An old warhorse comes home

[Aabraxan]

As I'm sure many of you had surmised, Hojo Tokimune suffered from Legion's Disease for many, many years. At about 3 o'clock this morning, he died of natural causes. I must now decide whether to punish Zanzibar (to which he was Suzerain, and to which I am now Suzerain) for meddling in my war.

 

[PhilBowles]

As I'm sure many of you had surmised, Hojo Tokimune suffered from Legion's Disease for many, many years. At about 3 o'clock this morning, he died of natural causes. I must now decide whether to punish Zanzibar (to which he was Suzerain, and to which I am now Suzerain) for meddling in my war.

Unless you need the territory there's not a lot of value to capturing city-states (in my current game I'm raking in money from Antioch even though it's sitting in a city spot that - as the Maya - I will probably need sooner or later, but that's a specific consideration for a civ that wants all of its cities as close to the capital as possible and Antioch is in the way. I'll probably levy its military first - I can throw them against the Arabs and get some of them deliberately killed to make attacking Antioch itself easier). Zanzibar isn't one of the more useful ones, though.

 

[Aabraxan]

I figure I've got room for maybe 3 more settlers before I absolutely have to start clearing some room. I've got 1 or 2 settlers already on the move, so what little space I have is going to get eaten up pretty fast. Besides, I already killed most of its military during the Roman-Japanese war. Wouldn't capturing Zanzibar save me from having to produce one more settler for that spot?

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I figure I've got room for maybe 3 more settlers before I absolutely have to start clearing some room. I've got 1 or 2 settlers already on the move, so what little space I have is going to get eaten up pretty fast. Besides, I already killed most of its military during the Roman-Japanese war. Wouldn't capturing Zanzibar save me from having to produce one more settler for that spot?

I don't think there is a need, unless you just want the space. Besides each city state has unique bonuses and since you are now the suzerain of Zanzibar you are getting both cloves and cinnamon as luxury resources, which you can't obtain any other way.

 

[Aabraxan]

I don't think there is a need, unless you just want the space. Besides each city state has unique bonuses and since you are now the suzerain of Zanzibar you are getting both cloves and cinnamon as luxury resources, which you can't obtain any other way.

Oh, wow. That's huge. I guess I'll just build my empire around them. That's easy enough, particularly if it gets me two extra luxes.

 

[PhilBowles]

Oh, wow. That's huge. I guess I'll just build my empire around them. That's easy enough, particularly if it gets me two extra luxes.

For future reference, once you're in the city-state menu you can hover over each city-state's icon to see a dropdown that describes its suzerain bonus. Zanzibar has one of the lesser ones, as amenities aren't usually that much of a constraint, but it's still equivalent to the bonuses of some Great Merchants so worth using if you're suzerain and don't have a pressing need to get rid of the city-state.

 

[Aabraxan]

I can safely say that I know a lot more about Civ 6 now than I did when I started this game. I still have a long way to go, but I'll go ahead and play this one out. As it stands:

• The Japanese and Scythians are dead;
• The Australians are down to 3 cities;
• The Kongo is still taking up room on my continent;
• That won't last long; they just don't know they're dead yet;
  
• Artillery and tank armies still work;
• 1upt means you have to think a lot more about unit placement;
• Is -600 high for a warmongering penalty?
• Sumeria, Egypt and Brazil are on the other continent;
• I sent a Ranger to the other continent to scout;
• I saw lots of archers there;
• The lack of tech trading really seems to slow down tech speed, but it is what it is;
• I need to trade with the AI more in the next game;
• I also need to learn more about these district adjacency bonuses.

 

[Victoria]

I also need to learn more about these district adjacency bonuses.

Hi, WB and I loved the conversation with Little Aabra, she certainly knows her sarcasm.

Below this text is some guides, the key one to read which has the most important info is the guide to chopping. Now chopping may not be your thing but placing districts and escalating costs are also discussed. It’s a little outdated but still very valid conceptually which is the key between cheftain and Emperor.
This game is about getting cities out early or conquering cities early. You need to get the right districts out early or they get expensive

as for adjacency... yes, especially for campus, they are very key, not just the adjacency but where the double adjacency cards are.

another tip as you have noticed is culture. It is important early to get.

2 good measuring sticks are
10 cities by T100
Political Philosophy by T50 (not easy but a target)

 

[PhilBowles]

2 good measuring sticks are
10 cities by T100
Political Philosophy by T50 (not easy but a target)

At the same time, you don't need to be obsessive about this. I've barely ever got 10 cities by turn 100 and routinely win on Deity, though probably more slowly than most people here, so it's far from mandatory.

 

[Victoria]

At the same time, you don't need to be obsessive about this.

100% with ya. However knowing and choosing not to use is better than not knowing. I personally use 7 by 70 now but don't a;ways reach it. It is about settings some targets that are better than... "The AI is beating me at science"

 

[Mudokon Pop]

Years ago, I bought Civ 3 Complete, and it pretty well consumed my gaming time from 2011-2015, if my posts here are any indication.

I bought Civ4 Complete around the same time - and that game also kept me entertained for a long time. I can only imagine the shock of jumping three games ahead!

I kept playing Civ4 even after getting Civ5 because my laptop could not support the newer game too well. But at least I had time to familiarize my self with all the changes.

 

[krmarci]

You can ignore it and I've never seen AI end up winning a religious victory because there are always at least a couple of dominant religions in the world.

Not necessarily. I was recently beaten by Poland in a religious victory while I was focusing on domination and science.

 

[PhilBowles]

100% with ya. However knowing and choosing not to use is better than not knowing. I personally use 7 by 70 now but don't a;ways reach it. It is about settings some targets that are better than... "The AI is beating me at science"

I don't really adopt heuristics at all, beyond - indeed - checking how I match up in various scores from time to time. I still treat Civ VI as an 'anything goes' game in the expectation that I'm going to win pretty much whatever I do.

I bought Civ4 Complete around the same time - and that game also kept me entertained for a long time. I can only imagine the shock of jumping three games ahead!

I kept playing Civ4 even after getting Civ5 because my laptop could not support the newer game too well. But at least I had time to familiarize my self with all the changes.

I fired up Civ IV while waiting for the New Frontier pass. I've always found it hard to go back to a stack combat Civ (even back in the day I played more Civ I-II, which didn't have stack combat in the Civ III/IV sense, than the later games). What I found is that by this point I'm also so used to unpacked cities and putting Wonders in the landscape that - for all my gripes about Civ VI and particularly its low difficulty threshold - I found it less engaging to go back to the older system.

 

[Aabraxan]

Hi, WB and I loved the conversation with Little Aabra, she certainly knows her sarcasm.

She does indeed. She enjoys giving me a hard time now and again, but it's all in good fun.

Below this text is some guides, the key one to read which has the most important info is the guide to chopping. Now chopping may not be your thing but placing districts and escalating costs are also discussed. It’s a little outdated but still very valid conceptually which is the key between cheftain and Emperor.
This game is about getting cities out early or conquering cities early. You need to get the right districts out early or they get expensive

I've read some of your guides, and they're excellent. Someone should really put those in the C6 War Academy.

....another tip as you have noticed is culture. It is important early to get.

Yeah, i guess I gotta learn about this culture stuff. In C3C, I routinely skipped building any culture whatsoever. The fact that the one or two wonders that I would build generated culture was purely coincidental. In c6, I'm clearly going to need it to open up civics.

2 good measuring sticks are
10 cities by T100
Political Philosophy by T50 (not easy but a target)

I'll see how the next game goes, and report back.

As for this game, it's over. A handful of AIs just don't know it yet. Japan, Scythia, Sumeria, and most of the city-states have been killed off. I took my eye off Zanzibar for just a little while, and Gilgamesh snuck in as the new Suzerain. So when I DOW'd him, Zanzibar DOW'd me. So at that point, I just DOW'd all fo the CSs on my continent and cleared them out. Then I moved over to the continent with Sumeria, Brazil and Egypt.

By the way, since when can units cross the sea without boats?!? And does anyone even build boats, when units can cross the sea without them?

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

By the way, since when can units cross the sea without boats?!? And does anyone even build boats, when units can cross the sea without them?

They can enter coastal water at Shipbuilding and all units can enters ocean tiles at Cartography.
Land units on sea are weaker though defending and can't attack back, so it's best to still build a navy and you can use a naval unit to escort other units on the water.

 

[Aabraxan]

That makes some sense. I have kind of a love/hate relationship with shipbuilding. I like the idea of having a strong navy, but ships take for-freaking-ever to build. Or at least they did in C3C. Heck, it was easier (at Emperor, at least) to just build a handful of transport ships and bombers to keep the shipping lanes safe.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

That makes some sense. I have kind of a love/hate relationship with shipbuilding. I like the idea of having a strong navy, but ships take for-freaking-ever to build. Or at least they did in C3C. Heck, it was easier (at Emperor, at least) to just build a handful of transport ships and bombers to keep the shipping lanes safe.

You only need an aircraft carrier if you want to send any aircraft units across the ocean, which is the only naval carrier in the game. I've never seen that happen before in a game though.
Also forgot to mention that builders can enter the water at fishing and traders at celestial navigation (still only the coastal tiles until Cartography).

 

[PhilBowles]

That makes some sense. I have kind of a love/hate relationship with shipbuilding. I like the idea of having a strong navy, but ships take for-freaking-ever to build. Or at least they did in C3C. Heck, it was easier (at Emperor, at least) to just build a handful of transport ships and bombers to keep the shipping lanes safe.

That's why they changed it (also, it would probably have been difficult to implement transporting unit stacks with the 1UPT system - although Civ ! and II managed). Automatic embarking was one of the most controversial changes to the system Civ V made, but frankly it was needed (and was promptly adopted by Total War, which had also previously either required building boats or jumping into the sea at specific port locations): for the flavour gain of having a separate transport to carry units. it wasn't of any actual strategic value - it was basically just a tax to slow crossing the sea since the transport did nothing in and of itself.

Since Civ turns represent years or more, I like to imagine that in early eras units are building their own boats locally for sea voyages, which did happen in societies without centralised shipyards. It's a bit less plausible once you're talking about galleons and industrial transports, but no moreso than having armies in the field for centuries at a stretch...

You only need an aircraft carrier if you want to send any aircraft units across the ocean, which is the only naval carrier in the game. I've never seen that happen before in a game though.

I haven't done it much if at all in Civ VI, but in Civ V it was pretty useful as a way of adding range to nuclear weapons. I think the main reason it hasn't come up as much in Civ VI is that fractal/shuffle maps I tend to default to are much more inclined to form pangaeas - and aside from the specific Archipelago map I don't think Civ VI map generation handles island or continent maps as well as Civ V.

 

[Aabraxan]

Well, John Curtin didn't like me very much. I finished the game much slower than I thought, in the early 20th century. This was taken with my cell phone while I was busy clearing my continent. Egypt was the last to fall and Cleo disliked me by over 1800 Warmongering Points, but her screen just wasn't as funny as this one.

 

[Half Nelson]

Welcome back, sounds like you are having fun.
No more Stacks of Doom or corruption to deal with, makes Civ life a lot easier. I have played CivI through to VI and this latest version is the "easiest", but no less fun for that. Deity CivVI is not like I - IV when those merciless AI SoD ravaged your territory:- 1unit per tile has put paid to that nightmare. Wide play is the norm and war-mongering penalties are not so severe as I remember in earlier versions (but watch those negative Diplo points per turn if you tear up the AI). I generally find culture to be the limiting yield in early game and do miss the yield slider which gave so much in-turn flexibility. Switching between different types of economy is a slower business with greater constraints:- there are some powerful civic policies beyond the Medieval era which help. CivVI is a builders paradise compared to some of the earlier versions but, as ever, the quickest way to win is by domination if required. Strategic resource allocation is different from earlier versions, no swords until you have accumulated sufficient iron etc but you don't need a road from your iron mine any more. I have become used to disposable builders with limited charges, but I do miss building my own roads where I wanted them (not where my traders think they should be).

Enjoy!!