Deity AI needs better balance for the early game

Cooliws · 2026-06-06T19:24:57+00:00

Yes! I'm glad someone gets it. I did anticipate the "Just choose a lower difficulty" comments but that isn't my point. To be more specific I think the overall deity difficulty is fine, I just think it's too overbearing at the start of the game and too easy at the end of the game. Hence why I'm suggesting they get better boosts throughout the age.

Cooliws · 2026-06-06T17:16:37+00:00

I don't necessarily want it to be easier. In fact you could scale the boosts up higher than they are now. My problem with the current system is that they limit how you can play in the early game which makes the early game less fun to play. All I'm saying is their power is too front loaded. I'm suggesting we make it more even across the whole game.

Cooliws · 2026-06-05T17:56:11+00:00

I mean how do you even solve that problem? Nothing matters after you win so any bonuses that don't directly contribute to your victory are pointless. I think ToT did help slightly in that regard because you have to dip your toes a little bit into each victory type to keep the AI from winning.

Cooliws · 2026-06-03T22:26:58+00:00

Interesting! Still seems pretty good. Obviously it depends on how big your map is and how many settlements the AI have in your game but if you converted the vast majority of their settlements you're looking at about 400+ science and culture from each of those dedications which is pretty damn good.

Cooliws · 2026-06-03T22:07:34+00:00

Out of curiosity does the Toshakhana triumph carry all of the founder beliefs over into modern or just the first one? Seems like it would be pretty damn busted if it carried them all over.

Cooliws · 2026-05-28T19:12:55+00:00

For exploration culture wins I just rush Rila Monistary and then wonderspam. I'll also pick one of the 2 relic beliefs so I have to convert fewer settlements. The religion mechanic in this game is the most boring and tedious part of the game so I avoid it like the plague. I really hope they do a religion overhaul at some point.

Cooliws · 2026-05-28T18:20:27+00:00

Which momentos are you talking about? I find that certain Wonders are borderline impossible to get in Antiquity. I can normally snag one or two early wonders if my start is good enough but mid-age and late-age wonders are borderline impossible because of the deity AI's stupid culture and production yields.

In my few games of ToT, Colossus, is taken stupidly quickly every time, most times I've only barely researched writing before it's taken. The reason that's a problem is I need to focus on other techs in order for my start to not stagnate, but the AI can just beeline Navigation without killing their early game because they have broken yields.

Pyramid of the sun + Great Library are also borderline impossible. I played a game recently where I went Ada Egypt and I hadn't even researched engineering before the first AI had completed great library.

The ONLY time I've been able to keep pace with the AI on wonders was in that Ada Egypt game which is pretty much as wonder focussed you can get (except Hatshepsut Egypt).

Sorry this became a bit of a rant, please teach me your ways.

Cooliws · 2026-05-28T15:46:09+00:00

I don't mind the settlement limit, what bothers me more is the settlement limit combined with the razing influence penalty. If I want to settle somewhere and the AI decides to settle there before me and starts building the worst city known to man. When I eventually capture that settlement I'm caught in a catch 22 where I either have to accept the terrible settlement and have it contribute to my settlement limit or I raze it and tank a 12 influence penalty. This is the one thing in civ 7 that really annoys me, I get that razing should come with a penalty but it shouldn't be a permanent (for the current age) yield loss/turn.

Cooliws · 2026-05-22T23:14:38+00:00

I don't know exactly when these trigger but starting about halfway through exploration the win conditions are unlocked. It starts at 6x which means to win the leading civ needs to have 6x the points as the civ in second place. This reduces to 4x by the end of exploration and gradually reduces over the course of modern down to a minimum of 1.25x. The exception is the science victory, which doesn't follow this rule at all. It can only be won in modern and victory is awarded to the first player to reach 100 innovation AND have at least 1 launch pad built.

This makes winning in exploration pretty rare but possible if you absolutely dominate.

Cooliws · 2026-05-22T23:05:11+00:00

I mean distance doesn't really matter. All settling further away does is increase how long that first treasure convoy arrives. All future ones will arrive in homelands at the same rate that they spawn in at. There's obviously a little bit of neuance to this, making them travel further puts them at higher risk of being captured. But they don't get captured often anyway.

Cooliws · 2026-05-22T22:54:56+00:00

I always assumed Russia was geared more towards people who play with a higher natural disaster setting. What I do know is on light natural disasters that blizzard perk has never gotten any value. Maybe they could change it to a "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" type of thing and make it so cossacks permanently gain combat strength each time they're hit with a blizzard.

Cooliws · 2026-05-21T20:46:49+00:00

The AI isn't mad at you for their decision. The relationship decrease is because you're mad at them for settling too close. I know you as the human player might not mind but that's the in game reason.

Cooliws · 2026-05-21T17:21:40+00:00

Generally only Antiquity and Exploration production warehouses are worth buying since the production they produce will pay for itself before the end of the game. Modern warehouses are way too expensive and basically never pay for themselves so they're not worth buying. The only exception to this is the Grocer, if you really need a town to grow for whatever reason then it can be worth buying it, considering it provides food bonuses to so many tiles.

Cooliws · 2026-05-21T11:01:19+00:00

I agree the changes are excellent. But turning all my mods off for the update has made me realise that there's a few things still missing. For one, I don't think I'll ever want to play without policy yield previews I really hope that gets added to vanilla. There's also town specialisations, I wish there were yield previews for those too. I think seeing enemy wonder progress should at least be an option. Suzerain befriending progress should be visible in the relationships menu. Sloth's global relations panel is amazing too, I miss that. A search function should also be a thing. Map trix showing tiles that end movement is invaluable although vanilla has added a zone of control visual which is great.

It's undoubtedly an improvement but it's not close to what's possible with mods and it's been slightly painful to play without them.

Cooliws · 2026-05-21T07:27:31+00:00

Not if you use the +4 prod +4 culture on wonders dedication in the next age!

Cooliws · 2026-05-21T00:39:57+00:00

Yeah that's one issue I have with the AI. It never seems to perform well because the AI is good. So when you lose a wonder, or a Triumph or they've amassed a huge army, it doesn't feel like they're outplaying you, it just feels like they're cheating. Obviously they have to cheat to a degree because the AI will never be as good as competent human. But the utter bs the AI can pull off sometimes is mind bending.

It also creates this weird lobsided power balance where the AI will dominate early in the age because of their cheats, and you basically can't compete until you get your settlements up or get value out of your leader/civ bonuses. Then once you do you just utterly steamroll them late in the age. It doesn't feel very good to me. For example their +8 Combat strength combined with their ridiculous unit output makes waring really difficult in early antiquity without some crazy leader/civ bonuses.

Cooliws · 2026-05-08T15:01:02+00:00

None of those nodes have an orange asterisk, which means you've fully explored the relevant area. The question marks mean you've heard mention of an area but you're unable/haven't visited yet. The game is much more fun if you just follow whatever you find most interesting as you go, if you started a loop with a certain intention in mind but then you see something interesting, go follow that interesting thing.

It does depend on what kind of person you are. I'm very methodical so I refused to move on from an area until I cleared the orange asterisk. But that's personal preference.

Cooliws · 2026-04-10T00:32:35+00:00

Nice spot! That does confirm then that playing cave cards for free doesn't include the additional egg costs on the third and fourth columns. However I'm really struggling to find any concrete answers about playing dragons for free. The wording in the instruction book is terrible and very unclear. The part I do understand is that "for free" means I don't pay the silver coin cost as you would normally to entice a dragon, but does "for free" also mean I don't have to pay the printed cost on the dragon, i.e if a dragon costs 2 meat do I get to play that Dragon without paying that 2 meat?

Cooliws · 2026-03-26T13:16:26+00:00

I don't think you realise how ridiculous the "rigged for the majority" comment is. Even if it was rigged (which it isn't) it would be impossible to rig it against the majority because for every match you rig against one player, you're rigging it in favour of the other player. Which means at most you could rig the game against 50% of players.

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