Optimal strategies for fastest finish times in Civ6

[stealth_nsk]

Just to point it out:
1. We've only seen a preview build which wasn't complete. The release build will have many changes and future patches will change it more.
2. Only few people actually played it.
3. Different civilizations seem to have very different strategies.
4. A lot of strategies will depend on map setup. We don't know yet in which conditions GOTM and other competitive games will be made.

With all this, I think discussing optimal strategies is way too early. It's good time to discuss strategies to try, though.

 

[phryxolydian]

Any examples?

Don't remember the exact deals but, just to give you an idea, someone was able to trade a luxury for the AIs cities iirc... Like

 

[Haggbart]

Religious or domination seems quickest on small maps, on larger map I'd think a science victory generally be fastest.

I'm thinking China are going to pull of some real quick science victories as the game is balanced right now. For early domination on small pangea/continents my money are on Scythia and early religion Spain.
But all this could easily change before release.

 

[dturtle1]

Sumer looks like a good candidate for science with ziggie spam. Lets say 3/5 tiles worked are ziggies, preferably on rivers but meh. That gives you 3/5 * 1 (0.6) + 0.7 science per pop before Campuses and buildings. @ just 100 total pop (totally doable) you will have 130 science add another approx 10 per city from campuses and buildings and % boni you will be pumping out techs like crazy. All you have to do is make sure you grow fast, keeping up with the housing/amenity constraints to maximise worked ziggies, Adventure time 24/7 will just be a bonus.

I think 3 out 5 tiles worked being ziggies should be doable...Long straight rivers will be your settling spot of choice as the culture from ziggies should negate the need for for culture districts. You can get max of 13 riverside ziggies in a city which is plenty. The other thing is making sure you max your production to make sure you can pump the projects.

 

[rpgalon]

I can't wait to try a Brazil rushing Super holy site districts:

-put a holy site in the jungle (+6 faith bonus)

-get the Pantheon Sacred Path: Holy Site district get +1 Faith from adjacent Rainforest tiles. (so it's +12 faith bonus for each holy site in the jungle)

-get the civic Theology (Classical), to unlock the policy Scripture (Theology): +100% Holy Site adjacency bonuses. (so it's either +18 or +24 faith bonus for EACH holy site in the jungle, In the Classical era, no building required only the district)

-get Great People: Hildegard of Bingen (Medieval Era): Gain 100 Faith. This Holy Site district's Faith adjacency bonus provides Science as well. (So you get a holy site that gives between +18 or +24 science and faith in the medieval era).

Use the faith to buy GP (get oracle for 25% discount in patronage with faith and +2 GPP generation for the dsitricts in this city ).

Use faith to buy an Army (Theocracy Government - can buy land units with faith, 15% discount on faith buys)

Use faith to buy districts for cheap (Jesuit Education: May purchase Campus and Theater Square district buildings with Faith)

From what I saw, it is 1.1 faith for 1 production. Almost 4 times as effective as gold.

 

[Ondolindë]

Why the heck would you want to finish the fast?
Are you in the fastest eater competition?
Enjoy the flavour of the game or don't play at all.

Come on! Be nice. Anyone is entitled to play the game the way the enjoy it. That is the purpose of actually loving Civ games, right? That you enjoy them without harming anyone or breaking laws.

 

[Haggbart]

Why the heck would you want to finish the fast?
Are you in the fastest eater competition?
Enjoy the flavour of the game or don't play at all.

Who cares if other people want to figure out the quickest way to win? You certainly don't have to. Also, finding exploits and balance issues after launch would help the devs balance the game for competitive MP.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Why the heck would you want to finish the fast?
Are you in the fastest eater competition?
Enjoy the flavour of the game or don't play at all.

I mean I agree . . . when I have to eat something I don't like, I try to choke it down as fast as possible so I don't have to taste it very much.

Still, as others have said to each their own. There are plenty of things I don't understand that others seem to like. And most of my hobbies, according to other people, are "dumb."

And also, these kinds of people try to find the cheesy exploits so hopefully development will take them out in upcoming patches.

 

[Cyberian]

Finding exploits, optimizing numbers, eagerly planned moves and perfecting everything is imho a part of the joy of playing strategy games in general.

Sure its not the only one and you don't want to do it to the extreme in every game.
But in this tradition finding the optimal strategy to finish a game quick is just an aspect of that. Also there is the accomplishment factor of setting and achieving a goal.

 

[dturtle1]

Ive got an idea ... let's not relentlessly pile on some poor sob for making a naive and ill-conceived comment... .....There are more threads replying to this one comment than even discussing the OP... jeez

Who do people think would be good at fast culture Victories ? You would need quick access to Great work slots and Wonders(do they even generate tourism?) Cultural civs like Greece should work pretty well as a lot of that stuff is hidden behind Cultural techs, Kongo maybe....Idk...anyone got any ideas ?

 

[phryxolydian]

Yeah, Kongo probably and mademoiselle Gorgo for violent culture, perhaps?

 

[Magil]

Here's a consideration: there's actually a very powerful beeline on the top of the tree to Square Rigging. Theoretically you can get there in four techs (realistically you'll probably want to at least get harbors and campus districts along the way). From what I've seen, frigates absolutely destroy anything around the same tech level or lower, especially cities. On any map with a lot of water and coast, that's a major advantage. The Yogscast nearly took London with a single longship--a few frigates and you could probably bend the world over your knee.

For kicks, according to Well of Souls, frigates don't require iron anymore.

 

[Cyberian]

Here's a consideration: there's actually a very powerful beeline on the top of the tree to Square Rigging. Theoretically you can get there in four techs (realistically you'll probably want to at least get harbors and campus districts along the way). From what I've seen, frigates absolutely destroy anything around the same tech level of lower, especially cities. On any map with a lot of water and coast, that's a major advantage. The Yogscast nearly took London with a single longship--a few frigates and you could probably bend the world over your knee.

For kicks, according to Well of Souls, frigates don't require iron anymore.

That looks very interesting. I usually don't like coastal cities and less so in Civ6 it seems because of horsehockey yields and less tiles for things to build. But this could be nice for someone like England who otherwise isn't a very strong Civ in the early game so it might be worth going for a very unique strategy like this.

Also it helps with them wanting one city on every continent cause you can just capture one city in each one with your superior navy. I would like to try that with china just for the 20% less research required for the expensive techs but they don't have a coast settle bias.

 

[Furycrab]

One thing I found "strange" with the preview build was we saw a livestream where they were showcasing "siege" and it looked like melee units with support units or Bombards were going to be important. Also using ZOC to cut off healing.

Then the preview build has cities that seem to be made of paper even with the ancient wall. Not exactly sure what that says about the final product. It could have a huge impact on what units make a proper domination "rush".

 

[Magil]

One thing I found "strange" with the preview build was we saw a livestream where they were showcasing "siege" and it looked like melee units with support units or Bombards were going to be important. Also using ZOC to cut off healing.

Then the preview build has cities that seem to be made of paper even with the ancient wall. Not exactly sure what that says about the final product. It could have a huge impact on what units make a proper domination "rush".

It makes sense if the units outclass the defenses of the city, like medieval units attacking a city with ancient walls, or attacking a city with no defenses at all. It makes less sense if it's ancient and classical era cities with walls getting utterly crushed by contemporary units. I'd rather not return to the super-strong cities of Civ V, but at the same time, it's problematic if walls do very little to help your city defend. There definitely needs to be a way to invest in defense.

I haven't observed this behavior personally, though I have noticed that advanced units have little trouble taking cities protected by weak walls. There could be another problem at work here--I remember Ed Beach going on record as saying something like the defensive strength of a city scaled with the most powerful melee unit (or was it ranged unit?) you could build, and perhaps the AI isn't unlocking the right techs to strengthen their cities. We tend to see AI units be on the weak side for the most part, at least.

 

[treadwin]

All the lets play have being exclusively on Prince difficulty, so we wont even know the optimal strategy until at least a few weeks after the launch imo

This - and we don't even know if this was real Prince difficulty or just a dumbed down version for review, arbitrarily labelled Prince.

Perhaps I am more humble, but I'm going to make sure that I can beat the AI, before I worry about how fast I can do it.

 

[Furycrab]

I'd rather not return to the super-strong cities of Civ V, but at the same time, it's problematic if walls do very little to help your city defend. There definitely needs to be a way to invest in defense.

No argument from me here. I just would rather not see the return of "make 6-7 crossbows and plow the land with one or two warriors/pikes to take cities".

 

[phryxolydian]

Perhaps I am more humble, but I'm going to make sure that I can beat the AI, before I worry about how fast I can do it.

Nothing to do with humility, man. You might mistake the OP as cocky or a show-off but many players don't have that role-playing mindset that so many others do. There's nothing wrong with role-playing but, (I believe) it can sometimes become an invisible smoke veil for a player to go beyond a difficulty they feel comfortable. A role-player will worry about what the AI might or might not do and tech and build according to what the AI is doing like "Oh, he has Muskets, better tech Gunpowder asap!" instead of going for Astronomy when playing for a science game. In other words, diverting from their chosen path to "role-play". As you might expect, this is not really efficient.

Hopefully the AI is now more aggressive and won't let you sit there teching all the way to Future Tech or whatever with just some slingers as the whole of your army but, yeah... we'll see.

 

[igorsrs]

My guess for Domination (I was never good at any VC other than domination in Civ V)
It's very hard to judge yet, some important numbers are still missing.
But some things seems certain now.

For Domination, all you need is:

• Troops
• Science (for better Troops)
• Some production and gold (to build and upgrade your troops).

The optimal strategy will probably be some kind of paced ICS, because:

• There are no stacking multipliers for science, like in Civ V, and population contribution is small.
• To get more science you will probably need to spam cities and build campuses, and its buildings, of course.
• Anything other than science stuff, comercial hubs, harbors, civilian units and troops seems like a waste.
  
• 6-9 pop cities should be enough.

I'm only worried about war weariness, I don't know how bad it can be.
For sure, I won't be able to stay at war, with at least one AI at a time, from early game to victory, like in I used to do in Civ V.

Edit: Sorry for bad english, written in a hurry

 

[IronfighterXXX]

Hopefully the AI is now more aggressive and won't let you sit there teching all the way to Future Tech or whatever with just some slingers as the whole of your army but, yeah... we'll see.

Unfortunately this one preview article which I read shows that AI is more peaceful, prince difficulty easier than in Civ5

This - and we don't even know if this was real Prince difficulty or just a dumbed down version for review, arbitrarily labelled Prince.

Maybe, but why they would do it? (do they think reviewers are so bad that otherwise would lose on prince? )