Difficulty and Strategic Planning

[Torakami_Bltzen]

I'm playing a regent game right now, random everything except sedentary barbarians. Vanilla Civ3. Anyways, I know that the A.I. and human are supposidly equal at regent, but I still am outexpanding them and have better infrastructure and way more cash (still early in game though). I'm not really planning everything very indepth in this game at all. I have not sat down and thought about my "goals" or planned city placement or anything like that, yet i'm still winning. I want civ 3 to be a more strategically challenging game, but I don't want to get crushed.

I'm wondering what difficulty level (assuming a fairly good understanding of the game and all of it's concepts) in depth strategic thinking becomes a nessicary in order to win. I don't want to continue this regent game if it's just going to be a walk in the park! thanks in advance!

 

[dave17]

Everyone's skill level won't be the same, but I find that emperor is where I have to start thinking. On monarch I can always do the same thing: expand as fast as possible, making peace with everyone, send out a few scout unit to explore and get goodies, trade techs with everyone to stay ahead of the science game, they when I'll pile up on swordsmen/horsemen and crush the closest civ for more territory, then build up the old infrastructure and by then I'll be significantly ahead of everyone else and it's a cakewalk from there.

So try emperor

 

[Ville]

Emperor for me

 

[Alexnm]

Things start getting really challenging at Emperor, though I've had some nice games at Monarch... but this is with the expansions, of course.

 

[nullspace]

I'm going to say Emperor, too. That's the level where I can play however I want and still have a good chance of winning. On deity, I have to play a certian way to compete: never research, place cities tightly, skip early wonders, and fight to get ahead. But on Emperor, I can build a wonder or two, space out my cities so thery're awesome in the modern age, and do enerything I think is enjoyable, instead of effective. But it's still a challenging game. If you think Regent is way too easy, then try Emperor.

 

[hanskamp]

Torakami_Bltzen,

You might have the same speed as the AI at Regent level, but there is one thing you might not be thinking of: the human intelligence is still much better than the game's AI. So it is still possible to win the game.

At Emperor difficulty the computer might be dumber than you, but it is faster.

 

[Brewster]

If you are winning quite easily at Regent, move up to Monarch for a game or two before taking the step to Emperor. I am currently making the transition from dominating Regent to surviving Monarch. After I get comfortable with Monarch, I will make the jump to Emperor.

 

[TheNiceOne]

I found the step from Regent to Monarch very small and quite easy - it was when I stepped up to Emperor I really had to play smarter.