]

[Tall Stranger]

The nice thing about this game is that you can easily replicate virtually any scenario you like with the editor. I would therefore suggest that you set up a relatively simple scenario with multiple units, calculate in advance the expected ratio of wins/ losses and then run the scenario a few dozen times. Compare your actual results with the expected, and see if your theory that Firaxis is secretly cheating you is true.

As you can tell, I am highly skeptical of your claims. I have played countless games at Emp, with many many battles, and overall the combat seems about right to me. Come back with real results that can be replicated by others (i.e. tell us exactly what you did) and which demonstrate a statistically significant finding, and we'll talk. Otherwise, it just sounds like you're complaining about bum luck.

[Tall Stranger]

WOW,

Nice job Catt. Thanks for the help.

[WarpStorm]

Originally posted by Jeem

What I'm saying about culture is there is no need for it to be so difficult at this level. The production bonus alone (10% at emperor) is not enough for the AI to be almost double my Culture during the game. I build temples and libraries as soon as I can - before granary's usually.

The AI must not suffer so badly with corruption or something at this level. There must be something in the game that is giving them a huge empire-wide bonus.

At Emperor the AI is only paying 80% for production (this applies to shields, research and population growth). In addition, the AI-AI trade bonus is pretty high at 150%. In addition to this, they will get at least 2 free units per city. This is a significant economic bonus.

You are correct about corruption, they are playing as if they were playing a Regent level game wrt to corruption and unhappiness.

[vmxa1]

Hum, I don't recall seeing any post by Firaxis that huts are level dependant. Here is the post I have on the subject. Understand it is not necessarily the final word and patches and addon could affect it:

About the goody huts, here is the quote from Firaxis:


quote:
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It's not really that it's difficult; it's just that it was implemented by an intern . Here are the conditions:

Gold:
*The tile must not have any type of resource or luxury on it.

Maps:
--always available

Nothing:
--always available

Settler:
*Player must not have a settler (active or in production) or any unit with the Settle AI strategy.
*Number of player's cities must be <= (TotalCities / NumActivePlayers).

Mercenaries (skilled warrior):
*There must be a unit available to the Barbarians as well as the player and that unit must be able to be built (or have been built) by some player in the game.

Tech:
*Player must still be in Ancient Times.

Barbarians:
*Player must not have Expansionist trait.
*There must not be a city within a 1-tile radius.
*The player must have at least 1 city.
*The player must have at least 1 military unit.
*The unit popping the hut must not have the "All Terrain As Roads" ability.


__________________
Mike Breitkreutz
Programmer
FIRAXIS Games


Last edited by Mike B. FIRAXIS on Aug 01, 2002 at 09:37 PM

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