How to make the game harder?

[gpmarkvii]

Roll an old age map.

 

[Mahi]

I encourage all people saying that they ein easily to play on maps with continents on large or above. There is a scaling on the difficulty on larger maps IMO. I always tend to do fairly well in the games but there's usually one or two AI which is running away tech-wise on the other continent. I had two games in a row where I found that the AI on other continents where having massive science output compared to rest of the civs. Scale the map size and limit the access to AIs before you can cross open seas. It really makes a game much more challenging.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

So I had a little experiment. Although it ended up being a very boring game. and turned out to be almost impossible to win.

setup:
Continents map (flat, non wrapping world), Size:small, high sea level
Deity
All victories enabled
Two players. Each player starting on a different major continent.
Barbarians disabled
8 city states
Standard speed.

I played as Germany. Opponent: Russia.
The idea was to build a massive army quickly after having Hansas and hubs with Crusade and work ethic as beliefs to invade the opponent with.
But! I think this is imposdible, as Russia will win a culture victory 20 turns after he found you.
Being at war to condemn heretics and to push away rock bands and to avoid trade routes on turn 120 didnt help all that much.
Your Pingala will be disabled every three turns and apostles look like a swarm of ants.
He had multiple fleets of battleships and ironclads while I just had my first Frigate build and finished the ancient walls in the coastal city.
It’s hilarious

Witt this setup, without Barbarians, you really notice the deity bonuses AI gets!

if anyone wants to try it, you can have this setup with the Got Lakes? map script mod.

so but anyway, this is one way to make the game harder

This can be very easily won by a frigate rush I guess. Ai is not good at sea combats.

 

[CrabHelmet]

I've actually been finding the game a fair bit harder since the Gaul/Byzantium patch. The AI on Deity are much keener on keeping up their Science infrastructure and I find they are almost always teching ahead of me until at least turn 170 or so. Domination is really rough now as anything other than a small handful of select Civs with frontloaded bonuses. I can still usually get a Science win, but DV, CV, and especially RV have a got a good amount more difficult now.

 

[SaboteurINT]

Play on Greatest Earth TSL (huge map) from YNAMP

Deity.

All standard settings + extra 1 civ and 2 city states more than normal.


Must be:

Win by Domination

You must find a religion and keep it to the end.

You must play as one of civs from Western/Central Europe or Middle-East (Arabia not allowed due to always religion)
Those are regions with little space but many neighbours

NO restarting NO reloading (even due to miss-click)

Good luck.

 

[Zaimejs]

How could you get that much production out of a zero production city? I just don't get these gamers. I suck, but enjoy my suckiness

 

[japanesesamurai]

Play on Greatest Earth TSL (huge map) from YNAMP

Deity.

All standard settings + extra 1 civ and 2 city states more than normal.


Must be:

Win by Domination

You must find a religion and keep it to the end.

You must play as one of civs from Western/Central Europe or Middle-East (Arabia not allowed due to always religion)
Those are regions with little space but many neighbours

NO restarting NO reloading (even due to miss-click)

Good luck.

I don’t think that is a lot of fun. It’s a bit grindy.
In fact I tend to sometimes disable domination victory as the game will hide the army strength of your opponents with dom victory disabled.

How could you get that much production out of a zero production city? I just don't get these gamers. I suck, but enjoy my suckiness

The zero production was in my first ring and capital. Not much in the outher rings either though.
But with desert folklore and work ethic + holy site policy card, internal trade routes + policy card, ruhr valley, petra and a coal factory, you can turn a weak desert area into monster city

 

[Leah and Rachael]

I agree on changing your approach to the game. If your goal is to win as fast as possible, and there's nothing wrong with that, there is nothing that any changes to the game (whether mods or even via patches) can do to make it 'harder'. That's fine. But know what you're getting yourself into.

For instance, I pretty much never get early wins because of how I play. If I see the chance of a canal+Panama Canal city, I'll go for it even if it doesn't serve my victory goals at all! I'll try to make a really good Industrial Zone because I've seen a three-city configuration which will give me three aqueducts and two dams, but then I'll end up not using that Industrial Zone for pursuing any particular victory because the pleasure I derived from it was in building a +12 adjacency Industrial Zone.
I'll build railroads not only because I think they look pretty, but also the entire Civ needs to be interconnected. I can't build spaceports next to city centers or even any other district - who does that?! For me, Holy Sites and Theatre Squares don't mix, you need to treat the spiritual with reverence. Worshipping in the forests or around mountains, away from the distractions and temptations of the world helps one's soul connect with the divine. I have to place my Neighbourhoods away from mines and Aerodromes because my people need some quiet, away from pollutants. I'll even delay my victory because I'm not yet done with building up my Civilization. I find stopping the AI in the lategame quite challenging playing this way.

If you want to play optimally, I don't think there's a game in the world (other than multiplayers and those that require a lot of RNG) that can make it difficult for you

 

[glider1]

Use Tough AI mod. Point is to balance unit losses of human<->AI as 1:1 ratio on average which the mod can achieve.
Play Civ6 when you are vegged out,
play VP Civ5 when alert and concentrated.

 

[Pfeffersack]

I agree on changing your approach to the game. If your goal is to win as fast as possible, and there's nothing wrong with that, there is nothing that any changes to the game (whether mods or even via patches) can do to make it 'harder'. That's fine. But know what you're getting yourself into.

For instance, I pretty much never get early wins because of how I play. If I see the chance of a canal+Panama Canal city, I'll go for it even if it doesn't serve my victory goals at all! I'll try to make a really good Industrial Zone because I've seen a three-city configuration which will give me three aqueducts and two dams, but then I'll end up not using that Industrial Zone for pursuing any particular victory because the pleasure I derived from it was in building a +12 adjacency Industrial Zone.
I'll build railroads not only because I think they look pretty, but also the entire Civ needs to be interconnected. I can't build spaceports next to city centers or even any other district - who does that?! For me, Holy Sites and Theatre Squares don't mix, you need to treat the spiritual with reverence. Worshipping in the forests or around mountains, away from the distractions and temptations of the world helps one's soul connect with the divine. I have to place my Neighbourhoods away from mines and Aerodromes because my people need some quiet, away from pollutants. I'll even delay my victory because I'm not yet done with building up my Civilization. I find stopping the AI in the lategame quite challenging playing this way.

If you want to play optimally, I don't think there's a game in the world (other than multiplayers and those that require a lot of RNG) that can make it difficult for you

And I always thought I would be the only one doing these things in Civ instead of rushing the fastest possible win