Has Civ6 become 3000 times more difficult?

[Leyrann]

I think they have to be careful.

If the AI is too smart then the OP countries will start eating the other ones up early and snowball
On higher levels some victory conditions may become impossible to achieve
It may make the lower levels too hard for noobs

I think they are well aware of all of this and likely made it easier because of the above

If the AI becomes smarter, they can do something they've never done before to my knowledge... Handicap the AI at lower difficulty levels; instead of the difficulty scaling with level of bonuses, low level AI would simply not use all the tactics available to them. And for higher level AI... Victory conditions actually become easier to achieve, as the AI will have less bonuses with which to rush religions/get GWAM/build spaceports. While still being just as hard - just more in the AI decisionmaking and less in the bonuses.

Agreed.

But it's still a problem to have AIs that can potentially run away with the game without the player being able to really stop them in ways that are not extremely cheesy.
What the game needs for such a system to work is ways with which you can sabotage specific players that you can't really reach on the map. The spy system is the perfect candidate for that, but currently it doesn't really fill that function.

Though I think you're right, a truly good AI would also mean that sometimes, the player just loses. He got outclassed, simple as that.

 

[nzcamel]

Eventually I figured I had to tech up to the mobile SAM, which supposedly defends against nukes but it didn't work (maybe it would defend against air, but not submarine nukes?).

I'd figure that SAM's take out aircraft rather than missiles themselves, so yeah, sub or silo launchs should still get through.
Intercepting a missile is another step up in technology.

 

[nzcamel]

The problem is though, there is no real way to stop such steamrolling. Shaka could be outteched, because the many useless cities he conquered drove up his tech costs, in Civ VI, Shaka would just roll towards victory, and all you could do is play more minimalist than him to win before he does, or abuse the combat AI.

You do have to have the amenities to cover all the cities you conquer of course. That will cause you probs if you expand too fast, and it's not immersion breaking like the tech increase was.

 

[PendragonWRB]

Good riddence to such an illogical mechanism as conquest driving up tech costs.

Instead we have technology driving up production costs, just as illogical.

 

[tyroneslothrop]

FYI: I just posted a Diety level strategy which works with the latest update here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ith-no-cultural-bonuses.612301/#post-14692826

 

[nzcamel]

Instead we have technology driving up production costs, just as illogical.

Yes...and no. It is less obvious which helps with the immersion.
And a case can be made that, even if you're building the same thing that you built a hundred years earlier, the newer version will be better made and so does take more production. Granted the building isn't giving you anything the one a hundred years earlier didn't give you, but given the way the world works it is still less immersion breaking.

 

[Siptah]

Sorry for being late to the party, but since the mac patch was delayed, I only just finished my second post-patch game.
Both games were played more or less peaceful. When faced with military, the AI seems to be ~ as easy as before. But I think that they've become stronger with cultural victories. In my second game it happened the first time to me that I had to take a few enemy cities to prevent losing to a cultural victory (I went for science victory which took me longer). And I think the AI used way more spies than they used to. I am used to the AI trying to sabotage my capital and there mostly my industrial zone and spaceport. But now they went for different cities and more often tried to siphon funds. Is that really new or was I just lucky in the months before?

 

[Callonia]

Okay, I Played 13 hours of Civ6. King difficulty all.

On my fifth game.. my usual whine of "Huge" map being too tiny aside, Gilgamesh forward settled next to my capital. I recalled all my exploring warriors/scouts/archers back to my capital and zerged the offending city. Razed it. Pillaged his capital's land back to its primitive state.. Waited for musketmen+siege towers and then capped his capital city.

Then rolled into China using WW2 Infantry + Siege towers vs his Cities + uh special chinese archers I forgot plus some random knights.

Then I uninstalled Civ6 thinking its too easy plus the maps is so impossibly tiny.

And that isn't even mentioning the blob-like nature of the firaxis' randomly generated worlds. -.-
Looks too fake. Or is too boring to explore.

 

[Kyro]

I think a major contributing factor to the increased difficulty is the fact that the AI now has a far lower tendency to build Commercial Hub districts and can focus on other districts instead.

Many of them end up having very little gold to trade luxuries with the player and that means player income has been indirectly nerfed. Buying settlers and builders earlier on seems quite difficult as a result and that delays progress.

AI's focus on other districts also gives them an earlier edge compared with before. The cheats AI receive on higher difficulties makes them a lot less dependent on gold than players so this move has little opportunity cost for the AI.

 

[wiser3]

I consider myself a casual player. By that i mean i play about one game over the of every two weeks. Unlike a lot a lot of people in here that seem to do hundreds of hours per week. As a result i'm no expert. For a casual player like myself Civ VI has gotten too hard to play. I can't win on King anymore and even Prince isn't always a win. It's become very frustrating - NOT FUN. Don't see myself playing or buying any more DLC's.

 

[Victoria]

Thanks for the honesty wiser3. The randomness of the game stopped me playing amongst other things. I was pretty much a high volume player and have discovered real life is more fun.
Some of my best games were losses or nearly so. Your comment do highlight why games are skewed toward the player winning. Addiction is about feeling good about yourself.
The game is quite complex for a casual player also, without dedication of time its hard to progress.

 

[Aristos]

Holy necromancers!

 

[wiser3]

I just suffered another early game loss on Prince. I play to relax and have fun and I really WANT to play. But if it's going to be this much work, only to get frustrated and lose, i'll go back to work.

 

[greenOak]

I mean there's three levels below prince. Why not try those?

 

[glider1]

I just suffered another early game loss on Prince. I play to relax and have fun and I really WANT to play. But if it's going to be this much work, only to get frustrated and lose, i'll go back to work.

If the AI does get harder there is no shame in dropping down difficulty levels. Later on you might actually enjoy the challenge of improving when you have more time.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

I mean there's three levels below prince. Why not try those?

A lot of people detest sliding down the levels due to patches. A better approach would be adding new difficulty levels the way "Sid" was added to Civ 3.

 

[Victoria]

I occasionally played as settler pretending I was the AI versus a human player on deity.
Not sure I ever really played to win apart from GOTM.

 

[Kmart_Elvis]

I thought this title was an Avengers: Endgame reference, but OP is from 2017.

 

[Disgustipated]

People are saying the game is more difficult?

I would say dlc (expansions) has made the game easier. For the post above, try to learn from your mistakes and learn what went wrong. Try to see the clues the AI is going to attack you (I'm assuming that what happened) and how to prevent that. There are ways to get on their good side.

 

[Bitterman]

I just suffered another early game loss on Prince. I play to relax and have fun and I really WANT to play. But if it's going to be this much work, only to get frustrated and lose, i'll go back to work.

You could also try and learn how to play.

You know like literally in any other game. If it's not fun then don't play. Easy.