Straw Poll - why don't you always play Sid level?

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Buttercup

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I recently claimed the reason many people don't bother playing Sid level is because it's boring rather than because it's 'too difficult'.

A poster has challenged this 'assumption' by stating this 'assumption':

I find what you're claiming about players and higher levels baseless (lacking in any sort of rational basis), and rather improbable to say the least.
Click to expand...

You know what that means! STRAW POLL TIME!

Q. Why don't you always play Sid level?
 
I don't play Sid on island maps because it's too boring. On Pangaea or continents, because it's too hard.
 
It is too hard. (Or, alternatively, I'm too lazy and unfocused.) Because it is too hard, it is not so much fun.
 
I don't know. It's been years since I last tried, and I'm a much better player now than back then. :dunno:

I can pretty easily beat Emperor, so I should move up. :hmm:
 
Because I'm not a masochist. I play Civ (and other games) to have fun, not to be trounced. And nearly every time I've played Deity or Sid, I've been trounced.

However, winning the WWII conquest on Sid was quite fun. And the one time I won a war on Deity was also a lot of fun (although I subsequently faced hopeless odds against the other AIs). But 98% of the time, I'd rather have a relatively relaxing, more competitive (i.e. I have a chance) game.

So I guess I'm more towards the "too difficult" factor, although the difficulty does make it rather boring - a question of how long until I'm squashed into oblivion rather than whether I can compete.
 
Deity, Demigod, and Sid all require too much micromanagment for me. I play while listening to podcasts. I don't want to have to pay attention to too many details. Just give me some good land for some cities, a diverse army, and somebody to invade!
 
Nice thread Buttercup.

For quite a while I didn't play Sid level or played it very sparingly, because I found it too difficult.

Not that I play much these days, but I haven't always played Sid level, because I've mainly focused on HoF games. HoF games encourage you to play at all levels. I also sometimes have fiddled with COTM games, and those happen at different levels.
 
The one time I tried playing Sid I was close to the end of the Ancient Age and everyone. EVERYONE had gunpowder. Some had even researched military tradition.

The AI nations were constantly fighting each other - in my territory! I couldn't very well ask them to get out otherwise they would declare war on me and I'd be screwed.

I abandoned that game. Yes I was surviving in a harsh world, but I could not see any possible way of winning the game. None of the AI's would trade techs with me - or if they did all the other AI's would have the tech anyway so I wouldn't have anyone to sell it to.
 
highest I've played is Warlord, because I want a challenge but not where I'm screaming:"no, no... NOOOO!" as I watch my empire get ripped apart by the enemy, I like building an epic empire, having time to admire it, then move on to war.
 
My comfort level is Monarch. My skill level is nowhere near sufficient for Sid level.
 
because the focus of the game shifts entirely towards luck and exploiting AI bugs every single turn instead of towards anything civilization is supposed to be about (planning, resource-management, racing towards victory, etc.)
 
I don't play SID because it is all I can do to play/win at Regent. Now, aside from my poor Civ skills my total lack of RNG luck is a major factor in all my games. My losses are legendary around here.
 
You should see my attempt at GOTM as France. That was truly an ignominious defeat. :aargh:
 
I play the game for fun and to see what happens if I change a few things, so no Sid.
 
I don't always play sid level because no one bothers to change it from regent when they are hosting a game. I guess none of us see the need to set lower threshold for overpopulation sadness. Other than that factor it doesn't really make any difference does it
 
TomYo689 said:
I don't always play sid level because no one bothers to change it from regent when they are hosting a game. I guess none of us see the need to set lower threshold for overpopulation sadness. Other than that factor it doesn't really make any difference does it
Click to expand...

You are talking about multi-player, right? In that case I can remember at least three other factors that are influenced by the difficulty level, even if no AI is participating in the game:
  • the tech costs go up
  • the barbarian activity increases (especially at aera change)
  • the probability to find anything useful in goody huts decreases.
 
Lanzelot said:
  • the barbarian activity increases (especially at aera change)
Click to expand...

Is that so? I know the bonus vs. barbarians decreases as difficulty increases, but I didn't know activity also increased. I also didn't realize it increased by era, although I rarely have many barbarians around past the Ancient Age.
 
Quintillus said:
I know the bonus vs. barbarians decreases as difficulty increases,
Click to expand...

Ah, I forgot that one... Good tip! And I also forgot the anarchy period.
With "at era change" I meant the "barbarian uprising" that happens, when two nations switch from the ancient age to middle age. (Could be that it also happens at later era switches, but I guess by the time two nations enter the industrial age, there are usually no barb camps left on the map, so no one would notice...)
But yes: I believe the number of barb horsemen that are spawned by each barb nest at "era change" depends on the difficulty level. On Warlord or so the barb uprisings never cause any particular trouble, while on Deity I regularly get run over by 24 barb horsemen per barb camp...

So here is a complete list:

Influence of difficulty level in multi-player games, even if no AIs are present in the game
  • the tech costs go up
  • the barbarian activity increases (barb units appear more often, the barbarian uprising at era change spawns more barb units per existing barb camp)
  • the combat bonus against barbarian decreases
  • the probability to find anything useful in goody huts decreases.
  • the "average" duration of anarchy periods increases (for non-religious civs)
 
I played Civ 3 about 10+ years ago and yet I never play Sid level due to insane difficulty.
Speaking of Sid level, I noticed that no one ever submitted large histographic victory yet.

Also, there's still no victory slot for 100K culture on standard, large, and huge maps.
 
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