Civ 6

I feel compelled, it seems, to write a thread about any game I get in to. And the latest to hit my PC is the five year old Civ 6. I was a big fan of Civ 5, actually liking it better than those that came before. Long-time players mostly howled at the changes Civ 5 brought, but I liked it better. The biggest change was one unit per tile (1UPT), which had a drastic effect on combat. In the older games, you could combine all of your units in to a doom stack, all occupying the same hex square. Another change was moving from a square-based map grid to hex. Many more changes -- too many to detail here. But while the player base complained, I saw Civ 5 as a big improvement, and I put a hell of a lot of time in to it. Set-up options give a massive amount of replayability. Dozens of Civs to choose from, all with their attendant unique bonuses, and tons of maps options -- type, size, resources, city states and on and on.

So you can play a small, quick game, or a sprawling one with many other Civs on the map. A number of difficulty settings alter the challenge level, and victory types can be toggled on and off. If you don't want to be beaten by a religious Civ while you're going for a science or culture win, you can just disable it. Maybe you want an all-out brawl, and can turn all off aside from domination as just one example. You can tilt the table toward you, like choosing an archipelago map for a seafaring Civ, or do the opposite, to raise the challenge. You can start with everyone on the same landmass, or set it up to give yourself early elbow room for a more peaceful opening. These are only a few examples of the flexibility, and this keeps it interesting as you try the different leaders.

Civ 5 came out in 2010, and when Civ 6 came out in 2016 I gave it a pass. Not only was I still enjoying the last one, but Civ 6 had Redshell tracking software. I don't know enough about Redshell to say how benign or invasive it might be, but these things never sit well with me, and on top of that there was no indication to the player it was included, nor was there an opt-in/out. These things, combined with the fact I still liked playing Civ 5 meant that Civ 6 was not a compelling purchase. But here we are five years later, Redshell is gone, expansions and DLC have added content, and crucially, it's on sale. Until April 8 you can get Civ 6 and all the extras for US$40 (Platinum Edition) on Steam. That's a good deal, and I jumped on it. So what do I think of it? Is it a better game than 5? That's hard to answer. It is different, with some fundamental changes, but it is hard to make the claim that it is better. Even so, I'm digging having a new Civ to play. By waiting five years I begin with the game seasoned and expanded, and that's a good thing. One thing to note, and that's the fact that there is one more update planned, for this month, where the devs say they will re-balance 2/3 of the Civs. So after 5 years it looks like there will be sweeping changes to the unique abilities, units and buildings of the various Civs you can play. We will see how well the changes are received, and soon.

There are too many changes to list for Civ 6 but I'll touch on a few of them. Perhaps the biggest change is in city planning. There is now a district mechanic. A district occupies one tile and then houses all the buildings of its type. For example the industrial district is where the workshop, factory and power plant are built. Others include theater (culture), campus (science), harbor, holy site (religion) and so on. The district system uses adjacency boosts, increasing their yield if placed beside the right thing, which could be another district, a river, a natural wonder, a mountain, and lots more. It s both more simple and more complex than before. Terrain and city planning are more important than ever before, and a player will need a run or two to get a feel for what is available as the eras tick by, and leave space for future improvements. It's no longer just a matter of building it within the city limits, but to get the most out of your buildings you must plan it out well, and even leave a prime tile empty for thousands of years for that late-game wonder or improvement you want to build.

One example of this is a new national park mechanic that is useful in a culture victory. It requires 4 tiles in a diamond shape that all have charming or above appeal (new tile attribute). To designate a national park you need to recruit a naturalist. These don't become available until late in the game. So if you've chopped down the trees or otherwise made improvements to these tiles in the preceding 3000 years then you won't be able to build that park. These sorts of things take both being aware of how it works (and when), and planning it out so that you don't find you've built over the possibility. So for these reasons and more city planning is more important than Civ 5.

A massive change comes from the Gathering Storm expansion. This introduces natural disasters, things like floods, volcano eruptions, droughts, sandstorms, and one of the most interesting to me, global warming and a rise in sea level. This puts any improvements you made on the coast in jeopardy of later becoming submerged. There are ways to mitigate these such as dams or coastal barriers, but no way to protect from a volcano! The warming comes from the power plants of the Civs. Coal is bad, and nuclear is good (unless it leaks) At the same time these disasters can have benefits, such as increased fertility along a flooded river basin. It adds a neat risk/reward aspect to where you choose to settle a new city and where you build improvements.

There are two tech trees now, or more accurately one tech tree and one culture tree that unlocks 'civics', mainly wonders and policies. Trade routes now automatically build roads, no need to do it manually with a worker. Religion is now a victory type. And lots more. I had a few aborted starts as I learned the new mechanics, which is standard fare for me. I did get one victory, as Teddy Roosevelt and America. Won a culture victory through my impressive art and archaeological museums, a national park and spamming ski and seaside resorts everywhere lol. I also used rock bands, yes that's a thing. These bands can tour other civilizations and improve your tourism. One band in particular, the legends of rock called Silent Sushi, had a huge hand in getting this one over the line. Culture victory has changed too, but is still mostly the same.

This post is long enough and I've just scratched it, but if you liked Civ 5 you will like Civ 6, if you didn't, you won't. If you like 4X games there are few better. With the DLC and expansions the game is full of content (and you can play with, or disable these rulesets) and with the current sale being 75% off it is a great time to give it a go.

I've been a longtime fan of the Civ series, all the way back to Civ 1. I think the only one I haven't played is III. I was playing Civ V pretty heavily when VI came out, so of course I had to get it. I didn't spend much time in it because a few things turned me off. The new "cartoonish" look of the game in general really disappointed me, and the fog of war I found to be a really bad implementation. I don't recall exactly WHAT was bothering me about the fog of war, but I do recall hating it quite a bit. But I played a bit anyway hoping I'd learn to love it, and of course I never did. I wound up uninstalling it and playing V a bit more.

I haven't touched it since it was release, and Firaxis is a little like Paradox in how they upgrade and update the game to the point of almost being a new experience. I've also been looking for something different o play, and Civ has been one I've been considering. Maybe I'll give it a reinstall and a try. The sale on the Platinum version might be worth looking at as well.

Heh, absolutely! This very thing happened to me recently with Imperator: Rome by Paradox. The most recent update was so major that it fundamentally changed the game but at least in this case it was certainly for the better.

I will agree with DB that some monumental changes to Civ happened in Civ V - hex maps instead of square made movement easier, but 1 unit per tile made war logistics much more complicated. I remember some warmongering games where I spent more time figuring out my routing so all my forces got where I wanted them WHEN I wanted them than actually fighting. It was good though, the doomstacks of previous games were a little ridiculous.

OH and I remembered what I didn't like about the fog of war - when your visibility over the tile expires, the tile fades to almost the same color scheme as the undiscovered areas of the map. That always made at-a-glance tile evaluation more annoying than it needs to be.

I completely agree about the map fog. I want it to work like it did in Civ 5. Units are invisible when out of sight range, but the fog is gone wherever you've rolled it back. Maybe there's a mod that changes it back. This is one reason I said I can't claim Civ 6 is better, but it is different, and that's worth a couple points right there haha.

I've had a couple more aborted starts since the cultural victory as America. One civ I tried is Indonesia, who get some nice maritime bonuses. Their unique building is a water tile improvement that is supposed to increase housing, but it didn't for me. And because I played on an archipelago map I really needed the housing. I had set it to use Rise and Fall expansion rules, but I guess in that version the Kampung as it is called had no housing bonus, so my cities struggled to grow.

Now I have a run going as Australia (Gathering Storm). They have a very cool bonus that grants +100% production for ten turns whenever someone declares war on them. But I cannot get anyone to declare on me. I'm religiously converting their cities, forward settling, refusing all demands and basically doing everything I can to make them hate me, but I think as long as I have a strong army I will struggle to be an attractive war target. I'm on course for either a science or religious win. Maybe I should attack a city state and see if that does the trick.

Governments were added for Civ 6 and I like it. Gives me something else to agonize over, and the policy cards too, which allow me to further fine-tune the nation. City state bonuses are fun to compete over, and some of them are absurdly strong. Diplomacy isn't really a thing in this game, but the city state game is fun to play.

JC, the game has expanded a lot since release, might be worth a revisit. The Platinum edition has both expansions and most DLC, but there are four or so DLC packs not included. Still, it must be around 40 civs to play even without those and I think Gathering Storm adds a lot of interesting twists. Few games have more 'just one more turn' appeal than this one.

I may just do that. I've been looking for something different to play, Civ might just scratch that itch. The platinum pack will cost me about $30 since I've already got the base game, so I may have a go at that as well.

That was my thinking too. Something very different from what I had been playing lately, which was a lot of Elite and a few other titles. And when I saw this sale I thought it was a great deal, and would fit the bill nicely, which it has. Sale ends today.

I put the Australia game on hold. I was doing fine and was generating insane amounts of faith. Was the first to get a religion and all beliefs so had the pick of the best ones. I was proselytizing my way through the other civs. Flipping cities and even an entire nation (Rome). But this is a tedious way to play, using my army of missionaries and apostles to convert. Another civ was competing hard with their religious pressure and I decided that I'll save religious victory for later. The fact no one would declare war to trigger my cool +100% production ability made me think I'll save Australia for a higher difficulty when the AI might be more aggressive (I'm playing on King).

So I started yet another run, this time as Persia on a small continents maps. Persia gets a bonus to internal trade routes and roads, has a unique building that grants culture, gold and appeal, which is increased by district adjacency. I also get a great classical period infantry unit called Immortal. It is both a good melee unit and has a ranged attack equal to the archer. But because it is classical, I needed to start the run differently, gearing up for war straight away, so that by the time I could recruit them I would be in position to go on the offensive. Wait too long, and by the time you are ready, your UU is obsoleted. Poland shared my continent, and close, so close that we each forward settled the other with our second cities.

And since this is small continents this would not do, so they became the first target for my Immortals. I needed to wait until I could recruit a catapult, which takes a while, since it is so difficult to reduce a city's defenses without one (or you can use battering rams or siege towers). Once the catapult was built I declared war immediately since the rest of the army had already been built. Two Immortals, two horseman, three archers and the catapult were the invasion force. We took their capital and second city without much trouble, and only their third city, built in the center of a large desert, remains.

The other unique ability Persia gets is really quite awesome for warfare, called Fall of Babylon. They can declare a surprise war for no additional diplomatic penalties, and these bonuses

-- Declaring a surprise war has 33% reduced warmonger and war weariness penalties
-- All units gain +2 movement for the first 10 turns after declaring a surprise war.
-- Occupied cities have no penalties to growth and yields.
-- Occupied cities with a garrisoned unit gain an additional +5 loyalty per turn.

That's really nice, the additional movement is awesome when invading, and the effects on occupation negate the biggest penalties for taking cities that don't belong to you. Persia would be a good civ for a culture victory, but having done that already I'm thinking of going for domination this time. Internal trade route bonuses synergize well so I am not risking them getting plundered traveling to other lands. And the Fall of Babylon ability means I can mass on a border, declare surprise war, and quickly get in position on the first target city. The main challenge I think will be because of the map I chose. After Poland is gone all future wars will be seaborne invasions.

Which brings up deciding on whether I should just kill them, or let them live. I think because it is so early I'd be wise to just kill them off. Warmonger penalties are lowered in ancient and classical eras, and besides, I've only met one other civ so far, America. Kill Poland, take control of my continent, and have a secure homeland for a long time. I really like the warfare in this game. It's simple, but it's fun. So far I've gone the culture route for a victory and the religion and science routes to restarts. Peaceful play has its charms, but going to war is the most engaging for me. And anyway, if I am successful, reducing or eliminating the competition means I'll be able to win whichever way I want since the other civs will either be gone or weakened, if it all goes to plan.

Took the plunge and picked up the platinum pack. Ran through about 60 ish turns as Teddy Roosevelt (my usual first civ back into the game). Still not a huge fan of the cartoonish art - looks a bit like a mobile game to me. Play seems pretty cool so far.
Nothing major to report - I'm on a smallish continent, close to Germany and a couple of City States. I'm not sure of the map - I just basically started a game to see what's what.

So far it's just been basic exploring with the odd destruction of barbarian units thrown in. I like the pace of these turn based games - you can leave it running and play a few turns in between other things. I also remember liking the district idea as I get into the game a bit more.
It makes you have to plan things out a bit more, as well having to specialize your cities a bit more.

I'm using this to make it look more like Civ 5

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1702339134

Steam Workshop makes it easy. I'm also using this UI mod

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=939149009

You are right about city planning. It is much more important now, and then in conjunction with whatever unique bonuses the civ you are playing gets. I am also fully in accord about turn based.

Germany is a #%&*$# with their production. Keep an eye on that guy!

I'm happy you took the plunge JC. I'd be interested in any updates you care to share. My only win is as (Rough Rider) Teddy, so if you need any info, feel free.

I was looking at that Civ V mod, I'll give it a whirl.

I've been using this UI mod myself:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2115302648&searchtext=community

Here are a couple of other mods I've added.
Global relationship indicator:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1753346735

Tactical camera (zoom out farther)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=871412359

You're right - Steam Workshop makes modding super easy!

I also picked this up, just 10 minutes before the sale ended, lol.

However, I may not get a chance to play it right away, as I also just purchased WOFF's BHaH2. So many games, so little time....

Thanks for the mod links JC. Let me know if you come across any others that make your game better please.

Hey Bob, good work to get it on sale. If you get around to giving it a go let us know who you're playing and how it's going if so inclined.

This is probably not required, but just in case.... there is an 'advanced options' button on the game setup screen that lets you fine tune the start. Don't know why I am mentioning it because it is so obvious, but the ability to change so many parameters is gold and I don't want someone to somehow miss it.

Like if you want a peaceful start with elbow room you could play say a large map, then eliminate four of the civs to give everyone more room to grow. Or if you play archipelago, but want fatter islands set sea level to low. Or one start I did was to pick Earth True Start Locations, and I was France. Then I put everyone else close to each other by selecting the civs instead of random. That gave me all of Europe and Africa with no neighbors, while those I put close together banged heads like Japan and Mongolia. I almost always go for random civs because that is half the fun, but the latitude exists to fine-tune it more for specific starting conditions.

In Civ 5 I won my only Diety game by setting it up with just me and one other civ on an islands map. I played for a couple hundred peaceful turns, then when I had subs, carriers and battleships I went to war. He was strong too of course, but it's AI, so the advantage was with me. I couldn't win a Diety match against a normal number of civs. But this worked great haha.

Thanks for the tips! i have played Civ 2, 3, and 4, but never got around to 5 or 6. Looking forward to see what has changed, besides the obvious stuff.

I think if Civ 4 was your last then you will be thrown askew

It's way different. Better, for me, as I said in the OP. But many long time players railed against the sweeping changes Civ 5 brought, and while Civ 6 is different still, it's way closer to 5 than 4. I'd be interested in your thoughts after you've played 100 turns or so. It would be an interesting perspective having skipped Civ 5 and to see what your reaction is to what has changed.

Just about done with my work day and even though I was busy, I thought about my Persia run a lot, formulating plans. Love that. When a game gets in my head like that it's a good thing.

In many posts I make about games I always mention if the game has high opportunity cost, as these sorts of decisions make for good gameplay. Civ is nothing but opportunity cost, weighing what you won't get against what you will by making any decision. By building a granary you are not building a monument. By building a warrior you're not building a building. It really does make for compelling play. Having a great time with this and glad this sale came up and I caught it.

I agree - the jump from 4 to 6 will be much, much more than from 4 to 5.

I loved Civ V right from the start, I'm still getting along in Civ VI, but it hasn't been too bad. At the end of the day, it's Civilization, and therefore will have a certain gameplay. Which I find enjoyable.

I agree with your opportunity cost statement - you are balancing the needs for now vs the needs for the future; and when you do finally build whatever you have to be sure it won't be obsolete shortly after being built, or if the effect/bonus it provided was something that would have been better to have earlier. It is really a game with no perfect solutions or "right" answers for the most part.

Yes, many new things have been added, such as housing and amenities which give you another thing or two to think about and manage.

One change that I think is bad is how diplomacy victory works now. The world congress is poor and uninteresting. Civ 5 had it much better, with votes from city states you controlled and good things to vote for, like the world games. I enjoyed competing for that stuff. Now it's casting votes for double luxuries or whatever. They should have not changed this.

I resumed my game as Persia and did indeed eliminate Poland to gain sole control of my continent. Their cities were weak, but still it added three more that I didn't have to build a settler for. The city in the desert has come good as I got Petra, and that makes a sand city viable. Civ 5 favored taller empires with big cities. Civ 6 though seems more suited to wider empires, as there is no penalty for number of cities. No corruption mechanic, or distance from capital type stuff, no increasing costs for having a lot of cities and with district adjacency you can gain yields by having more, smaller, closer cities.. I think six cities is enough for many victory types, but more is better. In Civ 5 I tried to stick to a six-hex distance from one city to the next, but in Civ 6 closer may be better for the adjacency. I still try to do six hexes from the capital, because in most cases my capital will be the biggest city, and is certain to fill out all three rings. But after that, five, or even four hexes works well. You get fewer tiles to work, but end up with higher yields it seems due to the district system.

I've now met all the other civs in my run. America, England, Norway, Khmer and of course Poland is gone. It's a standard sized map with two civs removed for less early crowding. I've not launched a second war yet, but am gearing up for it, troops are on the move. Khmer will be the target, as he is aggressive religiously, and would then bring me up against Norway as I work counter-clockwise around the map. That's the plan anyway. I'm ahead on tech, have a strong economy and the Poland war earned my core units quite a few promotions to give them an edge. Government is war-minded too, so I get a few stacked bonuses to combat strength and that sort of thing. But it's a chore to both build the invasion army, get it halfway across the map at two hexes per turn, and still build enough units to protect my homeland while the expeditionary force is away. The AI likes to hit you while you're already at war, so have to protect against that.

Oh, and build a bigger navy too. The economy is key so I can afford unit upgrades. I run the 50% off cost for upgrades card which saves a ton of money when you have a large standing army and are rolling through the techs. So when I resume play I expect to go back to battle. Not familiar with Khmer and their bonuses, so I had better look that up

Looks like a good target, Khmer. They are a religious civ with no imposing unique. Their UU is the Domrey, a stronger catapult. But since I'm already on field guns I'm not going to worry about those. They may be a strong opponent, but that will come from numbers or tactics (ha!), not from unit abilities. England's navy will be a test, and America gets combat bonus on their home continent, so that invasion will be harder if I get there. I could win another victory type before taking all the capitals, or the AI could too. Teddy is leading on culture. War with Norway could prove a pain if they start raiding my coasts. I'll take it in stride.

I think my next game I might set it to epic game speed. At standard my units are obsoleted too fast. But then again it would take longer to build them, so not sure it would have any real effect on this. I think too, that I should tie game speed to map size. The reason is that game speed does not change movement points. You still get two points for land units no matter what the speed is set to. So larger maps would be better with slower speed. And I feel on standard that I am going through the eras too quickly. Even on a run like this Persia one where I am not focusing science, I am still pretty far ahead. And on the civic tree I stop getting any inspirations because it may require say two banks, and I have just one market built so far. Maybe a slower speed would help this align. I'll give it a go for sure in my next game. Maybe run standard on tiny and small maps, and epic on standard and large maps. I'll play one huge map for the achievement, but those are a little too big for me.

Good stuff, DB, sounds like Persia is well on the way to taking it all!

I'm still less than 100 turns in (around 70-80 or so). I've discovered I'm playing on a standard sized continent map. I've explored most of the continent save one peninsula with a barb settlement on it - can't get my scout through. So I'll send a warrior & archer to clear it out and let the scout through. My continent is has just Germany and I, along with 3 CS's. I'm suzerain of one now, and working on another one. At some point I'll probably end Germany, but I want to build up my military tech a bit first. I've just settled my 3rd city - I tend to play wide not tall - and put it on the ocean shore by the mouth of a river. It's maybe a little farther out than I would have liked, but I wanted the sea access and it was within reach of copper and amber, so I figured it was worth it.

The other two cities are still in their infancy, but each now has a campus (I tend to favor science heavy runs), and I've founded a pantheon. So far it's going pretty well, but there's no real competition other than the barbs which are really more annoyances than anything else.

City placement is such a struggle lol. I spend all the intervening turns between settlers evaluating it. I'm looking for hills and fresh water, and then which resources I can get within the third ring. Those are the driving factors. Then I need to consider distance from my closest city and how it fits strategically in comparison to the cities of my neighbors. Mountains and lakes, and so on and thereforth. Proper city placement is vital for a strong run.

One thing I noticed is that in Civ 6 you can still have a harbor district even if the city itself is not on a 'coastal' tile. As long as that water tile is within the three rings it can still be built. That gives you some latitude to make port cities and still get the fresh water or resources a couple tiles from the ocean. I put coastal in quotes because technically it is the water tile that is coastal, not the land tile, in Civ terms.

As I've played a few runs now, but mostly aborted I have a few milestones I look to hit. I want to have my fourth city down by turn 100. In this Persia run I was well ahead of that due to conquering, and had my sixth city at 112, but only three of those were settled. As a result I've opened a gap at the top of the score chart which is a useful gauge of how you are doing compared to the other civs.

I'm fairly chill regarding major changes from one version to another, so I don't think I will mind most of the changes from Civ4 to Civ 6, although i do agree that the new look appears to be more "cartoony," although that is certainly a relative term for all Civ games.

I am keen to see how the move from squares to hexes affects game-play, although I assume it will mostly be positive, particularly with the elimination of unit stacking. Seems to introduce a more strategic and tactical element. I am also interested to see how diplomacy and interaction with other civs have changed, although the World Congress thing, as reported, is somewhat discouraging.

The District management concept will also take getting used to, I expect!

I am fully onboard with what you said about the opportunity cost element of the game. indeed, that is one of the main things that sets the Civilization series apart from so many other strategy games out there and is the main reason why I am drawn to the game. So many different options and choices--no two games quite play the same--at least until you get to the late game stages.

Another thing I like, which is fundamental to all Civ games, is the "just one more turn" phenomenon. Although you can play the game at your leisure, picking it up and then putting it down for days or months at a time, you can pick up pretty much where you left off, and then find yourself playing well past midnight, long after you should be asleep! BTW, does Civ6 still have that alarm clock feature? I will probably need it if I want to get any sleep!

It might have an alarm clock. It does display current time of day in the upper right when you are playing, so maybe so. I need to set it for 11pm, last night I played until 1 AM. Umm, I mean the last week I have played until 1 AM. I had been doing so good too, and then I bought Civ 6. Bah, it's only sleep before a long day at work, who needs it?

A hex map is better in my view, mainly for movement. A diagonal move on a square map costs more movement. For example of you want to move 3 squares NE on a square map you need to move north three squares, and then east three squares, for 6 tiles. On a hex map it's three tiles since you can travel diagonally. And with adjacency now a core factor, hexes allow more of this too.

One more turn is right. That's what makes me play until 1 instead of shutting down at 11. That's a two-hour turn!

If there's no built in alarm, I'd put money on being able to find a mod in the workshop for it!

Another note on city placement - I also use it to deny resources to other civs or create a chokepoint or essentially take over a continent by placing it at a chokepoint to deny other civs access to the rest of the continent. And yes, I spend many turns looking for needed resources, planning future city sites, and deciding which civ will face my wrath next.

On that note, Germany has to go. No reason, but it's just about time. Almost 100 turns in and no war, they are the only other civ on the continent, I've got a tech advantage, and hey I can use those cities.....

Does anyone else mute the little speach you have to listen to while the game loads? I'm so tired of hearing it, I could do without most of the voice work in the game tbh.

That's right, Barbarossa must go. What difficulty are you playing?

Germany is a good civ, but get no real war bonuses aside from the uboat, but that doesn't come until Electricity. They tend to have great production though, so can respond quickly by mass producing units in short order. Having an army with enough units to establish siege status is key. You need enough units to surround the target city. Not every hex needs a unit because of zone of control which factors in too. Only melee units exert ZoC.

You really need some sort of siege weapon to take cities in Civ 6. I know, I tried to take a coastal city without walls defended by a single slinger with a couple slingers and warriors. This did not work lol. Battering rams and siege towers seem useful, but I'd rather sit back with artillery and let that do the heavy lifting. Coastal cities are the hardest, as you'll need ships to finish the ZoC ring. I'm sure you know all this already.

So therefore I now like to wait until I have catapults, and even better quadriremes to gain ranged attack from the sea. It's very disheartening to have an invasion attack fail because your units get shot to shreds. So the key is to take a big enough stick with you that you can overwhelm the defenses, get the siege in place and then batter it with your ranged units. Persia's Fall of Babylon ability is awesome here with +2 movement for ten turns. It also applies to every unit, even civilian, so builders, missionaries and everything benefits. Not much help when you're America, and doesn't really apply here does it? lol

I do not mute the speech. Initial loads are long and I'm often alt-tabbed out to check this or that. Maybe there's a mod in the workshop for this?

....and of course, there IS a mod to mute the voiceovers! Good call DB!

OK awesome, thought there might be.

So Khmer is now dead too. I feel sort of bad about it. Yeah they were aggressive with their religion, and I wanted that gone. But they were in no way prepared for war. Seemed a peaceful sort, so the beatdown I put on them seems out of proportion lol.

Their five cities were defended by a few horsemen and a swordsman, while I brought musketmen, bombards, field guns, frigates and cuirassier (that sounds plural already?). They didn't even have walls on their capital. I debated leaving them a city, but I want their religion gone, so I had to do it. Interestingly there were two small cities that I didn't want. So while my main army attacked their bigger cities, I sent a couple cav units plus a bombard and frigate to beat up on the other two cities for the XP and some pillaging. The bombard and frigate reduced one city to no defense, the health bar or whatever it would called was gone and no defending unit was in garrison. I didn't want to take the city at this point, but at the start of the next turn that city was gone. Not sure if it was because there was no defender in a completely reduced city, or if one of my city-state allies razed it. But I didn't expect the city to be gone having not even entered it. In the end I razed the second of these two cities and with that Khmer was gone.

So that's two civs dead, leaving Norway, England and America. At this point I am way ahead on score and leading all victory types (I had disabled Diplomatic). Because I planned to be on war footing for this run I started it much differently than usual -- different build orders/priorities, policy cards and more. Taking three Polish cities so early sure made a big difference, but still, this alternative course has proven quite strong. Persia's a really good civ for invasion warfare with their unique abilities.

Now it's time to secure some oil

Quite the warmonger, mate!

I guess I'll just call you Cyrus!

Quite right, for this run anyway. Some runs I never fire a shot. But honestly Civ is more fun when I'm at war. But I try to mix it up from one run to the next, always a different map, victory path, civ. Gotta keep it interesting. I should probably bump the difficulty another notch for the next one.

Norway will be next as I continue to roll them up. Norway, England and America are all in line, so I can just plow right through them one by one. The objective is to take capitals but with how this one is going I think I'll make my own objective of being the only civ on the map when it's over.

This is a rather basic move I'd reckon, but when I was ready to attack Khmer, I stole their suzerain city-state. It was Bologna, and they were right next door to Khmer. As suzerain, Khmer was allied and Bologna would automatically join the war against me. They aren't a big threat, but any edge is welcome. I had one envoy with Bologna to get the +2 science to the capital. Khmer had invested 7 envoys. So while I was gearing up for this war, building the army and shipping it over seas I saved my new envoys. By the time I was ready for war I had 8. Of course there was a lot I could have done with them in the intervening turns, so this isn't necessarily the optimal strategy. But stripping my target of their only ally seemed worthwhile.

On the turn I declared war I spent 7 of those envoys all with Bologna to gain suzerain and then declared, with my new city-state ally by my side doing nothing really. But at least they were not attacking me! I kept the one unassigned envoy in case Khmer spent another so that I could quickly regain suzerain status. I do this sort of thing a lot. I have fun with the city-state competition, and there are some suzerain bonuses that are just too good to ignore so I pay close attention here and manipulate things to gain the ones I want. It's a cool game within the game.

I go all in with great person generation, and one of the suzerain bonuses grants culture for every great person you've recruited. This gets a huge culture bonus if you're popping the GPs out. Divine Spark is the perfect pantheon for this, and then I go for any other bonuses or wonders that boost it. By mid-game it feels like a new one pops every other turn. I have several that sit idle in my cities, waiting for the right time to spend them. Like one great scientist who grants a free library and university. So the next campus that gets built will get those for free. Some GPs are pretty useless, but they get better through time.

I decided to see if I could skip coal plants altogether to save the environment and delay or avoid rising seas. It's working fine so far. Only one geothermal tile in my realm, and all the oil I can see so far is offshore (which requires Plastics for offshore oil rigs so is much later) I have yet to research Steel to find them all and hopefully get some within my current borders. Strategic resources are more important in Civ 6 than Civ 5 with the upkeep costs in addition to the recruitment costs. Horses, iron, niter, coal, oil and aluminum especially as those are needed for the best units. Suzerain status can be a big help here since that gains you the city-state's resources. Encampment buildings raise your cap limit.

As I move Persia in to the modern era, oil will be key to finish off the other civs. I seem to be well ahead tech-wise, so if I can get my oil units up and running while the opposition is still running around with iron-age units then I will have no trouble finishing this one in short order. But I need to find some on land tiles to get it going early. Artillery, infantry, tanks, submarines and biplanes all are oil units and this is where the army really gets going. Battleships, which are a key part of my runs, are coal units, which helps a lot.

The dawn of the Medieval Era heralded the beginning of a Golden Era for me - and the end of Germany.
I wound up with enough envoys to become suzerain to the three city states on my continent, so we ganged up on poor Barbarossa and pasted him but good. I had forgotten how much time it takes to really build up to a war - and of course the all-important positioning of your units for the city bashes.

*No really, those troops massing on your border are just passing through...you worry too much!! You gotta take it easy, Freddy!*

Denunciation? Bah! Just politics for the folks at home...honestly Fred, you should see someone about this persecution complex!

5 turns later

By the way, we're at war. Sorry man, but you know how it is....

I had built one catapult and Auckland had one too so I figured that for 2 cities it was good enough. I paid the fee and got to play with Aucklands toys for the war, though I got a little impatient and wound up finding out quite inadvertently that a couple of swordsmen were good enough to beat the city down to the point I could take it over.
Anyone interested in a low mileage catapult? Moved around a bit but never fired, fine woodgrain finish, corinthian leather bindings...and we have a great interest rate right now!

So now Germany is no more, and I have achieved total consciousness...er...control of the continent.

So I got that going for me.

Which is nice.

Big hitter, the Lama

Great movie.

Good work getting rid of Barbarossa. I'm surprised you could take the city with a couple swordsman. They do like 25% damage to cities. What difficulty are you playing? Have you met any other civs? Who's on your map?

I finished the Persia run in a marathon session on a rain-soaked Sunday. Yard work was postponed and Civ was played all day instead lol. I wiped Poland, Khmer and Norway, but by the time the last city fell (London), America still had two cities and England one. I won't go for domination often, so good to get it done. Persia was way ahead on everything and it wasn't too difficult. Just the organizing and positioning for the invasions was tedious. But the extra movement after DoW is amazing, and I'll miss it when playing other civs. Persia is a strong civ, not just for the Fall of Babylon ability, but the internal trade route bonuses are good, not only getting extra gold and culture from these routes, but roads are one level higher than the era. I had fifteen trade routes, all going internally, at the end.

After that I bought the New Frontier Pass for full price. Could have saved ten bucks during the sale, but whatever. This adds a number of new civs as well as game modes, buildings, and more. The Platinum Edition isn't quite as comprehensive as i thought originally. Now I've got it all. I started a new run as Scotland with Secret Societies mode enabled, on a Seven Seas map, and bumped difficulty another level. The AI is much better (or gets more powerful boosts) and I feel like I got off to a slow start. Just three cities up by turn 100 and dead last on the score chart. Not a great region either, hard against the tundra at the bottom of the map. So I'll need to come from behind lol.

Scotland get +5% science and production in any city that is happy, which is doubled for ecstatic and additional great engineer and scientist points per city. They also get Persia's +2 movement when declaring a war of liberation, with the added bonus of +100% production for ten turns. Sort of a cross between Persia and Australia, but with the requirement of liberation, which is very situational. I do have Genghis Khan as my first neighbor, so I reckon they will capture some cities and give me some opportunities to use this strong ability.

So I will try and go for a science win, and prioritize amenities to keep the Scots happy. We also get a unique improvement, the golf course, which can be built once per city and grants gold, culture, one amenity and appeal. Secret Societies should provide a boost once I figure it out. I am not doing well with finding the things which trigger these societies (natural wonders, city states, barb camps etc). Usually by now I would have found a bunch of these, so figures in this run, when I really need to, I am not haha.

I think I'm at Chieftain, so no real challenge there. That might be the default difficulty, like I said I just basically hit "Start" on this game. I was quite shocked that I was able to take cities with just swordsmen, but they had no walls or garrison, and Teddy gets a combat bonus on his home continent, so that may be part of it.
The only other civs I've met so far are Ghandi (India) and Harald (Norway.) Both are quite upset with me for offing poor Frederick. But they didn't have to live next to him! Empty beer bottles all over the place, and EVERYTHING smells like sauerkraut! And if I never have to listen to "Ride of the Valkyries" again it will be too soon!

I've been having problems with the game crashing so I'm using the DX11 version instead to see if that does anything.

We had a pretty rainy Sunday until mid-day, but I had inside work to do for a good chunk of it. :sigh

I dont' think I've ever played Scotland before, interesting choice!

I wanted to see why I was so last on the score chart. I feel like I play well, but when I checked that list I was shocked to see how poor my start was in comparison to the AI civs.

It's probably due to the free techs/civic and free settlers that the AI starts with. On Emperor the AI get two free settlers. The AI also get three starting warriors. Prince is the even mode, where the AI and the player start on the same footing. On King and Emperor the AI also start with a builder. So a stronger army, a free city and a builder all help get the AI off to a flying start. That can explain some of the gap I see. I knew it worked this way, just wasn't sure of what specific bonuses they get.

Difficulty setting effects

So it's natural I will lag behind in the early going, but with good play I should be able to snowball past them. I'll have to see who else is on my map, have just met Spain and Mongolia so far. If there are no strong science civs I should be OK.

Prince is default. That's an even field with no AI bonuses. Player has the same start.



Neither have I, but they looked interesting for an isolationist, semi-tall science run. Amenities are usually precious in my runs so far, but here I know I need them and can prioritize. One good way to do this is to trade your extra luxuries for one you don't have. But continuing the theme of my poor region, there is no iron anywhere nearby. So I traded 30 turns of cotton for 36 iron with Genghis. Not enough to build even two swordsmen so I'll need to find some more, or trade for it. Finding some city-states will help. This was the worst exploration phase I can recall. Found fook-all really.

Oh yeah, two things to mention... One, I did indeed skip right over coal plants in the Persia run. It's not a big deal, everything in your cities still works, just doesn't get the bonus from power. So no malus nor bonus. I did build a couple oil plants, but by the time the game ended (around turn 300) there had been no change to the atmosphere stuff. I had built coastal barriers everywhere, but in the end they were not needed. So this is interesting in that let's say you are a landlocked civ, or at least one with few seaside cities.... you could use your coal plants to raise sea levels to hurt the competition. Not sure if the AI takes any steps to mitigate this, or in time. Seems like a good weapon for the right civ. Being a heavy CO2 producer does have diplomatic repercussions, so use with care.

Oil plants supply power to cities within 6 hexes. Just one more reason why tighter city settling is the meta in Civ 6. There are lots of bonuses with a short radius like this. All of it means settling 4-5 hexes away may pay off over time.

The second thing is that I'm playing the Scotland game on epic speed. This feels a little better, even in the early stages when tech is slow. The additional turns to research or build something takes some getting used to, but I think I prefer this speed over standard.

The third thing which I didn't mention lol, is that I will probably kill this Scotland run. While I was having lunch I was reading a thread about the re-balance update coming in the next week or two. A compelling case was made that Scotland is a likely candidate for a re-balance. I don't like the idea of finishing a Scotland run and then seeing changes that made me wish I had waited. Of course no one knows which civs will be affected, nor whether they will be boosted or nerfed, so who's to say? One poster made the point that the most recent civs are the least likely to be re-done. While this isn't clear, it does have some merit. So I think I will look to start a new run with one of the most recent civs added to the game.

Here are the most recent, all in the New Frontier Pass, in order newest to oldest

Portugal
Vietnam
Kublai Khan (Mongolia)
Babylon
Byzantium
Gaul
Ethiopia
Maya

Having run the rule over these, I think Ethiopia is the one I will go for. A faith based civ, they look to be strong for Religious, Culture or Science victory types. Actually, having read about them, they really seem tailor-made for my play style.

Every type of improved resource generates +1 faith. International trade routes produce +.5 faith per resource in the originating city. This has the potential to be massive faith production. In addition, Ehtiopia gets hill bonuses. If a city is founded on hills (which I always look to do anyway for the defense and production) the city then produces science and culture equal to the faith output! That sounds cool, and means it is a well-rounded civ as long as you meet the requirements. Seems like good synergy between those three, faith, culture and science. Their UB is the Rock-hewn Church which further boosts faith and appeal and cannot be affected by volcanoes!

Ethiopia can also buy archaeological museum and archaeologists with faith. That's great for culture runs, but not great for religious or science, but at the same time means you can generate culture which is always useful without focusing on it, but comes late in the game of course. This sounds like a fun civ with abilities that appeal to me, so I'll give them a go.

I'm 300 turns in to the Ethiopia run, emperor difficulty, epic speed on a small seven seas map with secret societies on. Massive faith generation. I misspoke when I talked about how Ethiopia gets a science and culture bonus from faith generation. The bonus is 15%, which is still nice. Any free stuff in a game like this is great. As a result I am a little ahead on science and way ahead on civics. The other civs are Georgia, Aztecs, Greece, Khmer and Canada. Greece wiped out Khmer within the first 100 turns. Later I would answer an emergency, capture Khmer's capital, but instead of liberating it I kept it.

Greece is a bad draw for me. They are pipping me to many of the great persons, and have generated triple the number I have. I have to essentially forget about some types, and concentrate on a couple (engineers and merchants) They are also wonder whores, snapping them up at a fast rate. I'm just chiiln', keeping pace while trailing by about 80 points on the score chart due to the points they have pulled from the GPs and wonders.

During one of the golden ages I chose Monumentality, which lets you buy civilian units with faith. That was great, as I could keep pumping out workers and a couple settlers instantly. I also built the government building that lets you buy land military units with faith. I have nearly 13,000 faith stockpiled. The plan is to attack Greece, but I will wait until I have artillery, bombers and observation balloons. That's still a ways off so just building and spreading my religion. I always make a custom religion called Mojo haha. I could win a religious victory, but it's just so tedious to manage. I will do one of these but on a small map with one or two civs.and cheese my way to the achievement. Maybe do a diety difficulty duel map against one other civ and just swarm them with missionaries, so I could get achievements for both religious victory and diety win.

Ethiopia is a strong civ and well-rounded due to their bonuses. They generate faith, science and culture well, but are probably unsuited to a diplomatic victory. I took Earth Goddess as pantheon, which grants faith for every breathtaking tile, so I tilted the map a bit by making it young age, so there would be more mountains, which make the adjacent tiles breathtaking. I am also aiming for Eiffel Tower. This increases the appeal of every tile in the empire by +2. Not only would it be a massive boost to faith (and as a result science and faith due to Ethiopia's bonuses), it will help all the other things that get bonus for appeal, like national parks and neighborhoods. I am saving two great engineers that each grant production to wonders, so that as soon as I can build it I can supercharge it with engineer boosts.Getting this would be a huge lift near the end.

Ethiopia is nice because it's well-balanced for most victory types, you can see which way the wind is blowing and go for most of them, and react to what's going on in the run. Versatile and balanced, no sense of railroading in to a certain path.

Ghandi is being a pain in my butt right now. I'm about 250 turns in on my America run still, and he's got 4/7 civs converted. All the Great Prophets have been recruited, so I can't form my own religion to combat against it. I've been going for a science victory, and as a result I am way ahead in science. Ghandi has been spamming cities, he must have at least 10 of them on his continent. My world map has three major land masses, I'm on the smallest of them. Ghandi is on the next smallest, and eveyone else - England, Norway, Arabia, Hungary, & Australia are on the larger continent.

My current plan is get a few spies into Ghandi's operation, and I think I'm gonna have to take him out. I don't think he's close to me as far as tech goes, so I should be able to bulldoze him. The world congress also passed a basically anti-Ghandi resolution where everyone generates 100% more grievances towards him, and he generates 100% more as well. Now would seem to be the time!

Good luck, Ghandi is a bastage!

In my Persia run the dumb AI passed a resolution that all military units were double production. I already had my army built, so....

If it's too late to start a religion, you can declare war on him and use your cav to snipe his missionaries and apostles, even if you never actually invade. I always try to beeline for a religion. I was fourth out of four in this Ethiopia run, on Emperor the AI does stuff faster lol. But I had generated so much faith that when I did I could instantly create two apostles for the beliefs and fill them out long before another civ had. So barely got it, then made it top tier right away. It's so dependent on which civs you draw on your map. In this one, Khmer, Georgia and Aztec all got theirs fast.

The key is to either build a holy site early, or to beeline Mysticism, which has the Revelation policy card that generates two Great Prophet points per turn. Getting a pantheon is the inspiration for Mysticism. So to snag a religion slot you gotta do two things.... find a way to generate 25 faith for the pantheon (sometimes you get lucky with a goody hut). And find a way to generate great prophet points. This is one thing I focus on right off the bat. I want a religion for the bonuses it grants, and theological warfare helps fill in the peace.

One of the beliefs I took is Tithe, which has been changed from granting gold for every four citizens following this religion, to +3 gold for every city following it. It may have been changed with the New frontier pass ( alot of things did actually), so without that it may still be every four following. 25 cities have Mojo as dominant so that's a cool 75 gold per turn just from my religion. I also took Scriptures, which increases religious pressure to combat the AI and spread my religion naturally. I can also build Gurdwara's, which grant faith, food and housing. The final belief I took is Holy Order, which gives a 30% discount on Missionaries and Apostles.

Many players ignore religion, but it's a key thing for me. It's the first real thing I try to accomplish. In order for Ghandi to get a religious victory, assuming you hadn't disabled this win condition, he needs to have his religion in 50% or more of the cities in every other civ. You can prevent his win by aggressively eliminating his missionaries and apostles that enter your lands. But without religious agents of your own the only way to do it is to go to war. I think I'd declare war and then just make it a defensive one, sniping his agents that come near. Unless you want his cities that is. Maybe use my cav to hit and run pillage his holy sites. Of course with enough pressure your cities could flip anyway. It's hard to counter a religious civ with none of your own. You need to be careful of taking his cities, each of which would increase the percentage of his religion in your empire. It's unlikely that he can flip 50% of the other religious AI civs, but something to watch for to prevent a loss. If he's already 4/7 it may not be out of reach.

You may know this but Ghandi seeks peace through nuclear proliferation lol. Keep an eye on that guy too!

He's already converted my cities, so I can't stop him on that front. I do think that an all out war is going to be my best bet. It will get everyone else mad at me, but that's gonna have to be ok.
I made the mistake of completely ignoring religion - I did form a pantheon, but never pursued it beyond that. It does make sense to form one if for nothing other than a defense against someone spamming theirs like Ghandi is.
You're right, he's a right bastage!

Oh, if he's already flipped you then it's a matter of hoping he doesn't flip the rest. I assume the three that have not flipped all have religions of their own, and if so you could be safe from a Ghandi RV. Yeah, I agree, get a religion even if you have no desire to do a religious victory. The defense as you put it, plus the nice bonuses from beliefs are well worth the effort.

If that were my game I'd monitor the victory panel and if he flips another civ then straight to war to try and prevent his win. Then you could still snipe his agents to help prevent him from flipping the remaining AI. Smash the holy sites. If his religious pressure is high enough cities can flip even without agents.

I'm going for a science win in my run too. It's a little different than Civ 5, but still the same basic procedure. I'm hoping my slight science lead + high production will see it through. I'm researching Refineries now and if I get oil that will be a big boost. Uranium might seal the deal.

I'm going to need to establish some cities off-continent for oil, I don't have much on my home turf, so yet another reason why Ghandi must fall!

Oil is key. In this Ethiopia run I had none in my vast realm, so had to establish two tundra cities. They have virtually nothing else of note aside from a few oil wells. Probably won't even hit 5 pop, but the oil flows and that is key. There's a spot in the tech tree where virtually the entire military takes a huge jump. It's right where refining and steel are. You get battleships, submarines, infantry, tanks, bombers, fighters, artillery, oil and aluminum all real close together. I also founded a city smack in the desert, since it has four aluminum tiles (and I was able to build a national park there with a natural wonder in it, boosted again by Eiffel Tower). These cities would be a burden in the early game, but at this stage these strategic resource outposts are a massive boost.

So it was I waited until all of this came online and then launched a war against Pericles, which Canada would join from an Emergency shortly after. Everything was staged and ready to roll in formation and we easily took Rhodes (6 pop) and Sparta (15 pop). Neither city had walls! I sent a bomber over and it's attack alone nearly wiped out the city. Observation balloons are also key, to keep the artillery out of range of the city defenses. Drones are even better since they add to the attack plus the range.

If I had a criticism of the game it's that the AI doesn't seem war minded. They don't seem to build much of a standing army, instead relying on levying city states. Greece had more great generals than units. Never before have so few been commanded by so many haha. Their capital has renaissance walls so will take more pummeling, but they have little else to defend themselves aside from the encampment districts they like to build in every city and the few units they have drafted from Venice.

This varies a bit by civ it seems, because I can see that the Aztecs at least have a reasonable standing army. The combat is fun in this game. It has sort of a XCom vibe to it, and I wish that the AI did more to build a strong army and put up a better fight. They do well with city building, although they do a poor job of improving their resource tiles. Greece was the leading nation in the game by the score chart (until I took those two cities which flipped it. Sparta was shining, full of districts, wonders and great works), and I'd expect the top dog would play like one. The AI did a better job with their military in Civ 5. I was happy to see that they had built two aerodromes on the front lines prior to our war. I looked forward to some air combat. But they have no aircraft evidently, and I got two forward air bases out of the deal.

I've started construction of the spaceport. It's like 2700 production, so takes a long time, 25 turns in the city I planned for it. Of course I am on epic speed which plays a part in this. I like epic game speed. My units are relevant longer and that's one of things I wanted. Epic speed is 50% slower and I like how it feels. I will stick to this one. This means games take more turns, but I felt like things were progressing too quickly at standard. Epic works better for me.

I've come to the same conclusion - I have a tundra city whose only function will be to provide me with oil. I have a 3 oil tile on my continent. One is conveniently located at the outer ring of my capital, one is in the tundra, and one is on the tile next to the one in my capital. Unfortunately is it just close enough to 2 other city states that the game won't let me plant a settler there. Very annoyed by this. So my settler is going to sit tight until aluminum and/or uranium are revealed and I will drop an outpost city to provide me with



I was wondering about the utility of the balloons. The extra range does seem nice though, and being out of range of the city attack is a big plus.



I was able to build aerodromes long before I was able to build planes. It made me chuckle - some guy figures "Hey - lets put a big strip of asphalt on the ground and some huge storage structures. We'll figure out what's gonna use them later!"



Cool! I'm getting closer to that point as well. Ghandi slipped a country in his religious dominance - from 4/7 to 3/7. So good for me. I'm still figuring on pounding him. The plan is to build up the military as the oil builds up. I've got a bunch of units I can upgrade, so I'll do that (with a policy discounting it) and jump on him before he can react. The northwest corner of his continent is only a hex or two away from the southeast corner of mine, and we've both got cities sitting there. I'm massing my troops in preparation, just waiting for the oil!

Interesting point on Epic, there are times I've felt the same - like the game is progressing faster than its earlier incarnations. Maybe epic would be a better pace for me as well. I'll give it a shot on a future playthrough.

Oh and I picked up the New Frontier Pass as well. I found it on sale at Indie Gala for $25, which was cheaper than Steam's last sale (gotta love isthereanydeal.com!) so I figured what the heck and grabbed it. It hasn't effected this game, so I'll what's what on the next one.

Nice work, I paid $40 for the NFP. But it adds a bunch of civs, new game modes and a lot more. Worth it.

Yeah, give epic a go on one of your runs and see if you prefer it. I like the effect it has had on my progression. In the end I bet it adds 150 turns or so to my wins, but it feels better as I progress.

Good news about Ghandi's grasp slipping. Now teach him the error of his passive-aggressive ways.

With this run on Emperor I was a little worried early as I seemed so far behind. But I passed all the civs one by one aside from Pericles (Greece) For centuries we maintained the same distance, about 80 points on the score chart, but when I took two more of his cities I emerged as top dog. Once I take his capital his game should be over. He is going for culture victory and losing these cities, with all of their wonders and great works will kill his chances I reckon. And I love having the AI build a wonder, and then I take it. You don't get the on-completion bonuses, but the other constant bonuses apply. He built the Great Library but it has a new owner, and that's a significant shift. Pericles was the only civ within hailing distance of me scientifically and this will put paid to that.

I feel like this is the right difficulty for me, but I would like to somehow make the AI civs have more troops. But as far as the race to victory it's in a good spot. The AI gets a nice head start, which they need, and I need to play catch-up for most of the game.

I had taken two of his cities in that emergency war early on, including Khmer's capital, which is now my space port city. Now it's just a matter of seeing it through, but I'll keep the pressure on his remaining cities until I feel we have taken enough. He's so smug and constantly pops up to insult me or threaten me, so he's got it coming I'd say. He once said that it was nice that I am not strong enough to be a threat to him. Look at you now!

Turns take longer as they tick by, more stuff to do, more units to order around. The first 50 turns go by in an hour. Later, an hour is 10 turns, and so it seemed to take forever and a day for the space port to finish. But it finally did and I started the satellite project. Only Greece has even researched rocketry, and they have been smashed to bits by our war, and if they tried to build a space port in one of their three remaining small cites it would take 50 turns probably, so I am way out in front now. I had disabled diplo victory, Greece was the only threat culturally, no one else has taken any capitals, and I'm at 3/5 religiously (the 6th civ Khmer is dead) which defends against that. This one's in the bag, just got to run through the required projects and land on Mars.

We have had the first sea level rise and I am scrambling to construct coastal barriers everywhere to prevent losing too much land. I'm converting to nuclear power now so the pace of the warming should slow, depending on what the AI civs now build. This is good too because it frees that oil for units. I have gobs of aluminum and can build plenty of units using it, a big air fleet. I built another outpost city for uranium and have two copies so far to power my cities. I've never used a nuke in Civ.

Keep an eye out for the great engineer John D Rockefeller (modern era). He grants three oil per turn, plus! grants +2 gold per turn to every trade route per improved strategic resource at the destination city. He is worth going for.

I wasn't kidding. Played for several hours last night and got my satellite launched, and then started on the moon landing project which is yet to finish. Epic is a great pace except when the game's mostly done and dusted and you need to get through the space race projects to achieve victory lol. I might just do a different one here, maybe just go domination. After the moon landing there is the mars landing to do, then the exoplanet expedition, which must be built and then sent to mars one light year per turn. It's 50 turns to get there at standard, so 75 on epic, although you can run projects to speed it up. Not sure I want this to go another 100+ turns. I think I could capture the other three capitals a bit sooner. What to do...

That's a bit downside to Epic, I may just get used to faster progress earlier on. I haven't touched the game in a couple of days, I'll have to jump back in and see where I'm at.

In the end it wasn't bad. I had good production to start with in the spaceport city. And once you reach the end of the tech tree you can repeatedly research future tech, and each time it finishes it grants +5% production to all your cities. This stacks up fast. Plus there are projects you can run to increase the speed of the exoplanet expedition, and I got a great scientist and engineer who each contributed to space projects. So while the last stage was 75 turns by default I bet it was closer to 25 turns in reality.

Here are the numbers I was generating a turn or two before the end. Nicely balanced between culture and science, and nearly that much in faith. Posting it mainly for comparisons with future runs so I have a baseline. Ethiopia is a solid choice for any type of victory. They can generate massive faith, but that is converted to science and culture, and with the right buildings it can be converted to land units. My start felt slow, but once I DoW'd Greece and cut him up it was a snowball run from there. The AI plays some parts of the game well, and some quite poorly. I'd like to see more out of the AI opponents.

Congrats on the win! You really had the science and culture cranking out at the end!

I haven't played enough to know what heights can be hit with science and culture, but those numbers are the highest yet for me But it's also on epic, and you can see around turn 450. Like most good runs it snowballed after a certain point, and I pulled increasingly further ahead as the turns ticked by. Montezuma did manage to get his satellite up, but that was as close as any other civ came to winning.

I reinstalled Civ 5. Haven't played since 2018, but while playing Civ 6 I keep thinking that the wars were a lot better in civ 5. I can recall air battles, fun naval warfare and massed lines of troops on both sides battling it out. That's the one thing I feel I am not getting with Civ 6, so I plan to start another run in Civ 5 to see. With 6 so fresh it will be interesting to compare.

Nice win! I will be interested to hear your comparison of V and VI.

I will be sure to do so. I plan to start one tonight, if I can actually pick which setup and civ I want to play. It's not as easy as it may appear at first glance lol.

Always with an eye toward achievements it will need to be one I have not completed a game with yet.

I have a question and not sure you guys will know the answer, but there are achievements in Civ 5 for having 1000 of something through 'any number of playthroughs'. For example chop 1000 trees, or kill 1000 units, or whatever. What I am wondering is, if I uninstalled the game have I broken the running total? If it's stored locally then surely I have. If somehow Steam tracks it then I'm good. No idea how it works, but looking for this answer.

I will also be very interested in how you feel about 5 vs 6! There's something I can't put my finger on that doesn't quite work for me in 6, though it's been so long since I've played 5 maybe I'm glamorizing it.

It's just like I remembered, but had forgotten

I played 200+ turns of a Civ 5 run as Arabia. There are many differences between the two games, and I'll talk about a couple of them. The most striking to me is the way Civ 5 handles wide vs tall play. Civ 6 did away with all of this. But in 5 there are many systems and mechanics in place that either benefit or suffer depending on which way you go. For example many of the best city buildings have prerequisite buildings. Nothing different there, but in 5 you need to have those prerequisite buildings in every city. The ironworks for example, needs workshops in all of your other cities, or the university needs libraries everywhere.. So this means that as you expand, those higher level buildings need to wait until you have gotten the lower level building built in your newly acquired city. A number of things have increasing costs according to how many cities you have, including social policies. So there are some very strong incentives to play tall, which 6 has none of.

Social policies are another difference, working sort of like the policies in 5, but you can't change them in and out. Liberty, Tradition, Commerce, Piety and the rest are powerful bonuses, but you are committing to this path, it's not a temporary thing like in Civ 6. It's additional opportunity cost that you don't have in 6.

Terrain feels more important, and honestly I like the map better when it isn't covered in districts. Maybe that contributes to the cartoon feel that JC talked about. In Civ 5, each tile is workable, with no district spam, and I prefer this aesthetic. I'll attach a screen shot of my fledgling empire and it shows it well. Civ 6 is pretty fantastic in it's animations. There's no comparison. If you zoom in and look at the units and buildings in Civ 6 it looks great with everything that's going on. But I'm never zoomed in so in practice it's not much different. Civ 6 has a lot of little QoL improvements, such as a light blue movement range limit shown whenever you select a unit.

Yet another difference is how workers err, work. No builder 'charges', the workers are permanent, but take multiple turns to build the tile improvement. I like this better too. In addition, roads are built by the workers and not by trade routes. There is something satisfying about planning and building your road network, with some good bonuses to connecting your cities to the capital.

Civ 5 is more streamlined, Civ 6 is more dense, both aesthetically and in regards to systems and mechanics. Adjacency bonuses, loyalty, governors, disasters, amenities, housing and all the new layers in Civ 6 make it a deeper game. Better is a different question, but there is certainly more to think about and do in the later game. I prefer the diplomatic play in Civ 5, and how city-state friend/ally stuff works. It's not just envoy stacking, but doing things for them, which in turn gives you extra diplomatic power if you ally them. And load times are vastly better of course, Civ 5 is much older and while Civ 6 runs fine for me, the load times, especially the initial load, are pretty long. I rarely reload, but when starting a new game I'll often ht restart until I like the spawn location. It takes just a few seconds in Civ 5.

The main reason I wanted to revisit Civ 5 is for how I remembered warfare, how the AI played. But I failed to set the game up to get a feel for this, and the map. I had not gotten the achievement for playing on tiny maps, nor at Chieftian! difficulty, so I thought for a first go I'd play that. Of course that's way too easy a level, and the map put each civ on it's own island. So often, especially on higher difficulties, this is exactly what I want! But this time I was hoping to have a belligerent close neighbor to get down and dirty with some never-ending war. So of course no one had met anyone halfway through the game with this setup. And at this difficulty level war with the AI wouldn't reveal much anyway.

Here's my Arabia. Just three cities as I saw right off that going tall was the way I wanted to go, with the best buildings. Four cities is quite a bit better for the tradition tree rewards, but there wasn't really room here (northeast corner looks like forest, but it's all tundra too). This shot shows the different terrain aesthetics, with the farm fields, cowpens and the like. Those are also in Civ 6, but it gets washed out with districts. Here it feels more natural and pleasing to me. Not a big deal really, the gameplay's the thing, but something I noticed.

Interesting stuff! I think I already like the artwork in V better than VI. I'll be interested in hearing your takes on warfare and diplomacy.

In theory, I like the mechanic of having to build sub-buildings like Libraries before you can build University, as in Civ V. I can see why they got rid of it in Civ VI, however. I bet they received a number of complaints about that mechanic. Maybe if they didn't require sub-buildings in every city, perhaps 75% instead?

I'll have to grab V when it comes back on sale--probably just before they release Civ VII.

Check me if I'm wrong, but you still have to progress through some building - ie library before university, but in 6 that is done on a city-by-city basis.

Good observations - the worker thing bothered me as well, the immediacy of improvements bothers me a bit too, I think I preferred the idea that I have to tie up time in the process of building up your land.

Yes, that's right. Civ 6 still has prerequisite buildings, but the difference is it ignores what is in your other cities. Civ 5 is set up so that every new city you settle, or every city you capture sort of resets it. So if you have four good-sized cities and then start a new one, all of the higher level buildings in the original four now need to wait until the new city catches up. This is a huge difference that serves to limit the potential of cities in wide, and widening, empires.

The Chieftain Arabia run is won already. The AI stands no chance at this level and I won a culture victory in the early 1900s, around turn 350 or so. But it served as a primer to the Civ 5 rules, and I've now begun a Persia run on King, epic speed, standard pangea map for 8 civs with two civs and two city-states removed. I was determined to get my first four cities down as quickly as I could, ignoring wonders and any higher level buildings until this base was established. Fourth city was settled on turn 92, but I suffered from negative happiness which put the brakes on growth and production. The AI has few luxuries to trade for, and I have few in my part of the map. But getting these four cities down despite the drawbacks is key I think. America is my closest neighbor, and I forward-settled him with my second and third cities, which he protested. His Manifest Destiny ability gobbles up land fast, so i thought it was key to limit his expansion in my direction. My frontier cities will suffer a bit from reduced tiles as they butt up against his borders, but I think it was the right move in the long run.

I have yet to go to war, but barbs are insane. Any 'dark' spot on the map is likely to spawn a barb camp within a few turns. I am constantly being raided and pillaged, especially by their #%&*$# mounted units, and it's a lot of fun. Getting gobs of combat XP which will pay off later with veteran units for the wars against civs. One more comment.... since getting back in to Civ a few weeks ago I have played many runs, several through to the end. I have yet to have war declared on me even once, aside from emergency resolutions. It's bizarre. Hoping that changes in this run.

The district mechanic is probably meant to offset the "every city needs x" of the previous version.

Warmaking seems to be frowned on by the devs in both 5 & 6. At least in 6 (as I recalll.) the diplo hits aren't as severe. I'm not generally a warlike player, I tend to play more on the science side, but when I get a good warlike going, I find it enjoyable. Civ 6 didn't seem like that was a viable as a playing strat to be honest, too much to overcome on the diplo side.

And while I'm complaining, the emphasis on some form of world governing body in both 5 & 6 has been disappointing - at least in implementation. I find the 6 implementation laughable in the sense that you can be in the world congress even before you have contact with some of the other civs. I'm voting on things and the other players are listed as "Unmet Player" - how did the world congress get started before you met the rest of the leaders?? If I'm voting to nerf a particular leader, how can I do so if I dont' even know they exist??? Ridiculous!

So after a bit of comparison - you seem to be favoring 5 over 6?

I think Civ 6 favors war more in the simple sense that there is no real penalty for expansion. Or maybe saying it favors conquering would be more accurate, just due to the mechanics. With nothing to reward a player for staying tall, nor penalties for expansion, there is no compelling game system reason for doing so.

I agree on the World Congress. It's poor in Civ 6. So much so that I wonder why they didn't just keep how it works in Civ 5. At least you need to meet everyone first lol. But it works better and is more interesting in Civ 5, amassing delegates though good play, and not just trying to guess which way the AI will vote like in 6. I often disable diplomatic victory, and especially so in 6.

It's too early to tell which game i prefer. This run hopefully reveals more. I need to experience more war to make that decision. The first analogy that came to mind is that the two games are like chess and checkers. One has more complex rules and more varied pieces, but both are fun and strategical. There are aspects of each that I prefer over the other. The choice isn't simple.

I've already moved on from Civ 6 I think. I liked it briefly, but it just didn't hold my interest. I may try again later, but I may also wind up loading 5 back up for a comparison as well.

Oh no, that was quick. I'm not done with 6, I like it. I just need to have the AI put up a better fight but without needing to raise the difficulty so high that they get the crazy bonuses like they do on Immortal. Emperor is fine, but Immortal is a big step up from there. +60% gold, three starting settlers, three warriors and +24% science and culture are difficult to overcome, and make the game not much fun for me. Too much struggle unless I game the start and stack the deck.

And the soon to be released Civ 6 rebalance update is something I am looking forward to.

I think it's more me than anything else, I'm in one of those "can't quite figure out what game I want to play" moods right now.

Been there

But at the mo I am not, as I am having a good time with the Civ games. There was a dev live stream yesterday, and I read a thread of comments about what was in it, and it reveals many of the rebalance changes coming to Civ 6. Nothing drastic, minor changes really. Here's a good thread detailing the changes

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/april-2021-update-patch-notes-discussion.669526/

Played more of my Civ 5 Persia run. Persia gets golden ages that last 50% longer. These can be triggered by accrued excess happiness or by expending a great artist. I recruited a couple, saved them, and waited for happiness to trigger one. Golden ages are 10 turns, and 15 with the bonus ability. When it ends I can fire a great artist and extend it another 15, and then the third again for 45 turns in all, and that's if another great artist doesn't pop in the meantime, which it probably will.

During a golden age all Persian units gain +1 movement and +10% combat strength. I waited until all this was aligned and then declared war on America with Mongolia agreeing to join and hitting them from the opposite direction. One of my complaints about Civ 6 was poor military performance out of the AI, and I revisited Civ 5 to see if it was better, as I remembered it. And it is. America has a large army and they use it aggressively. Even during peace time if you move units near their border, the following turn they have moved some of theirs opposite to oppose any incursion. Stronger, more alert, and more aggressive than anything I saw in Civ 6. Catherine (Russia) had warned me that Washington (America) was plotting against me. So I decided to see if I could beat him to the punch.

When we declared war they immediately swept in to my lands, pillaging all of my tiles near our border. I expected this and have staged workers behind my lines to repair them once we counterattack. But i want to sit defensively, soak it up, reduce their standing army while sitting in my lands, and then launch the counterattack once their army has been knocked down a couple pegs. We are essentially on the same techs, though I have cannon while they are still on trebuchets, so this should be a good battle.

So while Civ 6 has a lot going for it, many new and interesting layers, the simple fact is the AI is a better adversary in Civ 5 based on what I have seen. For peaceful players it's something that may not even register. But for those of us who like to mix in some conflict, Civ 5 is more polished in regards to how the AI handles their military. I should add that I have all expansions and DLC for both games. Things may play differently for someone who does not.



I've touched on some of my thoughts on warfare, with Civ 5 better in my view. But diplomacy is not really a thing in these games. Sure, it's there, but it is very barebones, and mostly inconsequential. Compared to something like say EU IV, it is a joke. My concerns are more in line with how diplomatic victory works. It's better in 5 in my view, but I ignore this most of the time, unless I happen to play a Civ particularly well suited to it. Many games I simply disable that victory type while leaving all others in play

A couple of shots

The front is aflame as the glorious Persian army launches a counteroffensive and takes New York. with Washington and Boston to follow with Boston falling to only ships. Philadelphia would be demanded in the peace deal and made a puppet state.






I mentioned the workers staged for repair work after the battle swept past. Here, seven workers do their duty fixing the pillage damage done by both sides. All but one of the workers were gained by capturing them, with the one coming from a social policy. I've built none.

Very nice. I like the captured workers thing too! I have to say, looking at the screenshots, I do prefer the Civ 5 aesthetic over 6.

I sort of do, and then again I don't. Civ 6 is a better looking game in a lot of ways, but I also like the more natural look of Civ 5. I'll call that a draw. Maybe give the edge to 5 simply because it does not have the persistent parchment fog like 6 does.

I killed off America. I hadn't planned to do so, but when aluminum was revealed on the map I had none, and their capital had two. So, like many of my wars, this one was driven by strategic resources considerations. I'm leading the score chart now, but somehow Germany has been able to just outpace me on the tech tree. I think they are generating great scientists, since I've only gotten one, and are using them to pump science and keep out ahead. I doubt they are generating more per turn than I am.

I'm nearly 500 turns in (epic speed) and still haven't chosen a victory path. Culture, science and domination are all still in play. I was able to play the city-state game, increase my delegates, and steal world congress host from Germany. That gave me enough to pass mine as world religion. I chose Order ideology. Germany chose Freedom and Russia chose Autocracy, so the three leading nations all have opposing ideologies which should make the late game interesting, and make culture victory harder for all. Aside from America, the other civs are Mongolia and Korea, both of whom have really struggled, but remain alive. Genghis has been a good friend and ally, but he is the weakest remaining.

This has been a fun run, I like Civ 5 a lot, and in certain ways I prefer it over Civ 6. The Civ 6 patch dropped yesterday, so when I am done with this run I want to have another go in 6 and check out some of the changes.

I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts when you do.

I finished the Civ 5 Persia run. Won a culture victory on turn 665! Good grief. But it was fun, in large part due to the fact the AI builds a military, if they can. Germany was my main rival, and when it was time to go to war with them in the late game I found in addition to a strong land force, they had built a navy, and protecting their capital from seaborne assaults were three battleships, two carriers (with aircraft), five destroyers and a couple of frigates. I have yet to see anything like that in Civ 6.

Got a bunch of achievements on the win, including one for having won victories on every standard map type and size. I had wondered earlier how it tracks progress on long-running achievements. I didn't get any of the "1000 of" type, but I did get one for finding 100 natural wonders, which goes back several years. So the upshot is that however it is tracked, it's not done locally, as I am on a new box.

Persia's a strong civ, the longer golden ages are powerful if you can pop some great artists. At one point I had four saved up and used them consecutively after a happiness-triggered golden age. In all I was in that golden age for about 78 straight turns. That's a powerful boost that propelled me to the win.

Now I've begun a new run in Civ 6 as Victoria's England. Victoria gets some good abilities mostly centered around ships and her special dockyards, production and having cities on different continents. This is a huge island plates map at standard speed on King with Monopolies and Corporations mode on. I prefer epic speed in many ways, but I didn't want another 600-turn game lol. Diplo victory is disabled. The only new thing from the update that I've noticed is the scout can now pet the dog.

I hope that's not a euphemism!

Thankfully, in this case, it is a literal phrase

There's now a button you can hit and the scout pets his scout dog. Groundbreaking, really, and the core of the update haha.

Having moved back to Civ 6 from the Civ 5 runs, I think I'd have to sum it up thusly.... Civ 6 is the better game. It's more robust, fleshed out, looks better, has much more depth in layers, and has a number of QoL improvements that enhance the experience. But it is let down by the AI. The AI in Civ 6 does a good job for the most part with city building and empire expansion, and it is very competitive on things like suzerainty, religion and wonders. But, at least at King and Emperor, it fails to present a reasonable challenge in terms of hostile aggression and warfare.

It was strikingly obvious while playing Civ 5, how the AI went to war, and took cities, killed other civs, maintained a standing army (and navy). I get very little of this in Civ 6. I still have yet to have war declared on me by anyone. And that's no good.

Although I rarely play warmonger mode, that would seem to be a serious problem.

I think that's the thing. For any sort of pacifist or isolationist run, this issue is not one. In those cases it doesn't matter much. But for those of us who want to partake in a bit of aggression, or even just want the threat of being attacked, a competent war AI is necessary. And here, it's not so much how the AI controls its units, it's a matter of composition, and recruitment. The AI does fine with what it has, but it doesn't have enough to make an appreciable difference.

Case in point.... I'm 300 turns in to the England run and I decided to invade my closest rival, Maya. They were strong, a big empire, with high culture and leading the culture victory race. So I reasoned an invasion would do nicely. I would take some of her cities, and pillage their important tiles. When I declared I saw a fairly strong army, at least seven or eight units moving toward the front. But at least half had been levied from a city-state. I dealt with this initial wave and for the rest of the war, which went on a long time, I only had to deal with a single AT unit every few turns as the AI built another one to feed in to the grinder. Her cities fell one by one until I had taken about five. Encampment districts and the city defense itself is fairly formidable, but without a standing army, the AI is easily outmaneuvered. This is better in Civ 5.

I had noticed there was an achievement for winning a domination victory on a huge island plates map, and when I started this run, that was the shadowy goal. But I'm now 300 turns in and have taken only Maya's capital, and the thought of six more wars is a bit much. By this stage I have so much going on in this vast realm that the micro, if it can be called that, is too much to see through to the end. So science or culture is more likely. Ironically, I had disabled diplo victory, and could have won that easily.

England's abilities encourage settling on different continents, which I've done, and the realm is sprawling. I enjoy this sort of stuff, but managing it all while also prosecuting multiple wars is taxing.

In the end it was a culture victory for the England run. Not much trouble really, as things begin to snowball near the end. Victoria's England is strong. Great production bonuses. Once I had power to my cities it was game over. I would have gone for domination, but on the huge map it was too much.

I then did a run as (Bull Moose) Teddy. Intended it to be a diplomatic victory, but the AI kept voting to subtract -2 diplo points from me every world congress and I finally said screw that and won another cultural victory on Emperor on a fractal map. I don't mind their ability to vote for that reduction, but having it come up again and again in the WC was a bit ridiculous. Diplo points are limited, and to keep having them taken away was frustrating.

Then I started an Immortal run as Genghis Khan. Immortal is the second highest difficulty. The AI gets some insane bonuses. To give me a shot at it I set it up as a duel map (just two of us) with three city states and turned off all victory types aside from domination. All I would need to do to win is capture their capital. I played great, and had a lot of fun with the barbarian rushes. I got the only religion, but that's because Kongo was the other civ, and they can get no religion.

But the lead the AI got was unbelievable. They were so far out in front technologically it was funny. They were researching computers while I was researching steam power lol. If they had declared war it would have been my frigates against their battleships, my cavalry against their tanks, my bombards against their artillery., and my prayers against their aircraft. I think I could still have won it once I was also near the end of the tree and things would even out. After all I only needed to capture a single city. But I shelved it when I got no oil, and need a better plan haha. I expected them to outpace me, but not by that much.

I gamed the game a bit, but got my Religious victory. I started a new duel run as Scythia this time, and selected Kongo as the other civ. Since Kongo cannot have a religion it was easy to get one myself, then send some missionaries and apostles to convert him and boom, done and dusted inside 200 turns.

Got achievements for winning on a tiny map, for winning on Immortal difficulty and several more, including religious victory and winning while in a dark age haha.

Scythia is a good civ. They get double copies of cav units, which also applies to helos. Build one, get two. Strong. They also have +30 HP heal-on-kill, which is borderline OP now that I've tried it. And they get +5 combat strength against wounded units. These are really good in practice, with the damage you take being healed right up and no delay, or need to rotate the units in the line.

Very early I faced the barb rush you get on Immortal. Wave after wave came for my capital, which had a single warrior and a single slinger defending. The slinger was in the town, and the warrior on hills adjacent. The barbs had to attack across a river and just melted against my meager defense. They kept attacking the warrior, which would kill them eventually, heal up and be ready the next turn to do it again. With any other civ these units would have been too few, as the warrior would die if not pulled off the line to heal for a few turns. But as Scythia I could just sit back and watch as the barbs threw themselves again my meager defenses.

Another run done and dusted, this one as France with Eleanor of Aquitaine on a standard pangea map @ emperor. This one was a lot of fun, never fired a shot and ended up with over 20 cities and won a culture victory on turn 291. Eleanor has a cool leader ability where great works each cause -1 loyalty to foreign cities within 9 hexes. And when a city loses all loyalty it flips to France, skipping the free city phase. In all, about 10 cities flipped to me, including two city states. So my empire essentially doubled in size (although most of these cities were on the small side) without any wars or conquest. That's the way to do it!

This run was also my best start. I had put down ten cites by turn 150, when usually I'd be happy to have 5 by that point. This was possible because I changed up my early routine. Normally I install Pingala as governor in my capital. His ability to boost science and culture yields is strong and really helps in the early game as you try to get through key techs and civics. But this time I went with Magnus and used his chopping boost to chop out settlers much faster and get the cities planted. I then sent him on a chopping tour, moving him to newly settled cities to keep it going. His default ability is to give +50% yields from chopping woods and rainforest. This is a big boost to whatever is in the production queue, and allowed me to get settlers out quickly. A favorable map with little early AI encroachment helped too.

Eleanor's late-game culture production is very strong. One of the strongest civs I've played yet.

That's an interesting ability for sure. Hard to believe you took that many cities with no wars - I usually have to conquer most of the map to get that many!
I'm curious as to how the late game turn speed is (waiting for AI turns) - does it get really long between your turns?

It takes a while to get the flip set up, you need the great works, and have the places to display them within the 9-tile radius. But once that is flowing the cities begin to fall one by one. If any of those cities have spots for great works already then it speeds it all up. This is a fun ability to play around with. I would hate to lose my cities this way haha.

Late game turns go very quickly. Maybe 20 seconds? Nothing at all. The thing is that the AI doesn't seem to build aircraft. That was what slowed down the late-game Civ 5 turns, the animations for the aircraft missions. In Civ 6, without any of that, it goes very fast. Unit travel animations are MUCH slower in Civ 6, as my recent return to 5 showed, but it has little effect on AI turn speed. Most of the map is in fog, so the animations there don't play. So the more 'visibility' you have the slower it could potentially be.

But in practice it is very fast. The only slow thing about this game is the initial load, the rest goes along fine.

Interesting...I'd have guessed it would be a bit laggy in the late game.

Finally burned out on Civ 6 after 327 hours and many runs as various civs. Great game, really enjoy it. I started a game as Sweden to try a diplo victory, which is the only one I have yet to get, and after 100 turns I lost motivation. As Aerosmith once said, my get up and go got up and went.

I've not see it mentioned here yet, but there is a possible challenger in the pipeline, a game called Humankind, which is slated for an August release. It could be the Civ killer or maybe not, depending on who is talking. But to me it looks good with massive potential. We will have to wait to see if it lives up to it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1124300/HUMANKIND/

Yes, I've heard of Humankind, it is supposed to be a challenger to Civ. We'll see, but I'll be keeping an eye on it!

Great thread !! I've gotten a bit tired of the old flight sims,WWII number crunching strategy games and not into shooters right now.. I started looking for a turn based strategy game and narrowed it down to Civ V or Civ VI..The last Civ game I played a lot was Civ IV.So I figure it's good to just goo with Civ V.So checked here and saw this great thread by gamers who actually play the games.Lot of good information in this thread,,Thanks

Can't go wrong with either game. I think 6 is better, it has a broader scope mechanically, more features and things to consider and do. But I prefer the Civ 5 AI, I think it gives a better account of itself in that game.

So you can't go wrong with either. I know 6 is deeply discounted right now in the summer sale, and probably 5 as well, though I didn't see it. I bought the Platinum Edition, which has the two expansions, but it did not have some of the faction DLC, which I then picked up too, like the New Frontier Pass. So I bought it all and no regrets. Good game.

Hi DB I have both Civ V at the Brave New Wold level and Civ VI at the Gathering storm level.Jest decided to start asking things her you and P.M.post things I understand and respect your thoughts.figured the best way to make a choice was to spend a few hours last night and today with Civ V,Got a bit of a feel for it and test driving Civ VI later.Then pick one to focus on.Thank you for the advice

Anytime.

I'd be interested in which game wins the competition for your time.

DB spent a few hours with each and Going with Civ V.It looks better in my opinion.I know there's a mod at steam for VI but V just feels better to me.As all gamers the look and feel of a game either attracts us or turns us off.So I'll use Civ V as an introduction and down the road probably will go to Civ VI..It's been a few years since I've played Civ IV so I figure to take a small step up to Civ V.Like I posted earlier I need a break from flight sims and wargames.I'll keep a Total War game on the side for variety.Still like Shogun 2 and going to be hard to leave Panzer Corps behind .Tried PC2 but it needs some more meat on it's bones I have the gold edition og PC and there's a lot there.Thank you for the advice

Above in this thread I talked about my impressions of Civ 6. My main gripe was warfare, how I felt that the AI was too passive, and even when at war, didn't do much to build strong armies, feeding units piecemeal in to battle alone as they rolled off the training grounds, where they are ground up by my forces.

A couple days ago I decided to revisit the game. There have been some updates since I last played, including one major update that overhauled a number of things, and rebalanced many Civs. I chose Egypt for this run. Things were going along quite swimmingly, when that smug b!tch Alexander (Macedon) launched a surprise attack from the northeast.

In my other runs, which were enough to cover 300+ hours, I don't think I had ever had war declared on me. If I had it was exceedingly rare. But here Alexander did so, and even better, brought a real army! About eight units in the initial wave, all arriving in close order, with a few follow-on units trailing in their wake.

That's more like it. I talked earlier about how Civ 5 handles this much better. There's no doubt that the game needs competent AI wars and strong armies. I think Civ 6 is better than 5 in just about every way imaginable, but the lame warfare side even made me return to Civ 5 to compare, and it was glaring how much different, and better, it was in Civ 5.

This is just one sample, and one does not a study make. But it is a good sign.

Turns out those declarations of war from Macedon must have something to do with either that faction, or the specifics of our relationship. Because it's back to no wars.

I started two different runs which I stopped, before landing on Indonesia. I had started with them a couple years ago, but gave it up. Tried again and it went much better. In order to get a few achievements I did a domination run on a huge Island Plates map at epic game speed with Monopolies and Corporations mode on King difficulty. This dovetails beautifully with Indonesia's unique traits and bonuses. The UB is the Kampung, a water tile improvement that grants food, production and gold, and must be built adjacent to a sea resource. This is great because we need all of those three things, and they can be built on sea tiles that would otherwise have nothing.

+2 faith if city is built on coast or lake. Minor, but still useful, if you are going for a religion. And with Indonesia it's important, because ships can be purchased with faith. On this map setup a strong navy was required, and just buying the ships with faith is sweet. the UU is the Jong, a frigate replacement. These ships grant their movement to any unit they are in escort formation with, greatly speeding up embarked land unit speed when traveling over water.

You wouldn't want to play Indonesia on a Pangea map, you need plenty of water to shine. So I obviously titled the map in my favor. And huge maps are indeed. So these unique bonuses had great synergy to conquer so much territory on such a sprawling map.

If I could only get the AI to build armies and go to war more often.

Had a look through my library and clicked on Civ 6 to see what's up. I was very pleasantly surprised to see they have released a number of new leaders, through the Leader Pass. As fate would have it, these all came for free (depends on which DLC you own). There are eight new leaders, and four new personas for existing leaders (like they've done for Teddy Roosevelt and Eleanor for example) all released since late last year. Has anyone given these a go? Any opinions?

Two more packs are slated for release in the future.

Civ 6 Leader Pass Wiki

Might have to fire up a new run with all of these new options. Good work Firaxis.

I haven’t even thought about Civ in a long time. Never really got into VI, between the cartoon aesthetic and the district concept it just never grabbed me.
Looks like Civ 7 is finally being announced.
https://www.pcgamesn.com/civilization-vii/in-development-firaxis

Hey JC. I started a run as Sulemain and kicking it down the road in small bites. It's good to have new leaders to try out.

Yeah, Civ 7 in the pipe. I'll buy it almost certainly, but as always I'll wait to see what the word on the street is. But Firaxis know how to do this.

Hope its a good run!
I'll wait (but probably pick up) Civ 7. Civ VI was released in 2016, and according to what I've read, this has been the longest stretch between releases in the franchise history. I'm wondering if they've just kept it under wraps until it was close to release-ready
instead of dragging the release out forever (I'm looking at you, Star Citizen!)

Hard to say when this will be released, but many are speculating it will come out this year. others say a few years. Who knows?

I'm sure I'll buy it. Each game in the series has gotten better for me, so I'd expect Civ 7 will too. But you never know, sometimes the developers go past the close and get a little too clever.

True. I remember when Civ V came out and used hexes for the first time in the series and eliminated doomstacks and everyone got the vapors. I found those to both to be great changes personally. You really had to think through your composition and travel routes to get a good sized army anywhere. I found that appealing.

Yes, I agree with everything you said. Those were my reactions too. Hex was so much better, and as you said the move from doom-stacks made combat feel more tactical, as you could now have a 'front' and reinforcements, backed by artillery, flanking and so on and so forth. Both changes were revolutionary and clearly better, but there are still some who do not agree. There will always be stuff in the newer game that I wish Firaxis had left alone, like combat, and the World Congress in Civ 6, but in general I find every game a big step forward from a broad point of view.

Didn't want to start a new thread, and maybe it won't be answered here, but is anyone playing Age of Wonders 4? This caught my eye (released a couple weeks ago). It looks like TW:Warhammer and Civ 6 had a fling. I will probably pick this up. Comments are good, gameplay looks good too. I love me an addictive 4X game.

Started a new run in Civ 6. The leader pass has introduced a bunch of new ones, but this time I'm playing Phillip II (Spain) on an archipelago map on King with a Medieval era start. Spain get bonuses to trade routes, can form armies and armadas earlier and have the Conquistadors, who convert a city they capture to your religion immediately. That was quite nifty indeed in the early going, but since they are medieval era unit and I started then, they were phased out pretty quickly.

I still wish Civ 6 handled warfare better, but in all other respects its my top Civ game in the series. Good stuff.

I finished that Spain run with a domination victory. A really good civ. I always like trade route bonuses, and they have a very strong religious game. Conquest is smoothed by their bonuses, including free religion in occupied cites (with Conquistador) and free workers too. In addition they have several bonuses for cities not on original continent to make expansion even better.

Got achievements for having one army and two armadas, winning a medieval start, winning on a archipelago map and for winning as Philip. Greece had a decent army and navy, but all the other civs failed really to put up much of a fight. The leader pass has been a really nice addition to the game, but I wish the devs would spend a little time making the AI civs better at defending their territory and for building standing armies and navies. The rest of Civ 6 is in a good place, all the non-combat stuff, but it would be much better with some robust competition on the field of battle.

Good stuff as always, DB!
Personally, I have had no interest in gaming for the last couple of months, but I do enjoy reading your exploits!

Thanks JC, I don't know what I'd do without you. Thanks for taking the time to comment. Otherwise it would be just me shouting in to the void

I picked up Age of Wonders 4 as you know, as sort of a Civ surrogate. It has a lot going for it. But Civ is just a better campaign experience for me. The pacing is right. Age of Wonders feels a bit too immediate. For example in my most recent run I had plopped down my second city within a few turns and my neighbor put down his own city two hexes away the next turn. No, this won't do. Too crowded, too early. Civ has that nice early exploration and expansion phase that I enjoy. Once everyone has established a nice base, then the conflict kicks in. I prefer this. Matter of fact I wish AoW4 had the latitude to recreate the same feel, but at this point it does not.

The appreciation is definitely two way! Many times after reading one of your posts I've gotten the urge to at least try something I haven't tried before, or pick up something I haven't touched in a while. It doesn't always stick, but it definitely gets me moving!

As far as AoW4, does it seem like something a bigger map would take care of, or is it something more intrinsic to the game design? Maybe there's a mod that would open things up a bit more.

My hope when I write these threads is someone will pick it up because of it, and then discuss it. I wish that there were folks who wanted to discuss the finer points of the games I play, but it isn't really a thing any more. Your comments are appreciated.

I started a new run as Sweden. I've not gotten a Diplomatic victory in over 400 hours playing this game. Usually I disable that condition. But I'd like to get one and it's all rather boring quite frankly. I like plotting invasions and stuff. Subterfuge and screwing civs over in the most dastardly ways I can conjure up. But if you want to win diplomatically you have to be friendly dammit. It's about earning diplo points though emergencies and World Fairs and World Congress, which we've talked about before and it's not very well done in Civ 6 compared to 5. Building wonders and generating favor. Oh well, it's a one-off and I doubt I'll go for it again if I get it across the line.

I only tried this once before, I think as one of the Teddys. The AI kept voting to take one of my diplo points each time there was a congress and I gave up. Hopefully as Sweden I can overcome that.

We've had some good discussions in the past on games we were playing...Subnautica springs to mind...I do kinda miss those but I've got a little suck happening right now, so I just can't get my head into gaming. Pity, because it would be nice escape.

I managed to get the Sweden diplo win across the line. You have to secure 20 diplomatic victory points, which I did through wonders, competitions and the world congress. The WC votes are actually for two points each, and each civ can vote to grant or take away two points to one civ. And they all vote against me as I near victory, trying to shave two points off my total every so many turns. So I had to focus generating diplo favor so I could have enough to outvote every other civ all ganging up. It's a good path for Kristina's Sweden, as she get some great synergy with this victory type. I didn't fight any wars, only combat was with barbs. Was suzerain of every city state as that's a key to generating the favor (and consequently denying it to others). Not sure I've had a run where I built this many wonders.

All in all a good run, even if the pacifist route lacks panache. I set the map up to be the sort of setup that I've been talking about. It was a large inland sea map with just six civs and eight city states, which left a lot of room for expansion by every faction, and I only had a close neighbor on one border by the end. Perfect for this sort of victory, no need to worry about border invasions and therefore no need to keep a big standing army. Of course the AI is terrible at this, and I still had the strongest armed forces without doing much at all really.

Got achievements for winning with Kristina, on an inland sea map, with a renaissance start and a diplomatic victory.

Yeah JC, Subnautica was one of my favorite games, one that took me by surprise, and I rarely play that type of game. But I had a good time with that one. Played through twice. I've given a look at the Below Zero one but never have pulled the trigger for some reason.

Pacifist victory? Seems oxymoronic!
I think I tend to need more blood in my games!
I agree, Subnautica really snuck up on me. You should give it a go in VR, it will knock y our socks off.
Somehow I aquired Below Zero, and there is a VR mod to it. I should give it a whirl, or at least give the original another run through.

The pen is mightier I guess. But yeah, aside from the other civs trying to take victory points off me it was pretty simple. 20 points are needed. Statue of Liberty is a key build, as that wonder awards four diplo points on its own. For the longest time I was level with the AI, we all had five points. Then a WC happened and before long I had 16 while they had 6. then it was just a matter of getting four more while trying not to lose any.

After finishing and posting about it I was looking through the achievements and saw there is one for winning all three Nobel prize competitions. Since these only appear in the game when Sweden is on the map I fired it back up. I had won the first two (easy as Sweden) and was winning the third when I called time. So I played another 20+ turns to get that over the line. Having already won I started doing the space race projects and when I launched the satellite I discovered five more city states that I hadn't even known about. So I was wrong when I said I was suzerain of all city states. Only all I actually knew about!

If you ever get back in to gaming and play Below Zero let me know what you think of it.

Interesting. In Civ V I had science and conquest victories, and I think one cultural victory. I never really looked in to attempting any of the others.

I'm one step closer to starting Below Zero - I actually installed it the other day! I did a little poking around, and apparently the story isn't as good as in the first game. It's also shorter as well. I did enjoy the experience though, so who knows....

That is a key milestone

I said before I didn't think I had ever built so many wonders. Having looked at the score breakdown I saw I had 255 points for wonders. I believe you get 15 per example, so that means it was 17 wonders built. Doesn't seem such a big number now. But maybe that is a lot? Don't know that I've ever counted them before.

I'm kicking around another run, and maybe I'll do one of the scenarios, like Outback Tycoon or Vikings, Traders, and Raiders. I have yet to do one of these.

Religious is difficult. To get one I gamed the game and made a duel map against a civ who cannot have a religion. Shameful.

I haven't gotten a score victory, but I've now got all the others -- diplo, cutlural, science, domination and religious. Cultural is probably the easiest, or at least the easiest to get with the most civs. I could have won that way in this Sweden run easily. Kristina gets several strong cultural bonuses. One of the best is called Minerva of the North, With Kristina, every wonder with 2 or more slots and building with 3 or more slots automatically themes when filled, meaning she will always receive double culture and tourism out of her Great Works. You can just activate all 3 charges of a great artist in the same museum, and voila, it is now themed, just as easy as that; hence this is not only a great ability but also a great quality of life aspect when playing for a cultural victory. Not to mention it gives you the ability to theme the previously non-themeable buildings (including Wonders).

The themes are hard, like one might be three portraits, all from different artists and different eras and that's hard to do unless you get really active with trading with other civs. With Kristina none of that matters, any three would do to get the theming bonus.

A very strong culture and tourism game with Sweden.

Seventeen sounds like a lot to me. I was always pretty skimpy with my wonder building. So many useful things can be built in the time it takes to build one wonder, unless it's a key to your strategy, I pretty much just didn't bother.
Of course, I would wind up with a bunch after conquering other civs, but that doesn't count!

Yeah, I usually don't build very many. At higher difficulties wonders are highly competitive and you run the risk of another civ completing it when you had one turn to go, and all that was wasted. But some wonders are key to your victory path and should be built. But then, some civs are just really good at it, or have exceptional synergy with wonders. In the Sweden run I think it was down to suitability, but maybe more so that I didn't pursue science (and need to build all that stuff) or needed much of a standing army, so my production queues were free to chase these down.

In the Sweden run I played it on King, since I didn't know how competitive the AI would be in a Diplomatic game. That made the wonders race easier for me. On Emperor which I usually play it is more competitive. Like getting the Great Library is quite difficult indeed. Depends too on which civs you get.

I started another run, but with a little less enthusiasm so I'll see how far I get. this is with the new Japan leader Togukawa. He was introduced in the recent leader pass updates.

His leader ability is Bakuhan. His international trade routes receive 25% penalties to all yields and tourism, but his domestic trade routes provide +1 Culture, +1 Science, and +2 Gold for every specialty district at the destination. Additionally, cities within 6 tiles of his Capital receive +4 Amenities and, after researching Flight, receive +1 Tourism for every specialty district. From Civilization VI: Rise and Fall onward, cities within 6 tiles of his Capital stay 100% loyal instead of receiving +4 Amenities.

I'm big on internal trade routes, so this all dovetails nicely with my style. Playing this one on Emperor, large shuffle map, abundant resources, societies mode and corporations mode on. Let's see if I see it through. Many runs I start, get a feel for which way the wind is blowing, which path my land suggests I pursue. But this run I plan to go straight for science. Japan has a neat ability centered around their districts.

There are six types of district that can gain adjacency bonuses in the game: Campus, Theater Square, Commercial Hub, Harbor, Industrial Zone and Holy Site. These districts usually gain +1 bonus for every two adjacent districts, but now they will receive +1 bonus per adjacent district instead. With good city planning, this allows you to create massive district clusters between nearby cities that feed each other adjacency bonuses. This bonus is actually better than just doubling the regular adjacency bonuses. For example, a campus adjacent to 3 other district will gain only 1 more Science, because every 0.5 adjacency bonus will get rounded down if the number is odd, a Japanese Campus in this situation will receive 3 Science. For this reason, while other civilizations can be a little haphazard in their placement of districts, effective play as Japan requires a very good knowledge of available districts and future planning. This ability pairs very well with policy cards that double adjacency bonuses or boost buildings' yields by 50% if the districts they are in have high starting adjacency.

This is potentially amazing. I've been eyeing up a Japan run for a long time, but I didn't really care for Tokimune, the first Japanese leader.

His leader ability is Divine Wind. His land and naval units receive +5 Strength Combat Strength when fighting on coastal and shallow water tiles, and he builds Encampment, Holy Site, and Theater Square districts in half the usual time. Additionally, in Gathering Storm, Hurricanes cause no damage to Hojo Tokimune's units, buildings, and tile improvements and double damage to units in his territory that belong to a civilization with which he is at war.

That's pretty good for conquest I guess, albeit a bit situational depending on where the fights take place. But in this run I will play defensively and go for the space race.

I sat down to play the Japan run for a bit and ended up playing for hours. This game.

Japan is a great civ for me, since I like maximizing stuff through planning. And Japan's districts adjacency bonus bonus is a shining example of this. The thing is, it's a slow burn. It takes a long time to set districts down. Not only do they take a while to build, but how many a city can have is limited by the city's population. It's a fantastic ability/bonus, but does not help much in the early stages. It's a snowball sort of bonus.

And since I opted for Togukawa with his internal trade routes that earn bonuses based on how many districts are at the destination, it's a very neat interlaced mechanic that really ramps up the longer you play. This sort of stuff is right in my wheelhouse and I find it compelling. So that really pulls me in and where does the time go?

And I've had a war declared on me! This is really rare. I had a scout rolling back the map fog somewhere far off, and suddenly a unit emerged from that fog and struck the unit down. Dammit. Poland had launched a surprise war against me. Well, isn't that interesting? That happened just before I shut it down so I have yet to respond. But you could have knocked me over when this happened. I plan to make her regret it. Jadwiga, the woman King, shall rue the day!

I seem to recall one of your gripes with the game is that the AI is a bit docile, so a wardec is definitely an interesting surprise. Could some of that have been tweaked since the last time you played it?

Yeah, exactly. It's very rare that war is declared on me, but in this case it's been very good. Poland is the leading civ, and this war is hurting them, even though I've fought it entirely defensively thus far. Their initial attack was pretty good, one trebuchet, several cavalry and knights, plus several infantry (pikes and men-at-arms). I had most of my army well to the south taking on the barbs there. But I was able to shift enough forces to meet the enemy and destroy him. So now Poland needs to tie up their queues building replacements and all of this should help to slow them down and let me close the gap. After cleaning up their invasion, I can now intercept them with frigates at sea. Poland miscalculated

On Emperor difficulty it's tough at the start. I was next to last on the score chart for over 150 turns, and only now am starting to climb the table. I've yet to even meet several civs. But I'm now at the point where things should start to snowball. When I hit electricity I expect to really start moving. I'll hope I get some oil too. It's interesting how this mirrors real life wars. I rarely go to war for expansion, but I often do to obtain strategic resources. Oil, aluminum and uranium are usually why I start a war.

Japan has an achievement called Meiji Restoration, which requires the player to have a district with six unpillaged adjacent districts. It's not easy because first, you have to have enough contiguous land to do it, and without mountains or luxuries which cannot be built over. And then second, you need a city large enough to have seven districts. But with Japan's adjacency bonuses, this cluster will have amazing yields once it is finished. I read the achievement is bugged, and you must place the center district last, so that is what I am doing, and I'll make the government plaza the one in the middle. But all this means I will get minimal adjacency bonus until then, as I form the ring.

Japan's UB is the Electronics Factory

+3 Production to all City Centers within 6 tiles of the Electronics Factory's Industrial Zone
+5 Production additionally when Powered
Base Load: 2 Power
+1 Citizen slot
+1 Great Engineer point per turn
+4 Culture (with Electricity)
+2 Production with Great Engineer James Watt activated.

So I'm building these everywhere and once the power is on these will be amazing.

That's a pretty powerful UB!
What kind of maps do you prefer to use? I'd go between pangaea and continental. I did an island map once on Civ V and had a lot of fun with it for a while too.

Island plates and small continents are my favorites I'd say. Archipelago is a little stringy, I like more meat on the bones. Pangea is not for me, just one big mass that makes interacting with half the civs problematic

For this run I am playing a shuffle map for the achievement. It has produced a nice one for me, at least where I am. I have not seen it all yet.

But generally I like the island plates and small continents because I enjoy the naval aspect and exploration possibilities on these maps. Harbors, sea trade, sea-borne invasion, battleships and submarines. Carriers. I like to have this.

Of course you can change sea level to get more or less of a land/sea ratio on most of them.

Fractal can be interesting, but it can also be really bad.

Shuffle is the last of the achievement map types I have yet to win on, so once this one is done I can start just picking my favorites, or tilt the game to favor my civ with a suitable map type.

I think I tried a fractal map once, it was an absolute mess. I guess that was one of the really bad ones. Very little contiguous land, very difficult to move and establish any kind of territory.

I agree about archipelago, they can give you very little to work with.

I kinda prefer pangaea myself. While I don't mind the naval aspect, and at times I rather enjoy it, I do like having large invading forces and just crushing the opposition. Pangea lends itself to that a little more readily IMHO.

Yeah, many players prefer pangea. I can see the appeal, but not for me.

Fractal is random tiles everywhere it seems. Volcanos next to tundra next to four tiny one-tile islands surrounded by desert I did do one run on a fractal map to get the achievement.

This Japan run is a pretty fun one. The other civs are Poland, Netherlands, the new Kongo chick, Brazil and a couple others, which I forget at the mo. Poland has been running wild. In my effort to give myself elbow room for early game expansion, I set the map variables to achieve it. But it also works that way for the AI. I set the map size and then reduce the civs and city states. A large map has ten civs I think, so I'll knock that down to six, and now everyone has more space. Poland had really taken advantage and are a massive, sprawling empire. We've been at war most of the game (she started it). Poland keeps asking for peace but I refuse.

I want to go for a science win. Once I launched my satellite I looked to see how that race was going and saw that not only had Poland done this already, they had launched the Mars expedition or whatever is next. So I was losing!

War through most of the game is rather difficult in the sense that up until the modern age taking cities is hard. Your units don't really do enough damage to city walls. Your units take more punishment sitting there chipping away at the defenses. So I waited until I had all of the following

Jet bombers (absolute key)
Rocket artillery
Drones
Modern armor
Giant Death Robot

Putting the bombers on a carrier I launched a sea-borne invasion and took their capital in a few turns. That'll knock her back a bit. Poland was smart enough to build several spaceports, so they aren't out of it yet, but losing such a massive city is a big setback. And if I need to I can continue the attack now that I have a foothold on her continent. Things are really rolling now, and my closest competitor has been wounded. My capital Tokyo has completed the Meiji Restoration and the big district cluster. We are generating over 1,500 gold per turn. I can just buy whatever I need. Not sure I've ever been this rich in a civ run. Over 30k in the bank and I'm spending it freely too. Need a worker, or a tank? Just pay cash.

In April of 2021 I posted a screen of my Ethiopia run because I was generating good numbers and posting it preserved it for posterity and I can use it to compare my current games. I'm not close in science, culture or faith. But I'm making triple the money. That shot is also 100 turns later in the game.

https://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/download/Number/30924/filename/Ethiopia465.jpg

Japan is an excellent civ, especially Hogukawa I think. The synergy of his district adjacency bonuses and internal trade routes is really strong and suits my style. Now I just have to see it over the line, and if I need to smack a few of them down now and then I have the means to do it.

Finished the Japan run. Once I had invaded Poland it was essentially over, and my exoplanet expedition was done before anyone else had even landed on Mars. I was behind, then way ahead. The AI is good early, bad late. On Emperor they get more settlers than the player (just one more I think) so they get a big headstart and it takes a while to reel them in. I was not first for over 200 turns. But eventually the snowball comes for all.