Question before I buy the game.

[civplay]

I'm a pretty experienced civ player. Played civ 5 for the first time in years over the weekend and won on Immortal, and just barely lost on Deity. I'm really excited for civ 6, but I don't want to play the game until the AI is up to speed. So a few questions:

1) Is the AI smart enough to play against without "cheats"

2) How is the lag between turns? I have a powerful computer but there were times in civ 5 where id just walk away and do a chore and come back and the computer would still be moving around. Playing games with animations really just feels like a board game.

3) Is it worth getting now or should I wait for the DLC/patch/update or should I wait for it to be on sale?

 

[migkillertwo]

1) On Prince difficulty, I found the AI somewhat challenging; it's pretty trigger happy in the ancient era. On warlord difficulty however I was constantly 2 eras ahead of them. When my enemies still had spearmen, I was rolling over them with tanks. By the time they got musketmen, I was raining down thermonuclear fire on their cities.

2) I have a pretty powerful computer myself (Core i5, 16GB RAM, R9 290x) and the turns are pretty zippy if you enable fast movement and combat, even in the late game.

3) Honestly, I might consider waiting. Granted the district system is a welcome change from previous iterations of civ and I give it two thumbs up: it really feels like cities have their own personality where before they were basically interchangeable. That said, the other areas of the game aren't hugely improved over Civ 5.

 

[Browd]

The AI still gets a full array of difficulty level bonuses, including extra starting units (including settlers) and other bonuses. If you call those "cheats," well, there you go.