what's the highest difficulty level you've won convincingly at

[Krill]

You fall into a hole? The only hole exists on deity

There's no hole; you should, after about turn 75 on normal speed, be better than the AI at something. Use that something to get a military advantage, and beat up the AI.

That's not the "ideal" way of doing it (SP players will talk about finding out which AI declare and friendly and crap like that) and try to abuse diplo so they can wage war when they want with a tech advantage. That's great if you want to get a humongous score.

If you just want to win just crush the AI beneath your knee high jodhpurs, with a spear at their throat.


Really though, it depends on the quality of the land, the leader you are playing, and the map. Earliest I would expect you to be even technologically would be around t100 on normal speed unless you do a nice oracle sling I suppose. Economicaly, most people don't get even until they draft armies and kill an AI.

Better players will probably, on average, be somewhere between the two, although I honestly don't know for sure. As I said before, I've only played three games there.

[Krill]

You fall into a hole? The only hole exists on deity

There's no hole; you should, after about turn 75 on normal speed, be better than the AI at something. Use that something to get a military advantage, and beat up the AI.

That's not the "ideal" way of doing it (SP players will talk about finding out which AI declare and friendly and crap like that) and try to abuse diplo so they can wage war when they want with a tech advantage. That's great if you want to get a humongous score.

If you just want to win just crush the AI beneath your knee high jodhpurs, with a spear at their throat.


Really though, it depends on the quality of the land, the leader you are playing, and the map. Earliest I would expect you to be even technologically would be around t100 on normal speed unless you do a nice oracle sling I suppose. Economicaly, most people don't get even until they draft armies and kill an AI.

Better players will probably, on average, be somewhere between the two, although I honestly don't know for sure. As I said before, I've only played three games there.

[Sir Og]

My current game is on Emperor (aggressive AI, no vassals, no tech brokering) This is the first time I try "no tech brokering" and I think it makes the game a bit easier for me, but this might just be my play style. Also this is pangea, marathon, 18 civs game which definitely makes the game easier.
With these settings I have dominated the game from the start. Took two AIs early (with immortals you can count that as a cheat too). It's turn 580 and I have not caught up tech wise with the AI yet but I have 50% more GNP than the AI in second place so about the time the game ends I will be leading in tech as well.

[joncnunn]

For me, it's Monarch.

I think I'll try the new BTS version of Better AI as soon as I finish trouncing my opponents in my current game.

[prelynmax]

I win about 2% of my noble games, and I can't seem to get out of this rut.
By far, the worse advice given to me are harsh to slightly negitive critisms.

[Ming]

For me, it's Monarch.

Same here... I can win at emperor... but I usually lose. I need a good starting position, a decent civ, and a little luck.

[trev]

It is very dependent on the settings, my only win on deity was on tiny maps, immortal wins are reasonably easy on such maps, move to huge maps and emperor is the most enjoyable level, win about a 3rd I suppose. Generally larger maps make wins considerably harder, at least for me.

[rah]

Yeah, I have much better luck on smaller maps. On larger maps, one other civ gets a chance to dominate the other side of the world as much if not better than I'm dominating my part of the world. On a smaller map that civ would be close enough for me to take then down a notch earlier to slow them down.

[Arrian]

Prince. I'm sure I could dominate (not just the victory condition, but *dominate*) a game on Monarch, but I loathe the early hole you're put in. Monarch would clearly be harder, and thus I'd probably have tons of non-awesome games for every 1 really good one. On Prince, my awesome games are more frequent

My usual settings: Hemispheres, 2 continents, standard size, standard/normal everything.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

I hear the BtS mod nerfed Cats which is probably good, they are overpowered in the game I'm playing.

Yes and yes. I remember before they made that change I'd often quasi-beeline for construction and rush neighboring civs with ~6 catapults covered by 1-2 axes (and, if necessary, a spear). It worked like a charm.

-Arrian

[rah]

The ai still pretends it can take out units with siege units. It moves 5 cats and one horse archer up to one of your cities, and you're going HUH.

[Ming]

It's even funnier when they risk their ships to land that type of force on an island next to your city... with NO HOPE of reinforcements. Again, poor AI design. If you are going to change the capabilities of unit, you HAVE TO change the way AI uses them. Just laziness... right up there with leaving the barrage promotion for tanks, even though it doesn't do anything any more. It's just proof that they really don't support the buyers of their product at all. You would think they would care a little bit more about their customer base... especially if they plan on launching Civ V at some point.

[joncnunn]

The unofficial patch takes care of the barrage promotion thing.

Yes, the AI has naval invasion issues. A couple that occurred this game:
Babylonian AI (on another landmass) DOWed and directly attacked one of my cities with a sole longbow defender. What the AI didn't realize was the Longbow was behind a Citadel [I'm Spain]. Result entire AI stack suicided. My Longbow: Only reduced to 5.5; and that's before the instant healing that occurred after I promoted it.

Much later on the Viking AI would tried a similar thing on the other side of my landmass, 2 Rifles behind a Citadel. Result: Entire stack gone. No damage at all to my defenders. They would later follow up with two units landing on a resource outside the town. I guess they intended to pillage it. I attacked and killed the two units on my turn.

But the worst of it was the Aztec AI. They DOWed with 4 or 5 Galleons (and 2 Frigates; one escorting the other a tile behind) but they ran out of movement before they could reach the coast.
So in my turn, my Battleships, Destroyers, and Transports just came in and wiped out the entire Galleon stack and the Frigate directly escorting that stack.

[Ming]

The unofficial patch takes care of the barrage promotion thing.

Gee.. great... the fans clean up after their lazy mistakes... while still leaving the MP community screwed. The more Unofficial patches that are needed, the more likely it is that everybody in a game will have compatibility issues.

How hard would it be to just take ALL the many fixes that they DID NOT do, but that the fans have, and issue an official last patch... instead of having a crappy final patch out there. It just shows what they think about the MP community... which isn't much. And to think, we are their loyal customers.

[wodan11]

IMO wrong solution, Ming. That's an unending cycle. "Official last patch" is a pie-in-the-sky concept.

Instead, maybe we could put it this way: how hard would it be to legitimize some kind of fan committee to sanction a fan-coded series of official patches.