Challenging game setups

[Kibikus]

As I was looking to spice up the game a little bit, and partially inspired by the thread about difficulty, I wanted to see how challenging I can make the initial game setup and still manage to win. This is what I came up with:
Deity
Online speed (faster speed should be more advantageous to the AI)
Huge map (more AI should make it more challenging)
Primordial (not sure about this one, maybe Archipelago would be more challenging)
Sparse resources
Old world age (less hills and mountains)
Cold (more tundra and snow)
Arid (less woods and rainforest)
Apocalypse Game mode

As a leader I picked Tamar, because I wanted to do a Space victory, and she doesn't have any bonuses towards that.
And to spice it up even more, I did a OCC.

I managed to pull it off on my second try, although it got dicey at times (a comet hit right next to my spaceport). My first time I spawned right next to Trajan, who's of course not the biggest fan of OCC. I held him for a while, but eventually he overwhelmed me.

So what would a challenging game setup be in your opinion? What type of map, settings, leader, victory, etc?

 

[Deadly Dog]

Pick your opponents from the top tiers:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...he-hands-of-the-ai-elimination-thread.656981/

 

[enKage]

The most chalanging mapscript is Terra, everyone is so close that sometimes you don;t even have a chance to see turn 12. I am not sure why online might be more chalanging, During first 20 turns you would be able to build more units on online and in fact have better chance to defend early AI rush. And early AI rush is the only challange on deity

 

[AntSou]

Like enKage said. Not sure why online speed would make it harder. Especially on a huge map!

This seems pretty unbalanced. I get the impression you'll get to the modern era hardly having left your area. You'll never even interact with most civs.

Regardless of speed, units move at the same pace. Which means the enemy warriors have to traverse the same amount of tiles to get to you. The difference is that in online speed you'll have warriors and slingers ready by the time they arrive.

Here's something I recommend for a challenge: go to hotseat, set game as normal, but play with two Civs and 4-8 AI on Immortal or Emperor.

At least one of those Civs you control will lose .

 

[Kibikus]

Like enKage said. Not sure why online speed would make it harder. Especially on a huge map!

This seems pretty unbalanced. I get the impression you'll get to the modern era hardly having left your area. You'll never even interact with most civs.

Regardless of speed, units move at the same pace. Which means the enemy warriors have to traverse the same amount of tiles to get to you. The difference is that in online speed you'll have warriors and slingers ready by the time they arrive.

Here's something I recommend for a challenge: go to hotseat, set game as normal, but play with two Civs and 4-8 AI on Immortal or Emperor.

At least one of those Civs you control will lose .

I hadn't experimented much with game speed before this, but from what I've read, there seems to be a general consensus that slower game speeds are more advantageous to the human player. Since movement speed is fixed across speeds, on epic and marathon you get more opportunities to move around your units, attack, etc., which is something the player is generally better at than the AI. On the other hand, yield generation (production, science, culture, etc.) is more impactful on quicker speeds and the Deity AI gets significant bonuses to those.

Plus, I don't think I could manage OCC on marathon without falling asleep.

 

[AntSou]

Oh, I missed the OCC part. Never tried it but doubt I'd fare well

 

[Kwami]

I hadn't experimented much with game speed before this, but from what I've read, there seems to be a general consensus that slower game speeds are more advantageous to the human player. Since movement speed is fixed across speeds, on epic and marathon you get more opportunities to move around your units, attack, etc., which is something the player is generally better at than the AI. On the other hand, yield generation (production, science, culture, etc.) is more impactful on quicker speeds and the Deity AI gets significant bonuses to those.

Plus, I don't think I could manage OCC on marathon without falling asleep.

The real AI advantage on slower speeds is that they'll have three cities to your one for much longer. With online speed, you can get a Settler out pretty early because enemies will take relatively more time to get to your capital since movement is fixed. With marathon speed, that Settler takes forever and you'll have to build military units to defend, first. At least one developer (Carl) seems to think that Marathon is the hardest speed against the AI. I can't be bothered to try anything but standard speed, though.

 

[Casworon]

What i'm experimenting with at the moment is a series of mods on the steam workshop part of a collection called 'Difficulty and Time line Balance' by a modder called R.E.D.

Basically what these mods do is turn the way the difficulty settings work on their head. Giving the player a negative percentage to yields rather than the AI a positive percentage.

So on standard deity the AI gets +32% science for example. With this mod collection the AI gets +0% science but the player gets -32% science. I've found that this has made the game more difficult. While the difference between the player and the AI is the same, the player is much better at optimizing the resources at their disposal, so giving the player less resources increases the difficulty because they have less to optimize with.

Interestingly i have also noticed some AI civ's snowballing when using this mod collection, which i very rarely see on the standard deity. My reasoning behind this is that although the deity bonuses they usually get allows them to build invasion forces quicker, they don't increase the size of their invasions, while the production bonuses allow defending AI's to quickly build defense forces. Since defense forces start at the battlefield while invasion forces have to be built and then moved to the front, this gives the defensive AI a huge defenders advantage on standard deity settings. With this mod set up the AI is not getting anywhere near as much production bonuses, meaning that they are not able to as quickly build a defensive force and allowing invading Civ's to claim cities and even start to snowball.

So the combination of giving the player less tools to optimize and increasing the likelihood of AI Civ's snowballing to provide a greater challenge in the late game means that from my first few initial runs, the mod collection does increase the challenge. Recommended

 

[Icicle]

I like Primordial maps, but I think they probably make the game easier. They seem to have higher disaster ratings due to more volcanoes and tend to be in those weird snaky formations that the AI has a hard time handling, plus a lot of hills and jungles and such.

Agree with enKage on Terra, being crammed in so tight with the AI makes things very frantic at the start. Of course if you get the point of settling the other land you've got a free ride usually but that could actually be part of the fun, especially if it's OCC.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Great job OP, you seem to have found some really challenging settings. I would not have the patience to play OCC

My tip: Try a game on Deity where you do not settle your first city, but only click "next turn" without doing anything for the first 50 turns.. Now that'd be a challenge, if it's even possible.

Like enKage said. Not sure why online speed would make it harder. Especially on a huge map!

Quick makes the game significantly harder. Online makes the game intensely hard, especially if you are going for some kind of war. Emperor on Quick Speed is as difficult as Deity on Standard Speed (in terms of war). We have discussed this subject at length in another thread, but I am not sure which. I will link to it if I can find it.

The real AI advantage on slower speeds is that they'll have three cities to your one for much longer. With online speed, you can get a Settler out pretty early because enemies will take relatively more time to get to your capital since movement is fixed. With marathon speed, that Settler takes forever and you'll have to build military units to defend, first. At least one developer (Carl) seems to think that Marathon is the hardest speed against the AI. I can't be bothered to try anything but standard speed, though.

Sorry, but Karl is entirely wrong and the opposite is true Units actually move "faster" on marathon speed than they do on online speed (relative to the game speed of course).

Just an example: On online speed you usually go to space on T150. On Marathon you go to space on what, T600 or something? IDK. If you have a scout on online speed, he will be able to move 150 times. On Marathon he will move 600 times. So, relative to game speed, you explore faster, you clear the map faster, you expand faster, everything with units is faster.

A simple rule of thumb is that everything regarding units: Settlers, Builders, Scouts, military, Conquest, Defense is much easier on slower difficulties and much harder on faster difficulties.

You make a really, really good point however about the AI having 3 cities so much earlier compared to faster game speeds on Marathon. Super interesting and one thing I had not considered, so kudos for that!