Easy is too easy, Normal is too difficult.

[Augustgrad]

I'm sure that title is rather sad considering most players on here are playing on King and above. In Civ 4 I could win one difficulty up from Normal, but I guess I just haven't adapted as well to Civ 5 as some.

So far, I've stuck to the Egyptians, and have been rushing to tech for the Great Library, and using that to tech to the Medieval era to open up Patronage before spending culture points(though I did spend some for the 33% to wonders in one game). I've read most of the strats here, so I'm not asking blind, I just think I must be missing some Civ fundamental that is making the jump from Warlord to Prince seem so huge. Are there any rules of thumbs on tile improvements or what should be happening at turn points yet?

For reference, my last game in which I fared the best yet- I built my 2nd city while most of the AI's had their 3rd because I've heard REXing is dead. Napolean builds cities like a mad man, including some far away from his capitol near me. I #$%@^slap him taking one city, only to have him gift me 3 or 4 to end the war. I burn 2 of the useless ones not anywhere near me. He and Hiawatha, who was tied with me in score get into it. Napolean in turn gifts him 4 or 5 cities, pretty much ensuring my doom. At this point Hiawatha has twice my score on the diplomacy screen.

At this point, I have 2 great scientists, and I pop them back to back to get Rifling, which would have taken 50 some odd turns otherwise. I befriend 2 city states next to Hiawatha and prepare for his inevitable assault- in which I find he already has Riflemen, something I just spent 2 great persons to get. He slaughters the city-state I was trying to use as a buffer while simultaneously piling up a bunch of riflemen/equivalent units I just teched for. I didn't bother past that point.

TLDR- For the jump from Easy to Normal to seem so big, I have to be missing some aspect of the basics. I rarely manually manipulate citizen allocation unless its for production when I'm building a wonder-maybe that's my shortcoming.

 

[tibbles]

Hmm, not enough information and I'm not that uber either, but sounds like you're not producing enough output for some reason. Either badly worked tiles or too many buildings or something. If you had multiple cities and this is so late in the game that the AI has rifling on prince, you should be teching much much faster than ~25turns/tech.

 

[qyll]

Farm riverside tiles. Riverside plains are good, riverside mines are the best.

Pump out settlers towards luxury resources you don't have. Those cities will pay for themselves in terms of happiness.

War early. Invest in horsemen. The AI is so bad at war that you should be able to kill 5 or more AI units for every one that you lose. Once you take over a neighbor, you should be able to outtech everyone else for the rest of the game.

 

[Show]

Hard to tell with so little info but I think you didn't have enough cities to sustain research. War early and grab a sizable empire, this will get you the needed science output which depends mostly on your population, if you have 10-15 happy faces, it's 10-15 too many, build/conquer another city. Also avoid puppets if you can (doesn't sound like you had any tho)

I guess you went TP spam and bought all maritime city-states for food after patronage. Sounds like you did as you went patronage and thats pretty much why you take that tree to start with but if not than that could be your problem.

Also, you didn't state your win condition, in civ 5 more than ever, it's fairly important to know how you want to win and work for it form day 1, the AI seems to get a very significant boost once it hits industrial era, better be well on your way before that point.

 

[Rylune]

Been playing King and working on my first Emperor game. I played Emp/Immortal on Civ IV.

Learn how to strategically use river tiles and city states. You can either use rivers with Civil Service to farm up and be very self sufficient (meaning you can use money for Cultural city-states or purchasing buildings/units or maintaining a slightly larger standing army). The other option is trade post everything that isn't a special resource and buy out every maritime city state you can. In this case, be sure to always have plenty of happiness (extra food that you are paying for is worthless if your growth is crippled by an unhappy civ). Either way, do as many quests as you can for city-states. They give you something to do and give you free bonuses.

Buildings. Build what you need only. I tend to grab every happiness building, library/university in every city until I get the national woders, build monuments in every city, and build any free buildings I can in any city (market, bank, wonders, etc).

Only a handful (I prefer 1 or 2) of cities should be geared towards producing units. These can have your Barracks, Armory, etc. If you NEED units fast in a specific location, the upgrades and build time don't matter too much. Just purchase them as needed.

Sell off everything you are not using. That includes strategic resources. I tend to only keep a standing army of 5-10 units and usually only a handful of them require iron and horses. The rest can net you a ton of money. Remember that on the higher difficulties, the AIs make plenty of money. This is a great way to keep up (even slows them down since they will not have the income to purchase tons of units) in economy.

Puppet states are nice but keep an eye on them. Let a puppet state stay a puppet until it starts building stuff you do not want. By that point you hopefully have enough happiness to take the hit until you can get a courthouse or something else up in the city.

Raze any city you take and do not need. Only keep cities if: They are in an amazing location (plenty of rivers, plains, and hills/rivers), a luxury resource that you need, plenty of strategic resources (so you can sell them off), or wonders.

Golden ages are great. Know how to use them. They produce +1 and on any tile that produce them. Makes river/plains, plains/Trade Post, hills/Trade Post, Gold/Gem/Silver mine, etc way better. Be sure to go through and set your tiles during a Golden Age. I even stop using special citizens during that time. And remember that excess happiness and great people you do not need (artists if you do not want to culture bomb or generals if you already have enough) starts golden ages. Some leaders and combinations of buildings, SPs, wonders, etc can actually put you into a golden age for dozens of turns... some people have managed to stay in them for 80-100 turns straight or more.

Great people. It may not be quite as good as Civ IV (unless you are Babylon) but a great person farm is still a great way to get extra tech. Be sure at least one city is working on them. That means that city should have a library and university and have specialized citizens. Also throw any wonders that increase science great people in that city (Great Library) and your national wonder to increase great people production there.

Disband anything you do not need. I tend to take a lot of workers from war mongering and let them set up trade routes and fix up my tiles. But after I am mostly done, I tend to slow down to about 1 worker for every 2-3 cities. If you need more later you can always build or buy more. Remember that you get gold from deleting them and they have the same maintenance as modern or future warfare units. Sometimes you can delete a worker or scout rather than getting rid of a modern armor and it has the same effect on your income per turn.

Decide what you want to do early and try to stick with that. Since we cannot simply change our civics midgame anymore, it is a little harder to drastically change our plans midgame. So be sure that your SPs reflect what you want to accomplish that game. And don't be afraid to start a social policy tree that you do not intend to finish. I like 100% xp from honor but also like 50% faster settlers early only and improved tech SPs. That usually means that even if I am going to be aggressive I may only put 3 points into Honor.

Good unit control can mean you can take over the entire world with 5-10 high level units if you position them and use them well. Be sure the abuse flanking, ranged units, choke points, etc.

 

[Drusek]

Also when you are defending against stronger opponent use advantages that your territory and cities have: you can heal units faster. So attack or defend and withdraw when units are hurt and heal. Use hills and forests for better defense. Use drill promotion. Also all bonuses that give +% strength to units in your territory are good.
You are playing as Egyptians? Go for social policy that give you +33% to wonder production and with your leader +20% build wonders like crazy.

 

[CoffeeMonster]

I've found the move from Prince to Emperor to still be pretty easy. I played Emp level for RevDCM Civ 4, so the Civ 5 happiness mechanics are familiar.

The key (for me, at least) was to expand early and aggressively on all the luxury resources (and strategic). Don't be afraid to extend to halfway across the continent. The key is to get that +5 happiness to offset your new cities, and to deny any horse / swords to your closest competitors.

I usually ignore the bleating calls re: rubbing up against their borders, and they in general won't do anything because you pound into submission with your swordsman spam.

Aggressive scouting and taking out all the close iron / horse spots means that your swordsman will be stomping warriors + spearmen. Discovered locations will update with enemy cities as they expand, giving you a good idea of who needs to be contained early (it's probably a bug- I hope they fix it). The military advisor isn't too helpful though, since his advice is far too canned and vague.

Construction wise, I usually just have one (1) barracks and/or armory; I buy units from this location. Everything else either makes units, or money/happiness generating buildings. Typically I skew towards happiness first. I haven't found science/culture buildings as important, but I'll throw a couple in as necessary.

Fund your unit upgrades with those sacked cities, and burn down unproductive cities, and take advantage of your power to keep up the gold flow through threats etc. As in Dune, the spice must flow. In my experience, civs do get cowed if you are a known warmonger and have a superior army.

After taking out the first two or three competitors, you will usually have a good sized power / tech lead to take out any mega-civs that are forming offseas.

Oh, and watch out for Gandhi. He's a beast.

 

[CornPlanter]

I have played two or three unfinished games with random civs on warlord, once I decided I have an idea what's it all about I moved to King and won the first two games with relative ease (Napoleon and Monty). Currently playing my third real game with Augustus on Emperor and so far it doesn't seem to be very difficult. I bet I will win this one. I am pretty sure I will be playing Immortal this weekend and constantly winning deity in a week or two more. Unless it gets patched.

Yes, the difficulty of this game is sad. I don't need it to be as insane as Civ4 Deity, but I do need a challenge. If your real "normal" level is Immortal, there's gotta be something wrong with design.

 

[Augustgrad]

Sounds like my biggest issues have been not being aggressive early and not being set on a victory type or tech path before I start up. It seems versatility is frowned upon and you must beeline for whatever you're pursuing.

Im going to try Japan out next, and I am dead set on turning barbarians off. I don't kow if its a tring of bad luck or what but they completely ruin the game for me. Scouts are no match, and when I scout with warriors, I still sometimes get killed by packs of them or due to defense bonuses. (Seriously, defense bonuses for barbarians? Really? Reeeaallllyyy?) It's especially painful when I make a worker or or monument first with my initial warrior is scouting 9 turns away and 2 or 3 show up ad Oakland City Riot all of my improvements.

 

[oopsy poopsy]

I think I know why you see a large jump in difficulty, 'cause I'm pretty sure you're suffering from what I did in IV, namely you've got some wonders and slingshots or dynamics that you rely on to crush the AI and all of a sudden they stop working or don't give you the advantage you thought they would at all. The game isn't that much harder, but the small increases can totally nerf some of those strategies, so if you're built on them, it's crushing (although I haven't hit these myself yet for V).

My advice is some experiment games. My first shot, if I were you, would be a game where you plan to build zero wonders, have zero specialists 'cause you don't care about great people (although you may run them eventually 'cause your cities have no more workable tiles and your money is better spent elsewhere than buying them), your culture is to keep borders moving only, but not necessarily that many policies (some will come, but if things go well it's going to slow down pretty fast), and the only focus will be a dogged determined pursuit of happiness and the population to use it up. Go with a Pangea so you can just keep a singular focus on the next city site, the next border pop, the next food bonus, and the army that'll get it for you.

If you see a luxury nearby early, get a settler out there and own it. If a neighbour has a resource, burn his city to the ground and take it, or if it's his capital puppet it until you can annex depending on your happiness. Your only concern this game is more happiness, through settling and conquest primarily, with trading as a temporary help if you grow too fast or conquer ahead of schedule and maritime states as you build enough dough, then happiness buildings when all else fails (that's not to say they cannot be more important but as an experiment to improve do your best to make them the last option, but definitely still an option, 'cause eventually you'll use the resources and the policies and still need more happiness). You want to spend the early and mid game constantly pushing happiness totals up and keeping the excess down (and don't be afraid of a couple turns of angry faces now and again). If you do this IMO every else will take care of itself. You'll have an army for offense/defense 'cause you needed it to take the resources and your pop will out tech the AI without question.

There's tons more advice, but I remember getting out of my builder/wonder addiction in IV that made me struggle on Prince by playing Pangea as Rome and teching 'til Prats, Cats, and Courts and conquering as far as I could. Playing the game as if happiness were the only thing that mattered and the stick was the primary way to get it would be my advice for learning tighter play that will destroy the AI on King, 'cause I think if you feel the difficulty difference is that dramatic between the two it's because you've got a couple strategic moves you base your game on that stop working altogether up one level. I haven't encountered this yet in V, but this definitely happened to me in IV, where everything I thought I knew totally fell apart just one tier up the difficulty scale and I had to re-start with the basics nuts and bolts of the game and grow from there.

IMO if you start to get your growth curve working for King this way as a base, all of a sudden you'll be able to throw in a GP factory, using cash on research agreements, the right wonder here or there, an adaptable policy progression and plan, and you'll start dominating.

One last, if you find yourself losing the first time you try this, don't stay 'til you're ready to throw something, but let the AI march on you a bit and play defense, you may be surprised how well you can fight them off.

Anyway, end of my freaking essay.

 

[Augustgrad]

I think I know why you see a large jump in difficulty, 'cause I'm pretty sure you're suffering from what I did in IV, namely you've got some wonders and slingshots or dynamics that you rely on to crush the AI and all of a sudden they stop working or don't give you the advantage you thought they would at all. The game isn't that much harder, but the small increases can totally nerf some of those strategies, so if you're built on them, it's crushing (although I haven't hit these myself yet for V).

My advice is some experiment games. My first shot, if I were you, would be a game where you plan to build zero wonders, have zero specialists 'cause you don't care about great people (although you may run them eventually 'cause your cities have no more workable tiles and your money is better spent elsewhere than buying them), your culture is to keep borders moving only, but not necessarily that many policies (some will come, but if things go well it's going to slow down pretty fast), and the only focus will be a dogged determined pursuit of happiness and the population to use it up. Go with a Pangea so you can just keep a singular focus on the next city site, the next border pop, the next food bonus, and the army that'll get it for you.

If you see a luxury nearby early, get a settler out there and own it. If a neighbour has a resource, burn his city to the ground and take it, or if it's his capital puppet it until you can annex depending on your happiness. Your only concern this game is more happiness, through settling and conquest primarily, with trading as a temporary help if you grow too fast or conquer ahead of schedule and maritime states as you build enough dough, then happiness buildings when all else fails (that's not to say they cannot be more important but as an experiment to improve do your best to make them the last option, but definitely still an option, 'cause eventually you'll use the resources and the policies and still need more happiness). You want to spend the early and mid game constantly pushing happiness totals up and keeping the excess down (and don't be afraid of a couple turns of angry faces now and again). If you do this IMO every else will take care of itself. You'll have an army for offense/defense 'cause you needed it to take the resources and your pop will out tech the AI without question.

There's tons more advice, but I remember getting out of my builder/wonder addiction in IV that made me struggle on Prince by playing Pangea as Rome and teching 'til Prats, Cats, and Courts and conquering as far as I could. Playing the game as if happiness were the only thing that mattered and the stick was the primary way to get it would be my advice for learning tighter play that will destroy the AI on King, 'cause I think if you feel the difficulty difference is that dramatic between the two it's because you've got a couple strategic moves you base your game on that stop working altogether up one level. I haven't encountered this yet in V, but this definitely happened to me in IV, where everything I thought I knew totally fell apart just one tier up the difficulty scale and I had to re-start with the basics nuts and bolts of the game and grow from there.

IMO if you start to get your growth curve working for King this way as a base, all of a sudden you'll be able to throw in a GP factory, using cash on research agreements, the right wonder here or there, an adaptable policy progression and plan, and you'll start dominating.

One last, if you find yourself losing the first time you try this, don't stay 'til you're ready to throw something, but let the AI march on you a bit and play defense, you may be surprised how well you can fight them off.

Anyway, end of my freaking essay.

Sounds about right! Thanks for the detailed tips, Ill try that out.

On another note, are AIs in Civ more willing to part with large lump sums of gold in trade for resources instead of per turn like in Civ 4?

 

[Aznmask]

Totally true. I keep restarting my game after I didn't get much challenge. I played PRINCE, then it doesn't give me much challenge then i start KING, it quite be okay. Of course it also matter what location you got, it make HUGE difference of your first city.

 

[bhavv]

I find the game incredibly easy on King difficulty, in the exception of the one thing that always hapens - one AI gets more powerful than the others and conquers them all, and then eventually turns on me as well.

 

[Syiss_]

Sounds about right! Thanks for the detailed tips, Ill try that out.

On another note, are AIs in Civ more willing to part with large lump sums of gold in trade for resources instead of per turn like in Civ 4?

In my experience they are almost completely unwilling to trade their GPT for your resources, and much prefer lump sums. Which I find stupid because you can abuse it, but whatever.

 

[Andai]

I'm having the same problem as the OP.

My first games were on prince difficulty, since i was able to win consistently on that in Civ4, but after a few frustrating tries i decided to go back to warlord to get better acquainted with the new systems. I've played a few games and my results have been mediocre compared to Civ4.

So far i've put workers on automatic and i've only used the emphasis in cities. Do i need to micro manage both workers and what tiles being used in my cities to have a chance at shining?

As i've regarded each new game as a blank page in previous Civ games, I haven't decided early on what winning condition to meet in Civ5, and i have suffered greatly for it. This is yet another thing i'll have to re-learn with Civ5 i guess.

In my latest Warlord game as the Ottomans i got a good start and settled three cities, then i got rid of the Greeks as they were too close for comfort, annexing his two cities. At this stage i thought i'd be golden, having five cities with decent placements, but as time moved on my empire never really took off. I kept losing Wonder races to other civs, almost getting no wonders built in my cities because of it (I don't even want to think about the amount of hammers i've lost due to this). I eventually got fed up and agreed to go to war against Napoleon with the other remaining civ on my continent. I more or less steamrolled him and he sued for peace treaty, handing over all cities but his capital. During all this i only had one short dip in happiness and had four city states as allies, yet in the end all of the remaining civs were just behind me in winning points and apparently way ahead of me in techs.

For my next game i'm going to try to apply the tips in this thread and hopefully i'll be more successfull.

 

[oopsy poopsy]

I'm having the same problem as the OP.

My first games were on prince difficulty, since i was able to win consistently on that in Civ4, but after a few frustrating tries i decided to go back to warlord to get better acquainted with the new systems. I've played a few games and my results have been mediocre compared to Civ4.

So far i've put workers on automatic and i've only used the emphasis in cities. Do i need to micro manage both workers and what tiles being used in my cities to have a chance at shining?

As i've regarded each new game as a blank page in previous Civ games, I haven't decided early on what winning condition to meet in Civ5, and i have suffered greatly for it. This is yet another thing i'll have to re-learn with Civ5 i guess.

In my latest Warlord game as the Ottomans i got a good start and settled three cities, then i got rid of the Greeks as they were too close for comfort, annexing his two cities. At this stage i thought i'd be golden, having five cities with decent placements, but as time moved on my empire never really took off. I kept losing Wonder races to other civs, almost getting no wonders built in my cities because of it (I don't even want to think about the amount of hammers i've lost due to this). I eventually got fed up and agreed to go to war against Napoleon with the other remaining civ on my continent. I more or less steamrolled him and he sued for peace treaty, handing over all cities but his capital. During all this i only had one short dip in happiness and had four city states as allies, yet in the end all of the remaining civs were just behind me in winning points and apparently way ahead of me in techs.

For my next game i'm going to try to apply the tips in this thread and hopefully i'll be more successfull.

If you're struggling anywhere King and down, don't auto your workers (I doubt I've ever autoed a worker 'til all I had left were rails in any civ game ever) and play around with mming tiles just to see if you can co-ordinate research, worker, building timelines (and when you squeeze something out a couple turns early to perfectly coincide with something else it's pretty satisfying). IMO it's not that necessary (although it will help for early wonder building, which we'll get to in a second), but it's a valuable skill for civ games, but I usually give up over pop 5-6 and use the emphasis buttons (I'm not nearly as dedicated as some).

And again, if you're struggling at king and below, no more wonders! Wonders are the cherry on top, not the point of the game (this is a hard lesson to learn if you played a lot of low difficulty games, 'cause wonder addiction is no joke). Pick 3 or so wonders for your entire game that will contribute to a pre-planned victory condition and plan how to get the tech first and the city prepped to build them. If you do that with any forethought and focus you will beat the AI to them.

 

[quinalla]

Not sure if anyone mentioned this, but your science comes from population. Research agreements help propel those using them ahead in science, so if the AI is using them and you aren't (you get popup notifications) that makes a difference too. Also, distance from your capital is not an issue by itself anymore, though if you have a long road to build there, that costs more maintenance. Make sure to mouse over the stuff at the top left of the screen, your gold, happiness, culture, etc. as that gives you the breakdown of what is contributing and taking away.

Also, don't give up just because a larger AI civ has the same or better units that you. If you use good tactics, the AI won't stand a chance as it is unfortunately not very good at war. Your cities are very powerful defensively, especially with walls/etc. upgrades, use that to your advantage. They also tend to send everything at you in the initial assault, so if you can survive with a few units, you can go in and at least pillage like mad before getting peace, even if you don't have the units to take a city

And don't neglect diplomacy. The AI is much more willing to give fair deals in V than IV. So if you need more happiness, trade some extra luxury resources or cash for ones they have, if you need more money, vice versa. And the city states can really help too as when they are your ally, they give you all their luxury and strategic resources and other bonuses as well depending what type. You don't have to befriend them all, but it makes sense to befriend at least one or two. Even if you plan to take them all over eventually, it can still make sense at times

 

[Andai]

If you're struggling anywhere King and down, don't auto your workers (I doubt I've ever autoed a worker 'til all I had left were rails in any civ game ever) and play around with mming tiles just to see if you can co-ordinate research, worker, building timelines (and when you squeeze something out a couple turns early to perfectly coincide with something else it's pretty satisfying). IMO it's not that necessary (although it will help for early wonder building, which we'll get to in a second), but it's a valuable skill for civ games, but I usually give up over pop 5-6 and use the emphasis buttons (I'm not nearly as dedicated as some).

And again, if you're struggling at king and below, no more wonders! Wonders are the cherry on top, not the point of the game (this is a hard lesson to learn if you played a lot of low difficulty games, 'cause wonder addiction is no joke). Pick 3 or so wonders for your entire game that will contribute to a pre-planned victory condition and plan how to get the tech first and the city prepped to build them. If you do that with any forethought and focus you will beat the AI to them.

I started over last night with the intent of applying what i've learned here and it worked out pretty well.

I ended up with playing as the Persians on a randomized small continents map and for the first time i ended up on a strip of land away from the other civs with a city state on either side as a buffer. I also got lucky to be able to found my first city near no less than two sources of silver and one source of gems and a small river with the city being on the coast.


I'm currently in the early AD's with three coastal cities. I've been able to build quite alot of wonders in my capital and i'm pretty sure it'll be a complete monster in the later game. I was pretty late in revealing iron on the map but i again got lucky, having founded my second city right next to two sources of iron. I'm not aiming at building alot of military units but it's reassuring to at least be able to produce powerful troops if i need to.

So far i've come to a few conclusions:
- I obviously trusted the city helper AI too much before. Micromanaging the workers gave me the insight that i'll only need one worker per city to keep up with the population increase. Previously i had spammed workers since two out of three city helpers wanted me to build more of them. I guess with the AI moving the workers around alot when on auto made them look busier than they really were.
- Micromanaging workers and tiles isn't the shore i remember it to be. For this game i've left the emphasis at default on the cities but i've locked down the tiles i want the city to work, letting the AI balance it out for the rest of the tiles. Having fewer workers means there's always something for them to do so whenever they're finished with an improvement i've already decided where to go next. They're now working with a purpose.
- With the luck i had with hammer resources for my capital i've been able to build quite a few wonders and apparently the wonder addiciton is strong within me This time though i'll make that work for me as i'm going for a cultural win with few cities.
- My tech tree strategy was very planned in the beginning, managing to slingshot to civil service, but as i continued playing i started to become less focused, researching a tech here and there rather than beelining for something. Right now i'm researching Chivalry to be able to go for Banking, but i also want to get to Astronomy ASAP so i can explore the rest of the world, get any leftover ancient ruins and meet up with the other three civs i haven't met yet. As my cities are located on a small strip of land using naval units to wear an oncoming enemy down might also be an effective defense. I think i'll have to examine the entire Renaissance era techs so i can plan ahead and keep my focus

 

[Mark Havel]

I find the game incredibly easy on King difficulty, in the exception of the one thing that always hapens - one AI gets more powerful than the others and conquers them all, and then eventually turns on me as well.

In this case, having kept around a few city-states help to pull a diplomatic victory. In my last (and first) game on Prince difficulty with Catherine, I gradually saw Augustus Caesar eat all other civilizations on his continent. So I ate Gandi to keep up in score when I understood that having helped him against Washington might not turn out to be such a great idea. Then there were only the two of us standing.
I didn't played that well having virtually no actual specialised city and yet a good dozen of them, so it was 1950 and still no nuclear weapon, almost no aerial warfare possible and very few modern era technology so a science victory wasn't an option. After a touch of scouting, the defences around Rome ruled out any domination victory and I trailed after Augustus in score. So I rushed the United Nation wonder and used the strong emphasis on gold generation that my war against Gandi induced to pump a lot of gold. Good use of happiness basket and Great People allowed a loooon golden age generating up to 350 gold per turn. It allowed to me to get the 7k required to literally buy my votes in the UN with the city-state. A 1k gift was enough to be allies with city-states and each one of them has equal voting rights in the UN.

I reckon that was a bit stretched and not that well played, but hey, that's still a better outcome than facing that nice fellow Augustus having a score victory or deciding to snipe my capital and dominate the world.

I didn't find the game to be that difficult. I quickly disposed of Japan when it decided to invade me, then used the natural defences to obliterate an Indian attack. Yes, Gandi seems to wage war, maybe he didn't like the fact I fought Japan to the death, telling me how he distrusted the blood-thirsty I was. When I saw a lot of victory options becoming impossible, I still managed to win the game despite having absolutely not planned for any kind of victory. I didn't specialize much cities yet managed to beeline to infantry, which is still as powerful as it was in Civ IV against underdeveloped civilizations.
The prince mode seems to be quite forgiving after all.