Which Races/Civilizations are Easy/Medium/Hard difficulty to play?

[graphitepaddle]

Frogboy was kind enough to point out that the Terran Alliance falls into the 'Easy' difficulty level. After playing the Terran Resistance, they are also 'Easy'.

Is this one of those 'it depends' questions? IOW, the answer is that it depends on the player's personality? IOW, some players might find the Cosmic Contaminant 'Medium' difficulty, while others could find the Drengin or Torian Regime a middle difficulty civilization?

[Illauna]

Not making a tier list of difficulty
Easy: Terran Resistance, Torian, Altarans, Terran Alliance (think tutorial faction),
Medium: Drengin, Korath, Phalenoids (can be also easy)
Hard: Intueri, Xeloxi, Onyx(?), Cosmic Contaminant(super strong when you learn how to play them though), Baratak Grove (though can be considered medium or easy too)

There are many factors but I'd say hard factions usually play wierd or just have a huge weakness.
Intueri - extremely low research
Xeloxi - high crime and low starting food. Although their citizens and leaders has high research and crime doesn't affect their approval so you can do well on the research side of things even though it doesn't stand out as an obvious bonus
Baratak - Very sensitive to pollution so balancing production is more of a challenge for them than other factions. THey also lack culture points and their citizens and leaders has low social.

[graphitepaddle]

Thanks Illauna,

Never considered the butteries for my next game? (What's the worst that can happen? Lose, and learn something? A certain videographer, playing as the Terran Resistance, made that comment, on the verge of getting his butt kicked.) In my last game, won with Culture Dominion. So maybe a non-war victory is a good focus. And especially now since the community explained Trade Routes to me.

The Drengin & Korath are too war-like for me, which is why I think part of the Easy/Medium/Hard equation, is the comfort level of the player, playing their civilization a certain way.

[Jambie Lionheart]

I don't think it's really about the civs themselves so much as the abilities they have that can make a game easier or harder and it also depends on which game aspect too.

GCIV has a reallllly expansion heavy aspect to game play so any civ that gives you a pop growth bonus is already giving you an easier game. You can even quadruple this bonus just by adding speed, range, and/or sensor range bonus' too. But this mostly applies to the starting phase of the game, which also most heavily influences later stages of the game. Together, those are the strongest civ advantages you could get and therefore the easier game. But this does also depend on the type of style the player likes, as someone else pointed out above.

Civs that have combat focused advantages would be nice for mid game, so once war breaks out but by that point you'd have the smaller empire compared to someone that has the above advantages. In my view that would be a medium difficulty civ.

Economic bonus's are pretty potent as well. So anything that increases income, reduce cost, ect to any significant degree (for me that's anything = or above 10%). This can help with expansion rate because more money can equal more leaders, more quick builds, ect and would prolly equate to a significant but lesser advantage compared to pop growth speed bonus'. I'd class it as somewhere in between and easy and medium difficulty set up.

Research and manufacturing bonus' are particularly nice as well but I'd view them as somewhere in between medium and hard difficulties on their own. Manufacturing and military production bonus' are most potent in mid and late game, once you've built up to a decently sized empire and research is most useful late game but both require that you expand far enough and make it late enough into the game to become a real advantage. That's why I'd class them as medium to hard and you start with a big disadvantage and possibly even an up hill battle against any civ that has an expansion focused ability rack.

and then you get the bonus' that look nice but are kinda useless on any practical or strategic standpoint such as the one that makes your ships immune to nebulea or anything to do with planetary invasion and offensive ground combat. Neither serve a practical purpose and neither offers any tangible strategic advantage except in extremely niche circumstances and therefore don't really have an effect on the big picture.

[graphitepaddle]

Illauna,

Elected to start a game with Phalenoids Advance, as per your suggestion. Was tempted to play as the Manti Cluster, but elected to go with a peaceful race ... this time. If the weak military stings me too badly in the mid game, as Jambie mentioned, I'll know to stick with races with strong military strength, in the foreseeable future.

And agree with both of you: STAY AWAY from races with major weaknesses.

[Jambie Lionheart]

Originally posted by graphitepaddle:

Illauna,

Elected to start a game with Phalenoids Advance, as per your suggestion. Was tempted to play as the Manti Cluster, but elected to go with a peaceful race ... this time. If the weak military stings me too badly in the mid game, as Jambie mentioned, I'll know to stick with races with strong military strength, in the foreseeable future.

And agree with both of you: STAY AWAY from races with major weaknesses.

If you're against AI and you don't have military penalties you're probably fine, depending on difficulty level. Anything upto gifted difficulty, you might not even notice the difference.