Civ V Player - Having Troubles With Civ 6

Been a long time Civ V player here who's been able to successfully and consistently beat King in that game (never really tried Emperor or above, and have not often used meta strategies such as 4 cities Tradition), but here in Civ 6 I often struggle on King while other players easily eclipse the AI (I smoked the AI on Civ 6 Prince). I can beat King, but I feel like I'm beating it barely. I often have trouble getting wonders, having to much to build at one time, and often have mid-tier culture and lower military numbers (though, this isn't really a problem against the AI, and the AI often gets it's numbers through large numbers of weaker units). and even if I do try for mostly culture, if Peter the Great happens to be in the game he'll often take all of the Great Writers/Artists/Musicians and I have trouble building up culture/tourism in other ways. I even had trouble with this as Pericles! Even score is troubling me in this game, where I often struggle to break 1,000 unless I wipe out my entire continent. Often I'll be in the middle of the pack score-wise until the modern era.

As for strategies, I don't go for huge amounts of cities early game but I try to get a lot of land once I'm ready. I also try to put districts next to each other as opposed to environmental adjacency bonuses as the district-district adjacencies seem to yield more success for my friend and I. I also make sure to use a GPP wildcard policy in the early game to generate points towards great scientists. I send trade routes between my own cities due to the food and production yields.

Now, I have a save attached for a game that's going particularly poorly. I don't know if my somewhat poor start location affected this (only 1 luxury, no iron, little good land near me to settle), but I don't seem to be finding much success in this game (though, I might just need a little momentum). The AI took every wonder I've tried to build, I couldn't get a religion, I'm dead last in culture (though, this is because I haven't built a Theater Square yet) and I'm not doing too well in score either. Saladin is in the lead in score, culture, and science (he's generating 64 bpt as opposed to my 23) and I had a lot of barbarians spawn on top of me in the early game (on the attached save's current turn, a scout swooped in and plundered 2 trade routes of mine at once, the encampment just spawned a couple of turns ago. I don't know if I'm playing badly or if this particular game was a bit unlucky. I know it's winnable but it hasn't been particularly fun. Is there anything in particular that I'm doing wrong? I've just had some trouble making a smooth transition between the two games.

 

Here are the AI bonuses
King

• Resource production:
  • AI gets +8% to Science, Culture and Faith, +20% to Production and Gold.
• Combat and XP scaling:
  • AI receives +1 in combat, player gets nothing.
  • AI receives +10% to unit XP, player gets nothing.
• Research boosts:
  • AI receives 1 free Tech and Civics boost.
• Starting units:
  • AI receives 1 Settler and 2 Warriors at the start of the game, and receives a free Builder when it builds its first district.
• Barbarian camps award 30 gold when cleared.

Emperor

• Resource production:
  • AI gets +16% to Science, Culture and Faith, +40% to Production and Gold.
• Combat and XP scaling:
  • AI receives +2 in combat, player gets nothing.
  • AI receives +20% to unit XP, player gets nothing.
• Research boosts:
  • AI receives 2 free Tech and Civics boosts.
• Starting units:
  • AI receives 2 Settlers, 3 Warriors and 1 Builder at the start of the game.
• Barbarian camps award 30 gold when cleared.

You can still beat the AI but you need to be a little more focused on what you are doing (i.e. focus on a particular victory type)

 

I think that statement probably covers the most of your issue. civ VI really encourages going wide and doing so early with early wars to conquer neighbours.
Poor settling land isn't really an issue as you don't particularly need to grow your cities tall and a lot of 4 pop cities will serve you fine with a commercial district in every city and then a second district of most benefit. If the land is reasonable even going to 7 but i often switch to trying not to grow more in most cities once i reach 7 pop especially now that industrial zones and entertainment districts do stack.

Internal trade routes are generally the best as you already do although there are exceptions such as sending to CS's to get envoys or to other civs to become more familiar with them to find their hidden agendas but if you build a commercial district in every city and harbours where available you should have plenty to go around.
If land is poor around my satellite cities, especially if there is enough food to sustain my desired pop level but nothing really extra so they will take a long time to grow i tend to use my trade routes to get them built up before redirecting trade routes elsewhere and leaving them at their balance point and once they have any needed building i then leave them building district projects so even small cities can end up generating a lot of GPP and resources to your empire..

I generally just build units to start with and get 2 warriors, a builder and 4 archers to wipe out a neighbour and any rubbish CS nearby. Once i have finished of my neighbour i then start to concentrate on settlers and back filling all the land that is now available to me, filling every available space (even if it is just to stop the AI settling in the middle of my empire in the future).
Depending on the situation i also conquer at least some of a second neighbour also and then end up with 15-20 cities.
This usually nets you a lot of luxuries for amenities either directly or in the case of multiples traded for others as well as giving you a much higher possibility of finding strategic resources in your lands.

Not able to get in game at the moment but from memory you will be better using the wild card slot for the envoy boost to get the CS bonuses and even if you don't suzeran them the culture and science is a nice boost. As for getting great scientists i often only bother to build 2 or maybe if i have a really good spot a 3rd campus and seem to get all the great scientists apart from ones bought by the AI using gold or faith. Same with engineers and merchants.
I only tend to lag behind a bit with writers, artists and musicians as many AI seem to favour them and it is generally much better to invest in other things early on then start to seal great works with spies once you have theater districts up and running especially as it seems very quick to get through the culture tree anyway.

 

I don't really like to conquer City-States (I kinda feel bad doing so), but I will try to do more early wars and earlier settling. It's just that there's so much that needs to be built in the early game that I don't always have time to squeeze in lots of settlers. But next time I have a close neighbor I'll try and take them out early on. I also do use that particular policy but I usually have it in the diplomatic slot instead, but I can try and pair it up with the other envoy policy. I'll also try and get those commercial districts up earlier. I've been going for that in my current game but I'll probably start fresh with a new game with your advice in mind. Either way, thank you for your input, I knew I was missing something, though I wasn't sure about going very wide yet since I noticed my friend had some very successful games with only 3 cities.

 

My build order tend to be around Military > Settlers > Districts > Builders. More specifically:

• A sizeable army capable of taking a neighbor (3-4 Archers and 2 Warriors generally do the trick)
• Fit in a Builder for Craftsmanship eureka (and some techs along the way)
• Mass produce Settlers (use the 50% discount card when available)
• Place desired districts whenever they become available so their cost don't increase with future techs (no need to finish them at once, just clearing land for it suffices)
• Fit in more military if you want to keep conquering (Heavy Chariots/Horsemen with Battering Rams/Siege Towers/Catapults after walls are up). You can begin to fit Commercial Hubs, Campi, Industrial Zones and Entertainment Complexes around this time, though don't stop expanding until ~15 cities
• Near the Feudalism civic, use the 30% Builder discount card to produce them until they need 1 turn to complete, then switch to something else; after you research Feudalism, this discount card obsoletes, but you get the 2 extra charge card at the same time.
• While your Builders are on standby with 1 turn left, it's a good time to fit districts and Traders.

Of course, that's the general outline; sometimes I sneak in some Builders for amenities and improvements, and build some more troops when needed. Somewhere in the build order I also fit a Monument for culture; how early depends if I get a culture pantheon, meet cultural City-States or whatever.

I think you just need to focus more on the victory. Don't build a religious wonder when you want a Domination Victory. Don't build many Holy Sites if you want a Science Victory. Cultural Victories rarely demand Encampments. You can conquer that Religious CS if its only benefit is for a Religious Victory you won't go after (yep, I'm gonna conquer Yerevan, so what). Raze a poor located, low-pop city, maybe I can sneak two where there was one (sometimes I raze CS because they block so many tiles).

Focusing on a desired path while expanding and using the right policies at the right time will probably get you on track, and the other yields might come naturally.

 

So, I tried a fresh new game using the advice I was given. I tried building more settlers early on, though I didn't have much of a chance for conquest since the closes neighbor (Poland) had walls up so early that it wasn't worth trying. Several wonders were taken by turn 30 and right now I have people stepping all over me. I'm doing a little better in score and I'm in second for Science. My southmost city was originally in a spot the Germans settled but I took the city, burnt it down, and placed my own city nearby. I also tried to attack a city that Poland had settled right in my face, but as I was attacking it I didn't have catapults yet and they built walls, and then because I didn't have my iron hooked up yet (it was in a really bad spot), her Pikemen and Knights tore through my military (I reloaded a save after this). My 4th settler just came out and was headed towards two spots I wanted to settle, but as my settler was marching to those locations they were settled by Germany and Spain (who's capital is nowhere near me). I'm dead last in culture, though I got my theater square up and should soon have some great works. Everyone hates me for attacking that one German city and now I've got a two-front war of annoyance against the Germans and Spanish.

Maybe the continent was too crowded this time around? I seem to be getting the hang of it just a little bit but I still feel rather helpless.
A save of this new game is attached.

 

What was your starting build order? I usually open with 3-4 Slingers, then a Builder or Warrior, depending on where my closest neighbour is. This way I have my army ready around turn 30, before they have time for walling up. If I see some walls around, I go instead for Battering Rams and Heavy Chariots (or maybe a good Ancient/Classical UU). Rams may be bought and Chariots are quickly built with the 50% discount card.

When did you start producing Settlers? Many times I start building my first Settler in the middle of the war; I feel it's better to take a city from the AI than to build my own. I also rarely raze a city, unless it's in a really bad position.

Have you been actively going for Eurekas/Inspirations? You don't really need a Theatre District unless going for a Cultural Victory; Monuments should suffice early on, and later on run the Meritocracy policy. Expand enough and build enough Monuments and Districts and culture shouldn't be much of a problem.

Also, don't worry if you don't get Stonehenge or other wonders, I believe that most of the time the AI gets Astrology as the free tech boost on King, and is the first thing they build. It's not that great of a wonder, because it's overly competed and its effects are quite lackluster in comparison. Many times it's better to just conquer a wonder than to build it anyway.

Lastly, manage your policies well, especially the production ones. They're invaluable, but don't delay production of units if you need them but don't have the right policy in play. Sometimes it's even worth to pay for a policy change.

 

My starting build order is typically a scout, 2-3 warriors, 2-3 slingers, and then a builder, mixing it up depending on who's around me (I'll prioritize buildings if there's nobody around me).

I do go for eurekas and will often get plenty of Great Scientists to grab extra tech boosts. I usually will build a wonder or two early on but often the AI snipes most of the wonders.

As for policies, I usually plan things out and will switch at the closest interval to different production boosting policies depending on the situation.


In the mean time I've played two full games to completion since last time, one as Norway and one as Brazil, both using the early neighbor conquer strategy. While I didn't have 10-12 cities by turn 100, both of those games ended in a great success for me and with me as the highest score. Though, I then tried to start a religious game as Spain and began running into issues again.

- Barbarian Horsemen - is there an effective way to deal with them without rushing Bronze Working? Their effect on my early game will vary but the amount of damage they do early on can be really crippling, both with their spawn rate and now that they re-added pillage healing for barbarians.

- Troubles getting religion - Even when I deliberately go for one, often all of the religions will be taken before I can get one (in one Spain attempt it said all of the great prophets were taken while the religion overview said "Religions: 5/6").

- Crowded continents - Even with just two other civs, one above and one below, most of the good settling spots will be taken by turn 50 much of the time.

- Certain AI Civs - There are some AI civs that will consistently snowball or be a nuisance in most games I play and out of them the biggest one happens to be the Kongo. I've seen them often play aggressively early on, send out lots of settlers and grab a lot of land early on, and will often be a cultural powerhouse most of the game. I just don't know how they do it, Mbemba feels like this game's Hiawatha. In the Brazil game they even had triple the rest of the world's tourism, but with a little work I was able to slow down their cultural victory and even surpass them in tourism by the end of the game, and was close to winning a cultural victory when I launched the last spaceship part.

I attached a save from the most recent Spain game, and in it's current state I'm about to be destroyed by the Kongo. I delayed my science a little which resulted in me being 7 techs behind the leader, and I was having to constantly build things in the beginning so I just couldn't fit in more units. Am I playing the game too much like Civ V? I just feel like there's too much to build in the beginning of the game and that a lot of my games depend on barbarian activity or whether or not I start on a hill.
Thanks in advance to anyone who helps me out.

 

Lack of focus seems to be the key here. Forget wonders, forget religion and aim to have 10 cities up by turn 100, by grabbing a few cities from nearby neighbors and settling the rest. After that choose which victory you want to go for and concentrate on that. Follow this and you should be able to beat deity.

 

As Spain, religion is a good bonus, but in the end, it's just that: a bonus. You can manage without it.

Focus on military early on (ideally in the first 30 turns or so), then expansion (up to about turn 100), then development (usually when you're going for Feudalism). If you feel you're missing out on wonders, you can always capture them later.

As for your questions:

• Barbarian Horsemen: They're weaker before the majority of players get Horseback Riding. At this stage, a couple of Archers may kill them. Later, you need promoted and/or better troops. The best way of dealing with them, though, is destroying the camp before they spawn. Actively search for camps within 5 tiles from Horses and deal with them accordingly, and send your idling troops to fog-busting duty.
• Religion: It's mostly a bonus. In my experience, the only civs that can consistently get a religion are Arabia (obviously), Russia (half-cost Holy Site with a GPP bonus) or Japan (half-cost Holy Site). If you really want one, target civs with religious bonuses (such as India and Spain), because it's likely they'll have Holy Sites.
• Crowded continents: Where you see lack of space, I see opportunities for conquest. If they forward settle you, make sure they regret their decision.
• AI Civs: The most annoying for me are Sumeria and Aztecs. They're likely to be warmongering in the Ancient Era and have good bonuses for that. Kongo falls easily to an early rush compared to those two. But left alone, Sumeria tends to snowball in science, while Kongo in culture. However, it's not anything that you can't overcome with enough cities and time. Invasions or Joint Wars may help by making them lose their focus.

 

Civ VI certainly cannot be played like CivV at all.
Food has been nerfed (thanks to housing).. no more endless WLTKDs as in CivV and the hanging gardens become utterly useless as a wonder. (now as long as your civ is at +2 amentities they get WLTKD and golden age as long as they are happy).
Districts are everything. Wonders cost huge amounts and only a few great engineers give bonus to wonder production (and even then not really enough to finish a whole wonder from that era). Playing wide and using national parks to keep everyone happy seems to be the key so you basically have to reverse BNW mentality. Forget internal routes unless you are trying to grow a new city. Food pantheons become useless whereas they were super powerful in BNW.
Salt now sucks and spices/furs are the best luxuries. (opposite of BNW again) horses and sheep are overpowered whereas wheat/rice are now mediocre (in BNW it was the opposite thanks to how granary worked back then).

Another thing different is that woods and jungles (now called rainforest) give bonuses scaling according to era when chopped, you can now also harvest deer and stone for bulk production. I almost never hard-build any wonders... I just chop/harvest them out... which is a very broken system. For example: you can finish Sydney opera house faster by settling a new city, rush-chopping a harbor and the wonder itself in 10+ turns or so (with enough gold to buy tiles and workers of course) as long as your new city has several tiles of woods/stone/deer in its 3 rings, when conversely, my size 30 capitol takes 20+ turns to hard-build it. Making infrastructure also pretty useless (hence on deity I don't bother with more than one industrial zone... sometimes not even one). There's a social policy card at the end of the game which grants +5 production from each trade route which completely abrogates the need for any serious production investment altogether.
Military units are best built in the ancient era and then upgraded throughout the ages. Spearmen absolutely suck as usual. Limes (+100% production to walls) is a card that is just begging to be abused (build a wall of any era to within one turn... and get as close to completion as you possibly can), chop/harvest a production resource, and the cog overspill will be doubled because of the policy.
There are just so many broken stuff in CivVI that you can abuse.

Barbs are vicious and attack with a whole carpet of units. One single apostle with the heathen conversion promotion can create a whole army for you (if you are lucky). In BNW barbs were nowhere near the annoyance they are now. Spearmen SUCK against horsemen (contrary to what they were designed for) even with echelon promotion because light cavalry units IGNORE zone of control... the horses just go for your archers in the back. The best way to deal with horse barbs is to use horsemen yourself, or archers on rough terrain behind a river.

Btw cultural victories are the easiest (for me at least... science victories take a longer time) and become easier the more players there are on the map (contrary to BNW). You can get to ~1000+ tourism/turn with just archaelogists and 5+ good (40+ tourism) national parks (assuming you have holy sites and the double faith policy) without getting any GWAM or wonders. Just make sure you have all the correct policies in place. GWAM merely speed up the process.

 

Some points which I'd like to comment on the previous answer.

• Internal routes are still awesome as they give production (and with Caravansaries/Triangular Trade policies, gold). Though it's outclassed after Globalization (which is the very end of the civic tree).
• Also, I like Diamonds, Silver (both give +3 gold, are mineable, and often appear on hills) and Ivory (gives +1 production and +1 gold, often found in woods).
• The hardest victory is Religious, but only because the AI always rushes a religion, and often you get shut out from the religion game.

 

Early expansion is definitely the way to go most of the time especially when there are no close neighbors. In that case you probably want to forgo extra units for an early second city. Scout openings can work well to get early city-state envoys if you are the first to find them which will give you a nice early bonus that lasts all game. Try beelining for early empire and pumping out settlers early. If you have a near neighbor than the slinger/upgrade to archers strategy works extremely well. The AI typically can't handle 3 archers that early (though hopefully this has changed since the patch). Another aggressive tactic that works well is to build mobile units early and try to poach settlers from the AI as they often leave them undefended.

Wonders are pretty tough to get especially on emperor and above. You'll have to be choosy and pick your spots. The pyramids are usually well worth getting early but you have to tailor your strategy towards bronze working for chops and early masonry. It's gets easier as the game progresses once you are able to catch up in tech but you shouldn't be surprised if the AI beats you to them early (very common with Stonehenge). Don't get discouraged if you fall behind in tech - I've had many games where I am dead last in science in the early eras but you can catch up really quickly once you get some campuses going.

 

I think your build order is a big problem. I was stuck on King for a while but have since mastered easy wins on that and Emperor. (Still working on Immortal and higher.) Don't bother building so many melee units so early unless you've got a UU reason. But I play as Trajan most of the time, where that would be true, and I still don't start build Melee until I get Legions. Focus on early Slings and killing barbarians. Play the tech tree to get to Archers, then Crossbows and eventually Field Cannons. As soon as you have an army with at least three archers and some kind of melee unit, you should be ready to take out your closest neighbor and get it done before they get walls up. With luck, including a friendly map, you may take out two of them. A good advice is to settle your first or second city with a settler escorted by the army you invade with. If you have high-bonus crossbows and are careful tactically, you should also be able to take out ancient-walled cities without losing units. By starting them out as slingers, the bonuses accumulate over the course of history quite nicely. This was true in Civ V and IV as well, but the Eurekas and add extra advantages to this strategy in Civ VI. This doesn't necessarily commit you to playing a domination strategy, but it tends to make you the top dog on the continent early and others are afraid to mess with you. If you do this fairly early, you won't pick up much in the way of warmonger status either. Probably good for Domination, Science and Cultural wins, with the latter two not always being exclusively peaceful/defensive. Religion is a bit different and requires a different start strategy.

 

One other early game tip that I haven't seen mentioned -- scout with your free melee unit to uncover the map and meet city states early. This earns you extra envoys with bonuses that can really give you a nice boost early in the game.

 

Thank you everyone for the feedback! ^_^ I did notice that I had the most success when I have more cities early on, usually through conquest, and the Norway and Brazil games I had show that. So I'll continue to follow that strategy.

When I build my early army I'll focus more on ranged rather than extra melee units to make it more efficient, and I'll send out lots of settlers if I have the room. I'll also use the archers for dealing with horsemen now instead of warriors or spearmen, and if I have access to horses I'll bring in a few horsemen of my own. Though, in a game with almost no neighbors, what should the build order be? What should I have in the capital before I start building the settlers?

As for science. I'm usually in the middle of or ahead of the pack, it's just that in the Spain game I posted it ended up with the Kongo coming in with more advanced units when I was a bit behind. I was also going for a Religious victory so I decided to play peaceful, which is why I didn't go after any of the early Kongolese cities.
Either way, I'll make my early games more focused on expansion, even if I'm going for a more peaceful victory, and I'll utilize all of the advice you guys have given me. Coming from so much time in Civ V it's been difficult to adjust my playstyle, but now I'm starting to see which strategies now work. In my next Phillip game I'll be a little more aggressive and try to get to around 10 cities early on.

Oh how the mighty have fallen xD I was wondering what the new best resources were. Though, what are the strengths of Fur and Spices?

 

You can get a Builder in games without neighbors after you build enough troops to repel barbs. But the main difference is being able to make Settlers earlier.

Furs: +1 food, +1 gold, improve with camp
Spices: +2 food, improve with plantation

I personally prefer Silver, Diamonds (both give +3 gold and improvable by mines, adding +3 production after Industrialization) and Ivory (+1 production, +1 gold, improve with camp, which aren't so bad)

 

So, employing these new strategies I have started a new Spain game. I started on an island by myself but made the most of it by quickly expanding to fill it up with 5 cities and had little problems with barbarians at first. I am currently first in science and score. By turn 180 I had conquered the Aztecs (aside from a couple of small cities) and I currently have 10 cities in my possession. However, I'm still running into some problems. Barbarian boats have been an annoyance, and now I have to spend 13 turns repairing one of my harbor districts. I don't have the production to build a navy quickly and any boats I dispatch are usually picked off by pairs of barbarian ships. There's also little luxury diversity, and until a couple of turns before the attached save, I have negative amenities all throughout the empire. Now they are all at 0 or -1, and I have my growth rates slowed to the point where it's really hurting my empire, as the lack of growth means lack of production, so it's really difficult to get things done. I'm also having GPT problems despite all of the land I have along with 6 trade routes. Aside from trading internally, I don't know why I'm having this issue, as I can't even afford to buy anything modern most of the time.

This time around I just don't know what I'm doing wrong. These problems, especially the production issue, are really gonna hurt me in the long run. Did I just get a bad roll?

 

From your first post @Karatekid5 it seems you are going for wonders, they are generally a poor choice to build. Ideally a couple of choice ones during a game at most is a good recommendation.

Know thine enemy.... Greygamer was kind enough to show you the benefits the AI has but also remember, they are bad at organising their cities or putting them in good places. So you need more cities than they tend to have and that is the first priority, whether through expansion or war. Then you need to get those districts in place with money being impirtant. More cities + more districts normally = win.

Production is king,no-one denies this. In civ 5 settling in grassland was great, while in 6 settling with lots of hills is great. If you can beeline up to industrial zones (you do not have to use IZ, just get there) your mines start producing great production. Also beelining to lumber mills.

For civics getting to Feudalism is key, triangles of farms means more population getting production. It s not about huge cities, its about quite a few mid size cities with good production. Also at feudalism worker are 66% more value. There. Is quite a lot of good practice like eurekas that give you benefit used at the right time.

On your way to industrialisation you will pass commercial which is normally best first but campuses are cool also.

I have not looked at your saves but if you saved a turn 1 someone could play it and then say it so you could see how its done from a save you could try yourself.

 

I usually will just go for one wonder early on for the little boost, usually The Oracle to combine it with Divine Spark for some nice GPP bonuses. But I'll be careful about that in my next game and concentrate on the essentials instead.

I did have a city that had lots of hills (much more than flatland), though as a result it had difficulty with housing and growth until it expanded to some fish a few tiles away which had a nifty production and food bonus. Still, I'll be sure to beeline industrial zones earlier on to get those bonuses for mines.

So, I decided to continue the Spain game and have since turned things around. Barbarians have been cleared, I met some new civilizations who were willing to make trades which fixed my problems with amenities (alongside a policy I had in place for awhile), and my cities are now growing and producing better. I also managed to fix my GPT problems with commercial district buildings once the cities that had them got more productive. My population still isn't as great as some of the other civs, but it's much better than it was before and it's allowing for much quicker production, along with more districts for each city.