Favourite Difficulty to Play On?

Emperor here as well. King is just way to easy to destroy the AI. I do wish Emperor AI had more gold, it still tends to be me funding research agreements unfortunately. They at least have a bit more aggression than King. Gotta love Attila denouncing you 2 turns after meeting him

I always take things a bit slow when I play a civ game so that I can learn all the game concepts and mechanics before pushing forward for a challenge or change of pace. I began playing on warlord and then moved up to prince and eventually king, waiting until I could consistently win several times in a row before bumping up the difficulty level. I stayed at warlord for about three weeks before I jumped to prince and spent about two months there before finally leaping onto King. Now that I can win with mild difficulty consistently on King, I am considering moving onto Emperor for my next couple of games.

I don't particularly seek a broad challenge as much as I seek something that can challenge me. I doubt I will ever consider going onto Emperor or Deity unless I was feeling particularly masochistic and decided that everything I do had to be perfectly planned and calculated in order to win. On lower difficulties you can do just about anything you'd like and still win, which I like because I prefer flexible strategy to rigid "do this or you will die" plans that the highest difficulties seem to usher. The jump in difficulty from Warlord to Prince was subtle, while the rise from Prince to King was notable. I wonder how the change from King to Emperor will feel?

If I had to put it together, my view of difficulties looks like this...
1-3: Faceroll to win.
4-5: Acceptable challenge.
6: Appropriate difficulty.
7:
8:

I have most fun on Prince and King and possibly on Emperor when I feel ready to move up again. At least there I feel like I have some semblance of control in what strategies I wish to pursue balanced with my decisions actually having an impact on how the game turns out. If you are able to win as much as you are able to lose on a difficulty level, then that difficulty level is most appropriate and probably the most fun.

Some magical difficulty between Emperor and Immortal where the AI is competitive but not above my current skill level.

Emperor is my favorite because I know I can do anything I want and still win. Immortal is a nice challenge, but I mostly win there too, it's just harder and what I play when I want a "real game". I keep trying deity but can't get over the start advantages the AI has.

Civking5 said:

I voted immortal. Deity is just crazy, and emperor too easy, and the jump in difficulty from emperor to immortal is significant. Immortal brings satisfying challenge for me. Sometime win and sometimes loss. For example, last night, I was playing as Poland, and Shaka just walked over me with his imps. Didn't see that coming.

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Same here. Immortal is just right. I can usually win if I go tall. Recently been trying to war early and not doing that great. Emperor is too easy

Prince. I've played a good few games on King (and won) but I find Prince is more enjoyable. I'm maybe playing one in three on King at the moment, but when King starts to feel enjoyable I'll push onto Emporer.

edit: Oops I meant Emperor!

Emperor, although it's an interaction between game size and difficulty. I also always play with 1 other human (my fiance, lucky me) so that alters things too.