Deity not hard enough - what are my options?

to me the fundamental problem isn't that the AI is weak, but that they don't consistently chase victory conditions. you can make the AI as strong as you want, but it doesn't make the game fun nor challenging, just like the difficulty slider in game. what needs change is the AIs priorities, build paths, internal mechanisms for decisions, their gameplan. all those things the human player does in order to chase his victory condition. this isn't impossible, in fact AckenMod made this a reality for Civ V, where some AIs would finish t140 or t150 if you allowed them to develop without hurting them, where an AI on a far away continent was a real threat. with Civ VI it feels even worse than with Civ V. I know for a fact after t100 that I'm just going through the motions, that I have essentially won since the AI never, ever finishes a VC before t200.

what's the earliest an AI has won a game, except Domination, in your experience? I would really like to hear your comments :)
 
Why don't you try always war 42 civs 18 city states (60 max allowed) on a map larger than huge. You can ally with city states that have good bonuses like 20% extra combat experience, give amenities or something else useful. You must declare war when you encounter a leader and no peace can ever be negotiated. All victory conditions must be enabled. Can you win before the AI does?
 
Why don't you try always war 42 civs 18 city states (60 max allowed) on a map larger than huge. You can ally with city states that have good bonuses like 20% extra combat experience, give amenities or something else useful. You must declare war when you encounter a leader and no peace can ever be negotiated. All victory conditions must be enabled. Can you win before the AI does?

from my experience, after a certain point, the more Civs you add the more sluggish the game becomes. AIs bog each other down in slow, unwinnable wars and devote all their ressources to stalemates where no one really comes out on top. Civ 5 had the same problem, albeit not as bad. Having more AIs, or "more war", doesn't necessarily make the game harder. But it is a really good idea still! Though Huge Map with 42 civs will probably be very taxing even for fast PCs.
 
I got really good results for challenging games with a couple of mods who improved the general AI handling, the AI difficulty bonuses and the game progression. So if you like a more challenging game I can recommend that mod combination, which do not change to much of the original gameplay (with the exception of the Eurekas). Tested on normal game speed and the standard maps.

AI handling & AI difficulty bonuses
Smooth Difficulty 2.0 (without tourism scaling)
Real Strategy


Game progression (changing tech/civic tree, tech/civic costs and the Eurekas)
8 Ages of Pace for Gathering Storm
Real Tech Tree
Real Eurekas (Pro Tip: Use in the RealEurekas_0_Setup Option A with a fixed ID per game).
 
First off, I'm not that great of a Civ 6 Player and I'm not being modest. But I keep running into the same "problem" playing in Deity mode.

I play on the biggest map with at least 20+ civilizations on Deity/Marathon. After some interesting confrontations with a few civs early in the game (after beating them) I always get into a lobsided game where I've got 5-8 cities (because I've conquered some early game) and my opponents don't. From there it's nearly impossible for them to catch up as I simply steamroll through weaker civs.

Are there some nice mods that will give the AI some added juice later in the game? I'd like to be able to take on massive opponents versus steam roll everyone.


How about you impose some rules on yourself. The rules I use are I am never allowed to declare war on a civ or a city state. If I am attacked I am only allowed to capture 1 city. If you conquer your nearest neighbor or 2 winning is really easy.
 
I don't know if anyone has noticed but the OP was by someone who joined on the 2 Feb made the OP the same day. His only other post was a reply to the OP on the same day. There's been no other posts.

May I tentatively suggest that the OP was a 'joke'. His last activity of any kind was on the 7 Feb. Probably checking in on the replies and finding it very amusing that so many people have taken the OP seriously.
 
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I don't know if anyone has noticed but the OP was by someone who joined on the 2 Feb made the OP the same day. His only other post was a reply to the OP on the same day. There's been no other posts.

May I tentatively suggest that the OP was a 'joke'. His last activity of any kind was on the 7 Feb. Probably checking in on the replies and finding it very amusing that so many people have taken the OP seriously.

I think that's just your cynism speaking.
 
I'd like to be able to take on massive opponents
Reduce # of opponents.
Give each opponent its own landmass—eg an islands game with 5 islands = 4 opponents.

I haven't played Civ6 yet—picked up the Epic Vanilla freebie yesterday—but is it possible to have duel Terra map with the opponent on the other continent?
 
Reduce # of opponents.
Give each opponent its own landmass—eg an islands game with 5 islands = 4 opponents.

I haven't played Civ6 yet—picked up the Epic Vanilla freebie yesterday—but is it possible to have duel Terra map with the opponent on the other continent?

Terra puts all the Civs on the same continent, I believe, which is the opposite of what you want. I'd suggest just playing as Kupe, I think you'd like it :D
 
I'd like to be able to take on massive opponents versus steam roll everyone.

Marathon makes it much easier on the human player.
With the new patch, spawns can be much tighter, so... look, if you haven't been rushed by Shaka or Pedro with two archers and 5 warriors while being 10 turns away from Archery, we are clearly not playing the same game (and I play on Emperor :) )
 
I've seen other people getting rushed plenty but it never happened to me once, not on Emperor nor on Deity. Saw a video recently where someone got rushed by Barbarossa on T11 (Deity Standard). I think there are a lot of things that good players do automatically that stops them from being rushed.

One thing is getting unit strength up early. If your first build is Scout / Scout or Scout / Warrior or even Scout / Slinger already there is much less chance of you being DOWed, compared to going Worker first, or Worker second. If you buy another unit around T10 with your first bulk gold, even slimmer chance. Give the AI a gift the first turn you meet them, even lower chance. Purposefully avoid the AI (scan with settler lens while scouting!) until T15 helps massively. Forward settling them, ironically enough, also helps. Rushing to Early Empire and exchanging Early Borders helps so much. Often times a guaranteed friendship. Rushbuying a super early TR (instead of a unit) as soon as you have it available and sending it to your neighbor. Again almost guaranteed friendship.

There are so many ways to deter the AI from rushing you that it's honestly rarely a problem in my games.

Marathon makes it much easier on the human player.

I agree. Online/Quick are significantly harder, Epic/Marathon are much, much easier compared to standard speed.
 
There are so many ways to deter the AI from rushing you that it's honestly rarely a problem in my games.

yes but sometimes its just shaka or genghis :) workers are usually not even my 5th build so yeah. There’s no cure if you stifle AI expansion, you *will get dowed* except with alliance. I had incidentally AIs boxed in and a few turns later DOW came amost universally
 
Why is this? I don't play much on other speeds - curious if it applies to domination only or all victory types?

Just a quick rundown:

The slower the game speed, the stronger units get. Units move/attack every turn. Slower game speeds mean more turns, means more moves and attacks. Your scouts are more effective, as is your military, as are your builders and settlers.

The slower the game speed, the more decisions the player gets to make. Every turn you get to make decisions (do I rushbuy X? do I switch policies? do I place a district now or wait to chop the tile? etc.). The more turns there are, the more decisions there are.

The slower the game speed, the easier the micromanaging. The more turns it takes for you to research X technology, the more time you have in order to switch around until you get the Eurekah. On online speed often you will miss Eurekahs because Techs/Civics complete in one turn. On Marathon speed that might be 3 or 5 turns instead, meaning you can switch around and manage overflow better.

There are millions of other examples and this discussion gets incredibly deep, the more you think about it, the more things one can mention. It boils down to this:

You win Civ by accruing small advantages into bigger advantages. The player makes better decisions than the AI. Every decision made is a small advantage. The more decisions, the more advantages, the faster you snowball. Slower game speeds allow for far more decisions in total (yet less decisions per turn). This applies even moreso for domination, but it's also relevant for peaceful VCs.
 
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I just won my 4th game on Deity. So far I've won Science with Poundmaker, Culture with Teddy, Diplo with Catherine and Religious with Jadwiga. Next game will be Domination with Simon Bolivar and I will complete all victory conditions sans score, should be fun.

What I like about Deity in 6 is that if you know how to beeline certain techs/civics, building key/good wonders are absolutely possible. In my Catherine game, I was able to build Mahabodhi Temple, Potala Palace, Statue of Liberty and Orszaghaz. Winning Diplo after that was not that difficult. In the Teddy game, I was able to build Pyramids, Broadway, Cristo Redentor, Hermitage, St. Basil's, Mont St. Michel and Petra. In my Jadwiga game, I only had 4 cities due to getting sandwiched between allies but I built Mont St. Michel, St. Basil, Petra, Pyramids. In 5, it is a lot more tricky to build most wonders. This sort of makes the game easier on Deity in 6, though I can't deny it is more fun.
 
Why is this? I don't play much on other speeds - curious if it applies to domination only or all victory types?
I'd add one more reason why, it's harder for the AI to recover from losses. On marathon if an AI fails an attack and their army is wiped you can invade with no opposition. On faster speeds they can sometimes recoup and defend a little. Even against each other if they lose too many units its a major setback for both the winner and loser. Players are better at keeping units alive which massively saves cogs on slower speeds.

I'd add another suggestion for increasing difficulty. Pick your opponents. Civs like Kongo and Korea can sometimes put together a good effort at peaceful VCs. The Mapuche can be tough to do a knight rush against on Deity because they beeline their pretty powerful UU. Gran Columbia in its current state (I'll be shocked if they're not eventually nerfed) makes up for a lot of the AIs shortcomings, especially on deity. GG bonus stacked with Comandante bonus and the deity strength bonus makes their units absurdly tough. Australia with its production bonus and easy adjacencies can often put together a better game than other civs.

I'd avoid civs with UIs other than maybe Sumeria. They can stupidly spam UIs when other improvements might be better. Civs that have nonsensical focuses on their script are best avoided too. Norway and England are too navy centric and fail to pursue a VC.

Choose civs that directly challenge you in your chosen VC. Russia can cripple a player's culture game by just being in the game. Faith focused civs can be a royal pain to convert in a religious game.
 
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