AI Difficulty & Game Difficulty & what they mean

[SirGarnet]

GAME DIFFICULTY:
"Game Difficulty indicates how challenging the game will be. The game difficulty level is general for the game and it is not related to the AI Player difficulty (below). You can change the difficulty level in the dropdown menu."
• "Difficulty determines how aggressive the computer players are, and how multifarious their actions. The five options range from an easy level suitable for beginners, all the way to very difficult, recommended in turn to only very experienced players."
• "This option affects how aggressive the AI players will be, production of resources, frequency and impact of random events, and default setting of Game Options (see below)." "At lower difficulties you can concentrate fully on territorial conquest without paying much attention to complexities." Higher difficulty levels bring on new challenges",
• default settings are set with the first game difficulty you choose, and will not change if you eventually decide on a different game difficulty level;

• Question: What level is is "realistic"difficulty and how do you identify it?
•
AI DIFFICULTY: "AI Player Difficulty indicates how aggressive your opponents Game Difficulty indicates how challenging the game will be." (think there is a cut/paste error here)

• "Country selection screen Tooltip shows you quick information about the country and the difficulty of its initial situation."
• This could use some explanation. It does not make sense to me that the Iberian initial situation is AI Difficulty is Easy but they are recommended against because they are challenging. The Ardiaei are Easy. and Rome is Legendary and Carthage Heroic. How does this work and what does it mean, or vice versa?How is this used to pick appropriate difficulties? Rome does not seem fantastically hard, and Iberia not so easy.

Rome Legendary
Cartago Heroic
Ptolemaic Heroic
Epirots Medium
Spartans Heroic
Athenians Hard
Fallaeci Medium
Antigonid Hard
Ardiaaei Easy
Macedon Medium
Seleucid Hard
Pontus Medium
Massilia Medium
Bospran Easy
Pergamon Easy
Iverian Easy
Calts Hard
Dacians Easy

[gwgardner]

I hope this explains it, if I understand your question right. If I'm wrong, I'm sure the developer or someone will correct me.

[pavelk]

Hi SirGarnet,
thank you for the post.

AI Player difficulty indicates how ferocious and aggressive your opponents will be. The difficulty level can be set differently for each AI player by clicking on the name of the nation (not on the checkbox!) and changing the difficulty level in the dropdown menu.

Game difficulty indicates how challenging the game will be. The game difficulty level is general for the game and it is not related to the AI Player difficulty (see above). You can change the difficulty level in the dropdown menu. The game difficulty affects how aggressive the AI players will be, production of resources, frequency and impact of random events, default setting of Game options (see below Options)

In short -AI player difficulty indicates how strong (compare to other AIs) selected AI player will be. The game difficulty decides how difficult the game will be:)

If it is still not clear, I am happy to try explaining it in other words again.

[uncajerf]

I think the confusion arises from the apparent contradiction of the two statements in the manual: "AI Player Difficulty... Indicates how... aggressive your opponents will be", and "Game Difficulty... affects how aggressive the AI players will be..." (my italics), when it also says that Game Difficulty "isn’t related to the AI Player Difficulty".

I have taken the liberty of removing the reference to "aggressive" in the section on Game Difficulty in my latest revision of the manual, so it now reads that it only "affects production/location of resources, frequency and impact of random events..." etc. I hope this is the intent of the devs, and it clarifies things -- if not, let me know!


JRR

[SirGarnet]

Is the sentence "Country selection screen Tooltip shows you quick information about the country and the difficulty of its initial situation." meaning that the AI difficulties assigned as a default will put the AI players on a roughly even basis across the board, but if the player raises AI difficulty for an AI then that AI has a tougher game to face, meaning its rivals will have an easier time.

If so then for a tougher game put the AI's difficulties on easy y on easy?

Then that AI has a tougher game so that may make it easier for the human and other players?

[pavelk]

Hi uncajerf,
thank you for pointing this out. We will try to reconsider the wording.

Is the sentence "Country selection screen Tooltip shows you quick information about the country and the difficulty of its initial situation." meaning that the AI difficulties assigned as a default will put the AI players on a roughly even basis across the board, but if the player raises AI difficulty for an AI then that AI has a tougher game to face, meaning its rivals will have an easier time.

Not really. The tooltip informs you if it is easy for the newcomer to start playing as that country.
The default AI difficulty is based on history to have as historical feeling as possible. Higher the AI difficulty is, the better the player is (in terms of aggressivness, unit recruitment, resource usage).
I hope that it is understandable. If not, please let me know I will try to describe it in other words.

[stormbringer3]

Just to be sure I understand this, when you change the ARDIAEI from easy to the next level of AI player difficulty, the ARDIAEI will be more aggressive, have more units and resources.
Thanks.

[pavelk]

Just to be sure I understand this, when you change the ARDIAEI from easy to the next level of AI player difficulty, the ARDIAEI will be more aggressive, have more units and resources.

It will be more aggressive, it will build more units (will more use its resources), it will not have more resources.

[stormbringer3]

Thanks for the quick reply. If you don't change from easy what happens to the resources that aren't being used to build more units? You stated that the default settings are the most historical. I only play vs. the AI so eventually more challenge is needed. I understand about changing the difficulty level of the game but how would it change things if one started changing the AI player difficulty up accross the board? Is better to use the default settings and just change the game difficulty?
Thanks again.

[pavelk]

I recommend to stay with default settings. If you already played it several times as different countries, you might want to try, how would it look like when for example Carthage or Rome was not so aggressive. You can create a very different world where small ones are the aggressive countries and dominant powers are peaceful.
Well if they dont use the resources as much, they build less units.

When you change just the game difficulty, you make the game more challenging with the same historical setup.

[stormbringer3]

Thank you.

[uncajerf]

I will try to clarify this in the next version of the manual.

Thanx for the q & a!

[pavelk]

Noted. We will try to rephrase it. Thank you!

[76mm]

I'm playing with random maps and can't seem to find the AI difficulty setting discussed in this thread--I see the Game Difficulty setting (default = medium) and a Diplomatic Relations setting (default = middle position), but not any AI Difficulty setting? Is it the Diplomatic Relations setting?

[zakblood]

AI difficulty setting, is these two on random maps

Untitled.jpg (658.85 KiB) Viewed 4760 times

just hover over any of the options, and on the right hand side a hover over tool tip with appear and explain what it means and how it effects the game etc

while even every option in the random game alters the difficulty, any amount of movement from the default will make it harder or easier, then again, map size, terrain type and nation picked will alter it even more, this is why random map games are for more experienced players than the default ones imo

[pavelk]

AI difficulty setting (like it is in "new game" window) is not in the "new customized world" windows, because it wouldnt make sense.

You dont even know how those players will be strong in the game (the initial setup) nor what does the map look like so it wouldnt make sense to set the AI difficulty setting per each player.

You shouuld choose Difficulty (which is basically the game difficulty) and you can choose the initial setup (mainly "game balance", "player advantage", "resources abundance", etc.).