In this post, I will talk about AI & bonus for difficulty.

One of the most important aspect of 4x games is singleplayer because it takes more than several hours for a single game, which makes it difficult to gather people to multiplayer game.

Therefore the AI level who replaces the role of other players defines the quality 4x game.

Unfortunately, 4x games have showed dumb AI over a decade so far.

In order to overcome the foolishness of AI most developers of 4x games have granted high bonus for AI to match to actual human player.

However, this induces following problem. AI has bonus over the player so the player needs to overcome the handicap whatever it takes.

Therefore among various strategy that the player can have only efficient and powerful strategy can be adopted in order to beat the high difficult.

This ruins the variety of strategy which is one of the greatest merit of 4x games.

For example of Humankind, among 60 cultures, a few efficient culture may be chosen and others would be discarded with no choice.

Restarting the game in order to have wonderful starting point will occur just like Sid Meier's Civilization.

How long do the players have to suffer this? It has been almost 30 years for 4x game history and still dumb ass AI?

we are not expecting Deep learning bases AI who can beat the best player of mankind.

What we are expecting is just standard AI who understands the core systems of the game and be partners of the players to enjoy the game in singleplayer.

There must be some players with high skill and good understanding of the game who desires challenging difficulty but with equal status between the AI and the player.

Thus, It will be good to have two types of difficulty options.

1) AI level: 1~8. 4 or 5 will be for the average players. 8 will be the most challenging difficulty.

This option decide how smart the AI is and how well the AI understands the core system of the game and use it for competing.

This option does not grant any bonus or penalty for AI

2) AI bonus: 1~8. 4 or 5 will be no bonus or penalty. 8 will be the highest bonus toward AI, 1 will be highest penalty toward AI.

This option does not change any AI level.

Well a few players with really good skill may choose the highest level of both options even if I wonder if there be.

The point is there must be some challenging level for AI without bonus.

I know it's not easy task to enhance AI level but it worth the time and effort.

In addition, there can be some 'exploiting' the weak point of the system. Since every game has bugs and weak points that are not intended. This points can be exploited by the player to beat the game easily.

This will destroy the motivation and potential of the game. 

For example, Hun culture's EQ was originally not able to be placed within the territory but in OpenDev Lucy it was possible which made Hun very very powerful.

This can be one of the 'exploiting' point that breaks the game totally.

Besides the AI discussion above, every 'exploiting' points should be covered and adjusted before the launch of the game which is critical.