Advanced era starts: info and ideas?

[WillowBrook]

So, I have a handful of advanced era start achievements left. I have a few questions for discussion:

1) Is there a consolidated list of exactly what bonuses/changes you start with for each era? For example, what units you start with, what units appear for free when you found your first x cities, how many free districts you get and what free buildings come with each district, etc. Also things like wonders from which earlier eras not being available.

2) For those of you who play advanced era starts, what are some of your favorite settings/civs and why? I'm looking for ideas for fun setups. Also, do you have any favorite mods that you think help later era starts?

3) Is there a bug with the amount of territory claimed when founding cities in games with later era starts? I'm playing a modern era start game, and each city I found claims more tiles on founding than the one before, with my eighth city claiming all the second and third ring and a number of fourth ring tiles (and none of those were already claimed by anyone).

Thanks!

 

[Janskey]

I haven't actually tried any advanced era starts myself, but starting units etc. are listed here http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Era_(Civ6) in the "list of eras" section. Missing wonders are not listed, but I think they are not available if they are from two or more eras ago. E.g. ancient wonders are not available in medieval or later starts, classical wonders not available in renaissance or later etc.
You'd think that all this would be in the manual, but apparently not.

 

[bbbt]

There is definitely a bug with the amount of territory claimed in advanced starts, where it starts claiming more and more tiles. Furthermore, I think it actually thinks the 4th ring is the 3rd ring and such, since odd stuff starts happening (which I have to swap out distant tiles that aren't in city range, where the settler lens shows I can't settle in a spot that's definitely far enough from a city (but then still lets me settle), some distant national parks, etc.)

Despite that, I enjoy playing advanced starts every few games, I feel like it gives me a chance to use some of the later era stuff (instead of essentially decided I've snowballed already or the like). Also, building lots of districts in like 1 turn has it's appeal

I mainly skew towards civs that don't have a lot of earlier era bonuses - i.e. I'm probably not going to play China or Sumeria as a late start, for instance. Germany, Rome, France (depending on the era you start), any of the others. And frankly, when achievement hunting, I used the advanced starts to get some wins with civs I wasn't that interested in playing all the way through (sorry Spain!).

 

[WillowBrook]

I haven't actually tried any advanced era starts myself, but starting units etc. are listed here http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Era_(Civ6) in the "list of eras" section. Missing wonders are not listed, but I think they are not available if they are from two or more eras ago. E.g. ancient wonders are not available in medieval or later starts, classical wonders not available in renaissance or later etc.
You'd think that all this would be in the manual, but apparently not.

Great source of starting bonuses, thanks!

It doesn't have district info, though - in my current modern era start, I seem to be getting an unlimited number of 1-turn districts (limited only by the standard pop cap), and I expect that the free buildings that come with a district varies by era start. For example, with a modern start, it appears that you get the first two campus and HS buildings free, no free encampment buildings, and the first building for all the other ones I've built.

 

[Janskey]

I took a look at the xml files and the info you are looking for is in eras.xml. On my system it is found in C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Sid Meier's Civilization VI/Base/Assets/Gameplay/Data/Eras.xml
Starting buildings for each era are listed near the end of the file.

 

[WillowBrook]

I took a look at the xml files and the info you are looking for is in eras.xml. On my system it is found in C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Sid Meier's Civilization VI/Base/Assets/Gameplay/Data/Eras.xml
Starting buildings for each era are listed near the end of the file.

That file is quite helpful, thanks!

If I get ambitious, I'll list the differences for each advanced start in English in this thread. The more likes this post gets, the more likely I'll do it

Edit: I should note that I haven't figured out yet how the district cost works with advanced starts; I welcome observations from anyone who has paid close attention to this. With a modern start, they're all free (one turn).

 

[kaspergm]

I like slightly advanced starts, mostly classical or medieval era starts. It can be a nice way to skip some of the very slow early game and plunge directly into the action. I feel civs like France, England or America benefit very nicely from later era starts.

With regards to the district costs for advanced starts, it's about as much in the dark as the general district cost mechanism. It seems like you get a certain number of districts at discounted cost/free, with the number going up the later start you play. Whether it's a global count or a count per city I'm not quite sure.

 

[Canadian Bluebeer]

Districts tend to be 1 turn up to a point, based on the start era.
The later the era, the more districts you get.
This is for the settlers you start with btw, I can't remember for new ones that you found.



(I went through them all to get the achievements)

 

[WillowBrook]

Districts tend to be 1 turn up to a point, based on the start era.
The later the era, the more districts you get.
This is for the settlers you start with btw, I can't remember for new ones that you found.



(I went through them all to get the achievements)

There seem to be, for all practical purposes, an unlimited number with a modern start - in the game I just finished, I had seven (one of them a neighborhood) in one city and it still showed the next one as 1-turn. And that city was founded by a self-built settler, not one of the free ones.

In my future advanced-era starts, I will track districts more carefully.