Which is your preference?

[Olson]

[I've never posted a poll before and want to see how it's done. This is my test poll.]

Pick the option that *best* describes your response to the following statement:
" I *prefer* to play a CivIV game with a combination of difficulty level and settings options in which I can *expect* to win __________ % of the time.

[Edit: BTW, I did not choose the option that lets others see who voted for which option]

 

[AW Arcaeca]

I like Civ4, but in all reality, I am very, very bad at it. So I can expect to never win and have a pleasant surprise if I do happen to. I voted >25%.

Actually, I'm kind of confused. Are we supposed to be voting on some kind of preference or our chance of winning?

EDIT: After rereading your statement-completion phrase, well, I would rather play a game where I win 100% of the time, obviously, because not many people like to lose. It's just that such a game is highly improbable for me.

 

[duckstab]

I voted 51-74%. I want to win more often than not, but if I played at a difficulty level where I won more than 3 out of 4 games there would not be enough challenge to make it interesting.

BTW, I have never moved beyond Noble. I'm sure I could win on higher levels if I put a bit more effort into it, but I've never wanted to do so because I've always been more of a "narrative" player. Once the AI starts getting highly noticeable bonuses and you have to start applying game mechanics in a less realistic way, it's just not as enjoyable an experience for me.

 

[plastiqe]

"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."

 

[Windsor]

I wish Civ was a more fun game to lose, but the game is clearly designed to be won.

 

[gps]

100% - no questions asked here. Although I don't manage to do so. But I also don't like to give up a game as lost. So I have quite a handfull of unfinished games or games that are obviously going wrong stored and often I return to them later when I have a new idea how to deal with the situation or when I feel I've improved enough to retry.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

When people answer this '100%' are you saying you always set up your game to be a win?

I could win 100%, no question. Set difficulty on 'settler' or 'chieftain' and I could probably just keep everything else on random and still win 100%, not a shadow of doubt in my mind. And I also don't doubt that everyone who has answered this poll could do the same. So clearly no one is really all that interested in winning 100% of their games.

Duckstab's answer is, I suspect, dead on. Not necessarily in specifics. I landed on a slightly higher level and I win quite a bit less than half the time, myself. But does anyone really set their difficulty low enough that they are pretty sure they will win?

 

[Seraiel]

I understood the question in the way what "I want" and not necessarily what is the truth. I also thought about answering with 99% later, but I'm very glad that more players chose the 100%, because of course "I want to win 100% of the times" , I mean, that's the reason to playing, "play to win" etc.

 

[Iranon]

I *would* prefer settings that gave me a fair or slightly better than fair chance to win the game - so below 25%.

51-74% is the bracket I actually play, because settings that'd give me me a fair chance against the AI would let the game degenerate into a cheesefest.

 

[PreLynMax]

<snip>

BTW, I have never moved beyond Noble. I'm sure I could win on higher levels if I put a bit more effort into it, but I've never wanted to do so because I've always been more of a "narrative" player. Once the AI starts getting highly noticeable bonuses and you have to start applying game mechanics in a less realistic way, it's just not as enjoyable an experience for me.

This is why I don't play beyond Noble, because anything higher where the AI gets bonuses against you is simply no fun.

 

[Antilogic]

I serve up the computer something fierce, considering it doesn't go for anything besides a culture victory and I always play with espionage on.

 

[dohh]

I understood the question in the way what "I want" and not necessarily what is the truth. I also thought about answering with 99% later, but I'm very glad that more players chose the 100%, because of course "I want to win 100% of the times" , I mean, that's the reason to playing, "play to win" etc.

Now its my turn to argue You The question could be also understood, how challanging You set Your games. I win about half of games (of which again half thanks to couple of imporant loads).

The purpose of any game should be however having a decent chance of losing. When I start to win about 9 times on ten, I adjust settings accordingly. So one could say that I want to losesignificant amount of games.

 

[Quintillus]

I voted 75%. I'd prefer to say I prefer to win 51-74% of the time, but the reality is that I like to win a little bit more than that, so 75% is the most realistic choice.

Basically, if it's never even close, the mid-to-late game isn't interesting. If I'm playing Deity, I'm almost always going to get steamrolled, and that's no fun (though I was quite pleased the two times I won a Civ III war on Deity - just for another AI to steamroll me). My ideal is that I can usually pull off a victory, but with it being close at the end, and with a chance of a loss if I misjudge something. In practice, it usually isn't that close at the end, but as I have at least a few difficulty struggles, I tend to be happy.

A couple games that I'd say were very close to the ideal:

[*]A Civ4 World Map Better AI game where I played as England, was the most advanced, and went for space race. The AI actively attempted to prevent me from winning, which was enough to make it very difficult and close, so much so that I nuked myself just to stop their Stack of Doom. However, the AI actually became too savage in attacking me, such that it became unfun fighting nearly everyone with no real hope of peace, and I didn't finish that game.
[*]The current Civ3 COTM. For details you'll have to see the spoiler threads, but it was set up as very much an uphill battle, and that resulted in a very fun situation where nearly everything was in the AI's favor, but with some cunning tactics I was able to create at least a chance of - though by no means a guarantee of - victory.

The other factor that causes me to choose 75% is that in Civ3 I usually play Monarch, not Emperor. I can win on Emperor, but less than half the time. On Monarch, it's rare that I lose. Thus, most of the time, I like to have a pretty good chance of winning, but every so often I'll play a game where I'm not likely to win. Civ4 I'm not as good at, so I usually play noble, where I usually win, but by less of a margin than Civ3 Monarch.

 

[alex15]

Losing on hardest difficultys gives more score then winning at lower difficultys.

If some one winning 100% of his games he should change map i.e huge 18civs archipelago instead of small pangea with 7 civs, chose civ with worse UU and UB i.e playing underpowered civs instead of overpowered civs, puting harder difficulty, stopping using overpowered things like things what increase chanse to win, for example stop building wonders, stop tech trading or something - i mean if some one winning too much he should give AI chanse to win too.

I dont like losing in multiplayer but losing vs AI is fun, cas games vs AI take less time

 

[Seraiel]

Now its my turn to argue You The question could be also understood, how challanging You set Your games. I win about half of games (of which again half thanks to couple of imporant loads).

The purpose of any game should be however having a decent chance of losing. When I start to win about 9 times on ten, I adjust settings accordingly. So one could say that I want to losesignificant amount of games.

It took me some time to answer towards this post, but here it is:

I agree that the purpose of a game should be having a decent chance of losing. However, the purpose of gaming should be wanting to win. Therefor, the question that was asked is not trivial and can be understood in multiple ways, which is the reason to the many answers that it has produced. I personally answered with 100% because I regard myself as a hardcore gamer. You wanting to lose games is ok, because you're still in a phase where you learn to conquer Deity, but I play Deity for 2y now already, my purpose of gaming is to get a greater understandment of the things happening. I'm at a point where I'm taking everything I learned into real life, and I don't differenciate between virtual life and real life anymore, so one could say, while you still play Deity, I play myself and the difficulty "Seraiel" is above yours .

If you don't believe me, search the S&T's subforum for a post from a user named Kjotleik and laugh .

 

[Olson]

I voted 51-74%. I want to win more often than not, but if I played at a difficulty level where I won more than 3 out of 4 games there would not be enough challenge to make it interesting.

BTW, I have never moved beyond Noble. I'm sure I could win on higher levels if I put a bit more effort into it, but I've never wanted to do so because I've always been more of a "narrative" player. Once the AI starts getting highly noticeable bonuses and you have to start applying game mechanics in a less realistic way, it's just not as enjoyable an experience for me.

To date, I can relate to everyone's p.o.v. But duckstab's post is pretty much what I'd say now. I'm between Noble and Prince, for the most part, have won 1 'always war' on Monarch (out of 3 tries) by turning off tech trading/barbs/huts & picking my leader...so it doesn't really count as a "Win" win...more like a "handicap win" win).

But if someone said I had to decide my rate of winning, I'd pick more than half (for my ego) but less than "always"; to the extent winning would matter enough to play. For me, there'd have to be at least a 1 out of 4 chance of losing in a two-player game (which I consider solo play Civ) to make winning meaningful in any sort of way. A 50/50 chance of losing makes winning that much more meaningful without making it too uncommon.

To consistently win or lose more than 75% of my games, given how long they take, just wouldn't feed my ego enough to enjoy it.