When do you decide to move up in difficulty?

I think it really depends on what you are planning to do in a game.

I usually play on Immortal now; it's a nice challenge but I can usually win.

I don't really feel like moving up to Deity though because I feel it would force me to be more rigid in my play-style, and I'd have less fun.

To the contrary, sometimes I have ideas for things I'd like to try out that will force me to pursue less than optimal strategies in order to try to simulate something historical or just try a strategy that seems like fun. In these cases I sometimes move down a level (to Emperor) to give myself a fighting chance and not feel too constrained...

A question to people generally: do you start a game with the plan to win by a certain vc? I do.

I sometimes think really strong play on higher levels will require the flexibility to contest different vcs depending on AI development.

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I was playing on Emperor in early pre-patch Vanilla, usually with slingshot exploits for OCC cultural victories, but got bored and only came back to play G&K, which I like much better, in August. I've worked my way up to Prince and am studying a lot of the strategies being recommended here while trying out different leaders. While I feel like I'm ready I'll try one of the higher levels and I think it will be soon.

But here's something I think is interesting and can be a liability of becoming an expert at lower levels: Some of the key strategies for winning at high levels don't work very well at lower levels. This is especially true of those that involve trading luxuries to AI for gold, since low-level AI don't have as much. This also diminishes the usefulness of Research Agreements. And spies can seem pointless. I have a Prince game right now (Large, Continents, Epic, England) in which I fully expect to get a Domination win before any opponent with a capital reaches the Industrial era. I'm fortunate to be this far ahead, because they also don't have much money. All of this seems like a good reason to go ahead to the next difficulty level before I get too accustomed to how things work at the lower levels.

However, this really works out as a critique of game balance. Several of the things that should have made the game harder at higher levels, probably make it easier. There's no point in giving the AI a money edge if you don't program them not to give it away.

Soronery said:

King-Winnable with no knowledge of the game (learn as you play)

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I think you already imply far too much knowledge thinking that King is winnable with _zero_ knowledge. Civ5 is my first and favourite Civilization game, and with no prior knowledge I have managed to loose on Settler difficulty on my very first game. I sent one Catapult and one Soldier to a CS, got mulled, Alex declared war on me (it was under his protection) and killed me. I didn't know what cities do, what production means, I thought everyone progresses in science at the same speed, I didn't know how much military I need to take a CS.

I have jumped quickly from Prince to Emperor just by reading these forums here - there is so much to learn if you have never played any Civ. Coming from backgrounds of Anno1602 and SimCity, this was new territory.

Soronery said:

Let me break it down:
On standard speed:

King-Winnable with no knowledge of the game (learn as you play)
Emperor-Easily winnable with basic knowledge of the game
Immortal-Easily winnable with complete knowledge of the game mechanics and concepts. A few basic strats go a long way.
Deity-Generally consistently winnable. Difficult with no reloads.

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Sounds about right, nice summary. But remember when Civ5 first came out? Everyone was winning on Emperor/Immortal without even trying, esp. with the four horsemen. There was even that embarassing let's play in which the focus on the German leader's facial expressions. But as I had fervently wished for, they did make the game much more challenging because I knew the fundamentals were there.

grumble,grumble,grumble

Started my first deity game with my favorite map (fractals) and got stuck on a small landmass with only the Babylonians. Had no chance to get any kind of military superiority and everyone else was way ahead and way far away.

Bison21 is right. The game may be "winnable with no knowledge" on King for someone who has played prior Civ games, particularly if that someone inclines toward aggressive gameplay. But for a newb who fires up Civ for the first time ever and thinks that building a Civilization is primarily about building great things -- meaning he or she strives for a peaceful win -- that newb will start the game behind and will fall further behind. Unless said newb has read these forums, said newb will probably be reluctant to insta-sell luxuries to the AI for a cash lump sum, will not steal workers from city-states, will have no notion of beelining toward any particular tech (or National College), but instead will have fun building granaries and shrines and monuments and whatnot.

The Steam Achievements would seem to bear out this observation. Only some 5% of players report having beaten the game on King. I know those stats are unreliable, as they may not reflect modded games, but they still give a general sense of things. I've watched intelligent new players play Civ, and they often struggle to win on Warlord, to say nothing of Prince.

"The game may be "winnable with no knowledge" on King for someone who has played prior Civ games"

That was how I read it.

Deity is a culture shock. Just not able to get my head around how far behind I am in the early game and how far ahead everyone else is, esp. in techs and military units. Think I need to start small.

Buccaneer said:

Deity is a culture shock. Just not able to get my head around how far behind I am in the early game and how far ahead everyone else is, esp. in techs and military units. Think I need to start small.

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Yeah, first time at Deity level, I had to resist the temptation to start over because of how far behind I fell so quickly. I assumed I'd done something wrong.

So far, I've won 5 Deity games (Rome, Germany, Egypt, England and Greece). I found that I needed a very strong early- to mid-game UU in order to weather the initial 3000 years of war. Because of the bonuses the AI gets at that level, I avoided expansive conquest and just engaged in scorched earth wars - it seemed better to rob the enemy of their more developed cities than to take and have to defend them.

3 or 4 (at most) city nucleus. Strong military on defensible terrain. Roads for quick reaction to new wars/fronts. Get to at least gunpowder, if not Rifling/Dynamite, then start expanding (if that's the game you're playing).

Just had my first win on Emperor, an easy runaway Science win as Babylon. My game improved when I focused more on food in the early game, less on production. The builder in me hates waiting longer for stuff to get built, but the added population more than makes up for those early production delays.

So, on to Immortal!

I think that was the key for my easy three different victories on immortal - getting good food/growth and quickly grabbing all of the nearby luxuries spots with early settlers. Previously, I would focus too much on production and wonders or not expand in time to grab the sweet spots. I think one of the best change was to save up the gold to buy a settler - before buying anything else.

I really enjoy difficult video games. Or easy games with difficult side challenges. I like a challenge I just won my first try on Emperor, Japan, Cultural, Marathon, turn 1124, Earth, Small. China nearly launched a space ship and was threatening to nuke me lol. She controlled nearly half the earth! I racked up as many defensive bonuses as I could, and actually managed to defend against waves of superior technology. It was so much fun lol. I'm gonna move on to Immortal now, seeing as I won my first attempt at Emperor. Idc if I lose, it just means I need to practice.

So to answer you're question; You should bump up the difficulty whenever the heck you want to lol. Whatever you enjoy.

EditorRex said:

However, this really works out as a critique of game balance. Several of the things that should have made the game harder at higher levels, probably make it easier. There's no point in giving the AI a money edge if you don't program them not to give it away.

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I disagree - preFall patch yes the AI had tons of monies in their private funds, but nowadays they are spending them a lot. Higher levels mean more units for them to fund instantly.

I'm hard pressed to find a civ with over 5000 gold these days lol

smallfish said:

I disagree - preFall patch yes the AI had tons of monies in their private funds, but nowadays they are spending them a lot. Higher levels mean more units for them to fund instantly.

I'm hard pressed to find a civ with over 5000 gold these days lol

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I noticed that too in my Immortal games. Before, if I don't go on a conquering spree, there would be at least one civ with 20,000+ gold. Haven't seen one close to that in a similar situation. Must be doing better at buying buildings and units, and to some extent, city-states. They, however, still need to do better on bribing city-states when I'm closing in on the UN vote.

Buccaneer said:

They, however, still need to do better on bribing city-states when I'm closing in on the UN vote.

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I agree. Money seems to be spent on units not CS. CS are handled mainly with spies. I manage consistently to ally all (or almost all) CS out there regardless VC and strategy. That's not right.
BTW, I think big portion of late game cash goes into airforce. I see zillion of them now. Recently Ethiopia suicided around dozen and a half triplanes on my capital and the next turn I found out they have 30 triplanes/gwb more. If such perspective doesn't scare you, you might want to move up in difficulty.

About deity - lol. That's psychological thing probably. I can tell you what helps me: I like watching videos of experienced deity players fighting on multiple fronts and getting out of it. Very therapeutic. I mean... If they can why can't I, right? Sounds silly, but actually knowing it's possible to overcome all handicaps calms me down. I accept my backwardness and misery and give up on panicking. No panic = better decisions = better play. That said, I still haven't tried a 'proper' pangaea deity post-patch. Maybe I'll join you soon.

Matthew. said:

In my opinion...

King and below when learning all the different game mechanics. Can take a while, since Civ games take so long to play through, but once you reach the point of understanding all the different mechanics, games at these levels become extremely boring.

Emperor = easy
Immortal = medium
Deity = hard

Fits the model of most games: Easy, if you just want to relax and play casually. Medium, if you want an engaging game. Hard, if you want to try and beat the game at the highest difficulty, but generally at the expense of fun.

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Wrong.
Tutorial Difficulty = Settler
Easy = Chieftain and Warlord
Medium = Prince and King
Hard = Emperor and Immortal
IMPOSSIBLE! = Deity

I usually don't play at high levels (Emperor and Immortal) because I find it a chore... hell, even Prince is a chore to me.

When you can get a CV in under 300 turns on consecutive tries!!!

(At least that's when I'm moving up to Immortal )

I move up whenever I get 5 wins with 5 different civs. Right now I'm playing Immortal and I'm at 3, so I need two more. My last one was a Domination victory with France, and I'm trying to make one work with Byzantium right now. But it's kinda tough