Am I doing something wrong here?

[Colonel Spuds]

Every single game, the AI outperforms me in all fields. Production, influence, religion, Era stars. I simply can not compete. This is own TOWN difficulty by the way! Set to Normal game speed with 300 turns. I have never gotten past the Early Modern Era as the moment I reach it the game ends.

I can't build anything fast enough as it all takes too many turns regardless of industry and population. I can't even have my own Sphere of Influence as I'm ALWAYS consumed by another culture's ideology and civics regardless of my own influence, even if they're an entire ocean away. Research is the only thing I can actually complete, but even then it takes too many turns to complete some sections. Now for Stability... oh man... every action you take decreases stability and there are too few options of keeping it supported, one would think I would build garrisons or take more authoritarian civics, but I can't do that. I'm forced to use the civics of surrounding Empires constantly and the build speed won't construct anything when I actually need it. I end up having things i queued from the Ancient Era only just finally complete in the MEDIEVAL.

This means one of two things, either I'm complete sh*t at 4X titles or a serious re-balance of the games mechanics needs to be put into action. I'm genuinely doing my best here,

[Guirssane]

you're doing something wrong, its not hard at all in town difficulty

[Kypamop]

I've started 3 games and in all 3 most of AI empires were developing with the same speed as me, but 1-2 empires got score x2-x3 from my score, and I could do nothing with this

[G4M5T3R]

Check the personas difficulty. Are you playing against Expert personas? They get some pretty powerful bonuses.

[Colonel Spuds]

It also doesn't help that there's only ONE normal level persona. This could be harmful to players new to the 4X Genre.

[Edi]

i played my first match and its hard to play against experts only AI and only one normal AI. While i had 100 glory there was AIs with already 1300. (they one normal ai was like me 100) i was between two big countrys and every time i build a city they want it. if i said no, there was war and i had no chance. gg!
i was just a playball.
why you cant change the difficulty of the ai on your own?
Or the devs want we play with global avatars?
This is annoying

[Igni]

Originally posted by Potato:

It also doesn't help that there's only ONE normal level persona. This could be harmful to players new to the 4X Genre.

Some tips to start you off

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Large maps + Low AI count + 2/4 Continents will allow you to focus on economics and expansion, with room for late-game wars

Normal Maps + High AI count + Pangea will lead to constant skirmishes and border skirmishes, this is preferential for warmonger game-play.

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Always use auto-explore in the Nomadic Age, and split your units when possible (Ideally 2-3 tribes exploring at once)

You will want to set up an outpost early, so you can upgrade it immediately after picking your first culture

The 'ideal' area for a first outpost is: By a river, 10+ on both Food and Industry, With access to an early-game strategic resource (Brass/Livestock), With access to any Luxury Resources.

Turn count is your most important resource, sometimes compromising quality of location is better than holding out.

Try to keep food above double digits for pop growth, Always build Emblematic Districts, River Infrastructure is powerful early-game. Keep Stability above 30.

Get a second city up ASAP to start snowballing production.

Holy Sites, infrastructure, and garrisons will be your main source of stability, know what you have available and make use.

Try to keep at least 2 full armies up at all times.

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This is just a few things, all of which will help

[Oddible]

Watch a let's play.

[jonnin]

If you are coming in cold, without reading guides, it is a bit tough to get going. It took me 3 restarts or so to realize the calendar is a required tech to function, for example. Outposts made no sense, and I was failing hard there for a bit.

The AI will outperform you in the first era hands down. You will spend the second one catching up. Then you should pull ahead by the end of the third. After you get better, you can keep pace with the AI, and its probably time to kick the level up a notch.

here is a 10 cent guide for beginning player..
- automate your first explorer, but if he starts bouncing between 2 spots, manually take over.
- always pick more people in events over anything else for now. Later you can think for yourself, but trust me that for now, population good, saving 5 turns on taming horses or chopping trees bad.

- at your difficulty, you want your second guy to be a manual explorer guy. He will look for a suitable area for your first city. Find one, and get it put down asap, so it starts making babies and is ready to go when you need it.

- when your automated tribe gets 3 guys in it from finding food, split 2 of them off and manually take them around killing animals and sacking all the lairs (both types). Focus on killing mammoths. At harder levels you need 3 and then 4 to take one down, but 2 will do it on town level.

Run all these guys around and get all 300 fame / 3 stars for now. Later you can move up faster to pick any culture, but first few games just take what is left.

second era, get your cities and territories taken over and absorbed into your 'country'. Once you have researched your special culture unit, start making them and convert your scouts into population and back into troops (disband / build army). This keeps your population neutral while giving you some defense. By the end of the second era you should have outposted all the areas until you run into the AI areas, claim it all and absorb most of it into 3 cities (your cap + 1 is the target) on a big map, less on a smaller one of course. After that, you are established, its game-on.