Higher Difficulty Tips

[Archibald Meatpants]

I'd beaten the game on the difficulty mode right before Nation, forgot it's name. I figured I'd try out the Nation difficulty mode. My main problem is that whoever my neighbor is, regardless of their AI persona will proceed to attack me immediately. I have no problem with going on the defensive, but the thing is that they can spit out units like it's nothing. I'd just won a single battle after sacrificing some conscripts to weaken their military force and 2 turns later they come back with a force of 9 people. Not to mention the fact that no matter how much I explore or change up the world generation literally (and I'm not saying that just to say it) everyone else has horses except for me. So I get to sit there helpless as they pump out chariots or mounted scouts at me like some sort of zerg rush. I'm stumped on what to do so far, I even chose one of the militaristic cultures just to try and combat this. Anyone got tips on how to survive?

[jonnin]

Try paying them a small fee for non-aggression treaty.
try to scout (and claim!) horses before you promote. Bonus, get copper too
larger maps or less enemy can give you the space to get started.
pull your border territory into your city. To attack that, they need war, which requires support.
use normal unbuffed ai from the website until you get a good feel for the difficulty, then try the buffed up ones. Or try super-buffed AI (from the site as well) on the previous difficulty.
find a defensible territory / city location and bottle them up. Research wood put an archer in each group with 3 scouts. Scouts stand in the way and defend, archer shoots. rotate them out try not to lose any scouts too. Minimize losses, maximize attrition. 2 star scouts are pretty good this early on, get some stars fighting animals in the first era.
send your own scout around to try to cap their outposts and wreck some of their stuff, even take their city with a surprise war if its empty and they are busy being morons somewhere else...

[Archibald Meatpants]

I always play on huge maps so I had no problem with territory or space, I even grabbed myself up some copper and other things. I had no idea about the purchasing a non aggression treaty, definitely going to try that out. I also didn't know I could level my scouts just by hunting, I thought once the hunter gatherer thing was over it was pointless to attack them. Thanks for the tips.

[Troubletcat]

I'm playing on Humankind now, having just won a game on the 2nd highest difficulty.

I've found that in the early game, it's best to be ruthless. Don't split up your tribes fully in Neolithic, keep them together so that if you encounter AI tribes you can kill them, and ransack any AI outposts you find.

In ancient era, be as aggressive as possible ransacking unattached outposts - you don't need to go to war to do this, and it prevents the AI from expanding too much and becoming unmanageable. If you see an undefended city, declare war to take it. Also, try to attack and capture the cities of independent people early on - they usually have little to no defenses in the first couple turns after founding a city.

You will need to spend some time early on building military units when you'd probably rather build production or influence, but you need to make sure the AI doesn't get into a position where they have so many more units than you they can steamroll your cities. Since you need production (and food!) to pump out an army, it's a bit of a balancing act, though. What I would say about it is, 'you probably need to build more warriors than you think'.

[Archibald Meatpants]

I tried wanton aggression from the beginning, and it sorta worked. I even kept my forces together (for the most part). My problem with the military unit thing was my lack of growth in cities which means less troops, and lack of production which means it takes forever. I would say based off of what you said my biggest mistake was spending 8 turns on a religious building. So the aggressive playstyle actually worked for a little, until my neighbor, whom always reaches a new culture before me, decided that it was a good time to become the Huns. I stood no chance. I might just be doing it wrong. Thank you for the tips.

[Troubletcat]

Huns are extremely hard to deal with, their unique unit is amazing, so don't feel bad about that.

I wouldn't recommend building holy sites early. Some of the religion bonuses are good, but it's not a high priority early on and honestly the AI picks tend to be decent, so if you end up following somebody else's religion it's not a big deal. I usually don't build holy sites unless I need the stability.

[Archibald Meatpants]

I usually get lucky and am able to pick the Romans when available, alongside a combat culture beforehand. I forgot it's name but it gives all military units 1 extra combat strength for the rest of the game. I'd thought the extra unit slot alongside my extra combat strength would help but all it did was extend my suffering.

[Faray]

Originally posted by Archibald Meatpants:

I usually get lucky and am able to pick the Romans when available, alongside a combat culture beforehand. I forgot it's name but it gives all military units 1 extra combat strength for the rest of the game. I'd thought the extra unit slot alongside my extra combat strength would help but all it did was extend my suffering.

Hitties (+1 combat) is one of the worst cultures (If not the worst) and Rome is also pretty poor. They may seem good because of the military bonuses but they don't do much to help you out. Try picking a better ancient era culture -Egypt is one of the best and the AI almost never picks it, though Harappans and Mycenaeans are also strong.

[jonnin]

Egypt is your steamrolling out of the gate AI really. If you can scout horses and learn the wheel you can take 4 of them*** + any free warriors you have over to the AI before it knows what to do. The special unit is ranged horse ... its fast, its strong, it can shoot so it does not take retaliation damage, and it can defend after shooting, so its tougher than it has a right to be when hit.
If you want to faceroll the AI for a bit egypt-> persia is the way to go. Egypt lets you take the cities, persia lets you have 2 more over cap. Between them you can have 4-5 cities before most AI have 2. This lets you pick how you will win as the snowballing has started and nothing can catch it.

*** the trick here is to dump pyramid in your 2 connected territories to your capital. By the time you figure out the wheel, which is apparently more difficult than you would think it would be, you will be ready to mass produce these guys. Then when you make one and lose a population, disband an old scout to get the population back.

This won't work if the guy is on top of you to begin with, though. You need a few rounds of peace, that is what the treaty was for. They usually take little while to decide that was a dumb thing to sign.

[Matthew]

You generally just want to get to classical quickly and get iron and then kill your neighbor. Once you get 5 or 6 cities, all with several regions attached, you should have a good base to work from.

Persia is good because of the higher city cap, but don't worry about it if you can't get them. Just go over the city cap if you must.

[Dorok]

Originally posted by Faray:

Originally posted by Archibald Meatpants:

I usually get lucky and am able to pick the Romans when available, alongside a combat culture beforehand. I forgot it's name but it gives all military units 1 extra combat strength for the rest of the game. I'd thought the extra unit slot alongside my extra combat strength would help but all it did was extend my suffering.

Hitties (+1 combat) is one of the worst cultures (If not the worst) and Rome is also pretty poor. They may seem good because of the military bonuses but they don't do much to help you out. Try picking a better ancient era culture -Egypt is one of the best and the AI almost never picks it, though Harappans and Mycenaeans are also strong.

Yeah I tried a Hitties start and wondered if the +1 had any effect.

At reverse Harappans was huge.

For AI picks, it should depend of AI because in my current setup Egyptian is systematically one of the quicker pick, even if overwall it seem be more or for most AI, Mycenaeans, Harappans, Nubians. I did multiple restart, and each time one AI, the same, was picking Egyptian very fast.

[Matthew]

Nubians are as good as Egypt. If they are still available, definitely try and get them.

[Archibald Meatpants]

I can understand the Hitties but the fact that Rome is a low tier culture was a bit of a shock. The AI for me also doesn't ever really pick Egypt. Although one question remains now, do I need to be selective of my cultures all throughout the game? Because I usually like to be the Franks and then the French just for fun.

[jonnin]

well, yes, each culture era has strong and weak ones and of those, there is also playing to what you need, eg if way behind in infrastructure you can do a builder...

[Robin]

Originally posted by Matthew:

You generally just want to get to classical quickly and get iron and then kill your neighbor. Once you get 5 or 6 cities, all with several regions attached, you should have a good base to work from.

Persia is good because of the higher city cap, but don't worry about it if you can't get them. Just go over the city cap if you must.

Lol? 5 to 6 cities, that's when you end the game, how on earth are you ever supporting 5-6 cities that early without getting penalties?

[Archibald Meatpants]

Conquest I assume. The free people's cities aren't exactly the strongest in the world. They do love raiding me at every opportunity, though.