21-04-2004 19:31									#1
	Hotseat Difficulty Levels Tired of ads?

I have noticed after MONTHS of playtesting an error regarding the difficulty levels in hotseat games. this seems to have been implemented, by accident or otherwise, after C3C came out and ive never noticed it before on PTW.

now i dont know if this applies to ALL multiplayer games but i know it DOES affect hotseat games, regardless of the patch, even 1.22, which is why i didnt post this on the patch bug thread.

anyway ive noticed that no matter what difficulty level you play on, it seems to play at one difficulty level LOWER, eg. regent plays as warlord and monarch plays as regent as so forth. how do i know this? well every time i play regent level on solo games i win every time albeit not without a bit of a challenge. hotseat however, regent level seems INCREADIBY easy, not the same regent level where im on the same par with the AI. the AI also is pathetic at defending itself on hotseat regent, not the case as in solo regent where it takes a bit of strategy to win.

monarch level is sufficent to give me a good challenge, sometimes i win, somtimes i lose. but on hotseat monarch level is NOT the same monarch level im used to. usually im about 4 techs behind, struggling to keep up with my REX, military and navy, am usually im in the lower end of the scoreboard, and generally have to play at my best. but hotseat monarch, i swear to you, the game plays as regent level. still a challenge, but i KNOW the AI could be doing a hell of a lot better than it is doing. EVERY TIME.

overall anything up to monarch possibly even emperor on hotseat is increadible easy, whereas on solo games regent and beyond is a signigficant challenge. there is no way to prove my theory of course, as when i reload the game it says im playing at the said difficulty.

another thing is my friend who i play hotseat with struggles on the regent level on solo games whereas when we play hotseat he dominates the game just like me. hotseat is, in my opinion, unplayable (too easy) on any level lower than monarch.

	22-04-2004 01:52									#2
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You should be able to check this by determining how many citizens are born content. EG, start a hotseat game on regent; see if you can have 3 citizens in a city, all content, without any units in the city, or luxuries hooked up, or commerce devoted to happiness. (This should only be possible on warlord and chieftan, so if this is possible on regent, you have indeed found a bug.)

	23-04-2004 00:02									#3
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Well, I strated one Emperor hotseat game few weeks ago and it all looks fine (2nd citizen becomes uphappy).

	23-04-2004 00:15									#4
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player 1 is right it SEEMS to be operating at the said difficulty level. but i still say this matter pends further investigation. the problem dosent seem to stem form the player or the rules associated with them but with the AI. more specifically the REX, military, and tech progress of the AI seems to be operating at an easier level.

on the other hand me and my friend could have, quite simply, grown past regent level and are ready for a more challenging monarch game. in fact my current monarch game is going quite well, with me in second place, in score, but im still a little behind in tech and culture.

maybie the AI is operating at a different difficulty level than the player in hotseat games. i tried to see how many content citicens were under the AI's cities, but it is impossible to tell, as the AI always has a defender in their cities which makes unhappy citizens content. if anyone could get into the CODE of the AI for hotseat and see what is going in it would be appreciated.

	23-04-2004 06:06									#5
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Ah, you think the problem may be affecting the AI only. Interesting.

While happiness may be hard to check, you should be able to tell whether the AI is getting its proper production costs, which would certainly affect it, by counting shields. IOW, investigate cities until you find one that's building a cheap project like an Archer; check if the number of shields shown as required for it is correct. (On regent, it should be the same as for you; so, for an Archer, 20 shields.)

If the production cost is correct, then I'd say you guys are simply too good.

	23-04-2004 18:14									#6
	Remove this text

well you can take what ive been saying and throw it out the window. i checked my current monarch level hotseat game and the ai's production for, say, longbowman (16 shields), were compared to my 20 shield longbowman, which confirms that it is indeed monarch level (this is BTW with accelerated production on, but it calculates all the same). i didnt check regent level but the production is probably the same as the player. i wont go back to regent level anymore anyway so i guess it really dosent matter. i just cant believe regent level has become so easy, as i can remember many long frustrating nights losing at regent level. now it seems like im playing warlord or chieftan.

thanks for the responses and helping me figure out, and eventually, prove wrong my theory.

Last edited by AAHZ on 24-04-2004 at 00:22