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The difficulty level is a game setting in Sid Meier's Civilization that allows players to compete against AI opponents matched to their skills and desire for challenge. In order from lowest to highest, the difficulty levels are as follows:
- Chieftain ("Chieftan" on the Hall of Fame screen)
- Warlord
- Prince
- King
- Emperor
Since the computer players are not controlled by advanced AI (i.e., cannot learn from and react to the player's strategies by changing their own accordingly), but instead behave based on a very long list of if-then statements, the game makes the AI leaders more challenging opponents by giving them advantages on higher difficulty levels. The bonuses conferred to both human and AI players on each difficulty level are listed in the table below.
All of the information presented here comes from an info page on CivFanatics and the game's data files.[1]
| Element | Chieftan | Warlord | Prince | King | Emperor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Endgame year | 2100 AD | 2080 AD | 2060 AD | 2040 AD | 2020 AD |
| Starting Cash | 50 
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
| Content Citizens1 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 |
| CP Rows of Food2 | 16 | 14 | 12 | 10 | 8 |
| CP Resource Cost Multiplier3 | 1.6 | 1.4 | 1.2 | 1.0 | 0.8 |
| CP Lightbulb Increment Per Advance4 | +14 | +13 | +12 | +11 | +10 |
| Human Player Lightbulb Incremement Per Advance4 | +6 | +8 | +10 | +12 | +14 |
| Barbarian Unit Attack Strength Multiplier | 0.25 | 0.50 | 0.75 | 1.00 | 1.25 |
| Parley Coin Demands Multiplier5 | 0.25 | 0.50 | 0.75 | 1.00 | 1.25 |
| Civilization Score Multiplier6 | 0.02% | 0.04% | 0.06% | 0.08% | 1.00% (?) |
1 The number of people who will be created in a city who are born content.
2 The number of rows in the computer player's food storage box (i.e. how long it will take for a city to grow). The number of rows in the human player's box is always 10.
3 All computer players have their costs to build units and city improvements multiplied by this amount.
4 Each time an advance is discovered, the cost (in lightbulbs) of acquiring the next increases by this amount.
5 In a parley with another leader, enemy leaders will often demand payment for peace. Note that they will always offer peace at the Chieftan difficulty level, as if the player permanently has the Great Wall or United Nations.
6 The score is calculated the same on all difficulty levels. However, when it comes to high score ranking, the final score is converted to a percent in order to account for the difficulty.
References[]
See also[]
- Difficulty level in other games