Sknubbinateur
Chieftain
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2019
- Messages
- 41
Updated post in Apr 2020 for anyone who might find this useful.
Here are the most useful tips and bits of information that I found on these forums and elsewhere while learning the game (personal preference). Hopefully it can be useful to someone else to have them in one place.
Thanks all for turning a borderline broken game (AI, UI, unclear mechanisms) into something amazing.
Civ VI tips / clarifications:
Settings:
standard game configuration:
- Fast speed (+25%) / small map – best way to learn all aspects of the game. If faster game speed, map needs to be smaller, because unit movement speed is unaltered. With fast game but normal map, unit speed becomes relatively slow, and defender can have upgraded to a later era by the time attacker arrives
Emperor difficulty with smoother difficulty 2.0 mod with tourism
- Balanced starting locations
- Use map like 'Small Continents' to avoid isolation (Fractal: can get a whole massive continent on your own together with many city states, and have all other civs spawn on a separate continent altogether)
- Disaster settings 4 ('hyperreal'), otherwise they have only minor impact/no risk
Other settings: Game: activate Quick Combat, Quick Movement. Interface: disable 'auto unit cycle'; always open production queue; enable sliding at the edge of the screen; always show everything (resources, yields) (esp. as new player); assignments: next city, previous city: [ , ]
set Z as hotkey for "next action"
Disaster settings 4 ('hyperreal'), otherwise have only minor impact/no risk
Always show everything (new player) (resources, yields)
General:
If playing non-English version watch out for wrong tooltips in translation! French version: bélier (battering ram) DOES affect ancient walls
City planning:
- Lock in production cost by placing the district; finish it later.
No disadvantage in going wide, amenities are more dispersed but you also need more amenities per population in a city (so you need less with settlers pumped out)!
Roads don't auto-upgrade, but if you get to a new era, your trader will essentially lay down the new road. So if you have an old path to a city, you might have a classic road between 2 cities, but an industrial road where your new trader path goes.
So: keep trader on important land routes. Not just most money.
Build road to other civ by reading with them, then later attack.
- When you start a domestic Trade Route, the city of ORIGIN will receive Food and Production, depending on the districts at the DESTINATION city. Simply transfer all domestic trade routes to originate FROM new city and it grows like crazy. No other district allows you to accelerate growth like the commercial hub.
- Settling strategy: Forward-settle aggressively and fill up backspace after! (AI might DoW, be prepared, also check loyalty)
Then: build cities close together!! Easier adjacency of districts; bonuses for 'all cities within 6 tiles' of wonders (best: Colosseum: 3 amenities+2 cultures per city centre in range), entertainment amenities, electricity; more space for cities on river, fewer empty tiles after chopping (when you build districts on them) etc
Use city overlap lens (more lenses mod) to find tiles that are within 6 range of the highest number of cities
Put map tack on barbarian camp when you find it or use barbarian lens
Use wonder (and resource) lens to find nice cities to conquer
Pillaged tiles can be trivially repaired as long as you leave a couple builders hanging around with 1 charge left (since repairs do not cost a charge)
1 charge builders become 2 charge after building pyramids which is another reason to keep them
can use 1-charge builders as explorers.
Builders are allowed to embark, land units (meaning scouts) are not. The barbs are not out in force on the coast yet. And if the barbs do capture him on land, okay...just so long as the builder is not too far away. Just a little bit of exploring can get done. You may get lucky, and grab an envoy or a eureka (goodie huts)
Can also use great ppl as explorers but this is lame (use all great men are mortal + loyalty from great generals mods)
Flexible template for city dev:
1.Trade route district (I prefer harbors if gold is not an imminent issue, because the lighthouse gives housing that the market does not).
2.Win condition district (Campus / Theatre Square / Holy Site).
3.situational district eg. something with a good adjacency bonus, IZ if it has good overlap, encampment if it borders an aggressive neighbour, or just campus / theatre square to help with raw yields.
Buildings in other districtssometimes add housing, such as the Barracks in the Encampment district, the University in the Campus, and the Lighthouse in the Harbor
Units:
- Use Light Cav with Escort Mobility promotion to move siege units around quickly
the cost-efficiency drops when producing later-era units. This highlights the importance of trying to build your army as early as possible, keeping it alive, and upgrading it with gold instead of producing units later in the game. (Assuming you wish to build a strong army). Yes, this cost-efficiency is displaced by the gold used to upgrade, but using gold is much better than production, plus you get to keep promotions which can be a massive advantage.
Ignoring gold costs, a warrior built with 0.5 cost-efficiency (and upgraded to Mechanized Infantry) gives you 3.5x the "bang-for-your-buck" that a Mechanized Infantry will give you, produced in the Information era at only 0.14 cost-efficiency
- City centre=district. Hypaspist bonus fighting against 'districts' applies to cities themselves!
- Don't spend the last charge on your apostles and over time you will end up with a wave of them that can use your opponents' religious units to spread your religion. After your apostles have eliminated all of their religious units, your missionaries can move in and finish the job.
- A captured spy is not lost forever but can be recovered through trade with the capturing civilisation. However, it keeps counting towards the spies limit while in captivity, so if your spies get captured and the civ does not want to trade them back, you can't use more spies for a long while!
City states:
- You can encouarge a CS to make more troops by sending them trade routes (gold to them) and improve their land with your builders. Sending more envoys also increases their land size so potentially more production
- Levy city state units on the other side of the world, upgrade them and attack with them is a very fast way of colonizing distant shores as well as exploring their interior.
- Levy city states units and then use them to form a barrier around the CS forcing the AI to either stop attacking the CS or declare war on you.
Combat:
In neutral territory your units heal twice as fasf as in enemy territory, in friendly territory 3x as fast, in your own territory 4x as fast.
Line of sight:
LOS distance is the number of tiles to the target tile including the target tile but not including the source tile.
Most units have a LOS distance of 2 tiles. Some units have a longer range (listed at the end of this document)
You can always see hills and mountains at +1 LOS range if there is a clear LOS. Being on a hill or in a city centre does not increase your LOS range.
LOS Terrain
Hill and mountain tiles have a height value that will block LOS when a unit is on a lower height value (flat ground and water can be considered height 0).
Obstacles in a source tile do not block vision out of it nor do they hide units in the target tile. They do add to the height value of an intervening tile for vision purposes.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/civ-vi-los.27654/
Pillaging is worth so much at the moment that when you go to war with someone pillage the CS as well. These often have really good returns in a small area.
Pillaging districts reduces a city centre's defence by 2 str.
The garrison attack is a city ranged attack which can only be used when the city has walls and these have not been reduced to 0 HP
When each of the 6 tiles that surround a city are occupied by an enemy unit or are within an enemy units ZOC (Zone of Control) the city is considered under siege and its garrison will not heal each turn. If the defender has units in these 6 tiles it does NOT negate the siege effects.
if the city is adjacent to water we aware that embarked land units only have a ZOC in the water tile they occupy.
Be very aware of cities spawning additional units. You are often better off bleeding a civ’s units dry before attacking cities as they can buy units which, if the city is under siege will get placed OUTSIDE OF YOUR UNITS and can cause significant interference if you cannot take the city fast.
A city gains 2 shots with Victors Embrasure promotion.
A city ranged attack will target with the same rules as ranged, the weakest modified strength unit within range.
Regardless of the way you attack a city you must be aware of which unit the city will shoot at. This allows you to minimize losses and misdirect fire. For example, attacking with a catapult and a warrior, the city will attack the warrior but attack with catapult and swordsmen and the city will attack the catapult so it may be best to have a non-upgraded warrior to misdirect fire from the catapult.
3 complete turns without being attacked before you can repair walls.
When an encampment is occupied all its buildings are automatically pillaged.
City states gain +1 strength per envoy.
Loyalty:
- it is not just the enemies cities affecting you, CS also do (?)
- Smaller cities are harder to keep! Smaller cities allow the pressure ratio against you to get higher
when you settle a city or capture a city that is 1 pop it is highly vulnerable to loyalty. A captured or disloyal city grows very slowly if at all (~-75%) and so it is just a matter of time before it flips unless you can get the population up fast. Buy a granary and chop wheat/cows/rice/fish/jungle often is enough to overcome loyalty issues. A pop 5 city would need roughly 15 pop of foreign pressure to keep flipping you fast.
- When the city lacks food for its population -4 local loyalty is applied to the city . Sacking an enemy city's lands will make a city starve for -4 loyalty and possibly even get -3 or -6 loyalty from unhappiness.
- After capturing a free city it will be at 50% loyalty. The very small population growth means making farms and improving land has little effect until you are over 75%.
- Build entertainment districts around (for bread and games project) + amenities! Key rule of thumb is be happy: Governor + ecstatic = -6 (Amani + 2 loyalty cards = 0!)
- The Statue of Liberty guarantees that every city within 6 tiles always has 100% loyalty to your civilization
With high chopping ability you can settle a city next to the opponent, chop in the statue and get 2 settlers that will settle near that city to provide a powerful fast loyalty attack with cities that cannot switch, especially chopping in population and ED for bread and circuses.
- Spy can do up to -35% loyalty (+5% per level) (?)
- You can take opponent's city which will then flip to a free city after revolting at 0 loyalty. Take that again and you avoid the -18-diplomacy penalty with them. (? test)
War weariness points(base 16 + era points(8-16-24-32)
* 1 for combat in allied lands
* 2 for combat in foreign lands
* 3 for killed unit
War weariness is applied to both parties in combat, attacker and defender, so it always goes up.
One example: i attack and kill a unit in neutral territory(foreign lands for the calculation) so my war weariness is base 16 + era points 32=48 * 2 = 96
the defender's war weariness is base 16+era points 32=48 *2(combat in foreign lands=96)48 *3(killed unit=144)=240
Players lose 1 amenity every 400 war weariness points.
Amenity loss occurs to your city with the highest population up to a certain point and then the next highest.
Cities originally owned by the civs you are at war with go first (and suffer additional penalties)
Cities founded by you go last
-50 for every turn at war
-2000 for declared peace
-200 for every turn at peace
loyalty penalty is proportional to the grievances you have inflicted. It is hard capped at -10 and it goes down with the grievance decay.
If you wipe out a civilization, the loyalty penalty goes away
Pillaging increases war weariness for the opponent, reducing their amenities. This also helps loyalty flip. Pillaging luxury resource tiles especially effective.
Diplomacy:
Grievances in multiplayer also still reduce diplomatic favor (can also get negative amounts per turn). Producing too much co2 also generate negative dip favor
Maintaining an Alliance with a player (it doesn't matter which one exactly) accrues Alliance Points over time (Trade Routes with them also do), and when enough points have been gathered, your Alliance level with this players increases. There are three levels, each one offering more powerful benefits which stack with the earlier ones. You can speed up Alliance point accumulation by sending or receiving Trade Routes from your ally, or by using specific Policies.
Your Visibility of a civilization is improved by the following factors, which are cumulative unless otherwise noted:
Sending them a Trade Delegation or Establishing an Embassy in their capital (These two are not cumulative among them)
Having a Trade Route with them.
Being Allies with them or having a Spy create a Listening Post in one of their cities. These two actions do not stack - unlike in the real world, you don't spy on your allies.
Researching the Printing technology increases your Visibility of all civilizations by one level.
Diplomatic Visibility is mostly independent of your relationship with a leader. Having a Delegation or Embassy improves relationships a bit, and having a very good relationship is required to create an Alliance. Other than that, Visibility and relationship are not connected.
Visibility has military implications!! If you attack a civilization your levels of Diplomatic visibility will be compared, and the party which has a higher level will receive a permanent bonus in every military encounter - this is known as 'Intel on enemy movements' and consists of +3 Combat Strength per level of difference, leading to the maximum bonus of 12 Combat Strength (happening when one civilization has access level of None and the other Top Secret on one another).
This bonus is also active during theological combat!
Declared friends cannot Declare war on each other, cannot Denounce each other or call for Emergencies against each other in the special World Congress (eg when the other conquers a city state) and are ready to make Alliances at any moment.
Civilizations can send delegations to their rivals for a fee. Delegations improve relations a bit and increase diplomatic visibility by one level. Once sent, delegations stay permanently in the target civilization.
When a rival contacts you to send you a delegation they mention some sort of 'gift'. If you accept their delegation you receive that 'gift' in the form of 25 Gold (the same amount you spend to send a Delegation yourself). The same is valid when you receive an Embassy, but the sum doubles.
Once you develop Diplomatic Service your delegations are 'revoked', and you lose all their benefits. Delegations are then replaced with Resident Embassies. An Embassy is practically the same as a Trade Delegation. They improve relations a bit and increase Visibility by one level.
If a rival Denounces you or is at war with you, they remove your Embassy or Delegation from their Capital in a sign of diplomatic reprisal. You can establish them again if your relations improve.
A promise from another leader only costs diplomatic favor if they agree.
Open borders: good for culture victory. Your nation's Tourism enjoys a +25% boost towards them.
Alliances give +1 diplo favor per turn
Alliances become possible after developing the Civil Service civic. You can only enter an Alliance with a nation you're Declared Friends with.
As the alliance continues over time, its benefits will increase! Maintaining an Alliance with a player (it doesn't matter which one exactly) accrues Alliance Points over time, and when enough points have been gathered, your Alliance level with this players increases. There are three levels, each one offering more powerful benefits which stack with the earlier ones. You can speed up Alliance point accumulation by sending or receiving Trade Routes from your ally, or by using specific Policies
allies don't automatically gain Shared visibility. You still gain visibility on units, but territorial visibility will only enter into effect in other circumstances (for example when reaching level 2 of a Military Alliance, or whenever participating in an Emergency).
Allies automatically sign a Defensive Pact and are obligated to come to each other's aid in case a third nation opens hostilities against either one (And Defensive Pacts cannot be signed outside Alliances). Defensive Pacts don't force an ally to participate in 'aggressive' wars. Emergencies do not trigger defensive pacts.
Build spy asap, use to siphon funds from richest civ (see in HUD on top). One of the missions with highest success rate = lvls up spy.
World Congress:
The Outcome the player voted for won with a different target than the one they voted for: 50% refund.
The Outcome the player voted for lost: 100% refund of Diplomatic Favor spent
Ties are broken by the proportion of Diplomatic Favor a player commits.
every nation which voted for the outcome/target combo that eventually won gets 1 Diplomatic victory point.
If a nation decides to vote against enacting a Scored Competition, this nation won't participate and won't be able to win any rewards.
Eras:
The price of buying tiles will go up with Individual Eras.
Techs and civics from eras before the World Era cost 20% less.
Techs from eras after the World Era cost 20% more.
Thanks to: Victoria, MegaBearsFan, tempest.of.emptiness, Civpedia authors
Mods I find essential, working together as of Apr 2020:
AI:
Real Strategy
Smoother Difficulty 2.0
UI:
Alternate Policy Screen, Better Leader Icon, Better Loading Screen, Better Report Screen, Better Tech Tree, Better Unit List, Enhanced Mod Manager, Even More Reports, Fast Forward AI Turns, Happiness and Growth Indicators, Map Search Extension, More Lenses, Policy Change Reminder, Real Era Tracker, Real Housing from Improvements, Global Relations Panel, Quick Start, Sukritact’s Simple UI adjustments, Suzerain at a glance, Tactical Camera, WASD Camera Panning, Z Unit Selection, (Better Civilopedia – not working with translated game versions)
Graphics/flavour: Real Great People, Real Great Musicians, CHMZ Enhanced, Unique District Icons
Small balance changes: Rebalanced Rock Bands (no ‘all or nothing’), All Men Are Mortal (doesn’t make any sense if great people can just explore around with zero risk), Loyalty from Great Generals (compensates), Happy Districts (making Appeal more relevant for all victory types), Inland Flooding and Climate Change, Oasis Caravanserai, Real Balanced Pantheons (AI), Level 3 City State Rewards
Slightly more diversity: Real Nobel Prize, District Production Bonuses for Units, Community World Wonders, Steel & Thunder, Civitas City States + Mekong
Balance: for online speed only:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1368312893
Maps: Nere’s Seven Seas, (still looking for functioning mods with good small maps)
(AUTHORS in no particular order: Infixo, JNR, Sukritact, Nerevatar, p0kiehl, DB, FinalFreak16, Ranga, Deliverator, bolbas, astog, _Zur_13, lockstep, Faronizer, Aristos, CIVITAS group, qqqbbb, eudaimonia, MiniRagnarok – sorry if I missed anyone)
‘Expansions’ (after mastering base game – haven’t tried yet): Quo’s Spheres of Influence (more asymmetry), Extended Techtree, Religion Expanded, Historical Religions, Ancient Egyptian Pantheons, Magnum Opus (Great Persons) Terra Mirabilis (natural wonders), Real Building Upgrades, Urban Complexity Energy mods, Resourceful 2, Unearthed (Artifacts & Relics expansion)
Reference sheets (unsure if all up to date):
https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/d8bzrn/civilization_vi_gathering_storm_district_cheat/
https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/eeq4el/civ_6_district_and_wonder_cheat_sheet/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/district-reference.26982/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/unit-upgrade-path-cheat-sheet.605200/
Here are the most useful tips and bits of information that I found on these forums and elsewhere while learning the game (personal preference). Hopefully it can be useful to someone else to have them in one place.
Thanks all for turning a borderline broken game (AI, UI, unclear mechanisms) into something amazing.
Civ VI tips / clarifications:
Settings:
standard game configuration:
- Fast speed (+25%) / small map – best way to learn all aspects of the game. If faster game speed, map needs to be smaller, because unit movement speed is unaltered. With fast game but normal map, unit speed becomes relatively slow, and defender can have upgraded to a later era by the time attacker arrives
Emperor difficulty with smoother difficulty 2.0 mod with tourism
- Balanced starting locations
- Use map like 'Small Continents' to avoid isolation (Fractal: can get a whole massive continent on your own together with many city states, and have all other civs spawn on a separate continent altogether)
- Disaster settings 4 ('hyperreal'), otherwise they have only minor impact/no risk
Other settings: Game: activate Quick Combat, Quick Movement. Interface: disable 'auto unit cycle'; always open production queue; enable sliding at the edge of the screen; always show everything (resources, yields) (esp. as new player); assignments: next city, previous city: [ , ]
set Z as hotkey for "next action"
Disaster settings 4 ('hyperreal'), otherwise have only minor impact/no risk
Always show everything (new player) (resources, yields)
General:
If playing non-English version watch out for wrong tooltips in translation! French version: bélier (battering ram) DOES affect ancient walls
City planning:
- Lock in production cost by placing the district; finish it later.
No disadvantage in going wide, amenities are more dispersed but you also need more amenities per population in a city (so you need less with settlers pumped out)!
Roads don't auto-upgrade, but if you get to a new era, your trader will essentially lay down the new road. So if you have an old path to a city, you might have a classic road between 2 cities, but an industrial road where your new trader path goes.
So: keep trader on important land routes. Not just most money.
Build road to other civ by reading with them, then later attack.
- When you start a domestic Trade Route, the city of ORIGIN will receive Food and Production, depending on the districts at the DESTINATION city. Simply transfer all domestic trade routes to originate FROM new city and it grows like crazy. No other district allows you to accelerate growth like the commercial hub.
- Settling strategy: Forward-settle aggressively and fill up backspace after! (AI might DoW, be prepared, also check loyalty)
Then: build cities close together!! Easier adjacency of districts; bonuses for 'all cities within 6 tiles' of wonders (best: Colosseum: 3 amenities+2 cultures per city centre in range), entertainment amenities, electricity; more space for cities on river, fewer empty tiles after chopping (when you build districts on them) etc
Use city overlap lens (more lenses mod) to find tiles that are within 6 range of the highest number of cities
Put map tack on barbarian camp when you find it or use barbarian lens
Use wonder (and resource) lens to find nice cities to conquer
Pillaged tiles can be trivially repaired as long as you leave a couple builders hanging around with 1 charge left (since repairs do not cost a charge)
1 charge builders become 2 charge after building pyramids which is another reason to keep them
can use 1-charge builders as explorers.
Builders are allowed to embark, land units (meaning scouts) are not. The barbs are not out in force on the coast yet. And if the barbs do capture him on land, okay...just so long as the builder is not too far away. Just a little bit of exploring can get done. You may get lucky, and grab an envoy or a eureka (goodie huts)
Can also use great ppl as explorers but this is lame (use all great men are mortal + loyalty from great generals mods)
Flexible template for city dev:
1.Trade route district (I prefer harbors if gold is not an imminent issue, because the lighthouse gives housing that the market does not).
2.Win condition district (Campus / Theatre Square / Holy Site).
3.situational district eg. something with a good adjacency bonus, IZ if it has good overlap, encampment if it borders an aggressive neighbour, or just campus / theatre square to help with raw yields.
Buildings in other districtssometimes add housing, such as the Barracks in the Encampment district, the University in the Campus, and the Lighthouse in the Harbor
Units:
- Use Light Cav with Escort Mobility promotion to move siege units around quickly
the cost-efficiency drops when producing later-era units. This highlights the importance of trying to build your army as early as possible, keeping it alive, and upgrading it with gold instead of producing units later in the game. (Assuming you wish to build a strong army). Yes, this cost-efficiency is displaced by the gold used to upgrade, but using gold is much better than production, plus you get to keep promotions which can be a massive advantage.
Ignoring gold costs, a warrior built with 0.5 cost-efficiency (and upgraded to Mechanized Infantry) gives you 3.5x the "bang-for-your-buck" that a Mechanized Infantry will give you, produced in the Information era at only 0.14 cost-efficiency
- City centre=district. Hypaspist bonus fighting against 'districts' applies to cities themselves!
- Don't spend the last charge on your apostles and over time you will end up with a wave of them that can use your opponents' religious units to spread your religion. After your apostles have eliminated all of their religious units, your missionaries can move in and finish the job.
- A captured spy is not lost forever but can be recovered through trade with the capturing civilisation. However, it keeps counting towards the spies limit while in captivity, so if your spies get captured and the civ does not want to trade them back, you can't use more spies for a long while!
City states:
- You can encouarge a CS to make more troops by sending them trade routes (gold to them) and improve their land with your builders. Sending more envoys also increases their land size so potentially more production
- Levy city state units on the other side of the world, upgrade them and attack with them is a very fast way of colonizing distant shores as well as exploring their interior.
- Levy city states units and then use them to form a barrier around the CS forcing the AI to either stop attacking the CS or declare war on you.
Combat:
In neutral territory your units heal twice as fasf as in enemy territory, in friendly territory 3x as fast, in your own territory 4x as fast.
Line of sight:
LOS distance is the number of tiles to the target tile including the target tile but not including the source tile.
Most units have a LOS distance of 2 tiles. Some units have a longer range (listed at the end of this document)
You can always see hills and mountains at +1 LOS range if there is a clear LOS. Being on a hill or in a city centre does not increase your LOS range.
LOS Terrain
Hill and mountain tiles have a height value that will block LOS when a unit is on a lower height value (flat ground and water can be considered height 0).
Obstacles in a source tile do not block vision out of it nor do they hide units in the target tile. They do add to the height value of an intervening tile for vision purposes.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/civ-vi-los.27654/
Pillaging is worth so much at the moment that when you go to war with someone pillage the CS as well. These often have really good returns in a small area.
Pillaging districts reduces a city centre's defence by 2 str.
The garrison attack is a city ranged attack which can only be used when the city has walls and these have not been reduced to 0 HP
When each of the 6 tiles that surround a city are occupied by an enemy unit or are within an enemy units ZOC (Zone of Control) the city is considered under siege and its garrison will not heal each turn. If the defender has units in these 6 tiles it does NOT negate the siege effects.
if the city is adjacent to water we aware that embarked land units only have a ZOC in the water tile they occupy.
Be very aware of cities spawning additional units. You are often better off bleeding a civ’s units dry before attacking cities as they can buy units which, if the city is under siege will get placed OUTSIDE OF YOUR UNITS and can cause significant interference if you cannot take the city fast.
A city gains 2 shots with Victors Embrasure promotion.
A city ranged attack will target with the same rules as ranged, the weakest modified strength unit within range.
Regardless of the way you attack a city you must be aware of which unit the city will shoot at. This allows you to minimize losses and misdirect fire. For example, attacking with a catapult and a warrior, the city will attack the warrior but attack with catapult and swordsmen and the city will attack the catapult so it may be best to have a non-upgraded warrior to misdirect fire from the catapult.
3 complete turns without being attacked before you can repair walls.
When an encampment is occupied all its buildings are automatically pillaged.
City states gain +1 strength per envoy.
Loyalty:
- it is not just the enemies cities affecting you, CS also do (?)
- Smaller cities are harder to keep! Smaller cities allow the pressure ratio against you to get higher
when you settle a city or capture a city that is 1 pop it is highly vulnerable to loyalty. A captured or disloyal city grows very slowly if at all (~-75%) and so it is just a matter of time before it flips unless you can get the population up fast. Buy a granary and chop wheat/cows/rice/fish/jungle often is enough to overcome loyalty issues. A pop 5 city would need roughly 15 pop of foreign pressure to keep flipping you fast.
- When the city lacks food for its population -4 local loyalty is applied to the city . Sacking an enemy city's lands will make a city starve for -4 loyalty and possibly even get -3 or -6 loyalty from unhappiness.
- After capturing a free city it will be at 50% loyalty. The very small population growth means making farms and improving land has little effect until you are over 75%.
- Build entertainment districts around (for bread and games project) + amenities! Key rule of thumb is be happy: Governor + ecstatic = -6 (Amani + 2 loyalty cards = 0!)
- The Statue of Liberty guarantees that every city within 6 tiles always has 100% loyalty to your civilization
With high chopping ability you can settle a city next to the opponent, chop in the statue and get 2 settlers that will settle near that city to provide a powerful fast loyalty attack with cities that cannot switch, especially chopping in population and ED for bread and circuses.
- Spy can do up to -35% loyalty (+5% per level) (?)
- You can take opponent's city which will then flip to a free city after revolting at 0 loyalty. Take that again and you avoid the -18-diplomacy penalty with them. (? test)
War weariness points(base 16 + era points(8-16-24-32)
* 1 for combat in allied lands
* 2 for combat in foreign lands
* 3 for killed unit
War weariness is applied to both parties in combat, attacker and defender, so it always goes up.
One example: i attack and kill a unit in neutral territory(foreign lands for the calculation) so my war weariness is base 16 + era points 32=48 * 2 = 96
the defender's war weariness is base 16+era points 32=48 *2(combat in foreign lands=96)48 *3(killed unit=144)=240
Players lose 1 amenity every 400 war weariness points.
Amenity loss occurs to your city with the highest population up to a certain point and then the next highest.
Cities originally owned by the civs you are at war with go first (and suffer additional penalties)
Cities founded by you go last
-50 for every turn at war
-2000 for declared peace
-200 for every turn at peace
loyalty penalty is proportional to the grievances you have inflicted. It is hard capped at -10 and it goes down with the grievance decay.
If you wipe out a civilization, the loyalty penalty goes away
Pillaging increases war weariness for the opponent, reducing their amenities. This also helps loyalty flip. Pillaging luxury resource tiles especially effective.
Diplomacy:
Grievances in multiplayer also still reduce diplomatic favor (can also get negative amounts per turn). Producing too much co2 also generate negative dip favor
Maintaining an Alliance with a player (it doesn't matter which one exactly) accrues Alliance Points over time (Trade Routes with them also do), and when enough points have been gathered, your Alliance level with this players increases. There are three levels, each one offering more powerful benefits which stack with the earlier ones. You can speed up Alliance point accumulation by sending or receiving Trade Routes from your ally, or by using specific Policies.
Your Visibility of a civilization is improved by the following factors, which are cumulative unless otherwise noted:
Sending them a Trade Delegation or Establishing an Embassy in their capital (These two are not cumulative among them)
Having a Trade Route with them.
Being Allies with them or having a Spy create a Listening Post in one of their cities. These two actions do not stack - unlike in the real world, you don't spy on your allies.
Researching the Printing technology increases your Visibility of all civilizations by one level.
Diplomatic Visibility is mostly independent of your relationship with a leader. Having a Delegation or Embassy improves relationships a bit, and having a very good relationship is required to create an Alliance. Other than that, Visibility and relationship are not connected.
Visibility has military implications!! If you attack a civilization your levels of Diplomatic visibility will be compared, and the party which has a higher level will receive a permanent bonus in every military encounter - this is known as 'Intel on enemy movements' and consists of +3 Combat Strength per level of difference, leading to the maximum bonus of 12 Combat Strength (happening when one civilization has access level of None and the other Top Secret on one another).
This bonus is also active during theological combat!
Declared friends cannot Declare war on each other, cannot Denounce each other or call for Emergencies against each other in the special World Congress (eg when the other conquers a city state) and are ready to make Alliances at any moment.
Civilizations can send delegations to their rivals for a fee. Delegations improve relations a bit and increase diplomatic visibility by one level. Once sent, delegations stay permanently in the target civilization.
When a rival contacts you to send you a delegation they mention some sort of 'gift'. If you accept their delegation you receive that 'gift' in the form of 25 Gold (the same amount you spend to send a Delegation yourself). The same is valid when you receive an Embassy, but the sum doubles.
Once you develop Diplomatic Service your delegations are 'revoked', and you lose all their benefits. Delegations are then replaced with Resident Embassies. An Embassy is practically the same as a Trade Delegation. They improve relations a bit and increase Visibility by one level.
If a rival Denounces you or is at war with you, they remove your Embassy or Delegation from their Capital in a sign of diplomatic reprisal. You can establish them again if your relations improve.
A promise from another leader only costs diplomatic favor if they agree.
Open borders: good for culture victory. Your nation's Tourism enjoys a +25% boost towards them.
Alliances give +1 diplo favor per turn
Alliances become possible after developing the Civil Service civic. You can only enter an Alliance with a nation you're Declared Friends with.
As the alliance continues over time, its benefits will increase! Maintaining an Alliance with a player (it doesn't matter which one exactly) accrues Alliance Points over time, and when enough points have been gathered, your Alliance level with this players increases. There are three levels, each one offering more powerful benefits which stack with the earlier ones. You can speed up Alliance point accumulation by sending or receiving Trade Routes from your ally, or by using specific Policies
allies don't automatically gain Shared visibility. You still gain visibility on units, but territorial visibility will only enter into effect in other circumstances (for example when reaching level 2 of a Military Alliance, or whenever participating in an Emergency).
Allies automatically sign a Defensive Pact and are obligated to come to each other's aid in case a third nation opens hostilities against either one (And Defensive Pacts cannot be signed outside Alliances). Defensive Pacts don't force an ally to participate in 'aggressive' wars. Emergencies do not trigger defensive pacts.
Build spy asap, use to siphon funds from richest civ (see in HUD on top). One of the missions with highest success rate = lvls up spy.
World Congress:
The Outcome the player voted for won with a different target than the one they voted for: 50% refund.
The Outcome the player voted for lost: 100% refund of Diplomatic Favor spent
Ties are broken by the proportion of Diplomatic Favor a player commits.
every nation which voted for the outcome/target combo that eventually won gets 1 Diplomatic victory point.
If a nation decides to vote against enacting a Scored Competition, this nation won't participate and won't be able to win any rewards.
Eras:
The price of buying tiles will go up with Individual Eras.
Techs and civics from eras before the World Era cost 20% less.
Techs from eras after the World Era cost 20% more.
Thanks to: Victoria, MegaBearsFan, tempest.of.emptiness, Civpedia authors
Mods I find essential, working together as of Apr 2020:
AI:
Real Strategy
Smoother Difficulty 2.0
UI:
Alternate Policy Screen, Better Leader Icon, Better Loading Screen, Better Report Screen, Better Tech Tree, Better Unit List, Enhanced Mod Manager, Even More Reports, Fast Forward AI Turns, Happiness and Growth Indicators, Map Search Extension, More Lenses, Policy Change Reminder, Real Era Tracker, Real Housing from Improvements, Global Relations Panel, Quick Start, Sukritact’s Simple UI adjustments, Suzerain at a glance, Tactical Camera, WASD Camera Panning, Z Unit Selection, (Better Civilopedia – not working with translated game versions)
Graphics/flavour: Real Great People, Real Great Musicians, CHMZ Enhanced, Unique District Icons
Small balance changes: Rebalanced Rock Bands (no ‘all or nothing’), All Men Are Mortal (doesn’t make any sense if great people can just explore around with zero risk), Loyalty from Great Generals (compensates), Happy Districts (making Appeal more relevant for all victory types), Inland Flooding and Climate Change, Oasis Caravanserai, Real Balanced Pantheons (AI), Level 3 City State Rewards
Slightly more diversity: Real Nobel Prize, District Production Bonuses for Units, Community World Wonders, Steel & Thunder, Civitas City States + Mekong
Balance: for online speed only:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1368312893
Maps: Nere’s Seven Seas, (still looking for functioning mods with good small maps)
(AUTHORS in no particular order: Infixo, JNR, Sukritact, Nerevatar, p0kiehl, DB, FinalFreak16, Ranga, Deliverator, bolbas, astog, _Zur_13, lockstep, Faronizer, Aristos, CIVITAS group, qqqbbb, eudaimonia, MiniRagnarok – sorry if I missed anyone)
‘Expansions’ (after mastering base game – haven’t tried yet): Quo’s Spheres of Influence (more asymmetry), Extended Techtree, Religion Expanded, Historical Religions, Ancient Egyptian Pantheons, Magnum Opus (Great Persons) Terra Mirabilis (natural wonders), Real Building Upgrades, Urban Complexity Energy mods, Resourceful 2, Unearthed (Artifacts & Relics expansion)
Reference sheets (unsure if all up to date):
https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/d8bzrn/civilization_vi_gathering_storm_district_cheat/
https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/eeq4el/civ_6_district_and_wonder_cheat_sheet/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/district-reference.26982/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/unit-upgrade-path-cheat-sheet.605200/
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