Civilization 6 has eight levels of difficulty, ranging from Settler to Deity. Finding the right difficulty for your skill level is important; if the game is too easy or too hard, it won't be much fun, after all. For that reason, it's a good idea to know how the difficulty setting affects the game, as well as how it doesn't.
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PostsHere, we'll break down how the game changes to grant the advantage to either the human player or to their AI opponents, depending on how high you've set the difficulty. The higher you go, the greater a challenge you can expect to face.
Settler, Chieftain, and Warlord
Favors The Player
The first three difficulty settings give advantages to human players, making it much easier for them to compete with AI opponents. This makes them great for beginners.
Specifically, playing on Settler, Chieftain, or Warlord, makes your units slightly stronger in combat and helps them level up faster, while inflicting enemy units with a very small combat penalty. The bonuses you'll receive are as follows:
Difficulty
Settler
Chieftain
Warlord
Unit Combat Strength Buff
+3
+2
+1
Unit XP Gain Bonus
45%
30%
15%
Extra Gold From Barbarian Camps
15
10
5
Since the numbers for the bonuses are still quite small, and the enemy Combat Strength penalty is only one point, playing on a low difficulty gives you the most advantage in the early game, so don't be afraid to be aggressive and declare wars against your starting neighbors. You can use the extra experience to quickly build up elite units for later eras, when the playing field is a bit more even.
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PostsPrince, King, Emperor, Immortal, and Deity
Favors The AI
AI opponents don't get any smarter or more skilled as the difficulty goes up - the game's program knows what it's doing, but it's simply not smart enough to outwit a human player at the top of their game. Civ 6 closes the gap by giving AI opponents in-game advantages that get progressively larger the higher you set the difficulty. You'll start to see these buffs at Prince and King, where the advantage shifts from the human player to the AI, but not overwhelmingly so. Beyond that, you'll need to bring your A-game to overcome your super-powered rivals.
Starting at Prince, the AI starts to receive yield bonuses and other perks as follows:
Bonus
Increase Per Difficulty Level
Production & Gold
20%
Culture, Science, & Faith
8%
Unit XP Gain
10%
Tech and/or Civic Boosts
1 (chosen at random)
These bonuses are cumulative, so at Deity an AI player gets twice as much Production and Gold as a human player with the exact same build!
Starting at King, the AI also begins to get larger starting armies and slight advantages in combat. They get one additional Warrior at the start of the game and +1 Combat Strength for each difficulty level King and higher.
On Immortal and Deity, the AI also gets an extra Settler and two Builders to start the game!
All told, that means that on Deity difficulty, every single AI opponent starts with an army that's five times the size of yours, can found an extra city immediately, can improve up to six tiles right off the bat, constructs buildings in those cities at double speed, and gets forty percent more Science, Culture, and Faith from all sources. You'll have to use every advantage you can muster, from strategic alliances to careful positioning, and expect to be outnumbered and outgunned at every turn.
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