Going up a difficulty level resulted in getting smacked down. I decided to jump back down and, instead of carefully choosing my leaders and civs, to simply leave myself at the mercy of the random number generator. I resolved to play out the whole game without regenerating, or rerolling if I got a bad situation. I had random leaders on. The theory is that learning to win in different ways would teach me more about the fundamentals of the game and give the experience I needed to jump up.

And the game gives me... Charlemegne of Holy Rome. Right next to Monty of Rome.

Why are you such a dick to me, RNG???

I feel your pain. Today hasn't been a good day for civ for me. I got stuck next to Brenus of rome, who DOWed me early on because he's a religious nut. I managed to fend him off, and just as I finally finished him off, Isabella wins a diplo victory, when she's the only Jewish leader in the entire damn game.

And besides that, i've lost about 3 or 4 games early on because I keep getting attacked in the BCs. Catherine attacked me when we didn't even share borders. And then there's the games where I get stuck between 2 creative leaders, whose capital are within view of 1 border pop of my capital. I'm staring to hate this game.

Oh yes, the gods of Civ definitely hate me, but in a different way.
My "Holy Mountain" was a peak on a single-tile mid-ocean island.
Some mildly beneficial event was announced at the beginning of the victory announcement turn.
And an hour or so ago, when I had reduced my last opponent to a single inland city surrounded by my tanks, I got handed the Overwhelm quest.

I feel your pain. Today hasn't been a good day for civ for me. I got stuck next to Brenus of rome, who DOWed me early on because he's a religious nut. I managed to fend him off, and just as I finally finished him off, Isabella wins a diplo victory, when she's the only Jewish leader in the entire damn game.

And besides that, i've lost about 3 or 4 games early on because I keep getting attacked in the BCs. Catherine attacked me when we didn't even share borders. And then there's the games where I get stuck between 2 creative leaders, whose capital are within view of 1 border pop of my capital. I'm staring to hate this game.

i feel your pain this stuff happens to me all the time. How come Isabella is always jewish! in all of my games she has been jewish!

i feel your pain this stuff happens to me all the time. How come Isabella is always jewish! in all of my games she has been jewish!

Tick "choose religions" in custom menu. She'll pick Christianity if she's first to a religion and its available.