Rediscovering strategy, but what difficulty?

[randomwords]

Hey everyone. After YEARS away from strategy games, I've decided to fire up Civ 3 and a few other titles and give them a try. If I'm remembering my older titles correctly, higher difficulty levels usually amounted to the AI getting bonuses to production and such. This makes sense but it also seemed to limit your options at high diff. levels in that you were pigeon-holed into certain strategies, and that deviating from these almost certainly resulted in failure.

I guess my question is what is a good difficulty level to play Civ 3 at that has a good deal of challenge, but NOT so much as to limit or restrict strategic and tactical options? I'm assuming it would be the "default" level but as I haven't played the game in years I'm not too sure.

Also, in the interest of not starting numerous threads, can anyone also apply this same question to Civ 2, SMAC, and MOO 1&2? Thanks for the help I look forward to much reading and hopefully later contributions to the site

 

[The Professor]

At Regent and Monarch, the AI's and the human player are on a pretty even playing field, and winning by any number of victory conditions and strategies should be possible. Even at Emporer level, the AI production bonuses can be worked around with some practice. Above Emporer, the AI gets a bonus Settler, which allows them to expand much quicker than the human, and adds greatly to the difficulty level.

However, if you've never played Civ before, I would probably play a couple games at Chieftain or Warlord, just to get comfortable with the interface, and figure out what everything does.

 

[undertoad]

Hmmm.... I'm talking about CivIII here.

I guess is depends how confident/willing to take punishment you are. In CivIII the "level playing-field" difficulty is Regent - above this the AI gets bonuses, below it you get bonuses.

Regent is where I play at the moment. But if you're unfamiliar with CivIII/can't remember exactly how it works, it might be an idea to start off playing a couple of games at Warlord just to get used to the mechanics again.

I may be speaking just as a CivII veteran - but I'd say Chieftain is not a good idea if you want to quickly move up difficulty levels; it's just too easy. (NB - this is not aimed at those who play Chieftain and enjoy it: each to their own. All I'm saying is that playing Chieftain a lot - or even Warlord, as I did - can make it very hard to move up to Regent. This is what I found).

 

[vmxa]

I cannot remember Civ2 or SMAC as it has been too long. I think you have answers for Civ3. Moo1 the level is medium to get an no real boost for the AI. Hard is fine, if you have some experience. Impossible is for those that find hard too easy.

Moo2 is an easier game IMO and you can any level except impossible. You at least have to be familiar with techs and traits.

All these game are impacted to a significant extent with the map size. The smaller the harder as you have less time to offset any bonus they may get. My favorite Moo1 is small map as the games does not last too long and can have some reasonable action.

 

[randomwords]

Thanks for the helpful responses so far. It looks like starting at the level with dead-even values would be best for now even if it means I will be beaten on several occasions before I start to get better.

 

[vmxa]

You can always start down a level and play a bit then move up. It seems to me that games made after about 2002 changed the lowest level. Games that I have played a bit this month like Moo3 and War Craft III. The lower levels were not as easy as the games made a few years earlier.

Anyway it is hard for us to give advice on where to start as we have no idea of your experience with similar games. Even then some are not applicable, such as Civ2 to Civ3.

Many people came here and expressed all sorts of trouble going from II to III. It was not an issue for me, as I did not try to play III as I had in II or SMAC.

 

[timerover51]

Thanks for the helpful responses so far. It looks like starting at the level with dead-even values would be best for now even if it means I will be beaten on several occasions before I start to get better.

I would recommend that you might want to try a couple of the scenarios that come with the game as well to familiarize yourself with the game mechanics. The default level on those is set to Regent, so neither you nor the AI has any bonuses. It you are going to try to start at Regent, I would recommend starting with a standard to large map and less than the maximum number of civilization for the map until you get a feel for the game.

 

[Spoonwood]

I don't view higher levels on Civ III as pigeonholing you into certain strategies. Still, if you haven't played Civ III in a while, Regent seems like a good starting point. "Lower" difficulty levels also for other games.

 

[Big Rob]

Play one at chieftain for the hell of it. Then, I agree with the regent/monarch.

 

[Desertsnow]

I recommend Chieftain only for people who have never played before, and even then only one game before moving up, regardless of the outcome. If you've played before, even if it has been years since you have played, then start at Warlord and then move up to at least Regent.