GalCiv difficulty levels in gold version

from Stardock Forums
One of the things we did do during the release candidates is make the game much easier to win on the lower levels. We found that experienced strategy gamers would get creamed even when the AI was set to "fool".

But at the same time, at the medium to higher levels, the AI is much more intelligent than it was in the betas. In fact, the beta GalCiv AI was, well pretty crummy compared to the gold version in terms of intelligence (not saying the gold is "harder" to beat, but that the AI is more intelligent in how it behaves).

In the betas, each AI level simply increased the intelligence rating of the player by say 15 points. Here's the problem we had with that:

You'd play on "normal" and get a challenge and then you'd up it a level and get creamed. So a lot of the extra month of development was spend play testing and adding more difficulty levels.

So now each computer player can indvidually be set to the following difficulty levels:

[IntLevel0] Fool
[IntLevel1] Beginner
[IntLevel2] Sub-Normal
[IntLevel3] Normal
[IntLevel4] Bright
[IntLevel5] Intelligent
[IntLevel6] Genius
[IntLevel7] Incredible

With the corresponding intelligence being 4, 14, 36, 42, 50, 60, 65, 100.

We may tweak these or add more after released based on what you guys say.

So now, you have sub-normal, normal, bright, intelligent and genius quite close together. I have not personally won with all the AI's set to genius on a medium sized map or higher. And incredible is just, well the AI gets lots of extra stuff.

Speaking of extra stuff, how do the resources get handled?

The intelligence ratings do two things: 1) They determine how much money they get from colonies.

So in pColony->CalcTaxesCollected() at the end it gets:
ulTaxes = ulTaxes * (40 + ulIntelligence);

So at intelligence = 60 (intelligent) it's getting the same from a colony as you. At Genius it's getting a bit more. And at incredible, all bets are off.

The other way intelligence matters is that it determines whether the AI is going to a) Do a thorough analysis on what players are doing b) Which AI scripts are available to use, and c) Determines whether the AI is going to do anything about it.

Example:
An AI with intelligence 60 will be able to check out its sensor areas and see if you are building up for an attack, fortifying starbases, trying to culturally dominate it, etc. It will then have to roll to see if it is going to do anything about it. I.e. "Do I recognize this as a threat or am I too dumb to see this?". If it rolls that it is going to recognize the threat then it has to roll whether it's goign to actually do anything about it. And if it is going to do something about it then it rolls to see if it will tell the human player about it (if it's a human player that is the threat).

IF the AI FAILS the roll, the human player gets a message from the AI letting it know it's on to what it's doing. Otherwise it quietly lowers relations and prepares for a war.

If you play on say Genius, and build up star bases and ships in a sector you're planning to attack you'll notice ships from other sectors quietly coming in to fortify. Fighters shadowing your transports. Etc.

But on lower intelligence levels, none of this happens. Which is one of the changes. So when you get the game, on Fool and Beginner you should be able to play the game without getting creamed now. This is different than it was in the beta when fool was = Int 15 and the next one up was 30.
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
played the gamma at incredible (on a small galaxy) I was toast in about 100 turns, 3 good races wiped me out.

by the way i like the new metaverse info, but it said they were all set to smart

rich
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
My biggest fear about the game is that it will be too hard.

Sad to say that I pretty much suck at games. :D

-Randy
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
On the easier levels it should be a nice, slow progression. The AI won't be able to do very much on the low end levels so it should be easy to get a hang of the game without being conquered. Though given enough time, they will conquer. ;)
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Do you think it's possible to develop bad habits by playing at a too easy level? In other words, would playing a ton of games at 'beginner' make it harder to develop good strategies for playing the AI at 'intelligent'?

-Randy
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Quote "On the easier levels it should be a nice, slow progression. The AI won't be able to do very much on the low end levels so it should be easy to get a hang of the game without being conquered. Though given enough time, they will conquer."

I think that is exactly the right answer. While I'm not inexperienced in such games, I do need "breathing room" while I seek experience to answer the challenge. Well sure... I can drive a car... well here's the helm to a boat. ;)

AA
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Is it possible to develop bad habits by playing the final Beta too much? Will this cause me to be ill prepared for the more intelligent AIs when the game is released?

-Dave
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Is it possible to turn off the production bonus/penalty and just adjust the AI on pure intelligence? If not, is it possible to add a flag for it in a patch/bonus pack/expansion?

I'd like to know whether I could beat the fool AI all things being equal. Probably not. ;)
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
fool to bright is fairly easy, they let you get away with quite a bit. But on the intelligent levels they descend into strained relations pretty quickly. I would measure bright as the king difficulty level on Civ2 or 3, where inteligent would be more like emperor or a little harder.

I think the real problem with the difficulty won't be the hard AI's but the fact that the basic strategies that gamers use against the civ and moo games will get you killed here. The fact of starbases and cultural warfare alone will really trip people up alot of people for the first 15 games.......
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
You will have to be careful not to make assumptions in what the AI will do.

Heck, the flame posts practically write themselves:

"So I get this GalCiv with it's so-called good AI and it let me just drive up with 5 battle ships and 4 transports right up to one of their planets and let me conquer them. I did this rpeeatedly and won! Yea, good AI...NOT!"

Because the AI won't notice that sort of thing on the lower difficulty levles. I think Imentioned elsewhere that few people will probably play at the higher difficulty levels which is a bummer since that's where the wittier comments from the AI come in.
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
I'd be surprised if the people who bother to post weren't instead playing at diff. levels too high initially and then complain about it being too hard and having to play against "fools."

I think there'll be a LOT of complaints about it all being too hard, by whiny people who like to conquer games and then claim they "beat" the game with no real interest to long-term play.

Here's to hoping Stardock RESISTS those complaints and lets us continue to be challenged and surprised and FRUSTRATED because we lsoe once in awhile! :D
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
I would agree with Aristocrat....

Might be nice to have an option where the AI has the ability to make the more intuitive decisions available on higher difficulty levels - but without the prodcution bonuses?

Mind you from the sound of things I don't think I would be playing at the higher levels for awhile yet! :)

Either way - it's all sounding very promising. Hope there isn't too much delay on an Australian release date!
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
I was under the impression that "Intelligent" is the level where the AI is working fully but without any production bonuses.

If you can beat that level consistently, then Stardock would probably want to know so they can tweak the AI.

Bragging about beating anything less than "Intelligent" only leaves you open to the criticism that you are not playing the full AI.
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
i know in the betas i did get beaten on the low levels. the altarians always won.
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
Yep, I think you are right uruguru... I confused "Intelligent" and "Incredible". Anyway, I have a feeling I will be skulking around at the Fool/Beginner/Sub-Normal level for quite awhile before having to worry about the upper levels.

I am really looking forward to this now. I was planning on waiting for reviews/demos etc. but Brad's comments about ditching MP to concentrate on a better SP experience plus the fact that you can only play humans (which means I assume they have spent more time fine-tuning/tweaking for one race, rather than play-balancing all races), means my money is heading his way as soon as it hits the shops down-under.
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
I agree with Jeff and Aristocrat. I'd like to have a setting that meant the AI was maxing out on intelligence, but wasn't getting any bonus relative to the human player.

It seems from what you say Frogboy that on "Intelligent" level, although it receives no bonuses, it isn't making the best decisions about threats, i.e. rolling dice to see if it does anything about a threat. Humans don't behave that way - they decide to do something based on the strateguc situation, weighing eveything up. Sounds like your AI is capable of doing that, so why not let it have a setting where it does it unfettered?
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
Well, 'intelligent' people sometimes make mistakes and don't see threats as threats... or is that just beginner people. :(
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
'Sounds like your AI is capable of doing that, so why not let it have a setting where it does it unfettered?'

Keep in mind that while none of us (the gamma testers included) have seen all the options in the gold version's game setup screen, one of the ones mentioned were fine control over the AI's initial setup, and Brad just gave you the formula currently used to set the AI's intelligence-based bonuses.

It may already be possible to set their intelligence to Incredible, then penalize their income (or economy ability, or some similar effect) to put that particular benefit back on par with what the human player gets.
Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
I avoid playing on high levels, just because the bonuses the AI is getting i find it annoying. Take SMAC for example in transcend lelvel the AI there is so cool. It forms alliances in a circle so we have 3 players allied between each other. The wars were handled, but at the end i was ages backward, just because it get those bonuses. Not fair. If stardock don't want to add an option to turn the ai bonuses then just add a dificulty where the AI is 100% intelligent but no bonuses.


Regards
Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top
Dividing between income and intelligence bonus seems reasonable; that way, one could play against a max-intel but "no-bonus" AI, or alternately a "rich idiot" should the latter tickle one's sense of humor.

This poster wonders whether there it'd be possible or reasonable to have a setting in which the "intelligence" number gets automatically adjusted during the game -- perhaps either as a balancing method (the AI intelligence number increases as it falls behind, or perhaps falls back towards its original setting if it gets far ahead), or as a "doh! NOW I'm awake method" (e.g. as it fails more and more checks over time, it gets an increasing bonus). Just a random idea I'm tossing out there.
Reply #21 from Stardock Forums Top
Twirlip,
my initial thought was noooo. Imaging never being able to finish a game because the AI kept changing difficulty to match how the game was going! There are some cases where changing intelligence could be pretty cool though.

a) civil war in an empire leads to 2 sides. One side could have a different intelligence than the other (not more than 1 level away from what it already was)

b) event which changes government. Gov of race X changes due to years of neglect and apathy. New outward looking government has improved AI (1 level better). Or opposite.

c) research tech which allows an AI to research an advancement in intelligence. Should be very hard to achieve, and expensive! Similar tech for humans just adds economy or research.

d) ingame intelligence tweak. Where you can manually change intelligence of the AI's during a game for fun purposes. Blocks the game being submitted to Metaverse.

Paul.
Reply #22 from Stardock Forums Top
I support the proposal of split putting TWO parameters :
- Prod Malus/Bonus -60 to +40 (or more !)
- Intelligence : 5 to 100

I'd like to have an ubiquitous enemy, not a cheating one !!
Reply #23 from Stardock Forums Top
Man, all that about the AI not cheating... and they get 'resource bonuses.' *coughcheatercough*
Reply #24 from Stardock Forums Top
We've never said the AI doesn't cheat at the highest levels. Just that the game plays by the same rules the player does. I.e. it doesn't just conjure up ships and technologies. It doesn't just "get" a wonder or improvement.

Virtually all players will be playing at Bright intelligence or lower and at those levels the AI's resources are penalized.
Reply #25 from Stardock Forums Top
Well, maybe you should've said that. :D But I'm sure I'll enjoy the game and not even notice, because it really isn't something I'd notice as a player, but moreso when I read it I feel that it's making up for something. I'm guessing it won't feel like that in this game. :CONGRAT: