Humankind is Awesome :) , but too easy :(

[reddishrecue]

I had such a good start with that Neolithic age glitch and I was even able to get to ancient and classical first to choose any civilization that I wanted. Not only that but I succeeded more in achieving military stars that really helped me get up to 1st place. However, I had some economical issues but I built the necessary buildings for each (culture buildings or gold buildings, etc. ) resource that needed it and got back to war again only to take more cities from the AI which gives me a DoW after I got them to surrender by force. I got the save and its taking me awhile because of other things but I simply can't wait to finish it. The best I've done is 3rd place but now I'm pretty sure I'll get first place.

 

[Cherenkov]

Egypt->Greece is extremely powerful. Egypt gives you the production and Greece you use that production with CM and get to War Summons really quick. Invading your neighbor on HK setting with xbows and pikemen while they still have wars/calvary feels a bit exploity, even swordsmen die fast. With 5 AI opponents you can almost always get Egypt and Greece is rarely not available. AI loves cavalry and pikemen just chew them up so fast. Just make sure you have the funds for the expense. Hoplites will do just fine too till the pikemen.

 

[Taefin]

Egypt->Greece is extremely powerful. Egypt gives you the production and Greece you use that production with CM and get to War Summons really quick. Invading your neighbor on HK setting with xbows and pikemen while they still have wars/calvary feels a bit exploity, even swordsmen die fast. With 5 AI opponents you can almost always get Egypt and Greece is rarely not available. AI loves cavalry and pikemen just chew them up so fast. Just make sure you have the funds for the expense. Hoplites will do just fine too till the pikemen.

That sounds fun! At least there is more research between standing army and war summons than between bronze working and iron working, so that hoplites still have a role in many games Matching the power of pikemen with 4 neighbors I almost rather have archers than crossbows so I can chip damage over the heads of my spears.

 

[Eyswein]

I'd say Osmosis is really broken also. When I'm in the tech lead, Osmosis shouldn't be giving me insane amounts of even more science. Believe it should be something you get only if behind your neighbor, not ahead.

 

[Casualty of war]

Eyswein, you are pretty darn good at Civ VI and the skills do translate, especially if you are Scout-skilled and practiced at pillaging (or Ransacking in HK.) I'm not even finishing most HK games because I've already dominated my neighbors well before the Medieval; I've got to ramp up the difficulty myself.

I do love Assimilating a ready-built army right on my enemy's border!

 

[reddishrecue]

There's a lot of technologies and not enough turns for most technologies even in contemporary. I even went Joseon to try to make more techs on contemporary and couldn't get any osmosis going all day. Many buildings were left out of the technology buildings because of wonders gold and upgrade issues.

 

[Eyswein]

There's a lot of technologies and not enough turns for most technologies even in contemporary. I even went Joseon to try to make more techs on contemporary and couldn't get any osmosis going all day. Many buildings were left out of the technology buildings because of wonders gold and upgrade issues.

Sometimes I have that, but for the last two games it has been the opposite due to insane osmosis. I completed all technologies before I had my 7 stars in most eras. In my last game I had 4 total cities and all were border cities, sometimes tripling my science when 2+ would get osmosis while I was in the Industrial Age and no other civs were that far yet.

Eyswein, you are pretty darn good at Civ VI and the skills do translate, especially if you are Scout-skilled and practiced at pillaging (or Ransacking in HK.) I'm not even finishing most HK games because I've already dominated my neighbors well before the Medieval; I've got to ramp up the difficulty myself.

I do love Assimilating a ready-built army right on my enemy's border!

I don't pillage the AI too much, but do some. When I crowd the map I do a lot to win space, when I spread it out I try not to. For AI I like to trade for production, then science, then food (things that impact all cities, then districts, then percentages). Nothing like a bunch of horse trades and an animal barn. However, instead of pillaging the AI, when I do the 15+ scout thing in Neanderthal I get an insane amount of 'curiosities' which seem to be everywhere and provide better overall yields (to include influence and science). I think those should be limited to one time finds vice continuing to reappear or find some other way to limit super scouting. This makes the first 40-50 turns take longer than the rest of the game in real time, but I find myself mostly just clicking to the end later in the game.

I love the Assimilate thing. Great concept that I have fun with!

 

[Karmah]

I don't know if that belongs here exactly : my feeling is that 'crowding' the map by two (increase nb of opponents) increases more the difficulty than raising a difficulty level. I'm early in my experimentation but I find I get more pressure with 8 AI civ level than 6 AI HK difficulty.

Which brings me to another point. My game starts to feel very 'civ6' like where I get pressured at start and if I survive the initial war for territory, which I mostly win (although I miss a bit of experience against HK huns, I need to play them once to understand the extend of their dependency on outposts) , then I can strive and play peacefully to the end rushing eras not caring about star levels and the AI stops being a competitor.

In HK level I'm usually 6thn in fame at that point in a 10 players game but not for very long as I start to climb exponentially .

Granted it's more ''intuitive' than 'definitive opinion' as I don't have all the time in the world to play everything.... plus I'm starting to become a one-trick poney playing invariably Egypt for high prod start , Achameneid because I want moooar cities , Khmer because more prod , I stabilize with Ming because I overexpanded/overbuilt my cities plus I need to catch-up on some leftovers civics because my INF when for my expansion (if not war) , and I finish with science, rushing era INF buying all the wonders because I'm so advanced I have free time to pick-em-up and they all take one turn to build as an 'half-empire wide effort' and I end-up winning a science victory... every single game.

Reading forums , I feel people have a very different experience where they have to care about farming high level stars, my best friend and my wife play science/gold early combo with babylon as do some here but I'm better than them when we play together. I have read about gamers ending throuh pollution ... did not even know that was possible...

Not sure what makes my games so different from what I read around...
I'm not even fast , I win alway early 200ish turn (three last games turn 201 funnily enough)....headscratch

 

[NombreyApellido]

crowding may also favor a ransacking spree that nets a lot of money for the player

if engaging neighbors early and burning cities/quarters after taking them at the peace negotiations, it's possible to end up with close to 1000 money very early and more importantly, 2 thief stars that make every ransack very profitable

 

[Taefin]

Not sure what makes my games so different from what I read around...
I'm not even fast , I win alway early 200ish turn (three last games turn 201 funnily enough)....headscratch

A runaway AI will usually end the game with pollution around 210 on HK, so it make sense you haven’t seen it if you are playing for science starting industrial. It’s possible those two extra cities from Persia are just so clutch for getting early/mid game era stars at a competitive rate.

What level of fame is the leading AI usually at when you finish at 201? Ive been seeing 12-14k when an AI conquers it’s neighbors (I play on 2 continents usually, and someone in the other continent tends to be leader).

Sounds like balancing these cultures will refresh the game for you quite a bit when the early game is not so automatic.

 

[Karmah]

A runaway AI will usually end the game with pollution around 210 on HK, so it make sense you haven’t seen it if you are playing for science starting industrial. It’s possible those two extra cities from Persia are just so clutch for getting early/mid game era stars at a competitive rate.

What level of fame is the leading AI usually at when you finish at 201? Ive been seeing 12-14k when an AI conquers it’s neighbors (I play on 2 continents usually, and someone in the other continent tends to be leader).

Sounds like balancing these cultures will refresh the game for you quite a bit when the early game is not so automatic.

I think you are reading it right , the two cities are indeed clutch enough to get over the board it seems as yesterday I had a not so good game with an annoying harrapean that took me ages (litterally) to finally get rid of, I missed Persia by a few turns and while I had the greeks who are really very good as well , I noticed I'm not catching up as fast as I used to... I'll see tonight when I can finally play some more.

As for the level of fame in my games , I can't say really ," low 10k at the end " would be my guess , I'll check if they are some kind of 'hall of fame' somewhere that records the podium at the end of each games.

 

[reddishrecue]

Sometimes I have that, but for the last two games it has been the opposite due to insane osmosis. I completed all technologies before I had my 7 stars in most eras. In my last game I had 4 total cities and all were border cities, sometimes tripling my science when 2+ would get osmosis while I was in the Industrial Age and no other civs were that far yet.

That's pretty good. I usually try to do that with science civs like babylon joseon or even greece.

 

[Victoria]

when I do the 15+ scout thing in Neanderthal I get an insane amount of 'curiosities' which seem to be everywhere and provide better overall yields (to include influence and science).

When you get to about 10 scouts you are better off just killing mammoths, this allows a second city as soon as you go ancient depending on mammoth farms. Every mammoth killed gives 20 influence and 20 food.

 

[oedali]

I had such high hopes for this game but I'm pretty disappointed now that it may not get challenging enough for a while.. I only played a handful games up till turn 100, turning up the difficulty to HK. Picked only expert personas I downloaded from the website and maxed out opponents on regular map. By turn 50 in ancient era I am already at 3000 fame leading by 1000, by turn 70 in classical at 5000 fame leading the closest AI by nearly 2000. Something is off, shouldn't the AI be at least competitive in EARLY game with all their bonuses? Do you guys think upcoming patches would ever fix this or is their AI worse than Civ 6's Deity? I am used to AI getting advantages and then you climb out of a hole at the highest difficulty and catch up in late eras and beat the AI, but dominating in Classical era already is so boring, doesn't make me want to keep playing. I didn't use any special strategies either, I stayed in Neolithic until about turn 15 (not the last one to move on) , took out my closest neighbor and then focused on trade and alliances. All my games have followed the exact same pattern but what's most disappointing is that my experience did not change at HK difficulty. I was really looking forward to playing this game for thousands of hours like Civ. Now unless someone can tell me the AI tends to catch up in later eras, close the gap (which keep widening, it may be several thousands more if I keep playing) and has a possibility to beat you, I don't have much hope

 

[Victoria]

Try coming out of Neolithic as soon as you can. The extra troops/pop/influence you can gain in the Neolithic is a huge head start. The AI does this so I guess you should too?

 

[oedali]

I didn’t exit Neo that early though, in each game there were a couple of AIs exit it after me. If your theory is true and it mostly comes down to Neo length then the devs can possibly fix that, and possibly means the AI isn’t that “broken”? That gives me a little hope but do you think they will address that anytime soon? I don’t want to pose artificial boundaries on myself, will just play another game in the mean time

 

[Siptah]

I didn’t exit Neo that early though, in each game there were a couple of AIs exit it after me. If your theory is true and it mostly comes down to Neo length then the devs can possibly fix that, and possibly means the AI isn’t that “broken”? That gives me a little hope but do you think they will address that anytime soon? I don’t want to pose artificial boundaries on myself, will just play another game in the mean time

One of the devs said that they are having a look at wrong decisions by the AI, so I believe that the game will become harder soon - the question is by how much. I think if the quarter choice and placement gets improved just by a bit (more EQs, much less commons, set cities on "growth" automatically, try to have more pop space), the result could be quite a step forward - the AI builds a lot of units and uses them not so bad, so its really the strategic and economic side that needs improvement imo.

One difference between civ VI and HK AI bonuses is that civ VI ones are much more front loaded (starting with 3 cities), while in HK you can be ahead by around turn 30 due to having a better neolithic than the AI, whose bonuses aren't that relevant before the ancient age.

 

[Taefin]

The AI certainly doesn’t catch up, so if you are ahead that’s pretty much the game. If you are getting that far ahead (15 turns in Neolithic is quite a bit, I often only spend 4-5 after skip to advance on T8-10. AFAIK the reason the AI is slow is they don’t split their scouts to search exponentially, not because they are collecting a comparable benefit as the player). Understandable to want the game mechanics themselves to give the AI a fair shot against the player, not everyone wants to self impose restrictions. Good to hear about some decision tree changes. Though I suspect for players getting that far ahead in game what’s going to be needed is mode that push difficulty well past the current HK, particularly that accelerate difficulty as the game advances.

 

[Aristos]

The AI certainly doesn’t catch up, so if you are ahead that’s pretty much the game.

Yes they do. I had one do just that on me a few games ago, and transformed a huge lead of mine into a 300 points loss in the last era. It may be rare, but they are able to.

 

[Taefin]

Haha I thought you might bring that game up I guess I was more absolute in my statement as that being a rare occurrence would probably not remedy the situation for players who are pushing the early game this hard.