Comfort Zone

Hello Guys:

What is your Comfort Zone regarding Skill Level to play a game which on average could go either way...you win or you lose. I am on Prince at the moment and will move to King. I think King will be the level I stay at until Civ 6 comes out.

Mods: if this needs to be moved please do so.

Brew God

I am mostly playing at the king level now. About right for my skill level - the AI outcompeted me on building way too many wonders, and they even attacked me first in my last two games...

Deity isn't that comfortable, but coming back to a challenge by being expected to lose to finally defy the loss that was destined for you is a good feeling.

I can win pretty regularly on Emperor now. I think I'm ready to try Immortal.

maybe it's the masochist in me, but I love it when I see a swarm of ottoman warriors and spearmen coming my way, or a swarm of horse archers on T30, for that matter. my spine just tingles....and you can only see that sort of thing on deity.

I still play on Prince. I like the start of the game most, setting up your cities, getting good luxs, beating off that first attack, and then collecting wonders. I once had 5-6 cottons in one city. I became Fruit-of-the-Loom guy for Civ. I like seeing if I can double the next player's score. Never played past tanks/aircraft. By then I am dragging too many artys/GGs around I just start a new game.

I switched to Immortal lately and I strangely find it easier than expected. I am only playing strong civs so far though (England on Small Continents, Babylon 4-city-SV, China Choku rush, Genghis on pangea).

But still, I am bit surprised how easy it is to rush the AI with an early attack. Now, I have to get bakc to my Keshik rush...

Started with Deity. Got creamed so many times. Read and lurked here a lot. Now It's my comfort zone because I won't settle for anything but the highest difficulty in any game. I can't say I can win 100% of my games though, but once I get a decent start I'll play through to at lest turn 150.

Im playing Immortal and I am comfortable with very powerfull civs. (top 2 tier) I didnt attemp to play wirh mid tier civs yet.

That said I would say that Emperor is the level I can beat with any civ in almost any conditions.

So I would guess my confort zone now is somewhere between Empror and Immortal.

KingKong76 said:

Im playing Immortal and I am comfortable with very powerfull civs. (top 2 tier) I didnt attemp to play wirh mid tier civs yet.

That said I would say that Emperor is the level I can beat with any civ in almost any conditions.

So I would guess my confort zone now is somewhere between Empror and Immortal.

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Yea, immortal is comfortable with tradition at least for me.

reddishrecue said:

Yea, immortal is comfortable with tradition at least for me.

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Same here... I have to KISS. Keep It Simple and Stupid!

As soon as I do something a bit off, I can feel it hurts. Its the 1st level I can relly feel the gap.

Once you get a real hang of the game, Immortal is very comfy indeed (in my opinion). For what it's worth, I'm still not a very good Diety player (or at least I don't feel good), but I win on Immortal basically 100% of the time.

One thing I've said on the forums before, Immortal let's me take advantage of whatever my Random Civ's special traits are (I often play random maps with a random civ). Pretty much every civ has a fun trait to take advantage of, whether it be religion or military, or econ. On Diety I feel I'm scrambling from the get go (unless I'm isolated with good turtling lands), and I miss the flexibility.

I play both, but Immortal is fantastically comfortable. If you play poorly, you'll be punished, but you can do all kinds of fun things from the start given the AI doesn't just crush or squeeze you early like Diety.

My comfort zone is Immortal, but I play Deity and, yeah just say it like it is, cheat. I add a worker t20, maybe add 1 wheat tile from the beginning and in really extreme cases, when I'm playing a low-tier Civ, add a holy site to a tile I'm working until I get a pantheon. Then I remove it ofcourse. I know it's blatant cheating but I need it when I want to play something else than the 4city Tradition game with a boring SV. I want to apply different tactis, go full piety/honor and do a bit of Role Playing. When I want to play Babylon for example, I don't need to cheat to win on Deity, but I've had enough of those 'standard' games where at a point it just an automatic pilot who gives you the same victory on almost the same way over and over again.

The reason I don't play Immortal is because I win those games 99% of the time and I never finish those games. Also, a Deity game gives you much more intensity. Insane early rushes from Attila, Impi swarms when I haven't reached medieval yet, discovering Sejong is completely outteching you when reaching the other continent, and so on. Things I never see on Immortal. There the warmongers just fail to overtake their opponents and just kill their troops and those of their opponent and they fall back in science.

Right now i'm discovering if my comfort zone is on immortal. I just started playing again last week and used to play on emperor, but it didn't feel like a challenge. Just won my first game on immortal with Sejong (science victory), and now i'm trying with Monty and went honor for the double culture at killing units and used that to rush the liberty tree... i'm way behind in science though.

We'll see if i can catch up, but it's still better then a game at which you're sure you will win at 1/4 of the game.

Emperor... I wanted to get a top tier civ to go Immortal, but nowadays I'm focused on getting some achievements that are easier to get in Prince.

I guess mine is in between Immortal and Deity. It's getting to the point where I rarely lose on Immortal but Deity still kicks my butt more often than not. I can only do Deity with top tier civs and need a slightly above average start to pull off a win.

BARBEERIAN said:

I guess mine is in between Immortal and Deity. It's getting to the point where I rarely lose on Immortal but Deity still kicks my butt more often than not. I can only do Deity with top tier civs and need a slightly above average start to pull off a win.

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I've failed with top tier civs before in deity. I had Russia honor which was considered a top tier in deity and it had completely failed. I even had iron and many frigates.. Some ais make so much technology at these levels.. Tradition is a bit easier for deity though, but even with tradition one could still fail since ai takes most wonders and gets to wonders first from having more technologies.

Emperor I can win while still having the feeling of flexibility. Immortal I haven't played.

Deity I feel too confined. Few wonders, limited paths to victory. Generally not enjoyable. I can win...but so what, I feel I followed a well known formula vs creating a different experience.

I love King for the flexibility of options, the one thing that hurts the King experience for me is AI troop levels. If some of the King AI would occasionally produce the same amount of troops as the deity AI, that would be perfect for my playstyle.

The easier levels are better for me in a way.. I like to be victorious easily and lowering the difficulty makes me be victorious easily. However, some games could be really easy so I discontinue because I already know what could happen and I already feel like Im going to win.

My advice would be for everyone to challenge themselves and move up as quickly as possible. You always learn more against real competition than playing where you are comfortable. This holds true in sports, academics, career development, etc.

That's my life advice