Did the difficulties drop -1?

[Flaxton]

This is my experience too (actually started a thread on it last week).
Emperor seems ridiculously easy now, and you are right, the huge happiness bonuses you can get from religion and mercantile city states have a lot to do with it.

Yep - I think luxurys should be +2 now or the numbers of luxuries available in total (i.e. types) dependant on map size - so you only get all of them on a huge map and 1 less luxury type per smaller map.

 

[Thibaulthc]

I used to play as a King, but my emperor game seems to be going well now... but it's much tied to my OVERpowered Janissaries (ottoman UU)

I had a very though start, being stucked in a very difficult war against mongolian invaders for maybe 150 turns! (epic speed). but as soon as I counter-attacked with my first Janissary (+50hp when kills, recovers full heal in my game -becoz of a bug OR bcoz Fountain of Youth?-) I smashed him back

I also had another -bug?- which helped me a lot: Montezuma attacked me with a decent small army, I fought him back, then, out of nowhere, he offered me peace with all his money in exchange! I was just tracking his wounded units, but not even sieging his city... Gave me twice 1000+ gold which was huge at that moment

1 luxury less by map size is a great idea

religion bonuses can help a lot, in my current emperor game, at some point, more than half of my net gpt was from Tihe

I sometimes struggle with happiness, then have 30+ , it's kinda more fluctuation... a lot of my happiness is coming from unique resources from CS (porcelaine, jewelry, but also very rare -in my game- ivory, furs or dyes): if I lose two or three CS' alliances, I could lose 20 happiness in once! (3 luxuries + 2 mercantiles)

Most of my money is coming from trade routes (about 400+ while my net GPT is "only" 250). It's a huge map, and I settled a big part of the second continent. But I only have two harbors on each continent: if enemy AI blockades two harbors, it could cut me 200+ gpt! I'm scared for my next attack...

to be short: seems a bit easier for me, but could be relative to two bugs? (Janissary OP and Montezuma giving to much gold for peace)

 

[Flaxton]

Also the Mosques/Cathedrals/Pagodas happiness bonus is great too. I guess the entire game dynamic has changed from having 4 production cities and puppets to full on REX tactics. If G&K was applied to the Mongol Hoard scenario that would make it so much easier.

 

[RedRover57]

To me it seems about the same. In both vanilla and G&K:

King and below = for people just learning the game.

Emperor = easy once you are familiar with the game (good for a laid back game where you don't need to focus too hard on any one strategy)

Immortal = sweet spot (sometimes easy, sometimes a bit more challenging, depending on the map, civ you are playing, etc.)

Deity = winnable most games, but often too tedious to be fun (the only really challenging setting, but often just too restrictive in terms of strategy, inability to get a religion or build certain wonders in most games reduces strategy options)

 

[The_Quasar]

To me it seems about the same. In both vanilla and G&K:

King and below = for people just learning the game.

Emperor = easy once you are familiar with the game (good for a laid back game where you don't need to focus too hard on any one strategy)

Immortal = sweet spot (sometimes easy, sometimes a bit more challenging, depending on the map, civ you are playing, etc.)

Deity = winnable most games, but often too tedious to be fun (the only really challenging setting, but often just too restrictive in terms of strategy, inability to get a religion or build certain wonders in most games reduces strategy options)

Interesting... that is much as I see it...

 

[LostInTime]

Immortal seems like emperor to me now. Spies makes the game so much easier...
(used emperor to screw around and test stuff last xpac)

Haven't tried Deity yet, but going there as soon as I get most stuff figured out.

 

[notadummy]

To me it seems about the same. In both vanilla and G&K:

King and below = for people just learning the game.

Emperor = easy once you are familiar with the game (good for a laid back game where you don't need to focus too hard on any one strategy)

Immortal = sweet spot (sometimes easy, sometimes a bit more challenging, depending on the map, civ you are playing, etc.)

Deity = winnable most games, but often too tedious to be fun (the only really challenging setting, but often just too restrictive in terms of strategy, inability to get a religion or build certain wonders in most games reduces strategy options)

this.

 

[footslogger]

I've always played enjoyable games at prince level. In G&K I now find that level very easy. Struggling at king though.

 

[BobDole]

Feels a bit too easy to play now, unfortunately. I'm playing at Immortal right now and haven't lost yet, and haven't really been challenged too much. Combat AI is still better, and the AI can still pile up ungodly amounts of gold, but they still don't really know what they're doing: I crush them in tech most of the time, and generally don't have a hard time winning.

 

[Dunduks]

Difficulties drop is at least -1. Yesterday I (not the best prince/king player before G&K) ended Maya, Immortal, Continents, Standart, Standart. I was on continent with Ethiopia, Rome, China, France. I had rather big teritorry for may own (and city on choke point to it), so Rome DoW me and we had that war till the end of Rome. I tried some city spamming (ok, at least for me), so sometimes had small happiness problems. Ethiopia agreesiveluy promoted christianity, Rome slowlyconquered other nations but after they got beat at first offensive didn't try to conquere me. So I was tech leader but almost on par with Siam from other continent and when artillery became available I begin to conquere Rome, then came aviation and after losing five cities (including Beijing and Paris) they asked for peace giving me 30000 + 200+/turn gold and startegic/luxuries. I bought all city states and additional aviation. And that was beginning of end after ten turn peace treaty. Rome could buy army and if not crush me then at least could make my life very hard but they sat on money.

So except first Rome rush with some ballistas and legions there were any problems and I could slowly play for scientific even without conquest.

 

[Thibaulthc]

those insane peace treaties are a problem
30.000g and 200gpt for... 10 turns ... ?
they'd better fight till death

I hope they will fix that. Offering less, or that much but for real peace treaty (like 30 turns at least on standard speed)

my (first) emperor game is gonna be a little bit too easy as well
they are strong but nobody dares to dow me since I'm stronger.
my empire has big lacks and weak points, a two players alliance could really hurt me... but I manage to keep friendly with all of them except the one I conquer... then I denounce the next one, wait for some diplomatic empathy, and attack...

Now I'm attacking the biggest empire which has a small lead on me on techs.. and a lot of friends. We'll see how my relations will evolve, and how hard it's gonna be. I think that one thing that made the games easier on G&K is that AI are a little bit too... nice with you.

 

[Smokeybear]

Now I'm attacking the biggest empire which has a small lead on me on techs.. and a lot of friends. We'll see how my relations will evolve, and how hard it's gonna be. I think that one thing that made the games easier on G&K is that AI are a little bit too... nice with you.

Yeah- what with religious coercion and lots of other ways to diplo your way into fairly stable and peaceful relations with most of the world now, it is a lot easier to avoid getting mass-DoW'ed and gang-pillaged by a crowd of your neighbors early on, which frequently happened to me in the past. I still get early DoW's sometimes by feisty civs like Atilla and Monty and so on, but not the guaranteed bum's rushes by anyone and everyone remotely close to me like it was before.

Probably my biggest annoyance with the game anymore, is AI spies. I don't mind them stealing my techs so much- I can defend against that. But when I have a big network of allied city states spread across the world, invariably every other civ will be targetting as many of them as they can for coups and shenanigans, forcing me to spend 10's of thousands of gold more then necessary just to keep from losing control of them throughout the game. If it wasn't for the new ways to 'awe' them and earn brownie points via your accomplishments balancing some of that out, it would be way too much to handle. They're still a humongous money sink now, though.

 

[Furycrab]

They seem to have gotten one level easier, in my experience so far. The last time I played CiV was over six months ago. I was fairly comfortable on King, lost sometimes, but did pretty well at that difficulty. Emperor was pretty tough for me. Fast forward to G&K, and now King seems as easy as Prince, and Emperor difficulty feels about like King used to. Perhaps it's the more laid-back AI, what with all the methods you have now to chill them out and stay friendlier without constant DoW's every two seconds... wondering if other players are feeling the same sort of thing.

Not saying it's good or bad (thought it feels pretty good to me), just curious.

That or you just got better at the game.

Defensive structures got a nice boost though. So if you struggled with rushes they are a little easier to deal with... however killing a legit runaway is actually very difficult now or might take you too long .

 

[Light Cleric]

To me it seems about the same. In both vanilla and G&K:

King and below = for people just learning the game.

Emperor = easy once you are familiar with the game (good for a laid back game where you don't need to focus too hard on any one strategy)

Immortal = sweet spot (sometimes easy, sometimes a bit more challenging, depending on the map, civ you are playing, etc.)

Deity = winnable most games, but often too tedious to be fun (the only really challenging setting, but often just too restrictive in terms of strategy, inability to get a religion or build certain wonders in most games reduces strategy options)

I'm going to echo a lot of others and agree with this, Deity land wars are just far too tedious now that the AI's carpet spam lives even longer. The luck needed to found a religion as a non-religious civ can be kind of ridiculous because the religions can all go SUPER early and there's a huge variance in the times(I've seen anywhere from 63 to 93 be the cutoff, but usually it's like early 70ish). There's also a line between being difficult and being a tedious slog because the AI needs so many absolutely insane bonuses to patch its flaws, and 100 HP makes endless carpets of doom that much more tiresome to deal with. I've gotten bored about halfway through and quit basically all my Deity dom games lately; not because "I've already got this won" like on lower difficulties, but because, winning or losing, it's stopped being fun.

Although I must say, I am having fun with this Deity OCC Science game. Thanks Sadot.

 

[bcaiko]

I think early game warring became more difficult, but just about everything else became easier. One reason is that no one AI is less likely to become a complete runaway anymore, and naval invasions are much less of a hassle.

This is my experience too (actually started a thread on it last week).

I did, as well: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=468437

 

[Hitman Zeus]

Well, so far I have been playing on Prince for a couple of games and every time I saw empty spaces, few cities and god awful ideas of invading me from the other side of the continent... At least 30 tiles away from me and for some reason the AI want my land, moves an army across unsettled land trying to conquer me.

I just find it odd that the AI, even on Prince does not set up new cities...

 

[tyrael233]

I feel like the AI really slows down during mid-late game on immortal, they get into a war with another civs and it seems like they don't have any units for the rest of the game. This is on standard.

Same thing for tech, after a while it seems like they just stop teching, I can be several techs behind and 50 turns later I'm ahead by a long shot.

Just my opinion, but I think the AI need bigger cheats to be able to compete mid-late game (the AI does pretty well early, IMO). Once the player has properly grown and specialized cities the AI just can't keep up. Of course, the best would be a better AI, but apparently it's quite hard to do.

 

[metalmadt]

From my point of view, G&K make it a little easier. Maybe not an entire level but close too.

The DLC that make it way easier is Wonder of The Ancient World. Find it easy to get whatever wonder I want, even at Immortal.

 

[Naresh]

To me it seems about the same. In both vanilla and G&K:

King and below = for people just learning the game.

Emperor = easy once you are familiar with the game (good for a laid back game where you don't need to focus too hard on any one strategy)

Immortal = sweet spot (sometimes easy, sometimes a bit more challenging, depending on the map, civ you are playing, etc.)

Deity = winnable most games, but often too tedious to be fun (the only really challenging setting, but often just too restrictive in terms of strategy, inability to get a religion or build certain wonders in most games reduces strategy options)

I'd hardly say I'm a poor player, and I have a hard time playing on King
I'm a long time civ veteran, and I play well. I think something somewhere is eluding me...

 

[Smokeybear]

I'd hardly say I'm a poor player, and I have a hard time playing on King
I'm a long time civ veteran, and I play well. I think something somewhere is eluding me...

Post your playstyle, what game setups you like to play, the things you like to do/try, and where you run into problems against the AI. Maybe we can give some helpful tips. Ain't nowhere on earth with more Civ expertise than this board (but I'm just an amateur