[POLL] At what difficulty do you play most of the time?

[andersw]

This got changed, it is now pretty hard to get a war monger penalty that has any real effect.

Ahh thats why war feels better now, before it felt like I was an era behind when actually on par in tech.

 

[Laz0r]

Emperor is my favourite because it's challenging but not overly so as to force me to play pure warmonger all game to win, giving some space for creativity in the buildup (IE not just authority into imperialism)

 

[Fluffball]

Above emperor in particular i find the game a bit boring as it seems to play out exactly the same way and you have to go authority conquest to be able to defend yourself against the AI unit spam and the only way to beat the AI to another victory is by taking out the leaders in science, tourism and votes so by that time your effectively winning by conquest anyway.

Even in war/conquest i find it boring as it is only prolonging the breakthrough point with you having to get over a large hump to get the ball rolling and as you have to dedicate yourself so much to warring you can forget going for wonders etc so on those higher levels you miss out on so much of the other aspects of the game.

King/emperor depending on what civ you play and the other civs in the game seems to strike around the right balance of being able to use all aspects of the game where you can get some wonders if you drive hard for them, you don't need to focus 100% on war just to defend yourself so can actually use the none warmonger social policies and aim to win by science, tourism or diplomacy without simply killing any competition but if you neglect military then warmonger civs in particular can still crush you.

 

[Delvemor]

I play on Immortal, peaceful and as wide as possible. I like to go Tradition -> Statecraft -> a mix of Rationalism and Industry -> Freedom and it works pretty well to win either a diplomatic or cultural victory with civs such as Siam, Austria, Morocco and the Netherlands. I prioritize religion, military techs and securing as much space as possible by settling on very defensible locations above all, even if it means missing out on a few nice tiles or a river next to the city. I will usually spend my gold on buying good tiles, workers and buildings giving production or helping with my pantheon. I don't really need Authority to defend myself if I settle on such locations and if I build a few forts on hills. If I pick Authority I tend to fall behind compared to Progress and Tradition but it might just be my playstyle that causes that. If I go Progress instead of Tradition I will usually fail to found a decent religion unless I play someone like the Maya.

I really don't like to tribute City-States at all and I just systematically complete their quests when possible and secure alliances as soon as I get Trade Confederacy policy which gives influence per turn when you have a trade route with C-S, even though these trade routes are not as good as when you send them to other AIs. I find that expanding your influence to City-States as soon as possible, and maintaining the alliances, is much more rewarding than any early conquest or wonders. The only reason I might go to war early is if I severely lack space, and I don't even bother with wonders unless I'm sure I'm the first one to get the relevant tech, which usually never happens in the first two eras. One exception is Petra as Morocco however.

 

[Fluffball]

For the sake of context i would be interested to know if people who regularly play immortal and particularly diety design/fine tune their games beforehand as most youtubers seem to do.e.g. they pick a specific civ. Have a very specific game plan already laid out and have researched the civ they are playing to maximise it's bonuses. Tend to know within a couple of turns when wonders will be built by other civs so will have a plan for when they need to have a specific tech and will often micromanage resources to meet optimum benchmarks, even to the extent sometimes reducing science or culture output so they don't advance too early. Often pick at least some of the other civs in the game to create a specific 'experience' and for civs which are particularly terrain specific even fine tune the map and/or re-roll until they find a good starting point for that civ?

I used to do that a lot also, having a favourite civ(s) who i just liked playing and would work my way up the difficulty levels as i fine tuned the gameplan. These days i tend to start a pretty random game and go with what it gives me then playing to the apparent strengths of the civ i rolled and the terrain i find myself in enjoying the mystery of discovery and adapting to an evolving game, often ending up playing a very different game to what i thought at the beginning.

 

[Delvemor]

For the sake of context i would be interested to know if people who regularly play immortal and particularly diety design/fine tune their games beforehand as most youtubers seem to do.e.g. they pick a specific civ. Have a very specific game plan already laid out and have researched the civ they are playing to maximise it's bonuses.

Yes. For me I just really like any civ which can benefit from a specific playstyle, even if it means having less options. For example, Morocco is all about maximizing the number of trade partners, which mean trade routes received from or sent to anyone including City-States. Thus, going Statecraft, having at least the Industry opener, and going Freedom is a no brainer. Your capital will always be one of the strongest because of the UA, so Tradition is also a good idea. In that context, declaring war yourself will obviously require a very good reason to compensate for the loss of yields, especially if your target is allied with many City-States.

Tend to know within a couple of turns when wonders will be built by other civs so will have a plan for when they need to have a specific tech and will often micromanage resources to meet optimum benchmarks

You can know which techs are already discovered by looking at their research cost. If a tech has a lower research cost compared to other ones in the same level, it means at least one AI has discovered that tech. The lower the research cost, the more civs got that tech discovered. Then you can look at who got the most techs to figure out who might be building some wonder in particular, but I don't bother going that far, I already know that building the wonder myself is unlikely to work.

 

[Stalker0]

I feel like Emperor is the best difficulty, as I can still play somewhat non-optimal and win. I feel like once I'm at Immortal I have to bunker down and play "seriously" to stand a good chance. So the issue are the times I get so good at Emperor I blaze through it, but don't want to get serious on Immortal.

 

[rkkn]

I started off by trying King and then Emperor, since I read somewhere to play 2 levels below whatever you play at in vanilla, but I have since switched to Immortal, and it did not feel like a big jump.

Also, I see some sentiment in this thread that dealing with war is a significant hindrance above Emperor, but I have not experienced this at all. I've never felt threatened by the AI. It seems sufficient to invest absolutely nothing in military or defense (except the bare minimum to deal with barbarians) and just focus entirely on peaceful advancement until someone declares war. Then build walls in the nearest city and two defensive units and then go back to whatever I was doing, while the AI proceeds to not mount much of an attack. Even if they have a ton of units, they don't actually invade with more than a few at a time and will back off after being hit by a ranged attack. There's also usually no war at all until renaissance or late medieval unless I'm flagrantly aggressive with my settlement locations.

I haven't actually seen a game to completion since I get a huge lead by turn 100-200 and get bored of it. I haven't tried Deity yet since I'm worried it'll make it impossible to build any wonders, like it does in vanilla, but I'm considering it. Also considering getting a mod that makes the AI more aggressive.

 

[Rekk]

Also considering getting a mod that makes the AI more aggressive

2.4 should have made the AI more agressive.

 

[stii]

I started off by trying King and then Emperor, since I read somewhere to play 2 levels below whatever you play at in vanilla, but I have since switched to Immortal, and it did not feel like a big jump.

Also, I see some sentiment in this thread that dealing with war is a significant hindrance above Emperor, but I have not experienced this at all. I've never felt threatened by the AI. It seems sufficient to invest absolutely nothing in military or defense (except the bare minimum to deal with barbarians) and just focus entirely on peaceful advancement until someone declares war. Then build walls in the nearest city and two defensive units and then go back to whatever I was doing, while the AI proceeds to not mount much of an attack. Even if they have a ton of units, they don't actually invade with more than a few at a time and will back off after being hit by a ranged attack. There's also usually no war at all until renaissance or late medieval unless I'm flagrantly aggressive with my settlement locations.

I haven't actually seen a game to completion since I get a huge lead by turn 100-200 and get bored of it. I haven't tried Deity yet since I'm worried it'll make it impossible to build any wonders, like it does in vanilla, but I'm considering it. Also considering getting a mod that makes the AI more aggressive.

I have build pretty much all early games wonder on deity, if you really want one you can mostly get it. It is a lot easier with tradition.

I think the two difficulties down is mostly because the mod changes a huge amount of stuff. If you play exactly like the base game you will struggle, rather than the mod being much harder.

 

[Panzeri]

It's embarrassing to admit, but I'm really bad at this game.
I've been playing since civilization I, and civilization VI didn't enchant me. AI is very weak at war, and I miss some features.
I really like the vox populi concept, but even on the settler difficulty, I can't take the technology lead. At some point, the game is no longer fun.
I'm not a competitive player, I like to roleplay. I thought it would be possible at settler. But I confess that I am struggling. Any tips? Any files I can tweak to ease the pain?

 

[CppMaster]

It's embarrassing to admit, but I'm really bad at this game.
I've been playing since civilization I, and civilization VI didn't enchant me. AI is very weak at war, and I miss some features.
I really like the vox populi concept, but even on the settler difficulty, I can't take the technology lead. At some point, the game is no longer fun.
I'm not a competitive player, I like to roleplay. I thought it would be possible at settler. But I confess that I am struggling. Any tips? Any files I can tweak to ease the pain?

Do you build libraries? I think it'd be hard not to the the technology lead on Settler difficulty unless you try to.

 

[Panzeri]

Do you build libraries? I think it'd be hard not to the the technology lead on Settler difficulty unless you try to.

I do build libraries; but like I said I'm a casual (and old) gamer. I just roleplay, I don't play "to win". I don't have time or energy to dive into the promotion tree, or to micromanage my cities. So I end up getting beat up by AI.
By the way, how do I install your mod (Reduced Military Supply & Simplified Promotions)? Is it compatible with the recent version (2.4.4)?

 

[saamohod]

I just roleplay, I don't play "to win".

I do understand, I myself often play games not for the win, but for the process of it, or for roleplay.
But the thing is, Civ5 Vox Popili isn't the right choice for it

 

[BaldSamson]

King but I add 50% more number of civs that normally start on a given map to make it spicy.

Ha - yes, I do something similar. I play on small maps with 8 civs and 16 CS, to keep it cramped. I also reduce a lot of the unit supply to keep the micromanagement down. It's a spicy meatball.

 

[Delvemor]

It's embarrassing to admit, but I'm really bad at this game.
I've been playing since civilization I, and civilization VI didn't enchant me. AI is very weak at war, and I miss some features.
I really like the vox populi concept, but even on the settler difficulty, I can't take the technology lead. At some point, the game is no longer fun.
I'm not a competitive player, I like to roleplay. I thought it would be possible at settler. But I confess that I am struggling. Any tips? Any files I can tweak to ease the pain?

No need to be embarrassed, we all have different priorities and circumstances. You don't really need to be in the technology lead at all times, especially since whoever discovers a tech first make it cheaper for everyone else. If there is one thing you could prioritize it's probably production, as long as you maintain a reasonable population growth. Unless vanilla civ 5, in VP science is no longer king, I would say it's either production or culture, but both have diminishing returns at some point.

Also I have to agree with saamohod, Civ 5 VP is meant to be a competitive experience with an improved AI. For pure roleplay I would rather play Civ 6, because you probably don't care about the subpar AI in that game.

 

[andersw]

I started off by trying King and then Emperor, since I read somewhere to play 2 levels below whatever you play at in vanilla, but I have since switched to Immortal, and it did not feel like a big jump.

Also, I see some sentiment in this thread that dealing with war is a significant hindrance above Emperor, but I have not experienced this at all. I've never felt threatened by the AI. It seems sufficient to invest absolutely nothing in military or defense (except the bare minimum to deal with barbarians) and just focus entirely on peaceful advancement until someone declares war. Then build walls in the nearest city and two defensive units and then go back to whatever I was doing, while the AI proceeds to not mount much of an attack. Even if they have a ton of units, they don't actually invade with more than a few at a time and will back off after being hit by a ranged attack. There's also usually no war at all until renaissance or late medieval unless I'm flagrantly aggressive with my settlement locations.

I haven't actually seen a game to completion since I get a huge lead by turn 100-200 and get bored of it. I haven't tried Deity yet since I'm worried it'll make it impossible to build any wonders, like it does in vanilla, but I'm considering it. Also considering getting a mod that makes the AI more aggressive.

There are some who find it incredibly easy and natural to fight wars against the AI, where to create choke points and how to defend, I assume you are one of them.
A lot of the players struggle with wars vs the AI even on fairly low difficulties.

 

[DimCarcosa1]

Only Deity. Since I figured out the perfect strat I am crushing it. I have a plan to play every civ on Huge Earth Map Marathon and see which game will be a struggle. So far I finished Sweden (piece of cake, won DOM victory easily), Poland (game was very easy but in the very end Germany beat me 2 turns into the science victory lol so I had to go back 30 saves to change things and seal the deal), Korea (very interesting game with many twists and it was a bit of struggle, I could not know If I am about to win or someone else to the very end) and currently England (whole coast of East Asia, Indonesia and Australia is mine, I have no competition, boring). I already know which civs might be problematic to get things done. I am pretty aggresive and everyone hates me later so I guess Morocco will be hard or the Netherlands. I also don't care about Culture Vicotory or Diplo but I assume with Austria or Germany I might have to change my strategy a bit.

 

[rsc2a]

Immortal to get myself whooped up, Emperor to win and wonder why I can't do the same on Immortal
Keep in mind I play with Milae's difficulty submod by default

This is me. Both with and without the submod.

 

[brsoft]

As a CIV I fan - Deity