[GS] Looking for help playing Gathering Storm

[Question]

When i played rise and fall it was pretty easy and i had no trouble at all, so i dont understand why im having trouble in GS. I suspect some of the gameplay changes like making amenities have no effect till you hit the +3 threshold are partly to blame.

My main issue is that on standard speed, it takes forever to get things going even on abundant resources + legendary start. My cities take forever to build the first few units which slows things down dramatically. Im playing on King difficulty.

As an example, heres a pic : https://i.imgur.com/KrVq4YR.png

It took me so long to build the starting units that i fell behind and i cant catch up. In rise and fall, i would usually be spamming wonders by now. My cities are just so unproductive and grow so slowly even with all those resources that I cant get enough stuff done.

My build order is usually scout, builder, warrior (to help take out barb camps). I usually get a second scout and additional builders as necessary while looking for a good spot for a second city. But I just dont have time to build wonders or districts due to how long it takes to build the first couple of units.

Any advice?

 

[pkaem]

Taking your screenshot says that you have two cities by turn 75. Why do you want to produce wonders? You really should have produced settlers or an army like 40 turns ago. By t50 you want to have PP and by 100 you want to have about 10-15 cities (assuming all std. settings) and near kilwa, merchant republic, and get (chop) campuses. A lot of them. Raid your neighbours or plain conquer them.

 

[Question]

As I explained, i cant produce much because my cities take forever to make a single unit...

 

[Tech Osen]

As I explained, i cant produce much because my cities take forever to make a single unit...

I'd need more data to see what's going on. You say things take too long without quantifying what you feel is too long.

 

[Haig]

Hmm I cant figure out that Gathering Storm would affect production? Maybe you dont have enough mines?

 

[Mahasona]

Don't be afraid to restart if you don't see decent food/productiion resources. Some starts are just awful and a pain to play.

Bogota is too big, put the population on the productive tiles.

Unless you need to get an army up quick, try to get out say three settlers then a government district for ancestral hall. One builder early is enough.

I don't play abundant start, but by the looks of it yours doesn't give you much room for districts, try turning it off, it's a crutch you don't need if you have more cities.

 

[kaspergm]

As I explained, i cant produce much because my cities take forever to make a single unit...

Things take forever to produce in Civ6, that's one of the core design decisions of the game. Afaik. there are no major difference in this area between game with and without GS. Like Tech_Osen says, without any more info on how long it takes, and why you consider it "too long", it's hard to pinpoint if there are any issues, and what they might be. If Bogota works the quarries and the pastures, it should have a reasonable production output from the look of the screenshot you post.

 

[Linklite]

What speed are you playing on?
On Standard, even with 1p it takes me 10-15 to produce a unit (obviously much faster if I have more prod). How long is it taking to produce a unit? It seems strange that you've only settled a second city by t75. What have you done so far? How many turns per unit are you expecting?

We're shooting in the dark here.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Ya you have to go wide in this game and spam settlers. Tall straight up does not work

 

[Leucarum]

Early game builds are a topic of a lot of discussion - you can probably find a bunch of threads on the topic. That said the posts saying you seem to have started going for settlers too late are on the mark I think.

In your start/difficulty level I'd have probably tried to go scout > builder > settler > warrior/slinger > settler. There might be a little vulnerability to barbarians... so if you get spotted earlier you might need to slide the warrior up priority or buy them with gold. Try not to send your initial warrior too far from home so they can return if needed - especially when building a scout anyway.

Make sure you use the builder to try and get some tiles with at least 2 food and 2 production. That will let your city still grow a bit early on but also still produce units at a reasonable rate - and make sure you are working those tiles, the AI often likes to work tiles that have other yields at the expense of the ones you developed. Similarly when settling new cities try to make sure there are tiles with a similar combination of food and production on the same tile (possibly after an improvemrny) so they can develop fast.

Another possible thing - try to avoid buying tiles unless you have to. If you buy a warrior rather than hard-build it your city can still be working on settlers. If your city is churning out settlers it probably won't grow as big (this is fine - you'll do better if all your cities are growing rather than just one) so you can often make sure the tiles you need to work are in the first ring around the city centre and rely on natural border growth for the rest. This leaves you money to buy things like monuments and military units which will shave a lot of production time off your builds.

And the other thing which may be slowing you down are policy cards. There are policy cards to help you build military units, settlers, builders etc... faster. Make sure if you can to have policies slotted which will help you build things faster. Especially when you are building the same things in multiple cities.

 

[Victoria]

My cities take forever to build the first few units which slows things down dramatically.

Your main issue looks like you are building too many builders, growth and food/production before making lots of plantations, they are for later and I often do not do many plantations.

10 tips to a better start
The very key points I would like to make that will help are these. Try a game concentrating on this until it becomes second nature. Some of it is higher detail min/max you may not want to use but it is there so at least know it.

1. This game and most similar games are more about the start than the end. The difference of 1 production point or 1 food point at the start of the game is big. Even getting that extra production a turn or two early
2. When you have low population, like under 4. Food is more important than production. Growing that cities working tiles is far more vital than most other things.
3. As soon as you have say 50 gold, check the tiles you can buy, not the ones that have good adjacency, but ones that improve your working populations tile. A 2/2 tile could be considered twice as strong as a 2/1 tile as long as your pop work it. Trading that luxury ASAP so you get the best gold out of it means you up your food/prod. Equally, buying a tile cheaply helps, tile cost goes up with civics/tech discovered, so if you are going to discover craftsmanship 1 turn before you can buy a tile, swap civics for a turn.
4. Check what tile your pop is working, sometimes the game will put you on a 1/1/2 luxury rather than a solid 2/2 tile. Or it may put you on a 1/3 tile rather than a 3/1 tile when population is low.
5. You capital city starts with a palace that gives it a boost, your other cities do not. In those second and third cities, they need a boost, a single builder charge or a trade route can seriously increase their output. It make a huge difference to the game. A second city grows painstakingly slow otherwise.
6. While the most important thing is surviving which can be a problem on immortal or deity, on king this is not such a worry. This means *the* most vital thing is getting that second city out. In those first few turns, be aware of when your capital hits 2 population and often swap what you were building to a settler. This increase in cities is the biggest benefit you can get, they grow faster when smaller, so more cities, I am not saying get 5 early, I am saying that first settler and maybe another soonish.
7. Those civic cards are really key, the AI does not use them well so your advantage is to do so. By this I mean things that boost production, if your army takes 300 production to make and you are using the 50% card then it can only cost 200. But be aware of overflow, when you finish something normally, extra production is passed over to the next build but this does not happen if a 50% card was applying to the build.
8. Unless you have a solid reason to get a wonder, do not. They are often fools gold that slow down your growth game seriously.
9. The turns your settler travels for before settling is also another, that natural wonder 20 tiles away may look good but if you waste 15 turns getting there, you have also just slowed yourself down.
10. The majority of your early game should be based on growth of cities, population and production. Doing this magically transforms the game at around turn 70-80 where you really need to consider other things including chopping.

People often ask where the strategy guide is, this post hopefully explains just how much detail would need to go into an entire strategy guide which gives you an idea why there is not one. I personally think this list is in itself a key strategy guide.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Your main issue looks like you are building too many builders, growth and food/production before making lots of plantations, they are for later and I often do not do many plantations.

10 tips to a better start
The very key points I would like to make that will help are these. Try a game concentrating on this until it becomes second nature. Some of it is higher detail min/max you may not want to use but it is there so at least know it.

1. This game and most similar games are more about the start than the end. The difference of 1 production point or 1 food point at the start of the game is big. Even getting that extra production a turn or two early
2. When you have low population, like under 4. Food is more important than production. Growing that cities working tiles is far more vital than most other things.
3. As soon as you have say 50 gold, check the tiles you can buy, not the ones that have good adjacency, but ones that improve your working populations tile. A 2/2 tile could be considered twice as strong as a 2/1 tile as long as your pop work it. Trading that luxury ASAP so you get the best gold out of it means you up your food/prod. Equally, buying a tile cheaply helps, tile cost goes up with civics/tech discovered, so if you are going to discover craftsmanship 1 turn before you can buy a tile, swap civics for a turn.
4. Check what tile your pop is working, sometimes the game will put you on a 1/1/2 luxury rather than a solid 2/2 tile. Or it may put you on a 1/3 tile rather than a 3/1 tile when population is low.
5. You capital city starts with a palace that gives it a boost, your other cities do not. In those second and third cities, they need a boost, a single builder charge or a trade route can seriously increase their output. It make a huge difference to the game. A second city grows painstakingly slow otherwise.
6. While the most important thing is surviving which can be a problem on immortal or deity, on king this is not such a worry. This means *the* most vital thing is getting that second city out. In those first few turns, be aware of when your capital hits 2 population and often swap what you were building to a settler. This increase in cities is the biggest benefit you can get, they grow faster when smaller, so more cities, I am not saying get 5 early, I am saying that first settler and maybe another soonish.
7. Those civic cards are really key, the AI does not use them well so your advantage is to do so. By this I mean things that boost production, if your army takes 300 production to make and you are using the 50% card then it can only cost 200. But be aware of overflow, when you finish something normally, extra production is passed over to the next build but this does not happen if a 50% card was applying to the build.
8. Unless you have a solid reason to get a wonder, do not. They are often fools gold that slow down your growth game seriously.
9. The turns your settler travels for before settling is also another, that natural wonder 20 tiles away may look good but if you waste 15 turns getting there, you have also just slowed yourself down.
10. The majority of your early game should be based on growth of cities, population and production. Doing this magically transforms the game at around turn 70-80 where you rally need to consider other things including chopping.

People often ask where the strategy guide is, this post hopefully explains just how much detail would need to go into an entire strategy guide which gives you an idea why there is not one. I personally think this list is in itself a key strategy guide.

Good points. This game is all about the snowball, so 110% any early edges you can minimax pay off a thousandfold down the road.

Avoid avoid avoid Wonders in the early game. The amount of production they consume, which could have been settlers, which could have been setting your snowball up is horrible.

If you have barbs nearby or even worse if an AI neighbour has barb canps you need a military since the Science Typo made them hilariously dangerous

Other than that you almost don’t need a military at all, since the AI is both incredibly passive and really really bad at warfare in this game. It’s another production sink after those critical first turns.

 

[Haig]

I agree that building wonders can be tempting but in many cases not worth it.

But definately build military, if you have low military scpre ai empires will attack you. Also you need forces to wage wars and to liberate your favorite city-state that Frederick Barbarossa captured..

 

[AntSou]

Could you take that screenshot again but with yields on? I suspect you could have taken advantage of high yield tiles along the volcano and rivers. Also, you could have settled Caracas here instead:



Wherever you settle a city, the minimum amount of food will always be 2. Plains are 1F/1P. Plains Hills are 1F/2P. Settling there would make Caracas have base yields of 2F/2P. Right now it seems you settled Plains, therefore only 2/1. This can make a significant difference in the beginning.

 

[Aristos]

Taking your screenshot says that you have two cities by turn 75. Why do you want to produce wonders? You really should have produced settlers or an army like 40 turns ago. By t50 you want to have PP and by 100 you want to have about 10-15 cities (assuming all std. settings) and near kilwa, merchant republic, and get (chop) campuses. A lot of them. Raid your neighbours or plain conquer them.

This is not necessarily true. I have won Deity games with 6-7 cities without trouble, and one even with 5 (even after losing 2 in the early game to Egypt only to recapture them and come back stronger). It is a fallacy that Civ 6's meta is wide; obviously, if you have more cities, it's even easier. But if you have 10-15 cities by turn 100 in any difficulty, you better start a new game because that one is already won and you will not have any challenge whatsoever and it will be a boring 100-200 turn clicking of Next Turn.

Immortal and below, you can easily win with 6-7 cities on standard, no need to pressure yourself into settling cities for the sake of that magic number (10-15). In fact, to learn the game it is even better to do with less cities, as that puts a heavier weight on the optimization of district placements and synergies.

 

[pokiehl]

It is a fallacy that Civ 6's meta is wide

No it isn’t a fallacy at all. More cities is essentially always better - bar none. You can win with 6 cities but you’ll always win faster and more decisively with 16. Being able to win with fewer cities doesn’t discredit the meta.

The game does practically nothing to punish expansion (and I think this is its biggest flaw).

 

[Victoria]

(and I think this is its biggest flaw).

? You can play like you want with as many cities as you want, why is that a flaw?

 

[pokiehl]

? You can play like you want with as many cities as you want, why is that a flaw?

Because it’s a lot more fun to be challenged than not challenged. Maintaining a huge empire should not be simple; amenities and loyalty simply do nothing to inhibit it. It kills so much of the fun to know that more is literally always better, and even if you don’t do it yourself, other factions expand unencumbered which wrecks the game pacing for everyone else.

There’s something deeply wrong with the core gameplay loop when it’s trivial for me to add a twentieth city in the desert or snow.

Civ 5 was too far one way and this game swung way too far the other way.

In addition to raising meaningful challenges to empire management, some system like Old World or Humankind has (predefined legal spots on the map to settle) would be a massive benefit to Civ 7 IMO.

 

[Linklite]

? You can play like you want with as many cities as you want, why is that a flaw?

My concern is that it's almost uniformly better to go wide. There's no debate or strategy involved - if it's feasible to go wider, you go wide. I prefer to have to weigh up options do I go for A with such and such benefits, or do I go for B with such and such benefits?

 

[pokiehl]

My concern is that it's almost uniformly better to go wide. There's no debate or strategy involved - if it's feasible to go wider, you go wide. I prefer to have to weigh up options do I go for A with such and such benefits, or do I go for B with such and such benefits?

To be clear I’m not trying to start a Tall vs Wide debate. I’m saying: if there’s a clear “better” answer (more cities), it shouldn’t be trivial to get to that better answer. That’s not fun at all and just ruins the game pace.