Difficulty level regression

Anybody find themselves playing a higher difficulty level, only to then have to take a step back?

I played monarch for a long time. Then I discovered this page and started applying more advanced strategies. I struggled with emperor. Then on some GOTM i played demigod, and killed the AI. I've been playing demigod ever since, but haven't had much luck, so I'm considering going back to emperor.

Good thing for training? Or should I continue playing at a higher level to keep my Civtelligence calibrated to that level of competition?

bbrady413 said:

Then on some GOTM i played demigod, and killed the AI.

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COTM might not be calibrated to the usual level of difficulty. In theory it is quite possibly to create scenerios that despite Sid setting are easier than a usual regent game or regent games that are harder than a usual Demigod.

As the steps between Emperor and Demigod and also between Deity and Sid are very severe i advise to properly master Emperor before Demigod and Daity before Sid if that should become relevant.

Sometimes losing is a normal thing. Mastering a difficulty setting can be interpreted as winning two thirds of all started games.

@bbrady413

The difficulty levels of Civilisation III are an interesting beast.

I had a lot of trouble just beating Regent before coming to this site, I was stuck on Warlord. Coming here taught me about the benefits of the Republic form of government and ever since then I've found Regent to be too easy.

However...

Although I have many wins on both Monarch and Emperor, I still find myself preferring the easy Regent wins than the more grindy higher levels. I get more fun challenging myself or just enjoying the exploration of Regent than I do trying to fight against a simply more numerous, but equally inept, AI.

So I've sacrificed my desire to win via a challenge in favour of a desire to win by my own terms. Great ways to add interest to such a method is to vary start locations, play around with Barbarian settings, AI aggression and selecting opponents. There's quite a vast difference between a Pangaea with lots of rivers and no barbs with least aggressive AI and a cold and rocky Archipelago with Raging Barbarians and a really aggressive AI, for example.

The way I see higher levels is just defeating stacks of 200 instead of stacks of 20, which my eyes just see as more clicking rather than more challenge.

Haven't played civ 3 for a while, but my history says yes. I have played some games at emperor, but didn't enjoy it. It was more a struggle than enjoyment, though i did win those games. So i switched to monarch and i enjoyed the games much more. I could make some mistakes, but still was dominating the whole game(the longer game goes, the bigger the gap). It's not actually about ''can i win?'', but more about 1) manipulating the whole world and 2) development of my civilization(tile by tile). My skills still developed, cause i didn't have that ''i can win, i should just probably step a little back and play faster''. I always want to weaken other civs and develop my own civilization to max. It's different in modern era, cause i just can't handle that micromanagement hell.

Another thing about emperor(actually the biggest complaint) is that i got more stuff from emperor ai's than monarch ai's. Emperor ai's develop faster and hence it breaks the timeline and immersion. Also, i heavily started to use tricks against ai's, which actually felt just cheating. So i doubt i will ever go beyond emperor(emperor MAY happen, though) in my normal games, cause (that goes my mantra) with higher difficulties it's more about ''how can i get more stuff from ai's?'' rather than ''how do i develop my civ?''.

I have soared as high as Deity but prefer to play emperor as being more within my comfort zone.

I started a game on Emperor after starting this thread. After getting knocked around on demigod for a while, the Emperor level seems way easier. Its somewhere around 30 AD and I'm in the Middle Ages, I have an expansive 25 city empire from REX, and I'm the tech leader. My only hangup was no iron in my territory, and very few around the world, which has delayed the destruction of my neighbors. I was able to secure a deal for iron though, and I'm stocking up on knights and immortals for a blitzkrieg.

Definitely more enjoyable.

bbrady413 said:

I started a game on Emperor after starting this thread. After getting knocked around on demigod for a while, the Emperor level seems way easier. Its somewhere around 30 AD and I'm in the Middle Ages, I have an expansive 25 city empire from REX, and I'm the tech leader. My only hangup was no iron in my territory, and very few around the world, which has delayed the destruction of my neighbors. I was able to secure a deal for iron though, and I'm stocking up on knights and immortals for a blitzkrieg.

Definitely more enjoyable.

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I believe the gap between Emperor and Demigod to be quite substantial. Much more than, say, the difference between Demi and Deity, so you should indeed find Emp a lot easier if you have been knocking yourself out at Demigod.