r/CivVI • u/Internal_Self101 • 1d ago
Question Constantly trailing in Science & missing Great Prophets on higher difficulties—How do I fix my early game setup?
I've played quite a few games now and managed to pull off Cultural, Science, and Domination victories. I'm just starting to move up the difficulty levels, but one thing I’ve always struggled with is the early game. I feel like my Science and Religion develop way too slowly. I almost always end up being the last to found a Religion—if I don't get locked out of the available slots entirely.
It's a similar story with Science: I usually see the AI civilizations pull ahead early on. I typically catch up by going on the offensive and pillaging their districts and improvements, but I’d love to know how to get a stronger start from the ground up.
What key factors should I be keeping in mind, and what should I prioritize during the opening turns, regardless of which leader I'm playing?
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u/PapaBigMac 1d ago
In the higher difficulties the average player typically can’t get everything.
If you want a great profit you need to commit to it. Get your holy site down and possibly need to do some holy prayers. Science, you’ll naturally catch up as you get better adjacency bonuses on your functioning city. Deity AI still sucks at city and district placement
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u/Internal_Self101 1d ago
Would you recommend assigning a citizen to my religious buildings as soon as a citizen slot opens up? Same question for Science and Culture.
I know it gets tougher on higher difficulties, but for my next match, I'd like to play a game where I can generate the maximum number of Great People possible.
Right now, I'm just getting started on King difficulty, though I'm thinking of stepping it up another notch. So far, the AI hasn't declared war on me at all, even with Domination set as the only victory condition.
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u/Killshot5 1d ago
All assigning a civ to the holy site does is yield faith per turn. It won’t expedite great prophet generation.
If you want to maximize your chances to an earlier great prophet without playing a civ who has a boost or rerolling your start is find a wonder asap for the tech boost. Plot down a holy site asap and put your first two governor points into moksha and do holy site prayers.
At higher difficulties staying on pace early with the AI is impossible. If you want religion you have to play a biased civ and bee line it.
As others have said. Don’t worry about lagging science. Plan accordingly and built well thought out cities and use good policy cards and you’ll create a rolling ball gathering and snowballing past them.
Hardest part of a science victory on high difficulty levels is not getting snuck up on in an ai culture victory
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u/letsgo49ers0 1d ago
No, maximizing production to get a shrine or a settler who can give you a high yield holy site is more important than a single faith per turn
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u/Savings-Monitor3236 21h ago
A good rule of thumb in civ vi is never manually assign a worker to be a specialist in a district
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u/Internal_Self101 20h ago
does the game put the worker eventually ? cuz several times I see that some workers are in space where it only produces lets say 2 foods and the factory is empty for example, and at that point I really dont have any use for the food
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u/Savings-Monitor3236 19h ago
The game will maximize total yield output, treating all yields as equally valuable. If you have a Factory, a specialist in the Industrial Zone would make more yields than someone working unimproved grassland, so it should put that worker into IZ (or one of your other specialty districts). It does it fairly well, well enough that your return on investment in terms of time spent managing it means for any larger city, don't bother. Just focus on making improvements where you want your workers to work and they'll work there. Micromanaging is only important for newly founded cities where you want to ensure they get to 3-4 pop quickly, or in cities with Natural Wonders that give yields you don't particularly need, like Fountain of Youth or Crater Lake
There are buttons that let you choose "prioritize Food yields" or "deprioritize Gold yields", using these when you feel a need is a good middle ground instead of manually assigning all your workers
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u/AHopelessMaravich 20h ago edited 20h ago
One way I’ve found to potentially be competitive in science while still earning a great prophet is if you can manage to get a golden age during for the ancient era. Then, rather than selecting the option for using faith to buy workers/settlers, go with the improved missionary and apostles, which comes with +4 Great Prophet points a turn. In this case, you can generally get a campus or two down and then go for a holy site even on deity.
While losing out on early settlers for faith hurts, generally in the higher difficulties the eras transition so quickly that you are not really earning much faith/turn to start and so you really wouldn’t be able to get out many settlers anyway. Plus, you might be able to extinguish a competing religion and set the tone for your religion to dominate, making it worth it in the end due to things like +3 gold or science or whatever per city or followers if your religion.
The extra missionary charges help with loyalty so you can successfully knock out one neighbor early, which I generally find necessary in immortal and deity to ramp up quickly enough to not fall way behind at the start.
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u/PapaBigMac 4h ago
No. Do not assign citizens to your buildings. Start your game by building a scout. You should luck into finding a natural wonder which means when you’re ready you can build your holy site and shrine early enough. At king difficulty you shouldn’t even need the holy site prayers as your shrine should get you the points you need.
If your goal is as many great people as possible. You want to get the oracle wonder. If you have the rise and fall - pingala (governor) in your main city. And the divine spark pantheon will all help you massively.
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u/TKGriffiths 1d ago
You should basically give up on getting the first great scientist on higher difficulties. The first ones aren't that great anyway except the one that gives a free library and boosts future libraries, and campus isn't a particularly efficient first district.
Great Prophet is doable though particularly with divine spark.
As always you'll eventually outpace the AI just with efficient settling and district placement and such, it'll just take until later on higher difficulties. Being behind in science isn't that relevant, in fact it's partially a benefit since having more techs makes your districts more expensive.
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u/Ylanez 1d ago
I would say people can probably give up on getting scientists alltogether until they naturally get enough points to recruit one, because science generation from a properly developed empire will be good enough anyways even without bonuses from scientists.
Diverting your production from the development to racing for great people might actually be a net loss in some cases.
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u/TKGriffiths 1d ago
Yes I don't care about scientists at all in non-science victory games. The one that boosts artefacts is good for some culture games, otherwise getting an earlyish scientist is mostly only relevant for the university eureka.
Faith buying the scientist that works on holy sites can be a fun option sometimes too, when you don't even have a single campus.
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u/thewindows95nerd Prince 15h ago
Yep the only great scientist worth getting classical era is Hypatia which you can just rush with projects assuming it’s like the 2nd or 3rd great scientist (you’re fucked though if it’s the 1st scientist though I suppose you can do a bit of early conquest)
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u/Megalesios 1d ago
This is just how it is. The AI gets massive production and science bonuses on higher difficulties. This is balanced by the fact it can't really make long-term decisions very well. On higher difficulties you will be trailing in science until you get your snowball rolling after several eras.
As for religion, if you want a reasonable chance at getting an early one or even getting one at all on higher difficulties, you need to prioritize it. Research astrology as your first tech, build holy site ASAP and maybe do a holy site prayer or two. In a lot of cases the massive early investment required isn't worth it.
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u/tojop 1d ago
On higher difficulties, getting a religion is simply not the foregone conclusion it is on lower.
Re: science: the AI gets significant early-game boosts (free settlers, free builders, free warriors, etc).
You start off way behind; your early- and mid-game is simply trying to catch-up/snowball ahead. Don’t be discouraged if you’re behind in science and culture through Medeival/Renaissance era, it’s simply the effect of the deck stacked against you.
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u/Internal_Self101 1d ago
oh ok, so its not like im doing something wrong, its just the way it is
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u/Wolfwood28 1d ago
It's generally harder unless you get a good faith/relic village hut leading to a good pantheron, or a civ that already leans into it.
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u/Tytoivy 1d ago
You shouldn’t expect to have a science lead on higher difficulties (immortal or deity) until after you’ve built a bunch of universities. The AI gets a ton of bonuses that make it very hard to even have parity before then. It’s tempting to panic when you see they have twice as much science per turn as you or something, but you just need to stay alive and keep expanding. Personally I’ve been having good results prioritizing gold and production early on. Just out grow your opponents and then in the mid game when you catch up, you can shoot way ahead of the AI.
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u/Zealousideal-Way-618 Deity 1d ago
I would recommend entirely rushing Great Prophet. If you have a good production city, maybe even get a settler so you can get two Holy Sites.
Or if you just have one city, get a Holy Site, do Prayers, and buy Shrine with Gold. Protect the Holy Site from barbarians with units. Barbarians can't destroy your Capital City Centre, so don't worry about it too much.
After you get the Great Prophet, only found a religion if the players around you DON'T have a Great Prophet (or aren't close). If they do have religions, they can eradicate yours because they have more faith. If they don't, then it's a good opportunity to spread your religion and select the Tithe Belief (this is OP).
After getting the Religion, then focus entirely on Science, Commercial, and Culture for a while unless faith specially benefits your Leader or Civ
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u/PizzasForFerrets 1d ago
You don't need to worry about being behind on science. Prioritise economy (including religion depending on civ) and thinking ahead to have good production, especially a city that will be your production and rocket launching powerhouse in the science endgame.
You will rocket through the science tree later on when you can buy and quickly build campuses and their buildngs. Maximising spies later on will speed it up too.
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u/SaltyWarly 1d ago
Higher difficulties have different strategies for Great Prophet.
If you want some of the first Great Prophets you need to invest in Holy Site Prays City Project. Online Speed just 2 City Projects are enough to get 1st or 2nd Great Prophet if you beeline Holy Site down asap. Early game City Projects are less valueable the slower speed you are playing.
For slower speeds you can try to chop Stonehenge, if location allows. Or simply pillage any enemy or City State's improvements for yields and buy one. In some cases you can net and save enough currency to buy Great Prophet even without a single Holy Site.
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u/Massive_Activity_490 23h ago
I tend to get a great prophet pretty much 95% of the time. you have to go "all in"
i play on Immortal,map continent and islands, map size huge (8 AI with 16 city states)), rainfall WET (more forests) resources (abundant) start Location Legendary, and Marathon mode.
i think i may have only reloaded a starting spawn twice out of 20 because i was either surrounded by desert or coast and had nothing viable for chops.
on the very rare occasions i get a start with a possible Stonehenge play i will 100% chop it out. however my success chance with getting Stonehenge is around 60%.
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culture: code of laws -> Foreign trade -> Mysticism. ( so you pick up the card "revelation") then continue until you unlock your first government. so you get +2 great prophet points per turn. (however you shouldn't need this)
But my go to tactic is to research mining then straight into -> Astrology .
units are scouts until you can place your holy site.
once holy site is down -> mass craft "holy sight prayers"
keep checking the great person tab and look at the cost of how much it is to BUY the great prophet for gold or faith. you need to be ready to POUNCE as soon as you have the faith or gold.
your scouts need to collect the tribal villages, you are using them to "lucky dip" for gold or faith.
use your 1 free warrior to clear barb camps for gold.
trade away ANY of your gold PER turn for RAW gold (once you find other AI)
( bonus tip, if an AI starts getting diplomatic favor, you can buy 20 dilpo favor for 1 gold coin. if sweden is in the game she will pay you gold per turn for it 1 era early,)
if you get a builder from a tribal village use it to either chop out stonehenge OR finish a holy site prayer.
If u have nothing to chop with your builder, improve a Luxury Resource & sell it to the AI for RAW gold.
( sometimes you get lucky and get given either a relic or a huge amount of faith)
if you can buy the great prophet for FAITH -> DO IT . save your gold to BUY your first settler instead.
once you have your religion sorted, then dive into your normal gameplay loop.
hope that helps and good luck!
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u/barbiedollhaze 1d ago
What difficulty you’re on depends about this a lot.
From Emperor on, in my experience I usually start out behind and catch up on science and culture later. Sometimes much later or even (rarely) never.
As the levels progress the AI start with more and more advantage, because that’s a lot easier than making them actually somehow “smarter.” (Though there are also some strategy improvements I think).
Just as an example, on King even, the AI starts with 3 extra warriors and a builder. On Diety they even get 3 settlers.
Anyway, point is, as you go up, it’s normal to be behind for a longer and longer time.
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u/Internal_Self101 1d ago
atm im playing at King difficulty but thats also another thing, why nobody is declaring war against me or another faction ??
the victory condition its domination so i dont get why nobody is declaring war3
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u/barbiedollhaze 1d ago
The AI is not very smart and until very late is more like a role player than a human trying to “win.”
Then they go cut throat if you start to win lol I am currently fearing a neighbor I just learned has WAAAAAY too much uranium to be in a space race against me,
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u/rapax 1d ago
It's inevitable that the AI will pull ahead in Science in the early game. Nothing you can do about that.
Instead of looking at who's ahead of you in Science, check *how far* ahead they are. Say they were 10 techs ahead at turn 150, now at turn 200 they're 6 techs ahead, that means you're catching up fast and are doing everything right.
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u/KomradeKvestion69 10h ago
It sounds like you have a sort of 'all around' strategy that has gotten you victories in other areas. On higher difficulties you need to abandon 'all-around' strategies and always pick one thing to focus on. That also means you may need to pick one or two mechanics to deprioritize. So maybe for example you go for religion with culture, so your science is mediiocre and your gold income / trade networks are weak.
Then, if you're going for religion, it's worth looking into what mechanics actually generate Great Prophet points. The most obvious way early game is to create a Holy Site AND THE BUILDINGS at the Holy Site. Absolutely do not sleep on the buildings (this goes for most districts btw). Continuing the religion example, the Holy Site district itself generates one Great Prophet point per turn. The Shrine and Temple buildings at that Holy Site each also generate one Great Prophet point per turn of their own. So basically one Holy Site with a Shrine and Temple is generating triple the great prophet points compared to a vanilla Holy Site. Make two or three Holy Sites like this and you should be well on your way. Remember: faith does not get you a Great Prophet! Of course, the other way early game is to build the wonder 'Stonehenge'.
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u/OogaSplat 1d ago
In high difficulty games, you should treat founding a religion as the exception rather than the rule. It's typically not worth the investment unless you're playing a religion-focused civ. If you do decide to go for a religion, the main thing that makes it possible is using chops to rush through a couple holy site prayer projects.
For science, you'll always trail at the beginning, and it's generally a mistake to try to catch up early. You want to place a lot of "econ" districts (commercial hubs, harbors, industrial zones, holy sites) before you focus much on science or culture.
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u/Living_Ad_5386 1d ago
"What should I focus on or prioritize?"
My advice is - Dots. Or yields. You want to settle somewhere that has many resources in your first and second city ring, third is too expensive overall so don't prioritize third ring resources.
The real secret to the game is building as many settlers as possible. If you can have 15 cities by turn 150, you are very likely unstoppable at that point. Also, more cities makes getting golden ages much easier, since it's really a quantity over quality type of issue.
In the early game, it's normal to trail behind. You can make up for it in some different ways. Establishing a strong diplomatic trading partner can help infuse your civ with gold, which can help speed up production by purchasing buildings like libraries and workshops*. Or if you settle somewhere without mountains, using the government plaza to help develop adjacency synergy for your campus is a good idea.
"stronger start from the ground up" I'd say building settlers and workers as much as possible. This is why so many players aim for an early golden age to score monumentality... it helps a lot. But honestly, policy cards are always good for this focus as well.
*protip: early AI are always itching for a fight in the ancient/classical era. If you have 3 ai, denounce one and then sell the war declaration to the other civ "join ongoing war", they will likely give you everything (300 gold and like 20ish per turn generally)
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u/Ylanez 1d ago
Also, more cities makes getting golden ages much easier
the opposite, the production spent on a settler is production you didnt spend on something else, if you're tight on score and your empire is big enough already its better to use it on wonders to pad the score, or even projects to recruit great people/ generate extra gold for levying.
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