What's your favorite difficulty setting?

[Thalassicus]

In the Vanilla Enhanced mod, which difficulty level do you find most enjoyable to play on a regular basis?

 

[albie_123]

Unfortunately, I could only vote for one.

I feel Prince is much better than Vanilla in providing a 'Level Playing Field', with the slight bonuses the AI gets, which even out the fact that you are obviously going to be in a more tactical mindset.

I play on King most of the time, it's a bit of a challenge but not too difficult.

Emperor is great for when I want to test myself, and immortal is also good for the same reason.

I'm just not good enough to play on deity.

 

[Sneaks]

Deity is my bread and butter, and it is downright difficult in this mod. This is primarily because gaming the RA system was pretty much a requirement to ever hope to keep tech pace. The upside is that the vast increase in GPPs available help allow for greater spawns, but still delays things substantially.

 

[GrayingGamer]

If I have to go higher than king level to get a challenge (and I like going for small or medium empires with science or cultural wins), then I'm not going to enjoy myself. Playing on the really high difficulty levels basically involves what I consider to be cheating - the AI cheats by getting ridiculous baseline bonuses, and I cheat back by taking advantage of game exploits and weak AI. It's just not immersive.

 

[Tomice]

By now I regained enough skills to beat Emperor most of the time. Haven't tried "pure" Immortal yet, only with adapted settings (we talked about this, an extra scout and this kind of stuff).

But it is hard to quantify my skills. I tend to "role-play" a lot, e.g. sometimes avoiding to raze cities or backstab AI's although it might be the best thing to do. I also tend to restart the game if I don't like the starting situation (e.g. starting as Greece in Tundra). And I'm experimenting a lot.

What was your vote, Thal?

 

[void_genesis]

Emperor is the best for playing intuitively so you can explore new strategies/civs/maps and respond to events as they unfold. It gives you serious challenges when you play this way but still dangles success in front of you.

 

[Zaldron]

I play king, and I probably still only win 60-70% of my games. I find it fairly noticeably harder than vanilla which is fine (I had to drop back from emperor).

 

[Thalassicus]

@Tomice
That's why I worded it as "favorite setting" instead of "what's your skill." The important thing in a game is to have fun after all.

I played on Prince for my first few years of Civ 4, then moved up to Monarch, and finally Emperor. I've remained on Emperor for the past two years of Civ 4 and Civ 5. Any higher than that and I tend to feel like Malachi... gotta find exploits to win. When I find exploits I fix them if I can, and avoid them when I can't.

 

[Tomice]

I agree with Malachi's point, too. I might be able to beat Immortal games, but then I'd have to think extensively about every small step, check my cities every turn and avoid unnecessary but fun stuff like having a few ships or building a few cool, but unimportant wonders.

 

[Txurce]

I play Emperor since Thal suggested dropping down a notch after he raised the bar a little. It usually feels like a challenge that can be achieved, which is fun. I will try Immortal again relatively soon.

 

[zarakand]

I'm at Emperor as well, the game is more fun at this level and I don't have to plan things like I do at Immortal. I can role-play my civilization's role, which for some reason is a lot of fun for me. Immortal feels like work because I find every decision is important, and I have to plan what I want to do instead of just going with the flow.

 

[Dunkah]

I play King and Prince. I seem to be just a bit higher level than Prince but can role play while I am playing making it fun.

I can usually beat King as well... but more difficult. I am waaaay to impatient to check my cities every turn and usually just research whatever the lowest cost Tech is at the time, unless I am looking for something to counter another player.

So if I have a bad couple of games on King I'll drop down and have a feel good game on Prince. Then go back up to King next game.

 

[Semprini]

I play immortal, i like to defend my borders while build secure cities.

Its not an easy task...

 

[mitsho]

I'm not much into Micromanaging, that's why I play on Emperor, it's the level where the tech progress is about equal between me and the AI and I don't need to take super care about where to place my scouts and so on, where I am allowed to make minor mistakes and still can keep playing without reload.

With Kings I am running away from the AI normally and with Immortal, I keep trailing behind...

 

[Tomice]

"... and usually just research whatever the lowest cost Tech is at the time, unless I am looking for something to counter another player."

I'm far from doing that, but I know what you mean. There is a point when all techs you need urgently to get your empire started are researched, and it seems like most techs don't provide an immediate benefit (e.g. they allow advanced things like opera houses when you still don't have temples in most of your cities).

Finding stuff worth beelining to is a major midgame challenge for me, too.

 

[Txurce]

There is a point when all techs you need urgently to get your empire started are researched, and it seems like most techs don't provide an immediate benefit (e.g. they allow advanced things like opera houses when you still don't have temples in most of your cities).

Finding stuff worth beelining to is a major midgame challenge for me, too.

I agree that every tech doesn't have an instant payoff after a while, but I am always beelining for something. AI warmongers never rest and Astronomy offers so many possibilities in a non-Pangaea game.

 

[Tomice]

I do try to always have a mid- to long-term goal, but the choice is more of a challenge when there are several techs scattered in-between that you don't really need. It's hard to judge what will help you most in 50+ turns.



Example: You beeline Keshiks as Mongolia. They will be your mainly produced unit for some time, and those cities that don't build them are probably busy building rather basic buildings. So what do you tech?

The lower branch with Iron working contains some nice other units and production boosters, but I usually don't need other units much (it doesn't mean much if you have swords or longswords if you reduce cities to 1hp anyway). I also prefer building units and have them conquer/defend rather than paying much for a building that helps me build them later.

The upper branch contains some science and culture boosters, but again, I won't have much space left in build queues for them. Ships are nice, but finding valuable islands or unsettled spots oversea is a gambling game at best.



To create a bridge to the original topic of this thread: I prefer a difficulty setting where I don't need to do calculations for an hour to decide what's the best next step, but to try a path and still have a chance to win if it wasn't the best choice.

 

[Txurce]

I do try to always have a mid- to long-term goal, but the choice is more of a challenge when there are several techs scattered in-between that you don't really need. It's hard to judge what will help you most in 50+ turns.

Example: You beeline Keshiks as Mongolia. They will be your mainly produced unit for some time, and those cities that don't build them are probably busy building rather basic buildings. So what do you tech?

The lower branch with Iron working contains some nice other units and production boosters, but I usually don't need other units much (it doesn't mean much if you have swords or longswords if you reduce cities to 1hp anyway). I also prefer building units and have them conquer/defend rather than paying much for a building that helps me build them later.

The upper branch contains some science and culture boosters, but again, I won't have much space left in build queues for them. Ships are nice, but finding valuable islands or unsettled spots oversea is a gambling game at best.

To create a bridge to the original topic of this thread: I prefer a difficulty setting where I don't need to do calculations for an hour to decide what's the best next step, but to try a path and still have a chance to win if it wasn't the best choice.

I agree that the Mongols in particular don't need more advanced units or the science buildings to research them, if you're sweeping the continent anyway. So I would say to beeline Astronomy for accelerated conquest opportunities. At that point you can determine whether your army will need more advanced weapons to take the other continent. (If you're playing Pangaea, techs become irrelevant because the game is probably over!)

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

Emperor is the most fun difficulty setting for me. (Map size always one smaller than standard, at maximum 6 citystates, random player nation.)

On my 3 or 4 immortal-games I was always attacked before round 30, because I tried to build the Great Library and had not much military. But without the Great Library the AIs are far away in tech (at least the tech leaders). And even if I fight of "ugly" neigbours like Bismarck, Japan oder China, the peaceful AIs are one era more advanced than I am.

The increase in difficulty between emperor and immortal seems big to me.

 

[The Boz]

I get lost in my own little goals and schemes, so I mostly play Kings and Princes. If I test myself with Emperor, I can win, sure. Thanks to the autosave feature, mostly. I've never beaten an Immortal or Deity game in CiV yet.