If Civ V is so easy, why isn't everybody winning on Emperor?

[Onionsoilder]

I've won Deity in Civ 5 without a lot of effort.
I can barely beat Emperor in Civ 4, and get my ass handed to me on Immortal.

Does that make Civ 5 a bad game? No. Does that make it not worth playing? Still no. even though I know I'm going to win every game, I still enjoy playing. It does however, make Civ 5 quite a bit easier than Civ 4. Not boringly easy, but I don't feel nearly as challenged as I do in Civ 4.

 

[Freesmog]

Just unplug the internet(and Steam), thus the Stats are inconclusive.

 

[neopara]

What is actually funnier is the Suleiman achievement?

A Magnificent Victory
Beat the game on any difficulty setting as Suleiman.
1.0%

Just shows you how much everyone hates him.

 

[skrewler]

The other thing is that you need to be playing on a Pangea style map.

A continents, arcipeligo, or any map that has ocean tiles segregating you from the AI will make the AI extremely passive. Sure, they'll declare war on you for no reason. In fact, all the AI will probably declare war on you all at once for no reason. But they wont ever cross over the water to go attack you.

I just played a game on this True Start Locations map on deity. I knew what to expect, so basically I just pumped out crossbows/xbowmen waiting for the AI's close to me to gang up on me. Fended them off, then countered and razed stuff til they declared peace, the terms of which I would ask for lots of money or resources. I'd buy some units with it and kill off another sap, he'd declare peace, I'd get more resources... repeat. Once I controlled my region of the map, the AI's on the different continents just took eachother out, asked for assistance, declared war on me (but never actually attacked me as I was across the ocean). I just swooped in and sniped the capital cities and got domination victory.

I've found that a lot of the time it's better to just damage an enemy AI unit on the front lines than to actually kill it, just leave it there to heal up and block his buddies from coming through. The damaged units wont attack.

I used to get worried when a bunch of AI would try to surround me, now it's quite easy to figure out what they're going to do and you can just outlast them with your fortification bonuses. The honor tree and things that give you combat bonuses for fighting in friendly territory are especially useful.

Autosaves are great, if the AI suddenly bum rushes you and takes you out unexpectedly, don't get frustrated, try loading an autosave ~10 - 20 turns back and figure out what you did wrong and what you need to do to survive. This is how I got better quickly.

On Deity, your happiness can dip extremely low very quickly. This could be a problem depending on your playstyle, but in the short term it doesn't really matter -- you just want to turtle up and take out the AI's attacking forces as safely as possible.

Ok, so, TL;DR.. if you think it's too easy, play a pangea map. I've found large to be the most interesting. Epic speed feels about right to me as well. Try it on a higher difficulty. Make sure you know what the AI has units wise. You can assume the AI is going to attack you once they get some units at your borders and start talking <snip> to you.=)

Alright, that's enough rambling, it's late -- so I hope that was coherent. If someone needs help with a specific game toss over a save file..

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[Öjevind Lång]

Because most of the people play it casually and are perfectly happy with whatever low difficulty they play on. It's that simple.

Civ5 emperor is about as difficult as Civ4 Prince. Everybody can win it with a little bit of game knowledge and a little bit of thinking, if you really go for win. There's no real challenge in it.

There were quite a few of us who complained about there being too drastic a segue from easy or fairly easy to very hard until one learned all the tricks. So personally I have no problem with the "dumbed down" bit. Those who do can always play as Deity.

 

[skrewler]

In another game I did something I thought was pretty funny. The AI likes to declare war on city states randomly a lot for whatever reason. I was going for a diplomatic victory this game, built lots of defense. I was at war with a bunch of civs but after fending them off they asked for peace, I asked for the city states they had taken and then liberated them.

Since I was fairly safe in my area of the world, I had been coming allies with most of the city states. For some reason the AI likes to declare war on city states a lot. I gifted nearly all my units to various city states and had them do most of the work for me. While this was happening I worked on liberating as many people as I could and won diplo victory at 1900 - 1950 or so? Can't remember.

 

[shihuacao]

From many of those post I get impression that you expect AI to put a good fight without any bonuses - that's insane. It's only AI made for video game - very very complex video game so no one should expect smart AI that's why it has to have bonuses. Even AI for MUCH less complicated game as chess can be beaten simply by figuring out how algorithm works.
What in my opinion is broken is that for some reason AI usually doesn't build enough army at the beginning and have some aversion to cavalry which (at least at the beginning) is by far the best unit. There either should be some defensive bonus for defenders like +50% when fighting inside borders or army in ancient and classical era should have absolute priority for AI.
Because now when you want to have some challenge (not be able to just roll over all civs with 3 horsemen) in ancient era you have to go above emperor, but after classical era when AI starts to keep up its bonuses becomes to big advantage.

If they can't make AI play smart, why 1UPT? Stack of Doom, while not fun, is an acceptable alternative way to make AI look smart.

If they choose to use 1UPT, they should put up a decent AI.

 

[Slowpoke]

This is from people just not finishing their deity games. To get the deity achievement all you need to do is

A) set to marathon, duel, choose germany
B) go honor and declare war the second you get your first free warrior
C) defend and massacre
D) follow up and smash his expansion city with ~4 warriors
E) finish the capitol with archers (mmmm they're like siege units) and warriors

The percentages really mean nothing, I bet the people capable of getting the deity acheivement simply aren't bothering and quitting their real deity games.

 

[Darvon]

I would have had an easy immortal win on my third game, but got the peace treaty bug 4 tiles out from taking the final capital. I didn't even have a strat, I was just learning as I went.

After some 4 years of civ 4 I could barely manage to win 50% of my emperor games.

I'd say it's safe to say civ 5 is 'so easy' and at least one of the reasons people don't have steam achievements is because the game is bugged to hell.

 

[Mutineer]

I never finished my games. It is not fun to do turns to win when I am sure of victory.
What the point? we even do not get our graphs and final screen... LoL.

 

[Disreg]

From many of those post I get impression that you expect AI to put a good fight without any bonuses - that's insane. It's only AI made for video game - very very complex video game so no one should expect smart AI that's why it has to have bonuses. Even AI for MUCH less complicated game as chess can be beaten simply by figuring out how algorithm works.
What in my opinion is broken is that for some reason AI usually doesn't build enough army at the beginning and have some aversion to cavalry which (at least at the beginning) is by far the best unit. There either should be some defensive bonus for defenders like +50% when fighting inside borders or army in ancient and classical era should have absolute priority for AI.
Because now when you want to have some challenge (not be able to just roll over all civs with 3 horsemen) in ancient era you have to go above emperor, but after classical era when AI starts to keep up its bonuses becomes to big advantage.

This is just a cop out. Civ games have always been noted for weak AI and 5 is by far the worst offender, at least by current standards.

Other similarly complex games have managed an AI that provides at least an intermediate challenge without direct boosts - various Paradox games for example. No-one expects AI to give pros a serious fight without help, but even the lowest levels on Civ 5 cheat like crazy - they receive stacks of cheap units with minimal support costs - they just don't have a clue what to do with them on any level.