What difficulty level does the game cease being enjoyable for you?

[TheologiaCrucis]

I'm addicted to this damn game, I can't stop playing, but if I play ANY single game, on ANY difficulty long enough, it stops being enjoyable for me.

1 of 2 things happen:

Either I snowball and it becomes a comp stomp (boring)

or,

The AI snowballs, and I lag behind, and becomes a tedious grind.

The game is fun, I find, when I can be competitive but at least a couple opponents are a serious threat. My longest lasting games tend to be on Emporer difficulty, so I guess that's my favorite.

However, I really like the feature in the highest difficulty that penalizes you if you surpass a maximum unit capacity. I actually find that helpful...it's provides some structure for balancing city growth with infastructure, IMO

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

You do have to adapt a bit, but you should still see a clear priority order when building. If you need to build an extra unit or 2, build them, but then get back to the guide.

Most these guides are set at Immortal or Deity, but at King or even Emperor, you can detour from the guide for many turns and still crush the AI.

Yeah -- even if you have to vary a bit, if you go for a 3-city tradition build where you prioritize getting NC by turn 90, you will have everything you need to completely outshine the AI on King and lower. You shouldn't be doing much turn <90 besides building workers, libraries, granaries, and settlers. (Plus necessary military, of course.) Plus probably one shrine in the cap.

I will say that Immortal+ has two advantages -- one, you can steal workers from the AI early. Can't do that on King (though I highly recommend doing it after they build some). The second is that they clear barbarians for you.

On the other hand, on King, you get, what, +40% vs barbs? So even your scouts can clear barb camps.

 

[Acken]

None. Every difficulty is enjoyable.
I also do not believe people saying Immortal/Deity is only about tricks or that they are absolutely mandatory (for fast finish yes, for win no).

 

[Matthew.]

Hmm, I thought there was a similar thread just like this. I forget my answer, but somewhere around Emperor/Immortal range. I can beat Deity typically just fine, but doing so forces me to give up too much enjoyment of the game. Having to ignore wonders, things like that. If the bonuses weren't so front-loaded, I'd probably enjoy it more. In other words, if the AI still started on equal footing, but was able to play a competent end game, that would be my ideal difficulty. As it is, even Deity AI stalls out at about Industrialization. Even AI's which manage to get to Plastics still somehow take forever to finish the tech tree.

Becomes this awkward game of being terribly behind in the early game forcing you to rush straight to Renaissance, then still dominating the late game because the AI just stops playing.

I also agree you don't need tricks. I never steal workers. I just can't bring myself to do it (although "found" workers in barb camps or if I'm already in a war are still fair game ). Needing to hard build 5-6 workers makes a HUGE difference for record games, but just for winning it is no big deal. I can still finish a game in the ~260 range without abusing any exploits or stupid AI.