What Difficulty Level Do You Play?

[quinns]

Just curious at what level you all play CTP2. I'm playing "Impossible" now, it is difficult but enjoyable. The a/i is a great builder, but its military strategy needs some help -- except on the defense where it seems to be pretty good at defending cities. Your comments? :D

[Maquiladora]

I always play on Impossible, i dont see much point in lower settings anymore.

In fact Impossible difficulty with "ruins only" barbs is easier than Easy difficulty with "Raging Hordes" barbs, but i stopped playing with barbs now too, theyre just a mild annoyance getting in the way of some nice empire building. Also barbs (or any AI's) cause resynchs in MP.

[tyrantpimp]

Im playing very hard on the ultragiga earth map with raging hordes. The barbarians are nice fuel for my empire which is hungry for slaves. The AI is pretty persistant because there are so many of them. Seems like they all want me dead too oh well nobody likes a slave trader i guess.

[Barley]

Cant remember the last time I played on anything other than impossible not being big headed but ive been playing over 3 years.

I challenge myself to achieve victory by complete anhilation of the other 7 ai's on Gig map by 1900AD - not done it yet, when I have I think ill turn to the mod packs.

Oh Multiplayer keeps me busy so I rarely play against ai.

[Barley]

Think ive just thought where im going wrong - by complete anhilation I mean all AI cities starved to size 3 and disbanded. maybe I should try so that on turn x I have enough units to rush attack all remaining ai cities and change my Gov to Anarchy (why havnt I thought of that before).

PS I always play with Raging Hoardes.

[tyrantpimp]

You should play the mods they are alot harder than the vanilla game

[RolandtheMad]

When I want a challenge I play on Very Hard, but when Im just screwing around I play on simply Hard. Always have raging hordes of barbarians. Theyre fun in the beginning. :)

I havent tried Impossible yet. Its supposed to be impossible but people say it is easier than Easy with barbarians? lol

[tyrantpimp]

I think what he means is that barbarians make quick easy slaves. And that makes the game easier? Well thats what im noticing anyway, I make a stack with a slaver and go hunting for them. :D

[Maquiladora]

Well nah i meant its easier without Barbarians and Impossible AI because by the time i meet an AI and it decides it wants to play dirty, i have border scouts all around me, so i can see them coming, but Barbs appear so early and kill you straight away, so i need to deal with them before settlers can pop out, which slows things down.

[tyrantpimp]

Are the barbarians really that much more aggressive on impossible? I might have to try it out i must admit very hard isnt as hard as i think it should be.

[Maquiladora]

No, i said its harder with Difficuly "easy" Barbarians "raging hordes", than it is with Difficulty "Impossible" and Barbarians "ruins only" settings.

None of the difficulties are as hard as they describe, not even close. :D

[quinns]

Sounds like some good players here. Would anyone be interested in forming a CTP2 PBEM Challenge Ladder like we have in the CTP1 forum? Does PBEM work alright in CTP2 or does the Source Code Project team need to fix that first?

[centrifuge]

Unfortunately, PBEM has to be fixed through the source. IIRC , human to human diplomacy is screwed.

[Barley]

What about a multiplayer tournement (knowck out), we should be able to get 8-16 players interested. I'll post a seperate thread about it.

[RolandtheMad]

Something kindof unrelated here about slaves..

Once I enslaved so much that the population of slaves in my city outnumbered the citizens, then the citizens kinda disappeared. Now there are only slaves in the city and it isnt growing anymore. Whats up?

[tyrantpimp]

what is PBEM and what is IIRC? Not the first time ive seen these acronyms floating around here what are they? :)

[MrBaggins]

PBEM=Play by Email
IIRC=If I recall correctly

[tyrantpimp]

:b:

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by tyrantpimp
Are the barbarians really that much more aggressive on impossible? I might have to try it out i must admit very hard isnt as hard as i think it should be.
It depends on the Mod - at least in Cradle, if you have Barbs on the highest level, you will have a very hard time getting established, because they are so numerous. They will stack up quickly too.

Plus, the ability to enslave defeated units is later in Cradle than in the default game, and the first unit that enslaves (Slavemaster) is very expensive.

[quinns]

Originally posted by centrifuge
Unfortunately, PBEM has to be fixed through the source. IIRC , human to human diplomacy is screwed.

Okay. Thanks for the notice. What a shame :shame: It's all I have time for -- PBEM (play by email) that is. I guess I'll stick to CTP1 until PBEM is fixed.

[Tamerlin]

I play with the SAP2 at Very Hard... I think I will give a chance to the Impossible level in a few games. :)

I am an empire builder looking for the Science Victory... I am not really interested in crushing the AI Civs. There are many things I do because they are fun and not because they are good in order to win the game. Though the game will be more challenging I fear it would be less fun at Impossible...

But as a French writer wrote (shame on me as I don't remember its name): "à vaincre sans péril, on triomphe sans gloire" ("winning without danger, one triumphs without glory")... ;)

[Protra3211]

Play at Very Hard SAP2.

Most of the time play 10 to 12 Civs on a 90 by 180 map which is very huge. Set barbarians to low risk want ai to have alot of room to grow.

Change goals to win the game . If and when I reach 1st place- at this point of the game
Conquest:remove the strongest military Civ or Civs I dont have a peace treaty with. or
Alliance Victory: conguest of both or strongest enemies
Maybe a wonder race. Playing to reach 1st place gets kind stale. Not knowing how the game will end gives it some drama .

[Locutus]

I used to play Deity (Impossible) on all mods but Cradle (where I played either on King or Emperor level depending on much of a challenge I wanted). Lately though, I hardly play at all anymore, but when I do, I usually play Emperor (I don't bother with Cradle at all anymore, I would prolly just get my arse kicked :))

[larsenex]

I am going to try playing super apoly with goodmod and Im going to add unit updater and start a 'hard game with gigantic maps and 12 civs... This will be a first for me. I will not have barbies or do the slave route although that sounds fun...

Lars