Not A Fan Of Antiquity Cadence At High Level (Deity)

[tman2000]

It seems like you have 2 choices:

1) sawmills to masonry
2) brickyard to writing

Then there's a question of whether you do sailing earlier or later, a little variability for pantheon choice, but either way you want to end up with:

1) 2 cities with a library and monument each, each with a food support town
2) Beeline currency to start placing specialists.

If you don't follow this formula, while you can still complete a legacy path in Antiquity, you'll be behind the entire time especially spamming subpar units to survive wars, and you'll fall far behind during exploration.

If you complete it, you can start to flex a little. Maybe build a lucrative mining town. Maybe go wonders. Maybe try for Great Library. Maybe go to war. But you have to get the default solid start. While you usually can get it, there are many spawns where you can get stuck on a narrow neck of land with only tundra settlements and get crowded out by AI. The AI will automatically hate you if you settle near them (worse when that's the only place to settle), and they will sabotage their own antiquity age to fight out the war. If this happens with the wrong timing, you won't have the means to overcome the Deity buffs the AI gets.

This just all feels awful to me, and it's completely the result of streamlining. This isn't fun.

I am going to try to get into modding to implement my "explosive town growth" idea so the turn 1-70 explore and settle phase is extremely forgiving, even on Deity. As long as you aren't dumb, you should be able to get to a point where any of your first three settlements can flex to be your main production city around turn 50, and from there recover to win the age. In my head, the balancing occurs in the town to city conversion, with normally tight growth rates for cities, and higher cost to convert to city. However, I think towns should grow very quickly so that there's really no way for anyone to fall behind in the tier 1-1.5 level.

I want to feel out the map and my strategy and then commit to a track around turn 70. I don't want to spend turns 1-50 with the same formula every time.

 

[tman2000]

I am going to try to get into modding to implement my "explosive town growth" idea so the turn 1-70 explore and settle phase is extremely forgiving, even on Deity. As long as you aren't dumb, you should be able to get to a point where any of your first three settlements can flex to be your main production city around turn 50, and from there recover to win the age. In my head, the balancing occurs in the town to city conversion, with normally tight growth rates for cities, and higher cost to convert to city. However, I think towns should grow very quickly so that there's really no way for anyone to fall behind in the tier 1-1.5 level.

I don't want truly critical choices to matter until turns 60-90, and I feel like the general cadence should be that almost all players will reach tier 3 by the start of the crisis, or at worst by the end.

I also think the crisis should hit a LOT harder, but you should have a more forgiving start to the crisis. Effectively, the cadence would then become that you explore around and settle, then around turn 60 have to get serious, your choices until turn 100 will determine how far into tier 3 you are, and the crisis will destroy you and test your choices. That seems like the most comfortable cadence.

 

[Krikkit1]

I also think the crisis should hit a LOT harder, but you should have a more forgiving start to the crisis. Effectively, the cadence would then become that you explore around and settle, then around turn 60 have to get serious, your choices until turn 100 will determine how far into tier 3 you are, and the crisis will destroy you and test your choices. That seems like the most comfortable cadence.

I think the crisis should hit a lot harder IF
1. you are a Human player on a high difficulty
2. you are any player that has many settlements/population/Legacy points, etc.

Basically an anti-snowball... if you are a weak Deity AI, or weak Scribe Human: the Crisis should be easy. only get a few improvements damaged at most
If you are a strong Scribe AI or a strong Deity Human: you should lose at least a few of your smaller settlements due to the Crisis (barbs Raze it, becomes Independent... maybe have several towns/small cities just get razed by the plague... unless you Really play well against it... then you only lose a few)

 

[Melkus]

and you'll fall far behind during exploration

Do you ever fall seriously behind though? I've not seen anything I couldn't play through and I'm not an optimizing player at all. I also doubt that science is that important in Civ7.

The AI yields look wild sometimes, yes, but that's also a function of Celebrations (and science / culture yields have seriously diminishing returns at the end of the age). Maybe the optimizing is enforced when the AI ever learns to push an advantage, but it simply doesn't right now (and even then - it's supposed to be Deity, that would be expected).

 

[tman2000]

If you don't get specialists quickly enough, you can't research and obtain happiness and production buildings, and you fall a tier behind in military units. You can still get a couple wonders in and defend settlements pretty well, but you'll start out exploration at a huge handicap. It also largely depends on your roll and start position whether you have access to good settlement locations and resources while avoiding war.

 

[uppi]

If you don't get specialists quickly enough, you can't research and obtain happiness and production buildings, and you fall a tier behind in military units. You can still get a couple wonders in and defend settlements pretty well, but you'll start out exploration at a huge handicap. It also largely depends on your roll and start position whether you have access to good settlement locations and resources while avoiding war.

I disagree that you need specialists to not fall behind in military unit tier. Bronze Working and Wheel are at the same tier as Currency. So by the time you can place your first specialist, you could have already reached tier 2 military units. And tier 2 is all you need. Tier 3 units hit the battlefield very late, if ever (and tier 3 ranged units don't even exist). By then the resistance of the AI should have crumbled. I find myself researching Currency after Wheel and Bronze Working and doing fine. Yeah, in 15 games I got to Iron Working like once, but who needs Iron Working? Also, there is always the option of stealing techs (and this is why Wheel is better: You get that influence you need for stealing)

 

[tman2000]

I disagree that you need specialists to not fall behind in military unit tier. Bronze Working and Wheel are at the same tier as Currency. So by the time you can place your first specialist, you could have already reached tier 2 military units. And tier 2 is all you need. Tier 3 units hit the battlefield very late, if ever (and tier 3 ranged units don't even exist). By then the resistance of the AI should have crumbled. I find myself researching Currency after Wheel and Bronze Working and doing fine. Yeah, in 15 games I got to Iron Working like once, but who needs Iron Working? Also, there is always the option of stealing techs (and this is why Wheel is better: You get that influence you need for stealing)

You still won't get there unless you roll a good start with the right resources, where you can fully settle and hopefully oversettle a little, otherwise you fall behind no matter what. Only with a few specialists, beelined, can you recover to get to a decent exploration start, if your starting position and resource roll isn't good. On deity. There's no leeway, you still have to optimize.

Are you talking about deity?

 

[uppi]

Are you talking about deity?

Yes. I find Deity to be easy enough so that I don't have to optimize too much.

 

[tman2000]

Yes. I find Deity to be easy enough so that I don't have to optimize too much.

I think it entirely depends on what civ you play. If you're doing Maya all the time, etc.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I think it entirely depends on what civ you play. If you're doing Maya all the time, etc.

I think it's more about settings too. Most difficult settings so far, AFAIK, are continents+, standard speed, standard size. Playing on archipelago drops difficulty significantly and fractal is somewhere in between.

Another thing is with mods - while AI with them could look better, it may screw challenge in specific situations, because mods don't have the amount of testing core game has. And using map scripts created by modders could make things much harder for AI.

 

[tman2000]

I think it's more about settings too. Most difficult settings so far, AFAIK, are continents+, standard speed, standard size. Playing on archipelago drops difficulty significantly and fractal is somewhere in between.

Another thing is with mods - while AI with them could look better, it may screw challenge in specific situations, because mods don't have the amount of testing core game has. And using map scripts created by modders could make things much harder for AI.

Having played Han (a not very good civ) over and over on Deity just to get a good feel for it, my success depended entirely on start position. They tend to spawn in tundra, and I've had skinny neck continent tundra where I was immediately settle blocked out of having any chance to compete. I've had spawns with almost no good resources, and with really great resources. It makes all the difference in the world if you get a couple camels and quartzes, or none at all. Whether there's room to fill to settlement cap before going to war or not. It doesn't feel like there's much you can do on your own.

 

[Acken]

Optimizing at higher difficulties is the point. It's not a new thing that as the difficulty increases, the narrower the breadth of "good" options gets. It's also why some players prefer not to play it and enjoy being able to freely play very different less optimal games.

Now the balance could be better to make alternative options more attractive for sure.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Having played Han (a not very good civ) over and over on Deity just to get a good feel for it, my success depended entirely on start position. They tend to spawn in tundra, and I've had skinny neck continent tundra where I was immediately settle blocked out of having any chance to compete. I've had spawns with almost no good resources, and with really great resources. It makes all the difference in the world if you get a couple camels and quartzes, or none at all. Whether there's room to fill to settlement cap before going to war or not. It doesn't feel like there's much you can do on your own.

Yes, starting bias is surprisingly important. Everybody dislike Axum for mediocre bonuses, but their coastal bias actually often makes really good starts for them.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Optimizing at higher difficulties is the point. It's not a new thing that as the difficulty increases, the narrower the breadth of "good" options gets. It's also why some players prefer not to play it and enjoy being able to freely play very different less optimal games.

Now the balance could be better to make alternative options more attractive for sure.

Yeah. The game is still being polished. We'll clearly see balance passes soon.

 

[Taefin]

Alternative take: once you match the AI’s yields, the game is over.

The game has so much flexibility, at deity and even at 1.5x deity bonuses. You can do whatever start you want (e.g., to explore civ flavor) and the game remains competitive, thanks to the age transition rubber banding.

And totally agree that Tier 2 units are all you truly need. Getting a lv 4 commander, either by fighting IP, or in a first defensive stage of the first war, will offset the AI advantage, and being a tier behind on units does not prevent effective defense. In longer ages there is meaningful time to research iron working, but in standard I have never gone for it.

 

[uppi]

I think it entirely depends on what civ you play. If you're doing Maya all the time, etc.

Not really. I mean, yes the power difference is there and Maya -> Hawaii is great for dominating everyone. And obviously, you will struggle much more on a bad start than on a great start. But I think you still have leeway on a bad start with a mediocre civ. Just not as much.

Optimizing at higher difficulties is the point. It's not a new thing that as the difficulty increases, the narrower the breadth of "good" options gets. It's also why some players prefer not to play it and enjoy being able to freely play very different less optimal games.

Now the balance could be better to make alternative options more attractive for sure.

Yeah, if I was feeling too constrained to have fun, I would drop down a difficulty or two. I could beat Civ 6 at Deity if the conditions aligned, but I did not enjoy it and had much more fun at Emperor. But for (unmodded) Civ 7 right now, there is no need to do that.

And totally agree that Tier 2 units are all you truly need. Getting a lv 4 commander, either by fighting IP, or in a first defensive stage of the first war, will offset the AI advantage, and being a tier behind on units does not prevent effective defense. In longer ages there is meaningful time to research iron working, but in standard I have never gone for it.

I went for it once with standard ages, but it was with Maya (those science yields need to go somewhere, after all). It can be a reward if you focus heavily on science (which might not be the best idea). But I agree that in most games on standard age length it is a waste of science.

 

[WillK96]

I've played about 100 hours - 9 full games and probably 5-10 additional antiquities when I was just starting out. I don't think the cadence on Deity is that hard, especially once you get the hang of it. Generally you want to go with some combo of Husbandry, Irrigation, Masonry, Pottery while expanding, and then into Writing and Writing II for a power spike. But that alone is much more flexible than Civ VI's tech meta and provides for a decent cadence. I think the disconnect here is that Civ VII is really no different than Civ VI in that you are supposed to be behind the Deity AI yields wise until your human brain can outsmart the AI code with specialist placement and adjacencies. While frustrating, it is miles better than Civ VI.