What settings do you put?

[Darkpriest667]

My roomate and i loved playing hotseat multiplayer and now do it over the internet . (our hub does not allow us to play lan games) . However we usually have to restart 30 to 50 times before we get a game we can play full length.

the difficulty setting is noble.

8 computers Domination and Conquest victories only. Ancient time set no advanced start.

world size huge fractal land mass.

Is there something we can change to make it a challenging game but not over challenging?

Perhaps lowering the amount of computers to 6 or 8? or changing the landmass type?

 

[DaveMcW]

If you are limiting the victory conditions to domination/conquest, inform the AIs by checking "Aggressive AI".

 

[DMOC]

Switch to Prince difficulty.

 

[Capellan]

we usually have to restart 30 to 50 times before we get a game we can play full length.

Why do you "have" to restart? Without knowing what your objection to the 30 to 50 other games is, it's impossible to say what settings you need to use to get what you feel is an acceptable game.

 

[CreeDakota]

If you and your buddy are playing on a Team you have a BIG advantage, up the difficulty to Prince. If against each other its MP rules and very different.

Role Play Rules / Goals can also make a game harder. Things like No chopping, no slavery, only open borders with shared religion, no tech trading (but tech trading on!)
etc.

Why do you restart so much?

 

[QuixotesGhost]

Multiplayer games have the advantage that you can move up half-steps in difficulty, the AIs settings effect their bonuses; your settings effect yours. So if you're not ready to move up to prince, you can set your settings on prince to increase some of your penalties or you can move the AIs to prince to increase their bonuses.

I have a roomate I play Lan games w/ AI often and I'm a better player than him so we'll keep the AIs at his level and ramp up my difficulty to Immortal or Diety. We don't play on a team, but we have a rule that I don't Declare against him. Turning the AI against the other, espionage, and privateers are all fair game though.

So we're not really playing on a team; but we're not really playing against one another either. It's like two seperate games of Civ in the same instance.

I generally use the games as an opportunity to sandbox a bunch of goofy strats, and then we talk about everything that happened in the game afterwards. Discussing the game you just played with someone else really helps you identify the missteps you made.

 

[Darkpriest667]

the problem is the crappy starts... either one of us is cut off in growth early on or after we declare war on one ai the rest of the ais declare war against us..


I honestly dont know how any of you are beating it on prince the ai kicks the crap out of us most of the time and we have to restart... once one of us knows we're going to lose we restart... like i said 30 to 50 times before we play a full game out..


over the past 2 weeks we've spent 6 days all day long playing and all of those games have ended before the modern era...



we've both been playing civ games for 10 plus years... ive plaed all 4 and he has played 2 3 and 4.. with all expansions of course.

My favorite little AI trick is the AI winning on 75% to 95% combat odds. if it was 75% then why did i just lose 3 units in a row lol makes no sense to me why the computer gives you odds if you arent going to get them

i have 2 questions

1) do you all manually control your workers?

2) do you all assign the city tiles being used by each city?

Also... we also have the rule that we dont declare against each other... that doesnt usually make a difference since the computer always starts us farthest away from each other as possible.

 

[Darkpriest667]

and the definition of a crappy start is

1 - starting on a small penisula... where the ai traps you by building more cities than is possible to do with the "extra city gold penalty" I once had 3 cities and Catherine already had 10.. how the heck she was paying for them is beyond me.

2 - starting surrounded by your enemies on all sides before you get more than 3 cities

3 - starting with absolutely no strategic resources - elephants, copper, iron, horses.. if i have one ill usually keep playing it out.. but without 2 or at least iron you are boned in the long run.


I would define a good start as being able to build 8 to 12 cities and having access to iron and horses and preferably all of the strategic resources.

 

[PhroX]

and the definition of a crappy start is

1 - starting on a small penisula... where the ai traps you by building more cities than is possible to do with the "extra city gold penalty" I once had 3 cities and Catherine already had 10.. how the heck she was paying for them is beyond me.

Well, Cathy is probably the best "REXing" AI. She gets cheap settlers, and "free" border pops, and she plays to these strengths very well, by spamming cities. Though I'm curious about the timescales involved. You really should be looking for at at least 6-7 cities by 1AD. As for how you pay for it, well, it's a matter of tanking your economy in the short term, in exchange for long term gains. As long as you get Writing early on, it's perfectly acceptable to be running at 0% science. Whip out Libraries, run scientist specialists, then tech Code of Laws (whip Couthouses) and Currency to get your ecenomy back on track.

2 - starting surrounded by your enemies on all sides before you get more than 3 cities

If you're playing on a huge map with only 8 AIs, and this happens, you're expanding way too slowly. Get more cities.

3 - starting with absolutely no strategic resources - elephants, copper, iron, horses.. if i have one ill usually keep playing it out.. but without 2 or at least iron you are boned in the long run.

It can be a bit tougher, but you're hardly "boned". Just play defensively - Archers, Catapults & Longbows should be plenty enough to keep you safe - until you reach Rifles, then you don't need the resources. Or, to reduce the chances of this happening, play a civ with a resource-free unit, like the Aztecs.

I would define a good start as being able to build 8 to 12 cities and having access to iron and horses and preferably all of the strategic resources.

IMO, thats a *perfect* start. I'd say a good one is 3-4 good cities, plus maybe the same amount marginal ones, and one resource.

 

[Babibo]

we'll keep the AIs at his level and ramp up my difficulty to Immortal or Diety.
So we're not really playing on a team; but we're not really playing against one another either. It's like two seperate games of Civ in the same instance.

There's something I don't understand here.

In my games (when I set up a Custom game), I leave the AIs at Noble level which I thought was the standard. When I do that, the game clearly looks like a normal Immortal game (I'm setting my own level at Immortal).

It appears to me that the bonuses the AI get depend on YOUR level. In multiplayer, their bonuses seem to depend on the lowest level chosen by the players. For example, once, I played a game with 2 other people. I was on Immortal, and my friends were on Prince/Monarch, I think. I did a chariot rush with, like 10 chariots and what do I see ? The AI next to me had only 3 or 4 warriors to defend herself... (poor Isabella)

So, 2 questions :
- Am I right ?
- If I set the AIs at Settler level, will the game be harder ?
- what would an all-Deity game look like ? I guess the AIs would be pretty bad, cause they would have the same penalties as us...

 

[Supr49er]

Welcome to the Forums Darkpriest667.

 

[Cashew]

On noble all but THE worst starts are playable and winnable. If you have no metal or horse within 10 tiles then I might consider that a restart. If for some reason you have a really low food cap and virtually no food elsewhere then that might be a restart. Combined this should be only 1 in every 10 games you need to restart. Most of the time there is SOME kind of angle you can play to make the most of whatever poop land you're given.

I would not consider times where you spawn on a peninsula or times you are surrounded by the AI to be times you need to restart. You can easily kill 2 or 3 AI at the same time provided you don't waste time growing cities early on and building useless crap like libraries and wonders.

 

[UWHabs]

Specialize. Key to winning. Allowed me a smooth move up to monarch.

But in general, what's described here (multiplayer, but humans on the same team) I find plays exactly like single player (except you don't have the nice "regenerate map button at the start).

The way I do it is I'm playing with someone else, and we're both Prince/Monarch players, for example (ie. making the move to monarch), then we'll both play at monarch. Since you get big bonuses as a team (shared research, shared wonder benefits, etc...), it seems to be about the right level to play at. If you can both beat the game at Noble, both of you as a team should be able to beat them at Noble no worse than before.

 

[Lessa]

My friend and I have found that if we want to play multiplayer we really need to to use one of the MP designed maps, usually Hub or Wheel. Although their design does rule out a really early rush, it does ensure that you get relatively balanced start.

Using normal maps we tended to find that our starts were too unbalanced.

 

[Darkpriest667]

in the internet multiplayer staging room there is no way to change the AI's difficulty there is only a way to change your difficulty setting..


perhaps im missing something but ive tried everything and they all are on noble and greyed out...


again no one answered my questions.


1. should i be managing the tile useage of my cities

2. should i be controlling my workers manually?

 

[Supr49er]

in the internet multiplayer staging room there is no way to change the AI's difficulty there is only a way to change your difficulty setting..


perhaps im missing something but ive tried everything and they all are on noble and greyed out...


again no one answered my questions.

That's right, but the AI does scale with you in terms of added units, bonuses, etc.

1. should i be managing the tile useage of my cities

2. should i be controlling my workers manually?

1) Yes
2) Yes

 

[Darkpriest667]

That's right, but the AI does scale with you in terms of added units, bonuses, etc.




1) Yes
2) Yes

ok... thats a major flaw both of us have been making... Im also going to start choosing my civ instead of letting it be random.. Ive chosen Catherine as i like to expand and like the culture spread bonus.


Workers primary focus should be improving cities and connecting resources i assume

 

[Darkpriest667]

I used to manage my own cities in civ 2 and in civ 3 i gave that up so ill just go back to my old style ..


We usually automated the workers and let the computer manage our cities.. i see the rise to monarch being much easier now

 

[JujuLautre]

Managing your citizens is not so crucial: you can use the city's governors, who do a pretty fair job in the matter.

 

[Darkpriest667]

well i started as catherine on a penisula however the food was great.


i noticed significant increase in access to resources and more productive tiles using my workers myself...


My friend refuses to do it so ill show you our progress via screen shots.