[BTS] Humbly asking for critique to my current game

[drako_romak]

I've been trying to win a Prince game for a few days now, and I seem to get a good start score-wise, until the AI seems to beat me during mid-game, getting beaten at space race late game pretty much.
I've been watching deity runs and read some of the articles here, so I have a basic grasp of common strategies I should go for, but around this part of the game I feel pretty lost, and end up skipping turns just to fall back behind everyone. I would like to hear some critique of how bad/good my early game went, and what strategies you would employ from here for a space victory. Some things to not, I went for Oxford, and at this point im going towards wall street to get a sushi corporation in the future. I have some commercial cities and some science cities, as well as one production city.

 

[sampsa]

Can't open the save now, but start from this https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/beginner-help-the-basics.648469/. Despite the name understanding all the concepts there should take you to at least monarch.

 

[a pen-dragon]

First, your situation looks solid, if you go conquer someone. Stalin would make a good target, just pick up rifling to build infantry( and steel for cannons), and then you have infantry+trebs (or cannons) vs. rifles+cossacks, which is a very favourable match-up. Keep in mind that not every game can be won with a space race without some conquest. In fact, if you play at a difficulty that is challenging for you, few games will be.

Definitely look up the linked thread, especially Part 11, regarding buildings. You did build way too many.

Why did you move your capital? The idea behind oxford is to build it in the capital and let it grow to works as many cottages as possible. Amsterdam is a better spot for this.

Regarding your early game, you will probably learn a lot from the basics thread, but I want to add that Stalin has the Pyramids and would have been a very good target for an earlier attack, e.g. with cuirassiers.

other stuff:

1. You also should trade for happiness resources with the AI.
2. Spread your religion into all major cities.
3. At this point in the game, grab cities with food. (west of Delft)
4. Try not to build cities that make food tiles unusable (Maastricht orphans a fish, Haarlem should not have been built and also orphans a fish).
5. e.g. for 4), but also for planning: scout your surroundings before settling, scout the AIs to decide on how to proceed.
6. Consider using your great people earlier, as a smaller, but earlier use frequently helps more than a later, more powerful use. Especially some bulbing or a golden age would have helped.
7. If you are teching it is frequently better to pick up state property before assembly line.
8. IMHO state property beats corps in most usual situations. Corps really shine when you have a big empire, which generally coincides with you already having won the game. They are good for speeding things up and getting a higher score but will rarely win you the game. There are strategies that heavily rely on corps, but they are generally rather advanced and will win very few games.
9. Manage your diplomacy, e.g. by giving a small gift to AIs when meeting them to get them to sign open borders and getting better relations from there.

 

[drako_romak]

First, your situation looks solid, if you go conquer someone. Stalin would make a good target, just pick up rifling to build infantry( and steel for cannons), and then you have infantry+trebs (or cannons) vs. rifles+cossacks, which is a very favourable match-up. Keep in mind that not every game can be won with a space race without some conquest. In fact, if you play at a difficulty that is challenging for you, few games will be.

Definitely look up the linked thread, especially Part 11, regarding buildings. You did build way too many.

Why did you move your capital? The idea behind oxford is to build it in the capital and let it grow to works as many cottages as possible. Amsterdam is a better spot for this.

Regarding your early game, you will probably learn a lot from the basics thread, but I want to add that Stalin has the Pyramids and would have been a very good target for an earlier attack, e.g. with cuirassiers.

other stuff:

1. You also should trade for happiness resources with the AI.
2. Spread your religion into all major cities.
3. At this point in the game, grab cities with food. (west of Delft)
4. Try not to build cities that make food tiles unusable (Maastricht orphans a fish, Haarlem should not have been built and also orphans a fish).
5. e.g. for 4), but also for planning: scout your surroundings before settling, scout the AIs to decide on how to proceed.
6. Consider using your great people earlier, as a smaller, but earlier use frequently helps more than a later, more powerful use. Especially some bulbing or a golden age would have helped.
7. If you are teching it is frequently better to pick up state property before assembly line.
8. IMHO state property beats corps in most usual situations. Corps really shine when you have a big empire, which generally coincides with you already having won the game. They are good for speeding things up and getting a higher score but will rarely win you the game. There are strategies that heavily rely on corps, but they are generally rather advanced and will win very few games.
9. Manage your diplomacy, e.g. by giving a small gift to AIs when meeting them to get them to sign open borders and getting better relations from there.

Very useful, thank you.
I moved my capital because I wanted to have many cottage for commerce as the capital for the bureaucracy +50% civic, it was an early decision I made that eventually turned out unnecesary. Indeed, I should've attacked stalin way early, especially since now he's destroying me constantly with spies (quite the funny AI behaviour for him, this game has so much personality into it), its pissing me off so much I might actually just do another run and finish this when i get a better grip at the game, can't even whip infantry properly without him poisoning half my cities.

As for bulbing, you were right, I was reading somewhere a strategy where someone was saving them up, I guess I'll have to try it for myself to get an understanding on how much bulbing really helps.

The fish tile off Maastricht was much of an unlucky situation, sincer I made that city quite early and the tile wasnt visible up until later.

The thread you are both mentioning is very helpful, I'll play the game with that on another monitor to help me answer my own questions while playing.

 

[Fippy]

In a nutshell: either play like Monty and fight whenever you gain an advantage, or play like Mansa
Mansa means open borders with all: yup.
Selling resources for gold per turn: yup (but Monty should do that too..).
Looking at your own gains and not caring about who is who's worst enemy etc: yup.

Diplo can be played so it evens out, but open borders + points are always available (+2) and so are resource deals (also +2).
You are doing none of that currently
Your whole game will change once you "use" all AIs.

 

[pigswill]

Do you have the starting save?

 

[drako_romak]

In a nutshell: either play like Monty and fight whenever you gain an advantage, or play like Mansa
Mansa means open borders with all: yup.
Selling resources for gold per turn: yup (but Monty should do that too..).
Looking at your own gains and not caring about who is who's worst enemy etc: yup.

Diplo can be played so it evens out, but open borders + points are always available (+2) and so are resource deals (also +2).
You are doing none of that currently
Your whole game will change once you "use" all AIs.

Funnily enough, its how I won all my civ 6 games. Cheese the AI until it does what I want. It actually kindof struck me as cheating, so I guess I tried to avoid it for some reason. I don't remember using it at all back when I played it the first time (goes to say I never won once back then, was more of a sandbox for me), another example of bad habits die hard :^).

Do you have the starting save?

Here's earliest I have, hope it helps. EDIT: nevermind, that was not the save, proton keeps setting my name as "steamuser" so the original save got overwritten, bummer :/

 

[Tecumseh1]

Can't open the save now, but start from this https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/beginner-help-the-basics.648469/. Despite the name understanding all the concepts there should take you to at least monarch.

I thought you said "should take you at least a month". But thinking back it took me well over a month to grasp most of the concepts in that article

 

[aitkensam]

I played on a for a while if you want to see a possible way forward. I didn't use slavery much for the sake of reducing playing time. Could likely be more efficient with using it more.

The two saves are before the first turn of war and after rolling a couple of guys.

My main thoughts while playing on (likely lots of overlap with what others have said)...

• Think about diplomacy (until you're ready for war at least), For example, you had some folk annoyed. If they're not worst enemy, gift a non-strategic tech for +4, get open borders, get some resource trades and it will be a much safer existence.
• Try to make more use of trades (techs and resources and gold) and open borders. Especially resources to help with happy and health caps.
• Only have units when you're going to war. I deleted about 20 to reduce unit cost to zero and leave one per city for happiness.
• Try to be careful with city placement. There were two dead fish (cry) and one spot not settled. I settled that pretty quickly too.
• The cities were lacking for food. I farmed and windmilled over a lot of mines and cottages.
• On a similar theme... I'd suggest trusting the advisor more until you've got grips with city micro.
• Use the great people. There is generally no point in having them sitting around. I sent the merchant on a trade mission and chained two golden ages straight away.
• Spread religion around. One of the first things I did was spread Buddhism, tech Mono and switch to Org Rel to build the production buildings.
• Dikes are awesome. Build them. Build less other stuff. Forges, factories and coal plants were my priorities in most of your cities. Then whatever health buildings were needed to keep health cap high enough.
• Focus on getting a key tech advantage (e.g. I went for tanks), then KILL!

Apologies if this sounds negative. It's not the intention. The game was very much still winnable so a few tweaks and you'll be crushing Prince and higher levels.

 

[drako_romak]

I played on a for a while if you want to see a possible way forward. I didn't use slavery much for the sake of reducing playing time. Could likely be more efficient with using it more.

The two saves are before the first turn of war and after rolling a couple of guys.

My main thoughts while playing on (likely lots of overlap with what others have said)...

• Think about diplomacy (until you're ready for war at least), For example, you had some folk annoyed. If they're not worst enemy, gift a non-strategic tech for +4, get open borders, get some resource trades and it will be a much safer existence.
• Try to make more use of trades (techs and resources and gold) and open borders. Especially resources to help with happy and health caps.
• Only have units when you're going to war. I deleted about 20 to reduce unit cost to zero and leave one per city for happiness.
• Try to be careful with city placement. There were two dead fish (cry) and one spot not settled. I settled that pretty quickly too.
• The cities were lacking for food. I farmed and windmilled over a lot of mines and cottages.
• On a similar theme... I'd suggest trusting the advisor more until you've got grips with city micro.
• Use the great people. There is generally no point in having them sitting around. I sent the merchant on a trade mission and chained two golden ages straight away.
• Spread religion around. One of the first things I did was spread Buddhism, tech Mono and switch to Org Rel to build the production buildings.
• Dikes are awesome. Build them. Build less other stuff. Forges, factories and coal plants were my priorities in most of your cities. Then whatever health buildings were needed to keep health cap high enough.
• Focus on getting a key tech advantage (e.g. I went for tanks), then KILL!

Apologies if this sounds negative. It's not the intention. The game was very much still winnable so a few tweaks and you'll be crushing Prince and higher levels.

Very useful, didn't take it negatively at all! I thought deleting war units seemed a bit of a waste, but now that you mention it, old units become useless anyway as the tech progresses.
I will definetly make use of the AI more, as well as use GP early on. I started a new run as Greece, and as I'm putting all the feedback everyone wrote, it does indeed fell like im starting to crush them.

 

[Gumbolt]

Don't be afraid to settle on plains hill at the start of the game. You are financial so coastal cities give lots of commerce. 2f3C is not bad. If you can build the colossus even better. Not sure your cities needed to be close together here.

I think you maybe lacked ambition here. Taking out Russians was the right call here. You had horse and copper. Horse archers would of done the job fine. 9-11 HA versus prince AI is not an issue.

Tech order has already been commented on. You want rifles and communism before you reach later game techs. Cart before the horse situation.

 

[Tecumseh1]

I gave the map a try and made a video. Played until 1824 where I attacked Russia with infantry+cannons. Prob don't even need cannons here tbh but I went steel -> rifling planning to go cannon + riflemen but forgot you already had assembly line. Whipped out his stack on second turn of war in open field. Gave some feedback and how I recovered. But I agree with others it's best to focus on early game stuff as that is where the game is lost.

 

[drako_romak]

I gave the map a try and made a video. Played until 1824 where I attacked Russia with infantry+cannons. Prob don't even need cannons here tbh but I went steel -> rifling planning to go cannon + riflemen but forgot you already had assembly line. Whipped out his stack on second turn of war in open field. Gave some feedback and how I recovered. But I agree with others it's best to focus on early game stuff as that is where the game is lost.

Going through the logs and detailing what I should've researched is very helpful, I did indeed fell for stonehenge, out of curiosity mostly. Also decided to give Blue Marble and BUG a go, I can see why so many people use them, and they run without issues on proton. The Blue Marble installer was also kind enough to let me increase the font size so I can play on higher res, 3 in 1 graphical fixes ;D