Big jump to Emperor

[Goethe80]

Bongo,
I would have sent out more suicide curraghs/galleys to find the other AIs much earlier, but I do agree that one of the biggest things on Emp (for me anyway) is that it's quite impossible to do everything by yourself (ie. research & wonders) and that you have to let the AI do some of the work. Besides, especially for research (which basically affects whether or not you beat the AI to wonders), to be ahead, you have to outresearch the AI and all of the AI's trade partners, which is really quite tough considering the bonuses they get.

[Jarouik]

Originally posted by vmxa1
AI Bonuses
Def Land Units---------0 0 0 2 4 6 8 12
Off Land Units----------0 0 0 1 2 3 4 6
Start unit type 1-------0 0 0 0 0 1 1 2
Start unit type 2-------0 0 0 0 1 2 2 4
Extra free support-----0 0 0 4 8 12 16 24
Bonus for each city----0 0 0 1 2 3 4 8
Max gov transition-----0 0 0 4 3 2 2 1
Cost factor--------------20 12 10 9 8 7 6 4
AI to AI trade----------110 120 130 140 150 160 170 200

Other variables
Citizens born content----4 3 2 2 1 1 1 1
Citizens quelled-----------1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Attack bonus vs barbs---800 400 200 100 50 25 0 0
Percent optimal cities---100 95 90 85 80 70 60 50

This is a nice sum up of the differences between difficulty levels. I think the higher levels are too biased against the human player, considering the bonuses the AI gets. (Of course, this is the only easy way to make them harder to play...) I think the worst thing about Emperor (5th from the left, I think) is the amount of AI support free units compared to lower difficulties.

Otherwise Emperor is quite OK for me, but I really don't like the unrealistic amounts of troops all the AIs seem to have. They are silly to look at even if I am not at war with them... my armies are usually about one fifth of the AIs unit numbers, and still I can beat them if necessary by using more modern technology. So I would like the unit bonuses to be lessened (actually have done it myself sometimes) and shift the AI priorities to science and growth (especially at the point where building Hospitals gives the human player the upper hand in the modern era, since the AI doesn't care for Sanitation at all, even if I *wanted* to give it them when trading).

[Last Conformist]

Perhaps not at 5:1, but the AI is such a lousy general that you should be able to defeat it with same-tech units even if seriously outnumbered. I've taken out nummerically superior AI armies with inferior units on occasions. (Eg, Swords and Catapults against Medievals and Pikemen.)

[Goethe80]

The greatest issue with the AI's war strategy is that they're unable to use their units to their best effect. They don't use bombardment units in large enough numbers to have any decent effect, and they have no clue how to use armies (or to deal with them for that matter).
So give enough catapults and archers, it's not all that hard to take out even musketmen (which actually happened to me when I played a game without any iron/saltpeter available until navigation....)