How do Difficulty Levels affect the non-warmonger's game?

[Dutch Canuck]

I remember in Civ 3 that as difficulty level increased, the builder player had to become more and more of a total war monger; such that high difficulty levels just spoiled the builder's game... War, war, and more war, and nothing else. A constant state of war is not much fun for me!

So for Civ 4, I have not played higher than Noble. I know that I am still mastering the game and I should be able to do better with experience. But there's a catch: if Civ 4 deteriorates into an endless brawl at higher levels, what the point for a builder like me? Don't get me wrong, I do engage in warfare as a builder - but only when I'm well prepared/when it is a "necessary evil"/defending my empire.

Can anyone give me a heads-up on what to expect as we builders ramp up the difficulty level of the game? Is it like Civ 3, or is Civ 4 still an interesting game for builders for many higher levels to come? How high in difficulty has anyone played, and won, primarily as a builder with a minimum of fighting!

It would be good to know what to expect based on other civvers' experience.

 

[Horizons]

When the AI has bonuses your only way of winning is to kill the AI players until you are bigger/wealthier than they are. I think this is a case of simple numbers ....

 

[Jerrymander]

Go to the Strategy forums, and look at some All Leader Challenges, or other expert-like threads.
They usually play on Immortal or higher, and you can see the AI's development vs themselves.

 

[KMadCandy]

When the AI has bonuses your only way of winning is to kill the AI players until you are bigger/wealthier than they are. I think this is a case of simple numbers ....

absolutely not. you don't have to be bigger/wealthier at all. you just have to reach a victory condition before they do. size doesn't matter . winning by going to war is usually faster and often easier (easier depends on playstyle and preference, there's no one definition of easier), sure, but it's not the only way. don't look at only the "simple numbers" like the AI does ... look beyond them.

note: i have a habit popping up in threads where people say things in absolute terms like that, and mentioning an exception or three *giggle*.

"is Civ 4 still an interesting game for builders for many higher levels to come?" well everybody's different. i love one-city-challenge, altho it's not all that i play. some people really don't like it. i read a thread at apolyton that was a bunch of people trying deity OCC to get space race. they played with barbs on, random opponents, but picked their own leader. after much trial and error and discussion with each other, some of them started winning their games . many of the games the player was never in a war at all. many of the games the player won by 2 turns; some they lost by one turn. but it's certainly possible to win that way. i read the thread recently, but it was written before warlords came out.

i don't usually play on the highest levels. sometimes i do, just for giggles, but only using OCC. high difficulty land-grabs are the pits anyway; deity they get two settlers, it's brutal. knowing i'll only ever get one city makes that much easier to deal with, i just regen the map until i get a start that looks okay to me. one city, i'm gonna wait for a start i like. then i don't have to rush to bronze-working to pump out settlers, i can rush to alphabet if i want to trade techs, whatever. i could still beeline BW to make axemen but i'm not in the mood today *giggle*.

i like playing deity-OCCs to try for diplomatic victory, knowing that i'll have almost no votes, so i must get people to like me, and i must be the one to build the UN. that type of game would bore some people to tears, interesting game is in the eye of the beholder. i haven't won at deity yet (not even if i hand-picked opponent that are almost guaranteed to be peaceful) cuz i'm a permanoob! but at monarch/emperor, on pangaea or inland seas, depending on who the RNG sends me as opponents i can manage a diplo OCC win usually, sometimes immortal but not usually. the wars probably meet your definition of "only when I'm well prepared/when it is a "necessary evil"/defending my empire" or close to it; i add in a "when it will help me politically to say i'm helping out in this war even tho i'm actually busy doing something else and will those guys do the fighting without me" clause , that sort of thing. by definition the typical "axe rush to get more territory" wars aren't possible since i'm doing OCC -- i can't ever be bigger.

for me it's really fun to hold a vote for diplomatic victory, cast my own votes for my opponent, and still win the game! but i admit i'm an oddball.

 

[ABigCivFan]

I think most experts become experts by first mastering the "builder" part of the game at lower level where Human and AI start on relatively equal terms. Humans reason better and can plan better long-term wise, so you can beat the AIs relatively easily.

As the level moves up with higher AI bonuses, you have to master the "war" part of the game because human can fight a much better organized multi-front battle. The AI is vastly inferior in that department even with large army sizes. So basically AI's hammer/reserch/starting bonuses are countered by human intellegence where you have to learn how to slow the AIs down by ALL means: war, diplo, and build.

Many times you dont have to go on a total war, for instance, you can just send in some chariots to pillage the top AI's farm, cottages to slow it down while getting some nice gold to finance your growth, when it is weak enough and you have good infrusture build, go in for the kill. That is what makes it difficult when you have to do this to multiple AIs, manipulate them with trading and diplo. You face much more challenging choices more frequently on high levels where one mistake can cost you the game. Thats what makes it interesting.

 

[Horizons]

absolutely not. you don't have to be bigger/wealthier at all. you just have to reach a victory condition before they do. size doesn't matter . winning by going to war is usually faster and often easier (easier depends on playstyle and preference, there's no one definition of easier), sure, but it's not the only way. don't look at only the "simple numbers" like the AI does ... look beyond them.

note: i have a habit popping up in threads where people say things in absolute terms like that, and mentioning an exception or three *giggle*.

"is Civ 4 still an interesting game for builders for many higher levels to come?" well everybody's different. i love one-city-challenge, altho it's not all that i play. some people really don't like it. i read a thread at apolyton that was a bunch of people trying deity OCC to get space race. they played with barbs on, random opponents, but picked their own leader. after much trial and error and discussion with each other, some of them started winning their games . many of the games the player was never in a war at all. many of the games the player won by 2 turns; some they lost by one turn. but it's certainly possible to win that way. i read the thread recently, but it was written before warlords came out.

i don't usually play on the highest levels. sometimes i do, just for giggles, but only using OCC. high difficulty land-grabs are the pits anyway; deity they get two settlers, it's brutal. knowing i'll only ever get one city makes that much easier to deal with, i just regen the map until i get a start that looks okay to me. one city, i'm gonna wait for a start i like. then i don't have to rush to bronze-working to pump out settlers, i can rush to alphabet if i want to trade techs, whatever. i could still beeline BW to make axemen but i'm not in the mood today *giggle*.

i like playing deity-OCCs to try for diplomatic victory, knowing that i'll have almost no votes, so i must get people to like me, and i must be the one to build the UN. that type of game would bore some people to tears, interesting game is in the eye of the beholder. i haven't won at deity yet (not even if i hand-picked opponent that are almost guaranteed to be peaceful) cuz i'm a permanoob! but at monarch/emperor, on pangaea or inland seas, depending on who the RNG sends me as opponents i can manage a diplo OCC win usually, sometimes immortal but not usually. the wars probably meet your definition of "only when I'm well prepared/when it is a "necessary evil"/defending my empire" or close to it; i add in a "when it will help me politically to say i'm helping out in this war even tho i'm actually busy doing something else and will those guys do the fighting without me" clause , that sort of thing. by definition the typical "axe rush to get more territory" wars aren't possible since i'm doing OCC -- i can't ever be bigger.

for me it's really fun to hold a vote for diplomatic victory, cast my own votes for my opponent, and still win the game! but i admit i'm an oddball.

One city challenges intimidate me no end. How can you resist the temptation of putting down another city when your scouts reveal a luscious, unsettled land of milk and honey?

 

[Welnic]

One city challenges intimidate me no end. How can you resist the temptation of putting down another city when your scouts reveal a luscious, unsettled land of milk and honey?

Since you don't have the option to build a settler that part is easy. If you play a custom game there is a checkbox for OCC, it's not just that you promise not to build another city. If you play an OCC game then you can build all of the national wonders in the city instead of just two.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Presumably you only need 1 university to build Oxford, 1 theatre for the globe, 1 forge for ironworks too?

I've never tried a OCC but it does sound like an interesting game.

 

[KMadCandy]

and one theatre for globe. no city in your entire empire ever has any unhappiness once you build globe, how overpowered is that?

i didn't mean to sidetrack this into an OCC thread. i was just giving the example as proof that you don't always have to war to win at even the very highest level. whether it's possible without the advantages (multiples national wonders)/restrictions (limited in cultural borders, so there are some resources you are never going to get) of OCC, i do not know. they really do grab a whole lot of land really really fast at deity. usually land is power, so them getting more land = you needing to go to war to take land from them.

people have won cultural victories at deity without any wars for HoF games, but those are hand-picked opponents and that doesn't really count for this type of "is it possible" question i think.

 

[Methos]

I agree with KMadCandy, OCC games are a blast! You'd be surpised at how powerful the city gets, especially if you merge every (except the first GS) as a super specialist. I've won OCC space games on Monarch, but never tried Deity!!! I'll have to find that thread she's talking about.

I'm also more the builder type and I'm not that good at warmongering at all, yet I've beat every difficulty level.

A good thread to read is Godotnut's Guide to Totally Peaceful Deity Cultural Victory

 

[KMadCandy]

I agree with KMadCandy

i love quoting that!

I'll have to find that thread she's talking about.

that thread. note that it's at apolyton, not CFC, in case you don't like how their board is set up. i know that i prefer CFC's style *giggle*.