Difficulty gap between Prince and King

[davaeron666]

I'm getting a bit bored playing this game and it's probably because I lack some skills and I wanted some impulse on that topic. Whenever I play Prince difficulty it seems too easy and can pursue pretty much any victory with any civ early on and get a win. No real challenge except maybe map related challenges like spawning in tundra or on a tiny island...Even then I tend to smash the competition in the renaissance.

If I make a game at King difficulty level, one out of two game I loose militarily or if I avoid war I only am middle tier all game long and it is non-motivating. I'm sure experienced players could drop an advice or two on how to get the edge on King difficulty VS AI.

P.S. I'm not blaming the game.

[Freanma]

I've beaten many games on Deity and I think the AI is way too bad :D
Let me explain the issues with the AI real quick:
With King or higher, the AI isn't really getting better in what it does. The game just grants the AI bonus settlers, warriors, tech boosts, culture and so on. So the game tries to compensate for the lack of intelligence of the "Artificial Intelligence" with bonuses which make them stronger in another kind of view. I think that's pretty bad because the AI is extremely unfair in terms of science and combat in the early game and bad when the game reached the Rennaisance (because it's as dumb as the Prince AI and doesn't get any more bonuses like Musketmans).
Maybe the combat bonuses of the AI is your problem since they don't have any on Prince but get some with King or higher. (Here is a link to the Civ6 Gamepedia were all bonuses are listed: https://civ6.gamepedia.com/Game_difficulty ) I think it would be way better if the AI was more intelligent and wouldn't get any unfair bonuses.

[Imhotep]

Try playing King difficulty with the 'No AI Start Advantage' mod, which removes the extra starting units the AI receives at higher difficulty levels.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1263169936

[HeyNongMer]

Smoother Difficulty is another mod that makes the AI less competitive at the start, but more as the game progresses :
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1673479392

[plaguepenguin]

You can review exactly what the AI advantages are on all the difficulty levels in this YouTube by Saxy Gamer,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94d_8kUtO_M.

Prince difficulty is dead even, no bonuses or advantages to humans vs AIs.

The AIs get one extra warrior as their only starting bonus unit on King. That's not a big deal. They're not conquering you or even the odd city state with just one extra warrior.

On King they get 20% better yields in gold and production, and 8% better at culture, science, and faith.

There is a +1 combat strength bonus that AI units get when fighting humans on King. That's pretty much nothing.

The improved yields are about the only real advantage the AIs have against you on King compared to Prince. You need to counter that advantage with better strategy than the AI can muster. Fortunately, the AI is pretty inept at strategy, and more inept the higher you go in terms of long-range planning and coordinating the many systems there are in this game. It can be pretty good within one subsystem, or in war both counterpunching and building a static defense line of walled cities and encampments, but anything higher and more long range, and it's pretty helpless.

The yield advantage is why the AIs get and stay ahead of you on King. Countering that with strategy starts at the low level by doing little things like being more efficient at getting as many eurekas and inspirations as you can, and paying more attention to adjacency bonuses for your districts. But you really get ahead of them mostly by paring back what you try to stay competitive at so that you can concentrate on what's important, especially in the early game. Don't go for a religion (unless you're playing a civ that most readily wins that way, but don't play such a civ until you've mastered the other systems first), so build campuses instead of Holy Sites. Build units instead of walls or encampments, because you plan to win your wars in the field and in enemy territory, and you have such an advantage over AIs in combat because you can actually think, that you don't need Great Generals or enhanced XP. Don't bother with entertainment districts until and unless happiness becomes a problem in the late game. Don't try for any Wonders early without a very specific need.

Two things and two things only are always important -- getting to the top in science, while always staying at least competitive militarily. Even if you don't plan a Science or Domination victory, you need those two things if only to defend your reach for any other type of victory. Add other priorities specific to your long-range plan when you can, as dictated by your ability to get and maintain the two essentials.

One other thing you should do is at least temper, if not abandon, and tendency you have to play a pacifist game. In Civ6 as opposed to 5, you really have to go wide, at least until you're very skilled at the game, so you need to take land. Prioritize exploring your home land mass as completely as you can, and then when you have a good idea of the local competition, decide which one or two neighboring AI civs you're going to kill so that you can steal their land to play wide. You should kill them as early as possible, for all sorts of reasons. The barb menace is often such that you need a big army early anyway to deal with them, so when you're done killing barbs, you already have the means to kill some AI civs. City States that don't have good suzerain bonuses also should be on your kill list. Being selective in these decisions is the sort of higher order strategy that the AI is terrible at and you need to become good at. Get the conquest necessary to secure enough land out of the way early, and you may never again have to fight a war, unless of course you are going for Domination.

My advice is to go back to Prince, try the approach I suggest, or any other new strategies that people recommend or that occur to you, and play at that level until you reach a point where you are always the tech leader by the Medieval Era, and often even earlier, then 20 techs ahead by the Information Era. The late game will be so boring at that point that you'll move up to King as a natural step, in order to push back reaching the point at which the game becomes a boring victory march. Then move on to Emperor, as I am planning as soon as I play the remaining 4 civs at King.

[davaeron666]

So many great data and answers. Very nice of you all !

[grumble]

I am having the same problem as davaeron666 - Prince level is too easy and King level is too hard.

Thank you gtomkins1 for your detailed response.

I am going to give up on religion (even though if, say, I am playing China, it feels wrong not to found a religion).

I realise I need to be more aggressive (even though I don't really enjoy the military side of the game).

Apart from the difficulty the other problems I have at King level are:
- for me, fighting off all those barbarians in the early game is boring
- I don't get to build many wonders (I LIKE building wonders!)