First game playing Civ VI, got wrecked fast.

I had two at the time.
That's way too few, if you had two cities around turn 180-200, you should have at least 3-4 if not more.
Also the AI values your military strength by looking at your military score, which again is calculated by adding together the combat strength of your military units.
If the total sum is substantially below the sum of the AIs own military score (which also consists of adding together their units), it will decide that you are "weak" and ripe for invasion.
In your case you would have a military score of around 70 or so (depending on whether your units are hurt or not as well), and if the AI for instance has 180 (6 war carts, at 30 strength each), it will often conclude that it is "almost three times as strong as you", and be likely to invade.Usually I try to stay above a military score ratio of 1/3rd of the AIs units when playing peacefully, as you're otherwise just inviting a surprise war.

Try to aim to have around half their military score (you can toggle showing scores in the ingame setting), and that will usually keep you safe throughout the game.
In fact, the AI will generally not invade you at all if you follow that rule, and it can even be cheesed because the AI doesnt seem to value relative strength of units.
A single knight for instance has a combat strength of 55, while warriors have 20 each.
This means that if you just have a single knight your military score will show as 55, and if the AI has 8 warriors (160 military score) they will often (mistakenly) believe that they are stronger and declare war on you, even though a single knight would plow through 8 warriors as if it was nothing.
This can be to your advantage, since it means that it is the AI that will rack up the grievances for declaring a surprise war, even though you are very willing to fight since you know you have better units.
And vice versa, if the AI has higher tech units such as knights while you are stuck on warriors, you can cheese it by having plenty of warriors to boost your military score (despite your units being trash compared to his) and thus fooling the AI to believe that he ought to be peaceful around you.

Case in point:
I had a game once with Gitarja, where I had industrial/modern era tech units such as (armada/army) battleships, cuirassiers, cavalry, you name it, but only about 300-400 military score combined.
Trajan on the other hand decided that it was a good idea to declare war on me with his 1100 military score (about 3x as much as my score), even though his army consisted of obsolete trash like legions and catapults.
Needless to say, that surprise war from his was his undoing, as I spent probably a max of 15 turns to massacre him and take most of his cities.

Either way, you need to boost your number of cities and pay more attention to military score.
Some AIs will even be friendly to you and surprise war shortly after, so always keep the military score in mind before you commit too heavily on peaceful play.
 
Don't play on Marathon or epic if you are learning!

It'll take forever to learn the basics, let alone figure out what's important, how things work together and how to plan and deal with problems. Play at normal speed, make lots of mistakes and discoveries, then go back to slow once you've got a handle on the game.
 
So it sounds like I can do what I always like doing in Civ V, which was to maintain a moderately sized but highly advanced military. Seems that strategy would allow me to defend myself well and crush adversaries.

I think I am going to turn the speed to standard. These are the kinds of adjustments I’m having to make while I adapt to the new mechanics. I appreciate all the advice coming my way.
 
So it sounds like I can do what I always like doing in Civ V, which was to maintain a moderately sized but highly advanced military. Seems that strategy would allow me to defend myself well and crush adversaries.

I think I am going to turn the speed to standard. These are the kinds of adjustments I’m having to make while I adapt to the new mechanics. I appreciate all the advice coming my way.
Hi! I can't really speak on marathon speed, but I think the advice you've been getting works pretty well for standard speed. I will say I'm sorry you had such a rough first game! I don't think I I've really seen surprise war from the AI until around Emperor/Diety.

I think the advice you've gotten is pretty solid, although personally I would reccomend scout -> scout(or slinger) -> settler -> whatever else you're going for. Playing wide is generally a lot stronger than playing tall in civ 6, although tall builds can be very fun.

If you aren't that interested in war, a lot of the AI especially in lower difficulties is quite willing to declare friendship, which prevents them (or you) from declaring war on one another. If they have a green smiley under their profile, you should be able to request friendship no issues.

On the other hand, if they refuse in that context... they're probably angling for war, so it might be good to build some units to keep them detered.

The one thing I will add, that I would reccomend to anyone playing the game if they haven't done so yet, is that in order to better keep track of the AI (or other player's progress) it's good to turn on the ribbon banner.

If you go to your settings -> interface and then look for the last drop down bar before the sliders, there's an option called [Show Yields in HUD Ribbon] which you should change to "Always Show" if you haven't. That way you can easily see the military score (that others in this thread mentioned) of yourself and the AI to make comparisons. If you see one AI swelling their military several times larger than the other AI or the average of the lobby and they're near you, you should probably be a bit cautious of a surprise attack.

Best of luck on your games!
 
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