Civ 6 seems much more aggressive and much harder than Civ 5

Is Civ6 a lot more aggressive and difficult than Civ 5?

I really enjoyed Civ 5 and played it a few times. I just started a Civ 6 game on the EASIEST difficulty and got my ♥♥♥ kicked. And I only reached 1600 before things went downhill fast.

1. Right off, I’m started with (what later turns out to be) a vast sea on one side, and the other three sides, I’ve got close neighbors that I meet very soon, and who very quickly all complain that I’m building too close to them (by the time I’m up to my 5th city). At the same time, I’m almost immediately set upon by attack after attack by barbarians. Hardly a moment’s peace. I had at least three barbarian camps within 5 hexes of my empire, and three empires within 10 hexes of my starting city!
2. About 90 percent of my mineral resources are rock and mercury. I have a tiny bit of iron, one tiny site for niter, a few spices. That’s it. 90 percent of my animal resources are elephants and pigs. I didn’t find a horse until close to 1500! All the nearby horses, iron and niter were already taken by my neighbors.
3. Even when I was acting peacefully, my neighbors kept denouncing me and disagreeing with how I run my country … for apparently no reason.
4. I was later overrun with missionaries. At one time I had nearly a dozen missionary groups crawling around my empire, spreading their religion from city to city. Even though I had a religion and had built religious sites and later temples … no effect. I was permanently converted.
5. Around 1600, Brazil suddenly invaded with a HUGE army of about 10 units … armored soldiers with rifles and cannons. I’m still fighting with swords and arrows! Even though I’ve researched firearms, I can’t build any because there’s only ONE source of niter in my kingdom.

These guys were damage sponges who walked all over half my kingdom before I simply gave up.

I had one city with good production (London), but most of my cities were producing at a snail’s pace.

It’s was frustrating: something I never had a problem with in Civ 5. I always had a blast. Sometimes I won, and sometimes I lost, but I never had such a walking over as I had today.

So, here’s my question: was I just unlucky? Is Civ 6 SO different from Civ 5 that I’m missing some kind of very important diplomatic aspect that turned all my neighbors into ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥s?

Or is this game simply more aggressive?

Answer

You are missing a lot about civ6. It isn’t 5 and it doesn’t play like 5. You need to forget everything you remember about 5.

1. Starting locations can be crowded but sometimes you will get starts that have city-states closer to you instead of other ai civs.
2. You don’t need a lot of resources in 6, just a few. The resources you need to build units(horses, iron, niter etc.) work differently in 6 than they did in five. If you build an encampment you only need 1 iron to build swordsman instead of 2 and you can build as many as you want with that 1 iron. Works the same way with niter and the units you build with it.
3. You get denounced for things other than warmongering in 6. There is an agenda system.
4. You have to use religious units to spread your own religion and to fight off other Civ religious units. You can do religious warfare with religious units without actually going to war.
5. I already said how you could have built units with that one niter.

To sum it up, it appears as though you just jumped right into the game thinking it was going to be exactly like civ5. Take some time to read the descriptions of the buildings in the civilopedia or maybe check out some vids on youtube. Quill18 use to have some playthrough vids up, I don’t know if he still does them or if he has moved on to other games.

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