Difficulty level - what's respectable?

[Mike Hussey]

I guess the primary purpose of a game is to have fun no matter what difficulty level. It varies from person to person. Some people like to cheat or use trainers, others like to go the hard slog at higher difficulties, whatever, as long as you have fun.

 

[Howard!]

I find the difficulties vary greatly ever time you play. For instance, once on noble I managed to found 5 out of the 7 religions and then went on to capture the sixth midway into the game. I was (all with their wonders) prducing some 80-120 gold per turn on 100% research. I used said masses of dosh to fund the spread of my corp. and soo I was getting around 300-500 gold per turn. I ended up with a space race victory around 1870.

Another game I played I just got completly destroyed by a Ragnar, Shaka and Tokugawa of the Jews coalition before the year 1000.

 

[Fiz]

This thread intrigued me as I've been playing Noble for quite some time... OK, trying to play noble. Unless I start with some ideal location, I always get my butt kicked.

The bad thing about this game is that it's not obvious where you've gone wrong, so you keep repeating the same mistakes. I often wish for a snarky AI that will pop up and say, "You idiot... what are you thinking!" I've found that I can consistently over-culture the other civs, but forget the rest.

 

[Desk Jockey]

A respectable level for me is the level where you step out of your comfort zone and take on a challenge.

That level of difficulty, while different for everyone, is always respectable

 

[twocan7]

This thread intrigued me as I've been playing Noble for quite some time... OK, trying to play noble. Unless I start with some ideal location, I always get my butt kicked.

The bad thing about this game is that it's not obvious where you've gone wrong, so you keep repeating the same mistakes. I often wish for a snarky AI that will pop up and say, "You idiot... what are you thinking!" I've found that I can consistently over-culture the other civs, but forget the rest.

I couldn't have wrote that better myself. I do the same thing awesome culture but everything else in crapper. But I did almost win my first noble game over the holidays. I lost to a space race right before I was to finish mine.

 

[KMadCandy]

You beat Noble? Okay, you're no longer a "noob".

pshaw! i have beaten noble. but even if played every one of my games on emperor (i don't), i'd still be a permanoob. i can lose on all difficulty levels.

(NOTE! I'm assuming a military and/or space win here. Cultural/Diplomacy wins bump the difficulty by a notch, I'd say.)

ah okay! military is much much harder for me. i've won diplo victories on levels way higher than military ones. and probably got a cultural victory on monarch before i did military. so obviously i'm completely abnormal and a total permanoob *giggle*. you can't tell me that i'm not, and if you try to, i shall keep pshaw'ing you . (even if it's just in my head to not clutter the forums)

 

[Grey Fox]

Play at whatever level that is the most fun for you. For me that's a level that is challenging to me, I won't necessarily win, but I will feel good about it if I do.
Then sometimes I feel like testing something out I play at a level I know I can handle.

For me that difficulty is Monarch/Emperor in BTS. Emperor/Immortal in FfH2.

 

[Bleys]

This thread intrigued me as I've been playing Noble for quite some time... OK, trying to play noble. Unless I start with some ideal location, I always get my butt kicked.

The bad thing about this game is that it's not obvious where you've gone wrong, so you keep repeating the same mistakes. I often wish for a snarky AI that will pop up and say, "You idiot... what are you thinking!" I've found that I can consistently over-culture the other civs, but forget the rest.

I couldn't have wrote that better myself. I do the same thing awesome culture but everything else in crapper. But I did almost win my first noble game over the holidays. I lost to a space race right before I was to finish mine.

I think you need to look at this and determine what to do differently at higher levels. Perhaps its time to stop going for Stonehenge, and stop building those Culture buildings, and make more troops instead. Stop chasing those early religions, and temples, and work a different tech order. Try using civics to take advantages of the "new" playstyle, like Hereditary Rule, a civic often ignored by newer players, because you dont NEED that happiness at noble or below. I dont think I ever used that civic until I hit Monarch. (for example)

There is also a big "fun" factor. I play Monarch because its an enjoyable few hours. Its hard enough, some games I cant equalize for a LONG time, but the more I play the more "sense" I get about how far behind I really am. On Emperor, I get crushed baddly half the time, and if I adjust to that, I get so far behind in tech and development it seems impossible to catch up. Truth be told, if I tough it out, and grind grind grind, I could likely catch up in the Emperor games, but its just not as much fun "grinding". I enjoy "kinda bumpy but mostly smooth" Monarch.

And remember, its all about adapting. If you say "But I want to play my own style, 100s of cities with all the buildings and a skeleton army (1-2 units per city)" then you arent going to get very far up the difficulty ladder. Once I modified my style to iron out the things I "tend" to do at lower levels, the jumps were easy. (my biggest faults being great culture, solid religion, Stonehenge, and no army, no Pyramid, etc, heh). You seem to have your finger on where you need to make adjustments. You just seem reluctant to make them, and thats fine. But if higher difficulties are your goal, flexibility is pretty key.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

Bleys has some good advice. I think Noble is a huge leap, it's kind of like going from elementary school to high school (only analogy I could think of ) since it's a giant step up in nearly every regard. I found it incredibly tough, but I eventually managed to conquer it and now I play on Prince.

Basically, don't give up. Keep working on it, strengthening the areas you're weak at and playing to your strengths. You'll get it eventually and it'll be great. I was so proud of my first Noble win, much more so than my first Prince win.

 

[ohcrapitsnico]

What difficulty level is generally regarded as "respectable"? Basically, the first difficulty level where you don't say "Yeah, this guy is new." I've been moving up slowly because I hate losing, so I have to force myself to try tougher difficulty levels. I haven't lost a game yet, but I'm a wuss and only playing at the Warlord difficulty.

I think any level is "respectable". I normally play noble or prince but I just play for fun and only occasionally. I use to only play settler on civ3 because it never occurred to me there were other levels. Play what level you want you shouldn't be embarassed.

 

[Gumbolt]

Still playing at Monarch myself. I tend to win most of the games i play by domination. I should really move up to Emperor.

I think everyone goes through phases. I started off on noble and worked my way up past Prince to monarch. Learned how to do Cultural and Space wins and moved on to domination wins most of the time.

When you move up the difficulty levels you learn how the AI works and what you need to do to compete.

Things like chopping forest for faster worker/settler production at start. Using warriors early on to steal AI workers. Looking for Copper early on to build axemen to reduce nearby civs while they are still weak. End of day if you want to win at the higher levels you do need to build a decent sized empire and you dont do that by having 10 or 12 cities by end of game. It took me many games to realise that.

For me Monarchy is respectable. Its a level that is fun to play at on huge maps.

 

[Grey Fox]

You don't need 10 or 12 cities to win on any difficulty. You can win on immortal with 6 cities (minimum requirement for some wonders on standard size) or maybe even less. (9 cities would be ultimate for cultural victory)

 

[Gumbolt]

Perhaps its cause i have been going for the conquests. Most games i only build 4-6 cities early on. The rest are normally captured through wars. You soon find yourself with more than 12 cities.

It has been a while since i tried a cultural win. I normally play huge maps on a slower game setting with 11 civs. When the Ai is roaming with a stack of 20-30 units in later gameplay you soon realise why you wanted more cities and units. Its not about building a huge empire but crippling the Ai's. The more land you use the less land the AI's have. I dont doubt its possible to win with 6-9 cities. From my experience when playing on a pangea it could be harder. On a continent prolly a lot easier to do. Few well placed ships to protect the coast.

I prolly have lots to learn.