What difficulty level do you play Civ IV on?

[TinCow]

Scienter and I have been on yet another Civ IV kick for the last several months. We've had some discussions about difficulty levels, since we play on different single-player difficulty levels and thus have to negotiate when we play multiplayer. Scienter just started playing on Prince and I currently play on Monarch. I find that's the sweet-spot for me, where I have a realistic shot at victory but also lose regularly enough to keep it interesting until the very late game. So where are you at? Are there any true masochists out there playing at Emperor or above?

[seireikhaan]

Noble. Most even matchup, pretty few bonuses or penalties. Challenging, yet winnable if you play your cards right and get a bit of luck. Probably the most fun I'd had on Civ IV was on Noble, when I had to fend off a dual Ottoman/Russian challenge on land, sea, and air, turning it into an epic drag-down war of attrition. Ended up losing to my buddy, who was playing as Persia far off on a distant continent and up snatching a cultural victory.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

I voted Gah! because 1) I like that option and 2) I have only played the demo.
Considering the fact that I played a true Civ game ages ago then I would be in the Chieftain level.

[Veho Nex]

Prince, Noble is too easy while monarch is unfairly hard.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I suppose I'll find out soon. I just got Civ 4 + All Expansion packs in a sale. Any mods I should try? Right now I'm just going to start a vanilla Civ 4 game and hold off on the expansions.

CR

[seireikhaan]

I suppose I'll find out soon. I just got Civ 4 + All Expansion packs in a sale. Any mods I should try? Right now I'm just going to start a vanilla Civ 4 game and hold off on the expansions.

CR

The expansions all mostly add to the vanilla game, although there's some extra scenarios. I would recommend starting up Beyond the Sword, its not significantly more difficult than pre-expansion. Otherwise you'll end up having to re-adapt to a couple of the new features and trying to figure out what to build and when all over again.

[jabarto]

Any mods I should try?

Depends on what you like. If you want a massive expansion of content, try Rise of Mankind. If you want a fairly vanilla experience, Legends of Revolution is pretty good. In any case you'll probably want Blue Marble Terrain to make the map not look completely terrible.

[naut]

Uh. I'm pretty rubbish at Civ. I have been ever since I started playing Civ 2 back in the day. So Noble or lower if I can't be bothered.

I suppose I'll find out soon. I just got Civ 4 + All Expansion packs in a sale. Any mods I should try? Right now I'm just going to start a vanilla Civ 4 game and hold off on the expansions.

CR

Total Realism + "Perfect" World Map Script.

[Vladimir]

Scienter and I have been on yet another Civ IV kick for the last several months. We've had some discussions about difficulty levels, since we play on different single-player difficulty levels and thus have to negotiate when we play multiplayer. Scienter just started playing on Prince and I currently play on Monarch. I find that's the sweet-spot for me, where I have a realistic shot at victory but also lose regularly enough to keep it interesting until the very late game. So where are you at? Are there any true masochists out there playing at Emperor or above?

I'm there with both of you. Prince is my usual but results in a victory 90% of the time. Unless, for some reason, space race victory is enabled.

Monarch is a dangerous and competitive level. I shift back and fourth. The key to victory is to go to war in the late medieval. Any earlier than that and you lack the technology. The longer you wait, the more the AI spams units at you. However, once you finish off the spam, the rest is easy as pie. The thing I don't like about it is that it usually requires you to go to war. For some reason I'm a real when it comes to the Civ games.