Prince wins with 17 votes. Monarch and Noble were tied for second with 5 each.

Poll open for 2 days. Vote for your difficulty preference.

Prince, out of respect for Prince Johnson, a colleague warlord working out of Liberia.

As of this post (since I err'd in not making it public) there are 5 votes for Prince and none for any other option.

I have a feeling factionalism is going to make a mess of the focus needed for monarch+.

I have a feeling factionalism is going to make a mess of the focus needed for monarch+.

Right now, it's 6:1 in favor of Prince.

I second what Rashi says. When I play Monarch, I usually have to pay close attention to things, as there's much less room for error in Monarch than in Prince.

Just a point, but in future make these types of polls in the future public. :)

Prince. I tend to be able to beat Prince most of the time without focusing as much as needed on monarch+. Noble would be fine aswell though, if we are playing by special circumstances (like "focus on espionage", "No offensive wars" or whateer the factions are doing).

Emperor. Anything less is just too easy, especially with this many players. Granted, factions could make the game tougher.

Emperor. Anything less is just too easy

:cry: :eek:

Then I must really fail as a civ player

Then I must really fail as a civ player

C'mon, Emperor is a piece of cake! It's not a difficulty with significant bonuses to the AI or anything like that. :rolleyes:

I was a little disappointed Warlord wasn't on the list, as that's about my speed. :blush:

OTOH, there's a lot to be said for learning about higher levels by deferring to others on game decisions and seeing what they do.

Then I must really fail as a civ player

I believe you mis-interpreting me. I'm not an emperor player and you won't see me playing it on my own. Monarch is the level I play on. I've played a lot of SG's (or used too) and when you play games with multiple players, like an SG or a DG, you can typically handle a difficulty level one to two levels above what your comfortable with. With this many players emperor should be a lot of fun and still hold some challenge. Add in the concept of factions/rebellions and it'll keep the challenge there.

Prince IMO will be way too easy and will lose the challenge of the AI's. The only challenge will be faction politics and the game will be a quick rise to domination. If we play emperor, or monarch, we won't easily become the runaway civ. We'll actually have a challenge with the AI's too. It'll keep the civ game fun and it'll add to the DG.

The last DG was on noble I believe and we very quickly took the #1 spot. There wasn't any challenge anymore and we could have picked whatever vc we wanted. It wasn't any fun. I would prefer we have the challenge of faction politics and the challenge of possibly dangerous AI's.

Since Methos has a point I suggest we runoff between Prince and Emperor.

Emperor, since we can profit of several players knowledge.

A long-standing demogame debate has been whether a poll on a subject should be the final word, or if new information can and should result in another poll to allow the people to change their minds.

If enough people want to discuss the benefits of higher difficulty, I think there is ample time to poll again before the game is created.

Prince seems to be the Golden Average as well, with 5 voting less than prince and 6 more than prince. I think the result is very clear indeed.

The result is clear, but if there were further debate would the latecomers who suggest higher difficulty succeed in convincing others to move up?

Also in keeping with the ideals of factions, a faction could decide to repudiate the poll in their platform. Would that result in an electoral win or the faction's early demise? We'll only know if someone tries it. ;)

Well i am one of the people who voted prince who, now given the debate we have had, would probably vote for a higher level, so it may well be worth doing, if only to confirmed this reault, after all the arguements have been put in.

I believe you mis-interpreting me. I'm not an emperor player and you won't see me playing it on my own. Monarch is the level I play on. I've played a lot of SG's (or used too) and when you play games with multiple players, like an SG or a DG, you can typically handle a difficulty level one to two levels above what your comfortable with. With this many players emperor should be a lot of fun and still hold some challenge. Add in the concept of factions/rebellions and it'll keep the challenge there.

Prince IMO will be way too easy and will lose the challenge of the AI's. The only challenge will be faction politics and the game will be a quick rise to domination. If we play emperor, or monarch, we won't easily become the runaway civ. We'll actually have a challenge with the AI's too. It'll keep the civ game fun and it'll add to the DG.

The last DG was on noble I believe and we very quickly took the #1 spot. There wasn't any challenge anymore and we could have picked whatever vc we wanted. It wasn't any fun. I would prefer we have the challenge of faction politics and the challenge of possibly dangerous AI's.

In a SG, you have a bunch of people working together to get the best possible result.
In a demogame, that isn't always the case...

By the way, I've been playing BtS emperor lately, and when you're used to the new mechanics, it's quite easy. I'd say BtS emperor = Vanilla monarch.

This faction-based rule-set is roleplay driven, not gamey optimization driven. For all the true supporters of the Faction Ruleset, I recommend to continue the support to Prince Level, as it guarantees that we have enough liberty to integrate roleplay and gameplay, and at the same time have the opportunity to survive.

Can I change my vote from Prince to Monarch?

This faction-based rule-set is roleplay driven, not gamey optimization driven. For all the true supporters of the Faction Ruleset, I recommend to continue the support to Prince Level, as it guarantees that we have enough liberty to integrate roleplay and gameplay, and at the same time have the opportunity to survive.

I agree with Provo. Although the game is going to play easier than Prince with 9 civs, by playing at Prince we can figure out factions without gameplay distractions.

by playing at Prince we can figure out factions without gameplay distractions.

But the 'game play distractions' will help keep the role playing moving. Consider this, look at all the political upheaval with the middle east and how it has affected US politics and bureaucratic positioning. Won't that do the same thing here?

It's still a civ game and the actual game should affect the role playing and vice versa.

Well, Methos, in that case, let's go Emperor?

Since Methos has a point I suggest we runoff between Prince and Emperor.

Prince would still win imo.
Those voting Noble now will vote Prince, and those voting Monarch will either vote Prince or Emperor.
The Prince vote has a big enough lead to make a runoff poll unnecessary i believe.

I think some here got a unique idea about run-offs, when they are necessary or not. I would say that prince stands, weighted or non-weighted.