Let's talk about opening moves

[c4c6]

Hmmh, just delays it a bit. So they attack too early ...
For a second I had hopes, that """2) It can happen without warning. The AI is "omniscient"... it doesn't need to "discover" your start position, nor does it need to assess relative army strengths...""" could sometimes mean, the AI watches you and waits until you are on the march, near your rush victim and then the AI troops of another civ leave the hidden, appearing on your tiles.

 

[gimper42]

Well, I have been Dow'd several times by a 3rd party while fighting another AI army. Sometimes it happens when I am marching towards an enemy city. This is pretty normal. And it is easy to get caught with your pants down in those circumstances. You just have to be aware of who is near enough to want to attack you, who else they hate and/or are at war with already, and how badly you need to destroy your current enemy in the short term. Sometimes you have to pull back and defend until the second enemy army is destroyed before moving back into conquest mode. This is often a good time to accept a lucrative peace deal from your first enemy.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

About the omniscience thing, I don't think the AI uses this when playing.

First of all, it creates a truly, blatantly unfair game. And when the rules are blatantly unfair, even inexperienced people might catch on this and rage on about that.

Secondly, that'd be way, way more information for the computer to process. Also more decision-making, which might become ludicrous at times. If you start building an Archer, is it for self-defense or for aggression? If you ask for Open Borders, is it for passage or for tourism? My experience is that these remain relatively constant, independently of what I'm aiming for. Namely, Open Borders cost don't increase with my tourism, and AIs don't suddenly pile up on me because I researched Archery (which would be the sensible thing to do).

Lastly, it probably evaluates your strength using your military score. You can also roughly estimate theirs using it, too.

 

[Darkhart]

2) It can happen without warning. The AI is "omniscient"... it doesn't need to "discover" your start position, nor does it need to assess relative army strengths.... therefore, very often, your first contact with your neighbour is also your first indication that your are about to be dog-piled.

Apologies, I didn't mean to imply that the AI was watching your every move, and reacting accordingly. In the above statement, I was referring to the path-finding algorithm, that allows AI units to advance on enemy cities across non-visible and even un-mapped terrain. I'm not greatly familiar with Civ 6 AI, though I've seen no evidence that, in this aspect, it differs greatly from Civ 4, which I am familiar with. The basic logic is:-

plot path A>B
using shortest route
using best def terrain

You can prove this to yourself by going out 30 or so hexes from you empire, right click and mouse over different hexes in your empire and see the different paths that the computer chooses for your unit to move. For this reason, barbs tend to follow the same approach path into your empire. If A is your starting position, it does require that B, your target hex is known before you move, and I have certainly met, as a first contact, a horde of club- wielding, English hooligans heading towards my territory, with intentions other than tourism..... none of them asked me how to find B.

As far as I understand, the AI rush occurs, due to the extra units given to AI at higher levels at the start. It calculates the relative strengths of itself compared to it's neighbours, possibly considering distance, and quite rightly calculates... you. This doesn't seem to involve a distinction between your units inside or outside of your borders, merely raw strength, as I've certainly had conquests go bad, lose a few units and then be Dow'd by other neighbours. Another argument for building your army against scouting for opportunity.

If you start building an Archer, is it for self-defense or for aggression?

I can only speak for CIV 4, each unit on creation was given a "script" that through a series of numerical values, controlled it's individual behaviour ie:-

Defensive/defense:- sit in city and collect garrison promotions.
Offensive/defense:- patrol home territory and attack intruders.
Defensive/offense:- accompany attackers but attack city last.
Offensive/offense;- enter enemy territory and attack target city.

There were other scripts, but this gives you a general idea. Each unit has an individual behaviour and collectively we see it as an "intelligence". Stack of Dooms were created by production vectoring and relative strength calculations.

I'm not an AI programmer, and I'm sure there are people on this site who can give far better explanations than mine, or even prove me wrong. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has more detailed knowledge of this when pertaining to CIV 6.

 

[Ornen]

I've never been caught by the AI with my pants down while rushing another, no. I've gotten DOW'd while at war in the early game, but it's never been a huge problem – I'm cranking enough units out that I can readily have 3+ archers around for the enemy assault. And depending on where you are in the 1st war, you can often negotiate a favorable peace (hopefully with cities captured) and turn around to defeat your attacker's army and move on their cities.

 

[c4c6]

it creates a truly, blatantly unfair game. And when the rules are blatantly unfair, even inexperienced people might catch on this and rage on about that.

On the level the AI is (even could be) right now, I don't ask for being "fair" - though it would be nice to have. For me the AI simply has different rules, which should be optimized to provide a fun and challenging game.
I understand, that for some this includes the AI playing with the very same rules (I agree on the potential to rage on about that). Unfortunately this additional aspect makes the development of a decent AI MUCH MORE harder, if not impossible (today).

Note that if the AI would ALWAYS exploit/use such "knowledge" to hit you when pants down, I won't call it fun and challenging. But neither if the AI does NEVER use such "knowledge"!

I've never been caught by the AI with my pants down while rushing another, no. I've gotten DOW'd while at war in the early game, but it's never been a huge problem – I'm cranking enough units out that I can readily have 3+ archers around for the enemy assault.

As I read & understand 'cranking out enough units' fast enough is more difficult to achieve on lower game speeds, i.e. marathon? (Might imply these speeds have more need for scouting?)

 

[EditorRex]

BUILDS: I started playing Builder, Builder, back in October after learning about the Builder/Horses/Scythia exploit that patch 1 nerfed. But I've kept with it, because I think in most games it works well. Typically I place Builder, Builder, Slinger, Settler, (New city: Builder), etc., and then play the situation and map that I've got. If I've got a nearby CS, I may go with an early trader to pop Currency. The big thing is the Eurekas with this strategy. Depending on nearby resources, you should be able to pop three to five with this early strategy, which can let you put off building a campus.
TECHS: Typically, I research the first column of sciences from bottom to top, before going to the most urgent and cheapest techs. Urgent can mean to get out a unit, increase production, culture, money or techs; to found a religion, or just to get those Eurekas to keep coming. I have learned to deprioritize Eurekas if there's something important that can't wait.
CIVICS: So, this is where I have a question on the best strategy in terms of religion. Religion can affect the game with GP purchases, cultural buildings and artifacts, Causus Belli, diplomatic relations, etc. I've found that in games where I don't found a religion, I feel like I'm operating at a disadvantage. In order to ensure that I get a religion, I've been going with God-King early, and adding the Wild-Card for Prophets later if I'm still working on a religion. But even then, I've had several games where I just missed getting a Prophet. I'm wondering if anyone has recommendations on this point. It's really two questions: 1) What's the best strategy to be sure that you get a religion without sacrificing other essentials? 2) How important is getting a religion if you are not planning to try for a religion win and are there good strategies for compensating for the disadvantages that do exist?

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

BUILDS: I started playing Builder, Builder, back in October after learning about the Builder/Horses/Scythia exploit that patch 1 nerfed. But I've kept with it, because I think in most games it works well. Typically I place Builder, Builder, Slinger, Settler, (New city: Builder), etc., and then play the situation and map that I've got. If I've got a nearby CS, I may go with an early trader to pop Currency. The big thing is the Eurekas with this strategy. Depending on nearby resources, you should be able to pop three to five with this early strategy, which can let you put off building a campus.
TECHS: Typically, I research the first column of sciences from bottom to top, before going to the most urgent and cheapest techs. Urgent can mean to get out a unit, increase production, culture, money or techs; to found a religion, or just to get those Eurekas to keep coming. I have learned to deprioritize Eurekas if there's something important that can't wait.
CIVICS: So, this is where I have a question on the best strategy in terms of religion. Religion can affect the game with GP purchases, cultural buildings and artifacts, Causus Belli, diplomatic relations, etc. I've found that in games where I don't found a religion, I feel like I'm operating at a disadvantage. In order to ensure that I get a religion, I've been going with God-King early, and adding the Wild-Card for Prophets later if I'm still working on a religion. But even then, I've had several games where I just missed getting a Prophet. I'm wondering if anyone has recommendations on this point. It's really two questions: 1) What's the best strategy to be sure that you get a religion without sacrificing other essentials? 2) How important is getting a religion if you are not planning to try for a religion win and are there good strategies for compensating for the disadvantages that do exist?

About religion, it might offer a handful of bonuses, but often I find that there's more return in keeping focused on your infrastructure and defense.

If you do want a religion, then you need to invest on it, often in detriment of other areas. No pain, no gain.

 

[Ornen]

As I read & understand 'cranking out enough units' fast enough is more difficult to achieve on lower game speeds, i.e. marathon? (Might imply these speeds have more need for scouting?)

Marathon is wildly different from standard speed Civ 6, not really interested in discussing it here.

 

[c4c6]

For the sake of discussion, let's try to avoid strategies that hinge on Civ bonuses – yes, I'm familiar with spamming War Carts, but I'm more interested in general strategies here. I'm open to talking about religion, but I usually clearly divide my religion games from my non-religion ones, and the opening build is very, very different.

The header / opening post tells nothing about specific speeds, maps, difficulties etc. ... so I assumed the thread is open to all of them. Looking back I see many posts in relative terms.

Marathon is wildly different from standard speed Civ 6, not really interested in discussing it here.

As the civ6 game pace/eras feel "too fast" for many players, I thought the lower speeds would be even more attractive than in older versions ...
No problem, Standard Speed. Maybe you want also specify a difficulty level or include / exclude specific map types?

 

[Ornen]

The header / opening post tells nothing about specific speeds, maps, difficulties etc. ... so I assumed the thread is open to all of them. Looking back I see many posts in relative terms.
As the civ6 game pace/eras feel "too fast" for many players, I thought the lower speeds would be even more attractive than in older versions ...
No problem, Standard Speed. Maybe you want also specify a difficulty level or include / exclude specific map types?

You're welcome to bring it up, and others are welcome to respond to it -- I'm just telling you I'm not that interested, and I'm the wrong person to ask anyway, since I've never played a game on marathon.

Regarding difficulty, I'm chiefly interested in immortal/deity. Open to any map type, though I'm not crazy about inland sea.

 

[Chibisuke]

I've changed my opening moves a bit lately for Deity play. Lately I have been opening with Slinger + Settler + Slinger + Slinger. It has been surprisingly effective. It's kind of rare that you get attacked early enough to need the 3rd unit. Usually my first slinger and my warrior are sent around to explore. If I find a neighbor nearby, I will generally try to figure out where that neighbor is planning to settle and either target that city for my first conquer or capture the settler if I can.

I think doing my number 2 build as a settler though might be optimal unless I am surrounded by VERY close, aggressive AIs. Then maybe wait until number 3 build before settler.

 

[Victoria]

Agreed, but I sill like the builder first, it can do one side while the other is being attacked

 

[gatorsurgeon]

On Diety: slinger, slinger, slinger, archer, archer, archer.
First two techs are AH and archery, no matter what.
There is no substitute for conquering your neighbors ASAP at the highest levels. 5 archers and a warrior can knock over even a walled city in the first 100-120 turns.
If you start out peaceful and just play defense on Diety, you're gonna get lapped by the AI.

 

[Victoria]

If you start out peaceful and just play defense on Diety, you're gonna get lapped by the AI.

Not true, you just need to get about 8 cities out there and be more efficient but yes it is harder than archer rush.
I am playing an archer rush atm as I have not for a while. Its just easy but it is fun I guess.

 

[Chibisuke]

Yea I pretty much always do archer rush on deity. I've just found that you can squeeze a settler in within the first couple builds and still have a successful archer rush. And that extra city in the first 25 turns can make a huge difference in your overall growth.

But yea, not doing archer rush makes catching up to deity AI a much longer and more difficult process. I've played deity games where I had a massive amount of resource rich land all to myself (just due to AI opponents being too far away) and by the time I've settled most of that, AI has a massive tech lead and probably several great people each. You can still win that game but you will be waiting to the very end of the tech tree to catch up and will then be grinding out a close victory most likely. I am willing to play that way now and then but not every time.

 

[Esperr]

With Australia you can now bomb an early campus for a +6 to +10 in the right spot and blow through the early game techs. This makes it possible to get to such a fast early start that its hard for anybody to keep up. Not so much an opening move as more of an opening strategy. In SP it doesn't really matter, but im currently in an MP game and it feels pretty OP.