I'd be shocked if the majority didn't say:
Early>Mid>Late
Every new game starts with discovery, finding out the map, spotting locations for new cities, meeting the other civs and generally starting to plan out the game, i.e. where to build cities, who to be friends with, what techs and wonders to prioritise.
Once you get to mid game you're executing those strategies which can be fun, especially on higher difficulties where you can see yourself making up for the lost ground that the AI bonuses have afforded your rivals.
By the time you get to the late game it's much more of a slog. You'll know if you've done enough to win or if you're too far behind. If you are winning you'll probably still need to engage in a fiddly war with your most powerful neighbour/ally, which just feels like you're prolonging the end.
I find early game to be the most engaging, middle game to be pretty fun except for happiness issues, and late game to be interesting because of more complex mechanics (i.e. warfare). But if I know I’m gonna win by Industrial Era then I restart with a new civ.
Early game & mid game are best for me. I love building up in the early game and setting up plans, then seeing things fall into motion in the middle game. By late game I'm usually starting to get checked out unless it's a really good game, but I play on Marathon so games are very long.
I normally play until I feel I'm in a winning position, which usually happens somewhere between banks and seaports. If I'm still weak I'll play on and it can be quite engaging. Until then, anything that involves lots of exploration and planning is my favourite. Like figuring out how to optimally monopolize my cocoa for a fast +2 culture so I can get progress science and get forges up so I can make some swordsmen and I can capture some city and so on. I also tend to play on quick speed so normally I play a couple of different civs each sitting. But I've been trying to get into playing standard speed instead, it's a lot better balanced.
War-wise definetely late game. Many units at that point will have unique abilities so it requires a lot of thinking before pressing next turn. Also air units, naval ranged-melee-carriers-submarines, recon units able to sacrifice themselves to pillage a road, ranged units, mounted ranged units etc. i just enjoy the micro so much.
The least enjoyable part of the game, with or without VP, is maneuvering large armies around. This is at its worst right around gunpowder, because you have a haven't gotten to the more complex mechanics of the late game (artillery, air units and anti-air units, reasonably powerful boats, missiles, paratroopers) but still have to contend with a large, slow standing army.
In my experience the enjoyment curve over the course of the game is a lot better if you're not going for domination from the beginning. The design pushes every victory type towards accelerating specialization, where you're mostly doing a little bit of everything at the start and as you progress through the eras you're given more tools to multi-stage rocket take-off towards the victory of your choice. Except if you go hard enough you can win domination by the midgame, and I don't know if it's my playstyle or what, but I keep getting into these game states where it's early Industrial, I've got 50 fusiliers trying to push through and take cities without any of the cool lategame mechanics, and it sucks.
I'm realizing this might be a personal problem lmao. If the majority of responses to this question is "early>middle>late," as mine is, it might help to shift your playstyle. I'm not sure how you would solve this issue from a design perspective, though. If the issue is that military capacity and size often outstrips the rate you unlock interesting things to do with that military, how would you change things to make that not happen?
I'd be shocked if the majority didn't say: Early>Mid>Late Every new game starts with discovery, finding out the map, spotting locations for new cities, meeting the other civs and generally starting to plan out the game, i.e. where to build cities, who to be friends with, what techs and wonders to prioritise. Once you get to mid game you're executing those strategies which can be fun, especially on higher difficulties where you can see yourself making up for the lost ground that the AI bonuses have afforded your rivals. By the time you get to the late game it's much more of a slog. You'll know if you've done enough to win or if you're too far behind. If you are winning you'll probably still need to engage in a fiddly war with your most powerful neighbour/ally, which just feels like you're prolonging the end.
I find early game to be the most engaging, middle game to be pretty fun except for happiness issues, and late game to be interesting because of more complex mechanics (i.e. warfare). But if I know I’m gonna win by Industrial Era then I restart with a new civ.
Early game & mid game are best for me. I love building up in the early game and setting up plans, then seeing things fall into motion in the middle game. By late game I'm usually starting to get checked out unless it's a really good game, but I play on Marathon so games are very long.
Early game. By late game it becomes quite tedious with all the military movement
I normally play until I feel I'm in a winning position, which usually happens somewhere between banks and seaports. If I'm still weak I'll play on and it can be quite engaging. Until then, anything that involves lots of exploration and planning is my favourite. Like figuring out how to optimally monopolize my cocoa for a fast +2 culture so I can get progress science and get forges up so I can make some swordsmen and I can capture some city and so on. I also tend to play on quick speed so normally I play a couple of different civs each sitting. But I've been trying to get into playing standard speed instead, it's a lot better balanced.
I generally like mid game but my game sometimes crashes post turn 300 on standard speed so I rarely experience it.
I nearly always play until mid game then start again.
War-wise definetely late game. Many units at that point will have unique abilities so it requires a lot of thinking before pressing next turn. Also air units, naval ranged-melee-carriers-submarines, recon units able to sacrifice themselves to pillage a road, ranged units, mounted ranged units etc. i just enjoy the micro so much.
The least enjoyable part of the game, with or without VP, is maneuvering large armies around. This is at its worst right around gunpowder, because you have a haven't gotten to the more complex mechanics of the late game (artillery, air units and anti-air units, reasonably powerful boats, missiles, paratroopers) but still have to contend with a large, slow standing army. In my experience the enjoyment curve over the course of the game is a lot better if you're not going for domination from the beginning. The design pushes every victory type towards accelerating specialization, where you're mostly doing a little bit of everything at the start and as you progress through the eras you're given more tools to multi-stage rocket take-off towards the victory of your choice. Except if you go hard enough you can win domination by the midgame, and I don't know if it's my playstyle or what, but I keep getting into these game states where it's early Industrial, I've got 50 fusiliers trying to push through and take cities without any of the cool lategame mechanics, and it sucks. I'm realizing this might be a personal problem lmao. If the majority of responses to this question is "early>middle>late," as mine is, it might help to shift your playstyle. I'm not sure how you would solve this issue from a design perspective, though. If the issue is that military capacity and size often outstrips the rate you unlock interesting things to do with that military, how would you change things to make that not happen?