Your favorite custom settings

[Conqistador]

All victory conditions except conquest are turned off. Choose religion, no vassal states, no espionage, no city razing all turned on. Marathon game speed.

 

[eris]

Marathon, (only speed there is, for me)
Large, (Huge just hurts my computer)
Shuffle Map (Although I hate tiny islands and may restart)
Random leader, (Although I may restart if leader and map don't seem to fit)
No tech brokering. (I don't mind independent AI's selling techs cheap, but hate my Vassals giving away any tech advantage I hand them)

Hmmm. My explanations are more complex than my settings!

 

[cthom]

barbs on
normal, hemisphere, 2 continents, large islands, 7 civs.
my system can't take much more than that.

 

[Shylock76]

huge map, epic speed and random everything else bar your civilization....you shouldnt know in advance if you're on continents, islands, pangaea given you start the game knowing nothing

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

No techbrokering, since I suck at diplo, sigh I really need to dig into it someday.

Nah, you're probably good at it. It's just that the AI spreads out techs way too much and trades at a ridiculous rate amongst itself. I hate keeping all tech trading on because a Friendly civ will come asking for a gift of a military tech and then immediately sell it to an enemy of yours that might be pleased with them or cautious. So I either have to (basically) give a tech to my enemy, or suffer a relations hit. Nah nah nah. That ain't happening. No Tech Brokering FTW.

My options:
All Games
-No Tech Brokering (obviously)
-Time Vic off / Diplo vic off (alternately, never both at the same time)
-Marathon
Playing below my average win level (warlord)
--Aggressive AI
--Random Leader
--Raging barbs
Playing at my average win level (noble)
--Nothing special
Playing above my average win level (prince)
--No tribal villages
--No random events
--No barbs
--Willem Oranje
--Islands Map
-- I still don't win

 

[Supr49er]

No Tech Brokering
Aggressive AI
Raging Barbs
Choose Religions
Random Leaders

Conquest wins only

Marathon Speed

 

[King Flevance]

Random Personalities - Keeps you on your toes as you said.
Raging Barbs - Keeps everyone on their toes.
Require Complete Kills - I'll give you a head start to go run and hide.
No Tech Brokering - I let my vassals have good techs.
Aggressive AI - They need all the help they can get.
Choose Religions - Why not?

All victories enabled

Marathon Speed

 

[Bob the Barbari]

Marathon
18 civs
No city razing (bad memories from civ 3 where AI seemd to enjoy razing the best towns).

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

wow... good show on the 'no razing'. I could never do that. All my early wars would be economy-crippling to the point of 'forced retirement' lol

 

[Zacar]

All victories off? So you just play until you're tired of it? I don't get it

Exactly. Well conquest is kinda always on, as long as war is allowed. The victory types can be treated as artificial goals, but I already have goals.. the entire game is a bunch of smaller goals I try to achieve. And it's fun by itself. I probably see the game more like a RPG/simulation than a strict Strategy game like chess/minesweeper.

And what do you mean by 3 techs with no cottages?

My bad. As Clam Spammer guessed, I referred to goody huts.

Low Sea Level (Medium has too much water, not Earthlike);

I'm not 100% sure, but once I got the feeling that Sea Level only controls the "crossability" of water areas instead of the amount of water tiles. So low sealevel would mean that you can sometimes travel from continent A to B with a tiny boat, while high sealevel would ensure that you need some heavier ships.

Choose Religions - Why not?

Because you won't know if the religion you are trying to get is already taken?

 

[Brian Boru]

I got the feeling that Sea Level only controls the "crossability" of water areas instead of the amount of water tiles

You're right about the 'crossability' effect, but low sea does give more land than high.

you won't know if the religion you are trying to get is already taken

You can always tell in the research bar up top, the tech icon will have a little religious mini-icon in it if its religion is still available. Also, the tech mouseover will say "First to get founds xyz" if the religion is available, and won't say that if not. Finally, the F7 screen tells you.

I prefer to leave the religion choice at default, so I know immediately what tech someone else has reached. Other settings:

No tech brokering;
Random events off;
Goody huts off;
Raging barbs;
Espionage off usually.

I just discovered the "Full of Resources" map selection. If you want customization on steroids, looks a likely candidate. It's in the official game maps selection, but you need to download the latest version from the Map Scripts forum here.