Monarch too easy/Emporer too cheesy

[Gargamel]

Hey all,

This is the same thing that I ran into with Civ3 singleplayer games.. At the lower difficulty levels, it's just too easy to win.. This seems to be the case up to monarch level. There isn't really much challenge, and midgame you find yourself ahead in points by 1000 or more.. and you say to yourself.. what's the point.

Then if you kick it up a notch to emporer level, yes there is a challenge, but the way the challenge exists just seems to cheesy. It's simply because the computer can build things much faster, their cities expand much faster, they research much faster, etc, that there is any challenge.

You go from too easy to too cheesy.. and there is no in-between.

I'm going to try PBEM games.. I don't like fast-paced MP and PBEM seems like the way to go with that.

Does anyone know of any remedy for the SP too easy/cheesy problem?

 

[civzombie]

"Does anyone know of any remedy for the SP too easy/cheesy problem?"

Try playing on Monarch level. Play those crappy starting positions that you normally avoid. That might get you the inbetween challenge you are looking for.

Just an idea. Let me know if it works!

 

[Gargamel]

"Does anyone know of any remedy for the SP too easy/cheesy problem?"

Try playing on Monarch level. Play those crappy starting positions that you normally avoid. That might get you the inbetween challenge you are looking for.

Just an idea. Let me know if it works!

I'll start off by acknowledging that this is a veiled sarcastic jab aimed at me, and move past that.

Yes, that's a good idea. I do tend to restart bad positions, but only because they're usually ones such as just me on an island (boring for 300+ turns) or other similar things. But trying to ride through those turns may be worthwhile.

Try a little positivity in your posts/mindset.. you might enjoy life a bit more. Thanks for the advice.

 

[kattana]

try playing on a large map size with only a couple/few other civs and turning on raging barbarians as well...

hehehe

those other civs will not be the one holding your attention.

 

[Gargamel]

try playing on a large map size with only a couple/few other civs and turning on raging barbarians as well...

hehehe

those other civs will not be the one holding your attention.

sounds interesting.. I'll try it

 

[Ravinhood]

@Gargamel, don't know if you're tried it yet, but, I find Monarchy Difficulty with 14 civs on a HUGE PANGEA map that I modded to 80x60 instead of 32x20 to be exceptionally challenging and not cheesy and pretty hard.

Fact is the AI in these games just aren't good with naval warfare or amphibious invasions. So, if you want a really challenging game that "I think is fair". Give ole Monarchy difficulty a challenge with 14+ civs (14 seems to be optimum instead of 18) on a HUGE PANGEA map.

And also if you want a bit more play time in the ancients modify the first iturnsperincrement to 235 and change the timeline from 40 years to 13 years.

You'll also need to adjust the iresearchpercent to between 200-300. I find 300 very challenging, every research is expensive and really makes you think about which one to tech up in next. If you don't bump up the iresearchpercent you'll end up with modern tanks where gunpowder is suppose to start if you add the extra 235 turns to the game as mentioned above.

I've tried 5 games with these settings between Prince & Monarchy and the AI is brutal. I start out rather well, but, the AI gangs up on me and from my initial 10 city growth I end up with 1 or 2 wondering what the hell happened. lol

Anyways good luck, hope you find the fun game I have out of this.

 

[Volstag]

Explore some of the game creation options.

 

[narmox]

You can also enable the Minor civ and play as a nation with no leader traits and no unique units!

 

[Malodium]

One thing you might try is to swap my brain into your head for a while.

I havn't even been able to beat the computer on the difficulty right below Noble Tried Noble twice and the one right below noble and still can't beat him *cry*
That will give you a challange!!!

 

[civzombie]

"I'll start off by acknowledging that this is a veiled sarcastic jab aimed at me, and move past that."

WOW!! What are you talking about??? I did not intend any sarcastic jab, nor could my post be fairly read to include a sarcastic jab. I was just trying to help.

"Yes, that's a good idea. I do tend to restart bad positions, but only because they're usually ones such as just me on an island (boring for 300+ turns) or other similar things. But trying to ride through those turns may be worthwhile."

Most people do tend to restart bad positions, I don't think anything less of you for it.

"Try a little positivity in your posts/mindset.. you might enjoy life a bit more. Thanks for the advice."

Uhhh... My post could not be fairly read to convey anything about my mindset or my way of life. I am patient though, and I will wait patiently for an apology.

mike

 

[Gargamel]

Lots of good ideas.. thanks all. Unfortunately my computer is only 1.2 ghz w/ 512megs of PC133 ram.. so it can't handle a very big map. But I'll try mixing up the settings a bit.

I have been only playing with the Play Now! option.. I had the notion that modifying the settings beyond that would make it too easy.. but making it harder at monarchy level with those same settings is a great idea.

 

[Gargamel]

"I'll start off by acknowledging that this is a veiled sarcastic jab aimed at me, and move past that."

WOW!! What are you talking about??? I did not intend any sarcastic jab, nor could my post be fairly read to include a sarcastic jab. I was just trying to help.

"Yes, that's a good idea. I do tend to restart bad positions, but only because they're usually ones such as just me on an island (boring for 300+ turns) or other similar things. But trying to ride through those turns may be worthwhile."

Most people do tend to restart bad positions.

"Try a little positivity in your posts/mindset.. you might enjoy life a bit more. Thanks for the advice."

Uhhh... My post could not be fairly read to convey anything about my mindset or my way of life.

mike

Cool man I misread the tone. I apologize. No worries.

 

[kattana]

NP, if you really want a challenge...then you can try this

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=3288005#post3288005

 

[redscare]

This is exactly what happends to me. I can beat the IA on monarch but on emperor the ultra fast building/training/researching IA hits me real hard. I usually play on the Earth map, but I'll try some of these advices as I was looking for an intermediate challenge between monarch and emperor.

Also, is there any way to edit the Earth map so there are more civs??

 

[pvzh]

There are some mod-like possibilities to try:

* you may drop starting location factor in diffuculty.xml/handicap.xml (do not remember exact name). Somebody mentioned there somewhere variable that determines quality of starting location in connection to difficulty level, i.e. on settler you would get bending river with top notch resourses around, and on deity you are lucky to have any fresh water around and maybe a resource. The value of this factor goes from 10 (settler) to 90 (deity), so you can up it for more challenge.

* you can just increase the agressiveness of AI's and/or barbarians so there were more wars and less powering up economy.

* increase progressively cost of tech after Renesainse (sp?) age something like: first layer 10% increase, second layer 20%, third 30% etc., or maybe even steeper. This will just slows down the tech speed and give a chance to use all these units. Or add substantial amount of cost to "gateway techs"

* I noticed in all Civ like games AI do better if the tech tree is more inter-connected preventing "too long" beelines for something important. It is really hard to "teach" AI to use such trees adequately. I think it was bad move to drop Civ3-like tech ages. In Civ3 military tech were usually at the begining of the era, so you may grab those and have substantial time to use units. It was the best in Ancient era: second tier techs for Swordsmen/ Horsmen/ Catapults, i.e. ample of time to use them. In Medieval it was not as good due to Cavalry beeline amplified by Musketman/Cavalry cost/strength imbalance. It was total disaster in the industrial era: almost no need for Rifles because going for Rails/Factories and then Infantry/artillery right away was almost always better.

I hope 2nd and/or 3rd patches if they are such things will address this: more interconnected tech tree and gradual increase in the tech cost past medieval times.

 

[Randle]

Try limiting the victory conditions. Time victory is the easiest, in my opinion, it also gets you the lowest score in the end. Space victory is probably the second easiest.

So, turn off those two and see how easy it is to win.

I think diplomatic victory is currently the most difficult.

So there is "winning" and there is "winning" and at each difficulty level each victory condition presents a different challenge, but they certainly are not all equally difficult.

 

[Sorceresss]

You can also enable the Minor civ and play as a nation with no leader traits and no unique units!

How do you "enable the Minor civ"? I did not see that option in the custom-game selection menu of which civ the human gamer can play.

 

[narmox]

How do you "enable the Minor civ"? I did not see that option in the custom-game selection menu of which civ the human gamer can play.

Open Assets\XML\Civilizations\CivilizationInfo.xml (I think that's the filename) with a text editor like Notepad, and find the area that refers to "MINOR", and set "bPlayable" to 1 instead of 0, set "bAIPlayable" to 1 if you want the AI to be able to play it too.

You can also do the same for barbarians and start out with a single warrior or something, I haven't tried that yet.

Oh and the Minor civ leaderhead is Sid Meier (from the tutorial)

 

[dh_epic]

I've found a good challenge on Monarch by clicking on "random" for my leader. It means you can't plan ahead.

Also, I find seafaring maps harder than solid maps like pangaea. Vary the map type. It's worth a shot.

 

[Akka]

You go from too easy to too cheesy.. and there is no in-between.

Actually, I'd like to remind you that, for the vast majority of players, even "noble" or "warlord" is a quite challenging setting.

The AI is much smarter in Civ4 than in the previous games, even much smarter than in Civ3, and for the overwhelming number of players, it's more than a match.

Remember that these fora are host of "Civ fanatics", that is, people who spend a lot of time playing Civ, love the game, and are usually quite (insanely, in fact) good at it.
I had never any problem torching the AI in "regent" in Civ3, and I'm not even able to simply win consistently in "noble" in Civ4. And I'm the best (less worse ?) Civ player of all my friends.

This is not to be a jab at you, nor does it really answer your question. But it's a reminder about what the REAL average level of Civ players is