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

[Victoria]

Thank you to all who voted and commented so far. Would also like to know the opinion of @Victoria and @Eagle Pursuit. Are you there guys?)

You missed out the word most or best before enjoyable and challenging... for me it's definitely immortal that is most. But a science victory on lower levels can be quite challenging and a Dom on deity is more challenging.

 

[KyivanRusCivPlease]

You missed out the word most before enjoyable and challenging... for me it's definitely immortal that is most. But a science victory on lower levels can be quite challenging and a Dom on deity is more challenging.

To me the word "most" makes no difference in the meaning) I also chose Immortal in the poll, taking into account my current experience in Civ 6. Religious victory seems to be too easy to achieve on this difficulty on a tiny map though, at least playing as Khmer and Indonesia after the Religion system update in the latest patch.

 

[Victoria]

Religion on a tiny map to me is bending the rules to make it less challenging

 

[Vahnstad]

That's just not fun, and in some way, cheating. CIV is not designed for duel / tiny maps.

 

[KyivanRusCivPlease]

That's just not fun, and in some way, cheating. CIV is not designed for duel / tiny maps.

Maybe you're right. I might change the map size of my games to small. Yes, it is definitely more difficult to play on bigger maps, as there are more rivals. And after playing a few games on a bigger map I might change my mind from Immortal to Emperor)

 

[Victoria]

And after playing a few games on a bigger map I might change my mind from Immortal to Emperor)

Perfect example for this thread.
The choice is say you are playing on a higher level but know in the back of your head that you are taking advantage
Or play lower and in essence have the same difficulty of play with a more rounded game
... or even widen your game on immortal and rise to the challenge?... losing to me is learning.

I have lost before on immortal plenty of times due to not restarting or reloading and also not being concentrated enough on my targets... or just bad luck. I do not have to win, In fact losing makes me think about that game more. At work when one of my staff does something wrong my response is normally "good, as long as you learn from it"

I enjoy many games on prince I might add, I am fickle so it's a hard thread to answer

 

[Spudsie74]

King/Emperor, depending on Civ, mods used, & other settings.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I typically play at Prince because I am an arch role-player rather than a challenge-hound.

 

[The_Quasar]

Immortality... Emperor is my role-playing level, it's harder to lose and quite forgiving. Deity requires too strict a regime to be much fun.

I occasionally drop to King if I want to test something.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I typically play at Prince because I am an arch role-player rather than a challenge-hound.

Immortality... Emperor is my role-playing level, it's harder to lose and quite forgiving. Deity requires too strict a regime to be much fun.

I occasionally drop to King if I want to test something.

Yeah, me too. The reason I don't like being pacifist or non-confrontational is for roleplaying reasons. It just feels really artificial. At the same time, just skating through the game doing whatever I please is also immersion-breaking. I need some challenge, for roleplaying reasons. So, for me, Emperor with some tweaks to other settings is the closest I've gotten to "roleplaying difficulty." "Challenge difficulty" would be Immortal or Deity, depending on the other settings, but I rarely play Civ for a challenge.

 

[Domain]

If I'm going religion or culture with me not being able to use military then i go emperor/immortal but if I plan on waging war then deity.

 

[KayAU]

I'm back to playing King again. I initially voted Prince, but after my last game which offered zero challenge whatsoever I'm back to King. But even my current King game has been extremely easy. But I am playing Kongo. And get this, my first goody hut pop was a relic. I can't tell you enough how overpowered this is getting a relic this early in the game for Kongo. Then I went for the suzerain with Kandy and got 4 more relics for a total of 5 in my palace. That's all I have room for at the moment. I still think King can be pretty challenging for me if I'm surrounded by AI's at the start and I start with a weaker civ. I've never been a big believer in Kongo until this game. Wow.

Kongo + early relic = insta win

I love Kongo, it might be the most fun Civilization to play for me. The Mbanza is great, as it solves any housing problems you might have, and provides a bunch of food and gold to help you grow in the process. I spam a lot of those. But perhaps the most awesome ability is Nkisi, which gives you food, gold and production for relic, artifacts and sculptures. Now artifacts is something you can get reliably and in great numbers, and if you have a few cities with archeological museums, you will be able to theme many of them. A themed museum provides the Kongolese city with a whopping +12 food, +12 production and +24 gold, in addition to the culture and tourism it provides by default. The weakest point for Kongo is the leader ability. If Kongo were to get an alternative leader, it could become even more amazing.

 

[PhilBowles]

Emperor, but with the autumn patch it seems too min-max focused rather than allowing effective play with multiple approaches - it seems to be a case of spam the map and specialise in resource bucket X from turn 1, or be doomed to a dreary plod into second place (oh, and don't get into wars where you don't have overwhelming force, since war weariness is excessively harsh on science output and builds up with the time needed to take cities).

However it's possible this is a map size issue more than a difficulty level one, as larger maps are more difficult. Until random map size is enabled - if it ever is - I've been playing on Huge by default.

 

[valamas]

Any chance to know the name of the said mod?

AI free settler on deity only

 

[Hushed]

I play on Deity but I save scum. Goody huts are soooo swingy (and unbalanced by game speed) that I really rather dislike the mechanism as is. No surprise my favorite civ in V was Shoshone.

 

[iammaxhailme]

Usually emperor, and I almost never war beyond a little early-game, or when forced to.

 

[Tavenier]

I like emperor the most. I like roleplaying and anything above emperor is too difficult for that to me. There is one thing that I would change about this difficulty and that is the extra settler the AI gets. I so often get Liverpool or Bremen planted next to my capital in the fourth or fifth turn. I always restart. Or I am able to conquer the settler and then the game is too easy. Either way, it is no fun to me. That's the one thing I'd change.

 

[Disgustipated]

I play on Deity but I save scum. Goody huts are soooo swingy (and unbalanced by game speed) that I really rather dislike the mechanism as is. No surprise my favorite civ in V was Shoshone.

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.

 

[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.