Anyone else likes slow, easy games?

[Czacki]

Most people like a challenge, but me, I prefer a Warlord/Noble difficulty game with a huge/marathon setting. I really like to set up cities in fantastic spots and make them super specialized, snatching the wonders I like in the process. Playing on higher difficulty usually means important stuff like religions, techs and esp. wonders (AI goes apeshit about them and it cheats badly too) snatched regularly from me 2-5 turns away from completion, which is way more frustrating for me than enjoyable.

And I do like super-units. I usually make my 2nd GG (1st one becomes super medic) a warlord of a horse-archer type of unit with high withdraw chance and end up with C6 D4 gunship roaming around killing everything. Obviously useless, but fun ;D

Anyone else likes to do that too? I find the game much more fun when it's NOT challenging. Challenge equals frustration to me, usually

 

[capnvonbaron]

Well, if you know what you're doing, even Prince difficulty could be considered "really easy" (especially marathon)

That said, yes, I do quite enjoy a carefree rofl-maul now and then, usually after a hard week, and usually accompanied by a cold beverage

EDIT: ...or six.

 

[rah]

Or after a lot of cold beverages that makes a lower setting game a bit more challenging.

 

[Kjotleik]

... I do like to enjoy my games...

So I do play most of my games at Noble, with slow speeds and huge maps.

But, of course, sometimes I try to play a higher difficulty level than I'm comfortable with, smaller maps than I'm used to or faster speeds. It frequently ends up being a struggle. But, then again, that may be what I was looking for in that particular game all along.

My personal preference is that I want to play different games of CivIV...

That makes it fun... keeps it interesting... and I'm having a good time avoiding the boring prospect of playing the same settings all the time.

My favourite settings, though, are Marathon (or slower) speed with Huge (or bigger) mapsize.

My recommendation: Play the game the way YOU most enjoy yourself. If other players consider you a cheat, then just ignore them... It is you who has bought the game - it is you who is about to have fun playing it...

BUT: If you want to learn how to play the game skillfully... Then I would recommend listening to all advice given by the good players on this forum. And after having listened to the advice... figure out in your own head how all these conflicting suggestions(?) may apply to your playstyle the best.


Yours Sincerely

Kjotleik of Norway

 

[Glassfan]

I usually play marathon games at higher levels - I like a long, strategic game that can go on for a month or more. But I cheat with super units. The difficulty is the late game with the global warming and the inflation - seems like it's almost designed to force you to quit and start a new game.

 

[zig_zac]

I played OCC few times using World Builder to give myself one resource for every tile. Rather easy games, but not slow
And beautiful city.

 

[yturk39]

95% of the time I play, it's Marathon, Huge, Noble, & Continents. No mods yet; I've barely scratched the surface of game variations that are possible within the game options themselves.

 

[krazybastid]

I like Huge/Marathon/Noble myself I like to mix up my opponents a little bit I always do custom game where I choose my opponents. If I'm not financial I don't add to many financial oppents. I like to have a few financials like 1 or 2 to kinda boost up the tech advancements. I always steal techs from more advanced civs or trade. If I pick a financial I like to include a few financial civs. Holland is real good on archapelegos I just had a Noble game where I won with Holland on SpaceRace. I modded some of the Espionage buildings a little bit giving them more Espionage points. I tweaked some corps a little bit for better gameplay. I don't mod really to make it to easy its just some things in the game go way to slow like Espionage points and Corp maintnaince. I modded my corps A LITTLE to make them more apppealing. All in all I prefer a good NOBLE game rather than play at higher levels where the AI has a production advantage.

 

[Czacki]

Me too. I hate when the AI cheats with unfair advantage. I know it's to cover up AI's inability to keep up with a human player, but to be honest, I prefer a dumber AI over a cheating, but "challenging" AI.

I find nothing fun in being inferior in science because the AI, despite horrible town placement and decisions, gets +200% to science or whatever the bonus is. I kinda relate that to playing without my mouse - or with my monitor off. It's a challenge all right, but why would I want that?

I'm thinking about making a really fun super-unit that evolves from super-medic now. It would basically follow the city raider promotions while melee after attaining W3/M3, then Guerilla promotions (after upgrading to rifleman) with Tactics to get 80% withdraw, then Combat line, then finally Drill. It takes roughly 350 exp to get all of that for a Charismatic leader though @_@ that would be one LONG exp increasing way. But think how fun that Mech.Inf would eventually be +75% str, 5 guaranteed first strikes and 50% chance for 3 more, +50% hill/jungle/forest attack, +75% city attack, double movement, commando+mobility (that would make it faster than a chopper on any terrain bar unmodified grass/plains, IIRC), 80% withdraw chance and of course blitz

 

[Iranon]

No. I have more fun if I have to push my playskill and increase my understanding of the game. And losing games are great... desperate mesures can work, and I have to read the gamestate and treat things like a cross between gambling and a puzzle.
When things go to plan, it's all careful optimisation which isn't much fun since I'm no longer finding interesting stuff to break.

 

[Czacki]

No. I have more fun if I have to push my playskill and increase my understanding of the game. And losing games are great... desperate mesures can work, and I have to read the gamestate and treat things like a cross between gambling and a puzzle.
When things go to plan, it's all careful optimisation which isn't much fun since I'm no longer finding interesting stuff to break.

Sounds way too serious to me. I'm too old to improve my skill at videogames, I consider them fun, not labor

To each of his own, of course

 

[JBryan314]

I love longer games. I always play on huge maps and marathon settings. I've only been playing a few months and have had to take some time off of it with some of the mess North Korea has been getting into, but I've at least worked my way up to Noble difficulty.

 

[Paul Kersey]

I started up a game on marathon/noble thanks to this thread. Wow, the AI is horrible on marathon. I am way ahead in the tech race and killed off the other civ on my continent before gunpowder. One of the downsides appears to be having to run the science slider pretty low for ages because apparently it takes forever for your cities to start paying for themselves.

 

[Czacki]

I started up a game on marathon/noble thanks to this thread. Wow, the AI is horrible on marathon. I am way ahead in the tech race and killed off the other civ on my continent before gunpowder. One of the downsides appears to be having to run the science slider pretty low for ages because apparently it takes forever for your cities to start paying for themselves.

Yes, AI is practically defenseless to an axe rush on marathon. Last game, I warrior rushed my neighbor, then snatched four early game wonders, and still managed to axe rush three AIs in a row, each in different part of a large continent.

But AIs perform a bit better if you let them grow on marathon. I usually play continents since I really like to develop my country and killing everyone around is a first step to a big empire. The whole point of playing easy games is to play... well... easy game, duh

 

[Iranon]

Sounds way too serious to me. I'm too old to improve my skill at videogames, I consider them fun, not labor

To each of his own, of course

To each their own. One thing I like very much about the Civ series is that they work equally well for casual and serious play. Most games I enjoy more require a considerable level of masochism to get going.

 

[freedomna]

I love slow games, more fun to role play. The, kill everything before 1000ad strategy never appealed to me.

 

[duckstab]

I almost always play large/noble/epic. I could probably move up to prince pretty easily at this point but I've sort of hit a plateau in terms of the amount of micromanagement and gamesmanship I'm willing to bring to bear.

 

[RD-BH]

Depends on mood.

I usually play for FUN 8)
... speed, size, difficulty don't matter much when not playing to win

When I play for recreation (ie stress relief)
... slow and easy games are very relaxing 8)

 

[Czacki]

I found the "get the best unit possible" wargame quite fun! I'm atm at 160 EXP with my GG rifleman. the only thing I hate is the micromanagement of late cities. You know, when all important buildings are done. What am I supposed to build in a cottage city when the obvious paths are taken? Duh. I usually pick science after whatever is important, or some unimportant wonder, but I dislike to remember what was the order and where was it given, lol

Another thing, every mine and such needs a railroad for free +1 hammer, and I think workers building the railroads via "network automation" miss those... I hate to search for missed mines. Esp. that I usually have about 15-20 cities at that point... -__-

I wish Civ4 worker automation was smarter, but its picks are so dumb I never-ever activate anything other than build network automation...

As for the games, I'm pretty close to spaceship at my latest game at 1600AD. Fun. I love that poor old Bismark tries hard to invent paper at the same time. Lol. I also have quite an epic war between me and Zara. He sends millions of units at me so my GG rifleman can reach 300 exp. Thx Zara! I never understood where on earth does AI get so many units. Honestly, every turn he sends like 5-6 new units - wth? He's ages behind me in tech and he doesn't have slavery/universal sufferage, so am I supposed to believe he builds ormos with his underdeveloped cities within 1 turn on Marathon?

It may be noble, but I guess AI still cheats

 

[Rusty Edge]

Sure, I most often play noble/huge/ marathon

But I usually impose other rules and restrictions upon myself- such as only build the wonders historical for my civ, only war against my historical enemies, always research the cheapest tech, don't tech faster than history. Some other self-created challenge, so that I can do the roleplay and challenge that suits my mood, or try to re-create the last book I read.