2861

Ah, good old Ranking Ladder. I wonder how many kids even know who Dan Quayle is today?

2862

Hey all,
I’ve just released my “Duke” difficulty mod for consumption:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=15430

This adds a new difficulty level for those that thought “king” level cheated too bad, but “Prince” was too easy.

2863

I often end up having multiple AIs declare on me at once despite not even being the strongest Civ.

It’s because you are weak. If you don’t defend yourself, they will attack. In my current game I pushed forward expanding, and built very little defence. I got a warning from the Egyptians that I should be careful and make a stronger army. About ten turns later the Egyptians AND the Americans attacked.

But I was waiting, and had enough money and barracks, horses, iron, etc. to quickly churn out a big, powerful, experienced army. A few turns later, they were both begging for a peace treaty, offering me piles of gold in return. Nobody has declared war on me since.

It’s not broken. It’s just not working how you think it should. It’s actually making a very sensible decision: destroy you while you are weak, get your cities, rather than wait until you are more powerful later one.

2864

Something I have noticed is combining Freedom policies with specialists economies is really, really powerful. In Civ. V, there are no city specific limits on population growth. The only real limit is food, which as Tom in his most recent fidgit article pointed out can be had by paying a 1,000 gold to Maritime city state. Meanwhile, the right Freedom techs reduce specialists food needs by half, and reduce their unhappiness by half.

Also, I am really missing the health mechanic. Universal happiness strikes me as even more arbitrary then previous iterations.

2865

Precisely. When I played peacefully I only had about 2-3 military units for barbarians. That (and if the open borders thing is true), the AI nations were quick to attack.

In my latest playthrough, I went total warmonger and crushed Egypt early on. Iroquois and Persia ganged up on me (along with their city state allies), but I crushed their armies and made puppets out of a nice chunk of their cities. They cried Uncle and once I was in the dominant position they never dared attack me again.

Meanwhile, Rome was my southern neighbor and Caesar had one look at my rampaging armies and was all humble and respectful when talking to me.

I’ve read that the game has four AI threads. A strategic-level AI, a tactical-level AI, and two more. Anyone else know anything about that?

2866

This works both ways although not as extreme. In my first game (huge map, playing as Egypt) I’ve built my empire from cotton. I’ll offer Cotton and ask the other Civ what’ they’ll pay. They usually offer gold, open borders, and a strategic resource (such as horses, iron, etc).

Luxury resources are more valuable than anything.

2867

How can you think both?
The AI is what it is right now. How can you be dissatisfied about its non-cheating performance AND about it cheating on higher difficulty levels? Don’t you at some point have to accept one or the other?

The psychological problem many player have with AIs and cheating, as described the Soren Johnsen article (already linked in this thread), really makes it a lose-lose situation for any developer.

2868

Easy. If you want to strangle a Civ it’s more realistic here, but the AI has a bit more to work with. And I’ve already read all of Soren’s great work. For me this is balanced better than King or Prince. Nothing wrong with giving people options. Sheesh.

2869

Sheesh indeed.

I just find the wording and reasoning odd. “Prince level is too easy, king cheats too much.” If you had written King was too hard, it would have made much more sense to me…

2870

Now get to work on a Frop Bog tile improvement for happiness upgrading.

2871

What world settings do you guys play in? I’m trying to find a not too large but not too small map (between standard and large really) and with good resource distribution and spread out civs/city states.

So, what setting do you guys use?

2872

I think I prefer the smaller maps. It doesn’t feel like there’s much benefit to having civs on the other side of the world that you’re never going to get to physically interact with.

I’m also really liking playing this archipelago game. I used to avoid anything to do with crossing water in Civ IV, but now naval stuff is much improved, this is great. I like the way everyone is accessible to everyone else.

I also use the legendary start option where available, just because I like the feeling of having an awesome super capital, even if I want the game to be challenging.

2873

BTW - I LOVE your name. I should be chicken caesar.

Continents or Inland Lake works really good for this.

2874

I believe what JP is trying to achieve is a harder AI without the AI cheating that happens at the King and higher levels. There are a lot of Civ fans that have in the past not bothered playing past Prince for that reason. The problem in Civ5 is that the general consensus is that Prince is not as hard as it was in previous games.

2875

It was a hard choice between Sir Digby and Numberwang. :D

@roBurky: I also like the island gameplay but I always get thrown into cold islands with lots of tundra and no other resources. /sadface

2876

Yes, “King” isn’t too hard at all. But I want to play at as fair a level as possible. Right now I can make the game harder by not spamming trading posts, but I still want economic depth & parity.

BTW - I can’t wait for a graphic mod for tradings posts. Those clutter up the world so bad it makes my eyes hurt.

2877

I tend to play with one fewer civ than the map suggests. This gives more space to the remaining civs.

2878

that’s one thing I really loved about galciv2, it had one difficulty level that clearly stated that it was the AI, full unleashed, but without and of the cheating bonuses. It was neat to focus on mastering that before you started tackling the higher difficulties

2879

Ah, I followed roburky’s advice and ended up on a temperate/cold island surrounded by 3 gold ore plots, ivory, deer and sheep.

Also, this is pretty basic stuff but I still have my doubts: do you guys leave a 2-3 heax buffer for development of your city(plus the 3 circling hexes around the city proper) before making another city or what? What rule of thumb do you follow?

And another question, what is this “mass trading post” strategy i’m reading about, basically people are maximizing pop growth and money in detriment of production, right?

2880

Interesting. The maps feel sparse to me with the suggested number of civs - you rarely get borders squashing up against each other. I’m not sure it’s a bad thing, but it feels odd.

I added an extra civ in on my most recent game.