Difficulty increased since patch?

[TinCow]

I've been playing happily on Monarch level for a while now and found it to be a tough game, but I always squeeked by and won. Since the patch, however, I've been slaughtered quickly in all three Monarch games I have started. The opponents all declare war on me very quickly when I refuse to give in to their demands for all my tech, my world map, all my gold, and my eternal soul. They also gang up on me like they never did before, they attack me and never seem to war against each other (at least not in the ancient age... I've been defeated each time before reaching medieval.)

Is this just me having bad luck in a few games or has the patch changed the AI difficulty levels? I was almost ready to go onto Emperor difficulty, now I'm thinking of going back to Regent.

[Rimpy]

Yeah, I've noticed the same thing so far, but I wasn't sure if it was just bad luck or not. I've been playing Monarch too, which I can usually beat, just barely. But it does seem like the AI has gotten a lot tougher. Once the land runs out, you've got to be prepared to do battle.

I had polite relations with the Aztecs, and they declared war on me once the land ran out, and they refused to speak to me for about twenty turns. And I was only able to barely survive that crisis by reloading a save from about five centuries back and concentrating a lot more on my military than I normally would in pre-patch games.

And I've always thought the people complaining about AI cheating were just whiners who didn't want to play by the rules. But the AI tech trading in my post-patch games has really been unabashed cheating. For example, in my current game, I was the first civilization to run across the Iroquois after having discovered Navigation. They wanted to buy Currency and Construction (while I'm up to Navigation) and I would've sold it to them, except that they had no surplus resource of any kind. Their treasury had 0 gold, and their world map wouldn't be worth crap, considering they haven't even met another Civ yet.

I didn't trade contact with the Iroquois for as long as I could, even though the Aztecs declared another unprovoked war for refusing to do so. But the other Civs discovered Navigation before too long, and they eventually met the Iroquois a little later. Within a few turns, the Iroquois are caught up to all the other Civs in tech! And, no, they didn't have the Great Library. What is up with that??? The other Civs had to give up all those techs for nothing more than a worthless world map because I'm sure the Iroquois didn't have any other thing of value, and there's no way they could shell out enough gold for those techs, at least judging by the demands that the other Civs put on me.

The AI in this patch reminds me a lot more of the "Me Vs. The World" games that I was happy to leave behind in Civ2, and the number one reason why I like the AI in Civ3 a lot more than Civ2. But now the AIs seem to trade freely among themselves, and put outrageous demands on me whenever I try to trade with them.

The AI trading patterns are the only time in the game that I feel that the AI is playing by a different set of rules than I am, and thus "cheating." The AI does get production and starting unit bonuses when you play at higher difficulty levels, but I know about that handicap against me up front. On the other hand, the AI trades are much more shady, and I don't know what's going on. I'm guessing that the AI gets some type of bonus, like 200 imaginary gold in each offer.

It'd be nice to see some comments from Soren on this, he programmed the AI. I think that the AI is playing by a set of rules that's more altered than what the editor reveals.

Rimpy

[TheHobbit]

Yea...

I'd also have to mention the AI is easily seen as nowhere even close to realistic. They'll stab you in the back in seconds, so much for being polite what a bunch of bullcrap. Trusting the AI gets you killed in this game, I like fighting but the AI seems more like a team all against me than anything else. The AI trades techs with each other and is much more polite towards other computers than the poor human player. I wish the smaller empires would also stop refering to my civilization as puny thankyou very much even though I'm only the world superpower.

[bigboss]

I also seem to be having a harder time, but it could be simply because I haven't played in a while. I think this latest patch caused a lot of people to break out the Civ3 CD and give it another try.
I am still on my first post-1.17 game. I haven't been able to keep track of who is trading what with who because it has been a Me VS TheWorld since turn 20. I have contact with all 7 civs and I did notice that at least one of the weaker civs does not have several techs that I and the rest of the civs do. I base this on the fact that when I go to trade techs with them, none of my techs are available to trade with most of the civs, but with the one particular civ there are about 7 available to trade to them.

[Ironikinit]

Yeah, I noticed that tech trading really doesn't pay as well as it did in 1.16. I haven't got very far in my current game, though, so I can't say for sure. Hopefully it's just what I needed because monarch was a little too easy and emperor still out of reach.

If I have any complaint, it's that the AI didn't need help in the early game, it needed it in the late game. Perhaps it all amounts to the same thing.

[Kilroy_Alpha]

I'm noticing some of this too. The AI will rarely engage in fair trades AT ALL. Apparently keeping a few people from "tech-whoring" (which isn't really an exploit anyway, just competent diplomacy), is more important to Firaxis than a semi-realistic and most importantly, fun game.

And whenever you go to war, you can count on your enemy getting alliances with at least two other civs the very next turn.

This sucks.

[jabroni154]

Damn straight. I'd been trying to switch up to Regent over a couple of games to no avail so I dropped back down to Warlord such that I could make it to the industrial/modern age.

I was playing as the Germans and finally got a semi-decent starting position and was able to expand. Unfortunately (or fortunately), I was all alone on an alright sized island. I threw everything at MapMaking and luckily another island was within range of my galley.

So, found the Americans, the Greeks, and Japanese, started a couple of cities on the island, yada, yada, yada. I'm waaay behind on tech of the AI. After meeting enough Civs and enough $$, I get caught up to a decent level.

Now, here's the problem that I ran into. Americans declare war on the Greeks, I join in seeing as how my military is bigger and America is a bit bigger than myself. I take out two or three cities with my Knights/Longbowmen. I send up on a Caravel another force around to get the last city then I want.

The Americans make peace. Over the course of 2 turns, the Greeks suddenly add a Musketman when they were nowhere close to having the tech for Musketmen. Then, 1 turn later the city has a Rifleman? The Greeks had no gold and didn't have anything else to trade of value, how did they magically pick up all of those techs? For my civ which had a decent amount of gold, I couldn't trade the techs for the world. Yarrghhh!!!

Of course, I eventually got Democracy and got my cash up so I could buy such techs but sheesh, it seemed awful suspicious that in two turns, they went from Hoplite to Musketman to Rifleman.

[Ironikinit]

I was running away with the first game I started, so I began a new one on a small map. Tech trading is more expensive, but not out of reach. I think the GreaLib may have increased in value. It also seems that the AI MAY be somewhat more aggressive, too. I lost a game right quick when Germany attacked with archers before I had even started building spearmen.

It's a little premature to draw conclusions, but yeah, the game might be more difficult, or we might just be needing to think up new strategies.

I'd definately say that early wars haven't decreased in importance and may be harder to avoid. While not lower in importance, they might be less profitable. (Due to higher casualties, greater likelihood of rival cities being destroyed.)

I'll be interested to see what happens in the later game.

[steelehc]

I think its much harder. On Regent (I think) the AI would not pay anything per turn, no matter what I offered. 1 gold per turn for both maps, three techs, incense, ivory, iron, saltpeter, horses, four size nine cities, two size twelve cities, and eleven size six and under cities. Now fut the whuck is up with that?

I have also experienced the massive AI tech trading, as well as comm trading.

Steele

[Fidel]

i played usually on monarch and the games tended to end in my tight victory
now i noticed a couple of things
1) AI does not make dumb cities anymore
2) it trades a lot and i tend to lag incredibly in techs
3) unless i fullfill all the ultimatata, i get a war on me pretty soon
4) i have to monitor foreign relations closely. i created a tight little civ between germans (argh), babs and iroquese. i first fought a war with germans to grab a city and cripple them a bit. then hammurabi declared war on me and iroquise. i quickly contacted aztecs and bribed them into alliance. It is very important to give a lot for setting up any counterweight at the beginning. once there are two blocs, you will survive and allignments will go both ways. if you decide to fight it alone, you are toast.
5) AI is tactically even smarter and it is not very hard to get outmaneuvred
6) i managed now to pull out of the wars for the time being and i am doing some catch-up. now i get to build a wonder or two. the real test will be the effectiveness of the AI in the modern times. it tended to lag behind in the industrial age, so i have my fingers crossed.....

so far, patch is great

[Alex]

I also noted that the AI is more agressive now. And tactically smarter.

Playing as the English. France declares war against me for no apparent reason (we had recently traded luxuries). Then they start to send huge stacks of swordsmen toward a recently founded city (Brighton) south of one of their cities. They tear down a road linking Brighton to London, but fortunately I had set up another road between both cities.
My gov was Republic, thus I could not pop-rush any defense and had not much money to do it. Fortunately, London, my most productive city, could create pikemen very fast, plus horsemen.
Then France, on a very smart move, pillage the roads that connect me to iron and horses.
Out of pure desperation, I start to crank out spearmen with all my resources, and I had managed to rush a pikeman and a horseman in Brighton (plus another horseman in London) before my treasury dried.
I successfully repelled the first wave of French swordsmen, using horsemen to outmaneuver them, while my pikeman resisted their attacks. But my horsemen ended up dying and my pikeman was barely resisting the attacks. Using the other road connecting London to Brighton, I managed to send a horseman and two spearmen towards my endangered city, and then the French... pulled back.
They saw that Brighton would be difficult to take over, and started moving towards Nottingham, which was poorly defended. Fortunately, their losses may have ringed a bell on Joan's head, and she accepted to discuss a peace treaty before their swordsmen could get to Nottingham. But I had to give her two techs in return!
A fun game, by any means.

[Thrawn05]

I think it is, I was just getting to monarch when the new patch came out. I have found myself going back cheiften, cause this damn AI won't trade tech without me giving an arm and a leg, and a city or two.

I love it!