(POLL) In which difficulty level do you find the balance between enjoyable and challenging?

[EgonSpengler]

Does save scumming for goody huts even work? I tried a couple of times but always got the same result. In a way it's good, it's taught me to avoid that bad practice. Plus load times are so extreme that also cured me of my bad habit from SMAC and Civ4 days.

In the Advanced Settings, there's something like "New Random Seed" that I think defaults to off. I agree about the load times, though. That's why I don't reload a lot.

 

[Darth Tribble]

I usually play on Prince, though I think it is still a little on the easier side.

 

[Spudsie74]

Dunno...widespread exploration seems a viable tactic. Not only goody huts, but finding finding barbs, annexing workers & settlers, and sussing out military expansion possibilities. The goody huts are useful enough that I frequently get a (free) scout or builder. Like some of the Eureka prerequisites (such as finding a natural wonder), you can't count on getting a free scout before turn 25, but you CAN use "observational awareness" (take your surroundings, present situation, and probable progress into account). It's great to have a plan, but so many features of this game are 1) influenced by local events and 2) have multiple workable solutions, that it pays to "prepare for all eventualities." Getting a goody hut, settler, or unexpected eureka can (in the early game) open up new possibilities. Ex: religion may become a much more favorable undertaking.

IMO, scouts, goody huts, and exploring make alternative strategies more workable. I tend to plan to grab everything I can, and explore as much as possible, THEN decide how to go about winning.

 

[KyivanRusCivPlease]

I so often get Liverpool or Bremen planted next to my capital in the fourth or fifth turn

As I understand it, you are encountering the too close start locations bug of the latest patch. You should try the solution of reverting Assignstartingplots.Lua to v. 1.0.0.167 (https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/assignstartingplots-lua-from-v-1-0-0-167.26501/).

 

[KyivanRusCivPlease]

I save scum

What do you mean by "saving scum" in regard to goody huts?)

 

[Victoria]

What do you mean by "saving scum" in regard to goody huts?)

Save, check the goody hut, yuk it's 20 faith, reload, check the goody hut again.

@Spudsie74
I use my scout to scout until I get the political philosophy eureka and second continent, then bring it back (unless a science victory) as A scout is very useful against your neighbours, especially siege a city, pillage, support, misdirect and sacrifice. A scout is a very versatile unit before they get walls up.

 

[Hushed]

When playing at marathon speed the difference between, say, healing a unit or finding a new population is pretty extreme. Sometimes finding an early game relic is the difference between having a religion or not entirely at deity difficulty. So I save scum. I don’t have it set to generate a new seed every time I load the game, instead I’m just aware of the kinds of things that use the RNG and will try actions in slightly different orders, like whether another unit attacks an encampment before of after I pop a hut, or whether I heal up a unit another turn before popping the hut.

Every once in a while I play a challenge game where I don’t save scum. Sometimes I’ll play a challenge game with goody huts off entirely. Usually in those games I don’t even bother trying for religion. I always feel disappointed because I like playing with religions, but don’t always start near stone to ensure getting one. Even divine spark rushing holy sites isn’t a guarantee at deity difficulty- a lot of time it comes down to which civs you’re against.

 

[Spudsie74]

Save, check the goody hut, yuk it's 20 faith, reload, check the goody hut again.

Good to know...takes the guesswork out of goodie huts.

I haven't yet achieved the mind set (for Civ 6) where I automatically recognize a good exploit...(Civ 5 is another story). With 6, there are enough different things to try (as well as a dumber AI) to keep me from applying excessive cheese, (unless I am falling behind). (However, I did pick up on the "chop everything (even outside your boarders) feat that worked when the game was first released.).

 

[Victoria]

where I automatically recognize a good exploit

Save Scumming is not really an exploit, rather a way of life, I respect anyone that owns up to doing it. I did a bit on V but kicked the habit

 

[trev1972]

Ive played 7 games so tried prince, king and emperor so far

Prince- my first ever game of civ 6 i hadnt got a clue but won by miles, on my 2nd prince game i gimped myself (england on standard earth) but honestly believe it would be hard to lose
King- didnt notice much difference?
Ive played 2 emperor games, the first i was agressive and it just snowballed. The second was peaceful and was very tight

I think i might stick at emperor as i suspect moving up requires exploiting the AI incompetence at war.

That was a long winded way of saying emperor

 

[Japper007]

Multiplayer, only difficulty thats both challenging and fun. You folkes are missing out, civ 6 only really shines against human opponents. SP just starts feeling like practice by comparison, even on Deity.

 

[Victoria]

Multiplayer, only difficulty thats both challenging and fun

For me, immersive and gimping myself are both fun.
I rarely get a chance to MP but the games I played just really annoyed me. It doesn't help that I rarely have time but when I commit to a game I want to play it through, MP players give up. MP is a sweating game, I like to relax and enjoy my game, for me it's not about being better than someone else but having a game I enjoy. I know I am not one of the best players, most people that think that are just fooling themselves.
Each to their own.

 

[stinkubus]

Simultaneous turns mean you need to be fast with the controls too, or you have no shot in a war.

 

[Japper007]

For me, immersive and gimping myself are both fun.
I rarely get a chance to MP but the games I played just really annoyed me. It doesn't help that I rarely have time but when I commit to a game I want to play it through, MP players give up. MP is a sweating game, I like to relax and enjoy my game, for me it's not about being better than someone else but having a game I enjoy. I know I am not one of the best players, most people that think that are just fooling themselves.
Each to their own.

If you want games that are played out completely and at a leasurely pace, you should join us on Realms Beyond for a PBEM game (one about to start soon) I fully agree on lobby multiplayer being annoying BTW, people ragequit way to much and you almost never get to finish a game properly if it isn't a duel.

 

[KayAU]

I've done my bit of save scumming, but I rarely do it these days. This is mostly for gameplay reasons, but the terrible load times help too. The exception is if I have been working on a wonder for ages, and get beaten to it by a few turns, I will often go back and see if I can boost production. I really wish there was another mechanism than the unfinished wonder just vanishing. The first thing that comes to mind is a popup letting you choose to either cancel production and salvage some resources back, or to continue making a "lesser" version of the wonder.

Anyway, I do consider reloading to get a different random outcome as a form of cheating. It is something the player can do, which the AI opponents can not. It is equivalent to taking an extra dice roll. Going back to change your actions, as I sometimes do with wonders, well...it is not quite the same, but it is still a form of cheating, because by going back, I get to make decisions based on information which would normally not be available to me until later.

In Stellaris, I play in Ironman mode, as that is the only way to earn achievements. I like having that option, as it helps me maintain discipline, and forces me to commit to my decisions.

 

[Hushed]

In multiplayer, I'd absolutely agree that it's cheating. There's a social contract and rules are agreed upon. In single player the rules are whatever suits me, and it's no more cheating than any mod.

That said I play CKII ironman. If there were an ironman mode for Civ 6 I'd probably take pride in playing that too.

 

[Victoria]

The first thing that comes to mind is a popup letting you choose to either cancel production and salvage some resources back, or to continue making a "lesser" version of the wonder.

You could always start firetuner and give yourself the production back.

 

[KayAU]

In multiplayer, I'd absolutely agree that it's cheating. There's a social contract and rules are agreed upon. In single player the rules are whatever suits me, and it's no more cheating than any mod.

Well, if the mod was called "perfect dice rolls each time", I would agree. A mod can be cheating or not cheating. If it is a UI mod, I would not consider that cheating, if it was a mod which gives the player some advantage over the AI, I would say it is. I'm not making a moral judgement, here, though, as it really doesn't matter when you are playing against the AI. Everyone is free to enjoy the game however they like, and I have done a fair bit of it myself. But I do consider it cheating.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

Lately I've been playing with a mod that gives you the same starting units as the ai on Deity. It's fun because the ai is a lot more active than it is on lower levels, but the starting units give you a lot of wiggle room to play in unconventional ways. Up until now I've been playing on Emperor when I wanted that freedom, but I'm finding that this is more fun.

 

[KyivanRusCivPlease]

Well, after my game as Poland on a small map ending up with my Religious Victory, I must say it was interesting the whole game until the last few turns when it was clear I was close to winning. America was almost halfway to Culture Victory when I won and Arabia was my biggest religious rival throughout the game. I was playing Immortal again and it was definitely more engaging and difficult than on a tiny map with less civs.