The AI gets a free settler on emperor?

[Akbarthegreat]

I just saw a Scythian second city on turn 5. Like WTH? How on the planet is the game so heavily balanced in the AI's favour even on Emperor? I definitely don't remember the civ5 emperor difficulty being so skewed. Looking around, I saw a couple more reports of this issue as well. Is there any way I can edit what bonuses the AI gets? Right now, king feels far too easy (the AI cannot handle Eurekas well), but on emperor I cannot get a decent second city without conquest. (Not to forget the insane carpet of missionaries from Gandhi every time).

 

[King_Course]

Mods...

For everything.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

Mods...

For everything.

Thank you! That mod seems like a real life saver. I cannot believe for the life of me how they could give the AI an additional settler on Emperor

 

[Haggbart]

On Civ5 IIRC the AI only got a free settler on deity. However, it got a lot of other bonuses on emperor.

It's kinda hard to balance - an early bonus might be better in some cases, because they don't lead to snowballing as much as other bonuses like %-modifiers that last all game.

I'm not sure what exactly your problem is, but getting up some archers early should help a lot with early AI agression. In my last games on immortal and deity I was not DOW'ed at all because of my relative army strength. You should not bother too much with early infrastructure: archers, settlers and a few builders are very important to make priority. Also an early scout can get you a few crucial envoys in at some city states.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

The AI getting a second city is not that big of a deal. The AI is basically giving you a free city. Just spam some warriors and as as soon as you upgrade your slingers to archers take the AI's second city.

 

[Nefelia]

The AI having a second settler makes Emperor far easier for those who like early conquest, as they can sometimes three free cities + a settler for a great early sprawl. For those who prefer to play a peaceful Ancient and Classical era, the two settler Emperor start is just brutal.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

Forcing me into early aggression is precisely what I do not like: I am, for the most part, a relatively peaceful player. Starting every game with a queue of warriors and archers to take an AI city (which is pretty easy, not arguing about that) is not my idea of fun. Pretty much like in civ5, building a good military and conquering others is a much more efficient way of playing as compared to building your own infrastructure. But I play civ for the narrative as well, not just to win. And I'm sure there are others who feel the same way.

The AI having a second settler makes Emperor far easier for those who like early conquest, as they can sometimes three free cities + a settler for a great early sprawl. For those who prefer to play a peaceful Ancient and Classical era, the two settler Emperor start is just brutal.

Exactly.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

The AI having a second settler makes Emperor far easier for those who like early conquest, as they can sometimes three free cities + a settler for a great early sprawl. For those who prefer to play a peaceful Ancient and Classical era, the two settler Emperor start is just brutal.

I find that early conquest is the "best" civ6 strategy if you want to win.

 

[Onii-chan]

Well for one you can just conquer the weak second city, but yeah I don't really like to do that so in that sense it's pretty meh. However, seeing as the AI has problems utilizing the new mechanics of Civ VI effectively (like Eurekas/Inspirations and District placement), it's probably necessary. A free second city right away was a huge deal on Deity in Civ V but I don't think much of it in Civ VI really. You'll still catch up pretty quickly by just doing your own thing. Even on Deity in Civ VI where the AI now starts with 2 extra settlers (I.E: 3 cities), I still found it much easier to catch up in science (and now culture) than it was on Deity in Civ V, which I again presume is mainly because it's much easier for a human player to make use of boosts effectively. Granted I've only played one Deity game in Civ VI as of yet but I won that one fairly easily without going to war even once, which wasn't exactly something I can say I ever did in Civ V outside of Diplomatic Victory cheesing

 

[EgonSpengler]

I'm curious why people are so reluctant to curbstomp the AI in the early game. It's practically free. No warmonger penalties; no city walls; weak AI armies.

 

[CrispyCritter]

I'm curious why people are so reluctant to curbstomp the AI in the early game. It's practically free. No warmonger penalties; no city walls; weak AI armies.

I view it as an exploit. It's way too easy. The fun part of the game for me (pre-exploit fixing) is figuring out how all the various pieces fit together. If you stomp on the AI early, then you don't have to make hard decisions about anything the rest of the game.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I'm curious why people are so reluctant to curbstomp the AI in the early game. It's practically free. No warmonger penalties; no city walls; weak AI armies.

Exactly. The game is designed so that war is very frequent in the early game and then decreases as the game progresses.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I view it as an exploit. It's way too easy. The fun part of the game for me (pre-exploit fixing) is figuring out how all the various pieces fit together. If you stomp on the AI early, then you don't have to make hard decisions about anything the rest of the game.

Hrm. Well, I agree that it's too easy, but I wouldn't call it an exploit. You're right, though, until they patch the game the AI is basically no military threat at all at Emperor difficulty.

Exactly. The game is designed so that war is very frequent in the early game and then decreases as the game progresses.

Right. Civ V put you in a straightjacket straight away. It was actually pretty aggravating. I like this much better.

 

[King Jason]

Mods...

For everything.

In this case, this makes virtually no sense. If you don't like the difficulty involved in a setting - drop the difficulty. But then again, the good thing about mods is that people can do what they want. So long as no one that wins on Emperor when the A.I. doesn't have their 2nd settler pretends like they can actually win on Emperor unless they can do it unmodded consistently too - at least when it comes to discussing strategy and tactics here. That's such an odd occurrence when people try to give advice from their modded games that have such obvious bias in the players favor.

 

[Onii-chan]

I'm curious why people are so reluctant to curbstomp the AI in the early game. It's practically free. No warmonger penalties; no city walls; weak AI armies.

Well I just find rushing the AI in the ancient era pretty boring. Just not my kind of playstyle in general. But sure if I play Sumeria then obviously I'm going to rush someone with War-Carts, that's half the point of playing the civ after all. Otherwise I don't find it that interesting, even if it's easy

 

[Heikki Mustonen]

AI getting second settler in emperor is not a big deal. AI bonuses have always been how Civ games have added the difficulty. Idea is to test how far behind you can start and still catch up and win.

I think Deity starts in Civ6 with something like 3 settlers, 8 warriors and free builders in every city + bonuses to everything else also. It is just your job to catch up before AI managed to finish some victory condition by change.

 

[UWHabs]

I'm fine with some bonuses, but the extra settler to me feels like a bigger change that shouldn't happen until much further up the line.

 

[player1 fanatic]

While I like AI bonuses for tougher play, I think extra settler is way too much front loaded, skewing early game dynamic too much.

Emperor was my sweet spot for Civ5, but now I'm not sure if I want to play Civ6 on such setting, despite King not being that much challenging for me.

 

[Esperr]

I just saw a Scythian second city on turn 5. Like WTH? How on the planet is the game so heavily balanced in the AI's favour even on Emperor? I definitely don't remember the civ5 emperor difficulty being so skewed. Looking around, I saw a couple more reports of this issue as well. Is there any way I can edit what bonuses the AI gets? Right now, king feels far too easy (the AI cannot handle Eurekas well), but on emperor I cannot get a decent second city without conquest. (Not to forget the insane carpet of missionaries from Gandhi every time).

the game is actually more difficult without the A.I getting a settler, because there pretty much building your second city for you.

 

[Nefelia]

In this case, this makes virtually no sense. If you don't like the difficulty involved in a setting - drop the difficulty. But then again, the good thing about mods is that people can do what they want. So long as no one that wins on Emperor when the A.I. doesn't have their 2nd settler pretends like they can actually win on Emperor unless they can do it unmodded consistently too - at least when it comes to discussing strategy and tactics here. That's such an odd occurrence when people try to give advice from their modded games that have such obvious bias in the players favor.

As I said earlier, more settlers for the AI means an easier start for those who play the warmonger game.

Why do you think so many people are rocking Deity in Civ VI? Five starting Warriors divided among three starting Settlers means the AI is just building cities for the human player who prefers to go to war early. Clear as much of your continent before the AI starts building walls and you have basically set yourself for the win... especially given the current state of the AI.

However, for those who prefer to play a peaceful builder start, extra Settlers for the AI make for a rather frustrating game as the AI forward settles and gobbles up the land. Going down a level in difficulty is not an ideal solution, since King would likely be too easy for those who are accustomed to Civ V Emperor. What the mod offers is an alternative difficulty scale in which the AI gets less Settlers (less AI expansion in the beginning) while getting stronger bonuses to gold/culture/etc production to make the AI more competitive throughout the rest of the game. At the very least, it provides a smoother difficulty scale, especially between King and Emperor difficulty (and it makes the warmongers go further out for their conquests ^^ ).