Anybody else keep getting rushed by the AI?

[CaiusDrewart]

Personally, I really love how the ancient and classical eras are basically a free-for-all. Everyone is out to get everyone. It's great fun. Build lots of slingers and you should be OK.

Yes this does happen. Here's a partial explanation of why, based on what I can observe.

When you first meet a civ, if you check the diplo panel, you'll often notice a penalty called "First Impression" (to see it you need to have a relationship with the civ). It'll often be -4 or -5 and will hold steady for a long period early in the game. This appears to represent a drain on your relations. If you see negative values (red text) on this screen, the civ is becoming more and more angry at you.

You can offset this partially in a few ways:
- Give gifts
- Open borders once that becomes a thing
- Send a trade route
- Send a delegation for 25 gold (often the only option early)

The most important thing here is the longer you let a bad relationship linger the harder it will be to repair. If you start off with -5 First Impression, by turn 10 your relationship has decayed by 50 points. If you care to slow this down, you can offer a delegation the moment you meet a civ for the +3 relations. This will slow down their rising anger toward you significantly and could ward off an attack. You have to send the delegation super early or else the relationship will quickly decay to the point they will no longer accept it.

AI relationships appear to require much more attention in Civ 6 than in previous games. If you see negative numbers on the diplo screens and care enough about the relationship to address it, you should act quickly. A -5 total relationship that stays that way for many turns isn't holding steady--it's getting worse.

These are really good tips, thanks. I sometimes have been holding off on sending a delegation until I'm sure I can spare the cash, but it looks like that's definitely not the way to go. (I wish the game had been more clear about how the system worked!) Do you know anything about the mechanics of how gifting works? How big do my gifts have to be and how often do I have to send them?