General Civ VI Questions

[Addison Carter]

Hi - I'm new to the forums and learning Civ VI. I'm hoping other players can help with some questions I have.

Production: I'm playing the Kongolese/Rise and Fall/Standard and advancing from King to Emperor. I've already lost but survived in decent shape. But throughout the game, only my capital was productive. No matter the industrial zones or mines I built in other cities, they produced very little. This was also true on King.

I bought military units because cities took too long to build anything. This caused problems during wars and building science and culture went almost nowhere. I could only rely on my capital for production. Is there something more I can do?

End of Turn: End of Turn never seems to be End of Turn. I'll click it and it cycles to another unit. Is there a trick to understanding how it works?

Partisans: Late in the game, the AI seemed focused on enticing rebellion in my cities. Partisans popped up all over my territory. I'd destroy them and they'd reappear the next turn, mostly to plunder trade units. My own spies offered little help. Is this normal AI behavior?

Thank you in advance to anyone who may be able to help.

 

[DJ_Tanner]

Your cap is usually going to be the powerhouse in your empire, but without seeing what your cities looked like its hard to tell what the issue was. Maybe you settled in poor areas, maybe you didn't grow them properly, etc. there are a few things that could of happened. Some general things to look for, is the best tile to settle is going to be a plains hill (preferably with a luxury) this will give the standard city tile the biggest bang for the buck. other than that, you want to make sure you have cities will have access to 4 yield tiles (3 food 1 production, 2 food 2 production 2 food 1 production 1 gold, etc) these are the best areas to focus your city building to make sure the city can grow and produce the best.

The end of turn is trying to make all your preset moves and what is happening (usually) is something getting canceled. For instance, you are moving 2 warriors back to your capital and it will take 5 turns. Turn 1 you end and they both walk the set path towards home. Turn 2 same thing. Turn 3 your archer gets built, now when you end turn the warriors will ask for directions because where they are trying to move (the capital) is unacceptable since there is another unit in that space. This will happen often when they try to move through bottlenecks or if there are just a lot of units shuffling about. The other item that will cause the end turn to stop is a unit that ends their automove with additional movement points, so you have 2 moves and take 1 space, even if every surrounding tile requires 2 points it will ask you if you want to continue to move (most common with scouts), and idle workers.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Production: I'm playing the Kongolese/Rise and Fall/Standard and advancing from King to Emperor. I've already lost but survived in decent shape. But throughout the game, only my capital was productive. No matter the industrial zones or mines I built in other cities, they produced very little. This was also true on King.

I bought military units because cities took too long to build anything. This caused problems during wars and building science and culture went almost nowhere. I could only rely on my capital for production. Is there something more I can do?

Production's just downright weird in Civ 6. A city with a lot of hills can be productive (build Mines), but otherwise for most cities production takes forever. So, rely on Builders to chop in things you can't buy (like districts), and buy anything else you need.

re military units in particular, they get stupid expensive as the game goes on. If you can, build them only when you're running a relevant production bonus card. Better yet, build as many units in the Ancient Era as you can, and then upgrade them with gold as you go forward. It's materially cheaper to upgrade than to build new units, so do it as often as possible, and using the 50% upgrade cost discount whenever you can.

End of Turn: End of Turn never seems to be End of Turn. I'll click it and it cycles to another unit. Is there a trick to understanding how it works?

If you have set a Unit to automove (by, for example, sending it to a destination it can't get to in one turn), then those units move after you click "Next Turn", and if they still have movement points left, the game will ask you whether you want to do anything with them. Once you're done and click "Next Turn" again, any remaining such units will move, etc.

Partisans: Late in the game, the AI seemed focused on enticing rebellion in my cities. Partisans popped up all over my territory. I'd destroy them and they'd reappear the next turn, mostly to plunder trade units. My own spies offered little help. Is this normal AI behavior?

If one of your Spies is in a counter-spy operation in either: (a) the target district, which is your Neighbourhood in the case of Partisans, or (b) in a district adjacent to the target district, then your Spy will render it highly unlikely that the enemy Spy will succeed. A Spy of yours anywhere else won't have an effect on the enemy Spy's likelihood of success.

For empire wide protection, there are a coupe of Diplomatic Policy Cards that lower the likelihood of success of enemy Spies attacking any of your districts.​

 

[Archon_Wing]

Currently production costs are broken, making it cheaper to upgrade older units that are easier to make than build new ones. The card that reduces upgrade costs is pretty helpful (Professional Army at Mercenaries)

They can only recruit partisans in neighborhoods. In general, I don't build neighborhoods at all except for an inspiration. There's easier ways to get housing and wasting a spy in these tends to be pretty bad. If you do want to get mileage out of them, put them next to a district (possible adjacency bonus) and also a spy can be deployed to watch over both-- spies can counterspy all adjacent districts.

 

[Addison Carter]

Your cap is usually going to be the powerhouse in your empire, but without seeing what your cities looked like its hard to tell what the issue was. Maybe you settled in poor areas, maybe you didn't grow them properly, etc. there are a few things that could of happened. Some general things to look for, is the best tile to settle is going to be a plains hill (preferably with a luxury) this will give the standard city tile the biggest bang for the buck. other than that, you want to make sure you have cities will have access to 4 yield tiles (3 food 1 production, 2 food 2 production 2 food 1 production 1 gold, etc) these are the best areas to focus your city building to make sure the city can grow and produce the best.

The end of turn is trying to make all your preset moves and what is happening (usually) is something getting canceled. For instance, you are moving 2 warriors back to your capital and it will take 5 turns. Turn 1 you end and they both walk the set path towards home. Turn 2 same thing. Turn 3 your archer gets built, now when you end turn the warriors will ask for directions because where they are trying to move (the capital) is unacceptable since there is another unit in that space. This will happen often when they try to move through bottlenecks or if there are just a lot of units shuffling about. The other item that will cause the end turn to stop is a unit that ends their automove with additional movement points, so you have 2 moves and take 1 space, even if every surrounding tile requires 2 points it will ask you if you want to continue to move (most common with scouts), and idle workers.

Many times I

Your cap is usually going to be the powerhouse in your empire, but without seeing what your cities looked like its hard to tell what the issue was. Maybe you settled in poor areas, maybe you didn't grow them properly, etc. there are a few things that could of happened. Some general things to look for, is the best tile to settle is going to be a plains hill (preferably with a luxury) this will give the standard city tile the biggest bang for the buck. other than that, you want to make sure you have cities will have access to 4 yield tiles (3 food 1 production, 2 food 2 production 2 food 1 production 1 gold, etc) these are the best areas to focus your city building to make sure the city can grow and produce the best.

The end of turn is trying to make all your preset moves and what is happening (usually) is something getting canceled. For instance, you are moving 2 warriors back to your capital and it will take 5 turns. Turn 1 you end and they both walk the set path towards home. Turn 2 same thing. Turn 3 your archer gets built, now when you end turn the warriors will ask for directions because where they are trying to move (the capital) is unacceptable since there is another unit in that space. This will happen often when they try to move through bottlenecks or if there are just a lot of units shuffling about. The other item that will cause the end turn to stop is a unit that ends their automove with additional movement points, so you have 2 moves and take 1 space, even if every surrounding tile requires 2 points it will ask you if you want to continue to move (most common with scouts), and idle workers.

Most times I'll settle where the computer displays the city icon. I believed that my best option but now am not so sure. There are other times when I build for strategic reasons and don't expect production. It's just frustrating when your second and third cities sit and do almost nothing. Now I'll focus on for 4 yields like you said and hope that helps.

Production's just downright weird in Civ 6. A city with a lot of hills can be productive (build Mines), but otherwise for most cities production takes forever. So, rely on Builders to chop in things you can't buy (like districts), and buy anything else you need.

re military units in particular, they get stupid expensive as the game goes on. If you can, build them only when you're running a relevant production bonus card. Better yet, build as many units in the Ancient Era as you can, and then upgrade them with gold as you go forward. It's materially cheaper to upgrade than to build new units, so do it as often as possible, and using the 50% upgrade cost discount whenever you can.

If you have set a Unit to automove (by, for example, sending it to a destination it can't get to in one turn), then those units move after you click "Next Turn", and if they still have movement points left, the game will ask you whether you want to do anything with them. Once you're done and click "Next Turn" again, any remaining such units will move, etc.




If one of your Spies is in a counter-spy operation in either: (a) the target district, which is your Neighbourhood in the case of Partisans, or (b) in a district adjacent to the target district, then your Spy will render it highly unlikely that the enemy Spy will succeed. A Spy of yours anywhere else won't have an effect on the enemy Spy's likelihood of success.

For empire wide protection, there are a coupe of Diplomatic Policy Cards that lower the likelihood of success of enemy Spies attacking any of your districts.​

I didn't realize Partisans were recruited from Neighborhoods but it makes sense. They were driving me crazy. The End of Turn issue still confuses me although I understand the cause. I don't remember previous versions doing it like this. End of Turn meant End of Turn. But it's not a big deal. I know now to pay attention before I get up otherwise I'll come back and the game is where I left it.

Currently production costs are broken, making it cheaper to upgrade older units that are easier to make than build new ones. The card that reduces upgrade costs is pretty helpful (Professional Army at Mercenaries)

They can only recruit partisans in neighborhoods. In general, I don't build neighborhoods at all except for an inspiration. There's easier ways to get housing and wasting a spy in these tends to be pretty bad. If you do want to get mileage out of them, put them next to a district (possible adjacency bonus) and also a spy can be deployed to watch over both-- spies can counterspy all adjacent districts.

I always end up being forced to build Neighborhoods. I build sewers and utilize policy cards, but my cities always reach the population limit. I hope to get better at it over time. Wasting a spy and the cost takes a toll.

 

[Archon_Wing]

There's really nothing wrong with reaching the population limit especially if the land isn't that good. Most of my cities never pass pop 10.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

I agree with Archon Wing. Unless you have a good reason for wanting to grow the city it's better to neglect housing in the mid-late game and spend the hammers/money on something else. It isn't worth it to grow your cities just for the sake of growing them.

 

[zonk]

Yeah, hammers are REAL bear in civ6... I didn't play much civ5 - but if you're a veteran of civ4 and earlier, the production curve is a YUGE change.

Patience is a key - builds take forever, so -

1) Don't react, plan. If you're building in response to something (a DoW, etc) - you're probably screwed anyway.

2) Unlike prior iterations of Civ where spamming was essential, remember that even at higher levels - the AI is facing the similar production constraints. This means it's less important to match the AI unit for unit than it is to simply fight smart. Units are precious - and the AI doesn't get this... so lure the AI into killing zones while keeping your own units from being isolated and picked off. Make smart use of promotions to ensure survival. Get used to strategic withdrawals. Terrain is important not just for defensive buffs (or conversely, riskier attacks) but also because of the movement costs of certain things (rivers in particular). Generally, a couple ranged units plus an infantry cleanup (or cavalry cleanup) is enough to survive most situations. 2X2 works well I've found.

3) While military policy cards suck, especially early game - I don't build military except with a corresponding card. Obviously, it's impossible to time builds perfectly - but the "meat" of a build (cavalry vs ranged vs infantry vs naval) only happens when the corresponding card is active. I've used the build queue mod so long I don't even recall how it works if don't use the mod - but naked/conflicting builds are a bad idea.

4) Manage your citizens manually. The AI/default seems to too often prioritize growth - and with the housing limits, growth is often suboptimal. Sometimes there are instances where it pays to accelerate a new pop - but more often than not, I'd rather a citizen be working a 2/2 tile than a 4/0 tile.

5) By the same token - worker builds are precious. Beyond luxury/strategic needs - it makes no sense to spend a worker build on chopping or tile development without immediate need. A three pop city ~40 turns (I play marathon) till growth has zero need to immediately develop a 4th tile improvement.

As for the other items - unit selection in the UI and Next Turn interface is calculated via a very complex and elegant algorithm which takes into account a wide variety of factors. It's over-simplified - but the theory is "What 'next unit selection' would most screw over a mouse-happy player TIMES the square root of 'how can the game best introduce annoyances that exacerbate the first factor' raised to the power of 'limitations of human patience to revert to autosaves because THAT'S NOT WHO I MEANT TO MOVE IN THAT DIRECTION." The only way to deal with it is to learn to live with the sad fact that the interface developers clearly intended to make unit selection/next turn into the most hellish, masochistic schema possibly imaginable... and succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They worked closely with the pathing engineers to ensure that you'd always get confused as to which units had gotten the Spear of Fion or the Lyjeswhatever for naval promotions, so that scouts would alternate to circuitous routes because a terrain bottleneck would exist temporarily and cause a 10+ turn delay, and generally cause the player to break their keyboard in frustration. In short - what can you do about? Nothing except join the underground movement to hunt down and reprogram said Devs so that they don't continue down their Terminator/Matrix/etc paths of giving AIs the advantage of not being subject to the same nerfs.

On the last, yes - the AI loves to do this when its ass is in prime kicking position. It seems to be their favorite 'screw you'. The only wards I know of are either card-based (diplomacy cards that give mallus to enemy spies) or wasting one of your own spies in the city targeted. Fortunately, though - the AI seems to fall in love with doing this to specific cities - so deploy troops accordingly. I.e., if they do it once to City A, almost guaranteed that they're going to do it again to the same city. Keep your units on districts because district repair sucks - while tile repair is less painful.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

Production: I'm playing the Kongolese/Rise and Fall/Standard and advancing from King to Emperor. I've already lost but survived in decent shape. But throughout the game, only my capital was productive. No matter the industrial zones or mines I built in other cities, they produced very little. This was also true on King.

I bought military units because cities took too long to build anything. This caused problems during wars and building science and culture went almost nowhere. I could only rely on my capital for production. Is there something more I can do?

Partisans: Late in the game, the AI seemed focused on enticing rebellion in my cities. Partisans popped up all over my territory. I'd destroy them and they'd reappear the next turn, mostly to plunder trade units. My own spies offered little help. Is this normal AI behavior?

It sounds like it could be an amenity deficit, rather than the AI recruiting partisans. If you don’t have the proper number of amenities for your empire, the people will rebel (partisans) and your production will drastically slow. Are you familiar with this screen?

Spoiler :

 

[Victoria]

I bought military units because cities took too long to build anything

Have a read of the chopping example link in my signature, chopping is very key to speeding up your game/going to higher levels.

 

[DJ_Tanner]

Most times I'll settle where the computer displays the city icon. I believed that my best option but now am not so sure. There are other times when I build for strategic reasons and don't expect production. It's just frustrating when your second and third cities sit and do almost nothing. Now I'll focus on for 4 yields like you said and hope that helps.

Yeah at higher levels you need to stop relying on the computer stuff a bit. The recommended stuff tends to focus a bit much on lux. Another thing that may be causing such a great divide between cap and cities is your trade routes. I am guessing, since your cap is so much better, you are building trade routes in the cap and then sending them out, which is making the rich richer. You can relocate them to your new cities and they make a BIG difference. Early game from new city to the cap will be 1-3 Spacely Sprockets which can double or triple the output of that city helping it catch up.

For planning, one thing that has really helped me is map pins. On the set of menus bottom left you can add map pins, and oh my. No more on turn 20 this would be a great spot for an industrial zone, then when I finally get the tech to realize I wasted it on something else. Or when I find a great new city location and then by the time I actually get a new settler up I have no idea where it is anymore.

I didn't realize Partisans were recruited from Neighborhoods but it makes sense. They were driving me crazy. The End of Turn issue still confuses me although I understand the cause. I don't remember previous versions doing it like this. End of Turn meant End of Turn. But it's not a big deal. I know now to pay attention before I get up otherwise I'll come back and the game is where I left it.

Another way around the End Turn thing is, I think Space + End Turn or Ctrl + End Turn, it will give a hard pass on any unit. Doing this means you any unit that needed new orders isn't going to get them, but it will stop it from hanging up because a builder (that you weren't gonna move anyways) is asking too many questions.

 

[CPWimmer]

For planning, one thing that has really helped me is map pins. On the set of menus bottom left you can add map pins, and oh my. No more on turn 20 this would be a great spot for an industrial zone, then when I finally get the tech to realize I wasted it on something else. Or when I find a great new city location and then by the time I actually get a new settler up I have no idea where it is anymore.

I agree with this. And I highly recommend using the Map Tacks Mod that adds additional map pin icons, including ones for each district and improvement.

 

[King Rad]

With regard to the unit selection/next turn issue, the automatic selection of a unit after completing another unit's movement can be turned off. Additionally, the shortcut keys for next unit, etc. can be modified in the options screen. What I've done [since I like to see the result of my battles and/or to move units in a coordinated fashion if I have several participating in a battle] is turn off the automatic selection of the next unit and hard code the "N" key to select the next unit. If i'm working with several units that are grouped for a battle, I just click on the unit I want. As to the rest, clicking on the "n" key simply jumps to the next unit with movement points. If I don't want to move it [builder, great person I'm waiting for a particular reason/event to use, etc.] but don't want to put it to sleep or on alert, I just click the skip turn button. I also hard coded the "B" key to move to the next action [usually building something]; so I click through the N keys options until all units have moved, then the B key options to complete my building choices for that turn, and clicking the B again ends the turn [since it's actually a 'next action' shortcut]. Then only if a unit that was moving automatically from a prior selection has encountered a problem, will the screen stop - and hitting the N key takes me immediately to the unit with a problem [such as the examples mentioned earlier]. I find this to be a very efficient way to get through a turn, since I simply click the N or B key as appropriate with my left hand and use the mouse to click on whatever action I want to take. And if there's a unit you really don't want to use for a while, then putting it to sleep or on alert will keep it that way until you wake it up and it won't keep the end turn button from ending the turn. Of course, make sure you don't forget about it, like I sometimes do!