Difficulty Level: Official Poll

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae
Emperor.

I trust the map makers/checkers to make fair starting locations, so difficulty level should not be an issue in this regard.

The map makers/checkers will try, but in tight races, even a few turns' advantage in when a civ is able to grow an extra pop point could tip an important balance. Examples would include the question of who wins a close race for Judaism or for an early wonder, and who discovers a tech first in a situation where that would provide a leg up in tech trading. I would hope that such a thing would be unlikely on a carefully checked map, but the consequences if it does happen could be fairly serious. And whatever the risk is, it's probably at least 20% greater on Emperor than on Monarch.

Remember that all teams play on the same difficulty level. There is nothing particularly difficult about lower Health/Happiness caps if everyone has them.

On the other hand, figuring out how to prioritize building additional cities compared with other things depends pretty heavily on understanding how additional cities will affect a civ's finances. Players who are used to Noble or Prince would almost inevitably badly underestimate the financial drain of additional cities on Emperor. And having maximum city sizes on Emperor be smaller than players are used to would exacerbate the problem. Purely in terms of what's best for our team's chances of winning, that's an argument in favor of lobbying for Emperor. But in terms of having as many players as possible be able to contribute, even on our own team, taking the difficulty level higher than most of the people have experience with would make a real mess.

[Arrian]

If we manage to sway the voting and play an Emperor game, I really think we might want to consider the Organized trait more than we have...

Not that I expect we will convince the other teams to play on Emperor.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

voted monarch

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
The map makers/checkers will try, but in tight races, even a few turns' advantage in when a civ is able to grow an extra pop point could tip an important balance. Examples would include the question of who wins a close race for Judaism or for an early wonder, and who discovers a tech first in a situation where that would provide a leg up in tech trading. I would hope that such a thing would be unlikely on a carefully checked map, but the consequences if it does happen could be fairly serious.

It sounds like you are advocating absolutely no variability between starting locations whatsoever, in order to give everyone an equal chance of getting, say, Judaism.

CIV does not really work that way. There are multiple different paths, each with valid options, more than enough to support seven teams without shortchanging anyone.

For instance, if you find yourself with few Happiness resources, Monarchy (for Hereditary Rule) increases in value. Or if your Commerce output is not very good, you can go the Literature branch in order to get some research done via Great People.

I hope there will be discrepancies between starting locations. I trust the map makers/checkers to ensure these discrepancies do not offer a significant advantage (Aeson, um, knows the game well enough for that!). Even if another team got, say, one more H&H resource than us, I would not feel like we were at such a disadvantage.

On Emperor, you can reasonably expect your cities to get to size 6 or so before running into H&H caps, assuming a modest number of resources within your initial expansion's reach. You can do a lot with size 6 cities. Sure the team with one more Happiness resource can get to size 7, but does that necessarily make them 16% (or whatever) more powerful? There are so many other factors that play into this that I do not think it's something to worry seriously about.

And whatever the risk is, it's probably at least 20% greater on Emperor than on Monarch.

I'm not sure where you are getting this number. Have you played Emperor? Have you played MP Civ4?

But in terms of having as many players as possible be able to contribute, even on our own team, taking the difficulty level higher than most of the people have experience with would make a real mess.

Maybe. You could also say that players are not used to the same level of competition in demogames than they are in SP with the Noble AI, and therefore would tend to quit or get frustrated faster. As we know, this does not happen.

Demogames differ significantly from SP games, and I think players expect this. I know that Arrian, for instance, offered suggestions in the PTWDG that were wildly different from the things he likes to do in SP games for fun. Many many players accept the fact that micromanagement is key to success in a demogame, and so go along with it (maybe even get their hands dirty despite their aversion to it in SP - Uno comes to mind). I would say the same holds true for Maintenance costs.

I voted in good conscience for Emperor because I think it would make the game more interesting, strategically. I feel there's too much "play" on Monarch and below; for instance, the early Religion is far less important when your Happiness cap is at 6 instead of 4. I was honestly not thinking of the "GS advantage" that we would get at a higher difficulty level.

[Blake]

My vote is for emperor, I don't feel the need to rehash the arguments and disclaimers of other emp voters .

[Aginor]

Would vote to Emperor if I weren't too slow on the draw.

[Arrian]

Well, ever since one of the other teams voted Emp, many on GS have shifted their votes, so this poll isn't really valid anymore. Just based on a quick review of the "settings" thread, I'd say we're leaning heavily toward Emperor. I'm fine with that.

-Arrian