How can Civ7 be made more challenging on the higher difficulty levels?

[Noble Zarkon]

I don't think there's much doubt Civ 7 deity is too easy, the trick is making it more challenging without turning it into a different game.

 

[fortydayweekend]

What I'm trying
- playing as weaker civ/leader combos and not taking mementos
- using the AI mod for better AI settling and tactics

However it's still too easy to beat the AI in war, and by the middle of exploration I've managed to almost catch up to the crazy AI science/culture yields.

Obviously better if the AI can be improved but I think they'll still need more boosts.
- maybe an unpopular opinion but I think +8 CS isn't strong enough especially in exp/modern. It feels way too easy to out-maneuver higher-tier AI even with lazy tactics. It should be a challenge.
- AI seems to start well in sci/cult but the player can catch up, so they may need more boosts as the ages progress rather than extra starting bonuses.
- better peace deals would help too, AI is way too keen to give away major cities when they don't really have to.
- happiness could be made harder for the player to manage, it's also only a minor issue.
- crisis effects should maybe be nerfed for the AI.

 

[Taefin]

I made a mod to give me quick access to customize difficulty parameters. It doesn’t do anything fancy, and I’d love to add some era scaling effect if I find the time to learn how to do that.

Thread 'Taefin's More AI Cheats'

Mar 2, 2025

THIS IS AN ALPHA VERSION: some parameters may be acting is unexpected ways.

WHAT IT DOES: This mod increases the difficulty of Deity, by increasing all AI yield and production bonuses from 80% to 120%, except gold which is increased to 200%. I did not change CS or XP bonuses. It results in surprisingly large AI armies, especially when they are defending against invasion. This is ostensibly due to the increased bonus to unit production and/or increased gold (I am not sure how FXS coded this, but given how many units the AI has, it is even possible that setting the unit production bonus to...

• Taefin
• Replies: 2
• Forum: Released Mods

• 

The effect is two difficulty levels above deity except: Gold is doubled and CS bonus stays at 8 (this really feels like the sweet spot where a balance is reached in the asymmetry between player commanders and AI unit count). You could change either and I commented the code to make it quick to learn.

I’ve only tested it with Artificially Intelligent, but I think it’s a base game interaction that changing the unit production cost and/or giving them more gold results in very large AI armies. Possibly because of AI mod they also deploy wave after wave of units to the main frontline, never letting up the pressure. It requires more tactical play to win wars and capture cities, fighting over territory rather than killing a small AI army and then getting all their core cities for free.

 

[Yzman]

What I'm trying
- playing as weaker civ/leader combos and not taking mementos
- using the AI mod for better AI settling and tactics

However it's still too easy to beat the AI in war, and by the middle of exploration I've managed to almost catch up to the crazy AI science/culture yields.

Obviously better if the AI can be improved but I think they'll still need more boosts.
- maybe an unpopular opinion but I think +8 CS isn't strong enough especially in exp/modern. It feels way too easy to out-maneuver higher-tier AI even with lazy tactics. It should be a challenge.
- AI seems to start well in sci/cult but the player can catch up, so they may need more boosts as the ages progress rather than extra starting bonuses.
- better peace deals would help too, AI is way too keen to give away major cities when they don't really have to.
- happiness could be made harder for the player to manage, it's also only a minor issue.
- crisis effects should maybe be nerfed for the AI.

I had Napoleon declare war on me, try to attack one of my cities near him where the unit was killed and then we had no hostilities until the end of the war where he gave me a huge city.

 

[fortydayweekend]

I had Napoleon declare war on me, try to attack one of my cities near him where the unit was killed and then we had no hostilities until the end of the war where he gave me a huge city.

I had Machiavelli declare on me, then bring in Charlemagne as an ally on the other side of my empire. This was early exploration and Charlemagne massively outnumbered me, and I wasn't ready to fight on 2 fronts. I thought this was a brilliant move worthy of the real Machiavelli but next turn he surrendered and gave me his original capital Athens (32 pop and 6 wonders).

Able to fight on 1 front only I beat Charlemagne and he swapped me the 2 small border towns I'd taken for his old capital Rome, another huge city with wonders.