Civ 6 Openings

[ChocolateShake]

I've been wondering after Victoria's post about Pingala, does Civ 6 have certain "opening moves"? In RTS games there are a few different opening styles that either emphasize a strong early military or setting yourself up for longer term benefits. How do you like to start your games? Have you planned anything new with GS?

 

[Casworon]

I've been playing with two of Fear Suns mods. Adaptive Difficulty and Strategist Difficulty. Makes war against the AI harder without the need to give them tonnes of bonuses that kills builder play. Works well for me.

I can aim for the wonders i want and play a chill builder game. Or when i want i can have intense war games against the AI that are more difficult. Allowing me to have the best of both worlds and enjoy the whole civ experience.

Since playing like this i've actually enjoyed aiming for some of the early wonders. Getting a scout then a builder to improve some production tiles and going for a Stonehenge of a hanging gardens.

 

[Phoenix1595]

I have just cleaned up all my mods ahead of this week’s GS release, and I expect GS will alter my general strategy for the early game, but here is what I do, pre-GS:

- I play with the free scout mod, which alleviates that first few turns crunch of churning out a scout at the expense of defense or infrastructure. Since the mod gives the AI scouts too, I don’t see this as a cheat, and it helps speed up the early game.

- I always build my slinger as my first item. Depending on what my scout and warrior find, including goodie hut units, the second item is either a builder or more military. I have adapted the strategy of poaching settlers if another civ is too close, as they almost always build one once their cap hits 3 pop. Otherwise, I do start on my own asap.

- Unlike a lot of other players here, I do aim for early pantheon/religion. Earth Goddess is amazing, hence the need to nab it early before the AI. For religion, the only belief that I consistently aim for is Religious Texts. This ensures that my religion will be fairly well protected from silly AI missionary waves.

- As for govs, I currently aim for Liang, because she can get my civ infrastructure up going early with free builder charge and the fast GP setup for Ancestral Hall. I have had mixed results with Magnus, so he is not my first choice. Everyone else is up for grabs, and I have used each to varying benefit, depending on the game. This will all change with GS, but I foresee some change (I am intrigued by Moksha’s changes for faith buys...).

This all said, a lot of the GS civs have unique starting traits, so catered starting strategies will be more of a thing now than ever.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I usually start with scout because I hate not seeing what's around.

After that I try to settler if circumstance allow.

 

[Aristos]

Now that the map plays a much stronger role in the game, and especially in openings, it's harder to pinpoint to a meta for the first phase of the game. With that said, yes, there are some openings that may be considered stronger than others, but at the same time, they are much more circumstantial than say the Tradition opener in Civ 5. In other words, the openings are more dynamic, and depend on a variety of factors, including but not limited to what dominating terrain you have around you, the presence of immediate neighbors and who they are, the presence of barbarians and their density, your civ, and others.

For some, Magnus was a meta, but I am not so sure. Now, with the rebalancing, the opposite may be true: Magnus is not a "no-brainer" anymore... if you are lacking room to initially expand and don't want/cannot go early aggression, Pingala is your guy, as long as you can grow your city fast and to the housing cap, at least until you are ready to expand, aggressively or not. You cannot spam settlers with Pingala, as each one of them will take 1S and 1C with it... and on and on. No strong meta anymore (pending the real test, game in our hands, obviously).

 

[Bosque]

I usually play Immortal, but occasionally go up to Deity or down to Emperor, depending on how I am feeling. I also play with the free scout mod, and unless I am playing Deity, I generally start with a monument to hurry through the Civics tree, then go for my first slinger and settler.

 

[Aristos]

I usually play Immortal, but occasionally go up to Deity or down to Emperor, depending on how I am feeling. I also play with the free scout mod, and unless I am playing Deity, I generally start with a monument to hurry through the Civics tree, then go for my first slinger and settler.

... and now Pingala will be your mega monument...

 

[ExemplarVoss]

I've been wondering after Victoria's post about Pingala, does Civ 6 have certain "opening moves"? In RTS games there are a few different opening styles that either emphasize a strong early military or setting yourself up for longer term benefits. How do you like to start your games? Have you planned anything new with GS?

Absolutely it does.

I tend to start with slingers, punctuated by builders if barbarians are unexpectedly light or neighbors are further away. The goal is three archers to make a starting era offensive. A settler and trader tends to happen once the army is on the move. Districts can wait until I'm up to 3-4 cities.

For GS... not really. Most of the civs are generic enough that standard play should work the same. Mauri being an obvious exception, maybe Mali as well.