Finding it hard to balance science, production and culture. How do you guys do it?

Well first of all probably taking from civ 5 experience I was pretty early with campus districts in my capital and most of my early cities. I did heavily focus on production too, but in retrospective it seemed a bit too late. I only made theater district when I had a feeling I was falling behind in civics three or I had absolutely nothing else useful to build. But ended up almost taking culture victory having 140/151 tourism needed for culture victory a couple of turns before I achieved science victory. But my civics tree was still pretty behind the tech tree.

Seems that the culture victory is far easier to achieve. OK I admit my bottleneck was industry, and I already read all about radiating factories and planing your cities and districts accordingly, but I am wondering what would be a proper build order?

Lets say you try to get to 6 cities as fast as possible but only your capital has really high potential for good production tiles while others are just decent. So you settle your cities but you only have like 2 districts now and both are holy since you felt like taking religion early. Now it is time to start building districts for production/science/culture. Would 6 industry 4 science and 2 culture seem like a good balance? And building industry districts first? Finishing buildings in it or starting campus and theater immediately after?

I don't ask for a precise schema, just your thoughts, and what you figured balanced it so far.

 

Don't skip on the commerce districts, the extra trade routes make it really worth it. I'd say 1 culture district is enough. If you get a great writer with a wildcard policy the great works will also add a nice bit of culture. Industry is important, and especially the factories. You don't have to overdo the science districts, two of them is often enough for a while. If you need extra science you can also run science projects in those cities.

 

Well I didn't skip commerce districts. But I never found it hard to tune dynamic of making those compared to 3 others I was talking about. So you are saying like 6-2-1 would be good enough? Instead of 6-4-2 I was thinking about?

 

Commerce first. Go commerce > industrial-> science and stack trade routes on new cities. Shoot for 5-7 as terrain permits, and try not to advance in eras until you have those core startups (districts cost more as you advance). Early trade routes provide ridiculous bonuses to cities that will in all honesty likely be nerfed soon (just keep in mind it's reversed from civ 5, the bonuses go to cities you are coming from, not going to). I find that's an effective build strategy for every victorycondition except religion. Religion is probably the hardest thing to win currently just because your production is so freaking slow.

I don't expect this strategy to be viable for log though because it's game breaking.

 

Production and population are king.

All cities need industrial districts for production
All cities need commerce districts for trade routs which give food -> population, money -> buy buildings = production and production
All cities which can need ports for trade routs as above
All cities need entertainment districts which give amenities = population

If you get "Feed the World" then you also need holy sites as they will produce 6 food and 8-10 if you are Norway.

 

Early trade route to your capital will likely provide 2-3f,1-2p + maybe 2 gold if you take the policy. I hardly think that is ridiculous.

 

I am on my second game (Brasil and now Germany) and have found that with 3 Hansa close to one another, production is ridiculous. Science is never a problem (we are all conditioned by previous Civ version to attach too much importance to this).

With my big production I ma now build culture buildings, so that is exploding as well.

The problem the becomes "Gold": Today there an easy solution that should be nerfed (built units you cash in at ridiculous amounts ex: frigate=450!!!), but I don't have a true approach to making money.

So in order to have fun: I killed the British!!!

 

Ignore campus until factories are in place, you don't really want any tech until your infrastructure is up and running. Maybe add a campus if there is an insane adjacency bonus if you want to tech industrialization faster.

My current build is:
1. Tech for horsemen/swordsmen depending on resources. Kill someone. Kill city states. Meanwhile get industrial zones and commerce hubs.
2. Build industrial zones -in every city-.
3. Build commerce hubs in every city. Harbors where possible.
4. Add wonders depending on victory condition, settle new cities anywhere you can for more industrial zones and commerce hubs.
5. Once factories are in place, build a campus in every city (or theater if going cultural but havent tried that yet).
6. Switch in +100% science from campus buildings from Enlightenment. Beeline Chemistry. Reach 500+ tech from one turn to the next.
7. Build rocket

 

8. Build Theater Distrcts and it's buildings while you wait the projects.
9. Notice you are progressing faster towards a Culture Victory.
10. Build resorts on the beach.
11. Win a culture victory 100 turns earlier than a Science one that you wanted to go for at first.


From personal experience, I started wanting to go for a Science victory, them with the extra production I constructed some theater districts and after some time I noticed I was closer to winning a Culture Victory, you should try it, it's the fastest one for >= 5 civs.

For less than 5 civs, domination or religion are the easiest.

 

Yep, Culture Victory is somewhat easy to achieve, the main limiting factor I found was the number of cities. The more cities you have, the more Great Work slots you have and the more Tourism you generate. Even crap cities provide 2 trade routes and a lot of Great Work space to be worth it (as long as they can build the districts in a reasonable amount of time). I had a far easier time with Pericles, due to being literally swamped with Great People, than with France, despite building almost all the wonders.

 

Productivity seems to always been the key not just in CIV games, but other strategy too (and for that matter IRL). The CIV series have always been punitive about shields/production and CIV 6 seems stingy about it. I didn't realize how bad until into my first game, as China, thanks to the 'eureka' bonuses, I was quite ahead in tech, and could produce more advance units. Alas, they took me 20 or so turns to produce, and the Norway dude declared war on me, and though I could produce crossbowmen and medieval walls, I hadn't done much of either, and his spearmen, horsemen, and archers, and siege engines overwhelmed me quite quickly.
From now on I emphasize production, I try to make sure I can churn out units much quick, and devote at least one city at any given time making some kind of unit, what ever I am most advance in.

 

Production is easy, and beaten to death in this thread already.

Make sure you use trade routes! Most of your cities can average 2 trade routes on most maps, you have gov't cards to boost trade routes and unlike Civ V two cities can both have a trade route to each other. So, even with 4 cities you can get 8 routes, use all internal routes if you want to for essentially zero risk and you can pull in an extra 48+ gpt early game with the +4 gold/route civic. Trade routes to city states can get insane, pulling in 100+ gpt for the same 4 city empire. Add in your commercial districts and well placed harbors and you'll make so much money you won't really care as much about what your production is since you can just buy everything except wonders and districts.

To maximize production with internal trade routes you need two cities with maxed out industrial districts to use as your trade destinations and two free trade routes before you settle your next city. This way all you need to do is plop down the city, buy two traders and send them to the two big production cities so your new city starts out with an extra 12-14 production just from the trade routes alone.

 

Early card is +2 gold. +4 comes from a mid-game card (along with +1 faith).

 

I know I noticed cultural victory is far easier, but I don't want to win cultural, I want to do as little culture as civics advancements allow me and go for maximum production for science, but I found it hard to optimize.

And yes I used trade routes all the time when I needed production, or sometimes food.

Seems that the earliest advice was very helpful. I decided to build just one science and no theater districts, and all the factories, harbors, and encampments possible in today's game. I am not behind in tech, I don't mind being a little behind in civics cos I beeline for important ones. Later on I added a couple of museums more and a couple of campuses with spots I planned in advance. Too bad terrain is not so favorable for production, but at least I feel like building stuff in much more optimal order and it is going to be a science win.

Edit: And yes I do build commercial districts everywhere, but I go for it after factories. Still not sure if this is optimal but at least it is not too wrong.

 

This looks like a keeper for general strategy. Nice one.

 

You'll end up with almost no science this way.

I think the commerce district is true. After a district is built you can buy upgrades. I think industrial districts are a bit overrated for towns that are built for science. Just have a strong economy and buy the upgrades.

A science victory needs three strong industrial cities, though.

 

should build commercial before industrial districts, they are only really good when you have factory tech. traders are good and only get better.

 

The only thing you need is a good unit and science probably do more then production then it comes to get a good unit. I mean how much do you have to care about what other civs think about you then you have aircrafts and steel ships while they have archers and rowboats

Everything else could be said to be luxuries who only exist to distract you from the cold reality that the only thing that truly matters is who have the strongest military and quality is better then quantity in most cases

It have been said that the best wonders are those you have captured from other civs and the best district are those you have captured from other civs and the best cities are those you have captured from other civs

Let the other civs build the farms and district, your goal should be to not let their hard work to go waste by simply asking them to have over all their cities to your better hands and leave the game in shame

 

I've not at all noticed that I fall behind in science.. in fact, I am routinely ahead of all immortal AI's in science without a single campus.

Campus simply aren't very strong early.. getting all that extra food + housing + amenities + production -> more cities -> more pop -> more science, gold and production. And then if you are big and can build research labs in all cities in 5-10 turns, no one has a chance in hell of catching you.

 

That extra food means that new city can grow significantly quicker to 4-5 pop, and the size of the trade route is based on the size of your capital and how many districts it has... I'm usually around +4 +4 depending on my district choices by the end of early game. I've seen it go to +10 food.