How good do you think the average Civ player is?

Playing the higher levels forces you to learn more of the game, and to me it's the depth of complexity and approaches that make it so interesting. Anyone can crank out military and blow things up on the easier levels, but this game is so much more than a RTS game. A friend of mine never got past King, but then again he literally plays hundreds of other games, getting bored really quickly I guess. I could not get him to slow down and figure out all that was going on.

poekie70 said:

I can win diety and have done so once on civ 5 (on civ rev I always played diety), however I find that to win diety with certainty in civ 5 one has to think every single turn, something I am too lazy to do. My regular difficulty is King, it is quite a step-up from prince but you have more wonder flexibility than on emperor.

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Tried 'Deity Difficulty' once and I was surprised so much. Far far harder than Immortal. Immortal sounds like Chieftain or something when you comparing it to Deity, at least for me. I have to play on Immortal some more time because it's too much for me, for now...

And Saluting you sir, for your victory on that difficulty.

I think some of the players here underestimate how hard this game is without a complete understanding of the game mechanics, knowledge of the tech tree, social policies, etc. I have won a game on deity, with Poland, on a large map with 9 other civs. But I usually like to play on emperor, for me, I find it to be the most fun, although admittedly, once I learned about how to increase my science, it is usually easy to surpass the AI pretty early, and most emperor games are pretty easy to win (but the AI is strong enough that at least there is still some action). I should probably play Immortal, I guess.

Until they understand the importance of science, and how to increase it through growth, I think the average player would struggle at emperor. Lower than that, though, and I think anyone could sit down and play comfortably.

That said, I couldn't come close to beating deity in Civ IV, so this game is definitely easier. Removing tech trading made teching up more straightforward, and so easier for an average player without knowledge of the game mechanics.

johnnybaseball said:

That said, I couldn't come close to beating deity in Civ IV, so this game is definitely easier. Removing tech trading made teching up more straightforward, and so easier for an average player without knowledge of the game mechanics.

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I think SOD made civ bts harder, especially for peaceful games

I can remember playing a europe map as england- emperor i think.

I had a decent tech lead, 4 defensive units in each city - decent navy...generally cruising to victory in space.

Until- ragnar (who was pleased) turned up with over 30 berserkers in a naval SOD (they did do naval invasions!)

There then followed ten minutes of spam while they fought 4 redcoats, eventually overwhelming them by sheer numbers. And i lost my capital.

That just doesnt happen anymore it seems... i understand why people like 1upt...but i think stacks made the AI more scary.

I played Deity only once, for the steam achievement.
Just picked a duel map and stomped the other guy with a flood of ancient era units.
I haven't tried a real game. I like watching Deity plays on Youtube, but have no real interest in trying it myself.

I played King for the longest time, but nowadays I usually go with Emperor for SP. In MP we choose King difficulty for the AI.

To answer the question, I think most people play on King.

FaohKi said:

Tried 'Deity Difficulty' once and I was surprised so much. Far far harder than Immortal. Immortal sounds like Chieftain or something when you comparing it to Deity, at least for me. I have to play on Immortal some more time because it's too much for me, for now...

And Saluting you sir, for your victory on that difficulty.

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Yes, there is a huge jump from Immortal to Deity. Immortal is a walk in the park for me but Deity is difficult and it's easy to lose. The AI's blatant cheating is all too obvious and unrealistic on Deity which makes it weird. You can't get any wonders and getting a religion is very difficult.

My last Deity game had a turn 18 GL, turn 31 HG, turn 38 Petra, turn 49 Reformation belief. Seriously, this stuff is not possible.

It doesn't matter what level you play at as long as you have fun. Every level of the game can offer some form of challenge, especially if you try to get faster finish times or high scores each time. Some of the most fun gauntlet games in the Hall of Fame on on the "lower" levels. Being able to win of Deity just means that someone has mastered a highly structured way of exploiting the weaknesses of the AI programming (for example, getting the AI to trade away their bonus gold).

The frustration i get is that i play for say....cultural victory on emperor or whatever, but past experience teaches me the AI wont use its military properely...so in the back of my mind i know i would win more quickly by gaining a military advantage and warring....

It makes my gameplay feel a little shallow i suppose

I havent tried diety though, i simply couldnt win deity on BTS so i suspect i couldnt here either though ill try for sure

The above poster is spot on though, its about having fun- which is why my next game will be dropping to emperor and playing england on a world map

wayneb64 said:

Playing the higher levels forces you to learn more of the game, and to me it's the depth of complexity and approaches that make it so interesting.

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I agree with this assessment; it is correct. However, the flip-side of the coin is that once you've discovered and become adept at employing the more effective strategies, Deity doesn't let you do much else and as such, deity games become very rinse-repeat - tradition/rationalism with early NC and aggression through ranged units with a paper unit to take cities. As a turn-based strategy game, increasing the difficulty level doesn't make anything harder, but rather reduces the number or options that are conducive to achieving victory.

Take a Denmark game with an inland tundra start with the only local luxury being a monopoly on furs, and employ mixed honor/piety leading to full commerce and autocracy. On Deity, this isn't an option but rather an exercise in futility. But on emperor, it's an immensely fun game. And that's the point. Like you said, having different approaches (provided they are victory-conducive approaches) is what makes the game fun, and while a deity game with Civ X on map X may have 10 or 12 different viable options, an emporer game with Civ X on map X will have thousands of viable options.

Think of it like skateboarding (and I may be dating myself a bit here )

emporer level Tony Hawk: "I think this time I'll do a handplant, lead into a 180 Mctwist, then rock-to-fakie, and Indy into 720. Should be enough to win. Didn't do any grabs, but I'll save that for next month's show."

deity level Tony Hawk: "To win, I'll have to do a 900. After that, another 900 followed by a 900. And at next month's show, I'll do a couple of 900s"

That's why I usually play emperor. I've tried deity twice and won twice - both times using tradition and rationalism with a pre-T100 NC, once with a top-tier civ (Babylon) and once with a civ going for his designed VC (Mongolia-> dom). I've tried about a dozen immortlal games and won every time but only deviate from the optimal strategy as much as the map and the civ's bonuses allow. But I have almost 150 wins on emperor as that level allows me to play any civ with almost any map and go for any victory condition while utiizing some very unconventional strategies which are considerably less than optimal but also extremely fun to play.

Someone stated that playing lower levels must get boring after a while; I find the opposite to be true.

Easier is easier, that shouldn't surprise anyone.

I think people on here are making it look like diety is impossible with a middle tier civ with middle tier dirt. I am of the belief that practically every civ game is winnable.

Acken said:

Easier is easier, that shouldn't surprise anyone.

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It's not necessarily as interesting though. Deity isn't harder than Prince in certain aspects (the DealAI still works the same way, Minor Civ AI works the same way, algorithms to determine when to settle still work the same way even though the AI could easily afford two times as many cities with its Deity happiness and yield boosts), so the winning strategies end up exploiting those aspects. In the ideal scenario, all strategies that work in multiplayer should also work on Deity, but that simply isn't the case because some of them rely on things like having a good-to-OK religion, rushing a very specific wonder, and/or timing pushes (eg. artillery) that you simply cannot execute against AI players with so many bonuses.

TheMathmagician said:

I think people on here are making it look like diety is impossible with a middle tier civ with middle tier dirt. I am of the belief that practically every civ game is winnable.

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Provided you have a good starting location, yes, Deity can be beaten with any civ because the exploits you need to rely on in Deity work with Iroquois just as well as Poland: worker stealing, exploiting the DealAI, exploiting the AI's inability to use ranged soldiers properly, exploiting the fact that the AI doesn't choose optimal policy paths (Honor openers and ignoring Rationalism, for exampel), exploiting the fact that the AI doesn't choose optimal tech paths (so you can still beat it to key lategame techs), exploiting how hesitant non-Ghandi AIs are to use their nukes, etc. The problem is not that Deity is impossible to beat with any civ, it's that Deity is impossible to beat with any strategy that would ordinarily work in multiplayer (where the bad AI is restricted to CS's), so instead of being able to play around with policy trees like Liberty Settler into Reformation into complete Liberty into Rationalism, or Liberty Settler into Tradition, or even delaying Rationalism finisher thanks to Glory To God (you can purchase scientists without completing Rationalism, so you can put off completing it), and instead of being able to mess around with odd tech paths like Currency before Writing, you're forced to use the same, tired policy path (hard Tradition with a random opener into hard Rationalism) and the same, tired tech/build order (quick NC, ignore all pre-Medieval world wonders, etc.).

You can definitely play below your level in a more varied way or roleplay.

In my current game (england earth map) i dropped to emperor

As a result i was able to rush buy stonehenge on the basis that it MUST be in england

Even though it put me behind in the start game, but as its emperor im confident i will catch up.

On immortal it would be all about meeting my cities down / NC / Edu targets... then rushing to SOTL to take paris and spain..

The Civ V achievement stats provide some interesting information (I'm aware that they only measure those who play unmodded games to completion, so it's not a perfect or necessarily even a very good measure, but interesting).

Percentage of players who have beaten a game per difficulty level:

Settler 13.9%
Chieftan 22.2%
Warlord 14.3%
Prince 14.4%
King 6.5%
Emperor 3.7%
Immortal 1.9%
Deity 1.5%

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It's also interesting to note that according to the achievement stats, only 15.5% of players have played with mods (although I've heard rumors that particular achievement is bugged?).

thecrazyscot said:

The Civ V achievement stats provide some interesting information (I'm aware that they only measure those who play unmodded games to completion, so it's not a perfect or necessarily even a very good measure, but interesting).

Percentage of players who have beaten a game per difficulty level:


It's also interesting to note that according to the achievement stats, only 15.5% of players have played with mods (although I've heard rumors that particular achievement is bugged?).

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I find that hard to believe really??.

I am not a good player, im pretty crap in fact- i forget to move my tiles being worked manually from time to time (i once forgot to lock in an academy), sometimes i forget to sell my extra luxuries, and sometimes forget to man my universities for a few turns.

If im speed playing i am not always optimal for getting the most out of worker movements either.

But i think on my first ever game (prince) it would have been harder to win than lose?

I can only guess that a LOT of people get lots of pleasure out of absolutely dominating and hammering the AI.

That would explain why i see so few complaints on steam about AI incompetence..

TheMathmagician said:

I think people on here are making it look like diety is impossible with a middle tier civ with middle tier dirt. I am of the belief that practically every civ game is winnable.

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But you're a Math magician! This game is a lot harder for those of us less mathematically inclined!

Delnar_Ersike said:

Provided you have a good starting location, yes, Deity can be beaten with any civ because the exploits you need to rely on in Deity work with Iroquois just as well as Poland: worker stealing, exploiting the DealAI, exploiting the AI's inability to use ranged soldiers properly, exploiting the fact that the AI doesn't choose optimal policy paths (Honor openers and ignoring Rationalism, for exampel), exploiting the fact that the AI doesn't choose optimal tech paths (so you can still beat it to key lategame techs), exploiting how hesitant non-Ghandi AIs are to use their nukes, etc. The problem is not that Deity is impossible to beat with any civ, it's that Deity is impossible to beat with any strategy that would ordinarily work in multiplayer (where the bad AI is restricted to CS's), so instead of being able to play around with policy trees like Liberty Settler into Reformation into complete Liberty into Rationalism, or Liberty Settler into Tradition, or even delaying Rationalism finisher thanks to Glory To God (you can purchase scientists without completing Rationalism, so you can put off completing it), and instead of being able to mess around with odd tech paths like Currency before Writing, you're forced to use the same, tired policy path (hard Tradition with a random opener into hard Rationalism) and the same, tired tech/build order (quick NC, ignore all pre-Medieval world wonders, etc.).

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No that's just not true. That's a common misconception. Deity in its current form is not so hard that only what you describe is allowed. My latest let's play uses a Liberty + Reformation domination game for example.
For a new Deity player playing the "classic" way sure is efficient/safer but that's because it is the most easy/efficient way to play. But it's also the case on Prince so that's not really an issue. Once you get stronger basics you can start to experiment. And let's not talk about Immortal.

Only the GL is truly hard to grab for pre medieval wonders.

But you can fool around more easily on easier settings... because it's easier. There's no shame in it but that's really all there is to it, easier settings are easier and therefore will allow more unefficient strategies.
It is true that multiplayer however is different and that strategies available in SP/MP are not necessarily viable in MP/SP but I fail to see why it's relevant here. Different modes, different possibilities.
You are right though that the AI does not become stronger in all aspect and the idea is to exploit weaknesses. But that's what singleplayer civ has always been about and why the AI gets bonuses. If someone want a fair match he can try MP.

thecrazyscot said:

The Civ V achievement stats provide some interesting information (I'm aware that they only measure those who play unmodded games to completion, so it's not a perfect or necessarily even a very good measure, but interesting).

Percentage of players who have beaten a game per difficulty level:


It's also interesting to note that according to the achievement stats, only 15.5% of players have played with mods (although I've heard rumors that particular achievement is bugged?).

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I think it's fair to discard players that have never beaten the game or just don't play it more than an hour.

Good observations, all. It's sad that the same AI that makes predictable errors just makes them with more units on higher levels. I've won stand up games on Deity, however I do find it a bit constraining. Most of the time now I play on Immortal and for a fun game I play OCC with Venice or a water map with Indonesia.

Average civ players are usually pretty good. I admire many good civ players.

I usually struggle in Emperor in unmodded civ and King in heavily modded (1.54 GB so far)
Because the "strategy" of stealing worker is abhorring and cheap to me, and I mostly play single player so I'm happy and have no need to use it.