Been playing Civ since Civ II, all the way up to and including Civ V, as well as SMAC. My number one complaint (and with as many hours and huge supporter of the series that I am I feel I'm allowed a number one complaint) is the way the AI doesn't get better with higher difficulties, it just cheats. To me, it's a "lazy" way to improve difficulty, and it's incredibly frustrating to get beat not because of better strategy or smarter choices, but only because hordes and hordes of units overwhelm you because they can build 4 to every one of yours.
So, I tend to live my Civ life on Warlord or so level, and enjoy the game immensely. However, after about a thousand games on Warlord, of course it gets a little boring, or too easy, so I decide to go up to Noble.
And after four games, with all the same result, I'm left wondering what the level of jump it must be. I'm sure I could beat it at Noble, if I played by optimizing my strategic choices, but I prefer a style of play that involves randomness, as it makes it more fun for me. So, instead of choosing techs, whenever a tech is discovered and a list comes up to choose the next one, I shuffle a deck of cards and draw a card for each tech. The high card is the tech I "choose" and if there is a tie between techs, then and only then can I make a "choice" as I can choose between the two (or three or whatever) techs that drew the same card as my next tech to research.
Obviously this can have strategic drawbacks, and make the game harder. Which is fine. But my question, and the reason for this post is this. How big of a jump is it from Warlord to Noble because I am finding it extremely easy to win on Warlord and extremely difficult (impossible?) to win on Noble. Now this could be due to some unlucky draws of the cards, but I'm not so sure.
As an example, in all four games, horses, an early critical resource, were long distances away from me ALL FOUR TIMES. Coincidence, or is the placement of resources also dependent upon difficulty level? I've read FAQ's, strategy guides, manuals, etc. and never has resource placement (or perhaps resource scarcity) been mentioned as one of the things that change via difficulty level.
It is just so frustrating to go from too easy to too hard with one jump. Or, more accurately, too hard the way I play it. I think I could probably win on Noble, perhaps even Prince, but I wouldn't even be interested in trying above that as it is my opinion that the only way to beat anything above that is to "game the system" somehow, and that's just not fun for me.
So what say you experts out here at Civ Fanatics? Is the jump between levels of difficulty pretty large or not? Is resource placement (or scarcity) a factor of difficulty setting? And what can one do to lessen the jump from level to level??? Mods???
Sorry for the length and thanks for any who read and respond.
OldFatGuy
So, I tend to live my Civ life on Warlord or so level, and enjoy the game immensely. However, after about a thousand games on Warlord, of course it gets a little boring, or too easy, so I decide to go up to Noble.
And after four games, with all the same result, I'm left wondering what the level of jump it must be. I'm sure I could beat it at Noble, if I played by optimizing my strategic choices, but I prefer a style of play that involves randomness, as it makes it more fun for me. So, instead of choosing techs, whenever a tech is discovered and a list comes up to choose the next one, I shuffle a deck of cards and draw a card for each tech. The high card is the tech I "choose" and if there is a tie between techs, then and only then can I make a "choice" as I can choose between the two (or three or whatever) techs that drew the same card as my next tech to research.
Obviously this can have strategic drawbacks, and make the game harder. Which is fine. But my question, and the reason for this post is this. How big of a jump is it from Warlord to Noble because I am finding it extremely easy to win on Warlord and extremely difficult (impossible?) to win on Noble. Now this could be due to some unlucky draws of the cards, but I'm not so sure.
As an example, in all four games, horses, an early critical resource, were long distances away from me ALL FOUR TIMES. Coincidence, or is the placement of resources also dependent upon difficulty level? I've read FAQ's, strategy guides, manuals, etc. and never has resource placement (or perhaps resource scarcity) been mentioned as one of the things that change via difficulty level.
It is just so frustrating to go from too easy to too hard with one jump. Or, more accurately, too hard the way I play it. I think I could probably win on Noble, perhaps even Prince, but I wouldn't even be interested in trying above that as it is my opinion that the only way to beat anything above that is to "game the system" somehow, and that's just not fun for me.
So what say you experts out here at Civ Fanatics? Is the jump between levels of difficulty pretty large or not? Is resource placement (or scarcity) a factor of difficulty setting? And what can one do to lessen the jump from level to level??? Mods???
Sorry for the length and thanks for any who read and respond.
OldFatGuy