Civ 6 pvp vs pvm, what's the difference?

[rgp151]

These days I simply don't have time for pvp. I enjoy pvm games, especially turn based games, because I'm able to play them at my own pace, as I have time. However, back in the day I was quite active in games like Age of Empires, Starcraft, and even Warcraft prior to that, so I'm still quite interested in pvp, even if I'll never actually play it.

So what really sets pvp apart from pvm? In pvm I often go for Classical era conquest and really like civs with some sort of major boost that occurs in the classical or even ancient era. I'm not much of turtler, and prefer continuous expansion, either though Settlers or conquest, at least until I reach around 15 cities.

I tend to follow a Tech path that goes up top for Industrialization first, then comes along the bottom to get Steel. I feel like this also gives me time to get most or all of the Eureka's on the path to Steel as well.

I tend to favor gold producing civs and do a lot of purchasing. My strats tend to be very trader heavy and focused on economic powerhouses, like Persia, Kongo, Spain, Cree, Ethiopia, Malian and Rome.

I can imagine that these strats may not be nearly as good in pvp.

I would assume that combat focused civs would be better in pvp. Is early rushing a thing? I've often favored pvp starts that involve early rushes. I would think that civs like Nubia, Rome, Mongolia, and Macedonia would dominate, maybe Gorgo as well and of course Aztec if on tiny maps.

Is this the case? How do pvp matches usually progress?

 

[Leyrann]

In PvP, the usual strategy is to expand and build up your economy at the same time, often with an early focus on culture that transitions into science a bit later on, and to then hit the lategame power spike of armies, tanks, artillery, great general and fascism as early as possible, because if you beat your neighbor to it, you can pretty much conquer them for free. Practically nothing can stop a properly executed tank rush - even tanks may not be enough.

Early rushing tends to lead to stalemates, as defense is easier, attacking units are slower, and it is much more difficult to break walls at that point in the game, mostly because in the lategame it becomes much easier to get move and shoot on your siege weapons, as you get that from any siege weapon that has more than 2 max movement, even if they do not have the required promotion - this is part of what makes a great general so important, though a supply convoy can provide the same thing. Even if you manage to win an early rush, you often spend so many resources on units that you're irrevocably behind on any other players in the game, and the only thing you achieved is not being last. The exception is of course team games, if you're in a bad position, but your neighboring enemy is in a good position, warring them can give your team as a whole an advantage. In addition to that, there are of course team games where you end up surrounding an enemy, and in a 3v1 it's much more possible to conquer an enemy without becoming irrelevant.

For the tech paths, the way I understand it (mind, my knowledge comes from watching tournament streams, not from playing myself) you'll usually want to go for the bottom tree first because otherwise you're too far behind in military - to illustrate, you can unlock tanks without requiring Mathematics or Sailing - but if you're playing team games, it's best if at least one player on the team goes top tree because you unlock eurekas from techs your teammates have already researched but you haven't.

I can't really say which civs are strong in PvP as I haven't watched enough of it to say for sure. On top of that most PvP games are played with Better Balanced Game, which makes at least some changes to most civilizations. In team games you usually want a balance between gold generation, military, et cetera, though as I understand it, it's also quite common to go for a culture victory strategy where one civ goes full culture (usually Canada or something) while their allies play full turtle and try to keep the culture civ safe - this includes the culture civ in the lategame spamming rock bands on their ally. I've not actually seen it win but my sample size is small enough that I can't say whether it's a trap strategy or actually good.

Oh, one other thing - in PvP, at least on higher levels, if you don't get your classical era golden age, you're pretty much screwed; it's absolutely vital.

 

[Tech Osen]

Just curious: what does the m stand for in pvm? I'm used to the pvp vs pve terminology.

 

[rgp151]

Just curious: what does the m stand for in pvm? I'm used to the pvp vs pve terminology.

Oh I guess pvm and pve are the same thing. Player vs Monster / Player vs Machine. I guess pvm is more of a Diablo thing