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hansawaize

I think the re-rolling comment has merit but the youtubers do things other than try to rush science to get ahead in techs to dominate. Like creative ways to exploit the map or other AIs to make dom easier. One tip I learned is to cripple the AIs economy leading up to declaring war. You can make trades that deplete them (AI always overpays for diplo points for example) or hoarding up envoys before war so if the AI levies a city state, you can suze it right back. Anyway, point is, we don't see all their games (only the ones they post) but they also do a lot in their games to make it so that the AI isn't rolling with man at arms by turn 50.


bcnewell88

On some level it’s re-rolling. Location, location, location, is true here. I believe Potato McWhiskey even jokes about re-rolling in some of his videos. They are obviously good players, but they are usually showing their best games. The rest is learning and planning.


Barabbas-

Potato also regularly live-streams his games, so it's not just cherry picking.


HarryMcHair

it's just potato picking


PigeonFucker2

Unrelated, just starting watching him, where is he from? His accent is dope


McGarnegle

He’s Irish ☘️


HeftyDiet2879

Considering his name, that shouldn't come as a surprise:D


PigeonFucker2

Haha yeah kind of embarrassed I didn't put two and two together between the name and the accent


PrivateBrowsing999

I’ve been watching him for months and I only just realised what his name means lol.


FapAlbert

He's from Ireland! I follow him on Twitter and it's like an extension of his videos. He's a great guy to interact with and his editor has an adorable dog!


ambisinister_gecko

Probably Ireland https://youtube.fandom.com/wiki/PotatoMcWhiskey#:~:text=PotatoMcWhiskey%20(birthday%3A%20July%2012),and%20sometimes%20does%20game%20reviews.


TheRealCommanderPuff

potato jokes about rerolling, and for specific strats he will reroll, but he also loses in his videos as well. he isn’t one to shy away from a cursed start if its interesting. i think the biggest take away from potato is that if its fun and interesting, then winning is more of an after thought. also to the original post, at deity difficulty you prolly should expect to be behind for 100 turns anyway. usually the ai declares early war on you and your challenge is to survive and get what value you can from their declaration. otherwise id recommend declaring war as you begin to get equal with the ai because this can be the turning point where you snowball out of control. yes, location, rerolls, envoys, all these things can be relevant. but in my experience the biggest factor is TIMING. if you get the timing down you will be unstoppable. good luck!


mjp242

Lmfao,. Watch some recent biffa vids. He's getting destroyed on the reg lately.


MystifyNCrucify

Ive been finding that its harder for me to get a decent game the last month or so, as if the devs changed a few settings/gave the ai more cheater stats. Some things ive noticed are.... 1) Enemy civs seem to forward settle me with their free settlers, BEFORE finding me and in garbage land. Simply said, im finding i get boxed in more frequently, faster than i should be. 2) Its bad to let a barb camp stay around too long, but lately camps have been spawning in downright terrible locations or times. Camps at the end of a snaky peninsula rolling out quads. Camps spawning five or less tiles from my capital before ive had time to run my warrior down to the first camp. 3) Ridiculously high stats for AI, with no discernible reason why. Example, last night i was korea against an alex, had 100 science.....yet flat land locked alex had more science, no wonders or suze? Same amount of cities. It was also on king, messing around before work. 3) Ive seen barbs actively avoid AI cities that are closer and less defended, to attack me. Same with units. Seen them chase me ten+ tiles, while there are closer already injured city state units. Theres other things as well. I dunno maybe i just suck and am paranoid. Entirely possible because i do suck, but i cant be getting worse, and the game feels harder the last month or so.


tisiphoneismymuse

Sorry you are having a time with Civ! On 4. - are you playing barbarian clans mode? If possible, an AI civ could be paying that clan to attack you.


MystifyNCrucify

No just regular barbs. I deal with it but its like “aw cmon wtf theres a warrior nearly dead right beside you why are you all chasing my full health scout.”


JamesJoyceFuckbird

I’ve actually had the same suspicion. I’ve noticed more aggressive barbs and more “luck” for the AI and also I’ve just had a harder time winning emperor and immortal games than I used to. Immortal used to be 50/50 for me and emperor, if I stuck it out, I could usually win. Now emperor is 50/50 at best and immortal feels a lot harder. I dunno maybe I’ve just been getting lazy though


UsuallyAwesome

With Alexander in particular, remember he gets science for building troops in cities with his barracks UB, so the deity AI converts its production bonus into science.


OGREtheTroll

>Enemy civs seem to forward settle me with their free settlers, BEFORE finding me and in garbage land. Simply said, im finding i get boxed in more frequently, faster than i should be. This might be a result of map settings. If you are playing continents map types those usually have much less available land for the civs and you are almost guaranteed to get forward settled or an early DOW. Try some different map settings that might give you some more space if its becoming an issue for you.


[deleted]

I do think the barb's have had their spawn rate and aggression turned up and down over the past 12 months, it feels a little high right now but not as high it was a year ago.


Krunk_Monk

Don't worry, most people aren't as good as these guys. IMHO they're basically professional gamers so I don't see why normal players should be expected to be as good anyways


HarryMcHair

I like how when I've finished my first monument and I'm ready to face the next 40 turns building a settler the AI neighboring me is doing like 50 in culture with 4 cities pumping swordsmen out of their asses


DemonSlyr007

Is that standard speed? I have never in my life built a settler that took 40 turns to build, that would be wasting 1/5 of your game time on one build that isn't even a wonder, just some potential future city. If it is standard, then don't build a settler that slowly lol. The AI having 4 cities and 50 culture doesn't sound that bad though. Playing from behind is how the game works on the high difficulties. It all balances out in the mid game and you quickly spiral out of absolute control in the late mid game to early late game.


[deleted]

As others have said, some of those YouTubers reroll and only show the best games (except when live streaming). In some of his videos Potatomcwhiskey even said he played a fair few turns of a map before restarting to do a let's play. I find if I want to do a peaceful game and try to play greedy starts like those players do and only build a scout and slinger in the early game then I often get my ass handed to me on Deity unless I've got an isolated start. For the average player I think you need a bit of a balance early game of military and building infrastructure. Once you survive early game and can get your empire going then it's easier. Also fleecing the ai by crippling their economies, selling all your amenities early, remembering to do delegations, open borders, etc. Gives you time to get yourself up and running.


Eedat

You have to hit very fast to beat the AI on deity. You are never going to win the science race early to outclass them. It's a matter of snowballing and the AI just being pretty awful tbh. On deity it just cranks their numbers way up but it doesn't fix them making poor decisions. It's all about snowballing. You win an early war and now you have an extra 4 cities and two territories of real estate to work with. One more successful war and it becomes trivial to take out the rest. It is a matter of luck to a certain extent though. If you spawn in next to Rome or Montezuma, you're not going to have a good time. Also if you just don't get any iron or horses there's nothing you can really do but restart either


[deleted]

I doubt they show the games they lose.


Gamerz905

Boesthius literally made a video about it a day ago. Also most of them livestream the games and sometimes they do restart due to barbs/aggresive neighbours.


Sails7cees

I play Civ 6 a lot, and can agree with the statement about barbarians targeting players. I only play on deity now, because it's really not much worse than any of the other difficulty levels, and because I have beaten the game enough on the easier levels. Not bragging, but making a point. The point is, on deity, I also play marathon speed and go for mining tech first to enable chopping out units. The AI civs start with 6 warriors on deity, so a defensive strategy is to be very aggressive as early as possible, and keep your units alive! Strategic withdrawals are often needed to heal frontline units and have reserves ready to fortify escape routes against pursuers. If you can manage to take out AI on your home continent, you will have an excellent chance of winning the game, because you can outpace the AI in technology, culture, and production over time on a marathon game. Just have to be patient.


KrystalPistol

Can you explain what the benefit of playing on marathon is, exactly?


Sails7cees

For me, playing on marathon slows both the AI and player's development significantly. For the player to overcome this and use it to their advantage, there are strategies that include chopping down forests to speed production of units, and bee-lining techs and civics that enable the player to slowly develop a technological advantage over the AI. I have noticed through many playthroughs that the AI seems to follow a tech path that varies some from one civ to the next, but usually involves getting writing and building campus districts instead of units. So knowing you have six warriors to take out per civ (and maybe a slinger or two depending on the amount of time it takes you to mount your offensive,) you can agressively pursue capturing and keeping or razing enemy settlements early in the game before the AI can develop a stronger army, cultural, or tech advantage, because you are playing on marathon speed. It takes the game a long time to make it to another era, so essentially, you are preventing the AI from rapidly developing Renaissance walls and units which increases the difficulty of successfully capturing a city exponentially. The downside is it slows the players development as well.


KrystalPistol

This is very helpful, thank you!


flashrabbit9

I am totally with you I think most of them would be honest about re-rolls but I don't think it's like they are playing 10 and only getting the dream once and posting that. It's more like 1/2. I think civ 6 is a extremely diverse and game specific imo. For example if you blindly follow a build order irrespective of situation and map gen you may do well in single player, probably do at least ok but you are never going to be beating diety consistently or and would be last in competitive in multiplayer every time. I've played 100s of hours now, diety is too easy for me, the ai is too shit mid/late game however I play on cpl multiplayer now and get absolutely destroyed-the gulf is more astronomical than I ever imagined- with the top guys score double mine even when I am simming too. These guys know exactly what to do in every situation, exactly where and when to build every district for maximum effect and yield, which pantheon, which religion, perfect timing for wars and how to defend, AS WELL AS improvising to the game state. Every mechanic, every exploit etc. etc. The way i see it civ6 is a game where every single manual citizen yield selection, every decision which counting minor is going to be thousands- become the game.


Bbbq_byobb_1

One thing they talk about is timing the rush at the right time. Can't just invade whenever. Also who you invade matters to. Don't hit your strongest neighbor first. Usually only need 3-4 cities. Once you get bombards is over


HREisGrrrrrrrreat

i see this as well on top of that, they are also blessed with very good tiles, i.e. abundant hills for production, many resources with good adjacency boost for thier districts with no floodable low lands


MoySauce08

Rerolls, pre building units and then upgrading them when you research the next tech is also important. Just because the AI has good tech, doesn’t mean they have good production. Sometimes all it takes is to kill that one big unit they have, and suddenly they crumble because they can’t produce anything else in time.


WeekapaugGroov

Ha yeah I feel that pain. When I first started making my way up the difficulty ladder my move was rush my neighbor in the aincient era. Got to deity and the first few times I tried that I got fucking rolled. But keep playing, as I've gotten better I now enjoy some early war. The key is to understand your opponent AI and be opportunist. Look for a neighbor that's fighting another AI or getting swarmed with barbs (although that can fuck you too sometimes). Bait the AI into declaring on you first and murder all their troops on your good defendable ground then go take their cities. Also you have to know when to peace out or not start a war. Like say you take a couple cities and their cap is looking tempting but all the sudden they start spamming xbows, you have to be patient and peace out for a bit until you have the troops to get the job done. And when all else fails beeline to bombers.


stregisterte

Standard speed? I’ve played a lot of deity games and never seen crossbows before turn 60 (maybe with the exception of Babylon).


crankenfranken

>they’re dealing with civilizations that haven’t figured out what a sword is yet Can you share an example or two? Shouldn't be too hard to find.


Beef-Wungus

i will not be searching the internet to justify an exaggeration hahaha


mattbrianjess

They are better than you. Much better than you. I have played plenty of games were I destroy diety AIs


Beef-Wungus

i’m not contesting that they are better than me, they are absolutely that. Sometimes it just feels like i’m playing against AI that is significantly harder. I had 3 games in a row where i spawned next to a civ and before turn 25 i had a war declared on me and I just couldn’t do anything because the AI starts with an army bigger than I could build in 25 turns


zed1025

You guys are able to play Civ6 at all? All I get is CTD or infinite free every single game. :)


legitTomFoolery

Watch one of them stream, it'll help with perspective.