Higher difficulty levels force you into 1 playstyle.

[IronCrown]

When I play with my friend online, the games go 2-4 hours normally on a standard map with standard AI #'s (he's limited to monarch difficulty so that's what we play, if I start wrecking him tech or sizewise...usually size...we'll PA).

Of course, the turn timer is Blazing!!, because I'd probably bash my head in half into the wall if it weren't. I play much faster than the Blazing timer, but I guess it has to be set somewhere. Usually my friend keeps up decently now too, and might even finish first if I'm warring and he isn't!

Well, we're not as fast as you Also we are usually 3-6 players which slows down things further because there is always someone who needs to do something time-consuming in a particular turn. But most importantly we are real turn-based people and dislike RTS (unlike you). We actually enjoy the slowness of this game and have no desire to play as fast as possible. Though we still hate to wait when WE are ready with our own turn, to be sure

In any case time pressure weakens my game considerably, making me a worse player in MP than in SP, especially in tactical war situations. I play a lot better when I have time to ponder a decision.

On Topic: I thought the same once; that there is only one way to win on Emperor+, REXing and warmongering. But my first wins on Immortal were actually peaceful wins, culture and diplomatic. I've become quite good at manipulating the AIs. On Emperor I can now comfortably employ several different strategies, even with random leaders. One is limited early expansion in favor of wonder-hogging, thus creating a production-monster capital by settling lots of Great Prophets and Engineers. Another is early REXing and peaceful development. I pulled of several space or diplomatic victories on Hemispheres and similar maps where I didn't fire a shot for the entire game. A third variant is of course the classic warmongering path to domination or conquest.

 

[r_rolo1]

You know that MP includes Hotseat, Pitboss and PBEM, that aren't framed in "shoot them up" time frames, right Ironcrown ?

On topic: I've been thinking on this particular topic for a while, but i think that there has been some confusion in terms in here. Higher levels winning strats aren't the best winning strats: they are the strats that have less risk involved ( early religion is a high risk strategy if the AI beelines religion ( most of them do if possible), has myst and research bonuses ( as they have above noble ) ). And we have to admit that the AI ineptitude in warfare ( that is quite bigger than it's ineptitude in other areas ) makes warring in average less risky than going peaceful. And even if you don't plan to war, unless you are a diplomagic wizard ( and have a good grasp of the somewhat murky and sometimes buggy diplo rules of Civ IV ) and have some luck, you need to maintain a respectable power. And keeping those units idle in your cities is a waste.....

Well, I'm not saying that you can't win in Emperor + without warfare ( done that my fair share of times to know it is possible ) and there is a number of strats you can employ ( from obsolete style OCC cap style empire ( that simply avoids fighting the AI in number of cities settled, a war that you simply can't win most of the times ) to super REX ( that tries to get most of the land before the AI ), passing by some espionage strats or simply hole up, play nice and go culture. I'm just saying that pressing warfare gives more consistent results than probably any other strat in higher levels ( a thing that I dislike furiously in Civ IV : this wasn't supposed to be a game where the objective was " to build a civilization that stands the test of time" , instead of "build a civilization that kicks the others hard enough for no one being able to defy them" ? but that alone is enough for other thread.... )

 

[IronCrown]

You know that MP includes Hotseat, Pitboss and PBEM, that aren't framed in "shoot them up" time frames, right Ironcrown ?

PBEM and Hotseat are no viable options for me. PBEM would take a year to complete. And Hotseat serves me no purpose because I always play with friends who live far away. I do actually have two friends living in my town who also play Civ, but they are so weak (Warlord/Prince level, respectively) that I don't wanna play with them

But as I said our online games are not "shoot 'em up" games... we basically play as if it were SP. That's why we never complete a game

 

[KingMorgan]

Would agree that the HOF really improves your game, makes you compete and try new strat and directions.

 

[feralminded]

When I made the sprint to Immortal from Prince I initially got very despondent because the way I did it was I worked a very specific and strict strategy and then used it to fight my way though a bunch of difficulty levels in a very short amount of time. Well then to my surprise I fired up the game and tried anything else and simply could not win on Immortal, in fact I would lose VERY FAST. Lowered to emperor ... no dice. Finally I was able to do *something* else on Monarch but it was still super hard.

Ultimately what I learned from the experience was that while I was able to win on the higher level for bragging rights it was only because I was working within my comfort zone. Now after several more months I can finally say I'm relatively comfortable with most strategies on Emperor ... however while it took me a little under a month to go from Prince->Immortal using only a specific strategy ... it's now taken about 3 more to get fairly comfortable on Emperor. I guess that's the point.

I'm at the point now where the game is "fun" at Emperor because my fundamental play is tight enough that I can fool around and get away with it. I realized this when I made my recent Tutorial series. While I was trying very hard to help players make the leap themselves I forgot I was so comfortable with handling barbs that by 1500AD I was still managing them with warriors only (Woods III warriors on hills defending huge stretches of land mind you). Some of the new players sent me desperate PM's asking me why I hadn't built archers or the great wall and that they were scared and it took me a while to realize ... this was one aspect of the game that I no longer feared at this level but to someone new it's probably terrifying. That's when it really clicked ... I could screw around on Emperor now. Suddenly emperor was REALLY fun for me and I now have trouble playing Prince or lower because I find it too easy. My game has evolved ... unconsciously ... through lots of time and effort.

I'm still not there on Immortal. Sure I can win with relative ease using the same strategy I used the first time but that's not interesting. I could also win with a couple other strategies I'm fairly confident using but again ... it would be a white-knuckle affair. That said I now know that if I put enough time into it I could definitely get a high comfort level with the difficulty over time. Yeah it was really easy to get that first win ... but the gap between winning and comfort is pretty large.

And yes each step up certain "strategies" won't work anymore. I still recall my early ideas of the game that worked on Noble like beelining Machinery/CS for a Maceman "rush" before the AI would have even swords ... or my old RE strategy which was: Never open my borders, get EVERY religion, spread 1 of them by opening borders for a short period of time and gifting the missionaries away ... then building the appropriate shrine?!?! Yeah I can't pull of those "strategies" anymore and maybe that makes it less fun ... but it hasn't really taken the fun out of it for me.

 

[Skallagrimson]

That's just wrong. Circumnavigation is incredibly useful and I pursue it if I have the chance. It makes intercontinental invasions a LOT easier. Religions are also useful. It's just that you're unlikely to found Buddhism or Hinduism. You can get Confucianism or Taoism pretty reliably. As to whether you actually want to ADOPT it is another issue though. But you can totally run a religion based economy at the higher levels - look at the ICS SG games.

On Noble and Prince I had a strategic gimmick when starting with Mysticism, to found Hinduism and beeline Judaism before settling the first expansion city, thus giving me a double-shrine in the capital. From there I would beeling Priesthood and either try for marble or just chop like crazy to build Oracle, which would usually pop Code of Laws, so then I'd have not only my double-shrine capital, but also a shrine in another city. That's three Great Prophets that go to good use, as one city just spams missionaries full-time. It would fund a gigantic REX (15+ cities), so it was even more effective on huge maps.

Major fun, and once I stepped up to Monarch, I learned the hard way that even though I still COULD found those religions, as a strategy it was a non-starter, due to the increased extremity of the need to get the basics like BW, without which the barbs will own you if the AIs don't.

This is what I mean. Alternative start dropping off the ledge, and the options narrow. "Play style" or "strategy" might be a bad way to express it, but the games quite simply become more robotic, less exploratory, less random, less varied, and overall, less fun.

 

[Skallagrimson]

If you're not having fun at Emperor, go back and play some HoF style games at Prince, pick a victory strategy that you like and aim for some top 10 finishes. There are categories for every speed, every difficulty, every map size, every victory condition.
Plenty of categories are open to being improved =)

It made Civ fun again for me. Maybe it can do the same for you.

Just playing Prince again, over the weekend, made the game fun again. It was the first time in about a month that I actually enjoyed and looked forward to sitting down to each Civ session.

Even though I "can win" on Monarch and Emp, I just don't like the stress, the tunnel vision, and the ridiculous AI advantages that would never exist in any semblance of real life. (AI chariot beats human spearman... "just because I'm the AI and the AI rule supreme!")

 

[Skallagrimson]

It's not that you're restricted in options, it's more that you have to take the right option at the right time looking at all the aspects of the map. You think it's fun to have the choice between going for circumnavigation and founding islam on emperor, if i look at that same map i yawn think that both options win, choose a third that wins faster and go on to do something more challenging.

Well then I just plain suck at finding the one key thing about the map that'll net a Deity win. I lose, I'm stupid, I'm going back to Prince.

 

[Dirk1302]

Ai chariot beats human spearman? That doesn't happen too often on deity either, it's always possible of course on any level with a randomizer.

Deity's not easy,unless you're very talented it takes a lot of experience and hard work to stand a chance of beating that level (at least in my case). Not everyone is interested in investing this time which is fine. I think it's a bit lame though to say that playing deity requires tunnel vision and is predictable, if that were the case everyone would win on that level using this of course well documented standard strat.

Key on deity is timing, not only making the right choices but executing them in the right order. At least for me that's much more fun than just plunking down 3 shrines and looking wide eyed at my enormous empire.

 

[Gliese 581]

Just playing Prince again, over the weekend, made the game fun again. It was the first time in about a month that I actually enjoyed and looked forward to sitting down to each Civ session.

Even though I "can win" on Monarch and Emp, I just don't like the stress, the tunnel vision, and the ridiculous AI advantages that would never exist in any semblance of real life. (AI chariot beats human spearman... "just because I'm the AI and the AI rule supreme!")

That's great. Everyone should play this game for their enjoyment. So as long as that's what does it for you, you should continue playing on that level.
I like to exploit game mechanics (though mechanics as intended, not bugs) as much as possible and enjoy the challenge of the higher difficulty levels.
It can be harmful sometimes though, I can't play Colonization 2 any more for example because it took me two weeks with the help of this forum to find the glaring exploits that makes a win on the highest level there inevitable for me. So I consider the game broken and since Firaxis apparently has no interest in patching it I wont get any enjoyment out of it unless it's modded in the future. But that's how it goes, I'm happy for those that can still enjoy that game because the original Col is one of my favourite games ever.

 

[r_rolo1]

Off topic @ Gliese

Read this regarding Col patch

 

[Alrin Kharr]

Even though I "can win" on Monarch and Emp, I just don't like the stress, the tunnel vision, and the ridiculous AI advantages that would never exist in any semblance of real life. (AI chariot beats human spearman... "just because I'm the AI and the AI rule supreme!")

Just an FYI on this particular point; the difficulty level has no influence whatsoever on combat odds when it comes to you vs. the AI; those will be calculated exactly the same way, whether you're playing on Settler or Deity.

 

[Gliese 581]

Off topic @ Gliese

Read this regarding Col patch

rolo: Thanks for the tip!

It's good that they're finally doing something, however, without wanting to drag this thread even further off topic I'll just briefly say that the proposed changes unfortunately only scratches the surface of the problems (the whole REF mechanic is deeply and fundamentally flawed and the AI behaviour is one of the worst I've seen in a strategy game quite frankly).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Just an FYI on this particular point; the difficulty level has no influence whatsoever on combat odds when it comes to you vs. the AI; those will be calculated exactly the same way, whether you're playing on Settler or Deity.

It's just that on high levels there are 80 or 90 more chances for you to lose at any given odds chance, since you'll be seeing that many MORE units in the AI stack .

 

[r_rolo1]

rolo: Thanks for the tip!

It's good that they're finally doing something, however, without wanting to drag this thread even further off topic I'll just briefly say that the proposed changes unfortunately only scratches the surface of the problems (the whole REF mechanic is deeply and fundamentally flawed and the AI behaviour is one of the worst I've seen in a strategy game quite frankly).

To finish the off topic:

I fully agree with you. Most of the people that groan about Civ IV having one way of winning would have heart attacks playing CoL with his "one number to rule it all" aproach ( for those that had the good sense of not buying CoL until now, there is a variable called "Liberty bells" ( LB ) that serves as culture, GPP, troop booster of the King's Royal expeditionary force ( REF ) and a necessary step to be able to win the game ( you have to collect enough LB in your empire ( vs population ) to be able to start the war of Independence, the only way to win the game )..... ). That ,allied to possibly the worst AI that I seen coming out of Firaxis ( I think that even SMAC AI would beat CoL AI easily ), means that there is only one way of winning the game. In Civ IV there is atleast always 2 or more viable paths to win, regardless of the level ... :/

 

[dalamb]

I suppose it would take a while to get all riverside with 14 gems, some corn and a few hills?

Instead of the MapFinder I'd like a WorldBuilder option that kept dark everything but the initial map. Then I could set up most of what I want (except rivers that went somewhere useful off-start). But, I digress.

 

[dalamb]

I play a bit backwards though so my advice might not be good or even wanted lol . When I'm financial I do reverse builds in my cities or at least do a reverse tile adaption because I always manage to get more commerce which helps me to REX and tech better. If your confused so am I!

What's a "reverse build"?

 

[Skallagrimson]

It's just that on high levels there are 80 or 90 more chances for you to lose at any given odds chance, since you'll be seeing that many MORE units in the AI stack .

I don't know 100% for sure that it was chariot > spearman, or maybe swordsman > axeman, but there were several such "fluke victories" on the AI's part the last time I got miserably slaughtered on Emp. In fact it was a shadow Emp game when I was trying to follow that walk-through with the Ramesses "Wonder Economy", and on my part it was Epic Fail. (Boxed in and then just crushed, and all my wonders and $.50 got me coffee! What? Chop war chariots you say? With what trees? Chopped all those to build the freaking Pyramids, which are no help at all!)

Yes, I whine. Hand me some cheese.

 

[EmperorFool]

I will say that I felt the same way when I moved to Emperor. I had been a builder previously and found initially that war was the only way to avoid a slow strangulation.

Now, however, I can wonder spam (GW, GLH, Pyramids, and GLib without being Industrious or having Stone/Marble, though I only recently started grabbing GLH and sometimes miss Pyramids if I go for it) pretty easily. Getting the GW allows you to ignore barbs mostly, except when sending out Settlers--I got screwed in my most recent game with no metal or Horses and couldn't expand as easily.

Sure, I can't grab three religions, but I only tried that once anyway. Your options definitely narrow, but to me that's pretty reasonable. That's like complaining that your favorite Pee Wee Football strategy of constant fake punts and flee flicker fake-outs doesn't work anymore when you get to the pros. You can't make it more difficult and still allow cheesy tactics--they just don't work together.

Regarding the "my X counter got owned by a Y" part, that's been checked again and again. Combat ignores difficulty level and player type. The dice are impartial, and they can be cruel.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Combat ignoring difficulty level seems to point the way, to someone as pea-brained as me, to go the warmongering route early and often when trying to climb.

And I seem to remember now, when climbing up from the lower levels, that combat was my way up too.