[BNW] Can't catch a break

[AJL.]

I've been trying to win quickly and successively with a DV on Immortal level for a long time with not much luck. I have won a few times - like 3. I have looked at threads giving DV advice, and although I try to follow the recommended steps, I can't seem to catch a break.

I watched an ACKEN China DV video, supposedly at Deity level, that was way easier than the Immortal games I attempt and could not relate. His terrain was easy (hardly any jungle, forest or hills impeding him from the beginning), barbarians hardly bothered him, when he arrived at a capital there were 2 units defending it...etc.

I need help, 'cause I'm really getting disheartened. I play pangaea, focus on building an army rather than buildings and wonders. The buildings I do build first are monuments, libraries, markets and aqueducts.

Here are a couple of SC from my current early game as China on Immortal level. As you can see, I am boxed in by CSs and mountains. Getting to Spain will be like going through a funnel - so, tricky. My other nearest neighbor is Austria, behind the CSs, so I'm sure she'll have at least one of those by the time I'm ready to attack her. There are at least FOUR barbarian camps near my 2 cities.

Any advice?

Thanks in advance

 

[Morningcalm]

You are posting in the Civ VI forums...I would ask that a moderator move this thread to the appropriate Civ V forum.

 

[AJL.]

You are posting in the Civ VI forums...I would ask that a moderator move this thread to the appropriate Civ V forum.

I put the BNW suffix before the thread title, so I don't why why I would be in the CivVI forum.

 

[Morningcalm]

I put the BNW suffix before the thread title, so I don't why why I would be in the CivVI forum.

No idea. But you are posting in Civ VI's "Ideas & Suggestions" forum, to be specific. You can see that at the top and bottom of the page.

 

[AJL.]

No idea. But you are posting in Civ VI's "Ideas & Suggestions" forum, to be specific. You can see that at the top and bottom of the page.

Thanks. Will post in Civ 5. Sorry!

 

[Browd]

Moderator Action: Threads merged.

 

[mbbcam]

Others may have a different opinion, but I certainly would not have settled Shanghai there. There is too little production for my taste. Much better to go where there are hills so that you get your buildings and units out quickly. Forests are good because you can chop them for production.

In his Domination guide, Consentient observed that not all maps are "Domination friendly". You have to modify what you do according to the map. I don't like slogging away on unpromising terrain and I get bored easily, so I junk a lot of games before turn 100.

If you have a turn 0 save, some people might play the game to see how well they could do.

 

[AJL47]

Thank you for replying, mbbcam.
I agree, that is not where I would have liked to settle a city, but that's my point. In my Immortal games I am presented with few options.
I settled there because a new lux resource was close (marble) and I was a step closer to making it easier to get to Spain.
If you look at the other SC, you can see that the 'forest option' (next to the CSs and closer to Austria) provided no luxuries.
I would be crippled by unhappiness very early on if I don't build a city near a new lux resource.

 

[mbbcam]

I probably abandon 75% to 80% of maps by turn 30 because I don't like the look of them. This is probably a very high proportion compared to other players, but I am often hoping to do specific things. I wrote a whole post here with some of my thoughts about this:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ty-a-noobs-guide.547630/page-19#post-14872905

Generally, I think the map scripts included in the game are unlikely to give me what I want, so I use Acken's maps, or Hellblazers. They are linked in the post. Try them out. Both of them seem to give a bit more space, and Acken's give more ruins.

The Deity Challenge Lineup and Immortal Challenge Lineup threads both went to some trouble to find or create maps that would give a good game. The Acken video that you mention above was from the Deity Challenge, if I'm not mistaken. See here:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/the-deity-challenge-line-up-16-china.541394/

You could also try the Immortal Challenge maps and compare your efforts with those of other people.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/the-immortal-challenge-lineup-game-1.530598/

Consentient went to a lot of trouble to find decent maps. He used a mod called Rotate Start Positions and (I think) Reseed in an attempt to get a map worth playing. He saved a lot of maps and junked the ones that were no good. I find very few maps that are really satisfying for what I want to do.

And as I said in the other thread, I found this interesting:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-good-players-think-differently-from-new-players.543050/

Generally speaking, I think the best advice (and something I often ignore!) is to play the map rather than try to play a certain strategy regardless of what the map is like. If you do the latter, be prepared for a lot of frustration. The screenshots you posted seem to show a clear opportunity to go coastal, and use cargo ships with Tradition to build science (though I can't see what the coastal tiles are like -- but there does seem to be space to settle there). If you go for Science like crazy, you might well reach Dynamite before anyone else, and then use Artillery to wipe out your opponents. Don't be seduced into thinking (like I usually am) that because China has a unique unit, then that is what you must use for a DomV. The map might force you to abandon that idea and go for something different. It usually seems to be best to adapt to the terrain rather than to try to overcome it. To quote from Consentient's guide:

"Step #2 - Should I always try to Dominate?

It has to be said that although a Domination victory is generally possible, not all maps are what you would call 'Domination-friendly', especially for noobs. There can be many obstacles thrown up by a combination of the civ you're playing, the map type, the map script, and the neighbours. This is not something that can be adequately described in full, but it will come from experience, and some trial and error.

---

Step #3 - Which policy tree do I open? When do I go to war? (The two most important questions)

These decisions can't really be taken independently. You should start with a decision about when you want to go to war, and an assessment of how quickly you think you can win (perhaps assisted by turns 1-15), but it can work the other way around, and you might decide that you want to open a certain tree, and then that will dictate your play.

I advise you to take the first approach in general, as your play will be more optimized to the map. Sometimes Honor is not the best choice and you'll struggle a lot more than if you'd gone Tradition, for example. The problem is that you only have a few turns before you have to choose which tree to open. Despite it being my least favourite of the 3 Domination-friendly trees, I would have to say, grudgingly, that if you are really unsure about which tree to open, Tradition is probably the most forgiving."

Bearing all that in mind, I found this to be an interesting post, with various milestones and branches in the game:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/liberty-domination-walkthrough.503931/page-7#post-12914376

If you set your options to autosave every turn and to save about 300 turns, you can go back and replay from anywhere and see how things could be different with different decisions, like taking Tradition instead of Liberty or Honor, or settling in different spots. In my view it is well worth making these sorts of experiments. It can be very illuminating to see how different the game can be as a result of different decisions at crucial moments. And it can even be VERY different purely as a result of random factors, like the AI settling in one place instead of another.

If you still have your autosave from turn 0, I would recommend starting the game again, going coastal and going Tradition, just to see what the difference is. Use Tabarnak's guide to tall play with food caravans / cargo ships:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/tradition-three-cities-approaches-bnw.25617/

 

[Jack Logan]

They gave you good advice: Shanghai is in bad place according to me too, good place could be a coastal place up on a hill near river on north (if there are lux and fishes). I watched Acken's footage with China and he actually had a legendary start with 2 marbles and 2 stones. Starting position and maps as they said is most important thing. I used to start with Liberty, but now I consider Tradition better imho. I just set 1-2 cities and capture all others. In your screenshot seems Barcelona is the easier to get..

 

[AJL47]

Thanks again, mbbcam.
That is good advice and I really appreciate you taking the time to add all the links. I have a lot to study
I also restart games often because the map is too unfriendly for me!
At the moment my autosaves are set to five, and I sometimes do what you say - go back and try things differently - but I'm going to try what you suggest and save each turn.
Thanks again!

Thank you as well Jack Logan

 

[mbbcam]

You're welcome. NB -- today while reading on the forum, I found this (even superb players have trouble at times!)

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/liberty-domination-walkthrough.503931/page-7#post-12919597

 

[beetle]

I will chime in to reinforce what others are saying: If you want to practice your domination VC games, don’t roll your own maps. Look in this forum for shared T0 games where several people were able to get domination victories. The default maps scripts are not very good, and quite poor for dom-friendly maps.

 

[mbbcam]

@AJL47 By the way, you mentioned watching an Acken video -- you might also try this series of peddroelm doing Honor-Commerce-Autocracy with the Dutch. It's very long (last episode begins turn 281, I think) but it is an extraordinary demonstration, and also quite funny at times. I learned a lot from it, and I should really watch it again.

Cheers.

 

[AJL47]

Thanks so much, mbbcam!

 

[Acken]

They gave you good advice: Shanghai is in bad place according to me too, good place could be a coastal place up on a hill near river on north (if there are lux and fishes). I watched Acken's footage with China and he actually had a legendary start with 2 marbles and 2 stones. Starting position and maps as they said is most important thing. I used to start with Liberty, but now I consider Tradition better imho. I just set 1-2 cities and capture all others. In your screenshot seems Barcelona is the easier to get..

This. Compare what's comparable. If your start sucks a CB rush is gonna be way harder than such a map as the China DCL map.
That said... I can't see why a China player would have trouble once CKN gets introduced regardless of start especially on immortal and whether or not you kill someone with CB has no effect on CKN timing.

Also it's not very clear what you do in your first 50 turns... policies, are you worker stealing etc.

 

[mbbcam]

I can't see why a China player would have trouble once CKN gets introduced regardless of start

@Acken -- you should see me play

There is something wrong with my tactical ability (and most other things, probably) because I always have trouble. Playing England, with Longbows, which ought to be very powerful, I've rarely captured more than one capital (despite getting Machinery on T105-110). I just seem to sit killing units for an age.

 

[Acken]

@Acken -- you should see me play

There is something wrong with my tactical ability (and most other things, probably) because I always have trouble. Playing England, with Longbows, which ought to be very powerful, I've rarely captured more than one capital (despite getting Machinery on T105-110). I just seem to sit killing units for an age.

Maybe a symptom of not having enough and/or being under experienced. While its not necessary to win wars with CBs it helps a lot to fight with them for XP during the first 100 turns.

 

[mbbcam]

My thanks for your kind advice. I would love to think that it is as simple as that, but I think it is more that I am not good at working out how best to position troops. I probably also need to build more roads to help mobility. I suspect I have a tendency to keep my ranged units too far away (perhaps a legacy of playing with Longbows too much) meaning that I don't cause enough damage each turn. But it is very difficult to break the habit. Every time I try, I lose the units and go back to being timid. The mid game is certainly where I struggle most. Perhaps I should replay a few mid-game scenarios to see if I can improve. Openings are easy. And there are plenty of guides on openings, should anyone need suggestions. But I don't think there are really any guides for mid-game precisely because there are too many variables, and it needs judgement of the situation to know what to do.

 

[AJL47]

@Acken
Thanks for joining the chat.
Regarding my first 50 turns, I usually start with Liberty, then Honor. I prioritize building monuments, libraries & markets. If there is the opportunity for getting lots of happiness from religion, I'll build a shrine. Like when you have two or more marble/stone near the capital. I definitely steal workers when I can but sometimes I just can't. For example, I like to play Shoshone and when scouting Pathfinders upgrade to CBs, it becomes more difficult to steal because you need to declare war with the CS first and that usually gives them time to hide/protect their worker. Pathfinders take longer to build than scouts, and while you try to get a monument or a settler built, you might only have one pathfinder out there.
Recently I tried starting a game with Russia. After 35 turns all I had managed to do was keep barbarians at bay with four camps surrounding my two cities. Between protecting the 2 workers I had, trying not lose the cultivated ground I had and fighting off the barbs, there wasn't much room to do much else. I got the camps down to two and then another one popped up!
BTW: For me it is really common to have too much time taken up battling barbs, which really affects getting the ball rolling. I am amazed when I watch other games and many times in the early game the barbs hardly seem to figure at all.