I have been playing Civ since the 1st version came out in 1991, and have bought every version and DLC ever since. When I buy a new game, CIV or other, I always start on the highest difficulty setting, and don't read any of the tutorials or guidelines, or any of the pre-launch material, official or in forums. This gives me the greatest fun and challenge. If I can't win on the highest difficulty after 3 games, I drop down a level, and play 3 more games, etc, until I win, and then I go back up a level. It usually takes me a few goes to win, and then a few more to win on the top difficulty level. This has made games like Old World, Humankind, and ARA History Untold more interesting.
So I was really looking forward to Civ7, not having a clue what was different from Civ6. In my first game on Diety, I misunderstood the overbuilding rules for most of the game, thinking that I shouldn't have more than one building on a tile. One other Civ declared war on me for a few turns early on, but other than that I was not attacked, and still came 4th on legacy points. In my second game, no one attacked me until I was within 14 turns of a science victory, and even then it was half-hearted. I had even run my military down to one artillery piece per settlement, but no-one took advantage. I won the Science Victory, and wasn't far off an Economic victory either. I was shocked and disappointed that I hadn't had to put any real effort in learning any nuances in the game, or study my strategy like a game of chess. All I did was manage my happiness level per settlement, and expand as rapidly as possible, to usually 2 above the cap, apart from the Modern age, when even that didn't matter. I didn't look at the technology or civic trees, and easily finished the complete trees. I was totally awash with gold. I was fairly bored for the last 50 turns! At the moment Civ7 feels like a stripped down, threadbare, version compared with previous iterations.
I am perfectly happy for the lower levels to be easy for beginners, or players that just want a relaxing "sandbox" type of game, but I do expect the top couple of levels to be an intellectual challenge, at least for a few games. So I have a couple of questions:-
1) What set up gives the most challenge at the moment, eg pace of game, size of map etc? I have played on standard setting so far.
2) What changes can the developers make to make the game more challenging? Making happiness management tougher could be one, eg higher penalties for the human player going over the settlement limit, use of influence more expensive, or even the obvious better starting bonuses for the AI opponents.
With all other versions of Civ I have definitely had the one more game feeling, but I am not sure Civ 7 is challenging enough for an experienced 4X strategy player.
