Moving Up in Difficulty

[Pyr0mancer]

Sarisin, do you normally found your cities on plains hills? Plains Hill cities give 221, instead of just 211. That extra goes a long way towards building your first warrior faster.

Personally, I play most games at Emperor/Epic, Standard size. Lose around half of my games due to being penned in, then dogpiled, but Monarch was getting to be too little of a challenge. I do play with Tech Trading disabled though, which helps significantly. Generally it all comes down to whether or not I can get a hold of copper early. AI usually beats me to T2 and T3 units, but if I can hold out until I've got either Radiant Guards or Mages, then I can usually win.

 

[Sarisin]

Sarisin, do you normally found your cities on plains hills? Plains Hill cities give 221, instead of just 211. That extra goes a long way towards building your first warrior faster.

Personally, I play most games at Emperor/Epic, Standard size. Lose around half of my games due to being penned in, then dogpiled, but Monarch was getting to be too little of a challenge. I do play with Tech Trading disabled though, which helps significantly. Generally it all comes down to whether or not I can get a hold of copper early. AI usually beats me to T2 and T3 units, but if I can hold out until I've got either Radiant Guards or Mages, then I can usually win.

Yes, that is a good strategy settling on Hills, if they are available. I play all my games on the Fantasy Realm (huge) map, though, and have to say the terrain can be a little screwy sometimes, so I take what I can get.

We use similar game options (except I use the huge maps with many AI civs). You are right about Monarch not being as much of a challenge anymore, but I am finding that jump to Emperor just too much of a leap right now.

I am playing a Monarch game as Decius/Calabim, comfortably ahead of the the 12 other civs, and enjoying the ride. The game has its challenges, but nothing like the frustration of falling behind so fast in the Emperor games I tried.

I suppose I will try a few more games at Emperor, but I think I have to fiddle with the game variables a little more, and maybe choose a civ I am very comfortable with rather than going with a Random choice.

 

[Annex]

Im playing an emperor game now, Decius/Bannor with 10 other civs (small map.) Ive been pretty much breezing through the game, staying in second or so place until Hannah declared war on me and I steamrolled her empire.

I will definitely move up to Immortal next game, because its more fun for me if i am fighting for my life. If i sit at the top of the scoreboard it gets boring for me.

Turning off tech trading really helps me, as well as turning off vassals. I always make sure there are 2/5 good, 2/5 evil and 1/5 neutral civs in my games.

 

[EverNoob]

Tech trading on can work to your advantage as well. You can extort tech from a civ you're beating up on, or give tech to bribe civs into declaring war on someone else. Or sometimes for time sensitive techs (for religion/wonders/heroes) I trade for the pre-requisite techs to help me get there faster. Gifting/Trading Deception/Honor encourages civs to join Undercouncil/Overcounil. I find it a powerful tool that can really work to your advantage.

 

[Annex]

Thats certainly true. It can be a very effective tool if you know how to use it. For me, though on higher difficulty the Ai's usually are outteching me by trading with each other. I usually have some friends, but i stay out of most wars which give me the -X "You refused to help us during war time" with a lot of civs, so they refuse to trade with me.

 

[Sarisin]

Tech trading on can work to your advantage as well. You can extort tech from a civ you're beating up on, or give tech to bribe civs into declaring war on someone else. Or sometimes for time sensitive techs (for religion/wonders/heroes) I trade for the pre-requisite techs to help me get there faster. Gifting/Trading Deception/Honor encourages civs to join Undercouncil/Overcounil. I find it a powerful tool that can really work to your advantage.

EverNoob, I think one of the biggest shortfalls in Civ4/FFH2 is the ability of the AI to redline while the human player cannot.

For example, I DO shut off tech trading to avoid the constant whacky tech trade requests/demands from the AI. However, in my current game I made the mistake of getting two Law Mana resources. Honestly, every 4-5 turns I get a request from a civ, usually the same one, to trade Fish for Law Mana.

If I could redline, like the AI, I wouldn't have to put up with this constant nuisance or the many requests to declare war on someone, stop trading, etc. I can stop some of that by eliminating tech trading, but there is still plenty left.

The AI OTOH redlines like crazy and I find it very hard to bribe anyone to declare war, end agreements, etc. I am always amazed how AI civs immediately give open border agreements to other AI civs who they were just at war with (then they can come pouring into my borders).

I wish it was one way or the other: both the AI and human player can redline, or neither can!

 

[Pyr0mancer]

Im playing an emperor game now, Decius/Bannor with 10 other civs (small map.) Ive been pretty much breezing through the game, staying in second or so place until Hannah declared war on me and I steamrolled her empire.

I will definitely move up to Immortal next game, because its more fun for me if i am fighting for my life. If i sit at the top of the scoreboard it gets boring for me.

At least part of the reason you're finding it so easy is the fact that you've stuffed your map so full of other civs, therefore any given AI civ is weaker.

 

[Annex]

I guess. I would love to play on larger maps but my computer isnt the greatest. However i am only able to take maybe two cities, so that means low production and research for me, while my enemies can have twice that by turn 100. So If i dont make friends it could be rough.

 

[EverNoob]

EverNoob, I think one of the biggest shortfalls in Civ4/FFH2 is the ability of the AI to redline while the human player cannot.

For example, I DO shut off tech trading to avoid the constant whacky tech trade requests/demands from the AI. However, in my current game I made the mistake of getting two Law Mana resources. Honestly, every 4-5 turns I get a request from a civ, usually the same one, to trade Fish for Law Mana.

If I could redline, like the AI, I wouldn't have to put up with this constant nuisance or the many requests to declare war on someone, stop trading, etc. I can stop some of that by eliminating tech trading, but there is still plenty left.

The AI OTOH redlines like crazy and I find it very hard to bribe anyone to declare war, end agreements, etc. I am always amazed how AI civs immediately give open border agreements to other AI civs who they were just at war with (then they can come pouring into my borders).

I wish it was one way or the other: both the AI and human player can redline, or neither can!

It's true I often have to do uneven trades, to begin with anyway. But once you get really chummy with a civ, they'll do even trades. It's happened quite a few times that they even gave me techs/resources for free. And they weren't even vassals or anything.

Another trick is also to trade the same single tech to all the civs. That way you gain 4-5 techs while only giving 1 tech away.

Maybe it boils down to playstyle. I usually play games heavy on diplomacy, so I have to leave tech trading on, or else I shut out a huge part of diplomacy.

 

[loffenx]

I made the jump to Empereor a few months back myself, and looking back the game has gotten a hell of alot more fun. But since winning often is a tedious process towards the end i prefer to to play from a bit of an underdog position. However, playing a civ i can't control is totally out of the question, I can currently manage with the elves, Sidar and Calabim but any other and I just get wiped. I would stronlgy suggest playing the civ you know best when making the jump

 

[Sarisin]

I made the jump to Empereor a few months back myself, and looking back the game has gotten a hell of alot more fun. But since winning often is a tedious process towards the end i prefer to to play from a bit of an underdog position. However, playing a civ i can't control is totally out of the question, I can currently manage with the elves, Sidar and Calabim but any other and I just get wiped. I would stronlgy suggest playing the civ you know best when making the jump

Yes, that's a good suggestion!

I tend to do better with the Elohim (Einion Logos anyway), Grigori, Balseraphs, and Calibim. The elves seem almost too easy to win with too, so I might try them too although I don't like the way there improvements disappear under the trees.

Then, I drop back to Monarch and let the random generator select civs for me.

Right now, though, I have dropped all the way back to Prince to play the FF modmod as there is much to learn there for me - and, I really have my hands full!