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

[stealth_nsk]

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.

Agree. Also, being early in the game also means it changes a lot, including things which either provide bigger challenge or require adopting strategies.

 

[protocol7]

For what it’s worth, I never beat deity (or Sid) on any other version except for like artificial 1v1 scenarios but this one I had to install a mod to make deity harder as soon as one was available.

 

[Taefin]

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.

Luckily these difficulty levels are arbitrary. The AI continues to play effectively if you mod the AI bonuses to be higher than deity. They actually start to do some things they really struggle at on vanilla difficulties, such as building large enough armies (and continuing to replenish losses during war) so that the player cannot simply exhaust their army then conquer their entire empire, and maintaining defensive armies into modern (most of the time). You can also adjust yields so that the AI keeps pace with your current skill level.

At release, Old World’s highest difficulty was a good bit harder than Civ7 deity, mostly due to AI starting with developed empires. Since release, they added more sliders to the game settings that created more ways to play (eg give the AI more yields but fewer starting settlements).

I think it makes more sense to compare how the games play when you have dialed in your preferred difficulty, and I think it’s pretty impressive that Civ7 can be tuned so that AI keeps pace through the entire game, despite starting with the same solo founder unit as the player, without so far eclipsing the player at the beginning that elements of the game like wonders and expansion feel out of reach or unfair.

 

[MutilationWave]

I don't know what changed if anything but Napoleon was a needle in my eye from the beginning of antiquity through late exploration when I finally made him pay in my current game. I've won on deity every time and this has been my worst game yet. I thought about declaring on him at the beginning of explo, did some scouting, and he had 20 coursers with commanders at my border and ships in the lake and rivers. Terrain was really rough for conquest, and he upgraded them all to knights long before I even had the tech. I'm at roughly 250 science and culture, he's at 350, and trung trac ended up with nearly 2000 per turn of each in explo. I don't even know how that's possible, she wasn't even at settlement cap. So she and hatsepshut got all the wonders while I built up for the war.

The only reasons I could take him are two- he declared on me and I got to fight on my turf, and I got level 3 bolyars and he never upgraded his knights or brought much ranged other than the infinite ships. His military did not ever stop coming until I had taken two settlements and razed two. Even after that he was buying knights at least two per turn on top of production.

Napoleon has been my greatest enemy in game every time I see him but this game is special. If he could control his army like I can I wouldn't stand a chance.

 

[enKage]

If 1/4 of people feel cnfident on diety, it only means how badly difficulty levels are implemented since Civ6

 

[Methos]

For what it’s worth, I never beat deity (or Sid) on any other version except for like artificial 1v1 scenarios but this one I had to install a mod to make deity harder as soon as one was available.

The only time I've ever played diety in single player was in Civ 4 when I earned my HoF Quattromaster title. I remembered being scared to death, but I managed it. I don't think I ever played deity again after that. Single player that is. I don't think I ever played it in a Succession Game.

 

[Taefin]

If 1/4 of people feel cnfident on diety, it only means how badly difficulty levels are implemented since Civ6

Im confused by this statement. Difficulty in 6 and 7 are implemented so differently. It just means FXS didn’t set the highest difficulty in 7 super high. I think the unit and constructible bonuses are too low. If you increase those, the AI goes from nearly linear growth to something closer to snowballing, consistently getting to the 2000+ sci/cul mentioned above (I wonder if FXS viewed this as a problem and set deity bonuses to just below where this happened often).

That said, I have no idea HOW the few AI get to such large yields in my games, also usually well below settlement limit, and just so far beyond the other AI who don’t. It’s as if they are getting inexplicable numbers of specialists everywhere.

 

[King Flevance]

I wonder how much mementos play a role in how frequently people are beating deity. Are people beating it often with no mementos active? If so, I suck.

 

[Taefin]

I wonder how much mementos play a role in how frequently people are beating deity. Are people beating it often with no mementos active? If so, I suck.

I’d also be curious. I’m guessing (hoping) that no one complaining about deity being too easy is using mementos. The first deity games are pretty exciting, when you don’t know what the limits on the AI strengths are. I need my games to have a moment where things start feeling dire and I need to push through a scenario where I don’t see an obvious way to prevail.

 

[PreLynMax]

Probably Immortal or if I really want to relax, Sovereign.

 

[aelf]

I’d also be curious. I’m guessing (hoping) that no one complaining about deity being too easy is using mementos. The first deity games are pretty exciting, when you don’t know what the limits on the AI strengths are. I need my games to have a moment where things start feeling dire and I need to push through a scenario where I don’t see an obvious way to prevail.

People's mileage may vary, but I am liking how I can play in a more relaxed way on Deity, as opposed to Civ6 where I had to play in a certain way to succeed and felt like the first half of the game was a slog.

Sure, the highest difficulty level is meant to be difficult, but when people complain that Civ7 railroads their gameplay, I don't see how Civ6 on Deity doesn't completely railroad the way we play. Having one or two correct answers turns the game into a mere puzzle.

 

[Leucarum]

Honestly, the only thing I dislike about Deity is that wars really take a long time unless you're stacking combat strength. I don't always feel like a click-fest...

 

[aelf]

Honestly, the only thing I dislike about Deity is that wars really take a long time unless you're stacking combat strength. I don't always feel like a click-fest...

I assume you're talking about an active war. Yeah, I do think this is a problem in Exploration. In Antiquity, the saving grace is there are usually not that many AI units and districts. In Modern age, you probably have good commanders that can help speed things up, or at worst, bombers are around the corner.

I tend to wage naval wars in Exploration instead, which I find much easier to execute. So I guess, intentionally or not, Firaxis achieved their goal for that age? This is also why Chola rose to become my favourite civ in Exploration. On Deity, I will get dragged into wars or declared on, and a strong navy punishes the AI heavily and helps me complete the military legacy path.

As for passive wars, they tend to go on forever because the AI seems to have little incentive to agree to a peace. Sometimes if I'm really not bothered, I'd just let it be and repulse any weak attempt by the AI to attack me. But being able to punish them is very effective in ending wars more quickly.

 

[Leucarum]

I assume you're talking about an active war. Yeah, I do think this is a problem in Exploration. In Antiquity, the saving grace is there are usually not that many AI units and districts. In Modern age, you probably have good commanders that can help speed things up, or at worst, bombers are around the corner.

I tend to wage naval wars in Exploration instead, which I find much easier to execute. So I guess, intentionally or not, Firaxis achieved their goal for that age? This is also why Chola rose to become my favourite civ in Exploration. On Deity, I will get dragged into wars or declared on, and a strong navy punishes the AI heavily and helps me complete the military legacy path.

As for passive wars, they tend to go on forever because the AI seems to have little incentive to agree to a peace. Sometimes if I'm really not bothered, I'd just let it be and repulse any weak attempt by the AI to attack me. But being able to punish them is very effective in ending wars more quickly.

Yeah, you are rarely threatened by the AI, but the most efficient way to beat them before aircraft and naval engagements is a lot of micromanagement of ranged units with shuffling a melee frontline into army commanders as they get injured.

It's awkward as deity provides a better puzzle but is just too many clicks, lower difficulties the combination of units encouraged is fun but not a real challenge.

I do also find myself quite enjoying Chola. And surprising myself, even though they are lower down the list in power, Aksum is my "comfort food" Civ in 7 so far.

 

[chazzycat]

I have been playing on deity, which is kinda new for me. In previous civ games I never enjoyed it. In civ6 I always felt that I needed to archer rush the closest AI to have a chance to catch up, since they were already SOOOOO far ahead of me due to their free settlers. I really didn't enjoy feeling like I was forced into that one same opening move every game.

In civ 7, you can actually play peacefully on deity. Or at least, you don't NEED to rush attack the AI. It's actually possible to out-compete them without being super aggressive. And I am really enjoying trying to do exactly that.

But I could also see how others who DID enjoy deity on previous levels, wouldn't have enough challenge here. It's certainly easier. I think it really comes down to those (lack of) free settlers. They are simply massive.

 

[moondog385]

Viceroy. I don’t like difficulty too much in games — I play games to relax and have fun haha. But I’m glad the option is there for folks.

 

[sav]

Just got my first Deity win last night, which was a bit disappointing since it took me seven years to beat Civ 6 at that level! But I'm gonna consider it non-canon since it's so early in the game's development...

 

[Calcifer]

I wonder how much mementos play a role in how frequently people are beating deity. Are people beating it often with no mementos active? If so, I suck.

I stopped using mementos after I completed the challenges for full attribute trees. They make the game quite easier but I can still consistently beat deity without mementos.
I’m not using any AI mod though, because I like to see how the AI improves every patch.

 

[coolhandluke11]

i dont understand why people think there are difficulty levels in games when there clearly just handicapping you with percentages. i mean i wouldnt play football with one arm tied behind my back so when it comes down to computer games i would never allow any handicaps to be applied to me. after all i already allow the ai to run multiple copies of itself. i see the game only as a 1v1. human v ai and i just put up with its personality disorder.

​

 

[Siptah]

Did any game past civ IV handicap the player? I thought they all only boosted the yields of the opponents - and 7 also their combat strength, while 5 and 6 gave them advantageous starts.

How handicaps feel depends on your experience and expectations. In your example, football, a handicap feels off. For me, as someone who played a lot of board games, it feels pretty normal to have temporary or campaign-long handicaps. Similarly, I'm not opposed to them in computer games. It depends a bit how you approach them. Some games do it more clever and have some (negative) mechanics not apply to low level difficulties instead of handicapping yields. Think of RPGs in which characters don't outright die when reaching 0 HP on lower levels, city builders in which buildings are cheaper and people easier to appease, for example.