You tell me

V

Vajrajina

Chieftain
Joined
Oct 7, 2014
Messages
53
So yeah, having asked for assistance at King a while ago, now I'm starting to find it easy. But before I move onto emperor, I would like to tackle a really difficult game, still on King.

So I would like to know which combination of AI CIVs and victory mode is the most difficiult in your opinion. For example: Win a domination victory with lot's of nasty warmonger civs, or win a science victory against Korea, Babylon and some other dudes in play...or whatever you think is more difficult.

Right now, I'm mulling about a game with
Montezuma, Attila, Oda Nobunaga, Genghis Khan (never actually played against him), Harald Bluetooth, Wu Zetian, Askia, Shaka and Cathrine. They are the most warmongery guys I can think of. And I need to conquer all of them.

So what do you think? Would it be challenging enough?
 
There's so little difference between King & Emperor, you're better off just going to Emperor. A King game with tough settings will be harder than an Emperor one with easy settings.
 
Yeah, king isn't that much harder, but if I get to throw in everything at once....

You as Germany, against Greece, Rome, America, Brazil, Russia, Japan, France, Shoshone, and the the Zulu (basically people big on expansion and a few to make diplo harder), 0 CS's, no barbarians, and your mission is to win a diplo victory.

My gut says 2050 will be there long long before you'll manage that, and even with time off, someone will eventually get to space. Unless someone conquers most of the world, which is unlikely on king, I can't imagine keeping enough people happy to get them to vote for you for leader.

Germany was my choice for you since the 0 CS makes the UB useless, and the late UU won't help with survival and if it has to be diplo, it doesn't help with victory either.

That being said, this setup would be so much harder than a normal emperor game, it's laughable.

That would likely be the nightmare scenario, though.
 
Honestly, I set up my games to enjoy all I can from UAs, UBs and/or UUs. For example, if playing as Germany or Aztecs, I like raging barbarians.

On higher difficulty levels, the game will always be challenging, because the AI starts turn 1 with so many units and has huge bonuses...

I began playing Immortal a couple of months ago and now I really don't bother making things harder for me. The AI takes care of that (but not at war, because the AI sucks in battle equally in any level)!
 
Try a game as Brazil, or France. They are both civs whose bonuses don't kick in until late game. Even playing as Dutch will make you have to work a little bit to unlock Guilds, Navigation, and Economics.
 
Another thought: Play as Byzantium, and throw in Ethiopia, Celts, Arabia, and Maya. Also throw in Ramses to deny you some wonders, and Alexander to contend with for city state allegiances!
 
I find that a warmonger hoedown isn't actually as bad as it seems, because they often end up fighting each other.

Something that is tough(er) is a Continents game with the civiliztions handpicked so that most are pushovers, and a couple others are civs liable to runaway in the AI's hands. (e.g. Poland and Greece). The most likely outcomes is that of the two runaways, one starts on your continent with you to slow you down, and the other starts on the other continent and gets out of control over there.

Still, it's hard to make a King game really hard on yourself unless you're willing to accept heavy restrictions on your own play.
 
I followed the suggestion of the first guy and jumped straight into an Emperor game with Pocatello (I LOVE Pathfinders). Tried to start wide, I usually play tall but If I'm not mistaken the Shoshone likes to play wide.

However, the same issue as always when I try to play wide surfaced: Someone is in the way of massive expansion. That someone is Her Majesty.

I have 3 cities, it's turn 90-ish. I got Pyramids. I can also grab a 4th city up north next to Theodora, but I'm not too fond of the location. The good bits are down south, but there is a Hastings in the way. Is that already a bad start, should I have like 4-5 cities by now or I'm okay? (just finished NC, that's why I didn't rush a 4th city).
 
Some civilizations are.expected to do good,for example, I have ran into problems with Polynesia a lot since kamehameha seems to have powerful helpful allies. Zulu impies are sick too.. i have won and lost against them.. maya wasn't usually making a lot of units but had few high tech units for example. ..
 
Play a Single City Challenge on King and limit yourself to eight total military units for the entire game (no replacing units lost in combat) and play Polynesia on a Large Map Pangea shooting for a Domination Victory by Turn 250 (no Annexing allowed, except capitals.) That would be hard :)
 
joncnunn said:
There's so little difference between King & Emperor, you're better off just going to Emperor. A King game with tough settings will be harder than an Emperor one with easy settings.
Click to expand...

This might be true if you're already playing Immortal or Deity, but if you're moving up from King to Emperor during BNW then there is a very clear gap in difficulty.
 
Vajrajina said:
I followed the suggestion of the first guy and jumped straight into an Emperor game with Pocatello (I LOVE Pathfinders). Tried to start wide, I usually play tall but If I'm not mistaken the Shoshone likes to play wide.

However, the same issue as always when I try to play wide surfaced: Someone is in the way of massive expansion. That someone is Her Majesty.

I have 3 cities, it's turn 90-ish. I got Pyramids. I can also grab a 4th city up north next to Theodora, but I'm not too fond of the location. The good bits are down south, but there is a Hastings in the way. Is that already a bad start, should I have like 4-5 cities by now or I'm okay? (just finished NC, that's why I didn't rush a 4th city).
Click to expand...

Pyramids doesn't seem like a wonderful (pun intended) choice. Were you chasing early wonders like GL and Stonehenge and losing the race? You can nearly guarantee GL on Emperor with a decent enough start but you have to be committed to it. Sometimes that means you need to take the 15% wonder speed pantheon as well as Aristocracy before Legalism.

Edit, right I see you're playing the Shoshone challenge. I would stick to your normal tall King game at first and just optimise it a bit. You'll notice in the late game that you are seriously behind in tech, or at least that's what happened with me at first.
 
Jimbo30 said:
This might be true if you're already playing Immortal or Deity, but if you're moving up from King to Emperor during BNW then there is a very clear gap in difficulty.
Click to expand...

I agree, the difference is very noticeable to me, especially in the end game or in the AI ability to build wonders before you.
 
Ryoga said:
I agree, the difference is very noticeable to me, especially in the end game or in the AI ability to build wonders before you.
Click to expand...

Yup I was playing Immortal on G&K but after a break I had to drop down to King for BNW. When I first moved back up to Emperor I found I could no longer hoover wonders at the start (it's still possible to grab 3-4 with very good starts/luck and some planning but you simply can't guarantee it on Emperor). The second thing was that in the late game I was always seriously falling behind on tech.

On King you can keep yourself in the late game with not much more than 100 beakers a turn. On Emperor you need at least 300 and probably closer to 500 or more later on. The difference is huge and required a complete new way of playing for me, basically speaking I had to optimize everything and stop faffing around.

The good news is that I'm pretty much winning them all on Emp now, and am trying out weird stuff like Sweden OCC Domination just for variety.
 
I'm not playing the Shoshone challange :D. It was simply a Shoshone game. I didn't like something about it (there are a lot of games I don't like "something" about, I think I'm way too picky with my starts) Ever since I've been starting new games, playing a hundred turns and than starting another one, dunno why.

Right now I got an Incense-Wine start with Poland. Beat the Celts to the first religion, but I have no chance of getting a 3rd domestic luxury and I only have a single pasture within my whole empire, and that contains two horses. Normally I don't care about horses, but if I'm not mistaken, Poland is pretty good for cavalry tactics...is it?

So I just don't like this one either. Choosy choosy :p
 
Guys, if you find emperor difficult and you have no noticeable problems with king, the reason is always the same: WONDERS!

Most wonders are fool's gold in Civilization 5. You don't really need them. The biggest trap is the Great Library. Most novice players go for it, which includes players new to emperor. AI is extremely keen on having that an to win a race for the library, you need to strain yourself a lot. Then you find yourself with a meager gain and many wasted turns.

Try a few games on immortal where you will be denied all wonders (as players inexperienced on this difficulty level). You'll quickly learn which wonders are obtainable and when they are obtainable. The you will be able to devise strategies that do not incorporate wonders at all, or at least forgo most of them.

I'm a Civ veteran since Civ 1 on Amiga and my point of view is most certainly skewed by that, nevertheless, this approach helped in bringing quite a few of my friends to speed with Civ 5.
 
We know Makavcio but if we wanted to play wonder-less games then we'd be playing Immortal or Deity already. Most Civ players try to find a level that challenges them the most without resorting to gaming the broken AI and micromanaging every single aspect of their play. Emperor is basically the last level where you can do that while still enjoying the majority of the game, and without turning it into a "who can win fastest" contest.
 
^ actually it's always "who can win fastest", isn't it? you have to be the first to satisfy a victory condition to win, regardless of difficulty. It's just that on higher difficulties the timing windows become narrower.

In terms of making the game enjoyable by allowing you access to early wonders, Emperor is good, but in all fairness there's only a few wonders that are vastly beneficial to whatever VC you're trying for.
 
That's a fair point about the timing I suppose. I just think that most CiV players (even Emperor players) go into a game without really having a plan, and just sorta take things as they come at them. Anything more and it can sometimes feel a bit like work instead of fun.
 
Sometimes I won't have a clear plan at the start, but we all know there are certain strengths for a civ that would be good to take advantage of, so maybe I won't go science with Shaka. I get what you mean, having to constantly check AIs for extra luxes to trade, micromanaging all the tiles in all cities, keeping track of tech pace/spy stealing, it's a huge drain. But timing radio with a pre-built oxford and sniping broadway when I have a spy looking at the AI capital with 1 turn left on it more than makes up for it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

RulerOfDaPeople
Describe your most recent game
Replies
18
Views
1K
Oberinspektor Derrick
Oberinspektor Derrick
Caesar of Bread
What leaders and/or nations do you want in Civilization VII?
83 84 85
Replies
2K
Views
80K
Caesar of Bread
Caesar of Bread
L. Vern
My 4.5 Playtest Report + Feedback
Replies
5
Views
763
azum4roll
A
AtlantaMarty
  • Locked
Leaderscene elimination poll!
Replies
2
Views
1K
Browd
Browd
dwcole78
[Vanilla] Vanilla - Deity guide
Replies
6
Views
5K
Ronaldo_
R
Top Bottom