Is Civ 6 more difficult post-patch and have you changed the difficulty you play?

[Artifex1]

My poll: Is Civ 6 more difficult post-patch and have you changed the difficulty you play?

 

[Leathaface]

I feel like dropping down from Emperor to King.

 

[spfun]

Combat AI is the same, AI do better at teching now.

I play on the difficulty most that doesn't give AI an extra settler, King in Civ 6, Immortal in Civ 5.

 

[Artifex1]

I feel like dropping down from Emperor to King.

Me too, I feel like dropping down to King. Emperor seems annoying to me post-patch like they cheat more or something.

 

[Falk]

I initially had the impression that it was more difficult on Emperor, so I started the next game on King - but that was so boring that I stopped playing mid-game and went back to Emperor. Now I'm not so sure if difficulty changed all that much.

 

[cazaderonus]

Difficulty went up by more than a notch on deity. I feel AI land combat is way better than before (which tbf isnt hard considering it was non-existant), and the teching rate of the AIs is insane. They usually build the first space project around turn 210/220 which isnt bad at all.

Still, i'm pretty sure it's still rather easy to consistently win on deity, at least for science victory as in the end game, you'll probably outproduce and outplay the AI from the key Great Persons. And even the upgrade in land combat AI wont matter once the player gets its hands on artillery and balloons.

Havent finished a game yet though, mostly because of stardew valley stealing my gamer life at the moment.

 

[Zuizgond]

AI is still as dumb as a door knob. So, no.

 

[UWHabs]

They're giving more of a challenge early on, but in the end, I don't think it's much different.

 

[EpicWestern]

About the same difficulty if you aren't cheating, maybe slightly more difficult as it does seem like the spaceports are coming quicker.

If you're exploiting trade bugs, it got significantly easier. You can abuse peace deals even more than before.

 

[PYITE]

AI is definitely better at envoy distribution, which is a big help.
I'm having to play "no abuse house rules" with trading because the AI's value of cities and great works is way off.

 

[Disgustipated]

I find it's more difficult to play peaceful (something I struggled with even before the patch). They really want to encourage early game warfare it seems. I find it's the only useful way to get enough cities to be dominant. Unless you start all by yourself, but then you are still playing catchup.

note: this is without barbs. AI's expand fast and rapidly.

I'm playing the same difficulty, but a little more aggressive than before.

 

[mckinney156]

I hadn't since 2 patches ago so most of my experience comes from release (missed winter patch and this one, hell maybe the first patch too) but diety seems noticeably harder for me now. I can still beat it but the early game is more difficult. AI put up walls a lot quicker and seem to be teching a bit faster.

Standard size shuffle maps are very hard to me.

 

[stinkubus]

I have no doubt the AI is building more units. What had been my typical early rush (two warriors and three archers) was completely stymied in my first post patch game. I myself am building far more early units and moving that first settler up in my build queue (sometimes it's the second build now depending on food and cogs in my cap).

Voted game is harder, but I have not switched difficulty. Still playing mostly on Emperor, and may be interested in taking a shot a Diety or Immortal soon.

 

[Arms Longfellow]

They build and use air units now, which makes late game war significantly tougher. I had to build a few mobile SAMs after getting my troops unexpectedly bombarded by jet fighters.

However, the increased difficulty in combat is more than offset by the AI being willing to give you all of their great works for 1 gold.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Still just messing around prince but.... I actually lost a city before I could even react! Granted it was only a 2 pop fishing town which was 4 turns away from ancient walls and they rammed ships into it, for some reason they left me a settler in plain view so I settled a better city with it, but I was fairly impressed. Also saw a game where Pedro was going for space/culture at the same time at an alarming rate only to found that Victoria had vanished; apparently Pedro wiped her out.... Too bad he never upgraded most of his units.

In the end, same outcome and terrible unit control and still sometimes it doesn't bombard when it should be able. But at least they forced me to try. Good for them. Maybe I'll have to start rushing them again.

As a side note, something's seems really wrong with Victoria's AI.....

 

[Ikas]

Finally won a game on deity (Rome, domination, standard size), not sure if it got easier or I'm just getting better though. Nubia are a civ that's almost impossible to rush, so that's one aspect that's harder.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

AI is building the Colosseum early and in terrible places

 

[Japper007]

It did become harder, but not enough to make me drop down from Deity. I'm kind of a masochist when it comes to difficulty though, I don't like my games to be just a sandbox. If I can reliably win a game every time I get bored of it pretty fast.
I for one welcome the extra challenge, especially since Firaxis seems to have pulled it off with just some changes to the AI (it's still not winning any awards of course, but then neither would the civ 4 or 5 AI) and some minor rebalancing.

 

[TheFourthDoctor]

About the same difficulty if you aren't cheating, maybe slightly more difficult as it does seem like the spaceports are coming quicker.

If you're exploiting trade bugs, it got significantly easier. You can abuse peace deals even more than before.

It's the same with a cultural victory. The AI places no value on works of art, so you can clear them out of all of their art works in a single deal, where you offer something like 1 lux. The only limit seems to be whether you have space to hold the works.

So take your time building amphitheatres and museums, because you can clear out the AI when you're ready, and pick and choose your art works to theme.

 

[valerislysander]

I think it's more challenging, more interesting and more fun since the patch. I'm still only on prince so i'm no pro lol but the AI definitely seems more clever in that they seem to be focusing well on their victory goal. Playing a Large/Standard/Prince game with Poland trying for a religious victory. I have converted 4 civs and Pedro has 4 civs converted to, going into the end game our two religions will be battling hard but also you have india doing well culturally, John Curtin running the science race and all this ive not had one war in this game which really nice to happen as ive been delcared war on a lot previously and im actually playing pacifist. This was also helped by the fact that my location is out to the east next to the coast with only japan west of me so i havent been bothered by other civs.
To me it just seems AI civs are producing more units more consistently, air attacks are now a thing from the AI and the AI city planning is so much better! They settle better but more importantly they are also putting districts in the right places to maximise gains.
Overall i'm impressed with the patch as it also has performance improvements as the game seems more responsive, turn times are less and the tool tips work a lot better.