Best game settings for general skill improvement?

[Mikeality]

Hello everyone, I'm currently a comfortable emperor player hoping to be playing on deity one day. My approach has been to setup games without weird settings in an attempt to keep the games as controlled as possible so that it's just the difficulty setting I steadily build up. This means most of my games are either standard pangea or continents with all other default settings. I even keep game pace at standard so that I can iterate fairly quickly.

For a while I would always do this on emperor but I've been winning often enough lately that I'm starting to do games on immortal. With enough time and grit I'm sure this means I can eventually make it to deity using this approach. I wanted to make this thread to see if this is a good strategy for improvement and to hear what you all think.

What's your ideal game settings purely for skill improvement?

What would you say is the best civ for improving fundamentals? Someone who doesn't rely on a specific strategy or weird luck.

 

[Melchizedek]

I'm also fairly comfortable on Emperor but not Immortal, so this will be an interesting thread. Maybe it is also an appropriate place to ask experienced players what advice they have for players trying to get over the Emperor -> Immortal hump in the mod.

 

[DaniSciB]

What's your ideal game settings purely for skill improvement?

IMO, the best way to improve based on this you mention is:

1) Play a balanced map with default settings. No tweaking up the map depending on the civilization you play. Preferably a map that forces you to explore the ocean and fight at the ocean.

- Pangaea is not well balanced, imo, it takes a lot of strength away from civilizations focused on the sea, it takes a lot of value away from cities on the coast and ocean based techs, AI tends to create a lot of naval troops while the player can calmly focus on land and makes Authority extremely powerful and warmongers in general.

2) Play random civilizations and the first start you get. (Except totally absurd starts like full snow as Arabia... WTH.) That is, no rerolling. This will force you to adapt and create a strategy based on the civilization and the map.

- Random civilizations are hardcore, you can choose who to play with obviously and the type of victory you want. But the map is important, rerroling with Carthage until you get a perfect start alone and with a monopoly of corals doesn't make much sense.

3) Be flexible. Progress has the economy to wage war and defend its interests if necessary. For example.

 

[Delvemor]

I think it's ok to pick your civ and plan accordingly, like for example choosing Arabia and planning to open with Tradition. My suggestion would be to just never "save scum" unless you misclick. If you take a bad decision, just face the consequences and go through it. I also don't try to get the perfect start. Anything decent should do it. Only a starting position near snow or in the middle of the desert with no flood plains would be enough to make me restart.

 

[stii]

I wouldn't do random, as that adds an extra layer of skill. Some civs are just better than others. Pick a good civ and practise its early game. Use its powerful abilities to do as powerful things as possible. I think in general if you want to get better replaying the early game over and over is more useful than playing out a smaller number of full games. The advantages snowball so much that slightly advantages early matter so much than bigger ones later. Don't reply on wonders or religion, makes more cities, buildings and units faster instead.

I prefer pangea over continents but either are fine.