Game Over, how'd I do?

[Liberty Prime]

Hello! It's been a while since I last played, but I reinstalled this game again after failing to learn it many years ago. I like setting clear goals for myself and I tend to start over whenever I make one major mistake. As you can see from the image, barbarians blitzed Bad-Tiberia from a hidden settlement, likely spawning in the north eastern river. I saw 1 barbarian last turn and the rest appeared the turn after.



Playing with Gilgamesh on standard size, speed, Prince difficulty, and on continents. My build order was 4 warcarts into a +4 campus. My goal was to mass produce as many cities as possible, as fast as possible to cover the entire continent, then build 1 Commercial Hub or Harbor in each city. For science I teched Writing first, followed by Currency then Machinery (catapults and crossbows). My government policies were the usual; Oligarchy (I found my neighbors late this game) into Merchant's Republic. For culture, I tried to tech into Early Empire first into Feudalism, but I didn't commit hard enough producing early settlers this game. The goody huts provided a Great Work which yields faith, so I chose the Pantheon which allows a faster first district.

It took a while before I even found my neighbors, but I managed to take 2 of India's cities on turn 71 and 3 of England's cities on turn 86. No one is left on this continent but myself. I usually get this done much faster when I find my neighbors right away.




I guess I the only thing I've learned was to be even more persistent with spamming settlers regardless of government bonuses unlocked, as I wasted a lot of time with barbarians destroying improved tiles; Cover the map entirely until no one can spawn before I even think of building workers. I'm forfeiting this game and starting a new one soon.

I like playing with Civs with early Unique Units so it's easier to earn early cities by knocking out 2-3 opponents as early as possible. If anyone has any tips feel free to share! (Early game build order, science tech order, culture tech order, etc)

 

[Buktu]

A general tip against the barbarians: Have a few troops to spot and chase away their scouts. If their scouts dont get to see your cities they cant tell their outposts where to raid. So they wont spwan raiding forces like the one causing you all the trouble in this game. Two units should be enough for Bad Tibira one north and one north east of the city.
Also discovering all the tiles helps with dealing with barbs before they can act up.
Walls near the tundra can also help against barbs.
Taking out 2 neighbours is nice and gives you enough space to win the game usually. I cant see your warcarts anymore (and no knights they might have become) though. So if you lost them that is something you could work on - try to keep your units alive. Units are expensive and the less you have to build the more production you can put in infrastructure. Also experienced units are that much stronger than recruits. And also the more units you have the better you can deal with barbs.
And you should definitely get more builders. I think there are 2 improved (ok 3 if we count the pillaged one) tiles in your capital while you have 8 citizens. So more than 50% of these work unimproved tiles! You are missing so many yields. The other cities you founded look quite simmilar sometimes not even luxury and strategic ressources are improved. Even if you dont need them yourself the yields are worth it - and you can sell them for some extra money. Also builders help to get boosts (Eurekas/Inspirations) and can chop important things (military to make your rush faster, food to grow new cities quickly, secure a wonder etc.).
Nippur und Kish (so 2 of 4 cities founded by you) are off of fresh water. Always try to settle near fresh water since you get so much housing from doing so. This game you are somewhat saved by Mohenjo Daro in this regard but you can not always rely on that.
If you invest in Harbours or Commercial Hubs make sure to get your trades. You can either get lots of money (to buy builders for example) of food/production from them. Also roads are a great way to get your army around your empire quickly. So roads help you to react to barbs quickly.
Settlers are nice and very important but a 34 turn build (Nippur) is just way to long for a settler.

Personally I find super early rushes (like war cart or eagle rushes) quite luck depending. You basically sacrifice your build up so if you fail you lost the game. The most critical point (for me) is that you dont know anything about the map. So if you end up far away from anyone you build lots of units and cant do anything with them. If you send your attacking force the wrong way you waiste alot of time. And you are on a timer since those units will loose their relevance quickly (ok, I play on deity on price you should have more time). In such a situation catching up again is super hard since you dont have any infrasturcture to support it.
Thats why I prefer civs with a classical UU if I plan to rush. You can get out a city, one or two builders and maybe district, have time to scout your opponent and prepare the attack accordingly. Civs like Rome or Macedon fit perfectly, they have strong UUs that work with battering rams (so walls wont be a big problem). If you didnt try them you might give them a try

 

[Liberty Prime]

I cant see your warcarts anymore (and no knights they might have become) though. So if you lost them that is something you could work on - try to keep your units alive.


Personally I find super early rushes (like war cart or eagle rushes) quite luck depending. You basically sacrifice your build up so if you fail you lost the game. The most critical point (for me) is that you dont know anything about the map. So if you end up far away from anyone you build lots of units and cant do anything with them. If you send your attacking force the wrong way you waiste alot of time. And you are on a timer since those units will loose their relevance quickly (ok, I play on deity on price you should have more time). In such a situation catching up again is super hard since you dont have any infrasturcture to support it.
Thats why I prefer civs with a classical UU if I plan to rush. You can get out a city, one or two builders and maybe district, have time to scout your opponent and prepare the attack accordingly. Civs like Rome or Macedon fit perfectly, they have strong UUs that work with battering rams (so walls wont be a big problem). If you didnt try them you might give them a try

Thanks for the advice! The pikeman overwhelmed my warcarts, which means I did waste too much time trying to manage everything; I feel I really should've spammed settlers instead of building other things to completely cover the map so barbs aren't even a problem. I stopped making workers altogether to fight off these endlessly respawning barbarian encampments.

I just played a game with America (they get +5 Attack on their own continent!) and actually played "normally" spamming settlers with only a single warrior and a slinger to support. I'm overall happy with the results of the first 100 turns.



It's at this point where I wasn't happy with my choices. You can see me using that one governor to create builders, another to prepare for war with the south, and I swapped the settler governor with the one which generates science. I felt all over the place again, and as a result I took too long building catapults where my neighbors had too much science, so I reacted with campuses, then reacted with spamming markets, and by then it was too late to even declare war with my current army. Maybe I should've just declared war with only a small handful of units.

 

[Catalytic]

I would've played it out.

The main thing I'm seeing is that you have effectively no military and are only making 1 unit despite being surrounded by barbs and having 9-10 cities to defend. You're training even more settlers on top of that. Each settler gets progressively more expensive so some of those may effectively never complete. Those are wasted hammers/production. You're overcommitted to your strategy and failed to move to consolidate your winnings once you had them.

I'm by no means an expert. My comfort level is King/Emperor. But there's a bit of an instinct in knowing when the AI sees you as a tasty snack. It seems to be based on a comparison of your military strength number to theirs, and then they get a multiplier based on whether they're pacifist or warmongers. Warmongers need less of a massive advantage before they declare on you. Right now, you're a tasty snack in those screenshots, but the game's hardly over. The only threat on the continent is the barbs and you can clean that up easily with some crossbows and a few melee units as a meat shield. You're going to lose Bad Thera. Don't worry about it. That's your penalty for over-extending. You can replace it.

For me, I'd spend the next 30 turns working the following priorities:
-1) Stop all settler production except maybe the 1 closest to being done to replace Bad Thera, switch to military units
-2) Crossbows in your border cities + a few pikes/knights to ensure safety. Shift production cards til you get 8-10 units out (1 per city is kind of my rule of thumb for minimum military) Kill anything red you see.
-3) Max out your traders. You're 1/7, so as soon as the barbs are gone, prioritize caravans to build revenue
-4) Builder production w/ cards to juice your economy. You need to consolidate your territory to build an economic base to support your amphibious invasion of Kupe to win
-5) Clean out the barb camps as opportunity presents

Kupe's probably going to go wonder spamming while you do this, so you'll have time while he's playing around and gloating. By the end of that 30 turns or so, you'll want to think about Battleships, shore bombardments, and your own personal recreation of Normandy. The game's still quite winnable. Good luck either with this or your next game =)

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Personally I find super early rushes (like war cart or eagle rushes) quite luck depending. You basically sacrifice your build up so if you fail you lost the game. The most critical point (for me) is that you dont know anything about the map. So if you end up far away from anyone you build lots of units and cant do anything with them. If you send your attacking force the wrong way you waiste alot of time. And you are on a timer since those units will loose their relevance quickly (ok, I play on deity on price you should have more time).

On Prince with Gilgamesh you just keep building war carts until the entire continent is yours!! I wouldn't have stopped for the Campus, that can come later. War carts take out neighbours and fight barbs until there is no one left to fight.

It took a while before I even found my neighbors

Interesting, quite a narrow continent so should not have taken long at all.

Also look at the placement of your cities as some of them are horrible (sorry!!). Kish and Nippur have no fresh water and the latter is next to a volcano. Kish should have been on the other side of the mountain on the river and Nippur I probably would have put at the east of the Pantanal although it would need an aqueduct there, alrtnatively settle on the coast and you can still work 3 of the Pantanal tiles.

 

[Liberty Prime]

On Prince with Gilgamesh you just keep building war carts until the entire continent is yours!! I wouldn't have stopped for the Campus, that can come later. War carts take out neighbours and fight barbs until there is no one left to fight.

On Prince 3-4 Warcarts killed all 5 player owned cities, but the barbs kept coming and coming. I should've built more settlers after the 5th war cart instead of builders. Would the +4 Campus be incorrect if this were a higher difficulty?

Interesting, quite a narrow continent so should not have taken long at all.

lol, I was surprised too. I explored counter clockwise around Uruk, then followed the left border to miraculously find England before India For city placement I just slam them as close as possible to maximize the number of cities; I'll keep them spread out more like you said if it means finding fresh water and staying further away from volcanos.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

On Prince 3-4 Warcarts killed all 5 player owned cities, but the barbs kept coming and coming.

Good job with the AI lol, barbs are good for Gilgamesh given his ability but it sounds like you need a bit more experience with managing them. If you had 3 warcarts away killing the AI and were building a campus you probably didn't have enough troops at home. Gilgamesh gets early science form Ziggurgats so no rush for a campus.

Might be an idea to post a game here and play no more than 5 turns at a time whilst discussing your thinking with us as you go.

 

[MrRadar]

If I were to give one single advice based on this screenshot, that would be 'have more builders and improve your land'.
To have almost nothing improved at t120 is inexcusable negligence
In this situation, all your cities except New York are building unnecessary stuff. Unimproved luxuries are costing you amenities and everything else by extension - production, science, gold, culture. Mine hills, improve resources, chop some jungle and forests, if they are in the way of districts. Plus certain improvements or number of them bring in eurekas and speed up your teching. Not building/purchasing builders to improve your tiles as soon as there are citizens to work them is the major factor that holds you back now.

 

[Liberty Prime]

Good job with the AI lol, barbs are good for Gilgamesh given his ability but it sounds like you need a bit more experience with managing them. If you had 3 warcarts away killing the AI and were building a campus you probably didn't have enough troops at home. Gilgamesh gets early science form Ziggurgats so no rush for a campus.

Might be an idea to post a game here and play no more than 5 turns at a time whilst discussing your thinking with us as you go.

As requested, I'll post a game while updating every 5 turns. Keep in mind, not every game I play is difficult.



Feeling lucky! My warrior and first Warcart found barb encampments, found a natural wonder to the south, and turn 11 found both a city state and my first neighbor. I chose to exchange capital location, and intend to invade once I have a third or maybe fourth warcart built.

At this point, I already have choice paralysis; If I wasn't playing Gilgamesh, I'd consider making a settler to create a city next to the river and natural wonder, and even building an early holy site in my capital next to the mountain.

 

[MrRadar]

As requested, I'll post a game while updating every 5 turns. Keep in mind, not every game I play is difficult.

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Feeling lucky! My warrior and first Warcart found barb encampments, found a natural wonder to the south, and turn 11 found both a city state and my first neighbor. I chose to exchange capital location, and intend to invade once I have a third or maybe fourth warcart built.

At this point, I already have choice paralysis; If I wasn't playing Gilgamesh, I'd consider making a settler to create a city next to the river and natural wonder, and even building an early holy site in my capital next to the mountain.

Again, you have 3 improvable tiles in your close vicinity, 3 tile improvements - Craftsmanship boosted. First tech choice probably should’ve been Animal Husbandry, first build - a builder, for 2 camps and rice farm or quarry. You can change at this point too: delay the warcart till later. This being Prince, taking risk with a builder first is very much justified, considering your tiles. Then a warcart and a settler, if no barb scouts.

Spam units from two cities at least. By not improving your land and trying a military buildup just from the capital you’re stalling yourself.

Also, try to micro-manage your citizens. Go to the city screen and lock them in the tiles to work or set preferences, where they should go to work. At the start growth and production are most important things.

 

[Baigan]

You said that you left the game before because you failed to learn it; if you don't enjoy the game then you shouldn't spend your time on it, but I'd hate to hear that you drop it again because you think you're not good enough. Civ6 is not an optimization machine. You do not need to play perfectly to win. In fact, playing through these adverse events might teach you more about what's required to win than the perfect flash-in-the-pan game. It took multiple attempts at playing into the late-game and failing before I got a sense of what a successful cultural victory entails. If I had quit those games because the AI sniped the Oracle I wouldn't have learned anything.

Things like build orders, governor choices, turn 50 and 100 benchmarks—they're helpful, there's a reason they exist, but in terms of learning about the game they pale in comparison to trying out different things and evaluating for yourself how they pan out.

 

[Liberty Prime]

This map seems neat! I like the idea of building a settler now and forward settle by the fresh water lake with future cities along the river. I might even build the Great Bath in my 2nd city to prevent flooding.

This being Prince, taking risk with a builder first is very much justified, considering your tiles.

I'd rather not relearn how to play the game again when I increase the difficulty; Deity strats should work on Prince, right? I bought a late builder on turn 25.

I'd hate to hear that you drop it again because you think you're not good enough. Civ6 is not an optimization machine. You do not need to play perfectly to win.

I appreciate the kind words! I intend on optimizing smaller goals before trying to improve absolutely everything. For now, I'd like to consistently conquer the early game through mass expansion, and build early and well placed districts.



should I take Nidaros now, or wait until they build a settler?

 

[MrRadar]

I'd rather not relearn how to play the game again when I increase the difficulty; Deity strats should work on Prince, right?

There are certain differences between the difficulties, which may prompt different approaches. On Deity, AI gets large bonuses, but that also means that they can be exploited harder by the player. Deity AI may be more difficult to take on by force, as it has more starting units and has a lot of free techs, but it is also richer and can serve as sort of ATM when you need gold, as AI can pay nicely for your extra luxuries or strategic resources or Diplomatic favour. Besides, you may even be in luck to snipe their second or third free settler with as little as a scout, if they have some trouble with barbs or other neighbour. On Prince you have more leeway for the buildup of your initial base - you can go on conquest from three cities easily, maybe even four, and bring a stronger punch to the fight, as opposed to probably just two city base on Deity, if you have to take on a close neighbour by force early on.

For now, I'd like to consistently conquer the early game through mass expansion, and build early and well placed districts.

That's good thinking (don't also forget improving the land, which is probably even more important than districts very early on), and for that you also have to play the map and find rhyme and reason to everything you do, especially early on. Speaking of which, I see you spent quite a few turns going Astrology, before Animal Husbandry. Why? Can you answer that (for yourself)? You researched Astrology t21 and then did nothing with it - t25 I can't see any Holy Site placed. So what was the point? Probably none, wasted effort and wasted turns that could have been better spent on Animal Husbandry earlier, as with a builder you could have immediately reaped the benefits and have those two camps up and running earlier as well.

should I take Nidaros now, or wait until they build a settler?

As for the present situation, you have three warcarts close to Nidaros, and that's more than enough to take it. So take it. In Civ, less but now is almost always better than a bit more but later.

 

[Liberty Prime]

You researched Astrology t21 and then did nothing with it

The quick answer is that I didn't know I couldn't place one next to the mountain by my city, but I did discover a spot with a +2 yield to the north. I also wasn't sure what to spend my gold on this early. I did reap the benefits of animal husbandry as soon as my builder reached the camps, but I could've bought one earlier. Knowing where to build what districts and when is still something I'm learning.

You did mention I should have at least 2 cities pumping out units, so I decided to build a settler before the holy site and bought a builder for my main.

 

[MrRadar]

The quick answer is that I didn't know I couldn't place one next to the mountain by my city,

Yeah, that's a common beginner (and not only) mistake. I banged my head against the wall on a few occasions as well, when I discovered I forgot to research Masonry, or Bronze Working or Irrigation, to be able to remove the respective terrain feature All the well laid plans down the drain

You did mention I should have at least 2 cities pumping out units, so I decided to build a settler before the holy site and bought a builder for my main.

Just remember, that no plan is set in stone and you can adapt as you go, every turn. Invested production or research does not decay, as in some earlier installments of Civ, so react to the developments, adapt and switch away to something more useful at the moment, leaving the current build or research for a more suitable time later.

 

[Liberty Prime]

This game's trash I'm going back to civ 4. There's nothing enjoyable about it.