Critique my early game

[_Calyx]

I've never really been satisfied with my early game play in Civ VI. I consistently feel simultaneously very rushed and incredibly sluggish. The early game (which I am defining loosely as the first 100 turns) has a ton of things that need to be done:

• Build a basic military to defend against barbarians / AI or expand via conquest
• Build workers to improve tiles in key cities
• Build settlers to expand
• Get a trade route online
• Get at least 1-2 campuses up
• Build monuments to ensure reasonable culture aquisition
• Build graneries where necessary
• Potentially pursue holy sites & religion
• Scout the land mass
• Start building commercial hubs and industrial zones so your cities stay useful as you enter the Medieval and Renaissance eras

Now, not all of these might be necessary in every game. Most of the time, I completely ignore religion and don't build a single holy site throughout the entire game. Depending on the starting terrain, you may not need a granary in the capital for quite some time, and sometimes you need to build very few settlers due to the proximity of an AI.

I play on Emperor, and I have never actually lost - but I always feel terrible during the early game, even though I am able to claw my way back to victory. The Ancient and Classical eras fly by, I'm hopelessly backwards during the Medieval and Renaissance eras, and then usually catch up sometime after the Renaissance.

A case in point is the attached save file. I am playing as Saladin, and in general aiming for a science victory. Germany was too far away for an initial attack, and I have a handful of cities all self build. My capital has excellent production but not great food. Two scientific city states are nearby.

This seemed like a really great start - room to expand, decent terrain for 6-8 cities, I can focus on science and wage profitable non-conquest focused war once I get my Mamluks (or conquer Germany while liberating some city states). But... that doesn't seem to be what is occurring. The campus was an early build in my capital, but I am severely behind the AI in tech - It is turn 89, and I have just entered the Medieval era; my neighbor to the north, Germany, has simultaneously entered the Renaissance. Due to the poor food and several built settlers, my capital has a population of only 3 or 4. I had to go exploring when I received the last prophet thanks to not fitting in a holy site build, and only recently have founded my religion. Germany attacked earlier and I easily demolished their army assaulting my city, but the jungle terrain and timely construction of walls prevented me taking cities from them, and I settled for a lucrative peace deal. Now they are significantly ahead in tech, and I don't foresee war with Germany being feasible during my Mamluke window.

Now, I have no doubt that I will eventually win this game. But what am I doing wrong? This is typical of my games. Surely there is something I could focus on to improve my early game and not feel so helpless? In this game, I built a campus early to attempt to counter this - but it does not seem to have helped. Cities I found are nearly useless until they have built a worker and have some improved tiles; meanwhile, the production of settlers has sapped my capital - though I can't build them quickly anywhere else.

Please have a look at the attached save. I'd appreciate any advice!

ps. The attached game was played on a Linux computer - I don't know if it will be compatible with other systems. You can probably get the gist of my problems from the exceedingly lengthy post above, and advice would still be very much appreciated.

 

[liv]

I can get the conversation started but since I almost always play for domination victory maybe wait for or look for advice from people who play more builder game.
I think you neglected growth too much. You should get builders and irrigate for food. While you do get science from districts you also get science from population so growth is important maybe not as important as expansion and production but if you do not grow you will be lagging behind.
That being said I think there will be periods of being behind in the game as they often beline for certain sciences or cultures and you could instead focus on your long term goals. If it is science that would mean getting science and work on setting up one very productive city and that potential is still there with your start. And as the Arabs taking advantage of the religion to get more science

In the game you have there I think it is perhaps an unfortunate start with not that many luxuries and growing potential. If that was my start I would have focussed on expanding north from the very beginning so that would have meant building slingers, then getting archery and then put everything into getting some cities up there either by stealing German settlers or by taking their cities. Everything else will have been second until I accomplished that goal. The fact that the AI starts with two settlers is something I take advantage of as I often can capture their second settler and if not the second at least the third. Early warfare is how you set yourself up for a win I think.

 

[MyOtherName]

(note: I haven't looked at the save)

Abstractly, you should expect to fall behind initially with an expansion-based strategy, because you're spending resources on expansion rather than science. The point of an expansion-based strategy is that you have more to develop, so that when you finally get around to it you can rapidly catch up and surpass the others.

Furthermore, starting off behind is to be expected on higher difficulty levels; you'll catch up when the better management of your civilization overcomes the handicaps the AI benefits from.

Having size 4 cities isn't necessarily a bad thing -- population points are an investment, and you may well have better things to invest resources in. And also, population is cheaper to buy in small cities than in large cities, so you should generally prefer to have more small cities than few larger cities

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

With Arabia, my first priority is to get some early holy sites up (or better yet conquer them) then campus for the madrassa but honestly you don't really need much science with them. I would probably build quite a few chariots early and take some cities from my closest neighbor then beeline for Stirrups and upgrade them to Mamluk. I might try to get god of the forge to speed this up. I usually try to have about 10 cities down in the first 100 turns (sometimes I fall a bit short) - maybe just build 2 or 3 settlers and then just switch to conquest with this civ. It's really easy to win a religious victory with Arabia because you get the third holy site building basically for free and can get tons of faith going early. Alternatively you could try to go all out domination with Mamluks since they are one of the best UUs in the game and they have a fairly long window. Beelining to theology and then rush buying mamluks with faith is pretty powerful. I couldn't open the save btw so just giving some general advice.

 

[Victoria]

My current game on king is pretty much like yours perhaps, maybe a little more settlers. Playing Poland.

No one near me, tonnes of room and sadly giants causeway near. (What a waste)
So I start with a slinger and builder so I can get the eureka, I find a +2 unit production CS (also a waste) and it's a bit in the way but I decide as I have +2 I do not need agog nor the +30% builder but I need all the settlers I can muster so I push early empire.
The trouble with a very heavy settler push is you do not get a lot of districts online, I try to get what eurekas I can and beeline districts and place them ASAP but do not build them straight away, getting the monument and settlers out is more important, also an army is a must or you will be eventually DOW'd. I went 4 slingers 2 warriors to clear out everything, took out the CS and at T100 I had 9 cities and look way behind in tech.

However

I look at my enemies and they have around 5 cities, my districts are still super cheap and a lot were placed cheaply. My monuments have got me to Feudalism and my army is ready for a bit of fun.
Yes the first 100 turns felt hard but I know I am going to severely kick ass now as my districts come online and my cities grow. At T100 I think my cap was at 6 pop. This is a standard way of playing peacefully. You just have to get the cities out there ASAP and in numbers.

I have the start sav but it's not penguin compatible.

 

[cazaderonus]

Well i d say that there s not much you can do about that feeling of being behind in the 100 first turns when you play anything higher than king. Emperor is still fineish as you dont end up being as far as immortal deity where it is common to see ai s reach industrial or modern era while you re still in the mid late medieval.

 

[Victoria]

As a follow up, near completion with 10 cities, T190 and thats with messing around. 9 tall cities with good concentration on a cultural victory should be good enough at deity.

The AI gets those heavy bonuses because of the way they work. Once you understand how they work you are no longer worried.

As a tip, try doing a reveal all at about T150 of a game and look at how muxh production AI cities make and how badly developed they are. How much science and culture they create You then realise that if you had the same number of cities as them you would have a slight edge, having more gives you a big edge... and thats at Deity, My Emporer game with 9 -10 cities was just OP

For me it was the thing that improved both my game and my state of mind the most. Know thine enemy.

 

[DrCron]

NOTE: I haven't opened your file and I play on Deity only.

Get at least 1-2 campuses up

Unless you are going for a scientific there's no reason for a campus to be your first district. Commercial hubs give you trade routes, which, if international, can give you science (plus gold, which the campus won't give you). Trade routes are more important early on... And later on. Trade routes are everything.

• Build monuments to ensure reasonable culture aquisition

• Build graneries where necessary

Your early gold should be used to buy a few of these.

Potentially pursue holy sites & religion

Never build a holy site if you are not going for a religious victory. Literally NEVER.

Start building commercial hubs and industrial zones

As I said before, trade routes are a priority. In many games you might also get your first industrial zone before your first campus.

 

[liv]

In the OP game the start was close to tundra
5 cities have been built (turn 89) and there are two luxeries (salt and wine) but several copies so future trades may be possible.

My instinct with the game in question as it is now would be to build more cities. I would buy a settler asap and build a city north of Candy for the two luxuries there and then try to get another city further north for the tea if that was still possible. . It may lead to another war with Germany but I would have mamluks before they could do any harm. I would tech directly for knights at this point and since culture was so low go for theology to get religion going some.

 

[Calyxx]

So it sounds like the consensus is not to worry about the tech rate - expand ASAP and catch up later. Skipping the campus in the capital, I can focus more on either military production or settlers - I'll likely feel even more behind, but the end result will be better.

In a situation where an AI is not realistically close for Ancient Era conquest, you may have to settle large amounts of land yourself. Do you start this before the +50% settler production card or upon getting it? When do you build your first districts in the capital? What do you start building in your settled cities? How do you generate enough culture that the +50% settler production arrives at the right time?

My inclination is to start building settlers as early as possible, before I get the +50% production. I then usually build workers (ideally with the +30% worker production card) in the new cities, and try to fit in military units between settler builds. I don't know if this is the most efficient, but I would likely set things up better than I did in the OP game.

 

[MyOtherName]

My instincts are usually to produce one settler without the bonus card while researching straight to early empire. Especially if I have useful things to build while waiting for it to come in, like military, a builder, or sometimes even a monument or granary.

I haven't played enough Civ 6 to be sure, though.

 

[Japper007]

It is nearly impossible to get ahead or even on level ground tech-wise with the AI on Emperor+ in the early game (without substantial conquering). The bonuses they get are just too big, in the later game you'll pull ahead as your innate human advantage (i.e. you actually know what the #:! you are doing, and are more focused in your builds) starts to snowball in your favor. I've won Science Victories at Diety were the AI hit Modern Era while I was still in late Renaissance just because my late game economy raced past them.
The same general advice as Emperor+ Civ 5 still applies: ignore the scores and focus on playing your game to your best abilities.

On the game itself, your strategy seems solid to me, just get used to looking at what looks like a loosing position for most of the early game.

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

I still try to get some early campuses down in most games especially if there are good adjacency bonuses. I think you could easily prioritize the builder card first if there is lots of forest/jungle and then chop in your settlers. It depends on the terrain. I also try to mine hills early to speed up settler production, buy them with gold, or harvest stone to get them out. Going all out units and poaching them from nearby civs can also work well especially with chariots or horsemen. Anything that will give you an early edge in production will help. I don't like waiting for early empire to expand unless I have lots of culture early on.

 

[cazaderonus]

NOTE: I haven't opened your file and I play on Deity only.



Unless you are going for a scientific there's no reason for a campus to be your first district. Commercial hubs give you trade routes, which, if international, can give you science (plus gold, which the campus won't give you). Trade routes are more important early on... And later on. Trade routes are everything.



Your early gold should be used to buy a few of these.



Never build a holy site if you are not going for a religious victory. Literally NEVER.



As I said before, trade routes are a priority. In many games you might also get your first industrial zone before your first campus.

I disagree. A campus first is not just about going for a SV. It comes with many perks :
- Rushing a tech for a specific UU\UB
- Getting some GS points that might help catch up later on
- Simply avoiding getting to far behind

A trade route will net you science. But if you have a solid campus spot and add a library, it's worth 5 or more trade routes by itself. And personnally, i'd rather use my first trade routes for internal trade routes to help my cities grow and build infrastructures (especially commercial hubs) unless i need some instant cash flow because i'm going for an early war.

A campus is never a bad choice as a first district. Not mandatory, but never bad.

 

[DrCron]

I disagree. A campus first is not just about going for a SV. It comes with many perks :
- Rushing a tech for a specific UU\UB

If you manage your eurekas properly you shouldn't have any issues getting an early UU to win early wars. The strongest early UUs are very cheap to research.

- Getting some GS points that might help catch up later on

If you are not going for a scientific victory you don't need GS. If you are going for religion they have close to zero value for you. If you are going for cultural you don't need them to get to computers early enough to win every time. If you are going for domination you will conquer several AI cities with campuses anyway. And you will do that many turns before you had time to beat them to a GS.

- Simply avoiding getting to far behind

You'll catch up faster with many trade routes (or early conquest if you have a close neighbor, but in that case you'll conquer before building any districts, and you'll probably get your first campus from an AI city). So commercial hubs (or harbors on island maps) are always a bigger priority than campuses. No to mention the AI builds few of them, and rather late, so you can't get them through conquest.

 

[Victoria]

If you are going for cultural you don't need them to get to computers early enough to win every tim

They are great for a science cultural win. Them seashores sure look fine

 

[Abraxis]

Getting your first settler out ASAP makes a huge difference in how fast you can catch up to the AI. The longer you sit on one city, the longer you're falling further behind exponentially with every turn that passes.

Even knowing that I never really appreciated how true it was until relatively recently. I always delayed it thinking if I just get a builder or a scout out first that would pay off and really speed things up for me.
No no no.
Always ended up in the same situation of having to sacrifice everything to build an army to launch an all or nothing invasion of neighbour, otherwise I would just stagnate behind the AI and languish in that everything feeling sluggish and never really being able to catch a break and get back on top of the curve.

Lately I rush the settler literally as fast as the terrain allows and it makes a huge difference. Every start is different, but in general I try to pick the highest food yield and start building a slinger. Once I hit 2 pop I change to best production tiles and start on Settler whether the slinger is complete or not. Pick your exact capital location specifically for this, with the best one food tile then two high producers as close to the city centre as possible, ideally without having to purchase a tile. Scout only the immediate vicinity around capital with warrior for the best second city location, and make that location close so you can defend both and a trade route between them easily with few units. Use anti-barbarian and production policies. If barbs find you and their scout gets away, or an AI sends a horde of warriors your way finish your slinger and prepare to defend, but do your best to defend with only those two units and continue with founding your second city ASAP. If you didn't have to buy a tile you should be able to buy an extra slinger if absolutely necessary but try your best to save that money for a builder. If everything is clear, spiral out and hunt down camps as they appear for gold, the warrior can take them down alone from full health in three turns at emperor, use gold to buy more units to hunt more camps to get more gold etc... Buy as many military units as you absolutely need, but try and spend it on builders. Use your production to build structures/projects to catch up to AI's economy. From there you can branch off into any number of things; conquest, peaceful expansion, city development, whatever. But just getting that first city out and developing a decent foundation around them is so crucial to preventing you from getting bogged down behind the AI.

I've been trying it on Emperor mostly with Egypt and I've been able to found a religion with holy site(s), build the pyramids, and have a horde of Maryannu ready to attack just before my neighbours have walls up all on about turn 50~60. Last game it was Cyrus with a ton of immortals, so no joke. I've tried it with France and Japan as well (without the pyramids) and it was a very smooth start for both of them. The Japan game almost managed to catch up to the AI without even conquering anything in 100 turns of just optimal development.

It doesn't work in every situation of course, nothing does, but it's easy enough to identify whether the terrain favours it or not before you hit that second pop and need to commit.

 

[Victoria]

On Emporer if there is space around me, I will beeline early empire and just push settler after settler. Take a breath at 90 and you after have double the city of your opponents. By then you have feudalism, build and chop,like hell pushing you victory condition to the limit and you can get there quite fast.

Get friend then allies and do loads of joint wars but do not participate, just let them grind each other up.

 

[Photi]

Get friend then allies and do loads of joint wars but do not participate, just let them grind each other up.

dang, Vicky is never that tough in my games.

 

[cazaderonus]

If you manage your eurekas properly you shouldn't have any issues getting an early UU to win early wars. The strongest early UUs are very cheap to research.



If you are not going for a scientific victory you don't need GS. If you are going for religion they have close to zero value for you. If you are going for cultural you don't need them to get to computers early enough to win every time. If you are going for domination you will conquer several AI cities with campuses anyway. And you will do that many turns before you had time to beat them to a GS.


You'll catch up faster with many trade routes (or early conquest if you have a close neighbor, but in that case you'll conquer before building any districts, and you'll probably get your first campus from an AI city). So commercial hubs (or harbors on island maps) are always a bigger priority than campuses. No to mention the AI builds few of them, and rather late, so you can't get them through conquest.

Catching up faster with many trade routes ? How exactly do you get "many" trade routes in the same amount of time you need to build one campus ? Cause afaik, you need "many" cities to get "many" trade routes.

And sorry, but you need science no matter what you decide to do, and getting 1/2 beaker per trade routes gets you as much with 7 cities than you'll get for just 2 campuses + library. That's simple mathematics. And that's considering that you need to get 6 settlers, 7 Commercial hubs, and 7 traders. I dont think you can get to that point even in twice the time needed for 2 campuses + library.

I have yet to lose one game on deity and never did i rely on trade routes for science, even early and even with scientific CS next to me. unlike in CiV where you would get a solid amount of science due to the trade route output formula, in CiVI it just feels weak.

But that's just my view on "first district to build" anyway as otherwise i will more than agree with you that the backbone of any good game is commercial hubs everywhere. I just tend to build up science first to help reach key production techs, namely appreticeship for the boost to mines. Doing this gives a huge value to the first builders you use and it helps a lot for the part where i actually build all those commercial hubs in a row. But even when that's done, no way i'm wasting my trade routes on pure gold+1/2 beakers+1 culture\faith when i can get food+hammer+gold through policy. if i need more science, i'll just build another campus.

The amount you'll get through international trade route for science will be made through raw population growth thanks to internal TR.

Capital will usually go campus, commercial, theater, industrial.
Other cities will almost alway go commercial hubs, campus\theater depending on where i'm going.

As for the scenarios including conquest, i just discard them as it's just EZ mode atm. My persia game i m at t140 and i have 20 cities or so through and immortal rush (finished with a musket upgrade). Game is won, plain and simple.