Level of Play vs Posts on the Forum

[IMADAJ]

which for those of us who's played every iteration of civ

I’ve been playing since Civ I and I still haven’t beaten Deity

(then again I haven’t ever really tried to move up past a few levels of the “normal” level.

 

[Josephias]

I’m in the “King for confort, Emperor for challenge” bunch. I play Civ more as roleplay-strategy-empire_sandbox than as optimal-strategy-empire_tactics, so I don’t feel the need to move up in the difficulty ladder (Nevertheless, Civ VI has made me move up, as the “confort” difficulty pair used to be prince-king, even noble-prince in Civ IV, but in Civ VI prince is so much a cakewalk you just realize in the first 50 turns you already are so far ahead that is not going to be fun)

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Spoiler :

Always on Deity.​

 

[Chefofrats]

It would probably make sense to remake the poll with more options, or at least modified options, like: King or below, Emperor or above.

 

[MrRadar]

When I play it’s 100% roll play as the leader of civilization. I never set out for a victory type. Instead I go through a hierarchy, moving up when conditions are met, and dropping down when they are not. whatever victory happens happens. I think space is the only victory I have not completed yet. I’ve done this on King.

You can play like this and win even on Deity. You won't get to build all the wonders, so what?

Sounds like it’s only possible to win by picking a victory rather early and making a beeline towards it.

This is only if you go for fast finish, otherwise you can wander around the tech and civics tree with great flexibility. You have at least 300 turns on standard, usually considerably more than that to win. AI may win before t300 only in very exceptional cases.

but because the higher I go in difficulty, the more I feel pressured to adopt a playstyle I don't enjoy: rapid expansion (which leads to loads of micromanagement) and extensive warmongering (which feels almost like cheating against this AI).

You can have not very hurried expansion and no war game even on Deity.

Is it even possible to play a well rounded game at the highest levels?

Here's a fresh example (I wanted to play such a game for quite some time, finally I got to it).

I role-played not as an absolute ruler, but as an executive with very broad mandate - all decisions were mine, as usual, except the tech and civics path. I let the RNG pick that for me every time, representing a very whimsical and eccentric ruler or High Council.
This can be done by not opening the trees themeselves, but using those two icons just below in the World Tracker, then you get researchable techs listed in a column: number them top to bottom an use some RNG app to give you a number from that interval. Then you pick what the fate has decided for you and you cannot switch under any circumstances, and you do your best with what you have.

My settings were Deity, fractal map (iirc) - I got a few ladmasses, small map (6 civs) and quick speed (I wanted to wrap it up before the June patch), random AI selection, including mine - I got Dido.

The result - t 196 (out of 330) Culture Victory, which would be close to t300 on standard speed. No AI managed to come too close to any kind of victory to be a threat.

Spoiler :

What I did: I chopped/ harvested moderately, traded luxes and strategic resources with the AI, when it was relevant, used spies to steal gold and bought a lot of great works from the AI.

I haven't sold a single unit of DF, I did not exploit AI trade to get 1 gpt for 1 strat, nor built a single neighbourhood on a farm (or elsewhere), nor did any other such fancy thing which borders on exploiting in a too uncomfortable way.

I also expanded not in a big hurry, and I never went to war, not once. All fights - just with a few barbs. Ended up ally of everybody.
RNG overloard denied me the opportunity to get a religion, so no RV, voting in the WC wasn't too successful, so DV still seemed a bit distant, it was too much of a hassle for DomV, RNG was also leading me as far as possible from space techs, so I got it only to the Moon, therefore CV was the fastest escape route.

So you see - you can have a headless chicken as the Head of your Technology and Civics Planning Department, and still comfortably win on the highest difficulty of this game.

 

[Gambito]

I feel pretty comfortable on King. I don't care for hard challenges right now. I like to play with objectives, but other than a victory type, Civ doesn't offer any, so I'm trying achievements, specially the "win with X leader" achievement. I still have 9 civs to go on this list. Oh, I don't do this on Prince because it's so easy it becomes dull. Someday I'll try to beat the game in immortal and deity at least once just to unlock the achievements.

 

[Pietato]

Is it even possible to play a well rounded game at the highest levels? Sounds like it’s only possible to win by picking a victory rather early and making a beeline towards it.

You are severely over-estimating the difficulty of civ 6 deity. All the new mechanics mean you can basically build whatever you want and still win comfortably, as long as you know what you are doing.

 

[AntSou]

It's one of my issues with Civ VI that even on Deity it doesn't really constrain you or prevent what I describe as random-walking to victory.

How often do you manage to build Stonehenge (or any early wonder) on Deity?

How often do you start with a Holy Site on deity? Or with an early worker?

Deity forces players into strict choices and playstyles in the early game. The extra settler means often you'll end up with sub-par locations for your first cities. This is fine for the challenge but not if you're going for immersion imo.

I've come to dislike the initial challenge in Deity. It makes every early game the same. It's like its own minigame, but repetitive and eventually unrewarding. There's no such thing as AI personality at this stage either. They'll spam warriors and attack you.

Once you're past the early game then I can't tell much difference between it and Immortal. The bonuses to yields do not seem to increase appropriately with higher difficulties.
------------------

On Emperor I'm not penalised enough for my decisions, so I mostly stick to Immortal.

I play Immortal exactly the same as I would Emperor. I lose an appropriate amount of times. It's rewarding to be able to attempt different approaches and succeed imo.

 

[Pietato]

How often do you start with a Holy Site on deity? Or with an early worker?

You can do that.

 

[WillowBrook]

You can play like this and win even on Deity. You won't get to build all the wonders, so what?

But what's the fun of that if I can't build all the wonders? The way I play, I'd usually find it less fun if the AI had more units, expanded more quickly, or built more wonders, so I usually stick with emperor.

I'd have no objection to them making the levels more difficult such that I'd need to drop down to king or prince to play the way I like. I understand deity isn't much of a challenge once you know how to handle it, but I don't like how it attempts to be a challenge currently with the extras settlers, so I don't play it.

 

[Victoria]

How often do you manage to build Stonehenge (or any early wonder) on Deity?

How often do you start with a Holy Site on deity? Or with an early worker?

Apadana, Artemis, Oracle, Pyramids, sometimes more than 1
Early worker? Very often.

 

[AntSou]

Apadana, Artemis, Oracle, Pyramids, sometimes more than 1
Early worker? Very often.

By early wonder I mean Stonehenge, Hanging Gardens and Great Bath.

By early worker I mean turn 2 or 3.

 

[Tech Osen]

By early wonder I mean Stonehenge, Hanging Gardens and Great Bath.

By early worker I mean turn 2 or 3.

Great Bath is all but impossible even on Emperor.

 

[Victoria]

1. Yeah, not that silly. But the key question is how often would you build them on prince?
2. As first build, about 20%. Combing craftsmanship eureka with a 4 food tile instead of 3 and +2 production as well as luxuries and other eurekas... especially horse.... sure. I hate to build too many units without a 50% discount as that pays for my worker.
Sometimes my scout cannot hold of barbs scouts or other civs, then I have to change tack

 

[AntSou]

You can do that.

I've done it myself.

The difference is that on Emperor/Immortal I have the choice between early Science boost or a decent religion.

On Deity the choice is between science or a crappy religion, which isn't much of a choice at all. That was my experience.

 

[Victoria]

On Deity the choice is between science or a crappy religion, which isn't much of a choice at all. That was my experience

I think the choice is religion or not. Science is not the only path but the tech choices are more generic unless going HS which is a bit of a hike without a natural wonder.

 

[AntSou]

Great Bath is all but impossible even on Emperor.

We're talking standard maps with standard amount of Civs?

 

[MrRadar]

But what's the fun of that if I can't build all the wonders?

The fun is in a more realistic wonder distribution, and also in an opportunity of witnessing something wonderful. Just look at this screenshot from my game mentioned above, and see where AI Gandhi placed the Golden Gate:

Spoiler :

Between his mainland and colony settlement on another landmass. Colour me impressed. Top marks for thematic roleplaying. That's the best I've ever seen from AI.
When I got the notification that GG was built, I almost denounced India in my great vexation, but when I saw where they placed it... I sent a congratulatory telegram to Gandhi and continued to have a cultural alliance with him as a sign of respect

 

[kaspergm]

Great Bath is all but impossible even on Emperor.

I've build Great Bath on Emperor ... once. But yeah, it's defacto impossible. Stonehenge is defacto impossible on any difficulty above Prince, maybe even above Chieftan, so that's not really a scale to go by. Of course, there was that one game where Stonehenge was not gone by turn 74, but I guess that was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

 

[WillowBrook]

The fun is in a more realistic wonder distribution, and also in an opportunity of witnessing something wonderful. Just look at this screenshot from my game mentioned above, and see where AI Gandhi placed the Golden Gate:

Spoiler :

Between his mainland and colony settlement on another landmass. Colour me impressed. Top marks for thematic roleplaying. That's the best I've ever seen from AI.
When I got the notification that GG was built, I almost denounced India in my great vexation, but when I saw where they placed it... I sent a congratulatory telegram to Gandhi and continued to have a cultural alliance with him as a sign of respect

That is impressive. But don't forget that everyone's definition of fun is different.