A thought on difficulty in 5.

[dcace1983]

I read so many people talking about how insanely easy it is. However I don't see many people playing it on the hardest difficulty possible. In my very humble opinion does anyone have the right to complain about it being too easy when there is still a notch higher you can go?

And for those of you who could mop the floor with deity (I think that is the highest in 4) how does deity compare in 5?

Being very new to Civ in general and only a small amount of experience in 4 I think the biggest issue is the AI has no clue on how to properly use their units in 5. I do feel Firaxis knows this now and will make a few tweaks. Hopefully anyhow.

Thoughts?

 

[Danei]

In my very humble opinion does anyone have the right to complain about it being too easy when there is still a notch higher you can go?

Well, sort of; if the second-highest difficulty is too easy for someone playing the game for the second time ever, that does seem like it's a problem, even if that person hasn't tried deity yet.

 

[Generals3]

The thing is , the AI is brain-dead no matter what difficulty you are on. The only difference is that on the highest lvl's the AI gets lots of unfair advantages . You're not losing because he was smarter , you lost because he cheated. And i don't like that feeling.

 

[norxposr]

My third game was on Immortal/Standard as England (second to hardest, where the UA was worthless as the map ended up being pangea..I picked random), and I swept the continent with 4 horsemen (eventually upgraded to knights) earning a domination win around 1000 a.d. The first two games were on king and emperor and were also wins.

Considering it took about a year to win consistently on Immortal in Civ IV, I'm not too impressed with difficulty. I'm going to try deity next, but I think banning horsemen and the honor tree maybe the only way to up the difficulty.

Edit: I'm not some hardcore gamer either. The only games I've played since I graduated high school 20 years ago was Civ III and Civ IV.

 

[ChristofferC]

I could never win consistently on emperor difficulty in civ4, but in civ5 my first immortal game (my third civ5 game) was a total cakewalk. Haven't tried Deity yet...

 

[ohioastronomy]

My third game was on Immortal/Standard as England (second to hardest, where the UA was worthless as the map ended up being pangea..I picked random), and I swept the continent with 4 horsemen (eventually upgraded to knights) earning a domination win. The first two games were on king and emperor and were also wins.

Considering it took about a year to win consistently on Immortal in Civ IV, I'm not too impressed with difficulty. I'm going to try deity next, but I think banning horsemen and the honor tree maybe the only way to up the difficulty.

It's not functionally different if you wait. To see this, play on a continents map; clear out the AI near you; and then pick some later time to cross the ocean and resume conquest. The tech tree is so narrow, and poorly balanced, that you can pretty easily keep up even on the higher difficulty levels.

You will probably need to raze a few cities and may even lose an initial invasion force - but the AI will lose a huge army, especially if you have any tactical sense. And then it is curtains for the AI on round 2.

 

[sleepingbear]

Civ V is too easy. In Civ IV was was about 50/50 winning at Monarch. I tried Deity a few times in Civ IV before even leaving the Ancient time period. Currently playing Civ V on Deity and I've steamrolled Rome and Arabia and going to start on Monty tonight. As far as I can tell the AI states all have a huge tech advantage on my and I'm still kicking their butts. So yeah, I'd say V is easy mode.

 

[brades]

I read so many people talking about how insanely easy it is. However I don't see many people playing it on the hardest difficulty possible. In my very humble opinion does anyone have the right to complain about it being too easy when there is still a notch higher you can go?

And for those of you who could mop the floor with deity (I think that is the highest in 4) how does deity compare in 5?

Being very new to Civ in general and only a small amount of experience in 4 I think the biggest issue is the AI has no clue on how to properly use their units in 5. I do feel Firaxis knows this now and will make a few tweaks. Hopefully anyhow.

Thoughts?

I've beaten civ 4 with every leader on emperor, never smaller than a standard map, sometimes a huge map, all different varieties of victorys etc. I've beaten immortal in civ 4 three times, but lost well over 10 games. I've tried a handful of diety games in civ 4 with only one of those every being competetive, but I still lost.

For my first civ 5 game I thought it would be smart to drop down to king difficulty, I played as ramses, did some wonderspam, invaded the english, and montezuma in the modern era. I won the game very easily, so I went back up to immortal and tried a war focused game. I had my continent all to myself very early on, taking out my entire continent with 1 great general and a handful of mounted units. Eventually upgrading them to knights. I won that game very easily as well.

My third game I decided to play without war to see if that would help, and it certainly does make it better because the AI is so inept at warring with the human, but what would happen is one AI would inevitably dominate pretty much every AI, leaving me as a small nation with one huge opponent. With no chance of winning this game I decided to start another game on an archipelago map to see if I could stop the AI from rolling everyone on their continent and this also helped. I'm currently allied with 9 city states in that game jus tlooking for the last few so I can win a diplo victory.

Long story short, if you want a tough game see how long you can forego having a war for. If you like warmongering you will almost certainly find this game too easy, even at the hardest levels.

 

[BlackSpy]

My house rule is that I can't declare war except to protect city states I'm allied with, and when at war, no city capture of enemies.

 

[Godclone]

The problem is not that the AI is stupid , its that he is ******ed.

Win deity, continents (since its popular) or w/e, go to war right of the bat, don't expand only produce warriors and archers . (beeline for their upgrades ) . Don't stop warring until you won the game .

Put warriors on rough terrain , pref forested hills and the AI will happily suicide all his units giving you xp , chose rough terrain upgrades medic/march/blitz . Let your warriors tank city dmg for xp (after hes got no army ) until ure archer and great general arrives , then kill him , you can if you are not satisfied on how ez it is exploit AI trade and get all his gold before finishing him off for 10 turns of peace )

Won it, with no trouble, no save/load games no exploiting AI trade, as in didn't need to trade . Raze everything puppet capitals . Can't consider going to war an exploit since you need it for domination victory . By the time you reach the last few civ, you will have some obscenely upgraded samurai and crossbowmen , and he won't stand a chance .

Best of all , play with japan and watch your upgraded warrior defend and kill 3-4 others, or 2 swordsmen . While healing 3 hp /turn in enemy territory from medic upgrades of him and other guy . You can make the game faster (if you don't lose your initial units ) and make combat groups 2 warriors/2 archers and a general , or upgraded, and declare war on multiple fronts to kill multiple AI simultaneous (this speeds up the victory on Pangaea since you don't need to research caravels .

I only play deity, idc about map, marathon .. no ruins (cba seeing riflemen 30 turns in) . and the game doesn't feel like a challenge, it feels like a drag... waiting for the inevitable conquest victory .