At what difficulty level do you play Civ 7 (Poll)

[protocol7]

Deity, but the AI improvement mod is essential so it plays th game too. Otherwise it’s just clicking to guaranteed victory, which for me is a bit boring.

 

[Chefofrats]

I find myself playing on Sovereign. I won a game on Immortal and Deity, and I found it easier than in Civ VI, but the combat bonus for the AI was just annoying and reduced my fun: and the AI was otherwise just as incompetent as on any other difficulty. On Sovereign I don't have to worry about being bullied by a braindead but ridiculously strong military.

 

[rjg85]

Deity, and it seems far too easy. I'm not even declaring war, I just defend tactically if declared upon, kill all their units, and then they give me settlements in the peace.

Basically just settler spam ASAP to grab all the best spots (doesn't matter if you go over the settlement cap - you'll quickly unlock more) and then it is more or less just a relaxing cruise through the ages to victory.

Scouting goody huts early helps immensely with settler spam (always take the food until pop 5 if offered, as you need 5 to begin building settlers, then always take the prod), and when you have a commander just take him on a tour to clear all the independent powers, which gives huge bonuses early game.

Worth noting I play on marathon, so the legacy paths are much easier to achieve. Only legacy path I never get is the ancient wonders one (even though it says "have 7 in your empire" it doesn't seem to count captured ones).

 

[stealth_nsk]

Deity, and it seems far too easy. I'm not even declaring war, I just defend tactically if declared upon, kill all their units, and then they give me settlements in the peace.

Basically just settler spam ASAP to grab all the best spots (doesn't matter if you go over the settlement cap - you'll quickly unlock more) and then it is more or less just a relaxing cruise through the ages to victory.

Scouting goody huts early helps immensely with settler spam (always take the food until pop 5 if offered, as you need 5 to begin building settlers, then always take the prod), and when you have a commander just take him on a tour to clear all the independent powers, which gives huge bonuses early game.

Worth noting I play on marathon, so the legacy paths are much easier to achieve. Only legacy path I never get is the ancient wonders one (even though it says "have 7 in your empire" it doesn't seem to count captured ones).

Marathon seem to be broken at the moment

 

[protocol7]

I have a similar experience playing Deity not on marathon. I don’t get all the legacy paths but I get at least a couple, I’m either in first or second place in the age ranking overall.

 

[aelf]

I'm comfortable on Immortal, Standard speed, so I play on that level most of the time. Have won on Deity, but I think I have to be less flexible in the way I play to ensure a win, so I'm not favouring it right now.

The most annoying part of higher difficulties is that the Antiquity legacy path is all but impossible... They unlock the wonder far earlier than you, and by the time you have hope of building one you get the popup telling you you only get crumbs...

You mean the Cultural legacy path in Antiquity? Yeah, I agree. The others are doable. Maybe the Scientific one might be a little hard to complete before the age ends.

 

[rjg85]

Marathon seem to be broken at the moment

Yeah I figured - I spend a good third of the age just clicking next turn and building walls/projects because there is nothing left to do but wait for age transition.

 

[StargazingDog]

Sovereign seems about right. Many of the AI keep up with legacy points, and I actually have to try to get a victory. I don't find the AI having an unfair advantage (claiming all wonders, etc). I'll probably stay at this level unless something major changes. The AI can only get better, so I expect the challenge to increase as updates are released.

 

[queenpea]

Immortal/Deity for me

 

[Mudkip1001]

Immortal with Notque's AI Mod is fairly difficult but rewarding. I don't like Diety's +8 combat strength and other bonuses, They are not fun for me in prolonged city seiges... Immortal without Notque's mod was equally entertaining for me, The AI however just floundered more with lacking city counts, science/culture production, and failed to keep up militarily...

 

[The Mighty Quinn]

I’m working my way up; lost my very first game on Viceroy, then won two, moved up and repeated the same pattern on Governor and am now on my first Sovereign game. Also tried one on Sovereign early on, didn’t do well in Antiquity and will try to go back and salvage the game once I have more experience.

 

[Isca Dumnoniorum]

I worked my way up through the difficulties and much prefer the challenge curve compared to Civ VI where the AI's extra units and insane bonuses were fun killers in the early game. That said, for my Deity game I spawned with Ashoka as my neighbour and spent the whole of antiquity and exploration fending off his +8 combat strength units, which was tedious rather than fun. It was made worse by him slowly eating Napoleon's empire which only meant he had more and more units to send at me. I could keep him at bay but his core cities were so far away I could never threaten them to get him to accept peace. In the end I still won handily in Modern but the slog in the early and mid game didn't make me want to go back.

Will stick to Immortal for a better balance of challenge and fun; Sovereign if I want something a bit more mindless.

 

[BrianKindly]

I'm a brand new player and started at Immortal, I'm going to go to Deity but imagine I'll be kicked back down once they get the AI to be a little more intelligent lol

 

[Fluffball]

I have been working my way up each game s i learn and just doing immortal run.

This is the first game I am feeling the AI is actually trying and the first game I am feeling the AI combat bonuses bite.

I did get dog piled in my sovereign game but it didn't actually mount to much and I just ended up rolling over the civs that Dow'd me one by one until I ran of settlement cap and just took peace once I got bored of farming xp for my commanders.

I suspect this may be my default difficulty with a balance between having to actually pay attention and think about the game a bit without the mindless grind that usually is the real challenge in higher difficulties.

 

[Fluffball]

I'm a brand new player and started at Immortal, I'm going to go to Deity but imagine I'll be kicked back down once they get the AI to be a little more intelligent lol

As a long time civ player I am putting my money of you playing diety forever. Base game AI is never intelligent and never gets more intelligent unless you use mods.

One of the reasons I dropped civ 6 like a stone was they kept adding interesting mechanics but the AI had no idea how to use them which meant you could just exploit those mechanics making the game so much easier while the AI seemed increasingly obviously poor.

Best you can hope for is they nerd players more or give the AI arbitrary buffs to make it more of a grind.

 

[CoconutTank]

Started on Viceroy for 2 or 3 sessions, have been playing Sovereign sessions since, think I'm about ready to try Immortal on my next session.

 

[Tuvok694]

I played on sovereign and the games seemed to be more and more easy, some even boring. This week my first tries on level immortal, and I have NO.chance.at.all. The AI is so aggressive and has so many military units. I would need a difficulty level between sovereign and immortal.

 

[AriochIV]

I played on sovereign and the games seemed to be more and more easy, some even boring. This week my first tries on level immortal, and I have NO.chance.at.all. The AI is so aggressive and has so many military units. I would need a difficulty level between sovereign and immortal.

You just need to build units early to prepare for the inevitable attack and turtle a little bit until the initial waves are over... and after that the AI isn't any harder on Immortal than Sovereign. You only need about four or five units together with the Commander you get for free with the Discipline civic to defeat pretty much anything the AI can throw at you. Just protect your damaged units in the Commander or in whichever city center they're attacking, and let the enemy impale themselves against your city center and your fortified units. Prioritize any enemy ranged units and commanders.

 

[youngsteve]

This is one of my issues with the game, any long term playability. If these boards are a general consensus 80% are playing on the top 3 levels, with over a quarter on the highest level, If you are here now on a game barely out 2 months, where will you be in a years time. Leaving game I presume as lack of long term challenge.

At the moment I am playing Old World. This is not a promotion for that game, as it is more like a Civilization played over one era, even though it is very good Yes there are players who are excellant at this game, though in fairness has been out around five years. I am though a quite average player, playing on lower levels, but one area all players of this game have is the amount of decision making on how you play each turn. Unlike Civ games where you can move all units, Old World movements/decisons are based around how many orders you have each turn. I didn't like this at first, but after awhile it gets you thinking, certainly short to medium game what to do. Should I use it to move my scouts to explore, move my military units to take down someone, move worker around etc. Choices choices. It would be interesting how a simple system like this would make you change how playing Civ games.

 

[aelf]

This is one of my issues with the game, any long term playability. If these boards are a general consensus 80% are playing on the top 3 levels, with over a quarter on the highest level, If you are here now on a game barely out 2 months, where will you be in a years time. Leaving game I presume as lack of long term challenge.

The top 3 levels are half the difficulty levels. And this board is not exactly a good sampling of casual players.

Your interpretation of the stats is highly dubious at best.