Is War now efficient for all VCs?

[MIS]

In Civ 5, the joint fastest HoF Deity Science Win (t193, vadalaz, huns) involved taking cities from the AI (planted four, took seven for eleven total).

In Civ 6, it seems war is more efficient than Civ 5:

No Science/ Culture per city penalty
Increasing costs building settlers/ districts
local, not global happiness
no automatic city bombardment
can use other's roads.

Given what we know, will capturing many (even all but one) cities be the most efficient way of winning (on Deity) for all VCs?

 

[gfeier]

War looks like a pretty good strategy so far, at least in the early game, but we don't know what the diplomatic penalties for aggression will look like later on. They could be fierce.

 

[Lucius_]

No science/culture penalty per city?
can use other's roads? (as in in their territory while at war???)

Are those confirmed? (Legitimate question)

 

[CaptainUnknown]

No science/culture penalty per city?
can use other's roads? (as in in their territory while at war???)

Are those confirmed? (Legitimate question)

Their confirmed, but everything is still subject to change. Balance is ongoing still.

 

[aguliondew]

I expect some balance changes to that before release.

 

[joncnunn]

can use other's roads? (as in in their territory while at war???)

Civ 2 (and 1) had that and was one of the factors in why destroying the AIs units in their own land and conquering the AI's cities was too easy. And so I doubt you'll be able to take advantage of 1/3rd [or whatever the road modifier is] while at war of that civ in their own land without a promotion deep in the promotion tree.

 

[Makenshi]

If taking cities will be a new trend, I hope they improve how the AI settles, because in Civ5 their city placement is usually very bad, to the point I raze most of them to plant new ones in optimal spots. Sure AI don't need to plant optimal, but if they did it better it would help a lot.

 

[stealth_nsk]

If taking cities will be a new trend, I hope they improve how the AI settles, because in Civ5 their city placement is usually very bad, to the point I raze most of them to plant new ones in optimal spots. Sure AI don't need to plant optimal, but if they did it better it would help a lot.

With city specialization optimal placement is quite tricky thing. Opponent may have perfectly placed religious city, but if you have 2 religious cities already, you may want some science instead.

 

[redwings1340]

If taking cities will be a new trend, I hope they improve how the AI settles, because in Civ5 their city placement is usually very bad, to the point I raze most of them to plant new ones in optimal spots. Sure AI don't need to plant optimal, but if they did it better it would help a lot.

If our look at the city lens is any indication, I'm guessing the AI will settle on the green areas first, on spots with lots of housing available, so that's a positive. On the other hand, district layout and getting a city to do what you want it to is more complicated now, so we'll need to see if the AI can handle that.

 

[Mudokon Pop]

No science/culture penalty per city?
can use other's roads? (as in in their territory while at war???)

Using roads makes sense, road building backfired on the Romans & Inca.

I could see razing your own roads being a useful tactic to slow down approaching invaders.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

War may be harder and more costlier as well due to.

Melee units can not attack walled cities without siege equipment
Movement rule make it harder to get into attack position
Encampments
Promotion rule change
Units seems to be cheaper or atleast you can produce them quicker thanks to civic cards

It is possible that conquest also increase the price of settlers as the cost of settlers may depend just on how many cities and settlers you currently control.

The game do however favor conquest far far more then civilization V and even "peaceful" victories can be far easier to win with the help of conquest.

If you expand and conquer to much you may be unable to build districts as they may become to expensive. Districts seems to be the major way to produce science, culture, faith and gold so a very large empire may fall behind on these due to being unable to build the needed districts.

 

[isau]

One if the biggest wildcards at the moment IMO is we don't know how painful it will be when an AI raids your territory and pillages a bunch of tiles. The AI was pretty annoying about that in Civ V at times. Now that your buildings are out there in the open and you could lose a library or a wonder(!!) to pillaging, I think being on the defensive has a lot more risk to it. Also unknown right now is how useful it will actually be to take a city versus just pillaging all their stuff so the city turns useless, or is even a net-negative to hold onto.

 

[Grumpbeard]

If our look at the city lens is any indication, I'm guessing the AI will settle on the green areas first, on spots with lots of housing available, so that's a positive. On the other hand, district layout and getting a city to do what you want it to is more complicated now, so we'll need to see if the AI can handle that.

I imagine they will place districts on whichever has the most potential bonus at the time they place them, and not be able to anticipate other needs down the line, like a human might.

 

[Magil]

War may be harder and more costlier as well due to.

Melee units can not attack walled cities without siege equipment
Movement rule make it harder to get into attack position
Encampments
Promotion rule change
Units seems to be cheaper or atleast you can produce them quicker thanks to civic cards

On the other hand:

Can use roads in enemy territory, making movement easier (it's possible that military engineers would be able to build roads in enemy territory--would make sense, given they're "military" engineers)
Graphics suggest that districts count as roaded tiles
There are ways to flat-out ignore walls altogether
Promotions end turn now, but also heal a unit
Cities need walls to have a ranged attack

 

[DJ_Tanner]

They wanted to slow down wide in Civ V but they went too far. Seems like Civ VI is a bit of the swing back. Wide appears (in the current build) the optimal way to the win (and war is a super good way to spam wide). I am hoping we do see some penalties come back and we get a better balance between wide/tall but I am excited for it. (Wide is always a ton of fun).

 

[Socrates99]

There is war weariness again. I'm thinking that depending on how harsh its penalties are it could mitigate some conquest.

 

[Staler87]

There is war weariness again. I'm thinking that depending on how harsh its penalties are it could mitigate some conquest.

Is this confirmed? War weariness was, IMO, a great feature from earlier civs that really helped create a realistic sense of peace/war balance. In civ V war was stopped due to taking cities being bad which was kinda silly, instead of your people getting angry, which is more realistic, more fun, and possible to counter.

 

[Magil]

Is this confirmed? War weariness was, IMO, a great feature from earlier civs that really helped create a realistic sense of peace/war balance. In civ V war was stopped due to taking cities being bad which was kinda silly, instead of your people getting angry, which is more realistic, more fun, and possible to counter.

War weariness is mentioned in the amenities UI, presumably providing negative amenities. Other than that, we don't have any idea how it works.

 

[Ulthwithian]

I do hope using enemy roads stays in, even if as a Policy card. As I recall, the blitzkrieg relied on enemy transportation networks (both road and rail) for its best effect, and one of the primary reasons it failed in Russia was due to its lack of usable transportation infrastructure.