So, what level of C3C should we play at? Monarch? Higher?

Higher means tougher growth and tougher Barbs. What are your thoughts?

We don't want a cakewalk, nor do we want a level that requires a lot of technical game play. So as usual I'm thinking something in the middle.

Low level please. Higher levels are bad for demo games. The lower the difficulty level the less arguing there should be over trying to make perfect moves. Lower levels would allow us be sloppy in our civ play while enjoying demo game aspects of building up our civ. We could create a national identity for our civ and make our civ moves according to that instead of just making civ moves.

EDIT: Cross post with DaveShack and, guess what, we are not quite in agreement. ;) I'm not so sure we don't want a cakewalk. Lower levels do not necessarily mean a cakewalk, especially if we put some DG constraints on ourselves. By this I mean we could decide we don't want to be conquerors and will never keep captured cities, but we won't raze them either. We'll give them back after the war is over. We could use our imagination here.

Low level please. Higher levels are bad for demo games. The lower the difficulty level the less arguing there should be over trying to make perfect moves. Lower levels would allow us be sloppy in our civ play while enjoying demo game aspects of building up our civ. We could create a national identity for our civ and make our civ moves according to that instead of just making civ moves.

EDIT: Cross post with DaveShack and, guess what, we are not quite in agreement. ;) I'm not so sure we don't want a cakewalk. Lower levels do not necessarily mean a cakewalk, especially if we put some DG constraints on ourselves. By this I mean we could decide we don't want to be conquerors and will never keep captured cities, but we won't raze them either. We'll give them back after the war is over. We could use our imagination here.
I agree completely. I would definitely prefer to make game decisions based on a "identity" that we make up instead of what would win us the civ game.

Hmmm. I remember having heated discussions about pop-rushing. One thing I didn't like about Civ4 was the slavery aspect, and in earlier Demogames pop-rushing was likened to that. :mischief:

Maybe we carry the one person/one vote concept all the way. No pop-rushing?

Emperor, too high
Deity, too high

How about Monarch

Identity yes, "rules" about the identity no. Let it develop naturally via the pen and voting booth.

Too low a difficulty would mean no surprises, or at least fewer ones. I think surprises are necessary to keep spice in the game.

Ironically, my comment about not wanting a cakewalk was prompted by donsig's comment in the "how will you participate" thread about it not being fun to roll over the AI's too easily. ;)

i say if we go for a easyier difficulty then we rasie the ai agression. its fun to be attacked.

i say if we go for a easyier difficulty then we rasie the ai agression. its fun to be attacked.

Hey! Nobody play the victim here, ok? :lol: Couldn't resist. ;)

I do like this suggestion, Nobody. Monarch, but set the AI agression up a level?

Ironically, my comment about not wanting a cakewalk was prompted by donsig's comment in the "how will you participate" thread about it not being fun to roll over the AI's too easily. ;)

I see things haven't changed over the years. Here's what I said:

It will also depend on how fun the game is. If it becomes a micromanaging, let's play the perfect [c3c] game and pulverize the AI then I doubt it'll be much fun. If we try to play with some imaginative constraints then things could get fun.

My whole point was we don't have to ratchet up the difficulty level to prevent a cakewalk. We can give oursleves limits or handicaps to prevent a cakewalk, the idea being that the handicaps constitute our identity.

Identity yes, "rules" about the identity no. Let it develop naturally via the pen and voting booth.

For the constraints or handicaps to effectively prevent a cakewalk (and keep the DG interesting) they would have to be something we stick with. What good is a handicap if you abandon it once the going gets rough? And, also, are you saying we can't develop a hard and fast rule via the pen and voting booth as you so eloquently put it?

i say if we go for a easyier difficulty then we rasie the ai agression. its fun to be attacked.

Even more fun trying to win by not keeping conquered cities nor razing them but returning them. We could also play to keep the status quo land-wise. If two AI go to war we intervene we make sure all cities go back to their rightful owner.

I prefer a decision point by decision point style. As long as the 2nd decision is as easy to make as the 1st one, I'm ok with it. The people can make the same choice again or not depending on prevailing opinion at the time. If the 2nd decision is harder to make than the 1st, that's a bad thing.

Hopefully there will be some difficulty level that most feel is too low. <launches [c3c] to look at the available difficulty levels> I would say chieftain is definitely too low. Warlord is also probably too low, thus regent is the lowest level I'd be interested in.

Regent or Monarch level is the best if we want to make our own difficulty.

Babylon, winning by culture, only able to keep captured cities if they culture flip?

The higher the difficulty the more likely it is to push us to try to play the technically perfect game in my opinion.

Even more fun trying to win by not keeping conquered cities nor razing them but returning them. We could also play to keep the status quo land-wise. If two AI go to war we intervene we make sure all cities go back to their rightful owner.

Yeah this type of thing sounds fun but i dont think we need to make it a rule e.g. "only citys we culture flip". If you want something like this elect leaders who have the same ideas or run for the position and vote for that kind of thing.

Monarch with our own house rules? Sounds good to me.

Wouldn't our identity relate to how we want to win? Or derive from that? Like we're Zulu and want to go to Space, but we can only research one tech per age?

I prefer a decision point by decision point style. As long as the 2nd decision is as easy to make as the 1st one, I'm ok with it. The people can make the same choice again or not depending on prevailing opinion at the time. If the 2nd decision is harder to make than the 1st, that's a bad thing.

I don't think we can play a democracy game without making decisions one at a time as we go along. I don't understand your point about the second decision being more difficult. :confused: But moving right along, Nobody has the right idea here. Most likely nobody will have the same vision for our little civ. So we can form our little groups or parties around our competing visions and try to elect leaders who will adhere to that vision. (I assume here that political parties are not banned as they were in the old days.) That could actually be fun.

I agree we should go with either regent or monarch.

CommandoBob's idea is interesting. Sounded scary at first but it just means we'd have to buy alot of techs. I also like Furiey's idea of only being able to keep cities that flip to us. We do need to have room for our identity to grow.

I don't understand your point about the second decision being more difficult.


If one of these game restrictions is in the Constitution, and to change the Constitution it takes ...

more votes to pass than an ordinary poll would ...



I assume here that political parties are not banned as they were in the old days.

We've just had a pretty horrible experience in the last Civ4 DG where we elected a slate of officers from a party (calling it a "faction") instead of individuals. I think we're much safer this game having each individual candidate state a platform. The old citizen groups would be ok, of course.

But moving right along, Nobody has the right idea here. Most likely nobody will have the same vision for our little civ. So we can form our little groups or parties around our competing visions and try to elect leaders who will adhere to that vision. (I assume here that political parties are not banned as they were in the old days.) That could actually be fun.
The last line in Article A of the Constitution clearly states "Political parties are not permitted."

Wouldn't our identity relate to how we want to win? Or derive from that? Like we're Zulu and want to go to Space, but we can only research one tech per age?
:D Hey! Welcome, CommandoBob! Sounds like we've got our Science Leader. Interested?

If one of these game restrictions is in the Constitution, and to change the Constitution it takes ...

more votes to pass than an ordinary poll would ...


So if the identity rules were in a lower form of law that was easier to change you wouldn't mind?

We've just had a pretty horrible experience in the last Civ4 DG where we elected a slate of officers from a party (calling it a "faction") instead of individuals. I think we're much safer this game having each individual candidate state a platform. The old citizen groups would be ok, of course.
The last line in Article A of the Constitution clearly states "Political parties are not permitted."

So does this mean two or more people can't run for different offices on the same platform?

I don't see any reason to prevent several people from having the same platform. That by itself doesn't constitute a political party.

What's the difference between a lower form of law, and the last recorded decision on a topic?

I don't see any reason to prevent several people from having the same platform. That by itself doesn't constitute a political party.

What's the difference between a lower form of law, and the last recorded decision on a topic?

Beats the heck out of me. I don't know how the last decision on a topic mechanism works. I know how things were back in the first few democracy games but I'm not sure how they've evolved since. I'm still in the stone ages where we wanted a constitution that was vague but difficult to change with a code of laws that was more specific but easier to change and then an even lower lever (we called them standards) that were detailed but very easy to change. It sounds as though judicial decisions are now akin to what we used to call the code of laws with this last recorded decision thing akin to the old idea of standards.

To try to get back on topic I was suggesting that we would have rules concerning our national identity but they would not be constitutional but encoded in a changeable law or decision that was not part of the constitution.

In the past (the ancient past of the DGs) our lower forms of laws always revolved around demo game laws rather than laws that shaped a national identity. In other words we were always concerned with coding laws defining how we made group decisions. We never tried (at least in the games I was part of) to encode civ game play decisions.

We could try this time to enact laws about how we play the civ game. We could try to pass a law or resolution regarding our desired victory condition. (For example, It is hereby resolved that this great nation of ours shall dominate our world.) We could get more detailed and make it illegal to keep conquered cities more than 5 turns after peace is made. Possibilites are endless and some could be quite fun to play. Also, the very act of passing these type of laws would be quite fun and constitute the democracy part of the democracy game. This would give a new life to the various citizens groups as they push to enact laws to further the ideas dear to their hearts.

Getting back on topic, if we want to do this type of thing we need a level of difficulty that allows us to play a less than perfect (or even downright sloppy) civ game and still have a chance to defeat the AI. I think lower difficulty levels would allows us to do these things.

I am in favor of more aggresive barbarians. Maybe raging.

Perhaps the next level down from raging?

Themes that seem to be developing:
Monarch or Regent (de-emphasize need for technical play)
Medium high barb level (add spice in the form of risk and randomness)
Self-imposed play restrictions (AKA variant) that is easy to change if circumstances or changes in public opinion warrants it (non-"game" focus)

Beats the heck out of me. I don't know how the last decision on a topic mechanism works. I know how things were back in the first few democracy games but I'm not sure how they've evolved since. I'm still in the stone ages where we wanted a constitution that was vague but difficult to change with a code of laws that was more specific but easier to change and then an even lower lever (we called them standards) that were detailed but very easy to change. It sounds as though judicial decisions are now akin to what we used to call the code of laws with this last recorded decision thing akin to the old idea of standards.

To try to get back on topic I was suggesting that we would have rules concerning our national identity but they would not be constitutional but encoded in a changeable law or decision that was not part of the constitution.

In the past (the ancient past of the DGs) our lower forms of laws always revolved around demo game laws rather than laws that shaped a national identity. In other words we were always concerned with coding laws defining how we made group decisions. We never tried (at least in the games I was part of) to encode civ game play decisions.

We could try this time to enact laws about how we play the civ game. We could try to pass a law or resolution regarding our desired victory condition. (For example, It is hereby resolved that this great nation of ours shall dominate our world.) We could get more detailed and make it illegal to keep conquered cities more than 5 turns after peace is made. Possibilites are endless and some could be quite fun to play. Also, the very act of passing these type of laws would be quite fun and constitute the democracy part of the democracy game. This would give a new life to the various citizens groups as they push to enact laws to further the ideas dear to their hearts.

Getting back on topic, if we want to do this type of thing we need a level of difficulty that allows us to play a less than perfect (or even downright sloppy) civ game and still have a chance to defeat the AI. I think lower difficulty levels would allows us to do these things.
I think this is a great idea, it makes us seem like more of a government than a civilization player. I think they should still be only simple majority polls, but we could have a sticky that is separate from our Constitution and Code of Laws.

Back to the actual question, I think Monarch would be a good difficulty if we don't try to play a perfect civilization game.

Why don't we make a custom difficulty level? Nothing massively unbalanced to one side or the other though.

Is this thread the best place to discuss VCs and Game Constraints?

Not really, CommandoBob. I'll make a cople more discussion threads. Feel free to start any threads you like (goes out to everyone). Sometimes we get carried away with topic crossover. :blush:

@ mickyd47 - I believe that's where we're headed. :)

Why don't we make a custom difficulty level? Nothing massively unbalanced to one side or the other though.
We seem to be leaning towards using a standard difficulty level for the actual game, and playing like it's a variant to adjust.

Were you suggesting we should use the rule editor to create a difficulty level that emphasizes what we want?

Basically yes. I'm no expert at Civ3 so I couldn't suggest details for the rules.

I've made rule changes but it has been a long time. I doubt many people would go for that, but it's a valid option if they do. The one change we usually do for multi-team games is making the SoZ require horses instead of ivory.

I'm pretty good with rule changes and bic creation if you'd like me to do this. We'd then just have the .BIC create a random map under the guidelines we set.

I've put three polls up from this thread.
Difficulty Level? (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7784697&postcount=1)
Barbarian Level? (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7784732&postcount=1)
Custom Play Level? (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7784776&postcount=1)