On which difficulty will you start your first ciV game?

[Disgustipated]

I thought playing on noble was pathetic... oh well

I suppose, but I feel I can play the game the way it was meant to be played. IE building up an empire and not taking advantage of ai exploits. Even tech trading is an exploit. And I can win on noble without tech trading.

 

[zehcoutinho]

Actually, I think no level is pathetic. There are some people who have more fun on lower levels and some in higher, but I think the fun is exactly the same for each. Some people have fun winning by landslide, some like winning by close calls. Some like to always play in the same level, and some like to go up in levels for more challenge. Some like to know all the mechanics and micromanaging, some just play casually without much depht. And I repeat, all of these players have fun, and that being the goal of the game, there's no way any level can be pathetic if it is fulfilling the needs of a certain type of player. As I read in another post, Civ IV and expansions sold millions of copies, not counting the pirated ones, and this forum, without question the biggest, has only about 50k members. This gives us a true feeling that the game is larger than hardcore players.

 

[Thormodr]

Anyone who thinks they are elitist because they play on a higher difficulty level need to get over themselves.

I usually play around the middle levels but I play with certain handicaps. For example, I will not tech trade unless asked by the AI or absolutely no reloading. Maybe I will not chop down a forest or whip any people the entire game.

Those kind of things will get you killed quick on the higher difficulty levels but make it pretty challenging for the mid tier ones.

You can have lots of fun and still be challenged on the slightly lower levels. Hopefully ciV is the same.