Civilization 6

Dave_The_Sheep

awec wrote: »

The new strategic resources takes some getting used to as well.

It's a real sea-change alright, but I really like it. Now you need more resources for that bigger army, not just a minimum, and it makes horse trading a bigger deal if you have the patience to be maxxing it.

I'm also finding diplomacy a lot more ... forgiving. Mind you I haven't gone domination yet, so we'll see how that works. First victory was diplomatic on King, got downvoted a few times, and I'll be honest, I was playing for culture the whole way through but missed out on a few wonders, and only one other civ was focusing it, but they focused it bigtime. Couldn't wear them down. Settled for diplomacy.

TheChrisD

awec wrote: »

I like it, but still haven't got my head around how diplomatic victory works.

Over the course of the game, you can earn diplo victory points. Most of these will come from special victory voting in the world congress from around Modern era onwards; but you can also gain points by completing certain emergencies, building the Statue of Liberty, or researching certain Future era techs/civics.

On standard speed (unsure if it's any different on faster/slower speeds), you need 10 points. All the ways to gain points:
- Winning an Aid Request emergency: 1 point
- Building Statue of Liberty: 1 point
- Researching Seasteads: 1 point
- Researching Carbon Recapture: 1 point
- Winning the World Congress vote: 2 points
- "Losing" the World Congress vote (basically, everyone else votes against you): -1 point

Shiminay

I'm never sure how many Diplomacy Points to spend on the World Congress votes to get my +2 victory points. I got -1 point last time round cause I'd just finished Seasteads and already have the Statue of Liberty. I'm consciously going for a Diplomatic Victory though, so will keep plugging away. Gorgo's been annoying me on my home Continent and Teddy who's also sharing it with us has dragged me into a war with her which I'm using to finish her off She's got all these great artists and writers hanging around and no Theatre Districts for them to deploy in, so I'm curious what happens when we kill her off - will they go back into the Great Person pool?

TheChrisD

Shiminay wrote: »

I'm never sure how many Diplomacy Points to spend on the World Congress votes to get my +2 victory points. I got -1 point last time round cause I'd just finished Seasteads and already have the Statue of Liberty. I'm consciously going for a Diplomatic Victory though, so will keep plugging away.

If you already have 7 or 8 VPs, dump literally every point of favour you have. One time I think I had 7 VPs going into a Congress vote, I gave myself 15 votes to win; and all the other AIs banded together to vote for me to lose a point with 59 votes.

That said is basically completely emptied every other Civ of favour while I got my 2k+ favour refunded, so next go around I would probably very easily win the vote; but I won Culture before then so 🤷*♂️

Shiminay wrote: »

She's got all these great artists and writers hanging around and no Theatre Districts for them to deploy in, so I'm curious what happens when we kill her off - will they go back into the Great Person pool?

Nope, Civ dies, the GPs die with them. And unfortunately since it's Gorgo you're not going to get anything out of her for peace. Perhaps you should loot her cities of all their great works (occupy the city, then transfer the works out into your own cities), then return them to her so she fills them again; then re-declare and re-loot :pac:

Shiminay

ooh, I didn't think of that! Aren't you a clever and sneaky sausage I have been sending my spies in to rob anything that isn't nailed down from her with a very high degree of success. I think the problem is I took too many of her cities with Theatre Districts and she's struggling. I might trade back a couple of them to her, there's one that I'm really struggling to keep Loyal cause it crashes into independence before I can get a governor established.

Billy86

Jesus fair play to ya Chris, that's some serious next level gifting! :pac:

awec

Got around to finishing my first GS game. Overall I like it, but with a few issues.

- AI is still hopeless militarily. Their attacks are stupid, and declarations of war make no sense. If they are at least an era behind tech wise, with a tiny army, they should not be DOWing me when they are guaranteed to get crushed.
- AI still cannot use planes, and by extension carriers are still useless.
- Science victory changes are pointless and just drag the victory out over extra turns for no real reason.
- Diplo victory needs some work, not sure the mechanic totally works. Too easy to accidentally win with another victory first. It's not difficult to do, it just takes a long time because of the mechanic. You don't really start racking up points until the modern era, and the last two points just take longer cause you can be sure the AI will always vote you down when you get to 8.

awec

Shiminay wrote: »

I'm never sure how many Diplomacy Points to spend on the World Congress votes to get my +2 victory points. I got -1 point last time round cause I'd just finished Seasteads and already have the Statue of Liberty. I'm consciously going for a Diplomatic Victory though, so will keep plugging away. Gorgo's been annoying me on my home Continent and Teddy who's also sharing it with us has dragged me into a war with her which I'm using to finish her off She's got all these great artists and writers hanging around and no Theatre Districts for them to deploy in, so I'm curious what happens when we kill her off - will they go back into the Great Person pool?

You can try time it so that once you get to 8DVP you have seasteads and global warming still to research, both of which give you 1DVP (both are in future era).


When you get to 8dvp everyone will vote against you.

Shiminay

Yea, I noticed that.

I accidentally won a tourism victory as the Maori - didn't even build any theatre districts till the late age But the AI had no idea how to really play against Kupe on an Islands map and I mashed them - I must up the difficulty. I did note, however, that despite the switch over to the grievances system, the AI was still denouncing me all game cause I had grievances against others and I just couldn't get anyone to declare friendship to start alliances. I was handing out free luxury resources and gold for numerous turns to turn their favour, but the game wasn't having it.

awec

What difficulty do you play on Shiminay?

I played my last game on Prince. It's too easy, but every time I try up it to King I find myself really struggling at the start of the game to stay alive past 50 turns. So much of it comes down to pure luck.

Shiminay

I thought I'd bumped it to King, but it was probably Prince. Next game will definitely be King.

Maximilian

Has anyone tried out the Cloud based multiplayer (basically PBEM) included with the GS expansion?

Shiminay

Not yet, but I'm willing to give it a look for science if you wanna send me an invite - I think I have you on my Steam Friends list Max.

Maximilian

I'll set up a quick test game to see how it works.Maybe we can then try and get a proper game with may 4-6 people (any more than that becomes a little unwieldy).

So. Anyone else besides myself and Shiminay up for a game? If you haven't played Civ PBEM before, it can take a long time to play a full game - months, sometimes longer - so requires a little commitment. Civ 6's cloud based handling will hopefully make things a but quicker.

Daveq

This is on Humble pay what you want ($15) at the moment.

https://www.humblebundle.com/games/strategy-bundle-2019?hmb_source=navbar&hmb_medium=product_tile&hmb_campaign=tile_index_1

pixelburp

Blatant thread bumping as bought this for the Switch (wanted a Civ available on my main platform). It's the same as the PC version, and I can see why it kinda got a bit of a damp reception: feels very like Civ5 with some features moved around. The Districts and Civics mechanics elude me & the tutorials aren't great. In principle I like the idea of cities taking up more than one hex but I'm a bit lost.

So: in dusting off an old thread, any Civ players here know any tips, guides or (preferably short) videos that give a good outline on tips or strategies to make better use of Civ6's mechanics?

A timely bump as they announced new content yesterday.
https://civilization.com/new-frontier-pass/
Six packs of DLC over the next year.

Maximilian

pixelburp wrote: »

Blatant thread bumping as bought this for the Switch (wanted a Civ available on my main platform). It's the same as the PC version, and I can see why it kinda got a bit of a damp reception: feels very like Civ5 with some features moved around. The Districts and Civics mechanics elude me & the tutorials aren't great. In principle I like the idea of cities taking up more than one hex but I'm a bit lost.

So: in dusting off an old thread, any Civ players here know any tips, guides or (preferably short) videos that give a good outline on tips or strategies to make better use of Civ6's mechanics?

I've been watching a few of this guy's videos on YouTube, he has some good videos on stuff like selecting starting locations. He's Irish too.

https://www.youtube.com/user/PotatoMcWhiskey

Deleted User wrote: »

A timely bump as they announced new content yesterday.
https://civilization.com/new-frontier-pass/
Six packs of DLC over the next year.

I'm really hoping they don't go the way of Paradox with this and having dozens of DLC's until the horse is well and truly flogged. Still, more frequent updates would be good, there are some really game breaking bugs and exploits still.

AI is still quite hopeless though. The best way to enjoy this game is against other people. A couple of us have a game or two going under the play by cloud option - takes a while to play a full playthrough but it's more thoughtful way of playing. Could set up another game if there were enough people interested.

Otherwise, Play Your Damn Turn is great PBEM app/website - a better version of Giant Multiplayer Robot (if anyone remembers that from Civ 5). I have about 10 PBEM games on the go over there - I totally recommend it. https://www.playyourdamnturn.com/

TheValeyard

I thought this game was dead and finished. I'm surprised another round of DLC.

cherryghost

I've been playing play by cloud over the lockdown as something to do for a few minutes each evening. Works fine after a few teething issues.

I think the announcement of Humankind has prompted them to spend a bit more on it to take a bit of wind out of the newcomers sails.

It is still consistently a most played game according to steam, although me leaving it running to grab a few turns once a day is included in the statistics.

There are some guides here:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/forums/civ6-strategy-tips.540/

pixelburp

Thanks for the videos and guides. I can see why this didn't take the world by storm: feels like Civ 5 with a shallow coat of paint, so if it weren't for me buying it on Switch I'd feel a little underwhelmed. Have heard the 2 main expansions add a considerable set of new mechanics to play though so maybe like #5 it took the expansions to feel out the final form.

Gotta say, by the time those DLCs come out, there'll be way too many civs. Bit of a glut really, there must surely be some broken, OP ones with that kind of number...

awec

The expansions change it significantly.

pixelburp

awec wrote: »

The expansions change it significantly.

So bit like Civ5 again then? Funny, cos I think a lot of folk had the same dim view of Five until the two expansions came out. €30 quid for the DCL combo on the e-shop so a bit "hmmm" about forking out for it immediately. Thought I'd play with the base game first.

Deleted User wrote: »

I think the announcement of Humankind has prompted them to spend a bit more on it to take a bit of wind out of the newcomers sails.

It is still consistently a most played game according to steam, although me leaving it running to grab a few turns once a day is included in the statistics.

There are some guides here:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/forums/civ6-strategy-tips.540/

I see there's also "Old World" on early access too, from the lead designer of Civ4; like you said Firaxis might have decided to bump the game so it didn't get lost in the weeds of two new 4x games so similar. Old World looks like it's taking some mechanics from Crusader Kings, with the idea of your leader's children taking over:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-labh-aebVE

Maximilian

cherryghost wrote: »

I've been playing play by cloud over the lockdown as something to do for a few minutes each evening. Works fine after a few teething issues.

Let me know if you're starting another one and want an extra player.

Shiminay

There's no comparison between Vanilla Civ VI and DLC Civ VI - it's very much like Civ V in that way. I'm curious about this new content, I agree that the appearance of Old World, as well as Humankind, seems to have given them a bit of steam to remember that they're supposed to be the gold standard in this sort of 4X game

Manach

I'm playing a lot more Civ VI during the lockdown and finding it enjoyable but I still reckon the AI could be twecked a bit more as some of the NPC actions at times seem odd.

awec

Manach wrote: »

I'm playing a lot more Civ VI during the lockdown and finding it enjoyable but I still reckon the AI could be twecked a bit more as some of the NPC actions at times seem odd.

AI is what historically lets it down, especially when it comes to war.

pixelburp

Yeah, AI is a circle the Civ games have never quite squared. At least, the appearance of the AI: case in point... I'm playing for a science victory so keeping the head down. Despite that, 2 neighbouring civs declare war but my better science means my smaller army is more advanced. I even take a couple of cities from the aggressors, razing one. Peace is restored - but since each war every other Civ has declared me a Warmonger. Wtf? Maybe I hit back harder than I got but I'm scarcely the Warmonger in both cases so it's a bit confusing :rolleyes:

awec

pixelburp wrote: »

Yeah, AI is a circle the Civ games have never quite squared. At least, the appearance of the AI: case in point... I'm playing for a science victory so keeping the head down. Despite that, 2 neighbouring civs declare war but my better science means my smaller army is more advanced. I even take a couple of cities from the aggressors, razing one. Peace is restored - but since each war every other Civ has declared me a Warmonger. Wtf? Maybe I hit back harder than I got but I'm scarcely the Warmonger in both cases so it's a bit confusing :rolleyes:

This happens all the time, it can be fairly nonsensical. Your tanks being attacked by horses. They don't use any tactics either, they'll just send a trickle of units against you one or two units at at time.

Razing a city is really only viable in the very early game if you want to avoid penalties. Otherwise the AI will hold it against you forever.

pixelburp

awec wrote: »

This happens all the time, it can be fairly nonsensical. Your tanks being attacked by horses. They don't use any tactics either, they'll just send a trickle of units against you one or two units at at time.

Razing a city is really only viable in the very early game if you want to avoid penalties. Otherwise the AI will hold it against you forever.

Yeah, wasn't sure if razing would incur a larger penalty - which in some respects, it should really. Completely obliterating a city and its populations feels a bigger sin than simply taking the place over.

Wonder why the battle AI had never really got much better. It has always been bad, as you say, sending trickles at you instead of waves (possible exception being the openly hostile civs like Atilla who'd practically kamikaze himself to get you)

Lost that game in the end. Was a couple of turns from the second piece of the Mars expedition when Russia beat me to it. Built the spaceport in a stupid location really so struggled to build quickly.

Laviski

Free on epic this week.

_Kaiser_

Laviski wrote: »

Free on epic this week.

Just got it.. they also have a 50% sale on the "Platinum pack" which includes " six Civilization & Scenario DLC packs as well as the Rise and Fall and Gathering Storm expansions" for €40 (with an additional tenner off with a voucher I - apparently - have), so €30

Worth it/essential for the game, or is the base good enough? Used to play a lot of the original Civ and V and wondering how this stacks up?

pixelburp

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

Just got it.. they also have a 50% sale on the "Platinum pack" which includes " six Civilization & Scenario DLC packs as well as the Rise and Fall and Gathering Storm expansions" for €40 (with an additional tenner off with a voucher I - apparently - have), so €30

Worth it/essential for the game, or is the base good enough? Used to play a lot of the original Civ and V and wondering how this stacks up?

Consensus seems to be the DLC adds a significant amount to the base game as to be a totally different beast altogether - no more than was the case with Civ5 and its own 2 major updates.

Definitely worth it for 30

Quandary

Picked this up on the free deal.

Anyone recommend a decent introductory guide for civ 6? Basically a complete beginner.

I briefly played civ 4 years ago, but just couldn't get into it at all.

Thanks folks!

awec

Quandary wrote: »

Picked this up on the free deal.

Anyone recommend a decent introductory guide for civ 6? Basically a complete beginner.

I briefly played civ 4 years ago, but just couldn't get into it at all.

Thanks folks!

PotatoMcWhiskey or Marbozir on YouTube are good IMO.

pixelburp

It's a small detail in the scheme of the game, but I've really liked the design and animation of the leaders. Lovely springy, expressive animation that sells the various moods. More cartoony than before but works and love watching all the little details.

nix

Considering giving this a back for the first time, do the expansions change/improve things from the get go? or is it a case of playing through the main game and then the expansions?

Kiith

The expansions are usually pretty essential in Civ games. Not 100% sure about 6, but i would assume it's the same this time around.

awec

nix wrote: »

Considering giving this a back for the first time, do the expansions change/improve things from the get go? or is it a case of playing through the main game and then the expansions?

Expansions make it a lot better IMO. I would never play the vanilla civ6 now.

pixelburp

Yeah, I got Gathering Storm (which includes the Rise and Fall mechanics) and it really adds a lot more depth and dynamism to the maps and your cities. The world doesn't feel static anymore and can change rapidly. Domination isn't so easy either, with loyalty being a huge factor now in eventual control of a city.

Had forgotten how tedious a Domination victory is though, having to move your forces slowwwwly across a map. Thought I'd get a beachhead city on the second continent, but because of the loyalty mechanics the founded city's loyalty immediately started skewing to a rival.

Night and day really between the vanilla game and the 2 expansions.

awec

pixelburp wrote: »

Yeah, I got Gathering Storm (which includes the Rise and Fall mechanics) and it really adds a lot more depth and dynamism to the maps and your cities. The world doesn't feel static anymore and can change rapidly. Domination isn't so easy either, with loyalty being a huge factor now in eventual control of a city.

Had forgotten how tedious a Domination victory is though, having to move your forces slowwwwly across a map. Thought I'd get a beachhead city on the second continent, but because of the loyalty mechanics the founded city's loyalty immediately started skewing to a rival.

Night and day really between the vanilla game and the 2 expansions.

For domination within 500 turns you really need to be capturing capitals right from the very start of the game.

Otherwise it does get tedious.

Or you can get nukes, aircraft carriers, bombers and giant death robots, but there’s not much fun in it.

Zillah

pixelburp wrote: »

Had forgotten how tedious a Domination victory is though, having to move your forces slowwwwly across a map. Thought I'd get a beachhead city on the second continent, but because of the loyalty mechanics the founded city's loyalty immediately started skewing to a rival.

Loyalty was designed to stop people being too aggressive with placing their own cities right against the enemy, but they balanced it horribly for war. I had a game where I had to get past a row of mountains into enemy territory and I took their capital, but it flipped back literally 2 turns later. I could then instantly recapture it, and it would flip again in 2 turns. I did it about ten times and there was just absolutely no way to keep the city. I had to abandon the capital to hostile control and systematically raze all of the other nearby cities before there was a chance to keep any of them. Strong enough loyalty can make you virtually immune to being conquered.

Absolutely ridiculous mechanic. The whole point of conquering a city is that your military power forces it under your control regardless of how the population feel. Loyalty should be disabled for the first ten turns after conquest in my opinion, and frankly I never liked the direct flip. A rebellion makes much more sense if you're at war with them.

Like, Russian army takes Berlin at the end of WW2 and the population just goes "nah, we're gonna go back to Germany" and the Red Army just shrugs and withdraws? Dumb.

pixelburp

Zillah wrote: »

Loyalty was designed to stop people being too aggressive with placing their own cities right against the enemy, but they balanced it horribly for war. I had a game where I had to get past a row of mountains into enemy territory and I took their capital, but it flipped back literally 2 turns later. I could then instantly recapture it, and it would flip again in 2 turns. I did it about ten times and there was just absolutely no way to keep the city. I had to abandon the capital to hostile control and systematically raze all of the other nearby cities before there was a chance to keep any of them. Strong enough loyalty can make you virtually immune to being conquered.

Absolutely ridiculous mechanic. The whole point of conquering a city is that your military power forces it under your control regardless of how the population feel. Loyalty should be disabled for the first ten turns after conquest in my opinion, and frankly I never liked the direct flip. A rebellion makes much more sense if you're at war with them.

Like, Russian army takes Berlin at the end of WW2 and the population just goes "nah, we're gonna go back to Germany" and the Red Army just shrugs and withdraws? Dumb.

Presumably there's a "correct" way of using Loyalty though? Cos I'm unclear what I'm doing wrong, or not doing. Eventually lost that founded city, even after planting a Governor there. Now, this city was wayyyyy away from my main clutch of cities, across the ocean on another continent. I'm not sure how you actually found across the water without immediately losing to any nearby civ.

Looking at a one city run-through for extra challenge, not sure if that's viable in Civ6 though with its smaller, more compact cities.

Zillah

Civ 6 definitely seems to have no incentive to build tall instead of wide, which is a shame, because my favourite way to play Civ5 was to build one super city, but the mechanics in 6 just don't support that (limited tiles for placing districts and wonders not least of all).

As for beach heads, I honestly don't know. You could found one nine or more tiles away from the nearest enemy, that will prevent their pressure from applying. You could settle during a golden age, that increases your own pressure. In that same golden age you could pick the advantage that allows new cities to be founded with 3 pop, which increases pressure. You could found multiple cities at once so they can support each other. You could also found a city nearby first, like, half-way there, within nine tiles, and have it do Bread and Circuses to increase nearby loyalty. And amenities/happiness generally keeps people more loyal.

Plenty of options, but it seems a bit ridiculous to have to game the system like that.

If you want to beat loyalty you have to go all in.
Found a group of cities that will reinforce each other or be prepared to conquer a bunch of enemy cities to break their loyalty.

For that capital above that sounds right.
Of course if the rest of the enemy cities are still there you are going to get resistance. Think more the Warsaw uprising than the fall of Berlin.
Attacking and holding a remote city is straight forward.

Edit: before the first balance patch i saw a civ collapse under neighbouring loyalty. They hadn't expanded and fell into a dark age. Adjacent civs flipped all their cities within about ten turns.

awec

pixelburp wrote: »

Presumably there's a "correct" way of using Loyalty though? Cos I'm unclear what I'm doing wrong, or not doing. Eventually lost that founded city, even after planting a Governor there. Now, this city was wayyyyy away from my main clutch of cities, across the ocean on another continent. I'm not sure how you actually found across the water without immediately losing to any nearby civ.

Looking at a one city run-through for extra challenge, not sure if that's viable in Civ6 though with its smaller, more compact cities.

Founding on another continent is hard in the mid-late game, once there's not a lot of free territory left.

awec

I actually like the loyalty mechanic tbh. If you capture a city that's surrounded by other cities then it should be difficult to maintain control. Sometimes you get into strange cases like described where it endlessly flips back and forth, but generally it works well.

It's also really satisfying when you conquer a city without war.

French Eleanor with Court of Love is good fun, great works have negative loyalty for surrounding civs so you can hoover up cities without firing a shot.

Think there are loads of things to fix in civ, but loyalty not on my list. War is near the top, it's rubbish. Aircraft carriers are pointless. Trade blockades would be cool etc. Sanctions on warmongering civs etc etc.

pixelburp

awec wrote: »

Founding on another continent is hard in the mid-late game, once there's not a lot of free territory left.

Yeah, as it's being explained it makes a more sense now; the city in my example was quite close to Eleanor (England), sounds like I just had my "old civ" hat on where I could attack a city or found a new one without considering Location or the surrounding Neighbourhood.

It was all in service of a beachhead, figuring faster in the long run than transferring my army all the way across a continent & ocean. In the end just abandoned that playthrough as Domination is just too much a chore on larger maps. Army management gets tedious, quickly.