What is your most "fun" difficulty?

[DJMcCar12]

The highest difficulty I've played/beat the game on is Emperor and I haven't even moved up from that for one big reason. I feel as though Emperor was such a struggle to come back from early disadvantages that it almost took away from the realism/fun of the game. It turned into min/maxing and doing anything I had to do to win the game.

For me, playing on King is a lot more fun because it still provides a challenge but victory is obtainable while still kind of playing how you want rather than having to do absolutely everything "right", rush education, build certain buildings, etc.

So - what difficulty do you guys find most fun?

 

[steveg700]

You pretty much hit the nail on the head. On King, you play the game more than the game plays you. You can experiment, show initiative, and just plain get lucky, and it affects the game much moreso than at higher diffs where the AI gets such large benefits that your only hope is to leverage exploits and follow a scripted set of actions.

 

[livsbrand]

Torn between Emperor and Immortal. The times I've beaten Deity I've had to resort to exploits, while I have to follow a very strict pattern to beat Immortal exploit-free. On Emperor I get to have a little more room to do my own thing, but I rarely finish since the AI doesn't really get problematic at any point, gets boring unless I'm just rushing towards domination. Also, I like war, and I feel the AI doesn't make enough units on difficulties below Immortal to let me get super-promoted ditos. Immortal for me I guess. But it's not like I can't see myself enjoying doing some goofy stuff on Prince/King either, and I remember thinking King was quite a challenge not so very long ago.

 

[OmniPotent42]

Immortal - yes you have to avoid wonders most of the time (although if you get a good start you can usually get any wonder you beeline) but it seems like this is when the AI actually stays on par with you in terms of military and power. On emporer and below you can toss the AI around however you want - Immortal makes you stay on your toes until you have a strategy, which is the way I find funnest to play.

For example, it's really satisfying to take a city that is under the effect of the Great Wall with only 3 swordsmen, 3 composite bows and 1 catapult, and the only reason you took that city was because the AI was out of position with their equally large force. On Emporer and below you quickly jump ahead in tech, taking a lot of the late game challenge away.

 

[Fire0rb]

Well for me with BNW the Immortal difficulty plays itself, its nearly impossible to loose so Deity it is...

 

[casualplayer]

I have to really work to win at Deity and I can still lose even with my best game. Immortal is effort but I will almost always get there. Emperor used to be my "fun" niche but lately I run away in the early game and never look back. I'll say Immortal.

 

[JustinianIV]

GnK: Emperor
BNW: Immortal

 

[Buccaneer]

Immortal since that's playing a bit harder for me (diplomacy victory excepting) and the fun is trying to win effectively. I have a loooonnnng cultural game going now, trying to hold off from getting killed as well as purposely not winning diplomacy while I slowly get tourism up with almost no wonders. That's fun.

 

[dashwinner]

Winning on immortal is definitely more rewarding, as you do feel the pressure, and you take more time with the decisions you take knowing they could mean the difference between winning and losing. I recently lost a science Immortal game by ONE turn, and I KNOW that I could have won it if I had paid more attention to how I was spending my money/playing the game. Wars are more challenging, and you'll definitely feel the sting of losing some of your promoted units (which basically never happens on lower difficulties).

However, having said that, you will miss out on most wonders (and I do love my wonders), and it will be quite difficult to deal with leading AI civs on the other side of the map. I probably have the most 'fun' on emperor, although the end game is usually a bore as I already know I'm going to win by the end of the renaissance era, and usually will do stupid things like make AIs hate me just to get more a of a challenge. The last 100 turns of emperor games are quite boring.

I realized I just contradicted myself, so I'll say, early-game emperor is probably the most 'fun' for me, but then so is end-game immortal. Personally speaking, they both suffer from a similar issue. I'll usually know quite in advance that I've won an emperor game, but I usually rightly suspect that im going to lose an immortal game around that same time. I guess they are both fun, in different ways. I wouldn't mind a difficulty in between, like Emperor that progressively gets harder as the game goes on...

 

[budweiser]

Emperor is too easy. Immortal is too annoying atm -- still working out the bugs.

 

[neilkaz]

Emperor is too easy. Immortal is too annoying atm -- still working out the bugs.

We're in the same place. Guess we just both have to get better and have good competitive games on Immortal.

 

[budweiser]

We're in the same place. Guess we just both have to get better and have good competitive games on Immortal.

If I am on immortal, I have to play the map more, but I want to just sandbox the new mechanics. I dont want to have to kill the guy that spawned 9 tiles away before I can use the new stuff. This creates headaches.

 

[Buccaneer]

Nothing wrong with having to play the map and react to what's going on around you. At the higher difficulties, it should not give you any peace or freedom to allow you to sandbox.

 

[Maxym]

It used to be immortal, but now deity. Otherwise you can just walk all over the AI and it's not fun.

 

[z284pwr]

I have the cruel little kid with a magnifying glass mentality so King just because it's so entertaining completely destroying Civs with era or two better military. Oh hi Frigate meet my Missile Cruiser he wants to play a game.

 

[Blitz Spearman]

Immortal, no doubt about it.
I am into "advanced" strategies, so Emperor has no challenge whatsoever, but I don't like to play the most optimal strategy every single time, I like to experiment and play lower-tier civs to discover new effective strategies, so Deity would be too repetitive. And while experimenting different stuff on Immortal I will still lose the game about 30% of the time. Where is the fun in a game that you always win?

 

[cAtlas]

Emperor, I suppose. At least, on Immortal AI production and growth starts to be ridiculous, where on Emperor it feels like a necessary buff.

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

Immortal, no doubt about it.
I am into "advanced" strategies, so Emperor has no challenge whatsoever, but I don't like to play the most optimal strategy every single time, I like to experiment and play lower-tier civs to discover new effective strategies, so Deity would be too repetitive. And while experimenting different stuff on Immortal I will still lose the game about 30% of the time. Where is the fun in a game that you always win?

I'm with you, Blitz! I'm on a Deity kick right now, just to prove to myself I can win on it, but I hate the lack of Cultural victory path and, connected with that, being locked out of most World Wonders. (Though ... maybe if I play on a smaller map, it might not be as bad.)

On Immortal, I can't just Wonder-spam but there's the option of going with one big beautiful city for awhile (or maybe two), getting 2 or 3 wonders in there, and then expanding T80 or T90.

On Immortal if I want the game to be challenging it's just a matter of going with a middling civ on one of the tougher maps; I find Ring and Great Lakes (edit: Ancient lakes, I think?) to be particularly brutal. (The former, tons of barbs, which is different/interesting -- and lack of trade routes and CS access. The latter, it's damned tough to find a good place for a 3rd settler. Played most of these on the small maps, though, may be a bit roomier on standard.)

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Immortal for me. I just hate most of the advices i see about winning deity games (steal workers, abuse trade-DoW and the like), plus deity tends to reduce the possibilities (religion, yeah, try something else!). Various strategies is what makes the game re-playable.
Now, i've read it's better with BNW so i'm trying Deity again, but i doubt i'll play lots of deity games.

That being said, i wish the AI would be less dumb when it comes to waging wars. But even deity doesn't address this

 

[evilcat]

None. :-(
Problem with lower difficulties is that AI is stupid and you can easly enter sandbox mode.
The problem with higher difficulties is that it most strugles to the early game, limiting your option what you can do early on, and once you even up with science... AI is still stupid.

I like however raging barbarians, since that adds some spice to clickfest for 1st 100t.