what is your average difficulty level when playing SP?

[self biased]

the topic says it all. what difficulty do you tend to play at whilst playing single player?

[brandonjm8]

was prince on vanilla, yet to see the "new" espionage system, it seems i wont like it, but now with bts im on noble til i get the hang of the new ways, it seems thus far its really hard at times to expand, i mean alot more than vanilla, ive played three games thus far and the AI expands unbelievably fast almost too fast, but i notice im ahead on science and i have half as many cities as they but twice as many "good" cities, i'll get there, i just like that on noble everybodys even, noone has an advantage.

[wertyu70]

Well, I'm a Prince level player, still learning Monarch.

[Jaybe]

Modified Prince (based on Noble, to differentiate from AI).

iMaxNumCitiesMaintenance =10 instead of 5;
iAIPerEraModifier = -4 instead of 0 (that's the % discount they get per era 0..6 or 1..7).

Gives me a decent start but gives penalty for citymongering, helps AI economy as eras progress.

[Blaupanzer]

Some Noble when I try something new; Prince mostly, Monarchy when cruisin' for a bruisin'. Random civs on the Prince part.

[Theben]

Emperor normally but Monarch when trying something new.

[brandonjm8]

another thing ive noticed is that the "new" suggestions (ive thought about turning that off, but sometimes in the early going when you cant see iron yet it can be helpful) are completely idiotic, even the AI follows it, the suggestions and AI place their cities very close to one another, not me not I, lol. i like my cities to not overlap as much as possible. another thing ive noticed, you guys should check this out for yourselfs whenever you start a new SP game, the very next turn after settling your capital, check out worldbuilder and look over your AI's caps, notice the huge production bonus they get? when they start out building a warrior they get a half way bonus and i dont, lol. everytime it happens at the start of a new game, also i play noble and on marathon.

[Jaybe]

... notice the huge production bonus they get? when they start out building a warrior they get a half way bonus and i dont, lol. everytime it happens at the start of a new game, also i play noble and on marathon.

From GlobalDefines.xml: INITIAL_AI_CITY_PRODUCTION =10
That's 10 free hammers they get (I modify it to 5).

[Ming]

Monarch for fun and emperor to improve. I've do try immortal games, but I need a good start or rigged custom conditions to stand a chance.

I also "start" a bunch of noble games and try different things for MP exercise... I play a hundred turns or so to try different early strategies... never intending to actually play the game.

[rah]

Yeah, I'll practice a few different things in SP for MP also. Usually seeing how fast I can achieve crossover. (more beakers than the turn number, obviously not including the first 15 turns) Including surviving, that's the best way for me to judge the overall progress.

[One_more_turn]

Monarch for fun, Emperor for challenge.

Need to rig the game quite a bit to win on Immortal.

[Ming]

Yeah... I won an Immortal game last night without rigging the game. It felt good

[-Jrabbit]

Wow, congrats. I'm a mere Noble noob, looking to move up soon though.

[Ming]

The switch from noble to prince was easy... to monarch, much more difficult at first but once you get it, not bad.
Immortal just seems brutal at times.

[self biased]

i've recently bumped myself up to prince. there are times that playing the game well seems to be based on taking advantage of the AI, rather than playing well.