Has the game gotten harder or am I off my game?

[Fluphen Azine]

Older Thread but I was searching about Deity getting more difficult in 2020 and this popped up.
I just played a game where Canada and America Double DoWed me on turn 52.
They had a Faith CS Allied as well with a bunch of Swords.
America had a bunch of Level 1 Promoted Chariots.
Canada had all the Archers.

I gave up on the game.
I was boxed in with only one Luxury that needed Irrigation so took longer to improve it.
Should of just went One City and Full Army instead of trying to expand.

Did I mention Hungary was my other neighbor to the East... lol!!
I think he was coveting my lands as well

I think the game is more difficult if you don't read the situation well and ignore the possible problems.
It seems the AI does like to attack early when playing Standard Pangaea.
The lack of good land and resources on the Standard set up does make things harder.

Army First seems to make things easier to me.
My problem is I read about these players who play 1 or 2 city and go Dark Age.
They focus on infrastructure and growth and flip their neighbors.
Seems they will use the 2/2 FP trade route to grow.
They rush Civil Service and use Alliances to Flip.
I have a difficult time making that work.
My neighbors always seem to want to roll me when I don't build an 8 unit Army from the get go.

 

[Victoria]

I think the game is more difficult if you don't read the situation well and ignore the possible problems

Vital on deity and also ignore possible advantages like I got boxed in by Trajan last game but Genghis attacked him from the other side. Watched his troop numbers drop sufficiently then went to work.

My neighbors always seem to want to roll me when I don't build an 8 unit Army from the get go

yeah they seem to attack unless you heavily bribe your way out or really hide well. Just expect it and prepare your defence, they typically only declare when close.

 

[agonistes]

The AI has got better since the last couple of patches, but it isn't good and its behaviour has never varied by difficulty level (other than war declarations) in any Civ game - if it's now getting more envoys, it's doing so on Chieftain just as well as it is on Deity. My experience is that the AI rarely cares for city states especially, and I've never seen it in Civ VI actively attempt to become a suzerain of a CS it's at war with (it would occasionally do this in Civ V, or at least appear to, so it's possible with the quality of coding Civ AI has). My best guess is that you're falling behind the AI in envoy production somehow, such as by having lower-level governments or being up against an AI that has Apadana.

It certainly is the case that the AI favours the Apadana much more than it used to, so is much more likely to have envoys by chance than it used to - it still won't use them effectively, but if it has enough more than you do that won't stop it becoming suzerain of your cities.

Starts where civs prevent you expanding are indeed unlucky, but the trick is to learn to be aggressive against them when that happens and put resources into capturing or destroying the cities blocking your expansion.

I see the ai having suzy wars all the time. They are very aggressive about using CS's to fight wars. When war breaks out, suzies tend to switch hands rapidly as envoys are spent and governors moved.

 

[Victoria]

I see the ai having suzy wars all the time. They are very aggressive about using CS's to fight wars. When war breaks out, suzies tend to switch hands rapidly as envoys are spent and governors moved.

Yes you are best attacking someone who has already fought a war,they tend to keep quite a few for the occasion.

 

[Bitterman]

I think they also beeline xbows hard and then heavy cav.

Is there a way to effectively deal with +3 crossbows defending a city with river and hills? that unit seems hiper OP to me, they literally melt anything with two shots except maybe knights. And when they are at the brink of death they can cycle to go inside the city or get a promotion. If only siege was not made of glass...

 

[Victoria]

Is there a way to effectively deal with +3 crossbows defending a city with river and hills?

Came across Genghis last night, every city had encampments and xbows ... and generals.
Went in with field art armies, cuirassier corps, musket army, old guard armies but no general... it was my home continent so I took him out but lost all my cuirassiers and muskets bar one.
If I had taken more time on the attack or waited until flight it may have been different but gilga was hard building armies all over the place and eying him up.
So the answer is out-tech and expect damages unless well out-tekking.

@Bitterman, it may sound like it was good but Gilga had the serious drop on me, I was stealing techs off him every 6 turns but his science and culture had gone insane. Is it just me or do others find Gilga is often the hardest to deal with unless he is next door? Xbows with general in encampments are one thing but spammed river ziggurats at +70% due to deity I seriously struggle with.

 

[Bitterman]

I happen to have him on my current game as a neighbour and he is indeed second in science, only 2 or three techs behind Korea, which is the first for obvious reasons.

I decided to be friends with him in the beginning since he was moving war carts around my borders like it was a parade and I had 0 opportunities against those with no UU in ancient/classical (tried once with the Netherlands and I got literally deleted in 30 turns). Then I attacked the Cree, and later Korea attacked me with Cuirassiers (best I had at that moment were muskets/Malón Raiders).

I think in most games he benefits from the fact that he has the best UU since the very beginning in ancient era, so he's safe in the first turns and has time to stabilize and do as he pleases (ziggurat spam). It could be worse if he wasn't so ridiculously easy to befriend though.

Only way to safely deal with him is Join DoW after classical, and even that doesn't guarantee a victory.