The effect of diety map settings on difficuilty

[Mopheo]

I just won my first deity game (with Russia) on standard pangaea on my first try :grad: and want to make it a little more difficult (but not too hard).

Is deity harder or easier on maps with more or less land area, different types of land masses or different degrees of barbarians (assuming your not playing for conquest or domination, at least before modern age)?
To make it easier to compare people’s opinions you could uses a “scoring” system:
If deity on standard pangaea map with maximum land size has a difficulty of a 100
And emperor with the same settings has a difficulty of 50, then say how different things would affect it. (as in +15, +20, -5 etc.)

To make it easier for everyone else, I’ll set it up so you just have to fill in the blanks:
Pangaea:
Continents:
Archipelago:
Sedentry Babs:
Roaming Babs:
Forgot what it’s called Babs:
Raging Babs:
Tiny:
Small:
Medium:
Large:
Huge:

I hope you experienced deity players are willing to fit in what you know . This could also serve as useful guide for people wanting to play the easiest initial deity game.
Oh, and if you feel really generous do the same thing for all the civs you played .

 

[WildFire]

Originally posted by Mopheo
I just won my first deity game (with Russia) on standard pangaea on my first try :grad: and want to make it a little more difficult (but not too hard).

Forgot what it’s called Babs:

Congrats on your first diety win.

And its restless barbarians.

 

[DaveMcW]

I think random settings are the hardest (and most fun!), because you don't know what to expect.

If you have to pick settings, I would go with the middle option every time. This is the easiest for the AI to deal with.

Another way to adjust the difficulty level is restart until you have a high-quality or low-quality starting location.

 

[Nad]

the more barbarians the harder the game.

More land can make the game a little easier as it means you can get a share larege enough to win the game that much more easily than having to fight for every square, which is what can happen on some 80% water maps.

 

[ivory]

I have yet to win my first Deity game, but want to say that I think larger maps are more difficult. Quite the opposite from what Nad said. Since the AI can expand faster, they benefit more from the extra land than you. In my experience, the AI needs no reason like lack of tiles to declare war.

 

[Nad]

just to clarify: firstly, not larger maps, just maps with a higher land %. And secondly, yes the AI grabs a larger SHARE of the land the more you have because of its lower settler costs, however, as a human player you normally need a certain number of cities to be able to compete succesfully, for example, on a standard map, you would want 15-20 cities to get yourself into a game-winning position; it is much easier to get that many cities if there is more land available

 

[ivory]

More available land, yes, I meant that too, as should be clear from the context. Sorry. Thanks.

Pangaea is the most difficult type of map I would say, because the AI's get to know eachother quicker and start the tech trade sooner. Archipellago is also difficult, if you 're totally left out of any communications until they show up at your shores with an ironclad or so...
Continents are a nice compromise, when you 're with two or three others it is easier to keep up with them.

 

[Grille]

Don't know if setting of Barbs (btw, I'm afraid of raging Babs! ) will have much of an effect, especially when number of rival civs is at maximum level. If there are any Barbs, ai likes to hunt for them very early w/ their bonus units and the tech pace may be faster due to hut-popping.
I agree with ivory and Dave that middle options (continents...) are probably the easiest conditions to deal with.

 

[samildanach]

I think an old earth and temperate are the easiest for the AI to deal with and therefore diety will be tougher using these map conditions. A human player has more discretion about where he/she founds their cities therefore maps featuring more extreme terrain and climate will favour human players.