How do YOU play Civ different from anyone else?

[Carto]

I like playing score victories with poor starting locations as a way to lengthen the initial catch-up period with the AI.

I don't really like spamming settlers in the early game, so I max out civs and city states so there's only enough room for 2 or 3 cities before the wars start. Sometimes I'll do this with sea level set to high, as well.

Other than that, I'm mostly interested in ways of hindering myself so I have to work with the same set of challenges (poor city and district placement) as the AI. One way is to mark all the goody huts and barbarian camps with map tacks and limit future city spots to those locations. Another is to tie city expansion to governors. I'll only found new cities (or allow cities to get above a certain size) if I have a governor to place in them. This can also be done with production, by only producing units / districts when there's a governor in the city.

Two mods I'm enjoying right now are Zee's Distance Matters and Zee's Properly Timed Eras. The first increases the minimum distance between cities, which makes placing more than one or two optimal cities difficult. It also leaves more room for the AI to fight in between cities. The second mod makes it harder to tech ahead of the current era and easier to catch up, which encourages the player to meander through the tech tree like the AI.

ETA: I tried Zee's Distance Matters with a packed standard map, and I don't think there was enough available space for every civ to and CS to settle. About 20 turns in, Khmer's starting units came out of nowhere to steal a capital before they could even establish their own.

 

[Cherenkov]

I would hardly know if anyone else does this but one of my favorite under rated pantheons is God of War. Especially when warmongering on deity where the AI loves to spam holy sites. I ignored this pantheon for a long time because I thought it meant I had to be within 8 hexes of only my holy sites. Really fun to use with Gorgo and watch those culture and faith gains fly by when killing units.

In GS I like stockpiling my diplomatic points and spending it on the resolution for 100% increase to campuses and watching those research centers go up quickly.
I like making my lands look ugly. Mines and more mines, to hell with the environment!
I like to build nuclear plants and push the limit on recommissioning.

 

[WillowBrook]

I do ridiculous things to complete as many city state quests as possible before the era changes. Also, I play with the Real Eurekas mod, which adds a bunch of new eurekas and inspirations and shuffles which ones are required so the set is different every game (actually, each load of the game reshuffles them).

Last night, I had a couple of city states that wanted me to get the eureka for Recorded History, which happened to be to have two great works of writing. I had no great writer points, but was making good coin as Dido, so I saved up to buy a full-price Great Writer while I was building my only Theater Square (which I almost forgot I needed for the GW slot) and then bought the amphitheater. I triggered the eureka (I mean, Ovid contributed his epic poems to my civilization) just a few turns before the era changed. I'm sure I could have made "better" use of all that gold, but, well, that's how I play.

 

[qadams]

Use Khmer and really go for the suicide missionary relics. It’s a fun culture victory.

What a great idea. I have to try this!

 

[drubell]

I delete my starting settler

 

[King Rad]

Like @Sostratus I tend to play a production game. In addition to his strategic production plan, I also try to become the suzerain of the production city states. It's actually kind of humorous in that I would read other posts and wonder why people thought items took too much production in later eras. My current game, as Canada, I'm about 300 turns in and it takes 2 or 3 turns to produce a district in my capital. I also like gold, so most of my cities have IZs and CHs. And then there are harbors, for my navy. I do use encampments not only to produce the peacekeeping force to protect my border and allies, but to benefit from both the housing and production.I essentially try to produce the idealized United States with whatever civ I'm playing - a prosperous, productive nation and friends with all the other enlightened civs. I generally play peacefully, but will often defend city states. I also might wipe a civ out that declares its horribly unjustified surprise [or formal] war against me. I role play as the peacekeeper among nations. I don't usually have a specific victory condition in mind when I start, and I never re-roll - I just play the conditions I inherit. I've only played a couple of civs more than once - one because I finished my last civ a couple of weeks before GS came out and one because I wanted to not play one of the new civs while I was learning the new points of the game. Funny that the first civ under GS was Mogolia - that bastion of peaceful play. And I accidentally won a diplomacy victory [think I must have completed a project that gave victory points] while my 5 allies and my friend, whom I couldn't ally since I'd used them all up, looked on. Only person missing was that dreadful Wilhemina who declared an early surprise war and constantly denounced me, so I accepted a joint war request from my buddy Gilbro and we wiped her out. I don't attach a civ, etc. just to keep them from winning. I once was about 1 turn away from a science victory when Roosevelt won his cultural victory - I guess my intellect just couldn't quite compete with his movies and blue jeans.

 

[Merri]

I translate the game to my native language as I go, so I guess that is somewhat special

 

[Mr_PeaCH]

I really enjoy exploring and uncovering the map and natural wonders; I rarely play games to their conclusions but get to a point where I know I'm going to win or not and start a new game.

I like large maps but I hate lots of cities; both by AI and in my own civ. The mod that makes the minimum distance between cities greater is a blessing in this regard. (I use 4 tiles distance but am thinking of trying 5 tiles soon.)

Upthread the comment about playing solo while in Multiplayer mode but assigning different difficulty levels to different AI is genius and I'm definitely doing that soon. Thanks!

 

[VCrakeV]

I like to play standard map size, 6 Civs, and 12 city states. I usually minimize tundra/snow, unless going for a science victory (amundsen scott), in which case I use standard temperature. Landmasses vary from game to game, and I usually make it favorable for myself because taking advantage of unique abilities is fun (like maximum mountains for Inca).

I usually turn off faith victory because the AI spams missionaries and apostles enough as it is. I just want my religion's bonuses!

I've been thinking about playing a domination victory with only warrior monks (or at least only warrior monks and ranged units).

 

[WillowBrook]

I've been thinking about playing a domination victory with only warrior monks (or at least only warrior monks and ranged units).

I did that once as Mapuche. I had to restart quite a number of times in order to get the first religion (built Stonehenge ASAP), as the AI seems to take warrior monks first. I should have hand-picked opponents that don't prioritize religion. I also took the belief that gives you +10 In cities of your religion and then targeted civs in golden ages after spreading my religion to key cities. It was a lot of fun.

 

[AsparustheSaiyan]

Well...

I just finished a game with Russia on a huge, cold fractal map. I had 11 cities and all of them were settled in Tundra tiles. It got me thinking what leader agendas would I have in civ 6?

Leader agenda: Frozen King - Likes civs who don't own tundra tiles. Despises those who do.

Something like that. I could probably make a bunch of abilities based on my most recent game as Russia lol.

 

[Caprikel]

One really fun way to play multiplayer is to have 2 teams of 3-4 players, and sort of reenact a war, like WW1, WW2, the seven years war, or any other large war that can be represented by teams.

You then play on the Earth TSL map, and start the game in the era of the war or right before, and start the war at the real life time. After this we don't actually try to reenact the war,

at that point it's alternate history.

It's probably the most fun I've had with civ, since it has everything I like about civ warfare, without all the things I don't like (incompetent AI). Since starting in a later era has you starting

with a few settlers and gives you a large production boost, it doesn't take long at all to set up your empire for the war. One of the things I like best about this is the different strategies that come

into play. The team with America usually has to defend in Europe until America can send in support from across the ocean, and we usually have at least one person who focuses on Air units, and

another who focuses on Naval units.

 

[Bei1052]

I world build-- generally trying to have as many cities as possible as large as possible with the best improvements as possible, trying to make maximum use of a leaders UI/UU/UA-- and rarely go to war.

Sure, I could win early, but where's the fun in that?

 

[iammaxhailme]

I world build-- generally trying to have as many cities as possible as large as possible with the best improvements as possible, trying to make maximum use of a leaders UI/UU/UA-- and rarely go to war.

Sure, I could win early, but where's the fun in that?

This is pretty much what I do.

 

[jddods]

Large or Huge maps, 1/2 Civs +1 ( all selected). max CS.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

On top of stacking the maximum number of civs I can tolerate, (18 civs, 24 city states, Large Fractal).

I also occasionaly sink myself into fantasy by Hotseating against myself. Playing as ALL 12-18 leaders and just having fun. It's much less stressful to war against one self, plus it allows me to explore other game methods rather than subconciously min-maxing.