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Humankind Difficulty....and the Egyptians.

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3 years ago
Sep 29, 2021, 7:44:00 PM

I'm not certain if this was the intent of the developers, but I cannot seem to manage a decent humankind difficulty game without taking the Egyptians in the ancient era. With their combat bonous it just seems statistically impossible to beat them combatively as a militarist culture, and while it could be argued that merchant cultures could spam armies with gold or the Zou could overpower with science to quickly get their unique unit, only the Egyptians seem capable of keeping abreast of other cultures industrially while having the power to manufacture science from their industrial skill (going for the science quarter early). Given the nature of how much extra strength enemies have on Humankind difficulty is there any way to buff them up without giving them more military strength? Perhaps give them more production and food to manufacture armies at a lower cost compared to the player? Ultimately it seems to me that I am playing a game of chance with humankind difficulty and it doesn't seem meaningful to win when it seems that you did it by chance. Sure you could make stupid moves, but given the strength of enemy AI units at the beginning that seems less likely than just being overwhelmed by sheer strength. Thoughts? Ideas on how to buff the enemy without giving them combat strength?

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3 years ago
Sep 30, 2021, 12:56:27 AM

If you want to do ancient era warfare at humankind difficulty you have to commit pretty hard to it, you need to get all the strength buffs you can and focus fully on getting that army out as fast as you possibly can. If you beeline phylosophy to get research quarters, you are doing it wrong. If done right with a culture that gets a viable EU and you don't get a weird map you can usually win 1-2 wars before the AI can field large amounts of swordsmen(you should get swordmen tech yourself as soon as possible).


The reason they need the +2 strength buff is that otherwise, humans could just steamroll them since humans are smarter and can purposefully stack a bunch of strength buffs.


Just look at it this way, if I start as mycean(free 1 star veterancy) and pick 2 homeland civics(+2 for max homeland) and professional army(+1) I can field 25 strength melee units who attack as 29 strength units on their first turn.


Gets a lot worse if I get the +25xp for produced units event in neolitic, pick egyptians and beeline wheel, I can now field 28 strength mounted archers with 3 range and move after fire. For reference, the base strength of mongol horde(in medieval !) is only 29 with range 1.


That being said, yes egyptians are pretty broken and picking them is basically playing on easy mode, all their bonuses are insanely strong. LT, EQ, EU. But you can fight the AI without them.

Updated 3 years ago.
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3 years ago
Sep 30, 2021, 6:25:49 AM

As @madcookie pointed out, if you want to be able to stack Combat strength you need to make some Society choices via the civics. You can get at least +3 Combat Strength from there in the first 20-30 turns, more later on. You can also get some benefits from religious tenets if you want to.

There are multiple ways to customize your civilization and adapt without actually having to pick the Egyptians. Timing is also important, as demonstrated by the example regarding the Mycenaeans. You can get your unique unit very early and can make one or two armies right at the start of the Ancient Era which pack quite the punch. You should not wait in the Ancient Era for warfare but pick your battles and opponents when you can.


Updated 3 years ago.
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3 years ago
Sep 30, 2021, 6:42:22 AM

I agree with what everyone has said, if you want to play on humankind difficulty and win you have to get the civic that gives you combat strength and als push your ideology to homeland 2. Its really almost impossible otherwise. Also if you are using the base AI Peronas i highly suggest removing Mu Guiyng, Elissa and Mama Ocillo as competitors, since they have very powerful military bonuses which on humankind diff are almost impossible to counter if they pick a good military faction.

To focus on your other point about the egyptians i can tell you that with really good game knowledge and planning you can do well with any culture even on this difficulty(at least on normal speeed) . I can give you many examples where i have won games with what i believe are some of the weakest cultures like hittites>goths and also phoenicians>aksumites and proceeded to conquer my entire continent. Also something to keep in mind is Emblematic Units are very strong and need to be used in order to do well, also even the basic archer are really strong if you use them as reinforcements. 

Updated 3 years ago.
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3 years ago
Sep 30, 2021, 6:09:30 PM

While I agree that you can steamroll the AI without the plus 2 bonus, and that it is possible to do so without the Egyptians by committing hard to a military civ, I find that it inevitably comes back to my earlier point about it feeling like a game of chance. On empire, or even on civ difficulty, it feels much more strategic. But on humankind? You see I agree with @Melliores  hat you do have to be as offensive early game as possible. Regardless of whether you chose a military civ or not getting another civilization to bow to you early is the only way to avoid becoming the target of a steamroll. Best defense is a good offense. I'm mostly concerned with the probability of landing on a good game. I can manage a good game with what I'm given if I play on empire or civ. But because of how punishing it is to play a game on Humankind's plus 2 strength it feels much more like a game of texas poker in the ancient era. And am I the only one who thinks the Harrapans are over rated? 

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3 years ago
Sep 30, 2021, 6:57:52 PM
lrbanthony wrote:

While I agree that you can steamroll the AI without the plus 2 bonus, and that it is possible to do so without the Egyptians by committing hard to a military civ, I find that it inevitably comes back to my earlier point about it feeling like a game of chance. On empire, or even on civ difficulty, it feels much more strategic. But on humankind? You see I agree with @Melliores  hat you do have to be as offensive early game as possible. Regardless of whether you chose a military civ or not getting another civilization to bow to you early is the only way to avoid becoming the target of a steamroll. Best defense is a good offense. I'm mostly concerned with the probability of landing on a good game. I can manage a good game with what I'm given if I play on empire or civ. But because of how punishing it is to play a game on Humankind's plus 2 strength it feels much more like a game of texas poker in the ancient era. And am I the only one who thinks the Harrapans are over rated? 

Oh don't get me wrong i hate that +2 bonus as well, in games like these i prefer the AI getting cheaper units or something like that. However do keep in mind Emblematic Units are so strong they can completely negate the bonus and a lot of the best emblematic units aren't even from the military cultures. 

And i have also played with a friend on civ difficult, because we don't need to minmax and can just have fun, It definitely seems more fair than Humankind. But my issue is when playing in my own vs AI, I feel like unless its Humankind Diff its still is a bit too weak to compete, outside of the first 2 eras. The bonuses it gets seem to be nonscaling, so even Humankind AI drops off really fast compared to the player. 
For you other question i completely agree, i think generally food is worse then industry. Also imo the Harrapan Emlebatic Units is trash and gets outdated in like 10 turns. While for example the Egyptian EU is relevant until you get crossbows. I personally prefer the Nubians and the Mycenaeans to the Harrapans, since Industry is king. Although i do like playing with the River setting on many, so often the Harrapans are really strong. 

Updated 3 years ago.
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3 years ago
Sep 30, 2021, 11:52:44 PM

You don't need to be offensive early game unless you are speedrunning or something, just accept the fact that you can't always have the perfect game on max difficulty, but that doesn't mean you have to lose. In fact, if you just want to get a safe win, it's way better to turtle up and focus on surviving the classical era rush that the AI loves to do. Prepare a strong defensive position to slaughter their armies(they usually just take the shortest path between your cities). 


It's the same with civ games, the AI looks so dominant on diety early game because of all it's bonuses but it really has no clue how to play the game and if you just stick it out, survive and wait you'll quickly realize that. You can even surrender to the AI and just keep doing your thing, many people have won games as vassals. By medieval the AI falls off a cliff since they have no clue how to place quarters and as the eras progress they also barely field any troops, they often don't even keep them upgraded either.


As for luck, the early rushes always have some luck involved, this is just a general fact of strategy games at large and goes even beyond 4x. If 6 pool always worked starcraft wouldn't be a very interesting game. Scouting and experience can tell you if it's a wise course of action or not. If anything humankind as a game greatly reduces the luck factor. Neolithic will give you a ton of information before you even have to commit to anything, you can even see horses and copper before settling and can settle miles from your starting position with no drawback.


And once again, you don't have to win the war, if you start the war and realize it's not going well, just go on the defensive or broker a peace deal, the game is not over, far from it. Time is the player's friend in 4x games, just remember, you make better decisions than the AI every single turn, it might not look like much after 20 turns but if you stick around for 200, you'll see it.

Updated 3 years ago.
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3 years ago
Oct 1, 2021, 4:23:18 PM

Oh Contraire! I just finished a Mycenean start, Jap middle, Turk finish on Humankind difficulty, Huge map, all ten players, by absolutely rushing the four players on my continent and just stealing their cities and liberating the ones I didn't need! I wanna say I was ahead all the way but one player had a lead on me up to the industrial and I just steamrolled past her after that. Sooooooo much time! I need sleep.......

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3 years ago
Oct 2, 2021, 5:49:34 AM
lrbanthony wrote:

Oh Contraire! I just finished a Mycenean start, Jap middle, Turk finish on Humankind difficulty, Huge map, all ten players, by absolutely rushing the four players on my continent and just stealing their cities and liberating the ones I didn't need! I wanna say I was ahead all the way but one player had a lead on me up to the industrial and I just steamrolled past her after that. Sooooooo much time! I need sleep.......

Nice, congrats! I am surprised you were able to get the Mycenaeans, the AI seems to love them. And they are quite good, if you want a real impossible challenge try winning with the Hittites :D

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3 years ago
Oct 2, 2021, 12:13:10 PM

I cannot tell you how much I laughed at that comment! It just goes to show us all how much the Hittites need work. Fun filled fact, if you make a huge map with less land space you can bottleneck your opponents and use that to your advantage for early game success. The flip side is getting bottlenecked by the Assyrians....that's happened once or twice. Also....Persians. City Cap 2 plus. Seem to use it every time. Like Egyptians. 

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3 years ago
Oct 2, 2021, 1:44:24 PM

Egyptians are powerful given their special unit. But to my mind Mycenaeans are way more powerful, because you get production and stability. That lets you grow your city territory count very fast. It’s almost broken imho. The only thing you really need is influence and a spawn location where the AI isn’t right next to you. Given the combat bonus and stack you can create on top of this you almost have to go with Mycenaeans on humankind difficulty imho.

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3 years ago
Oct 2, 2021, 1:47:55 PM

Also SmileyD - you are right the AI loves the Mycenaeans. So if you want to get them, you need an early second scout and just circle him through your spawn location. This way even on humankind difficulty you can rush the AI to the cultures. Not always, but quite often. 

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3 years ago
Oct 2, 2021, 2:59:29 PM

I'm not certain if it's the case, but I've been experimenting with various AI personas from the site to get different results. I'd swear that depending on the AI I choose I get different AI picks for cultures. I'm wondering if this is because of the different bias and persona choices folks make. If so I hope that it will be more clear by the devs. 

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3 years ago
Oct 2, 2021, 3:17:35 PM

Interesting point. I haven’t had that feeling. Usually to make the game more challenging I have to only take war mongers as AI opponents. But there certainly is a bit of variation of culture picks. And I realised that Zhou is usually always at the end of their choices. I also think despite this the games promise to unciv us through more choices; the choices actually don’t quite exist now. Because I am rushed into certain culture decisions early on - Egypt, Myceneans, sometimes Zhou. And after that I really don’t think it matters all that much. You get different units, you can maximise your fame output, but the bonuses don’t really matter that much more, because you have decided your game by nomadic tribe and ancient culture already pretty much. 

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3 years ago
Oct 2, 2021, 4:04:05 PM
lrbanthony wrote:

I'm not certain if it's the case, but I've been experimenting with various AI personas from the site to get different results. I'd swear that depending on the AI I choose I get different AI picks for cultures. I'm wondering if this is because of the different bias and persona choices folks make. If so I hope that it will be more clear by the devs. 

I can confirm 99% this is the case, i had played a bunch of games where the AI never picked the egyptians and it was left as one of the final ones. Then i changed 2 AI Personas and suddenly they were picked first or second. 


And about the Mycenaeans they are 100% are top tier culture simply because of their ED, however unlike Harapns or Egypt they are situational. Since you really need to have good places to place the cyclopean fortress to get at least 15-20 industry. If you can get that thanks to the amazing 15 stability and a amazing EU which doesn't require resources, has a great trait and benefits from their legacy trait. They are equal to the Egyptians and Harrapans.

Updated 3 years ago.
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