What i'd change (Deity)

[Nastradoomus]

1. AI ability to purchase and attack with an unit at the same turn. Makes the game sometimes so f...ing irritating. Ai has an archer in a city and purchases a Quadrireme. Those two absolutely wrecks an archer and there is nothing you can do about it.
2. Ultra aggression when expanding. Sometimes (and a lot of times in some of the maps) you haven't got a chance to survive. No matter what.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

1. AI ability to purchase and attack with an unit at the same turn. Makes the game sometimes so f...ing irritating. Ai has an archer in a city and purchases a Quadrireme. Those two absolutely wrecks an archer and there is nothing you can do about it.
2. Ultra aggression when expanding. Sometimes (and a lot of times in some of the maps) you haven't got a chance to survive. No matter what.

Seriously? The things you'd change about Deity in Civ 6 are to make it easier???

If you're having trouble with Deity, that's fine. Just drop down to Immortal or Emperor and have fun playing at that level until it gets too easy for you and you want to challenge yourself by taking on Deity. But please don't ask for Deity to be made any simpler to beat than it already is.

The difficulty levels in Civ have always been to allow players to find the right challenge level for them. Until Civ 6, when suddenly Deity is a walk in the park for experienced players. If you're having trouble with Deity, understand that there are players who can achieve victory on Deity in half the time it would take the AI to win. Deity is supposed to be to challenge players at that level, and always has been a challenge in past versions (less so in Civ 5, which I can occasionally beat on Deity, unlike Civ 4, or even Civ 2, where I have no hope of winning on Deity). In Civ 6, a mediocre player like me can win on Deity without even worrying about playing efficiently, and I've spent only a fraction of the time learning to play Civ 6 that I've spent on past versions of Civ.

 

[MrRadar]

1. AI ability to purchase and attack with an unit at the same turn. Makes the game sometimes so f...ing irritating. Ai has an archer in a city and purchases a Quadrireme. Those two absolutely wrecks an archer and there is nothing you can do about it.

I’d say, bring more units than an archer. Bring four archers and a couple of melees at least. Or more melees/galleys. Bring replacements. Bring a great general. And if the city already has walls, bring a battering ram and a bunch of melees, and you can forget siege units.

2. Ultra aggression when expanding. Sometimes (and a lot of times in some of the maps) you haven't got a chance to survive. No matter what.

Have you tried immediate delegations and early friendships to prevent an attack? Or getting more units? Not quitting even if you lose your capital? Civ6 is the most forgiving game of them all. With a bit of determination everyone can win deity, even after the initial setback. If you see a warmongering neighbour, see if you can befriend them to spare the early war trouble and make them spent on somebody else, or else chop an army and make them sorry/dead.

It is true that on some starts you can die within 40-70 turns, especially if you’re just starting with the game and have little clue of what is going on. But when you learn to survive the start, you can rely on your cat to take over from turn 100 and win you a deity game by rolling on the keyboard. A little bit of exaggeration, of course, but just a little bit. Wipe out their starting bonus troops and you’re done, you’ve won.

As for my suggestion goes, I wish they’d add a tooltip for mousing over the Deity difficulty which read "MUHAHAHA good luck sucker!"... and they’d MEAN it. Like before. And for the whole run, not for the start only. It is the highest difficulty, after all, unjust, unfair, unfun, unwhatever. I’m fine with a significant percentage of the starts being just unwinnable on Deity.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

It is true that on some starts you can die within 40-70 turns, especially if you’re just starting with the game and have little clue of what is going on.

There aren't many. I used to think the Turn 15 rush by 5 Warriors was unbeatable, but now I realize the error was in building a Slinger as my first military unit. If you start with a Warrior or two before shifting to a Slinger, even the immediate Warrior rush can be fought off on most maps.

Maybe if you're attacked by Teddy on his continent in the first 25 turns and you don't have at least one 2F/2P tile in your starting ring you could be in trouble. I haven't seen that scenario, but Teddy would be the deadliest possibly immediate neighbour and if it takes you a while to build up your defence force, maybe he could take you out despite your best efforts.

Basically, surviving the first 50 turns of a Deity game starts with deciding where to put your Capital. It's not the same decision as when playing Prince. The first and foremost consideration on Deity is "where can I put my Capital that will make it hard to lose if an AI army marches on it on Turn 15?" That's either based on good protective defensive terrain or good yielding tiles that allow for a quick military build up or some combination of the two.

Once you have your Capital in the right place, it's what do you build first? I prefer Builder, even if an AI city pops up a few tiles away on Turn 3 or 4, as the Builder can be used to chop in a Warrior if need be. Then unless the AI is already mobilizing on my border, I like a Settler, as a second city means even the loss of your Capital isn't game over. After that, it's 3 Warriors followed by 3 to 4 Slingers, followed by an assessment of "how am I going to survive a Knight rush if the AI sends one?"

After you have an army capable of defeating an AI Knight rush, victory is just a matter of time. Play aggressively, play peacefully. Hand the keyboard over to your cat. Doesn't much matter. The AI takes so long to win itself there's almost no half-logical path forward that doesn't result in a victory screen after you hit End Turn often enough.

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

Moderator Action: Thread moved to Ideas and Suggestions.

 

[Nastradoomus]

Seriously? The things you'd change about Deity in Civ 6 are to make it easier???

Well darn! Such a nice welcome.
Did i say i want deity easier? Those things i said are just plain stupid.

I’d say, bring more units than an archer. Bring four archers and a couple of melees at least. Or more melees/galleys. Bring replacements. Bring a great general. And if the city already has walls, bring a battering ram and a bunch of melees, and you can forget siege units.

You're missing the point. You can't counter AI's ability to purchase and attack. That is just a dumb trick to make AI harder to fight. What AI lacks is a proper AI. Not these cheap tricks.

There aren't many. I used to think the Turn 15 rush by 5 Warriors was unbeatable, but now I realize the error was in building a Slinger as my first military unit. If you start with a Warrior or two before shifting to a Slinger, even the immediate Warrior rush can be fought off on most maps.

Try epic - get fudged. Sometimes you're still building your first warrior when AI attacks. A slinger can't really help when city is under siege. IMHO it's really irritating when you have a good start but don't get a chance of starting the game at all.

 

[Nastradoomus]

If you're having trouble with Deity, that's fine. Just drop down to Immortal or Emperor and have fun playing at that level until it gets too easy for you and you want to challenge yourself by taking on Deity. But please don't ask for Deity to be made any simpler to beat than it already is.

Don't really know what to think of this. I guess if i have one post i'm still a noob. Bet you played civ 1 with deity too?

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Don't really know what to think of this. I guess if i have one post i'm still a noob. Bet you played civ 1 with deity too?

No. Deity was introduced in Civ 2. Civ 1 didn't have that level.

And no, I don't play Deity on prior versions of Civ. I'm not that good a player. In Civ 6, by contrast, I can't get a challenging game, even on Deity.

Well darn! Such a nice welcome.
Did i say i want deity easier? Those things i said are just plain stupid.

You're missing the point. You can't counter AI's ability to purchase and attack. That is just a dumb trick to make AI harder to fight. What AI lacks is a proper AI. Not these cheap tricks.

Try epic - get ****ed. Sometimes you're still building your first warrior when AI attacks. A slinger can't really help when city is under siege. IMHO it's really irritating when you have a good start but don't get a chance of starting the game at all.

Okay, then, to your specific points:

1. It's perfectly fine for a player to be able to lose a unit, without being able to "counter it". War should be harder, not easier. You should be expecting to lose more units, not less, in a typical city attack. It would not, in my opinion, improve the game one iota for it to be even easier than it currently is for the player to keep every single one of their units alive during an assault on the AI.

2. I disagree that it will often be the case that you won't get a chance to start a game because of an early AI attack. If you're struggling with surviving the early AI rush on Deity, try playing on Immortal until you're better able to deal with it. It's literally the one and only thing you have to do at the beginning of a Deity game: get ready to fight off the enemy. If you want to explore and do other things, you can do that on other difficulty levels. Deity requires a different type of game play. That's what it's for. Unfortunately, after the first 50 to 100 turns, it then reverts to playing like all other difficulty levels. The challenge of the early game isn't continued for the whole game in Civ 6.

 

[Nastradoomus]

Have you tried epic? 1-2 out of 3 times in pangaea (default settings with at least normal size) leads to early death. No matter what. I'm 100% towards early wars but not having a chance is intolerable.

Emperor all day long with civ1. Deity after that. 2400hrs + in civ6. Not going to play anything else than deity. Besides Civ 6 deity is almost always smooth sailing after surviving first turns. AI lacks a ton of horsehocky.

 

[Nastradoomus]

1. It's perfectly fine for a player to be able to lose a unit, without being able to "counter it". War should be harder, not easier. You should be expecting to lose more units, not less, in a typical city attack. It would not, in my opinion, improve the game one iota for it to be even easier than it currently is for the player to keep every single one of their units alive during an assault on the AI.

No it is not when it is unpredictable. This is my point. A horseman can come from the fog and attack. An archer can come from the fog and attack. If buying an unit does not give you an attack - why should it give an attack to AI? You can chop an unit and attack. That is perfectly fine. You can make AI better with proper code that is perfectly fine.

 

[acluewithout]

Well. If we’re going to have this conversation...

I think Deity (mad other difficulty levels) would basically be improved by three fairly easy changes.

First, AI bonuses should not be so front loaded, and instead should be staggered over the various eras. A few mods have had a crack at this already.

Second, AI should get a certain number of it’s unique units for free. This probably would need some balancing (eg Aztecs), but AI Civs would be better if they could more effectively field their unique units.

Third, relatedly, AI Civs should probably be gifted other things at certain points, based on what’s going on in the game. Like, maybe free Anti-Cav when defending surprise walls. Maybe free resources so they can upgrade units. There is basically a real problem where you kill the AIs initial army, capture a few cities, and the whole empire just collapses.

 

[Naokaukodem]

or even Civ 2, where I have no hope of winning on Deity

Huh. Civ2 Deity is a piece of cake. No wonder modders prefer to start with 10 black faces. (instead of two normal and a red one)

 

[MrRadar]

You're missing the point. You can't counter AI's ability to purchase and attack. That is just a dumb trick to make AI harder to fight. What AI lacks is a proper AI. Not these cheap tricks.

You sort of can by bringing in more firepower. Plan to rotate some troops or expect reasonable losses, as long as it lets you to take the city faster. Yes, it is a dumb trick, but between you and the AI, it is you who has the brain, and now that you know what can happen, plan accordingly. This being the supposedly hardest level, I accept that it can use some dirty tricks. And yes, I'd like to have a proper AI as much as the next civfanatic; however, for now, we can only hope that the mythical "single guy who writes the gameplay AI" will get some help or one heck of inspiration for the next expansion, so that the AI starts to rebuild troops and learn to use airforce and navy.

As for frequent dying on Pangea on epic, I cannot comment, I mostly play standard speed.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Seriously? The things you'd change about Deity in Civ 6 are to make it easier???

It's not make it easier but less random at start. I've played 3 consecutive games where an AI spotted me with a scout and sent all its troups to my capital and only city, which was litterally surrounded. Not even sure i could prevent this by building only military since the start, but in those cases no matter what i will still build a monument, a worker, and a slinger just because it's the correct thing to do (to reach eurekas and grow your city, knowing frontiers grow very slowly in civ6, what is also annoying)

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

It's not make it easier but less random at start. I've played 3 consecutive games where an AI spotted me with a scout and sent all its troups to my capital and only city, which was litterally surrounded. Not even sure i could prevent this by building only military since the start, but in those cases no matter what i will still build a monument, a worker, and a slinger just because it's the correct thing to do (to reach eurekas and grow your city, knowing frontiers grow very slowly in civ6, what is also annoying)

I'd suggest delaying the Slinger and building a second (and third) Warrior first. Combined with your starting Warrior, it can prevent the AI's initial Warrior rush from putting your city under siege. Slinger doesn't help much, and you can wait for the tech boost.

Monument should also likely getted bumped way, way down the priority list if playing on Deity. The Palace gives you culture, so your capital is going to expand as fast as your population anyway. Personally, I find Builder / Army / as many Settlers as I have room for cities works well,

Compared to past versions of the game, you don't have to play Deity as differently from other difficulty levels in Civ 6 to have a chance to win. At least, not all the way through the game. But even in Civ 6, you greatly increase the chance of getting rolled early if you start your approach to the game with a mindset other than "they're all going to get me!! how am I going to survive???"