What does difficulty level do?

[Imhotep]

How exactly does difficulty level affect the game?

[Zoythrus™]

It affects how many stars the AI get from their capital every turn.

Normally, everyone starts out with +2 stars/turn from their capital, but on Easy, Normal, Hard, and Crazy, the AI get +1/2/3/5 stars/turn. (yes, +5 stars/turn on Crazy, that's not a typo)

They also have higher aggression ratings.

[Imhotep]

Originally posted by Zoythrus™:

It affects how many stars the AI get from their capital every turn.

Normally, everyone starts out with +2 stars/turn from their capital, but on Easy, Normal, Hard, and Crazy, the AI get +1/2/3/5 stars/turn. (yes, +5 stars/turn on Crazy, that's not a typo)

They also have higher aggression ratings.

Thanks.

Is it possible to mod the stars per turn?

I found Hard difficulty quite easy, but am finding Crazy quite tough, for the time being at least.

I'd be interested to try playing with the AI getting 4 stars per turn.

[Zoythrus™]

No, it is not.

[KRT™Montaigne]

I'm finding the opposite. I played the game to death on the largest maps with the maximum bots working my way up to crazy. I beat 14 crazy bots by myself. They're just too easy. A possibly easier way to ramp up difficulty is enabling the AI to team up against a player or to be able to set that at the beginning of the game.

[Imhotep]

Originally posted by BM Montaigne:

I'm finding the opposite. I played the game to death on the largest maps with the maximum bots working my way up to crazy. I beat 14 crazy bots by myself. They're just too easy. A possibly easier way to ramp up difficulty is enabling the AI to team up against a player or to be able to set that at the beginning of the game.

Yeah, I quickly got to grips with it. I win almost every game now on Crazy level.

As I've said in another thread, there needs to be more higher difficulty levels. Especially, since it's so easy to do by just increasing the number of Stars the AI gets per turn.

It's better to have too many difficulty levels than too few. The highest level should be almost impossible, except to geniuses.

The hard part is going to be coming up with names for these new levels, since we're already at "Crazy".

[KRT™Montaigne]

Diabolical
Impossible
God Mode

[Imhotep]

Originally posted by BM Montaigne:

Diabolical
Impossible
God Mode

There's the hard part done!

[Zoythrus™]

We have no interest in adding more difficulty levels, we'd like to make the AI smarter. :)

[Imhotep]

Originally posted by Zoythrus™:

We have no interest in adding more difficulty levels, we'd like to make the AI smarter. :)

Easier said than done. That's the holy grail of strategy games.

If going down that route, then probably the simplest improvement would be for the AI not to attack when odds are unfavourable, such as a Defender attacking, well, most units, or a unit kamikaze-attacking a walled city and eliminating itself.

[Zoythrus™]

We are aware, but we'd rather make the AI better instead of sweeping it under the rug with 3 new difficulty levels.

[KRT™Montaigne]

Originally posted by Zoythrus™:

We are aware, but we'd rather make the AI better instead of sweeping it under the rug with 3 new difficulty levels.

Whatever works :)

[Imhotep]

If the AI Stars per turn will not be increased, what about a mode in Creative in which all AI are allied. That way there would be a massive increase to the game's difficulty ceiling.

[morfaine]

AI stars wont do much. There's too many cheesy ways to easily beat the AI.

For instance, the AI never seem to upgrade their ships, so playing on water maps is always a win by upgrading your ships and sitting off the coast bombarding everything. Also shield units always attack so instead of attacking them you just place your opponents next to them and they kill themselves.

The AI needs to get smarter for the single player game to get more interesting.

Btw, I love this game. More complex Civ type games bore me with the detail. If this game could just get a bit smarter it would be wonderful.

[Imhotep]

Another easy AI improvement - a unit in a city should not attack adjacent units.

[minniefinnie]

nothing