what is your highest difficulty level in g&k

[smallfish]

Immortal is like the level where its unfun at the beginning, but once you've set down and become a real sovereign power with the cool toys, it becomes so much more fun than the lower levels.

The trick is to survive long enough to matter.

I think I need to play this level more. I also think its very little different from Quick Emperor; Standard Immortal that is. The AI's unit spam is roughly around the same, era entrances if you judge by turn times are almost there... only wonders seem fickle, but that's when you start war-a-mongering.

 

[ahawk]

Just to counter the impression that this forum gives - that everyone is playing on deity and that playing on any lower level makes you somehow less of a man - here's some stats from steam:

Won a game on:

Settler 18.8%
Chieftain 27.9%
Warlord 17.0%
Prince 15.5%
King 6.4%
Emperor 3.4%
Immortal 1.8%
Deity 1.3%

Someone already mentioned that the Civ forum poll is probably going to be skewed because it'll have better players than the global average in it (since if they take the time to come here, they probably are a bit more into the game and how it works than others).

But aside from that, winning a game on a difficulty level once does not mean we are all people who regularly play on that level. In the post I just made on this thread before this one, I said I've beaten Deity, sure, but that I've only done it a very small number of times, and that I play primarily Emperor, King, and Prince. After all, the poll only asked what was the highest difficulty level anyone has beaten, not which level we tend to play most.

However, I agree at least with what you were going for with this: each difficulty level has its own challenges. Not everyone has the time to plan out every worked tile in every city they own. Often, the issue is that we have other things to attend to in life than recreation, and trying to play well takes too much time on the higher difficulty levels. If I have limitless time, I can probably beat Deity easier than if I played Immortal or even Emperor and gave myself only 5 minutes per turn. So, difficulty level isn't everything in terms of challenge, and in that regard I agree with you.

 

[jeamlands]

This is the most elitist post I have ever seen.

You repeatedly insult these lower level players and explain how you are better than them. Using thing so vague as to be useless while admitting to reloading over and over.

I also have no clue what you mean about the AI's bonuses making it harder to think more than a few turns ahead, it seem to me that the bonuses don't prevent you from planning ahead at all just force you to plan for different things.

I hope that looking up the meaning of elitist on dictionary.com doesn't make me an elitist on this forum .
But unlike one of the meanings states, I do care about everyone else even thou I don't think that the elitist superiority comes from believes or guesses but from facts and logic. I guess that you interpreted my desire to help people to go up difficulty levels as an excuse to insult them .... I don't need this forum to insult people , but I do like to tell the truth. I hope btw I joined the right forum, I can also ramble elsewhere...

The truth being, that you can like the game, you can love it and think its very entertaining, but to solve the a dilemma of a player on a Deity level is not an easy thing, its involving a lot of randomness and unknowns inherited from the start of the game. I personally have switched to playing at Deity with random seed and save and load because I felt that the "real" fun starts when I make it harder for me to predict what will happen next and increase the number of positive outcomes I can create in one action with only theoretical tools and not more actions. So a single save and load will have to ensure that that all my predictions still hold true while the number of random variables grows. I am not sure we are playing the same game at this point .

The truth being , that you can skip a lot of wasted time by actually doing something the right way with the highest degree of respect to the game and eventually rise to another levels of understanding not by guessing but by learning. The subject of my post was "Deity or nothing !", which would suggest that I think the game should come ONLY in this mode or even more difficult , to encourage people to do this the right way from the start in order to ensure their success.

The truth being, that most of starting players can't possibly read and remember all the rules of the game and instead, trust their reflexive memory and learning curves to fill the gaps. While I don't think that anyone on this forum can say differently ( me included) , I do think that reading the rules of the game before you despair for help is the proper way. This problem is not only relevant to start players and but also for people who don't have time in their lives to dedicate to this process or have slower PC's that can't play my gigantic earth scenario. My current 145 turn game is a result of 3 month of game play, I picked this game on purpose because I thought it was unbeatable for a very long time. Now .... who in sane mind would waste 3 month of their lives on Deity level just to advise me on my insanity ?

The truth being, that there are obvious flaws in game design and lack of in-game tools that are not talked on this forum that should have helped players with their quest to higher difficulties. The biggest one is the lack on in game calculator and more advanced status variables so you will not need a calculator. The best tools out there to analyse your game play like Info Addict also come with limited mathematical support thou provide a little "cheating" bonus by being able to analyse more hidden data then someone who doesn't like the tools. So the lack of basic math components of the game is making more players to play on instinct rather on facts and this is keeping them from advancing in their game understanding. ( and when I say game, I mean their own random theoretical problems for specific scenarios , not Civ 5 in general ) . "How many of you used calculator in civ" , this is much more interesting survey for me.

The truth being, that in my personal experience from King to Deity and beyond, I have discovered that the deepest roots of human nature are involved in basic design of the game. I discovered that I am lying, cheating and soothing myself all the time in game logic and almost like in faith I am happy when I stop thinking hard and discover a dogma. When in fact, because I like to skip ahead to see the effects of my decisions, I discover that this dogma is a lie. So, I assume that all of us are not that different and all of us are playing the game while constantly lying to our selves that this dogma would hold in any other scenario.

My point being , when I stopped lying to myself I started to win games I thought were super impossible to win. So everyone stuck under the deity level !!! Stop lying to yourself read the rules of the game and use calculator and info addict to improve your decision making !!!!

Now to your question .

In my scenario , the furthermost and the winner of this scenario AI player bonuses ( I still have no idea who he is ) are unknown to me ( I know that he started with 1 more settler , but I can't predict where he would build the city since the barbarians are random). So my end goal is to beat him without knowing how he grows so fast or how fast he grows. All my attempts to save and load from the first turns of the game might result in infinite number of endgame options which I have not experienced and didn't plan for.....I only skipped this scenario to the end 2 times so this is my best guess that he will win. For me, this logic ( here I go again and create a dogma ) and also from having to deal with in-game threats a little closer to the capital than the winning AI , I have concluded that the more bonuses the AI has the harder for me to take an action that would result in diminishing his randomness towards endgame. Making the value of shorter turn plans bigger seems the logical solution to ensure the plan succeeds, but really ....if someone told me now that disbanding a worker on turn 12 would win me the game ... I would take it .

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

immortal a few times, still no luck with deity. havent been playing as much lately either but ill get back to it.

 

[pensivepeppers]

King for me, I find it to be a good challenge (just went back to a few Prince games recently and whooped ass)

I sure hope whoever voted Settler is just trolling.

 

[The_J]

[...]

[...]

[...]

Moderator Action: Please set the focus on the topic, and in a civil way please, and not on each other.

 

[danieladler]

I have won on immortal difficulty several times with G&K but since its so corrupt, that its almost ridiculous, its more enjoyable to play emperor. I have said it before but i really would like some more possibilities to fine tune difficulty so you could get a level just in between emperor and immortal.

 

[nokmirt]

Before G&K came out, I was consistently winning Emperor and thinking about trying Immortal. No more.

After getting the expansion it felt like I had to completely relearn the game. I had a couple of failed attempts on King, both of which were quite a lot of fun. Attempt three, I cruised to an easy Cultural victory with Ethiopia. I can see myself getting consistently good at King and moving back up before too long, but I got a hell of a shock when I first played.

About to win my first attempt at Prince - ridiculously easy and rather a lot less fun, so much so that I keep flicking back to the failed King games when I get bored.

I am having the same problem. I have went back to king to work on my play. For some odd reason on emperor, I have been getting DoWed on by two civs at once. One problem is I am not scouting enough, and I end up dropping cities too close to unseen civs. Of course, before I am ready I end up in a massive war.

I'll work things out on king for a bit and move back up.

 

[The_Quasar]

I normally play at Immortal, at which I win mostly, although I've won a few games at Deity, but I find that too restricting to be fun. Sometimes I drop down to Emperor to try something different.

However, I never reroll, and I never go back to saves. I swallow my own occasional errors and play it as I find it. Usually I play a random civ, on a random map.

 

[Mesix]

I can win at any level. Deity about 50%, Immortal relatively consistently, and Emperor and below almost all the time. I enjoy playing at Emperor the best because I can sandbox a bit and try out different things, but the AI sometimes does something surprising. Playing Deity requires a meticulous attention to detail, almost predefined strategies, and abuse of shotty game mechanics (e.g. the AI bonus is supposed to be for the AI, not for the player to pilfer through lopsided peace agreements and shady diplomatic negotiations).

 

[Syntax Error]

The jump from Emperor to Immortal is too much. I like to build wonders, so I usually play emperor. If I want my civs a bit meatier and more leathery, I go Immortal (won an OCC science VC as Korea on turn 310).

The only good thing about higher difficulties is that the AI has more money to buy your stuff. Maintain four friends,Stack 1000 gold and by the time you get Education, sign 4 RA's. Quite nice.

 

[Demmian]

Just moved up to immortal . I always play marathon domination on huge maps so it will take some time to finish my current game , but it is going smoothly . First time playing babylon and i lead the score and the tech tree (atm rennaisance ) , so i am positive of a possible win . We will see in a few weeks

 

[Corvus corax]

As many others already said, your highest level win is not always a valid indicator of your overall skills in playing Civ5. In vanilla I won the first games I played on immortal and deity. Not because I was any good, but because both times the AI completely ignored my puny underdeveloped empire. I merely survived and when they finally built the UN, I managed to buy off some CS’s and win a diplomatic victory. Didn’t try the highest levels in G&K yet.
For me, I have most fun on king (90% wins) and emperor (50% wins). This is a much better indication, although I could do much better. If only I could be patient enough and persevering enough to micromanage and plan on exploits! But I don’t like that kind of play al all. FWIW: having fun is the most important thing for me playing Civ! I don’t like to micro-manage a lot, I don’t like to use exploits, I don’t like to re-roll. What I do like? Experimenting with strategies, playing intuitively and adjusting strategies to varying situations, making the best out of a bad start, handling unexpected situations.

 

[Mesix]

The jump from Emperor to Immortal is too much. I like to build wonders, so I usually play emperor. If I want my civs a bit meatier and more leathery, I go Immortal (won an OCC science VC as Korea on turn 310).

The only good thing about higher difficulties is that the AI has more money to buy your stuff. Maintain four friends,Stack 1000 gold and by the time you get Education, sign 4 RA's. Quite nice.

The difference between Emperor and Immortal is that in Emperor you build the early Ancient/Classical Era wonders and in Immortal, you let the AI build them for you while you build an army to take them away from the AI.

 

[smallfish]

Immortal is certainly not for the faint of heart

Spoiler :

But if you go for it, always remember science. By T100+, your bpt has to be atleast 100 or above. Or else the runaways will bury you.

Spoiler :

 

[nokmirt]

Yikes! Any problems in your neck of the woods?

 

[Socratatus]

One thing I must say is that CIv5 for me has turned out easier than all the other Civs I`ve ever played. I could never get past Warlord before, but that was so easy i`ve pushed onto prince, and that`s proving easy so I will go to King.

I don`t know if it`s because of the non-stacking thing, because now I understand much easier what`s happening in battles and can plan proper tactics or if the game`s been made easier in than previous Civs.

 

[pensivepeppers]

Greetings ,

I was a "king" and loved it.... BUT ...

Now , I am playing China on a giant YnAEMP G&K 180x96 "Deity" difficulty with 22 civs and 35 CS. After I played 2 full games it seemed impossible to win. The extra bonuses the AI got are making difficult to handle planning of a more then a few turns ahead, which leads confusion of what is the correct plan at ALL . Plus, because of the size of the map there is basically an AI player that I never meet and have no interaction with until the final stages of the game .... so in theory the "End game" could be vs an enemy that is almost unreachable and uncontrollable during the game.

To emphasize my point.... I have arrived at conclusion that the current scenario is unbeatable without save/load on any little detail ( my randomness is now a function of my own time and patience) and this forced me to take a good look at myself and measure, de-construct and reassemble EVERY though I had, which at this point just felt like a collection of reflexes rather than actual thoughts. It took me quite a lot of time to learn just to stare at a static screen of Civ 5 and do nothing but think on every word my mind produced to validate if its a reflex or a true thought.... the "action" would take place only when my mind fails to find another interconnection to further the analytic process.

The final result of my own mind reconstruction is that now I am at turn 145 of my game and I have no doubt in my mind that the only reason I am winning this game is not because I followed the save&load dogma but because I am a unique person with unique thoughts. My ability to see the results of an action after 300 turns while I hold hundreds of variables in my RAM brain can NOT be duplicated.

Now to the "claim" that a "diety" player can only communicate strategy to player in the same "bubble" ....

A player that would take on the exact same scenario which I am playing now,only without the knowledge of the difficulty level, would soon face the fact that none of his pre-planned thoughts works and the only way to win the game is to actually think.
A difference between "Prince" and "Deity" is that a "Prince" player will give up when the s**t hits the brains. ...while a "Diety" player would embrace the challenge even if the game cannot theoretically be won. The end result being that the "Diety" players have game concepts and morals much different than "Prince" players have.
Soooo....
If you think that calling players with advanced computation skills and highly developed game intelligence ...."elitists", is acceptable. You should also mention that "prince" players are lazy , weak minded and love the game for its pretty pictures.
Moderator Action: The 2 paragraphs above are in no way acceptable for this forum.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

In conclusion. Why would I want to talk a game strategy of my scenario with a "prince" player that thinks that the game was designed for 5 year old kids that click the "next turn" button whenever the current picture on the screen is boring them? Maybe, if I call them "worthless" all the time , one of them would actually wake up by reading my post for inspiration and decide to beat what now to him seems impossible and one day he can teach me a concept or two.

"It's not meant to be mean it's just common sense"

Cool.
Story.
Bro.
(Don't tell it again)
Moderator Action: Don't troll around.

 

[smallfish]

Yikes! Any problems in your neck of the woods?

Like many games on 'mortal that didn't end with me spectacularly winning, it was a learning experience. It was also kinda fun being the lone city-state empire watching everyone else going to war and whatnot, without being concerned about victory conditions.

Montezuma alternates being afraid of me, being guarded, hostile, NEUTRAL (ready to take back Texcoco):

Spoiler :

Also Monty the Tech Runaway, but not as good as Communist Napoleon:

Spoiler :

What he was building to counter my eventual acquisition of artillery, and to aid in his long wars with Rammkhamhaeng:

Spoiler :

A Classic Civilization Meme:

Spoiler :

I helped the Japanese take both Nakhon Suwan and Chicago (and Attila's Court) with my +1 Frigates, because they were my new allies once the Americans extinguished the Polynesians. Then Oda began running over Washington, people didn't like that, so Ramm the Villian and Napoleon DOWed him (and eventually, each other).

Spoiler :

Just before the UN vote, seeing how distracted Monty was with his latest (paid off) attempt at Rammkhamhaeng, I DOWed him - because I have artillery

Spoiler :

The UN Preliminaries:

Spoiler :

My first batch of rushbought GW Bombers, accurately named:

Spoiler :

I managed to push into Teotihuacan and liberate Belgrade, but that was it - between Aztec Infantry, SAMs, Machine Guns, Rocket Artilleries and Bombers tearing my units, trying to take that 130-def Information Capital Tenochtitlan would be a nightmare of epic proportions.

At least until I get a proper bomber stack running (and some more additional meatshields to protect Teotihuacan:

Spoiler :

And that was that.

 

[Splify60]

I am winning without fail on Immortal, I am currently about 50/50 on Deity.

Was really hard on Deity at first, but after watching some on maddjinn videos on YouTube, I am doing MUCH better on Deity