Is monarch considerd "hard"?

[Ignorant Teacher]

I started this game at Noble, but IMO from the average player's (not average CIV player, but a casual player in general) point of view, I'd say Warlord is "normal", Noble is "somewhat hard", Prince is "hard", and Monarch is "very hard".

In Warlord level, anyone who has a decent grasp of game mechanics can win. I don't see anyone putting up "help me at Warlord difficulty" threads. But there are a couple of "help me at Noble" threads, so I assume that's where average players start having difficulty.

I think you're right. I played Civ2 and 3 as the casual player you describe. I used to milk the maps to have a nice play and stuff. Then I got Warlords. In the end, I was playing it on Monarch. When I bought BTS, Monarch was really, really difficult for me. I had to go back to Noble and climb my way up to Emperor. So I guess Monarch is a hard difficulty, especially if you don't have a lot of time to play.

Edit. I voted "I would consider it easy. It used to be hard." because I moved to Emperor when I had forgotten what was losing. (I didn't play the crappy starts, though).

 

[oyzar]

I started this game at Noble, but IMO from the average player's (not average CIV player, but a casual player in general) point of view, I'd say Warlord is "normal", Noble is "somewhat hard", Prince is "hard", and Monarch is "very hard".

In Warlord level, anyone who has a decent grasp of game mechanics can win. I don't see anyone putting up "help me at Warlord difficulty" threads. But there are a couple of "help me at Noble" threads, so I assume that's where average players start having difficulty.

I started at noble and was able to master noble, prince and monarch without reading these forums. I never played civ 3, but i played a bit civ 2 long long time ago.

 

[Maestro_Innit]

I haven't read through the whole 4 pages of this thread, but surely the simple answer is:

Monarch is hard if you're a Prince player but not if you're an Emporer player

For me, the biggest jump so far has been going from Prince to Monarch, however, so maybe that heelps to provide more of an answer. I found that once I'd mastered Monarch and moved up to Emporer I was still winning most games on Emporer and the only real jump from one difficulty to the other was needing military a bit earlier. Gonna stick with Emporer though cause it's still "hard" for me: it's still a challenge but if I work at a game I'll win it and so it's the "right" level at the mo.

Oh, and I spent longer (in real weeks/months/years) playing on Monarch than any other difficulty.

I can't answer the poll though, cause it's entirely subjective. You might aswell ask "What level do you play at" and you'll get the same spread of answers. Do I find it hard? not really, no. But I used to.

 

[azzaman333]

I have to think on Monarch.

 

[Badtz Maru]

I'm a pretty casual player of Civ4. I got the game back when it was new and played Warlord until I could beat it easily with any player, then Noble with specific conditions that made it easier for me (mostly maps where I got a continent to myself + random personalities and certain victory conditions for me), then played Noble where I could beat it consistently with default condtions and random leaders, and peaked at a point where I could beat Prince sometimes with my favorite leaders. So, to me, Monarch is way beyond my ability, but it's not in the same league as Emperor or Deity. I chose It's up there. Not quite punishing, but... "Hard".

I started playing Civ4 seriously again recently after getting Beyond the Sword, and I was shocked that I could not win on Noble anymore and I had a real challenge on Warlord - you have to keep your skills in practice in this game. I'm pleased to announce that I am starting to get my groove back and last night I got to 1972 in a Noble game where I am doing very well, ahead of all the AIs and will probably get a Space victory. I did have to micromanage my cities a lot more than I used to in Vanilla civ, though.

 

[Meatbuster]

I started at Noble in Vanilla. It took me a few days to get my first Noble space win, then domination. After it, I actually found the transition from Noble->Prince->Monarch in Vanilla quite fast. When BtS came out I played on Prince for a while. Now I'm heading for my first "real" Emperor win in an SG. Soon maybe I'll get my first win at single-player Emperor.

 

[cabert]

Im truly humbled by this statement. I've gotten to where I can win domination or conquest at ease on Noble (is there any other kind of win? ), but to get cannons prior to the other Civs reaching Feudalism is something I've never even considered. Impressive.

If you push it really hard, you can run modern armor through archers on settler.
I did, and I'm not even one of those crazy deity players...
It's funny at the beginning but it's just tedious after a while.

The AI has a 11% production bonus on Monarch.
And while at peace they will never spend more than 40% of their production on units.
So they are stuck at 44% military spending compared to you.

Build units more than 44% of the time, and the monarch AIs will be crushed.

Although clear and simple, it's not true.
You also need to have the same production as the AI for this.
I mean, the monarch AIs expand a lot faster than the human player.
It's pretty hard to stay on par just on the number of cities without a rush.
Thus, it's not rare that 44% of their production is superior to 100% of yours.
On the other hand if you rush while they expand, they spend hammers on settlers and spread their army thin while you can focus your force on one city, preferably their best production city.

It's my default difficulty level and I win almost every game. Haven't done so well on Emperor though so I voted for the middle option. For those that aren't on Monarch yet it's hard but I think everyone should be able to beat it if the know the rules of the game. I don't have much patience with micromanaging and I still play on a whim with hardly any proper diplomacy like the higher level players.

I bolded the part I would use to descript monarch.
I found the step from noble to prince quite hard, while prince to monarch was done in a day.
It's a level I almost never lose if I'm not sleeping on my keyboard, but it's still fun to play.
I'm never running through archers with cannons, nor building a space ship when others can't even build a gallion.


and to answer the master troller, the GotM and HoF show that some players out there are just astonishing. There was a thread about who the great players out there are. Just check the eptathletes' list for a list of truly great players.
You can also check the HoF, but it's harder to see what games where really hard and those that weren't.
I can win immortal on a good day, without pushing the settings too far into cheese.
But some people played their first BtS game on immortal on the forum (i'm talking about uberfish here). Deity is a bit random, with a piece of bad luck making any player lose before anything is done (like you start next to alex, and for no real reason he declares on you when you barely have 2 warriors). Still some people win on this crazy level on a regular basis.

 

[Iranon]

I agree with JammerUno - it's a good level in that it provides a certain challenge for casual players without requiring you to play close to the mechanics. Emperor is borderline, on Immortal you really can't fool yourself into believing you are playing the same game as the AIs.

You definitely don't need to know all aspects of the game to beat it; several Deity-level players surprised me with the huge gaps in their knowledge and I keep stumbling about new things in the posts of mid-level players.
In a way, Monarch is great for getting you immersed in the small things... you need to do some things right, and you aren't yet forced to kick the game mechanics in the junk.

 

[PainlessProd]

This is exactly why I started looking at this forum again given that I have seriously hit a wall at Monarch. I wonder if its a setting issue or my inability to really be flexible with my leader picking (ghandi) or just building too much crap and not specializing enough. I could walk through anything upto prince with just good tactics militarily and a small edge in research, but my ass is getting beaten by rifllemen when i havent even got gunpowder yet. Is the key just hyper specialist cities?

 

[bestsss]

>>I'm never running through archers with cannons, nor building a space ship when others can't
even build a gallion.

Well, if they have longbows it doesn't change anything.

 

[DMOC]

Used to be hard for me. Look at one of the older threads that I created a few years ago.

 

[Bei1052]

I haven't read every comment in this thread, but I don't find Monarch "hard" nor do I find it to be "easy". It's just kind of so-so. Now, it can be hard if you let one civ (In my games, the English with Victoria as the leader) tech peacefully the entire way through. Personally, I win pretty much every game at Monarch I play, though there are those odd games where I lose or I know I'm going to lose (Usually because I'm trying something new or because Mansa, Ghandi and Ramses started on a continent to themselves while I started on a continent with Shaka, Genghis and Napoleon).

...And what's all this talk about paying attention to diplo? I still do the whole "middle-finger diplomacy" thing and haven't had too much problems yet.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You also need to have the same production as the AI for this.
I mean, the monarch AIs expand a lot faster than the human player.
It's pretty hard to stay on par just on the number of cities without a rush.
Thus, it's not rare that 44% of their production is superior to 100% of yours.

This isn't true for DaveMCW, it isn't even true for me. Keeping up with immortal AIs in expansion is more typical (I can usually get into the top half in terms of cities owned there, in some games getting #1 outright, top 3 very typical), and immortal AIs settle their 2nd city around 3000 BC. For people playing down, not only do they match monarch AI expansion, they out-do it easily. A few trades later, and they're ahead in tech, too.

I forget sometimes since I usually don't play down, but there was a game with mansa musa where I skirm rushed somebody and kept expanding on top of it and was pushing 11 cities by 1 AD (normal speed?!) with room to settle 20 more without more war. That game ended in 1600's conquest despite being continents .

The AI is pretty bad if the human starts playing with all the strategic knowledge available to the forum. I struggle like hell on deity, and can *usually* (not always) win immortal. Even for me I only start kind of sort of trying at emperor now (though I certainly still remember having trouble just competing there last summer). But for the best of the best on here, dropping down to immortal is close to a guaranteed win, so going easier than that is a little silly outside HoF. It's all relative. Most people can surpass monarch/emperor if improving at the game is what they're interested in doing.

 

[cabert]

Okay, you're a great player.
But remember when you started playing monarch .

And about the fact that you can keep up on city numbers, I'd like to say Dave didn't mention the need to do so...

I'll admit that playing under immortal is something like a guaranteed win for me too, but I like to win.
Monarch is still the level I like most because (I still voted so so for the reason above) I can play without headache, really for the fun, and still win with a good enough margin, so I can miss a defensive pact and face 2 or 3 AIs and still stomp them.

 

[Iranon]

Regarding expansion: I agree with TMIT here: Humans can usually out-expand Deity AIs let alone anything below. The question is how thin one has to stretch oneself economically to do this and whether it's worth it.

My preferred strategies vary wildly by level - on Immortal a dozen cities at 1AD is average and more is definitely possible (Normal size and speed). I'm confident I'll recover and leave the AIs in the dust thanks to sheer size.

On Deity, things vary wildly. Often, my expansion is half that because I have other priorities like emphasis on research & trade to prevent AI/AI trades an keep them down tech-wise, secure game-changing wonders or raise an army to profit by joining a dogpile. At other times I'm expanding like mad and keep my economy from crashing with things like failure cash, selling resources or even repeated sacking/pillaging campaigns. Deity AIs allow a far greater money influx, so it's possible to afford a larger empire while skpping some of the infrastructure you'd need on lower levels.

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

Iranon, in your opinion, what are the game changing wonders?

 

[Iranon]

The Pyramids for allowing a very strong and sustainable economy, even on limited land.
The Great Lighthouse for allowing limitless expansion along the coast and immediately profitable expansion to islands.
The Oracle for getting us into a favourable tech position by itself and by giving us a potentially very nice production edge - early forges and a chance to pick up Judaism on the way although that's very optimistic on Deity. Also useful for a MC/Pyramids gambit.

I don't consider the Great Library game-changing but it's usually well worth some concessions and along a useful tech path (one not prioritised by most AIs). Sometimes I heavily plan towards the Hanging Gardens to round off a REX: via the whip, we channel production from a hammer powerhouse that has nothing useful left to build into cities that need their infrastructure quickly to become profitable.

I also consider the Kremlin to be a very game-changing wonder but that's not relevant to the time frame I was considering here

 

[Pangur Bán]

"Were I am getting at is that the players here are definitely more elite than your average player"

lol. think you might be a bit gullible there. noble is hard on this game- know smart friends that play now and again and they usually land around prince after awhile.

some of the intros to posts are hilarious - "I am playing immortal and i have a question about......." - translation- "i am fishing for compliments and reload my ass off"

people lie. been my experience people lie to make themselves look better than they are.
The walkthroughs are better fiction then Star Trek.
"Here is my start- i have fish and wheat and wow there's metal" lol-

Indeedie. There was a walkthrough with two or three goldmines and some farms. Pretty lucky or pretty fond of reloading.

 

[JTMacc99]

The way I see it:
Noble is when you actually need to pay attention to the basic game mechanics and not just doing what the computer suggests you do. You can still build pretty much whatever you want to build and not worry too much about diplomacy and specialization.

Prince is when you need to figure out how to specialize your cities, pay attention to what you are researching, and learn how to wage war with a tech advantage, and really start working on identifying and achieving short and long term goals (including victory conditions.)

Monarch is where you need to put some thought into diplomacy, bee lining technologies, fighting wars strategically, monitor your citizen assignments, put real thought into specialization, and actually think about "Civ Math" (meaning how to best whip, chop, draft, and stuff like that.)

For me, Emperor is just an extension of Monarch, where I need to be more efficient in all the things I mentioned if I want to accomplish everything I want to accomplish.

After that, it sure seems like the last two levels require a lot more of the Luke Skywalker blowing up the Death Star strategy. Just focus the victory and flat out ignore a lot of the other stuff in the game. To me, it seems like I could do it, but it wouldn't be any fun. I kind of like building lots of stuff and filling out the tech tree.

 

[oyzar]

For me you could add two levels to each of your description. Micro and exploiting AI's suckiness at war got me the rest of the way.