Im Finding the Game Very Difficult

[jboord44]

I played Civ 4 years ago and loved it. I remember winning almost all the time, granted I set the difficulty to a low level.

With Civ 6, I put the difficulty all the way down to settler, and even with this I find that I'm never ahead in overall score, and I can never really win. AI civiliaztions always seem to be several steps ahead of me, and it's taking away from my enjoyment of the game. I don't feel like I can dominate under any conditions, and that sucks because it's fun to dominate.

I have no problem with a challening game, but I thought the whole point of having like 7 difficulty levels was to let players choose the level of challenge they want. I want to build up to higher difficulty levels by having some fun learning the game and winning first. I'm finding that very hard to do with Civ 6.

I'm definitely not very good at the game yet, but for a beginner I'm not bad. I'm not getting blown out. I just always look up and see them senaking a religious victory, or a culture victory, or having better military units than me. I'm still trying to research advanced flight and the AI civs somehow hit that long ago.

I just don't get it. Is this game harder than past civs?

[pitonsnaboca]

There's a theory that the Settler difficulty is harder than the Chieftain.
Maybe you should try that out... and maybe try games with only one victory condition at a time and/or less enemy civs, in order to learn the hedges on that specific type of win without having to be worried (so much) with AI getting a victory by other means.
And once you feel more confortable, move on to other victory types.

Civ6 can be seen as a constant race, because different civs will focus on different things (many times neglecting other stuff) and they will be stepping on your toes, specially in the beggining. Once you get to know where to go and what to do, it's not that hard to stay ahead of them.

[Nats]

I find Prince is a pretty easy level to play on, I am on Emperor at the moment and the other Civ are well past me.

If you want to dominate the other Civs the best way is to attack the nearest one quickly - get your catepults and cavalry etc and go for it. Once you have taken 3 or 4 of their cities you will be in a much stronger position to take it a bit easier from then on. In this game if you take your time and be nice you get squashed rather quickly.

Thats exactly what I am doing myself this time though just to see what happens. I am trying a game to see if I can play relatively peacefully. Cant see me lasting long but you never know.

[ACS36]

I find civ6 to be one of the easiest versions to beat. There really is no reason any average person should play on anything less than immortal for a fair play experience. Emperor if you want a more casual game. If you're having a hard time on the lowest difficulties you probably should watch some other people play the game and see how they priotize their turns because you likely have some misconceptions about the game mechanics and what's important to priotize.

[Despiser]

Try isolating the victory condition you’re losing to and disable it. I play on immortal but with no science victory because I can’t keep pace with the ai building space projects without devoting all my resources to it and neglecting my little empire

[Navas]

Maybe you have that idea of early civilizations game that you can construct all builds and wonders and be good in all aspects. Before begin a game try to find out what kind of victory you want and choose the leader, or make the opposite. For example if you want a cience vitory try japan and begin constructing campus and industrial districts. You don´t need to research religious techs. Good luck

[Edefonce]

I had the same difficulties at first. Here's a few tips/reminders about this version:
- always expend your territory, slowly but steady
- groom your cities, there are bonus to research per citizen and excellent policy cards with 10+ pop
- specialise your cities to produce 1 or 2 things only. You cannot build everything anymore

[rincewind]

Originally posted by Adam:

I find civ6 to be one of the easiest versions to beat. There really is no reason any average person should play on anything less than immortal for a fair play experience. Emperor if you want a more casual game. If you're having a hard time on the lowest difficulties you probably should watch some other people play the game and see how they priotize their turns because you likely have some misconceptions about the game mechanics and what's important to priotize.

Calm down, not everyone is an übermensch like you.

That being said, if you want to have an easy time, be aggresive from the beginning. Conquer everyone you can in the ancient and classical era. That will set you for an smooth global domination.

Now if you don't want to be a warmonger... well, good luck. You gonna need it.

[jonnin]

Try playing on prince on a huge map with like 5 civs. Try gilgamesh, he can keep you ahead in science. Beat that a few times to get your feet wet.

Religion is hard for the AI to win. If you kill his missionaries, he can't beat you with it.
Culture is hard to win but hard to stop if someone gets going at it. A lot of the techs / cards/ govt/ civ perks can work together to make a huge culture / turn setup that is hard to beat. The AI is only modest at it, but still. If you are losing to it, the only fix I know of is to smash the offending civ.

Better troops means your science is lacking. More universities built surrounded by mountains is about the only easy fix.

[Awen]

While you're learning, you can toggle off certain other victory conditions so the AI can't surprise you with a religious or culteral victory. (Obviously this prevents you from winning this way too!)

[Meep]

We all have radically different playstyles, so all our opinions are only going to mean so much. I for instance, am not having fun unless I eliminate martial conflict from the game as much as possible.

The added bonus is that this is a great way to learn a new version of civilization. Try pruning down your compeating civs till it's mono e mono and toggle barbarians. Then you can feel out the mechanics changes and figure out what works for you.

[Salma Hayek]

Prioritize trade routes (=have as many cities as you can and commercial hub/harbor before any other district, generally after granary and/or monument) and production and don't forget to use Magnus in every city to chop everything and harvest stone to do whatever (units is probably the easiest path to victory, some wonders are cool too but don't build too many). Don't hesitate to buy tiles for mines and to chop more things, production is way more valuable than gold or anything else. Have your cities growing, always. You can pretty much never have too many builders and don't forget to use the appropriate policies to get them. Do that and deity will be easy...

[Nats]

And also just remember to always keep a mighty army that way no-one will much feel like declaring war on you. Even if you arent going for a military win still keep up a good army.