What do the different AI levels do?

I heard that you need to play on 'tough' level to get the fairest balance.

Levels above tough just give more recources but not more intelligence. Levels below tough actually inhibit AI intelligence as well as less recources

Actually this has changed from v1.2 to v1.31 and even perhaps to v1.40x. Can anyone post the specific levels and the AI bonus associated with them?

Here is a quote from Brad/Draginol/Frogboy, where he says he considers painful/gifted not tough/intelligent to be the true level playing field. I think 100% vs. 105% is too small a change for a new level; painful/gifted should have been 125%.

On gifted the AI basically gets a 5% bonus. Just barely but enough to offset some of the inherent sloppiness of the AI when doing tactics. I've always considered "gifted" to be the real head to head and not tough even though the AI is getting a slight bonus because there's so many things we humans do that an I wouldn't do that allow us to make better decisions tactically that save us a few resources here or there.

I chased this around a bit more. There were some hints in the v1.3 change log. Saw your post there as well. At this point anyway the Wiki article claims to be updated as of v1.31 and shows two things related to AI, level and intelligence. Intelligence is the same as previous but with Godlike and Ultimate added above Incredible. Level is shown as 100 for Maso, 120 for Obscene and 150 for Suicidal. What this means is very unclear to me. I think we would need a pronouncement from Brad to have a chance of understanding what all this means.

Anyway here's the Wiki article. In it I think Kblore states that the difficulty levels of a current game can be gotten from the debug.err.

Wiki AI Difficulty Level

I've always considered "gifted" to be the real head to head and not tough even though the AI is getting a slight bonus because there's so many things we humans do that an I wouldn't do that allow us to make better decisions tactically that save us a few resources here or there.

Assuming your a veteran player of course. Newbies are gonna be horribly more 'sloppy' than the AI.

So from the point of view of the developer releasing a new game onto the market, knowing most players will be newbies, then i can understand the difficulty levels being the way they are.

This is a clear case of "flavor" language winning out over clear UI guidance. Why doesn't the GCII UI openly state the AI penalties and/or bonuses associated with each difficulty level?

My guess is that too many funding-empowered people at Stardock are persuaded by the larger IT-world assumption that most PC users are scared by math. I disagree with this on multiple levels and hope that my assumption is wildly misguided.

My guess is that too many funding-empowered people at Stardock are persuaded by the larger IT-world assumption that most PC users are scared by math. I disagree with this on multiple levels and hope that my assumption is wildly misguided.

Maths scares me horribly! Not because numbers scare me but because they used the word 'maths' in school to decribe the process of torturing students to death with boredom.

In it I think Kblore states that the difficulty levels of a current game can be gotten from the debug.err.

You can get a numerical value of the AI, but it doesn't help show the bonus levels they get.

Here is an example. This is painful AI.

Debug Message: Creating Civs
Debug Message: Terran Alliance: Intellence -> 85
Debug Message: Drengin Empire: Intellence -> 85
Debug Message: Yor Collective: Intellence -> 85
Debug Message: Thalan Empire: Intellence -> 85
Debug Message: Iconian Refuge: Intellence -> 85
Debug Message: Creating Civs... Done

Alright, I was being rather snarky about how money perverts game dev processes in my previous post here. But both Mystik and Deth made posts that beg the question of why the UI doesn't make it obvious and clear what the AI difficulty levels do.

I'm sure that the math in the game guts is hardly precise given its complexity, but leaving the difficulty levels as pure "English" in the UI seems almost disrespectful of the GCII audience's basic numeracy.

We might not all have mastered sybolic logic and tensor calculus, but I'd hazard that most of us understand more basic things like proportions and what it might mean for the AIs to have an X percent advantage over more-adaptable human players.

I'm not sure I buy the idea that there's intentional obfuscation of what's going on here. And in the end I don't think it really matters much anyway. If you play the level the difficulty becomes apparent rather quickly regardless of the numerical designation assigned to that level. I think the only safe thing to say is that each level is more difficult than the previous level. Even with full knowledge of what the numbers mean you still wouldn’t really know unless you play it.

The following is retrieved from "https://www.galciv.wikia.com/wiki/Difficulty_level".

As of v1.31:

Difficulty = (AI Level) (AI Intelligence)

* Cakewalk = 15 (Fool)
* Easy = 20 (Dunce)
* Simple = 30 (Beginner)
* Beginner = 40 (Sub-Normal)
* Normal = 50 (Normal)
* Challenging = 65 (Bright)
* Tough = 80 (Intelligent) *Full AI capability from here on*
* Painful = 85 (Gifted)
* Crippling = 95 (Genius)
* Masochistic = 100 (Incredible)
* Obscene = 120 (Godlike)
* Suicidal = 150 (Ultimate)

Notes

And as Kblore mentioned, we really have no idea how the bonuses run these days. But those are the numbers from the debug.err file along with their associated game settings. Brad has yet to fill us in on the details of what exactly the AI does at each of these levels. In the past it has been economy bonuses past a certain point. This is suspected to still be true but the exact values are unknown. Exact levels for your current game can be viewed in the debug.err file in the installation directory.

AI Intelliegence Level

AI Intelligence level is per AI controlled race. When you select a game each race has a varying degree of intelligence based on the game difficulty selected above. Exact details are not known. In older versions prior to v1.31 it was known to be the following.

Fool - The AI's economy is run at 10% of normal, no higher level algorithms are enabled
Beginner - The AI's economy is run at 25% of normal, no higher level algorithms are enabled
Sub-Normal - The AI's economy is run at 50% of normal, no higher level algorithms are enabled
Normal - The AI's economy is run at 75% of normal, AI evaluates common human tactics
Bright - The AI's economy is run at 100% of normal, AI evaluates most known human tactics
Intelligent - The AI's economy is run at 100% of normal, AI expertly picks abilities and all known human tactics are searched and countered
Gifted - The AI's economy is run at 105% of normal, All AI algorithms in place (same as above)
Genius - The AI's economy is run at 125% of normal, All AI algorithms in place (same as above)
Incredible - The AI's economy is run at 200% of normal, All AI algorithms are in place (same as above)

I'm not sure I buy the idea that there's intentional obfuscation of what's going on here.

How many threads have there been begging for this information? - A lot.
How many of these threads have been read by the devs? - Most likely most of them.
How many clear and concise answers has the community been given? - None that I'm aware of.

The manual is out of date. The wiki is out of date and/or based on conjecture. Why does such a KEY component of the game's mechanics need to be clouded in such mystery? Why are the devs silent on just this issue?

It's like the UFO conspirists, the government is silent so of course that means they are covering something up.

The truth is out there.