PCGamer: Civ 6 streamer figures out how to win without founding any cities in 'extremely impressive' video

[The_J]

Twitch streamer boesthius has taken up a very special challenge: Play as Qin, and don't settle any cities. This was obviously a crazy and tough game, but he succeeded! This has even caught the attention of PCGamer, who wrote an article about this here.
A blurb from the article:

The whole video is worth watching. Boesthius made the challenge look easy, but it really wasn't, it required speed, knowledge of the game, and more than a little luck. It was so formidable, in fact, that the official Civ 6 YouTube account even commented "ok I'm not gonna lie this was extremely impressive" under the video, while the rest of the comments are split evenly between amazement at boesthius' feat and horror at his apparent masochism.

So... what do you think? Crazy? Interesting? Are you up for the challenge?

 

[bbbt]

It's a hold over from Civ 5 Germany's no city challenge.

I'd be curious if Qin could do a full no city challenge (just not no settled cities) razing has he goes and never having a city (would have to have a mod to allow razing capitols ).

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

A no-city win was always possible with the Maori (as demonstrated by the Spiffing Brit) but I'll admit, this route to a cityless victory is more entertaining.

 

[Finvola]

I think he explained somewhere that razing the first city captured resulted in a defeat so that's why it was done that way. I could be wrong though.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I think he explained somewhere that razing the first city captured resulted in a defeat so that's why it was done that way.

Not an automatic defeat - that happens when only 1 Civ has a city - but he needed a way to get siege weaponry etc.

 

[blackbutterfly]

I'd be curious if Qin could do a full no city challenge (just not no settled cities) razing has he goes and never having a city (would have to have a mod to allow razing capitols ).

Super easy.

The hard part is the start.
You need to protect your settler until you have your first city.
And you need barbs to spawn early. So some RNG req.

 

[blackbutterfly]

PotatoMcWhiskey has improved a little on @boesthius YouTube:

Personally I'm waiting for SpiffingBrits "Civ VI is broken" with alt Qin

 

[bbbt]

Super easy.

The hard part is the start.
You need to protect your settler until you have your first city.
And you need barbs to spawn early. So some RNG req.

No I mean never have a first city. Just raze raze raze with a barb only army til there's no cities left on the map. If that's doable.

 

[vorlon_mi]

No I mean never have a first city. Just raze raze raze with a barb only army til there's no cities left on the map. If that's doable.

Unless you're using a mod that allows razing original capitals, you will be compelled to keep those cities as your barb only army blasts them. Once you've got one of those, you can park your original settler in there for safekeeping.

What impressed me about Boesthius' video was how he handled the loyalty issue. Since he has no self-founded cities, and relatively few conquered cities, newly conquered cities are likely to rebel into free cities. He was fighting two-front wars... advancing on new targets, and pacifying in the rear all the rebellions.

 

[blackbutterfly]

What impressed me about Boesthius' video was how he handled the loyalty issue. Since he has no self-founded cities, and relatively few conquered cities, newly conquered cities are likely to rebel into free cities. He was fighting two-front wars... advancing on new targets, and pacifying in the rear all the rebellions.

But really Boes didn't know what he was doing.
Futzing around at the start and then got lucky.

FYI if you want to exploit Qin with Clans mode, pick the land clans (not seafaring or horse clans) to raid and exploit.
Disperse the seafaring ones especially as they mostly produce ships.

But Boes was clearly enjoying the chaos of Zombie mode when they razed cities he captured!

It makes sense another YouTuber would also do a Qin exploit video but weirdly Potato also did the Qin No Settle challenge.
He is making some of the same mistakes though.

 

[bbbt]

Unless you're using a mod that allows razing original capitals, you will be compelled to keep those cities as your barb only army blasts them. Once you've got one of those, you can park your original settler in there for safekeeping.

What impressed me about Boesthius' video was how he handled the loyalty issue. Since he has no self-founded cities, and relatively few conquered cities, newly conquered cities are likely to rebel into free cities. He was fighting two-front wars... advancing on new targets, and pacifying in the rear all the rebellions.

Yeah I mentioned that you'd have to use a mod for a capitol razing in my original post.

It seems like it would be difficult without cheesing the settings.

 

[UWHabs]

But really Boes didn't know what he was doing.
Futzing around at the start and then got lucky.

FYI if you want to exploit Qin with Clans mode, pick the land clans (not seafaring or horse clans) to raid and exploit.
Disperse the seafaring ones especially as they mostly produce ships.

But Boes was clearly enjoying the chaos of Zombie mode when they razed cities he captured!

It makes sense another YouTuber would also do a Qin exploit video but weirdly Potato also did the Qin No Settle challenge.
He is making some of the same mistakes though.

They both tried it at Marathon speed. While you want to be good and efficient at it, I think they're putting in enough time in the challenge that you don't want to be too picky on what clans you're trying to micro-manage, in case you accidentally destroy all the useful ones. Even Potato was mostly recruiting archers from one clan, they're still useful to have around (especially since he allowed himself to build warriors - Boes was stricter in his challenge so you would have to be a little pickier).

Potato figured out the zombie algorithm and was exploiting that "knowing" when the zombies would spawn - I think Boes never quite had it down fully. But in either case, once you get your initial core of cities, you don't overly care if the other cities flip while you move on. Especially since they never teched out, when the cities flip they would all have a weak base strength so it wasn't that hard to re-capture, and in most cases it probably would have been better to just roll through the civ and then worry about circling back later to get the free city rather than try to do both at once. It's an early rush, so the map isn't full enough that any civ will apply loyalty pressure on the others.

Both did get lucky in that they didn't spawn next to like Monty or Gilgamesh. Trying to push zombies through war carts would have really pushed the difficulty level of the challenges. Even facing Tamar and having to go against a lot of walls would have really been a pain too.

 

[blackbutterfly]

Even facing Tamar and having to go against a lot of walls would have really been a pain too.

Just rush a battering ram.
It's marathon.

So about half way through Potato starts to get the hang of things.
He figures out zombies are more valuable than meets the eye, as their kills spawn more zombies...allowing you to snowball.

I'm gonna do a new Steam guide for Qin, cos it's killing me how these guys are messing up

I recommend one of my existing ones How to Infinite Zombie Spawn in the meantime.

 

[Finvola]

I watched Boes' video the other day. I think he said he hadn't played with zombies since they were introduced so it might have taken him a bit to notice a pattern if he's only used them once or twice. Potato might have played with zombies more. I've never played with zombies but I might give the challenge a try. I play on marathon anyway. If I went in playing zombies blindly I probably wouldn't notice right away either.

 

[blackbutterfly]

Potato might have played with zombies more. I've never played with zombies but I might give the challenge a try. I play on marathon anyway. If I went in playing zombies blindly I probably wouldn't notice right away either.

Zombies is actually so much fun.
Zombie Defence has been super tough before LP because zombies would increase +1 strength for every zombie killed. So eventually they would 1-shot Giant Death Robots. Oh that was awesome!

It's been nerfed considerably.

Even on standard speed the ramp up is pretty flat.

Anyway, I have a new guide for anybody wanting to try out a Qin challenge: How To Exploit Unifier Qin
Enjoy!

(It's still a work in progress. I'm waiting for a good screenshot for a final section/chapter).

 

[The_J]

User DocksEcky on Twitter has drawn the above picture.