So I got Civ 6 pretty recently (under a month ago), started out on warlord and now I’m playing on king. I went up to king immediately after my first win on prince, got rolled by barbarian clans super early game (like, before I even had my second city) and went back down to prince but won really easily. So I go back to king, rough early game again but by the end I’ve snowballed/taken over enough cities that I’m just untouchable. Won another game on king via diplomacy, yet again rough early game. Then I go for another king game, and I’m getting rolled by barbarians again. Basically, I almost always struggle early game, but (generally) manage to snowball enough that the game starts getting pretty easy, so I can’t tell if I’m ready for higher difficulties or not.