If pursuing an immersive victory rathen a quick victory (for fun)

[myclan]

Always expecting a stronger city in the late game, which means high pop and high output(mainly production, but usually including gold, science, culture, faith...), even if you know you are going to win, and that may be the original joy of "Just one more turn".
And here are some behaviour:
1.Do your best to grow cities until hitting the cap of housing, do your best to increase housing by building farm/neighbourhood even adopting special policy.
2.Build entertainment district just to satisfy your pop, try to trade for luxury resource just because don't want to see any unsatisfied. Be happy if your pop are happy.
3.Want turn based output instead of one-time output. So seldom chopping or harvesting, unless must build a district/wonder/mine on it.
4.Prefer to build a dstrict on desert/tundra rather than grassland/plain, seldom build on a hill. To maximum the usage of the tile around for you know flat desert can't provide anything.
5.Spend gold to buy a tile even in late game just to meet the demand of 5, or for the adjacency bouns, or just a high yield tile to enhance your cities ouput.

Sadly all behaviour above seem to be not efficient at all, for the cost rise so much in the later game, and you actually don't need to build so much if just want to achieve a win, which means one-time yield is far more important than turn-based yield. It seems really hard time for immersive victory player in Civ6 compared to previous CIV.

 

[Kyro]

Always expecting a stronger city in the late game, which means high pop and high output(mainly production, but usually including gold, science, culture, faith...), even if you know you are going to win, and that may be the original joy of "Just one more turn".
And here are some behaviour:
1.Do your best to grow cities until hitting the cap of housing, do your best to increase housing by building farm/neighbourhood even adopting special policy.
2.Build entertainment district just to satisfy your pop, try to trade for luxury resource just because don't want to see any unsatisfied. Be happy if your pop are happy.
3.Want turn based output instead of one-time output. So seldom chopping or harvesting, unless must build a district/wonder/mine on it.
4.Prefer to build a dstrict on desert/tundra rather than grassland/plain, seldom build on a hill. To maximum the usage of the tile around for you know flat desert can't provide anything.
5.Spend gold to buy a tile even in late game just to meet the demand of 5, or for the adjacency bouns, or just a high yield tile to enhance your cities ouput.

Sadly all behaviour above seem to be not efficient at all, for the cost rise so much in the later game, and you actually don't need to build so much if just want to achieve a win, which means one-time yield is far more important than turn-based yield. It seems really hard time for immersive victory player in Civ6 compared to previous CIV.

Exactly what I've been saying for the longest time. Why do we even have to choose between immersion and efficiency? The two should never be at odds with each other. Yet there are people who oppose this all the time and it really makes me wonder why. You can't have immersion when you make a select few strategies and play styles far superior to everything else. Immersion cannot exist apart from the freedom to choose how to play and choices only exist to the extent of the power they avail. A powerless choice is merely an illusion.

At the bottom of it all is the imposed need to balance long term and short term benefit based on how fast the game ends when ironically the reigning objective is to "stand the test of time". It begs the question why short term benefits are continuously outweighing the benefits of long term investment when the opposite is supposed to be true.

In other words gameplay has become an effort to end the game as soon as possible when the "one more turn syndrome" is all about growing better and stronger over time.

The game has deliberately been designed to end specifically before the advantage of long-term growth can kick in to be worthwhile, thus denying the advantage of mega city powerhouses that really was meant to be the reward of patient, long term planning. This was obviously done to cater to a less patient audience who can't sit around waiting for plans to come to fruition.

We get it there are plenty of players like that out there in the market. Why cater to them at the sacrifice of other players? Can't they make both long-term and short-term approaches equally worthwhile?

 

[Art Morte]

Very little about Civ6 makes me want to play for quickest possible victory.

No Hall of Fame to compare my scores, to compete against myself.
Should always conquer others instead of expand peacefully...
...Which leads to diplomacy being all but ignored (not that it's very profound in peaceful games, but anyway).
Should always play wide with modest-size cities that have only 2 or 3 key districts maxed out.

In fact, I find myself caring very little whether or not I'm going to win a game of Civ6. I like the expansion phase a lot, but when that's over and it's time to either just build the obvious things or go to war in a race to victory, I just can't be bothered. When it gets to late-game, I feel that my idea of an enjoyable Civ game isn't rewarded (as the choices of what to build and do after the expansion phase become narrower and narrower).

 

[liv]

I do not think it is appropriate to complain that you cannot win the game because your choices made you be way behind the AI. If there was no challenge then this game would not be worth playing. You can go down in difficulty if you find that the you are too much behind because of your choices or you can try to do some things more effectivle
I am fine with how housing works and if I go for big cities I just do what it takes to make them work.
But for sure there are issues. The AI could be better to make it more challenging and I agree that the late game needs something. I would like to see some of these victory conditions affect each other more (like they did with culture in civ 5)
I like immersive play. I often role play so when I pick a civ I plan everything around their abilities and try to maximize those. It is efficiency in a way but not really going for the fastest possible victories. This does not mean I dislike fast victory or those who go for those. Always learn a lot from those players that I may or may not apply to my own style.

 

[kaspergm]

Always expecting a stronger city in the late game, which means high pop and high output(mainly production, but usually including gold, science, culture, faith...), even if you know you are going to win, and that may be the original joy of "Just one more turn".
And here are some behaviour:
1.Do your best to grow cities until hitting the cap of housing, do your best to increase housing by building farm/neighbourhood even adopting special policy.
2.Build entertainment district just to satisfy your pop, try to trade for luxury resource just because don't want to see any unsatisfied. Be happy if your pop are happy.
3.Want turn based output instead of one-time output. So seldom chopping or harvesting, unless must build a district/wonder/mine on it.
4.Prefer to build a dstrict on desert/tundra rather than grassland/plain, seldom build on a hill. To maximum the usage of the tile around for you know flat desert can't provide anything.
5.Spend gold to buy a tile even in late game just to meet the demand of 5, or for the adjacency bouns, or just a high yield tile to enhance your cities ouput.

Sadly all behaviour above seem to be not efficient at all, for the cost rise so much in the later game, and you actually don't need to build so much if just want to achieve a win, which means one-time yield is far more important than turn-based yield. It seems really hard time for immersive victory player in Civ6 compared to previous CIV.

This is how I like to play. Also my own personal advice:

6. Don't underestimate the benefits of founding a religion to this type of game.

 

[Kyro]

I do not think it is appropriate to complain that you cannot win the game because your choices made you be way behind the AI. If there was no challenge then this game would not be worth playing. You can go down in difficulty if you find that the you are too much behind because of your choices or you can try to do some things more effectivle
I am fine with how housing works and if I go for big cities I just do what it takes to make them work.
But for sure there are issues. The AI could be better to make it more challenging and I agree that the late game needs something. I would like to see some of these victory conditions affect each other more (like they did with culture in civ 5)
I like immersive play. I often role play so when I pick a civ I plan everything around their abilities and try to maximize those. It is efficiency in a way but not really going for the fastest possible victories. This does not mean I dislike fast victory or those who go for those. Always learn a lot from those players that I may or may not apply to my own style.

You know I always wonder how people like to assume that if you can choose how you want to play and what strategies you like to employ then there won't be any challenge at all.

How does that sort of logic work?

Did the OP say "We should be able play terribly and still win the game?" No right? How did you get that impression?

If you want to compartmentalize this post into a "tone down the challenge of the game post" please provide a solid argument why you think any of the points he made should be forcibly designed to be inefficient in the game.

 

[liv]

Well there has to be restrictions and balance somewhere. If I decided that I wanted to build only builders because I believe that builders make the world go around, I would likely lose the game. Perhaps I would still enjoy that but I cannot then claim that I think it is unfair that my "strategy" made it hard to win. The game is the game.

 

[Archon_Wing]

First off, there exists the choice to play on a lower difficulty. AI on higher difficulty effectively break the game so they can be competitive, and if the game's concepts begin to fall apart, then the game's strategies will inherently narrow. Essentially, it just involves AI abuse. Higher difficulty in Civ was never meant to be fun, it's meant for those that want to min-max to have a challenge, though I understand it can be annoying when people project that onto everyone else, but it can also go the other way around.

Secondly, there needs to be some minimum threshold of viability, and in that sense , a lot of things work. In the end, the only objective manner of a strategy's success is whether it is met with success or failure, and that in this game is decided by victory or defeat. Even the concept of a faster win is pretty arbitrary unless you're competing with someone with identical starts, because it's really just winning harder. . The game itself doesn't care about how fast you win. (And also luck) I mean, on a basic level, let's take the first Super Mario Brothers. There's a warp zone that lets you pick World 2,3 and 4. Now, I ask you, does it mean that everyone that takes the 2 or 3 pipe is a scrub that should be banned in a video game, even though in terms of gameplay, there should be absolutely no reason to include the first 2 pipes? But why is it there? Yes, not every choice has to be optimal to be a thing, because you finishing the game earlier on, well honestly nobody cares.

So if your goal is to build the biggest city or have the most of something, or sometimes take all the great admirals, then you're undertaking your own challenge, and that's fine. I do that a lot, and usually reading forum posts, is usually where I get my idea to do the next game.

That being said, a degree of honesty is to be had. Nothing is just going to change the fact that Scythia and Sumeria will get farther on more maps than, say Spain or France.

Third, I would also disagree that short-term decisions are inherently not immersive or good to long term goals. Like, a lot of people aren't willing to make sacrifices for improvements that they may never live to see. You may lose out on a wonder or a city spot if you don't chop it, and this may snowball and reduce the overall strength of your empire regardless of metric. And what if I like growing giant unhappy cities? That's (unfortunately) realistic too? From my point if view, even if there were no victory conditions, I still wouldn't grow cities that big beyond the need to build districts because I would find managing happiness a bother for too little gain. And this is even when I'm not trying to "win"

 

[Lily_Lancer]

You can check for GOTM. There're GOTM games which allows score victory only, encouraging players to build great empires.

Maybe 6otm 20

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/6otm-20-after-actions-report.620790/

 

[civtrader6]

What puts me off an immersive strategy is the escalating district costs - the game does not really allow to slowly build a large empire. You settle a new city - and it takes 30-50 turns to build your first district - which then makes me very impatient.

Maybe 6otm 20

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/6otm-20-after-actions-report.620790/

Oh that game... so tedious - with a score of 2800 at around turn 220- all my auto saves got corrupted, and my last proper save was from turn 150. Wasted time. Still a good learning experience.

 

[Lanthar]

I think some are confusing playstyle with strategy. There aren't many/any sound strategies around a small number of cities in VI - the game just doesn't work that way. Sure, lowering the difficulty level allows you to play how you want with no consequences, but it's not much of a game if you don't have to try to win against the AI. For the record, I'm not a Deity or Immortal player, because of the fact that those difficulty levels (traditionally) broke the game enough with AI bonuses to make the challenge presented uninteresting to me - mostly one of optimization along a few victory patterns.

Unfortunately, for those who wish to pursue a peaceful game, or one without a lot of early, aggressive expansion, or a focused builder game, VI doesn't really support that. Early, agressive expansion and short periods of near-term objective wars are the most viable path to victory, shutting out just about everything else. Settling or capturing cities in every nook and cranny is the best overall strategy forced by the game mechanics.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Oh that game... so tedious - with a score of 2800 at around turn 220- all my auto saves got corrupted, and my last proper save from turn 150. Wasted time. Still a good learning experience.

I think the setting of score victories in GOTMs is very terrible. They just increase the chance to put your laptop on fire, or crash or sth., there's nothing good. Imagine running 100+ cities for 50 endless turns, with no progress other than future sci/cul and aerodromes... Really a nightmare！

 

[civtrader6]

I think the setting of score victories in GOTMs is very terrible. They just increase the chance to put your laptop on fire, or crash or sth., there's nothing good. Imagine running 100+ cities for 50 endless turns, with no progress other than future sci/cul and aerodromes... Really a nightmare！

Couldn't agree more - especially since only the number of districts counts - and any other improvements/achievements don't contribute much.
Plus if you want to build a district in a city - it takes forever - but you can settle a city amid tundra and finish the district in two chops.

 

[Kyro]

Well there has to be restrictions and balance somewhere. If I decided that I wanted to build only builders because I believe that builders make the world go around, I would likely lose the game. Perhaps I would still enjoy that but I cannot then claim that I think it is unfair that my "strategy" made it hard to win. The game is the game.

Thus my question to you was, what is intellectually unsound with any of the choices OP has listed? Yet in the game now they are "wrong" simply because they're not powerful enough.

No one disagrees that there needs to be limits somewhere, that is not the focus of this post which you are implying. Nobody is vouching for nonsensical choices either.

The focus of the post is that many strategically sound choices are not viable in the game because they are completely overshadowed by the viability of a select few choices and because the game is biased against long term growth.

 

[Victoria]

I have always contended that victory conditions are all in the head and what lead most people's approach to the game.
Make your own victory conditions that suit your style because the ones Firaxis have put in place are quite limiting.

 

[bitula]

I disagree with those who think there is deterministic logical cause for immersion breaking on higher difficulties. It’s just a decision from Firaxis to configure high difficulties for gamely competitiveness versus immersion and “grand strategy”. I used a very simple mod which adds era multipliers to science and culture, which turned my Diety games into immersive and challenging at the same time with OP’s 5 points more-or-less all satisfied (Discussed in the “Diety unplayable” thread). The only downside is increased gameplay length and micromanagement. So it is not for those who are inpatient or don’t have time to play games because of real-life occupation, which is probably the reason Firaxis originally configured higher difficulties the way they did.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Hmm, but if we're talking immersion, real life does favor wide and sprawl, at least up to the pre-modern era. High, cramped populations meant a ton of starvation and disease, as well as crime. I mean you're building those big cities before sanitation! I woudn't want to live there. More land isn't always better, but it sure helps (ask the Byzantines when they lost Egypt). Resources are important and you should be expanding to get them.

And really, most great empires have had to go wide at some point, and that often included war. It's why it was called an empire in the first place.

And if you think about it, building wonders doesn't necessarily increase the quality of your empire. In fact, wonder spam might be the mark of a cruel leader, one that prefers building monuments to their own ego over the well being of their people as a footnote. You know how the Great Wall was built? Every time you push that hurry wonder, you're basically having tons of people die for your name.

....

I like that though.

 

[Kyro]

I think some are confusing playstyle with strategy. There aren't many/any sound strategies around a small number of cities in VI - the game just doesn't work that way. Sure, lowering the difficulty level allows you to play how you want with no consequences, but it's not much of a game if you don't have to try to win against the AI. For the record, I'm not a Deity or Immortal player, because of the fact that those difficulty levels (traditionally) broke the game enough with AI bonuses to make the challenge presented uninteresting to me - mostly one of optimization along a few victory patterns.

Unfortunately, for those who wish to pursue a peaceful game, or one without a lot of early, aggressive expansion, or a focused builder game, VI doesn't really support that. Early, agressive expansion and short periods of near-term objective wars are the most viable path to victory, shutting out just about everything else. Settling or capturing cities in every nook and cranny is the best overall strategy forced by the game mechanics.

First of all why have you made the assumption that if a player can play how he/she wants there will be no more challenge? Have you not first made the assumption that "play how you want" = "Terrible, Non-strategic Playing" in order to derive at that conclusion? Have you not noticed that none of what was listed in the opening are stupid decisions? If a play style is intellectually sound does it not constitute as strategy by definition? How does making more strategies viable equate to not having to "try to win against the AI"?

By your definition anything that isn't played the way the game dictates is a play style and therefore not strategy. That is precisely what is being criticized here which you may have missed entirely. The criticism is precisely that the game is forcing a very limited variety of approaches to playing based on an imbalanced distribution of power. We are saying something is very wrong when you don't have the option to choose whether or not you want aggressive early expansion, that we can't choose to build our civilization to victory by playing defensively (Not Defenselessly), that diplomacy no longer holds any real power in the game.

Hmm, but if we're talking immersion, real life does favor wide and sprawl, at least up to the pre-modern era. High, cramped populations meant a ton of starvation and disease, as well as crime. I mean you're building those big cities before sanitation! I woudn't want to live there. More land isn't always better, but it sure helps (ask the Byzantines when they lost Egypt). Resources are important and you should be expanding to get them.

And really, most great empires have had to go wide at some point, and that often included war. It's why it was called an empire in the first place.

And if you think about it, building wonders doesn't necessarily increase the quality of your empire. In fact, wonder spam might be the mark of a cruel leader, one that prefers building monuments to their own ego over the well being of their people as a footnote. You know how the Great Wall was built? Every time you push that hurry wonder, you're basically having tons of people die for your name.

....

I like that though.

So basically you just made conquering more important than building. Fun fact, the vast majority of wars were never profitable. Don't get me quoting statistics from the world wars and the aftermath. All Civilizations who have gone to war would have achieved much more if they simply learned to work together. The truth is greatness is not attained by subjugating others, history has taught us that repeatedly.

Why is there always a need to make something more important than others? Is this Bias really necessary?

 

[Archon_Wing]

So basically you just made conquering more important than building.

Actually I didn't. My claim was that huge cities or wonder spam especially before the advent of modern technology is not really as pleasant or as cool as it sounds. This is funny, because if we take a look at Sim City discussion, people aren't going for the biggest, packed cities, but often more sprawled out and aesthetically pleasing.

And the wonders too, Pyramids and Great Wall.... well from a modern humanitarian perspective, really shouldn't have been built, eh?

Fun fact, the vast majority of wars were never profitable. Don't get me quoting statistics from the world wars and the aftermath.

Tell that to the Mongols, Romans, or the majority of civs featured in this game.

Now, you're not completely wrong. War is a negative sum game, in that if there's a stalemate, it's inherently a loss, which is why it's only profitable if you have a massive advantage, and that's true in this game, but you can argue that the advantage is too easy to gain at this point.

And yes, the World Wars were destructive, but on the other hand, you really weren't going to stop Hitler by asking him politely either. So in a lot of cases, even if you didn't want war, you had to be prepared for one. Modern technology has made the cost of war prohibitively expensive, but this is a relatively new concept.

It's simply just opening a history book, and to be honest we're also talking about immersion here, and as human history has turned out, denying the bad stuff is just as unrealistic to me.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Now, you're not completely wrong. War is a negative sum game, in that if there's a stalemate, it's inherently a loss, which is why it's only profitable if you have a massive advantage, and that's true in this game, but you can argue that the advantage is too easy to gain at this point.

And yes, the World Wars were destructive, but on the other hand, you really weren't going to stop Hitler by asking him politely either. So in a lot of cases, even if you didn't want war, you had to be prepared for one. Modern technology has made the cost of war prohibitively expensive, but this is a relatively new concept.

It's simply just opening a history book, and to be honest we're also talking about immersion here, and as human history has turned out, denying the bad stuff is just as unrealistic to me.

Wars while both sides have similar strength are destructive and a mass loss, but inbalance wars benefit the advanced a lot. Remember Spain vs Inca, or such colonization wars, these wars, despite painful for civs that fall behind, really benefits the advanced civ a lot.

The same applies for Civ games, when we go for war, instead of starting balanced wars, we are usually having a mass military advantage against our enemy, and we're sure to profit from these wars.