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

[self biased]

i'm not talking about some skin of your teeth victory, i'm talking about being the top dog for most of the duration.

i'm playing on noble regularly. so far i win one out out of every four or five games i play. the last game i got hammered by barbarians. that many spearmen and axemen shouldn't be just ambling about.

[Dinner]

Right now I'm just starting to get back into the game so I suck pretty bad.

[Kaosium]

i'm not talking about some skin of your teeth victory, i'm talking about being the top dog for most of the duration.

i'm playing on noble regularly. so far i win one out out of every four or five games i play. the last game i got hammered by barbarians. that many spearmen and axemen shouldn't be just ambling about.

Monarch, the game is over once I get my catapults up and running. The AI (playing Civ Gold) doesn't use Cats like they should be. I hear the BtS mod nerfed Cats which is probably good, they are overpowered in the game I'm playing. No AI city can stand against six catapults, (with a decent force along as well) and as odds are you'll lose about three of those have three in training when you go for your first city and you can continue your offensive indefinitely.

Barbarians shouldn't be allowed to get to spearmen and axes in any area that can be reasonably reached by the player. Once I get bronze/iron weapons I just take them out, usually just before the AI would have. I consider them free cities (or just plunder if they're badly placed) and experience. No archer-defended city can last against axes/swords, and unless it's built on a hill (which many are irritatingly enough) chariots can take them down easily enough. On average those cities will have three archers defending them, which means you take three chariots with flank, and three chariots with 'stars' and one more unit and you'll get them just about all the time--provided the city isn't on a hill. Then doubling that force won't guarantee success, it's usually better to wait until Axes/Horses.

[Cort Haus]

Prince is my usual level, but I've played and won a bit on Monarch. I think I won a lot of OCC on Monarch. If I've not played for ages it'll be Noble.

[rah]

I had a convincing win on EMP, but that is a rare rare occurance. Usually i'm lucky to win on that level..
Go over to CFC where they brag about winning on every level. Some of it I don't believe.

[Blaupanzer]

Convincing wins about 1 of 10 on Prince plus some close wins, getting better. Couple of "skin of my teeth" wins on Monarch, 1 convincing, in about 3 dozen games at that level.

[Theben]

I usually win Monarch games, occassionally trouncing the AI.

Emperor is seemingly a bit harder.

[rah]

Ya think after all the humilating defeats at the hands of EMP AI's.

But if you listen to those guys at CFC, EMP is easy to beat. I guess we all suck here.

[Supr49er]

Why play at a level where you can win easily? That's pretty boring to me.
I play Emperor and am lucky to win 25%. But I enjoy this level and the challenge. When I moved up to Emperor it took a long time to win.

[Krill]

Ya think after all the humilating defeats at the hands of EMP AI's.

But if you listen to those guys at CFC, EMP is easy to beat. I guess we all suck here.

...You do. Unfortunately for the guys at CFC they suck more at MP.

[rah]

SO, Krill, if you play SP, what level do you play at and what % do you win at that level?

[Krill]

I've played Emperor 3 times and won all of them. (BtS beta and 3.17)

OCCs I expect to win Monarch more than 50% of the time.

For example, only time I tried a culture victory was on Monarch and that was a 3 city challenge. I won that and took out about a third of Shakas' land in war at the same time.

The last game I played (other than OCCs) I finished last April. I'm bored of SP CIV, but don't have the time or inclination to sit down and play MP (can't do that at uni cos of the sodding firewall anway). I don't play PBEMs generally because the standard of play outside the ladder is quite poor (with exceptions) when you are used to such a cut throat game.

I'm involved with the BtS demogame on CFC, and as you know I'm the game admin for the demogame here.

[rah]

*sigh* I guess as always, I have more to learn. But I do think I'm better at MP than SP, but that's probably more due to the skill level of my opponents.

[Krill]

Trust me. It's more fun not to know everything. When you get to the level of knowing everything, you really see the AI limitations and that takes alot of the fun out of the game.

OTOH, it helps you in MP to win more, but then you always get gangbanged somewhat vicious.

[DirtyMartini]

On emperor, at what point in the game to you actual catch up the AI wrt score? I know the in game score is a pretty poor metric, so if you've got a better one, use that instead?

The hole to dig out of is pretty deep.