I'm really enjoying playing on Apollo.



The is a big difference between Diety and Apollo- Apollo has more akin to Immortal than Deity.



But I'm fairly certain this is because play style is a lot less rigid in BE than Civ. This means the AI just can't keep up with advanced player strategy. It has the same "borderline overwhelming" start as deity, but once the player starts rolling and picking research with purpose, be this for Affinity, Units or development synergy, the brute strength advantages of the AI just can't compete.



I think to increase the difficulty further, the AI needs to have a much better "Grand Strategy"- not more power. Specific tech paths, city placement priorities (and numbers), and unit builds.



Their propensity to declare war so often at higher difficulties also holds it back significantly.

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