Scared to move up in difficulty

You can wonder whore on any difficulty, just requires better tactics to get them before the AI. Glib on diety.. not impossible.

 

Do what makes you happy?
If you are having fun taking candy from babies, why stop?
If you move up, well, maybe then the babies can fight back a little...
So you have to decide... which do I enjoy more: winning easily, or being challenged?

 

Maybe if you cook your settings or have crazy luck with ruins (free pottery, writing, one or two population boosts and quick aristocracy), but if you like big maps with lotsa civs, it's practically impossible on deity, unless you're on a duel map or something, don't even bother trying.

 

That's the point.

 

I recently made this step up myself, it's actually not that big of a step.

You want to focus on pop growth and science, research for writing and then what improves your luxury resources. Prioritise getting the NC, I find I can usually comfortably get it around turn 80 with at least 2 cities out.

Scout early and build archers. Check the demographics to see who is the military leader, if they're near you, you can expect an attack if your army is too small. On a standard size game I've never been attacked if I'm in the top 3 for military.

I ignore most of the early wonders apart from the temple of artemis which i've never missed when going for it. I recently moved up to emperor and got it it no problem on my first game.

Trade routes are essential for the early sciece boost and use them internally to boost food to your capital to boost growth there. Use tehm to boost a newly formed city too. I strongly favour costal cities as the trade ship bonus is massive compared to land ones. Once I'm tech leader I will tend to switch trade routes to city states rather than other civs.

Research wise after i've got the NC i'll get up to iron working on the bottom then straight to education, fill in the bottom a bit then straight to scientific theory. Make sure you get the newly researched science building built and populated asap, buy them in low production cities if you have to.

After education I'll usually take astronomy and get exploring (i usually play continents) and after sci theory I will head straight for artillery then platstics for research labs then rocketry and satellites. I'll usually have a great engineer ready to rush Hubble as it's a great wonder even if you're not going for a science win as it gives science a huge boost which can help other victory conditions.

In general I'll sell all my luxury resources for GPT or lump sum with allies, i'll trade or buy ones I don't have if I need the happiness. I'll often sell embassies to the AI for GPT early on, it's easy to get an embassy later on, even sell open borders to non agressive civs far away too.

Get city states as allies too, they send you lots of juicy goodies and you can troll the AI with the world congress and more importantly stop the AI shafting you.

Wonders I always go for:
Temple of artemis
Forbidden Palace
Hubble

Nice to haves:
Colossus - extra trade routes. The AI will usually beat me to this as I'm usually late to iron working by prioritising the NC so I don't sually try for it, if no one has baged it after a reasonable time I'll get it
Broubador (sp?) if I found a religion
The one whch I forget that gives you a tonne of happiness, AI really goes for that i find.

 

I used to play on Prince for a quite long time untill I got frustrated at the AI being limp and wimpy and basicaly not doing anything.

I feel that the main difference between Prince and King is that somehow the AI actually tries to do something on King while on Prince they just feel like some kind of props which rarely fight with each other, don't try to grab land and are generaly speaking very passive walkovers. Military AI is still pretty dismal on King but at least the AI has some ambition and is capable of throwing some spanners into the works. You really can't have a pacifistic cultural-scientific geekfest with no army if there are aggressive AIs close by on King while on Prince I did this all the time.

The only thing I find particulary difficult compared to Prince is that AI gets an advantage for getting a religion because they start with Pottery and they are quite determined to get some of the more desirable wonders like Great Library, Alhambra, Petra and Notre Dame. I don't remember if I've ever managed to get Alhambra on King, I got Notre Dame once due intense beelining to Physics and Petra twice with a good desert start and a Great Engineer from Liberty finisher. Basicaly King and the higher difficulties sort of force you to think more about where you want to go with your game and make you prioritize things better.

I've dabled with the higher difficulties but I find that the extra bonuses don't really adress the big issues which hold the AI down, namely excessive passivation due warmonger penalties, poor combat AI due 1UPT and lack of expansion for lack of happiness and tech penalty. The AIs are also bad at overseas expansion no matter the difficulty and are poor at protecting their workers, settler and trade routes from barbarians. Mostly the higher difficulties just give the AI a headstart and make spawning next to early warmongers and forward settlers dangerous.