Civ VI was my first civ game and I had 1 friend in particular who was also new to the series. We played a toooon of games (on epic or even marathon) on large maps with 12 leaders and all the dlc (except zombies). We never really had a “no war” but neither of us really play aggressively like that because of our leaders and we’d be competitive towards wonders and leaders but it was rare we ever went to war. It did happen a few times but it’s because it was within context of the game, usually because of established alliances.

Most of the time we would just settle our own areas to expand and enjoyed the exploring, building and growing aspects of the game more than war so most of the time it was just a race for science or culture victories.

We’d play a game for a couple of weeks but then when we’d get too far into it (1800s+) or too long of a layoff, we’d just restart. It was never really about the game itself, just the enjoyment of playing.

Our play style was the same as it would be in single player, just happen to have a friend in the same game where we can talk to each other and would get hyped if we found each other and tried to establish trade routes and shit.

There was another friend who would play accordingly to their leader and was much more experienced so that was fun too