How Long Will it Take You to Win Regularly on the Highest Difficulty Level?

[DMOC]

Question: How long will it take you to win regularly on the highest difficulty level in Civ 5,

Whereas "win regularly" refers to a consistent, high-level play on the highest difficulty level,

Whereas "high level play" eliminates any tactic that is deemed by the Civilization 5 community to be out of line with what the game developers anticipated, and is considered a severe exploit or bug abuse, with the exception of war on the highest difficulty level,

Whereas "highest difficulty level" refers to maps set on the highest level (Deity in civ4) that are randomly generated and are standard sized with standard civilizations and other settings,

Whereas "standard" refers to the default values that the game provides to you for your corresponding map size on the randomly generated map,

Whereas "randomly generated" means that you play the given map without advance knowledge nor any alterations to its original form, and can win regularly,

Whereas "win regularly" can also be known as quitting a game when you are in a dominating position,

Whereas a "dominating position" is one such that you are in complete control of the game and it is inevitable within the next 50 turns (extendable for longer game speeds) that you will have a victory, ideally with half of the world's land or when it is early, yet you are dominating in technology,

Whereas "dominating in technology" refers to being at least two eras ahead of all of the other civilizations, or provided that those AI's equal in technology do not have the land area to compete with you,

Whereas "how long" refers to the period from when you purchase the actual game of Civilization 5,

Whereas Civilization 5 can refer to the standard game or any future "expansions" that may be included, as in previous versions of the Civilization series, so long as you actually start playing any version of Civilization 5 at that point, so if you begin playing the Civilization 5 game a year later when the expansion is revealed, start at that point,

Whereas, "start at that point" does not refer to when you buy the game, but rather when you can actually start to play,

Whereas, that date which you have installed the game and can start the game is recorded and adequately remembered.

This Gallup Poll is copyright DMOC @ 2010. All Rights Reserved.

 

[DMOC]

My reasoning

Answer: 6 months

Premise:

1. I shall not be buying Civilization 5 until the middle of November
2. Relating to point (1), I shall have adequate time to browse the Civilization 5 forums to determine what strategies are necessary,
3. After November, the schedule clears up and I shall have more time to devote myself to learning the game.
4. I shall be regularly browsing the forums to ask for advice from the better players
5. Within 6 months (or near that range) I hope to be playing consistently at the highest difficulty level.
6. If civilization 4 is similar to civilization 5, that is an additional plus

Most probable second choice: 9 months.

 

[Suho1004]

Two comments:

1) I think it's pretty apparent that you are a mathematician.

2) You're missing an option for poor saps like me: "never"

That's right. I cannot win regularly on the highest difficulty level.

I will be turning in my CFC membership card on the way out.

 

[SuperSmash5]

Poll needs a never option. Winning on the highest level would take a lot of effort and I don't think I'm really that into the game.

 

[DMOC]

Two comments:

1) I think it's pretty apparent that you are a mathematician.

2) You're missing an option for poor saps like me: "never"

That's right. I cannot win regularly on the highest difficulty level.

I will be turning in my CFC membership card on the way out.

See:

Poll Option #10

Exact wording: Longer than 2 years

Whereas,

"Longer" may refer to any time period after 2 years, that of which may be 730 or 731 Earth days (approximately 24 hours) depending on whether or not a so-called "leap year" is involved. It can refer to the idea of "never" if you consider the length and enormity of the game's lifespan.

 

[Suho1004]

That's not the same thing as "never," though. The poll implies that, at some point, I will be winning regularly at Civ 5, but that's just not going to happen. We need a negative option, too.

 

[DMOC]

That's not the same thing as "never," though. The poll implies that, at some point, I will be winning regularly at Civ 5, but that's just not going to happen. We need a negative option, too.

Whereas,

The pollster himself chooses to focus on the positive side of things,

whereas,

"positive" refers to any feeling of self-enlightenment or a creation of joy within oneself,

whereas,

"negative" thoughts are to be avoided at all costs, within reason.

 

[bjbrains]

Whereas, DMOC can stop talking like he's trying to create a legally binding contract.

Whereas, stop means to cease all use of whereas clauses, including in any response to this post.

Whereas, I can stop taking the piss out of him, and actually come up with a reasonable justification for my answer.

 

[Suho1004]

Whereas,

While this particular forum member sees your point, he cannot help but be realistic and thus respectfully declines to answer the question.

Whereas,

"realistic" refers to an honest self-assessment of this member's abilities and free time,

Whereas,

"respectfully" means, "More power to you."



[Edit: Oops. Sorry, bjbrains!]

 

[Venereus]

WHY? What's the point of this poll? It's even more irrelevant than Civ V especulations! I have a far better chance at guessing how big the russian army will be than at how long will it take me to become über civ top player.

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

Never.

I prefer to hover around Noble/Monarch and just play to enjoy the game.

 

[Drake L. Dragon]

It's hilarious seeing people complaining in this thread about the manner through which the OP has posed the question. I'm sure many of you will criticize legalese, before you would criticize someone who either doesn't utilize correct his or her grammar or doesn't structure his or her post in a logical manner. However, I couldn't answer the question, because of the fifth clause, and I always turn off methods through which to win the game. I typically go to a specific era on Immortal difficulty on a mod on steroids, go to World Builder, create a country like the United States or China, create multiple, barbarian cities, and play the game from there as the barbarian cities become civilizations and competition. I quit, when my computer can no longer handle the RAM consumption, or when I get tired of the scenario I created for myself.

 

[DMOC]

The poll was a joke guys, c'mon I'm not being serious. In fact I don't think I'll get Civ5 until next year. And it took me a good 2-3 years of Civ4 to play well there. It's going to be like that again in Civ5.

 

[Unionfield]

Never. Anyone who says they will be able to consistently win on the highest difficulty level is lying. It's built specifically to take your once-in-a-while heroic effort to win.

A better question is, what is the highest difficulty level you will be able to consistently win playing? In that case, probably Prince or Noble.

 

[SirSaab]

I answered 2 years, but only because we don't have to show our work. I'm not sure if I accounted correctly for "x," whereas "x" equals the sum of "never" divided by "1 month."

 

[Rusty Edge]

I want my games to be a novel rather than an equation.

I want each game to be a tour through time in an alternate world, not a relentless pursuit of perfection.

I've won at the highest difficulty a couple of times, but playing a game on noble and making up my own rules and settings to handicap myself rather than the ones dictated by the game at high levels keeps my games varied and exciting, without ruining my sense of immersion.

I think I attained the win regularly at the highest level on Civ I at some point,( I don't remember. Probably why I quit playing it.) but I haven't even tried to develop that level of abillity since.

2 years or more, I hope longer or never.

 

[Zhahz]

2) You're missing an option for poor saps like me: "never"

Same.

Eh, I'm an average civ player and don't try to beat higher diffs. Prince is about the best I could do and once the AI got better with BTS patches I had to drop back a notch. But I never really pushed myself in this regard because it doesn't mean much to me, I mostly play to build up and enjoy the empire building.

Part of it for me is that a lot of the ways people beat higher difficulties are cheese to me, basically exploiting bad AI moreso than employing amazing tactics. (IMO and based on reading about high difficulty play across the years, not just with Civ IV, like Civ III is exploit-o-mania, IMO).

I think a lot of the typical cheese elements that have plagued civ are going to be gone this time around (won't know til we actually see it but it seems that way). This will make it so you'll really have to bust a tactical move to win and will pretty much always be fighting a superior enemy. If the AI is any good at all, it should be very difficult indeed.

For ex, with no tech trading, you won't be able to bulb and trade techs to dumb AIs to "catch up" in a hopeless tech race. You should always be well behind for tech (assuming the AIs get the usual advantages in production, happy cap, etc vs your penalties - a fake way of inducing difficulty levels but it's how civ has always rolled). With tech being tied to population, especially early, AIs with a happy cap advantage vs happy cap limit on the player at high diffs will have a huge tech advantage that'll just get magnified by their ability to build buildings faster.

Chopping should be less out of control, no slavery crutch, and so on. A lot of elements the AI sucked at that players could leverage, basically exploiting poor AI or AI inability to match player deviousness with said elements, are gone. IMO, exploiting AI flaws is not much of a strategy, but it has historically been a part of beating civ on higher difficulties.

I also think 1UPT is easier to code for combat AI. There are much more firm rules for unit placement, movement, and use you can code. Look at wesnoth, the AI for it is pretty solid and is ruthless in hammering you if you make a mistake. If the Civ 5 AI can be on that level, watch out. I think it's harder to program good AI for stacks of doom and wide open movement because then you're trying to code for judgement calls and guesswork rather than firm rules.

Again pointing to wesnoth, if you read up on strategy guides for that, there are all kinds of recommendations and guidelines for how to use your units under various conditions. Lots of do's and don'ts In programming terms, these are rules. It's easy to code for rules and to play percentages and odds. Far moreso for the nebulous stack of doom setup.

For old civ, there really is no such thing. You make stacks of doom with sorta combined arms. Terrain is not really a factor with stacks of doom, just move stack from A to B. Humans with their vast processing power have an advantage in this because terrain is basically wide open and armies are concentrated in cities or a few mobile stacks. A human can scan the entire landscape and adjust the big picture every turn as need. Very hard to make an AI do that well because a lot of it is judgement and abstract reasoning. With 1UPT, troop placement and power are much more obvious so it's easier for an AI to know where it's weak, where you're strong, where advantages/disadvantages lie, where troop concentrations sit, potential moves for units, etc.

So, I think the AI *could* be a lot tougher to beat with the new combat mechanics IF the AI is coded well - there's no reason that it shouldn't be top notch. There is much more potential to have the AI think like a player. The potential is so sky high that lower difficulty levels should really have AI mistakes and stupidity coded into them to make them more beatable, kinda like how AI is scaled in GalCiv2. Because if the AI is as good as it can be, even a resource advantage might not be enough for new/poor players on lower diffs.

I'm sure Civ 5 will have plenty of AI flaws for people to leverage but I'm hoping that less exploitable elements will mean it'll take superior tactics and serious planning to be competitive with AIs on higher difficulties. More tactical brilliance vs the exploiting of AI deficiencies.

And I'll still suck at it, so I'm sure I'll never beat the highest difficulties. I might be more inspired to try if it's less exploitive though!

 

[Mercade]

Never, aka longer than two years. I'll happily play noble or monarch, of whatever equivalent thereof in Civ5.

Incidently, DMOC, what is your definition of "within"? I'd interpret that as "shorter than", but then there is a discontinuity between "within 24 months" and "longer than 2 years".

 

[Ituralde]

Yeah, never for me too. Never did it in any of the predecessors and don't know why anyone would want to do it regularly.

 

[nishant1911]

Never.

I prefer to hover around Noble/Monarch and just play to enjoy the game.

that's the way a game should be played