Level of difficulty

[Noctis]

I’m new here, and just thought I would start out by saying hi.

I just had a couple of questions. I’m new to Civ 3, and have only played a few games, all on Chieftain. It has become very apparent that I need to play on a harder level, but I am not sure how much harder they get with each increase in difficulty level. In my current game (as the French) I am in the 1300’s and am just about done researching technologies from the second era (age?). I have musketeers defending my cities, and swordsmen with longbowmen for offence. The best any of the other civs have is spearmen for defensive and swordsmen for offence.

While I don’t want to get my butt handed to me on a platter, I am also getting tired of listening to crickets chirping in the absence of conflict. To date I have never been attacked by another civ that I didn’t attack first, nor have any of the other civs attacked each other (unless I bribed one of them to attack another).

So these are my questions.
1. Will other civs become more likely to attack me and each other with an increase in the difficulty level?
2. Based on the information I have given with regards to my situation in the game, what difficulty level would you recommend I try next? (or is there more info you would need to know first?)

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[CerberusIV]

The likelihood of other civs attacking you depends on many things but on the higher levels they grow faster and, if they are strong enough, will become aggressive.

The difference in the levels is determined by how much the AI's pay for their techs between civs, what percentage of the shield cost for building things they incur (you always pay 100%, they pay only 90% at Monarch for example) and the overall science rate.

Regent is more or less a level playing field between you and the AI's. Above that they get advantages.

Just move up a level at a time. Once you have beaten Warlord a couple of times move to Regent and so on.

One word of warning - you don't really need to change the way you play that much up to Monarch. To go to Emperor requires doing a lot more work on managing your empire each turn. There is a thread by Ducki in the strategy forum on this.

[vmxa1]

Here is what the changes look like for each level in C3C:

Chief. Warlord Regent Monarch Emp. Demigod Deity Sid

AI Bonuses
Def Land Units 0 0 0 2 4 6 8 12
Off Land Units 0 0 0 1 2 3 4 6
Start unit type 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 2
Start unit type 2 0 0 0 0 1 2 2 4
Extra free support 0 0 0 4 8 12 16 24
Bonus for each city 0 0 0 1 2 3 4 8
Max gov transition 0 0 0 4 3 2 2 1
Cost factor 20 12 10 9 8 7 6 4
AI to AI trade 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 200

Other variables
Citizens born content 4 3 2 2 1 1 1 1
Citizens quelled 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Attack bonus vs barbs 800 400 200 100 50 25 0 0
Percent optimal cities 100 95 90 85 80 70 60 50

[vmxa1]

Noctis I would play one game at least all the way to the end to see what is in the game.

Then move up one level at a time, using standard maps and the default number of civs. Primay reason is to not distort things too much.

First time you run into some trouble you can post you progress and get some advise.

I would suspect that it will get a bit stiff at Regent. That is the level where you are playing more less even up with the AI.

Most people that play random maps will see some hardships, unless they have read some forums on strat. You see lots of people losing at that level that had played CivII in their first attempts.

Good Luck..

[Noctis]

Vmax1, I have played several games all the way. When I start rolling around with tanks, the other civs are still defending themselves with spearmen and the likes. I can only remember one occasion in which another civ managed to get gunpowder units before I had crushed my way to world domination. Not much of a challenge.

I am trying one level harder this time, and will see how that plays out. I am also trying a civ I have never played as before – the Germans. Thanks to everyone for their advice and clarification of the differences between the levels of difficulty.

[Alex]

tell us how it's going on.

[Mace]

Being a Civ'er since 1992, I found Chieftain level too simple when I began playing Civ3 in earnest a few months ago; but nevertheless I played a game or two at Chieftain to get a feel for things.

I've been playing a lot of Regent simply because I like the level playing field. I almost always win at Regent so last week I tried a Monarch game; I got it handed to me, but I had a dreadful starting location, which hampered my REX.