Will deity be hard enough?

[JeanBaptiste]

It feels like it took my years to win a standard game on deity difficulty in civ4.
I think it took me months before I won a game on deity in civ5
It took me a couple of days to win a game on deity in civ6.

This is the main reason I’m still playing civ4 all the time, civ5 sometimes and never civ6. Immersion and “building” are not enough for me. I respect those who play the game primarily for those reasons though. But I like a real challenge. Not self-imposed but from the game. I don’t care if the AI “cheats”. I want them however be able to win and I want to be pushed to play at my best in order to win myself.

What do you guys think about civ7. Will deity be hard? Real hard?

 

[Trengilly]

A lot of the changes to the game systems are designed in a way to make it easier for an AI to mange. And the three Age system allows for some rubberbanding to even things up to prevent you from snowballing. There was some conversation with devs where supposedly Deity was challenging.

My guess is that Civ 7 will be more challenging than Civ 6 . . . but that is a low bar.

But I would not expect Civ 7 to be 'real hard'. 'real hard' can be a detriment when trying to market a game to such a wide audience. Most players don't actually want 'hard'.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I hope it will be properly hard on Deity. There are difficulty levels for a reason: it can be fun for new players, young players, those who just want to relax and build stuff, experienced players, etc.

I personally doubt this will happen, but I hope so.

 

[Siptah]

One of the main reasons why civ VI deity is so easy, at least to my understanding, is that the AI gets huge starting bonuses that are relatively easy to convert into player bonuses. If this is no longer the case (and hopefully, it isn‘t) and they don‘t introduce stupid bonuses à la AI gets 2 free founders at the start of each age, VII will likely be a bit harder. Sadly, the common understanding of difficulty levels nowadays often is „everybody can do the hardest one.“

There‘s another lever the devs can use for challenge in VII: asymmetrical crises. On higher difficulty levels, crises can be made tough for players, while the AI gets less penalties (or none at all). I fear if the devs keep crises symmetrical for players and AI, the AI might just crumble on high difficulties.

 

[King Jason]

Deity hasn't been hard enough since 4; doubt it.

Also that was my exact trajectory as well. In fact, I've never beaten 4 on Deity. I beat 5 on deity in the first month, and I beat 6 on deity the 2nd day it came out.

I wish this game was like Soren Johnsen's Old World. That game has such a diverse spectrum of difficulty settings where you can pull all manner of different levers to tweak the game to be harder or easier; To the point where the A.I. won't ever capture any of your cities in a war if you're just that bad/disinterested in the aggressive game, or to the point where you start the game with a single city on a map, 1 screen away from a nation that already has 8 cities and a tech advantage.

You can make it a game you can sleepwalk through, or a game you will literally be smashing your face into the keyboard because it's ridiculously difficult to beat.

Nothing wrong with the civ franchise catering to a general audience. The Fact is, internal stats show that something like 80% of the audience doesn't play on difficulties any higher than the very middle one, and more players play on the lower settings than than even that one. But Damn, that doesn't mean the game can't at least attempt to create options in order to create diversity of play. However, the biggest problem is that you can't really make "stupid" a.i. and "smart" a.i. -- you can, in theory, but then it becomes sort of impossible to discern if an A.I. made a mistake or if an A.I. is bugged. The problem that Old world has in it's game is that the A.I. is good at all levels; especially when it comes to warfare. So that means the average civ player transitions to that game and gets absolutely walloped even on lower difficulties and that's never fun for anyone. In fact, just about 4-6 months ago, the devs actually introduced a new, even LOWEST difficulty, and recently tweaked the starting default settings to set the game to easy mode because it was too consistent at beating people up when they played the game for the first time. It makes sense to start people off light since the game can only go up from there in difficuIty

That's what's so great about the settings and the efforts of the devs over there; while Old World certainly skews to a crowd that enjoys a more challenging game experience, the developers aren't necessarily trying to alienate their audience. They actively, and consistently, update the game to include options and tweaks that cater to both demographics, and everything in between.

For the past 15 years, the civilization franchise has catered to the majority-share player base. Which certainly makes sense as a business model. But it's disappointing that they seemingly don't at least try to create settings or game modes for players who prefer a more challenging gaming experience from this genre. Old world has taught me that you can do both; not doing so is a conscious choice on part of the devs. So if "hardcore" gamers have been feeling a little neglected by the civ franchise these past few iterations; it's because you are. The game isn't for you, anymore - and it's painfully obvious.

 

[Siptah]

@King Jason Great Post! one thing to add re smart AI/stupid AI: while this dichotomy is tough, you can make little changes to 2-3 options that might satisfy a lot of people. HK had an option to turn the AI generally peaceful (i.e., it almost never declared war). I liked it as a challenge in games in which I wanted to be a builder foremost: high difficulty, no wars.
Age of Mythology retold comes with three AI options (aside from difficulty levels): defender, attacker, balanced. To me, such an approach seems feasible in civ. And maybe caters more to some playstyles than the actual difficulty levels.

 

[King Jason]

@King Jason Great Post! one thing to add re smart AI/stupid AI: while this dichotomy is tough, you can make little changes to 2-3 options that might satisfy a lot of people. HK had an option to turn the AI generally peaceful (i.e., it almost never declared war). I liked it as a challenge in games in which I wanted to be a builder foremost: high difficulty, no wars.
Age of Mythology retold comes with three AI options (aside from difficulty levels): defender, attacker, balanced. To me, such an approach seems feasible in civ. And maybe caters more to some playstyles than the actual difficulty levels.

Sure, of course, there are definitely those types of tweaks, and like I've mentioned; Old world even now has a setting on it's lowest difficulty that the A.I. simply will not capture your cities in a war - so this is definitely a mode that caters to a lower difficultly. I think I more mean that from a simply tactical perspective, you can play on even the lowest difficulty setting, and if you attack the A.I. with the usual 5 warriors that you spammed from your first couple of cities and decide to rush someone thinking you can conquer the world with just those 5 starting units like you can in CIV -- the A.I. will probably mop the floor with you on any difficulty level because it, generally, doesn't make "stupid moves".

If you walk into an even fight with the computer for the first time, you're probably going to be incredibly surprised at the beating you'll take. The A.I. is definitely passive on lower difficulties... but if you, the player, attack the A.I. and aren't prepared, it won't go well for you on any difficulty. Unless you have a tech advantage or a unit advantage or are a seasoned tactician familiar with way the game works and the different abilities of the units, you will probably lose any fight you start, or it will at least be harder than most people expect. That's pretty much the #1 and most consistent criticism of the game.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I easily beaten up deity in Civ4, but I didn't do it in Civ6. Not because I can't, but because I don't like the playstyle, which is required to win it.

The difficulty itself could be tuned up and down, that's not the real problem. I remember Civ3 added Sid difficulty in one of the expansions to make the game more interesting. The real problem is - what is the source of player power required to beat deity there? Is it strategic thinking or solving some micromanagement mini-game?

EDIT: Grammar

 

[greenOak]

I remember someone on the dev team talking about how they could easily beat civ 6 deity but aren't able to beat civ 7 deity so there's some hope there. That being said, I doubt it's going to be as hard as civ 3 / civ 4 deity though (I view III and IV as clearly the hardest while viewing II and V closer to VI in terms of difficulty). One of the reasons (although definitely not the only reason) civ 5 and 6 deity is so much easier is because the AI is utterly incompetent at 1UPT warfare. Although you can march armies in a stack in VII, it seems most combat is still 1UPT which allows the player to be able to win wars with far fewer units than the AI. Cities are much harder to capture in V and VI and while I believe this an overall positive change, the AI is incapable of conquering each other which means you never have to deal with a runaway AI like you would in III and IV. If anything, cities appear to be even harder to capture in VII as you now need to take every urban district in the city. Finally, the AI in civ 6 really struggles into the mid-late game largely due to building bad districts and having bad district layouts - this is something that the AI is going to have deal with in VII as well. The AI also settles bad locations and builds bad buildings but this true of every version of civ tbh. There's talk about improved AI and all that, but quite frankly I'll believe when I see it.

I easily beaten up deity in Civ4, but I didn't do it in Civ6. Not because I can't, but because I don't like the playstyle, which is required to win it.

The difficulty itself could be tuned up and down, that's not real problem. I remember Civ3 added Sid difficulty in one of the expansions to make the game more interested. The real problem is - what is the source of player power required to beat deity there? Is it strategic thinking or solving some micromanagement mini-game?

This is surprising to me as I think most would agree that civ 4 deity is far more restrictive than civ 6. Due to how bad the AI in civ 6 is, deity barely puts any restrictions on playstyle.

 

[Fippy]

Nobody has beaten Civ4 Deity easily, for years and years that was a huge achievement in our Strategy & Tips forum there.
At least not on standard settings without Inca cheese etc

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

easy or not. in any difficulty, any AI players with significant numbers or presence of coastal cities or at least harbor district (or Civ7 equivalents) SHOULD form a significant amount of war fleets.
The Last time i've fought enemy navy SERIOUSRY was against Norway in Civ6. one or two years ago.

 

[King of Prussia]

I recall one of the devs who plays Civ 6 deity saying they were having a harder time in Civ 7. A bunch of the changes to the game like changing how tiles are improved should be a lot easier for the AI to handle. If the AI is capable of using its generals well, it may make the combat side harder as well.

We will see as time goes on where its shortcomings are, and how easy they are to fix/improve.