Finding Prince REALLY Easy and King REALLY Hard

[Lord Shadow]

I can't figure it out but I've been playing on King trying to get better but the other civs by turn 30 already have 5-10 military units, a second city, and are sometimes taking over a CS.

How's that a problem? It's normal to lag behind the AIs at first on higher difficulties, since they start with extra units and all.

But as a human, once you get some cities and developments going, you can quickly catch up and overtake them.

Just make sure to prioritize some semblance of a military in the beginning to keep barbarians at bay. Don't underestimate them.

 

[Dida]

Diablo has a feature where you can raise or lower difficulty by 1. This should be a useful feature in civ to prevent late game boredom.

 

[KmDubya]

One recommendation is to play out what looks like a bad starting position. I set the map to random civ, age, water, temperature and get some interesting maps. Only playing out godly starting positions will give you bad habits. Once you learn how to come back from a tundra start with Scythia and Russia as unfriendly neighbors you'll learn better strategies. I find coming back from a tough start more rewarding than curb stomping the world when I start with the best land.

In the beginning focus on the necessities, that being security and expansion. If you are a religious civ then do what is needed to land your religion but if not I'd skip it unless you have some map feature that really helps. Three or four slingers>archers plus your starting warrior can hold off the early DoW from your neighbors unless they have horses/swordsmen. If Scythia is next to you get some spears and get some defendable terrain and prepare for a horde.

 

[Balkans]

Basically, you just need to learn how much army do you need in order to be safe, meaning how many slingers/archers not to lose cities or improvements to pillaging. You learn this by testing a few games on difficulty you are trying to beat. Then you optimize growing your empire by carefully prioritizing different resources and cruising through eurekas and inspirations. You make sure that you are on top of diplomacy, trying to muster everything you can from everyone and if interesting opportunity shows itself you take it. Mid game comes, you are starting to grow into a little snowball. Late game you just squeeze everything from your cities and take the easy science/culture win. I don't do domination, just regional wars, and playing like this works for me. Currently i am playing deity/standard speed/shuffle map and it's gonna be a win for sure, all i do is what i mention above. The name of the game is to survive AI backstabs and not to be too greedy early, later the game plays itself if you have patience and like to min max everything.
It goes without saying that you should know mechanics/concepts of the game pretty good if you want go up the levels. This is something veterans(i consider myself one) take for granted, because over the years we absorbed so much information that learning new civ sequel don't take long time, but new players have to grind games to come to this level of understanding the game. Just play at level you have hard time and every new game adapt to avoid or be ready for what you learned from your losing game ... it only takes a handful games to know everything you need to avoid not to lose or get in trouble like last game. Good luck.

 

[player1 fanatic]

King difficulty should be doable with just regular colonial expansion and no conquest.

Just expand smart (water source and luxuries) and keep good anti barbarian force.

 

[DramaPhelps]

How's that a problem? It's normal to lag behind the AIs at first on higher difficulties, since they start with extra units and all.

But as a human, once you get some cities and developments going, you can quickly catch up and overtake them.

Just make sure to prioritize some semblance of a military in the beginning to keep barbarians at bay. Don't underestimate them.

I didn't realize AI started with basically a bonus. That makes more sense. I never understood how they got so many by so few turns.

 

[kaltorak]

My first prince game was so easy, that I went straight to immortal next game. I had to reconsider.
So I started another game in king. It looked quite harder.... just at the beginning. Some AIs attacked me and I had a hard time (would have been impossible in prince). But after that, the AIs started to lag behind me badly

 

[sresk]

The real problem is that the game is decided by about turn 100, if you survive the AI early game bonus and win 1-2 cities in your first war it's basically GG and just a matter of choosing how your going to win, if you don't survive the first rush well then... you didn't survive and you start over

And yeah the real secret is rushing archers it takes 3 archers to kill a warrior in 1 turn. 6 archers and 2-3 warriors can kill an AI army of almost any size, and by the I mean those 9 units can win a war against about 30 units and take 1-2 cities if played properly.

 

[Roxlimn]

Haha. No. If the AI army is a dozen Mamluks, your 6 Archers and 3 warriors are going to die. Even then, rushing Archers isn't always a conquering strategy. It depends on the terrain. In my current Russia game on King, Gorgo was my neighbor and she didn't like me so I had to gear for war - without Iron. Yeah. She's coming at me with Hoplites and I got no Swordsmen. So I had to tech up to Pikemen, and then declared war. Even then, her capital was in the Mountains, so I had 2 tiles for ranged units and 2 tiles for melee units. That was it. I had 4 Archers. None of them participated in the actual siege (because it would take too long). I made 2 Catapults and they took Sparta. (well, a Knight did it, they reduced the HP).

 

[sresk]

Haha. No. If the AI army is a dozen Mamluks, your 6 Archers and 3 warriors are going to die. Even then, rushing Archers isn't always a conquering strategy. It depends on the terrain. In my current Russia game on King, Gorgo was my neighbor and she didn't like me so I had to gear for war - without Iron. Yeah. She's coming at me with Hoplites and I got no Swordsmen. So I had to tech up to Pikemen, and then declared war. Even then, her capital was in the Mountains, so I had 2 tiles for ranged units and 2 tiles for melee units. That was it. I had 4 Archers. None of them participated in the actual siege (because it would take too long). I made 2 Catapults and they took Sparta. (well, a Knight did it, they reduced the HP).

Ok so worst case you let those horse men push you back to your city they attach it once or twice damaging themselves and then you clean up... it only adds 5-6 turns to when you can start killing units faster than they can make them.

 

[Roxlimn]

Defense? No. Defense is not a problem. I had an Encampment up right in her face and my cities were Walled up. I was massacreing her. The problem is that Gorgo doesn't make sane peace deals in any event (and she hates you if you do that), so once I declared war it was her or me. The entire problem was how to take her capital quickly in order to end the war quickly.

But taking cities is not something Archers can do reliably unless the terrain is flat and favorable. If the city is walled up and against a Mountain, your Archers are going to get killed.

 

[sresk]

Not sure we're playing the same game lol! On king or below the first city should be going down long before the AI has walls and on emporer+ you can at least kill the walls in 2-3 turns with archers. Sure you may have your 5-6 archers parked around that city for a while, but as long as you focus on killing units after you've destroyed the walls they can sit around that city forever if need be. And your right pretty much once you've gone to war you need to eliminate the AI, at least until you have an overwhelming army but that takes a while... we're still talking about the first war.

 

[Roxlimn]

I was playing King, but I didn't capture Sparta before it had walls - precisely because of the limited exposure. In any case, the first city that went down was Ephesus, and that went down without walls and using just Archers - because the terrain was favorable.

I don't think you can kill Ancient Walls with two Archers in 2 turns. Feel free to post a video showing otherwise.

 

[Mustakrakish]

I can't figure it out but I've been playing on King trying to get better but the other civs by turn 30 already have 5-10 military units, a second city, and are sometimes taking over a CS.

Umm... so? It doesn't change the fact that you'll be ahead in everything by turn 120 or so without particularly trying. Besides those initial bonuses that gets them ahead first 30-50 turns, they can't do crap. Same on Emperor, the only difference is they start with 3 cities, but again by turn 140 or so (I added 20 turns to be fair) you will be ahead.

EDIT (to be more contributing):

Don't let their initial success scare you, it only goes so far. Remember you're playing against imbeciles. Until mods save the day (or a surprisingly solid patch) you can roll over everybody on Emperor even. All you need to do to survive possible DoW in the beginning (when they still have an advantage) is spam a few more warriors and slingers than you used to. They are maintenance free after all. Just wait a bit with that second city or district or whatever you used to do. Or put 2 units in between those. When you upgrade your slingers to archers, which is very very cheap, you'll easily wipe out your closest neighbor or the aggressor. Simple set of 6 warriors and 3 archers will exterminate their hordes if used wisely. If your civ have early UU, even better. Send one battering ram if they managed to put up walls by that time.

He's gone? Good, you will be pretty much in the lead now by turn 130-140 at latest. You can now sit back and relax, build your infrastructure etc. i.e. catch up.

As a prince player you're probably used to focus on infrastructure etc in the beginning?

You need to accept that starting build order of "slinger > warrior > builder > warrior > warrior > builder > slinger > whatever and so on is a good build order. And ignoring campuses for a healthy while won't hurt you here, tis not V. You can also buy warriors / slingers there every time you get money to save on that build time and you can slip in a monument or anything else by chop chop chopping. I have a habit of building 1st builder and immediately start on a second, then improving 2 tiles and chopping with the last charge insta-building the second one, with it then improving 3rd tile (eureka) and chopping the rest.

 

[PlayAsPericles]

Yeah definitely noticed the difference. I started just like my prince game and built 4 scouts right away for explore on my inland sea map and next thing i know i am boxed in on two sides of my city with new cities from two different civs and two multi unti warriors milling around me just ready to attack my one lone warrior with no walls on a huge map. LOL I have been, and always will be, primarily a defensive player when it comes to war stuff. I miss the old defensive traits and UB of Sittng Bull in Civ 4 wehre you could just destroy forces that attacked with all the nice bonuses your trait and UB did. lol.

 

[sresk]

I was playing King, but I didn't capture Sparta before it had walls - precisely because of the limited exposure. In any case, the first city that went down was Ephesus, and that went down without walls and using just Archers - because the terrain was favorable.

I don't think you can kill Ancient Walls with two Archers in 2 turns. Feel free to post a video showing otherwise.

I don't mean 2 archers... that's why I said 5-6

 

[Roxlimn]

I don't mean 2 archers... that's why I said 5-6

And I pointed out that you can't always park 6 Archers around a city because sometimes there's only 2 hexes from your side of the mountain range where ranged units can shoot the city.

 

[malekithau]

surprised people bother building scouts with the new movement

Chance of goodie huts and first contact with CS plus chance of eurekas? Surprised anyone doesn't build them.

 

[Roller123]

with more difficulty the AI gets more starting stuff, as outlined here http://civ6.gamepedia.com/Game_difficulty

Consequently if you were lacking military, coupled with the stronger AI bonus, AI might see you as a target right at the start, so stack up on military and then either continue to play normally, or, since you have build it already, kill something in reach.

 

[TruthfulCake]

The AI forward-settles a lot on King difficulty, I find. If you can claim some coveted land (near a wonder, etc.) early, you can get that internal trade route going to help with your army production. Getting blocked on your expansion is one of the worst things that can happen to you when playing against the AI, so I'd suggest expanding ASAP.