Things to watch out for when starting a multiplayer game

Hello,
this is just a quick text to improve multiplayer games, with known or unknown people and even if there is a skill gap, so if an experienced player plays with a new one.

These rules are to manage a few flaws or problems which can not be negated in a good way using the ingame settings.

Starting position stuff:
While some players think you should play with the cards you are given, some disagree, if some of the latter category or newish players are in the game, consider the veto rule:
Right at the start, in turn 1, players can veto and ask for a restart, but every player can only veto twice (or even only once if you play with 4 or more humans). That way people have some choice but you actually get started eventually. While a restart may take a minute, remember how long the game itself is.

Declaring war in hybrid mode:
If you play hybrid, meaning during peace you take turns at the same time but in war take turns alternating, the player who declares war has a large advantage. Not only can he declare war and already move units in, he also gets the first of the alternating turns. An easy work around is as follows, wars must be declared at the end of turn (assuming a turn timer), so a declaration of war ends the turn of the attacker.

Harassing:
Just quickly talk about whether or not early worker stealing is fair game or not.

Playing alone below difficulty 4 (prince) means the AI plays on 4, but you need less work, science and culture to get your stuff, you also have increased happiness. 4 is neutral, 5 and above means not only does the AI get everything faster, they also get more starting units and tech while you are still on 4 (except for less bonus damage to barbs).

If you play multiplayer this is mixed, so if one player plays on 5 or above, the other on below 4, it means the player on 5+ experiences a normal 5+ game, the other guy on 4- however will have his advantages, and the AI is still on 5+. The AI is "accelerated" even for the lower player!

The solution is to reduce the difficulty of the weaker player even more. So if the stronger player usually plays on 6 and the weaker player on 4, you set the strong player to 6 and the weak player to 2. While 2 seems extremely easy, remember the AI gets large advantages, too.

Overall, there is no smooth and easy solution, just remember
increasing the difficulty for the stronger player also increases it for everyone else.
Setting the players to 4 and 6 in the example above will mean the weaker player will have a very bad time.

Playing together as a team against strong AI may seem like a good way to introduce somebody to the game, I just want to point out it is not well suited for this purpose.

The tech tree is shared, this means you have to constantly communicate your plans and it is much harder to have on guy go for the hanging gardens while the other wants the pyramids. The AI has the issue, too, of course, but it does change the whole dynamic of the game and is bad for showing the ropes.

Wars are declared together and therefore you need to try to have the same enemies and friends, too.

Overall, try to see playing as a set team as some coop challenge, not as normal playing on the same team in a shooter or whatever game.

A turn timer is recommended, if you leave the field blank the turn timer will slowly increase from 30s early to several minutes later, while this makes it impossible to pause for a snack etc, remember you can just save and load again 10m later.

Loading often ends the turn, so always save after all actions have been done. let everyone finish their turn and when you see they are done (symbols on the bottom) save the game. Otherwise you lose actions.

The host should, if possible, be the guy with the stronger CPU, not the better net. Playing on a weak computer leads to more resyncs, the internet traffic is super low however.

Most achievements are disabled in multiplayer.

Even without teams, if you play on a pangaea map you will find each other early and two lux goods and 20 GPT for nothing counts as a trade, too. A declaration of friendship and defense will stop attacks against the weaker player, yet the stronger one can still declare wars without harm to his team mate.

If the newer player wants to play a certain leader anyway, change the map accordingly, young earth means more mountains etc. Give a good environment to grow in to your pet friend!