Please review my house rules for single player

Yeah, I'm the same. If I'm going to invest hours of my time, I want it to be fun. Sometimes playing a challenge is fun, so I'll play a sub-optimal start. But generally speaking, I don't want to play Mali if I am playing on a tiny island with no desert tiles nearby. Heck, I often play out the whole ancient era of a game, and if it's not fun, I don't even save it and just quit. Sometimes "it's not fun" means I got a relic on turn 3 and have a ton of space to expand into with no competition. Sometimes "it's not fun" means the AI has 3 swordsmen walking towards my capital while I still only have a slinger for defense.

Do what makes the game fun for you. If saving and reloading until you have a perfect turn and win all your combats is fun, go ahead. If restarting the game until you are within spitting distance of a natural wonder is what you want, then do that. If you feel you should play the game without ever restarting or reloading and taking what the RNG gives you, and never buying a luxury for less than 10gpt, and never pillaging a tile, then I'm not going to stop you.
I agree. But my point was, that you can't reload games until you get an awesome start and then complain that the game is too easy (at least until they screwed the AI up). If you keep restarting until you get a great start, it's inevitable that you'll, on average and almost always, get a better start than the AI. You're stacking the game against the AI.

Which is absolutely fine, you do what is fun. There is absolutely no judgement on that from me. But you can't then conplain that it's too easy.
 
Not really, it only applies if you use the save function in order to reload and thereby "undo" something you were unhappy with.
If you just use saves in order to quit the game and keep playing at a later time, then these are not comparable.

This is literally no different than an undo function, it’s just more cumbersome
 
This rules just make SP game like a MP.
For me using AI exploit or restart before ideal start position equal cheating.
 
This is literally no different than an undo function, it’s just more cumbersome
How is that not different from an undo function?
If you play for 3 hours straight and have to quit playing for the night, then you save the game and continue the next day.
Noone is talking about using saves to undo mistakes, I specifically stated saves to pick up the game later again in case you have to quit.
 
A house rule that I use frequently is to check an AI's GPT before making any trade with them.

Even on Deity, they will make trades that bring themselves to the brink of bankruptcy. Zero GPT often results in the AI disbanding their entire army, never to rebuild it.

I try to only receive GPT trades with them if they have an additional 20+ GPT at least to spare.
 
The problem with house rules in Civ6 is just that you need a ton of them - and sometimes it is hard to draw a line. I understand e.g. completely the rule the OP created for luxury trading - but what about trading strategic ressources? The number of exploits/logic holes around the trading of them is numerous. Not to speak of the AI sometimes willing to give up nearly everything for a joined war...

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One of my key take-aways from playing a bit of Old World: WHY WAS THE UNDO BUTTON NEVER IN ANY CIV GAME?! [pissed]
Perhaps because Old World can easily afford the undo button in terms of difficulty :lol:

I make quite often use of it, if I realize that I narrowly missed a kill because of attacking in suboptimal sequence/position with my units. Result: I get my kill and if I'm really lucky I might even win the entire battle. And while mentally celebrating, the AI usually prepares the next (counter)attack and mops then then floor with my previously victorious units. So while I technically "cheat" vs the AI, I'm ok with as I learning to play the game better by it - and it doesn't hurt because of the challenge is still there. In Civ6 on the other hand, correcting a mistake you made inevitably takes away even more from the limited challenge it offers at all, so I'm not sure if I would use the button at all (except for maybe correcting a physical misclick). I concede that this is no hard argument against adding such a button (as no one is forced to use it), but it might explain why it was never on the list for Civ devs. Old World on the other hand constantly has to defend against accusations that the AI simply must cheat or get unfair advantages even on low levels - the curse for having a good AI no one expects. Under that circumstances its more resonable to add an undo button to give players a tool in hand to correct mistakes to help learn and understand the game (and if desired, to also gain an "unfair advantage" against the AI - which is probably free to use "undo" as well...but just makes no mistakes to correct with it).

My use of the undo button in OW has though its limitations - I don't redo to trigger extra critical hits, I don't take back unit movements I did for scouting and I also don't go back into the previous turn.
 
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Rules:

1. Restarting a map for a new game is allowed at most 2 times without saving your starts (this is to avoid going from start 3 to start 2 ex. because previous start was better)
- For example, if you restart a map 1st time then either you stick with the new 2nd start or you restart for the last time for 3rd start which you then must accept.

Why do you need a restart at all? if you get a bad start you don’t want to deal with it then switch your early game to conquest in order to grab a good starting position from the AI, and continue normal gameplay from that point.


2. You are not allowed to reload a game under any circumstances except to continue game next day from latest save point.
- If there is computer crash you're allowed to reload earlier but you must repeat your last moves and actions exactly.
Generally a good rule. Bugs or utterly dull and annoying design flaws should be an exception to the rule though.
3. You're not allowed to use any kind of cheating mods which would give you an advantage or information that is otherwise not available in game.
Yes. Good and self-explanatory.
4. The minimum price tag at which you're allowed to buy and maximum at which you're allowed to sell stuff from\to the AI is:
- 10 GPT per 1 luxury resource. (or 300 flat gold)
- 10 GPT per 30 strategic resources. (or 300 flat gold)
- 5 GPT for open borders (or 150 flat gold)
You‘re paying for the extra gold with annoying and time consuming micro, so it might be a fair trade after all.
5. You're not allowed to stop producing or changing production of military or civilian units that are 1 or few turns from

5. Producing military units but leaving them at 1 turn until complete in the city with the aim to cut on unit gold maintenance cost, or to trick the AI into thinking you're weak to provoke an attack for easy victory,
and then suddenly you produce a bunch of military in a single turn and easily defeat the AI.
This is clearly unfair because the AI does not do these things to cheat or trick human player, also very likely the AI isn't designed to predict this human trickstery thus it's unfair to use this strategy.
Similarly you're not allowed to do the same for builders, ex. waiting until you apply policy card which gives you +2 builder actions, thus ensuring you use the card only once rather than across 2 policy changes as it's usually the case.
Next policy change might take only 3 turns, thus you produce builders upfront and then apply policy for those 3 turns and change it soon afterwards is unfair.
Appearing weak when being strong and vice versa is the oldest strategy there is in recorded human history. Even Sun Tzu advised that thousands of years ago. If an aggressor fails to see your bluff and comes running right into your trap then no rule should deny you the satisfaction of utterly crushing him.
Optional rules for better end game and gameplay XP:

1. You're "not allowed" to win.
A simple rule which results in better endgame, in order for you to win a game you must lead in every victory condition in order for you to win one of them.
For example if you're going for science victory, your science victory is valid only if you lead in every other victory condition.
For example if you win scientific victory but one of the AI's is leading in culture then your victory is false and you lost the game.

Rationale is simple, having lead in every victory condition will take more effort and will surely go far into the end game, your only obstacle to this is difficulty you're playing on.
Thus if you're unable to achieve such victory you might as well have fun playing on one difficulty below what's your normal.
But from my XP, it's not extremely hard, I achieved lead in all conditions except faith on immortal difficulty before reaching information era.
Not a rule that I would pick for myself as I do want to have fun playing the game, not working. But as long as it makes you happy...
2. Victory doesn't count if your favor per turn is negative
If your favor per turn is negative this likely means you took out too many capitals or grievances against you are far beyond reasonable.
Civ AI is not militaristic, thus going for domination victory is nothing but beating a dead horse.
Ensuring positive favor per turn means realistic game because you don't abuse the AI which is uncapable to pose same military challenge to human player.

These 2 optional rules thus ensure more fun in end game because achieving them takes effort and skills.

I'm sure you know of some more rules which could be added, if so please do share them, I'm very interested to hear about how you rule your games!
Same for this one. You might be better advised simply turning off the domination victory though.
 
Having such an extensive set of self-imposed rules to make it 'fair' for an AI that gets already gets mega cheats seems bizarre to me.

If all the AI players get to start the game with multiple settlers, builders, free tech boosts and a small army at their disposal then i get to dictate the map we play on. Seems fair enough, no?
 
if you don't you lose the game.
If you touch 2nd piece you lose the game.
If the move you played is invalid you lose the game.

To be fair, none of these rules apply in professional chess. If you touch a different piece and move it, you have to retract the move and move the touched piece (but you don't lose because of it). If you make an invalid move, you have to retract that move and make a legal move -- in an Armageddon game in the Women's US Championship this year, for example, an illegal move was made with seconds remaining, and the penalty was 2 minutes being added to the player's clock that wasn't making the illegal move (which in this case resulted in that player winning on time a few moves later).

Of course there can be house rules in chess where your rules may apply, but the official rules are not like this.

the answer to this thread is mods

This is indeed the answer. There are mods that make the game a lot more balanced that what you see "out of the box" -- but in any event, do what makes you happy when playing. :goodjob:
 
I have redone a turn only once, when I accidentally bought a tile for the wrong city. Yes, a mis-click of sorts.

I really follow only one hard rule: Thou shalt not exploit flaws in the game design that I happen to know about (such as from a forum like this). For instance, the gag in which Australia repeatedly conquers and liberates a city-state in order to achieve a constant 100% boost in production. Such nonsense is not fun to exploit, for me.

A second "soft" rule for me is: Thou shalt not overly indulge in sociopathy. Even against AI players I feel a certain compulsion to treat them as sentient beings, and do not willy-nilly bludgeon otherwise friendly civs with my superior military, or conquer cities I can't really use. Nuke a city? Never, unless nuked first.
 
I'm with the less hardcore people that say play to have fun. I'll definitely reroll starts that I don't like, but I also try and keep in mind that the game is designed so that nearly all of the terrain is usable in some way. If I can think of a way to play it, I'll usually give it a shot. Someone else mentioned that if you're trying for a specific playstyle, like Canada needing tundra or Mali needing desert, then I'll reload to get that, but few leaders are that map dependent.

I'll save scum too. I don't particularly like the term because it feels like I'm being labeled a cheater. My computer's older so reloading takes time and the wait itself is a penalty that makes me think twice about it. I reload if the unit pathing gets messed up and units go off in strange directions. Sometimes those are lethal errors and if it's clearly unintentional and I can't just play through, I'll reload. I've reloaded to try and play back a few turns and see if I can save a wonder or a beseiged city or to see if I can make the era score cutoff in some way. Again, time is a penalty and I don't like wasting time endlessly reloading, so I just accept suboptimal outcomes a lot. In my current game for example, Victoria decided for some reason to make Mont St. Michel with no religion. But I was in no position to stop her getting it, so I had to just let it go even though it's totally a waste. We may end up having a conversation about ownership of that thing later in the game. =)

I use a cheat mod too. I know. Sounds terrible. But it's there for some of those crazy things that I don't want to waste time reloading. Move wrong? Refresh the movement and put the unit where it needs to go. One of the AIs gets too far behind, I can give some gold to help him catch up to keep the game interesting. That sort of thing.

I know I could play the thing with ultra-rigid rules, but I'm not competing anyone anyone but myself. I'm playing to relax and have a good time.
 
I have a new problem now where loading a save disables half my mods, including things like unit stacking and UI mods that the game is frankly unplayable without
 
Optional rule 1. is quite interesting. Victories where you lead the AI in multiple victory conditions could count towards more points at the end, or some distinctinction could be made between a close science win or an overall outperforming the AI. It doesn't let me quote you, so that's why I didn't. These are some good points that should be considered for Civ7 and the modding community. On the other hand, we are a niche of hardcore players, and Fixaris needs to cater to the masses who just want to have fun and win, even if they make mistakes. I like that OP was quite honest and realized that there is a better way and I thank him for sharing his ideas. I like it because it is fresh, original, and shows self-improvement. The next game in the series could have either a "Hardcore" mode or an achievement system geared also towards improving players morally and intelectually by rewarding them in some way, or suggesting gently to move in the right direction. Ex. the adviser dialog could have a checkbox "Help me become a better player over time". Thank you for your post OP. I can't agree with everything since I do belive in a free market and unless its a bug trades are trades between two players. This is more of a "please fix the AI" category thing IMO. The AI does make outrageous demands or trades and sometimes we accept them because we are not paying enough attention and we have to live with those small mistakes like 6 works of art getting sold for gold or your luxury resources gone for 30 turns.
PS: Excuse any typos.
 
Having such an extensive set of self-imposed rules to make it 'fair' for an AI that gets already gets mega cheats seems bizarre to me.

If all the AI players get to start the game with multiple settlers, builders, free tech boosts and a small army at their disposal then i get to dictate the map we play on. Seems fair enough, no?
For a lot of people who have been playing Civ since the 90's some rules add in a challenge that just isn't there if you don't. Once you have beat the game on every level with every civ in every victory condition you start looking for new ways to limit yourself.
 
I rarely reload with CiVI. I remember an earlier Civ games, which early naval units had a chance to die if they ended there turn in the ocean. Back then, I would keep reloading until the unit survived. Now, I just wouldn't send the unit out.
 
I basically generate a bunch of maps, use reveal map to see if I want to play them, then play them about a month later when I’ve forgotten the map gen.

Only AI trades I do are alliances and great works (where it makes sense for them). Anything GPT related is too easy to exploit.

I also my difficulty mod to try make them play the game better. Does stuff like boost their adjacencies based on difficulty
 
4. The minimum price tag at which you're allowed to buy and maximum at which you're allowed to sell stuff from\to the AI is:
- 10 GPT per 1 luxury resource. (or 300 flat gold)
- 10 GPT per 30 strategic resources. (or 300 flat gold)
- 5 GPT for open borders (or 150 flat gold)
AI trading is a terrible mechanic and should be replaced by something fun and interesting. I don't like that it's fallen under the category of "it's up to the player" to not exploit it.

I usually will not settle intentionally on resources. It just feels like a flaw in the game and is not immersive.

One rule I tried when I was playing more often and was a lot better was cities must be raised if I don't have a second tier government. I thought of it while playing multiplayer and thought it would be a great rule change for public games.
 
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