Greece and Russia ruin the game

[Stomper66]

I can't see this thread lasting very long but just created it because these are the 2 most annoying civs in the game and I couldn't find any recent appropriate threads to complain about them on. But having any one of these civs in the game will just take away what i enjoy about Civ6.

I'll start with Greece, and by Greece I mean Pericles not Gorgo. Pericles's culture bonus's are just too OP in my opinion because the Acropolis and the Surrounded by Glory leader bonus just give the civ ridiculous amounts of culture. The AI bee lines certain civics anyway which leads them into future eras earlier than desired. This is 10 times worse with Pericles though. I mostly play on Emperor and I'll be happily playing a game where every civ is in the medieval era. But then suddenly pericles has propelled himself into the industrial era in 1454 AD with his excessive culture and beelining. This also leads to him hoarding every civics wonder in the game.

Next Russia, I have no problem with Peters leader ability or the civ ability. I actually think these are really cool and appropriate for the civ, but I hate the Lavra with a passion. It looks nice on the map, but the great writer, artist and musician points just lead to Russia hogging nearly every single one of these GPs in the game. Whats more annoying is that Russia doesn't build to house these great works until much later in the game, so for the first half St Petersburg will be surrounded by about 3 Artists and 6 Writers with noting to do. I don't know why but they also manage to gain nearly half of the great generals, merchants and engineers. I normally play a game with 10-12 civs but Russia taking half of the great people in the game is just no fun.

I like the leader visual design,units and music of these civs but I won't have them in a play through because they just ruin the game. Please use this thread to share your experiences of these civs.

 

[Chefofrats]

Like this?

 

[sixty4half]

There is a short and simple answer to this. Military conquest will solve these problems of yours. Moving on now;

Maybe you're lagging behind in your Culture/Science generation. I mostly play Emperor too and I'm usually in the Modern Era by the 1400s. I'm normally hitting my 3rd Tier Government around that time and getting Tanks. I typically have about 7 campus' and 6 Theaters with their Tier 2 buildings by around this time. How much Science and Culture are you making at this point in the game? I'm usually making between 120 and 160 for either, depending on which I'm focusing. I typically have 8-12 cities by around turns 120-150 to generate that level of Science and Culture.

If he's to far away to actually war with, pay an AI to do it. Or send some cavalry and pillage half his countryside. Even if you can't take a city, that will slow him down some.

Russia is a pain in the arse though. He basically gets two theater squares per city so double the GP points. Again, if you can't do a full-on war, pilliaging is your friend. Keep those disctricts burnt to the ground and he can't generate GP. He'll also eventually pay a kings ransom to make you go away.


That was my advice, here's my words of wisdom; Thankfully there are civs that can give you problems during the 1400s. This game can get monotonous at times, and having powerful civs that can actually challenge you beyond the first 70 turns of the game is good for the game. If Periclese and Capt Hook are the only two you're having problems with, it shouldn't affect every game you play so learn some tactics to deal with these guys and enjoy the challenge. I don't even know if these civs can actually win against you, it just sounds like they're screwing with your preferred tactics and are annoying you because of it.

 

[Stomper66]

I can't tell you where I'm at in a certain turn, it depends on the civ I'm playing and I also use the historical speed mod. This paces the game wonderfully because every civ is around the same level in technology and civics at the appropriate era. I can tell you that using this mod around turn 200 out of 750 every civ had researched from 20-25 technologies, but bear in mind that technology and civics are slowed down whilst production remains the same. But in every game Russia and Greece are just runaways in Civics, wonders and Great people and this just spoils my immersion in the time period I'm playing.

I get your suggestion for war but I don't want to just resort to attacking or stealing from Peter to get one out of 20 great works that he's hoarded. Its satisfying to patronage a great artist or writer and Peter just ruins this. Even playing as France and Japan and getting Culture districts as soon as you can you still can't stop Peter from churning out 3 or 4 great writers by then. And Pericles there is just no way of stoping him advancing to eras too early due to his ridiculous culture levels, unless you start razing or occupying his city states which is again no fun.

I am frustrated because I like to get the culture victory and play quite peacefully. I never attempted a domination victory and don't like to eliminate civs from the game. I just think Pericles leader trait and the Lavra need a rethink. I mean the Lavra is powerful anyway without the GP points so maybe just get rid of these. The most fun civs are the ones with niche bonuses and Pericles and Peter are not niche, they are just amazing at everything and this ruins the game for the other civs.

 

[Tech Osen]

Like this?
View attachment 499960

I'm offended!

 

[sixty4half]

I can't tell you where I'm at in a certain turn, it depends on the civ I'm playing and I also use the historical speed mod. This paces the game wonderfully because every civ is around the same level in technology and civics at the appropriate era. I can tell you that using this mod around turn 200 out of 750 every civ had researched from 20-25 technologies,

Sorry but I don't think I can help you then. I'm not playing a modded version of the game.

I am frustrated because I like to get the culture victory and play quite peacefully. I never attempted a domination victory and don't like to eliminate civs from the game. I just think Pericles leader trait and the Lavra need a rethink. I mean the Lavra is powerful anyway without the GP points so maybe just get rid of these. The most fun civs are the ones with niche bonuses and Pericles and Peter are not niche, they are just amazing at everything and this ruins the game for the other civs.

This is probably the biggest problem then. No offence, but you're only playing 3/4ths of the game. And the 1/4th that you are ignoring is probably the most important.

You don't have to eliminate any civ from the game to eliminate them from competition. Just take a couple of his cities, or burn them to the ground. I get it, it's cool to have created a nation cool enough that you attract a bunch of great people. But sometimes you just have to take whats yours by force instead. Having a goal in mind when you start a game is one thing, but you should be flexible and be willing to change your game plan when you meet a civ that presents a particular problem to your plans.

 

[Tech Osen]

Take it by force. If you can't take it by force then steal the greatworks with your spies. Make sure you have enough room.

 

[Hep Roc Heretic]

... No offence, but you're only playing 3/4ths of the game. And the 1/4th that you are ignoring is probably the most important.

That's the 4th X (eXterminate) in 4X games such as Civ. The AI civs will use that strategy against you when they feel threatened, so why not use it to your advantage when necessary?

Having a goal in mind when you start a game is one thing, but you should be flexible and be willing to change your game plan when you meet a civ that presents a particular problem to your plans.

Different civs require different strategies. Depending on what civs you meet, you might even need to change your ideas on what kind of victory to go for.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Its funny that in the Civ of the Week Greece thread a lot of people were arguing that Pericles was underpowered because the AI conquers lots of city-states.
You could always try playing Brazil or Kongo who also hoover up great people when they are in the game.

 

[Disgustipated]

I certainly didn't feel Pericles was underpowered after playing him. He really took off in my game.

The other option not mentioned in these comments is play those civilizations yourself, then you don't have to worry about the AI playing them.

And yes Kongo and Brazil are also GP whores. Might be interesting to have a game with all 4 civilizations in. I'm tempted to start one. But it sounds like the OP want those GP for himself, but that isn't realistic to get every GP. Though sometimes I wish you could steal GP, I kind of miss that.

 

[Dragabond]

I share your feelings about the Lavra; I think it's stupidly overpowered and the AI builds them everywhere since they're built for half cost, which leads to an inordinate amount of unemployed artists. Which is incredibly realistic, but that's not the point. If the Lavra got, say, one of those types of GPP I might feel a bit better about it. If it had a slot to then house that type of great work, I might feel a bit better about it. (I've literally never seen an AI Russia found a religion and choose Cathedrals, which is the only thing that would help them out in that regard.) The Lavra is ridiculous, and always will be.

Generally when I'm starting a game, certain factors will make me restart, even having played several dozen to a hundred turns (having the tech/civic progress cut in half by a mod means that's still the start of the game); one of those factors is if I meet Peter within that time. I can't stand him at all, but if he's on the other side of the world (which is easy to tell if you just look at the Great Person menu and see someone generating Writer/Artist/Musician points at the same clip in an early state) I'll generally just leave him be. But if he's anything resembling a nearby neighbor? Detonate the game. The AI loves oversaturating the map with silly cities (placed without water, food, production, etc) and has an inherent knowledge of where resources are when they shouldn't be visible, so they don't follow the same logic as a human player. Russia's giant blobby borders are more than enough for me not to want to live anywhere near him, and taking everything away from him is a huge tangent that does nothing but damage my diplomatic relationships with other, tolerable people. I've tried to get along with Peter in games. His agenda means that I'll basically always satisfy it and have a positive modifier with him, because being ahead of the AI in science/culture is not hard to do. And even while friendly he'll pull his blobby border BS, which does nothing but irritate me.

Literally never had a problem with Pericles, though. At least not the one that you're describing. Sure, he tends to be ahead of the other AI in civics, and his boost to culture can snowball if you let it get out of hand, but fight him for control of his city-states and maintain it and you'll effectively contain his culture benefits. This, of course, bothers his agenda which will make him far more likely to target you for war. So smack him around. I'm generally pretty peaceful in the way that I play, and I try to avoid overtly angering the AI by accruing a large warmonger penalty, but there's nothing wrong with killing waves of soldiers, assaulting a few cities and making your enemy beg you for mercy. The AI is far less likely to put cities up for offer on the negotiating table these days, but taking a large city and offering to return it in exchange for a smaller one can sometimes work. Also taking a city, allowing it to flip to a Free City, then recapturing and burning it down is...dishonest, but it works (for now) with a lesser penalty than having razed the city outright as you'll only get the initial penalty of having captured and kept the city.

I dunno. Greece seems like they're good, but not unreasonably overpowered, unlike the Lavra. Having played as Pericles a number of times, I didn't notice my culture that radically different from other playthroughs. Unless you have an Acropolis in every city, full with great works, control over all citystates (most especially Antananarivo) and policies boosting your culture, I guess, but that's more a late game situation. The highest I ever got my culture in a game, I was playing as the Cree, so I guess I'm just saying it's really all in the way you play it.

Except for the Lavra. I hate the Lavra.

 

[Stomper66]

I can see you point about Greece. Maybe its just the historic speed mod that I'm using why Pericles ability is ruining the game. You can't really compete with him for city states though as he gets an envoy for every acropolis as well as more envoys for his higher culture.

I don't mind Peters extra tiles it's appropriate for Russia as they cover so much land in the game and in real geography. I think the Russia achievement even involves having a huge empire.

The civs that I hardly ever include in a game are Russia, Brazil and Greece. I don't really mind Kongo because they make up for in Relics and GP what they lack in Religion, plus I like their music.

Maybe it's because I like to play for cultural victories that I really don't like these civs in the game. I like to play as France but boosting their culture is hard and requires planning. (settling near rivers for chateau's, planning these chateau's to be built around carefully selected wonders, and then focusing on appeal to build national parks.) For Russia and Greece there is no planning or tactics to lead in culture. For Russia its build a Holy site like everybody else and we will churn out GPs for you and for Greece it's send envoys like everybody else and you get ridiculous culture.

I don't reset the game if they are in because I don't have them in the game from the start as I choose the other leaders. I want to have them in the game though, but at the moment their abilities just seem a bit unfair.

 

[Forster]

It seems to me that this problem is pretty easy to solve. Just pick the civs that you want to have in the game. It would be nice if there was a choice to select civs that you don't want to appear, but I doubt we'll ever get that.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Well that's definitely the worst thing about Peter. He nabs a bunch of Great Writers and does nothing with them, so killing him just prevents further damage. It doesn't undo what happened.

And he's also most likely to end up with defender of the faith. SOOO.... :/

 

[BarbarianHunter]

Like this?
View attachment 499960

The anecdotal evidence says Czar Peter is a Pokémon fanatic.

Spoiler Lavas :

 

[Disgustipated]

Just for the hell of it, I did start a game playing as Japan against Kongo, Brazil, Russia, and Pericles. Brazil just conquered the last Pericles city, so he's a non-factor at this point. I do plan on focusing on culture at this point (initially I hit Zulu and China hard taking them down to 1 city each before peacing out), and we'll see how well they compete.

 

[BenitoChavez]

I'd toss in Scotland as one of the GP hogs. They might even be worse since there aren't any other civs that get bonuses to scientists and engineers that could potentially balance them out.

 

[Zaarin]

Eh, it's Dom Satan and Mvemba that you have to watch out for, though given the chance, yes, Peter is also a great person hoarder (in a literal sense--he doesn't seem to actually use them ). I've never had Pericles give much trouble on the culture front; Gorgo, Teddy, and Lautaro tend to be far more significant.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I must admit the 1st time I played Peter I did the same as the AI.
I'd built a Lavra very early and hadn't realised how quickly the GPs would start rolling in.

 

[Pietato]

Murica and Straya ruin the game for me, because their music is horrendous and lasts beyond their deaths.