What are the different "types" of games for you, that feel very different and scratch a different itch?

[forklift]

For me, playing mostly on Immortal, my go-to is a Domination/Conquest mostly on one landmass, probably Pangaea, probably with Cuirassiers or Cavalry. I don't usually have much patience for Conq/Dom games with 1 movement units (to counter the tedium I've played Small maps, but I find having only 4 AIs boring), but I've done Construction rushes and rifles/cannons before out of necessity. But when I'm tired of the standard style, I get excited to play these other types of games because they feel very different:

• Culture: the strategy with diplomacy feels very different, and there's a lot of Excel-on-second-monitor to figure out how much commerce each of my 3 cities have/will have, where to build the Hermitage, how many Great Artists and where to use them, etc. So much tile micro, play much slower.
• Archipelago (regardless of wincon): feels like a different game, with a vastly different tech path, different buildings in cities, completely different units, etc.
• Playing quickly on Emperor difficulty: Just feels nice not having to micro everything so much
• Rushing the Pyramids and running a Specialist Economy: There's a very specific joy in getting loads of great people, not building many cottages, and then chewing through Classical/Medieval techs in 3-4 turns
• Always War on lower difficulty: Haven't done this, but have approximated it by choking an AI with Quechuas before. Watching Henrik videos it looks like quite a different type of game.
• One City Challenge on lower difficulty: Also haven't done
• Years ago, I played an Epic speed game, which I think honestly is better balanced - tech is much slower so timing windows are much wider. For example, it's much easier to attack with knights before they get longbows. Which means you don't need to plan a war for 1000 years - you don't have to build your whole 5000-year old civilization on ONE timing attack with one or two units to hit a gap before your enemies tech up. But it's just too slow and too tedious, so I never did it again.

So what are the different "types" of games for you, that feel very different and scratch a different itch?

 

[SittinDown]

If you like one landmass, but are getting tired of Pangaea, try Highlands, Lakes, Inland Sea, Rainforest, or Great Plains.

 

[ArchGhost]

Typically I'll just play Immortal/Normal speed on a random map generator with options to remove Island heavy maps (no Archipelago, Big+Small or Medium+Small script), with temperate and low sea level. I add another AI to compensate for the extra land but it's still possible for multiple players to wind up with 15 or so cities and I like bigger empires.

I play Earth18 a lot for the novelty. Each civ is a different challenge in solving the map

For a different type of fun, I'll do either 18 civs on Duel/Pangaea with Normal speed, or 18 on Huge with Marathon/Pangaea. The first is like a cage match and can be completed in just a couple hours, the second is more for satisfying that urge for gigantic, epic sized empires with massive wars and no civs sitting in a corner going Culture/Space while you're fighting for your life against a dogpile lol.

 

[Gumbolt]

India is horrible on Earth 18. So much jungle. Adds to the challenge if you wanted one. English would be more fun if you didn't have to move the capital. Eygptians and Persians good fun with UU. French too if you can roll over the European Ai quickly.

Always war on Earth 18 not so easy but maybe possible if you stagger meeting the AI.

 

[intutama]

Recently I'm playing with no tech trading, definitively changes the game and makes it more like Civ 5 (the good part of it). It's like playing mini-marathon, everyone is slower because you have to tech everything by yourself rather than trade 5 techs a turn, and it starts making sense to build a bunch of buildings I'd wouldn't build otherwise.

 

[Gumbolt]

Recently I'm playing with no tech trading, definitively changes the game and makes it more like Civ 5 (the good part of it). It's like playing mini-marathon, everyone is slower because you have to tech everything by yourself rather than trade 5 techs a turn, and it starts making sense to build a bunch of buildings I'd wouldn't build otherwise.

Maybe that would work well on AW Earth 18 with Aztecs. Still not managed to win this yet. Assuming it is possible.

What was the part of Civ 5 you liked? The unhappiness from combat always annoyed me. Never finished a game of Civ 5 yet.

 

[intutama]

Let's not derail this thread into yet another "Civ 4 vs Civ 5" debate But basically, Civ 5 is less challenging and stressful, and sometimes you just want to play something like that.

 

[ArchGhost]

India is horrible on Earth 18. So much jungle. Adds to the challenge if you wanted one. English would be more fun if you didn't have to move the capital. Eygptians and Persians good fun with UU. French too if you can roll over the European Ai quickly.

Always war on Earth 18 not so easy but maybe possible if you stagger meeting the AI.

India is not ideal but one of the easier ones if you go steal Persepolis with warriors. Then it's just a Persia game with no Indian neighbor

I've played England a few times both as isolationist (Culture) and by expanding to Scandinavia backed off GLH economy and just conquering the old world like normal. She's not too bad as Britain has the resources for two INSANE wonder centers, Iceland can be expanded to with a Library to push 100 culture in NW corner city (Iceland makes a good Moai city) and she's FIN + PHI which is great when there's little threat of being attacked. Japan is much worse as far as limited land goes.

Any European civ is easy mode, yes.

Most difficult civs are Mali, Japan/Inca, and Egypt in that order. Very easy to get outpaced as the first 3 with limited/bad land for early game. Africa's land is crappy for a long time (lots of it is PLAINS jungle) so you have to make a move and either take Hatty (if Mali) or Saladin/Cyrus (if Egypt) early if you don't want to turtle for half the game.

Aztec/America are free wins but pretty boring.

All subject to change moving up to Deity, I'm sure. And I'm not brave enough for Always War on such a massive map Might be easier as an African civ for the reasons of staggering AI like you suggested. Or New World, for a free win again haha.

 

[Gumbolt]

English are not hard you just need to relocate capital if you want to invade Europe. You can easily spam 20+ cities. Egyptians UU is over powering on this map. Mali you likely want to move capital. Their UU is not bad for early rushes.

Incans there are ways to make it work but it's a lot of effort. Aztec/America on always war I struggled on. Just couldn't pull off conquest. I guess culture would be easy for that.

I think some civs would be winnable with always war. Just roll out a strong UU and go. Maybe French? It gets harder late game as the AI eventually start building units.