From King to Emperor - ouch

[Horizons]

So I've tried this map as Mali a few times and I just cannot keep up with Ghengis. The closest I got was a late game loss (Ghengis won the space race). As far as I can tell this map is as close to impossible to beat as you can get.

So in conclusion Emperor difficulty and above are just forms of sadomasochism that require expert exploitation and a relatively good map. I mean, spending 100+ hours of being punished like this can't be called 'fun'.

 

[MrRadar]

As far as I can tell this map is as close to impossible to beat as you can get.

My HoF tells me this was t241 RV. This is continuation from my posts above. First try, no reloads, leisurely play. I went for RV because at some point of time I found it to be the path of least resistance. Rest assured, "expert exploitation" would've won this map probably 100 turns or more earlier, but I have no patience nor self-discipline to become that good a player. Too lazy. But I have yet to see an "impossible" map on Emperor. A random generated, of course, you can always cook something like one free starting tile amidst a very mountainous area... That would be truly difficult

 

[Velvet glove]

To get to a higher difficulty it may help to do two steps forward, one step back. Go to Deity and play a few games. Have a specific small goal - like get a religion, or successfully invade your closest neighbor. You will fail quite a few times, so see what else you can do. For example you can try to do no settlers and purely military units. Then try a single settler and see if that comes ahead. Try a pure warrior invasion, or a pure slinger invasion, or a pure archer invasion - not a good idea in practice but it you'll get a better idea of the strengths and weaknesses of each unit type. Then go back to Emperor and you'll be like "What... This is easy."

 

[Bliss]

I feel like often the civ bonuses are just a distraction from optimal play, especially early game ones.

This is very correct. It is almost like at Deity your start is ALWAYS totally contrary to the UA of your civilization. I'm tired of getting domination victories with civs like Brazil and Religious Victory as America. Sometimes I think the game does it on purpose. Always play with the flow.

 

[Mahi]

I also used to struggle quite a bit on emperor but can beat the game on that difficulty, whenever I want to. With that said, what also others have already concluded in this thread, King difficulty is actually much more fun to play than emperor. I created a thread some time ago, where I blamed emperor difficulty and up just to be plain boring most of the time, due to very locked starting strategies and exploits of the game mechanics.

As mentioned in the beginning of this thread there are just some Civ 6 mechanics you need to improve on if you want to step up to emperor.
Mainly timing and correct use of policy cards, timing of eurekas, only researching things you need and be very much aware of the district bonuses/placements in your civilization. Personally I get a bit bored of micro managing the policy cards all the time, which is why I usually play on king difficulty.

The thing I dislike the most about emperor is the need of constant expanding or military build up in the beginning due to the extra settler the AI gets. I've considered playing a modded emperor difficulty, where the AI does not start with the extra Settler. I've read some great feedback on such a setup.

 

[knighterrant81]

Very true. I was watching quill18 on Youtube, playing a Deity culture-win game as France and he did indeed reload after a misplay. I guess I am being too perfectionist. To be honest I think I always had more fun in previous versions of Civ playing on a difficulty that I could mostly win, and going from mostly winning to mostly losing is the most disheartening thing. (A 50/50 ratio would be ideal to keep interest and challenge.)

I was trying to maximize Mali's bonus by settling next to desert - bad idea. No production = early sneak attack from Ghengis. I feel like often the civ bonuses are just a distraction from optimal play, especially early game ones.

Those loooong production times are also a bit off-putting. (26 turns for a builder, ouch)

Mali isn't supposed to produce anything. They are supposed to buy everything. That's why they are a really weird choice for trying to learn how to play the early game. You play Mali when you want to try something completely different. They're kinda the Venice of Civ VI.

Which bonuses are just a distraction depends, and it is hard to tell if you don't have a good handle on how to play the early game. There are some incredibly good ones, and some incredibly bad ones, and some incredibly bad ones on good Civs overall.

Really good ones:

Alexander - UU replacements for two of the most-used early game rushes. Early game conquest is a very strong strategy.
Korea - Half-priced districts are super strong. Science is super strong. You don't even need to worry about adjacency bonuses.

Really bad ones:

Norway - Navies are often superfluous, and a Religious building without a bonus to getting a Religion is all kinds of terrible.
Georgia - Religion is a bad strategy. No bonus to getting a religion. Golden Ages aren't make or break and are easy to chain. Walls are situational.

Really bad ones on good overall Civs:

America - By the time you get Air units, the game is already over, but a reliable +5 combat bonus is really helpful in the early game.
China - No one cares about your Great Wall, Emperor Qin. We're here for Wonder spamming, Builder charges, and Inspirations/Eurekas.


Civ V for a long time emphasized Tall vs. Wide, with Tall usually being the more viable strategy for most "metas" and patch states. In Civ VI, there is only Wide. It is often better to actively avoid population growth in your cities after a certain point. This is due to the District mechanic, which is cool but I don't think people realize how much it warps the entire game of Civ at a fundamental level. Almost every victory type can be summed up as "get a lot of cities, then spam your victory district." The more Campuses you have, the faster you'll get a Science Victory, the more Holy Sites you have, the faster you'll get a Religious Victory, and so on.

My point is, if you are used to the older versions, you have to unlearn a lot of habits. Large cities are kinda bad in Civ VI, and you have to get a large amount of cities by a certain point or you'll fall too far behind the AI. Religion is also actively detrimental to your ability to win unless you are going for a Religious Victory or your Civ has important bonuses from getting a Religion, due to the fact that you are required to build Holy Sites when you should be building military and Settlers, and said Holy Sites just take up district slots you could have used for your victory district. This also means that Civs with Religious bonuses are generally weak options, especially Civs that don't get bonuses to getting a Religion in the first place.

 

[Mahi]

The problem is definitly that alot of players struggle with Civ 6, when they come from previous versions. The "there's no real benefit of growing tall cities" mentality is quite off for most traditional civ players.

I agree that civs' traits can sometimes cause you to lose your focus. Best advise I could give is only play with average tiers civilizations untill you get the hang of it.

Honestly, civ 6 just has a very steep learning curve as well on higher difficulties because you actually need some sort of plan, and in order to have a plan, you need to be able to remember, what will be available to you down the road. I have quite alot of hours into Civ 6 GS but couldn't tell you, what half of the wonders do, or what a third of the policy cards do. There's just really much to memmorize unless you just play the same routines in every game, which is why the early start on emporer and up can be quite boring.

 

[Horizons]

So I've played that Mali game many times over and I think it is impossible to beat.

So my question is, why play on a difficulty level that makes certain random map/civ combinations impossible to beat?

Will have to stick to King, I guess.

 

[Archon_Wing]

People literally beat it though....

Granted that's not a fun map. Why is rerolling that bad of an idea?

he "there's no real benefit of growing tall cities" mentality is quite off for most traditional civ players.

Nope, this nonsense is specific to Civ 5 expansions. Depending on which preceeding civ a player comes from, they may see a few cities as being puny or microscopic.

 

[knighterrant81]

Nope, this nonsense is specific to Civ 5 expansions. Depending on which preceeding civ a player comes from, they may see a few cities as being puny or microscopic.

Rethinking this, I think this is a good point. ICS is not so much a strategy as a constant developer bugaboo - it is inherent in the basic design of all Civ games. If more cities give you more power, then the way to win the game is always going to be "get more cities." The older games tried a lot of different systems to incentivize growing large, but not too large (corruption, happiness, etc.) There were a few times where they actually turned the knob too far in Civ 5. That resulted in pushing things into weird place for Civ with 4-6 super tall cities being the "meta" strat for awhile. That's mostly the exception. Its really just a trap in the original Civ design - big cities are cool and sexy! But it turns out that it is almost always better to have many more small hamlets than to have a few big, sexy metropolises.

So I've played that Mali game many times over and I think it is impossible to beat.

So my question is, why play on a difficulty level that makes certain random map/civ combinations impossible to beat?

Will have to stick to King, I guess.

There's no shame in re-rolling. The map is clearly winnable - the issue is are YOU able to win it with your current skill level? And is it really worth it/fun to keep beating your head against a wall you haven't mastered yet? I re-roll all the time. When I was first learning Emperor I rerolled a ton, even games I was likely to win. Learning the early game is the most important part. I just examine the game, decide where I think I made mistakes, and apply that to my next game. Now I win Emperor fairly regularly.

There are no impossible maps. There are maps that, today, you may not be able to beat (or may not want to put the effort into). You will still learn and improve from playing those maps.

I'll turn your question around: Why would you play on a difficulty level where you are guaranteed to win every map? How would you learn and improve then?

 

[Horizons]

There's no shame in re-rolling. The map is clearly winnable - the issue is are YOU able to win it with your current skill level?

I've played many hours on this map and cannot see any way to win it. Ghenghis wins space race every time, and diplo isn't possible. How would you win it?

I don't want to win every time but I don't want to have to rely on rolling a good map to win.

 

[knighterrant81]

I've played many hours on this map and cannot see any way to win it. Ghenghis wins space race every time, and diplo isn't possible. How would you win it?

I don't want to win every time but I don't want to have to rely on rolling a good map to win.

There's a couple of posts in here where people had a pretty good approach. Generally, if I can't overrun a neighbor militarily, I will build up peacefully, replacing military spam with Settler spam. That said, if you just expand with no military, Genghis will just attack. Build up your military, keep in Genghis' good graces diplomatically, and outrace him in tech and economy. That is how I would win this map. It would not be very fun though. I'd probably just reroll if it wasn't looking good. In other words, I'd give this map a try, and I'd try to outpace Genghis peacefully. If that didn't succeed, I'd move on to another map. Every map is winnable (at least on Emperor), but not equally easy, and based on your own skill, you may not be able to win it. I know that there are maps that I've played that I probably had no chance of winning personally (But again, that doesn't mean that someone better than me couldn't have won it). I think it is best to at least play out the bad maps for awhile because then you can learn things. If your attitude is "this game is 100% RNG, some maps are unwinnable" you'll never learn anything because you're busy blaming the map instead of analyzing your play. Instead of thinking "RNG is no fun," think "okay, what can I learn from that game?" The biggest thing you need to change is your attitude. Your mindset is so negative you can't learn. I'm not sure what else you want from this thread. You want us to admit some maps are unwinnable? Maybe for you or me, but I am sure there are better players out there who could do it. That's not really important though because your goal as a player should be to improve your skills so that more maps are winnable. I used to play on Prince but now I can pretty reliably win on Emperor (no not every time) because I've learned and improved. I'd suggest learning what you can from this map and move on. You'll just get frustrated trying to keep winning the same bad map.

 

[Horizons]

I rolled a new random map/civ. Got England, and managed to win first time on Emperor.

So much easier without the enormous production penalties of Mali!

 

[i_imperator]

I rolled a new random map/civ. Got England, and managed to win first time on Emperor.

So much easier without the enormous production penalties of Mali!

If at first you don't succeed try and try again! Congrats!

 

[knighterrant81]

I rolled a new random map/civ. Got England, and managed to win first time on Emperor.

So much easier without the enormous production penalties of Mali!

That's it, positive attitude! Good job!

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

The more I play on emperor, the more I hate it. The extra units, settlers, and builders give the AI such an absurd advantage and pretty much guarantees a city-state massacre. Even worse are the neurotic AI players who will denounce you for "They Just Don't Like You" and Firaxis's idiotic barbarian AI where all things being equal, it will 75% attack a player unit when it could easily kill off an AI unit. I guess it was a remnant of the poor zombie AI in War of the Chosen.

I know I will ultimately win emperor games but it is such an obnoxious slog.

 

[EgonSpengler]

The more I play on emperor, the more I hate it. The extra units, settlers, and builders give the AI such an absurd advantage and pretty much guarantees a city-state massacre. Even worse are the neurotic AI players who will denounce you for "They Just Don't Like You" and Firaxis's idiotic barbarian AI where all things being equal, it will 75% attack a player unit when it could easily kill off an AI unit. I guess it was a remnant of the poor zombie AI in War of the Chosen.

I know I will ultimately win emperor games but it is such an obnoxious slog.

I strongly recommend Free Walls For City-States. It makes a huge difference.

As for the rest, the solution is much easier: Play on King. The difficulty settings aren't some kind of rank of status, they're just another game setting, like what kind of map you play on or which Civ you choose to play.

 

[Mahi]

I strongly recommend Free Walls For City-States. It makes a huge difference.

As for the rest, the solution is much easier: Play on King. The difficulty settings aren't some kind of rank of status, they're just another game setting, like what kind of map you play on or which Civ you choose to play.

I did not know about this mod even though it's an obvious solution to the early attacks on CS. Though, I don't find it too bad of a probelm on emperor, it's just annoying when you have a CS close to you, the AIs think it should own. Question regarding the mod. Do the walls keep the AI from attacking the CS or will the AI still try to attack the CS early on, seriously crippling itself losing a majority of its units?

 

[EgonSpengler]

I did not know about this mod even though it's an obvious solution to the early attacks on CS. Though, I don't find it too bad of a probelm on emperor, it's just annoying when you have a CS close to you, the AIs think it should own. Question regarding the mod. Do the walls keep the AI from attacking the CS or will the AI still try to attack the CS early on, seriously crippling itself losing a majority of its units?

Yeah, the AI is still stupid, and still follows its Agendas and tendencies. The Civs that like to gobble up CSs will still try and will still mostly succeed, but the walls will deter the Civs that aren't warmongers and delay the ones that are. If there's a particular CS you want to protect, you'll still have to takes steps to ensure its survival. And when a CS does get attacked, you'll still pull your hair out watching it mismanage its own defense.

 

[newbie2]

So I havent played in a long while, and being on a dry spell with other games and the possibility of a future update got me interested in civ again. I've always been the King+ player: King is too easy and boring, and on Emperor I only feel confident with a solid start. I tend to be quite the reroller although im trying to work on that, including in other (strategy) games. Its just the combination of always being behind + tedious wars don't appeal to me. And I'm just not good at them. playing Persia, Nubia boxed me, tried to counteract it with my Immortals, got absolutly wreked (although I got citystates and Egypt also attacking her, so at least i'm good on the diplo game). I knew the general tip and tricks of the game (like aligning inspirations and eureka's to coincide with policy changes, when chasing era score and when not, sell stuff to the AI, prioritise production,...)


Being the more peacefull player, I tend to go for science and culture victories. I also hate dealing with the AI's poorly placed cities and dealing with 4000y of denouncement

My usual set up is to get a scout- builder (boost to craftmanship) - settler. Then train some military units (including 3 slingers). building either a holy site (if culture victory) or campus (science victory) to boost state workforce. then build the goverment plaza as second district in the capital. Once political philosophy is done; I tend to take merchant republic because yellow slots rule, and then build he ancestrall hall. Once completed, I combine it with colonization to rapidly produce settlers.

I'm feeling that it's there I'm doing something wrong. I know waiting to expand that late is counter productive, but I don't really see a viable alternative/investment. The Warlord throne doesnt fit my playstyle, and the Audience chamber seems a waste if you only stick to a few governors and upgrade them (mostly Pingala and Magnus get my early titels). At least the ancestrall hall cuts production time and provides an additional builder. It just at this stage I feel very boxed in often (although I will try to block off chokepoints.


So my questions (aside from feedback on the above):

-Is 10 cities by turn 100 still a thing? If yes, how do people usually get this. Or is it mostly done by conquering?

-I probably don't chop enough, but here kind of the same question: How do you get the amount of builders required for all the chopping (especially if you don't use the Ancestrall hall)? Surely you can not all be recruiting/training them as it would take quite amount of time you could be building other stuff?

-How do you deal with poor starts with low yields? Tundra/flat desert/mostly grasslands?