Well, that was SOME game!

[Dom Pedro II]

First of all, lemme start by saying when you see that little option "AI Default Difficulty Level" DO NOT change it. You're going to go from fighting Burnsides to fighting Rommel. I realized that when in the game before this one I had about twenty-five to thirty Knights in a very concentrated attack on my northern front by the Persians.

Anyway, there were a lot of definitely weird things in this game. Not weird as in bugs but more like weird as in cool things. I started out on a very oddly-shaped peninsula of a rather small continent as opposed to getting the usual blob of land. The island had character to it! Anyway, by this point I've got maps of the whole world, and I am, sorry to say, at best a 3rd rate civilization. The good news is that there are FOUR AI civilizations (Chinese, Zulu, Indians, and Iroquois) who are stuck on one-city islands and have never been anything more than that. I've never seen one civ like that in a game let alone FOUR!

I got into one war with the Romans on my southern border who controlled about 2/3 of the continent. I launched a 15 Swordsman 6 Catapult army at Antium, and the ENTIRE force was wiped out save the catapults which I withdrew. They had upwards of six legions in that city. Meanwhile, I used horseman and swordsman to stave off hordes of their troops pouring over my borders on all fronts, but it didn't save Byblos (my southern-most city) from being burned to the ground. Of course, the fact that Veii defected to my side the next turn was a pleasant development...

Anyway, I got better... they didn't. By the next war, I had dozens of knights while they still used their Legions, and I lost A LOT of units in the assaults, but I managed to finally capture Antium and then Cumae.

So I was wondering... First of all, is the poor AI starting positions for those four civs a bug of sorts? I mean, is that supposed to happen that a civ gets stuck on a three-tile island? I don't mind really. I think it adds a bit of diversity to the civs in the game actually.

Secondly, did setting the "AI Difficulty Level" to a higher rating really improve AI intelligence and strength, or has 1.29 just made them more effective? Or did I just happen to play two games where they AI made all the right decisions? (Not that I'm complaining... I like when I think the AI could whoop me.)

[Rust]

I had a strange situation as well I had this one city at the bottom tip of my territory that was constantly getting attacked by the English Cavalry I had 10 cannons and was able to repel them easily and counter with my cavs and cannons. The English shipping was busy bombarding my shorelines while this was going on. However after about 5 turns of cavalry suicide runs against my well foritified city, the English bring all their ships together (like 20 Iron Clads) and focus only on bombarding that one city took it down to 7 pop from 12, destroyed numerous buildings and left my defenders in rags, allowing them to take it fairly easily shortly afterwards. This was on emporer with defualt rules though.

Also I have noticed that they do seem to leave more defense in their cities than before the patch.

[Grunthex]

According to one of the Firaxians (apologies for not recalling which one), by increasing the AI Default Difficulty, you actually made it HARDER for the AI. This is the level the AI plays it. So by increasing it from say, Regent to Emperor, the AI gets less content citizens, and such. I forget the exact effects, it's 4 AM.

[dunk]

That would be some very useful information.

So if I were to want a greater challenge, I would set the AI difficulty to "Chieftan" and play on Deity.

[I Am Jeff]

I asked this question a while ago. Soren replied to it. This should clear it up for you.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52411

[Dom Pedro II]

*Shrugs* Hmmm, well, I suppose then that the AI really did just happen to make all the right decisions in my last two games. Too bad though... I was hoping for someone that could give me a run for my money!

I started another game, and this time I had three civilizations stuck on 1-3 tile islands that were never able to expand beyond that.