Strategy speculation: path-maxing/turtle vs growth/Rush

[remconius]

Disclaimer: Anybody can play the game any way they like, be it role-play, personal restrictions, fantasy civilizations history, etc....

I am wondering what will the meta strategy for Civ7 when it comes to snowballing and overpowering the AI in single player.

I can see 2 opposite paths:

1. Growth/Rush Strategy - Focus on building the biggest and most developed empire and not bothering a lot about legacy paths, although some might go hand in hand, like 20 resources and 12 settlements. Also try to get out of the age as quickly as possible to prevent AI from building up any power/legacy.
2. Turtle/Path maxing - Make sure you complete all legacies to get max points for the next age. Avoid age progression to get all missions completed. This might be optimal if the legacy points are strong enough.

Then there is the hybrid version where it is key to complete 1 or 2 legacy paths for certain strategies, but not compete all.

Hope to get some additional views on this topic

 

[stealth_nsk]

As I understand you're talking about speeding age progression or slowing it down. I don't think it works like this:
1. Age transition depends on achievements of all players, so if you'll not make progress someone else would. In a game vs. 5-6 civs your progress will be not very important.
2. As I understand, completing legacies is the thing which speeds up age transition, so you can't delay it to get more legacies.

So, it looks like the only viable approach in terms of legacies is just getting them as fast as you can and if you could get them faster than opponents, you'll end up with more of them.
(of course, legacies are not the only part of the strategy)

 

[civfanatic4sure]

Love this topic because I'm an unapologetic civ6 single player try-hard. In civ7, I think influence to suz as many city states as possible + maxing trade routes + increasing resource limit in settlements is going to be so universally strong and allow any victory path to be viable that it may be the competitive meta. As far as I can tell, the different approaches to playing single player competitively would be:

1. Generalist yield boosting, e.g. Ibn Battuta + Mississippian
2. Specialization yield boosting, e.g. Confucius + Maya
3. Tactical yield or military boosting, e.g. Machiavelli + Greece, Trung Trac + Rome

Who knows how balanced these approaches will be vs each other

At the same time, it depends a lot on what you mean by "snowballing and overpowering the AI" or how we define "competitive":

1. Most reliable way to win?
2. Lowest turn count?
3. Completing as many legacy paths as possible?

I think the competitive single player meta will be either 2 or 3... but 3 will likely become "the challenge": Playing on deity with no mementos, can you hit every legacy path golden age in every age on path to victory? It may not even be possible, but someone will certainly try, and I'm here for it!

 

[Sephi]

There should not be any static meta outside of "play to the strength of your civs/leader". It's not gonna be "every civ mostly plays the same" anymore. It might take some balance patches to get there though.

 

[remconius]

As I understand you're talking about speeding age progression or slowing it down. I don't think it works like this:
1. Age transition depends on achievements of all players, so if you'll not make progress someone else would. In a game vs. 5-6 civs your progress will be not very important.
2. As I understand, completing legacies is the thing which speeds up age transition, so you can't delay it to get more legacies.

So, it looks like the only viable approach in terms of legacies is just getting them as fast as you can and if you could get them faster than opponents, you'll end up with more of them.
(of course, legacies are not the only part of the strategy)

I think you can influence progression. I saw a stream where the player slotted in the last codecs which ended the age before he completed his 7th wonder. Then he reloaded, completed the wonder and slotted in the last codecs to complete all legacies. So if you are the one ahead, you could force an early or delayed transitions I think.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I think you can influence progression. I saw a stream where the player slotted in the last codecs which ended the age before he completed his 7th wonder. Then he reloaded, completed the wonder and slotted in the last codecs to complete all legacies. So if you are the one ahead, you could force an early or delayed transitions I think.

Yeah, but I don't think you could affect it by a lot

 

[remconius]

Love this topic because I'm an unapologetic civ6 single player try-hard. In civ7, I think influence to suz as many city states as possible + maxing trade routes + increasing resource limit in settlements is going to be so universally strong and allow any victory path to be viable that it may be the competitive meta. As far as I can tell, the different approaches to playing single player competitively would be:

1. Generalist yield boosting, e.g. Ibn Battuta + Mississippian
2. Specialization yield boosting, e.g. Confucius + Maya
3. Tactical yield or military boosting, e.g. Machiavelli + Greece, Trung Trac + Rome

Who knows how balanced these approaches will be vs each other

At the same time, it depends a lot on what you mean by "snowballing and overpowering the AI" or how we define "competitive":

1. Most reliable way to win?
2. Lowest turn count?
3. Completing as many legacy paths as possible?

I think the competitive single player meta will be either 2 or 3... but 3 will likely become "the challenge": Playing on deity with no mementos, can you hit every legacy path golden age in every age on path to victory? It may not even be possible, but someone will certainly try, and I'm here for it!

Agree that it will depend on civ&leader you're playing. And strategies will differ.

I would say snowballing = lowest turn count per victory type.
The added difficulty could lowest turn count including all legacies, which is most likely slower, unless the legacies are so powerful they actually accelerate your victory.

The main questions is will the legacy paths speed you up or slow you down.

 

[remconius]

There should not be any static meta outside of "play to the strength of your civs/leader". It's not gonna be "every civ mostly plays the same" anymore. It might take some balance patches to get there though.

Fully agree and I wonder if for some leaders completing all or some legacy paths are the key to victory where for others ignoring some of them and focusing on growth/development would be better.

 

[Krikkit1]

Disclaimer: Anybody can play the game any way they like, be it role-play, personal restrictions, fantasy civilizations history, etc....

I am wondering what will the meta strategy for Civ7 when it comes to snowballing and overpowering the AI in single player.

I can see 2 opposite paths:

1. Growth/Rush Strategy - Focus on building the biggest and most developed empire and not bothering a lot about legacy paths, although some might go hand in hand, like 20 resources and 12 settlements. Also try to get out of the age as quickly as possible to prevent AI from building up any power/legacy.
2. Turtle/Path maxing - Make sure you complete all legacies to get max points for the next age. Avoid age progression to get all missions completed. This might be optimal if the legacy points are strong enough.

Then there is the hybrid version where it is key to complete 1 or 2 legacy paths for certain strategies, but not compete all.

Hope to get some additional views on this topic

As mentioned speeding/slowing through the age isn’t part of it.
However, each age seems to have 2 “phases”
1. build up (develop your empire, increase yields, buildings/techs/civics)
2. cash out (get the thing you will carry to the next age, legacy points, territory)

Now you will often be doing both, but the closer you get to the end of the age the more you focus on #2 and the less on things that only help you in this age (building/techs/civics)

 

[CivKirk64]

Whatever it is I don't care. I don't believe in Meta or paying attention to one, the entire concept ruins gaming for me; especially when developers adjust the balancing to suit the elite competitive steamers.
Make the game less fun for me because everything needs to be tuned for the top 0.001% of players.

 

[remconius]

As mentioned speeding/slowing through the age isn’t part of it.
However, each age seems to have 2 “phases”
1. build up (develop your empire, increase yields, buildings/techs/civics)
2. cash out (get the thing you will carry to the next age, legacy points, territory)

Now you will often be doing both, but the closer you get to the end of the age the more you focus on #2 and the less on things that only help you in this age (building/techs/civics)

That is an interesting perspective that I hadn't thought about. Some stuff carries over and some things dont.

• Units - They get deleted in the next age. It seems logical to only build the units you need to conquer and/or defend in the current age.
• Cities/Towns - carry over although other cities than the capital reset upon transition. So only upgrade cities if they offset the cost in the current age. I also saw a stream where the player had 12/5 cities and I believe he was reset to 9/9. Not sure if I remember this correctly and how it works.
• Wonders - carry over and are part of cultural legacy. But what is more valuable the extra wonder and legacy attributes or a few extra towns.
• Relations - I wonder what happens to influence invested in independent people and other AI. Do those relations and trade agreements with the AI carry over?
• Masteries - Do the masteries in civics and science from the prior carry over to the new age, or are they obsolete. Again only get the ones you need now or spend your effort elsewhere.

I think there will be a lot of trade-offs that are related to investing in the current age to get ahead or investing in the next age to have a head start.

 

[Krikkit1]

That is an interesting perspective that I hadn't thought about. Some stuff carries over and some things dont.

Units - They get deleted in the next age. It seems logical to only build the units you need to conquer and/or defend in the current age.
Cities/Towns - carry over although other cities than the capital reset upon transition. So only upgrade cities if they offset the cost in the current age.

Not all units get deleted (not sure what determines the amount that you keep/lose)

 

[Vincent_lacruz]

That is an interesting perspective that I hadn't thought about. Some stuff carries over and some things dont.

• Units - They get deleted in the next age. It seems logical to only build the units you need to conquer and/or defend in the current age.
• Cities/Towns - carry over although other cities than the capital reset upon transition. So only upgrade cities if they offset the cost in the current age. I also saw a stream where the player had 12/5 cities and I believe he was reset to 9/9. Not sure if I remember this correctly and how it works.
• Wonders - carry over and are part of cultural legacy. But what is more valuable the extra wonder and legacy attributes or a few extra towns.
• Relations - I wonder what happens to influence invested in independent people and other AI. Do those relations and trade agreements with the AI carry over?
• Masteries - Do the masteries in civics and science from the prior carry over to the new age, or are they obsolete. Again only get the ones you need now or spend your effort elsewhere.

I think there will be a lot of trade-offs that are related to investing in the current age to get ahead or investing in the next age to have a head start.

I think you carry units to the next age. At least commanders do.

Upgrading cities can still be ok, since some legacy options let you keep all of them. But I think we will need to wait to see the correct city/town ratio. Cities are great, but they will need a lot of food/happiness for specialists, so a large amount of town to feed them...

As for wonders, they are more than just legacies, they also influence the yield of buildings since most of those have a wonder adjacency bonus. So well positionned wonder can be rather powerfull, even though they don't allow you to score legacy points.

 

[civfanatic4sure]

Whatever it is I don't care. I don't believe in Meta or paying attention to one, the entire concept ruins gaming for me; especially when developers adjust the balancing to suit the elite competitive steamers.
Make the game less fun for me because everything needs to be tuned for the top 0.001% of players.

Even though this isn’t how I personally like to play, I think your point is important for the majority of the player base. Being completely sincere, what about the developers tuning the game for balance makes it less fun for a casual player?

 

[CivKirk64]

Even though this isn’t how I personally like to play, I think your point is important for the majority of the player base. Being completely sincere, what about the developers tuning the game for balance makes it less fun for a casual player?

Best example of this I can remember and its just continued with other games, Halo 5 and how much energy they spent focusing on making sure maps were perfectly symmetrical, every gun perfectly balanced for tournaments.
Halo was fun because it had purple gun that made things explode, it had pistol that kill you from forever away, it had large maps with funny quirks. The developers moved further and further away from that each game, to the point that 5 launched with a stripped down, (just the BR) Playlist on the most boring maps.

My Beef with Meta in general is that some set of influencers decides how you should play (Throw out every other character and option), and the developers actually start to lean into it. In Civ V the competitive players were all about "Build cities exactly 2 tiles away so you can cram more in" and FXS makes 6 with influence which block certain spots from you, & adjacency bonuses that force you to settle overlapping rings that so your cities tiles can kiss each other.
Now I had a boatload of fun with VI despite that, I guess I' can just tune it out and be fine doing what I wan't but it stings a bit knowing everyone is snickering behind my back about me building Venetian Arsenal

I prefer to find the coolest spot, even if it is 15 tiles away to plop a city, and then maybe fill in the gaps later. Glad to see with VII that you don't want to overlap because its very easy to get to that 3rd ring and you'd rather your city get it than a town.
I know I can ignore what people say about META, but I know I'll come on here 6 months from now and find out I'm playing it wrong.
*Oldman waves hand at cloud*

 

[Seek]

Disclaimer: Anybody can play the game any way they like, be it role-play, personal restrictions, fantasy civilizations history, etc....

I am wondering what will the meta strategy for Civ7 when it comes to snowballing and overpowering the AI in single player.

I can see 2 opposite paths:

1. Growth/Rush Strategy - Focus on building the biggest and most developed empire and not bothering a lot about legacy paths, although some might go hand in hand, like 20 resources and 12 settlements. Also try to get out of the age as quickly as possible to prevent AI from building up any power/legacy.
2. Turtle/Path maxing - Make sure you complete all legacies to get max points for the next age. Avoid age progression to get all missions completed. This might be optimal if the legacy points are strong enough.

Then there is the hybrid version where it is key to complete 1 or 2 legacy paths for certain strategies, but not compete all.

Hope to get some additional views on this topic

I think it will be somewhere between these, and instead of all or nothing towards Legacies, it will be to reach certain powerful goals in each era. For example, I think getting the second Militaristic Legacy (Fealty: +2 settlement Limit) will be almost mandatory, as will hitting the Economic Golden Age in Exploration (Cities stay as Cities). I’m sure this will vary according to different strats though.

Not all units get deleted (not sure what determines the amount that you keep/lose)

As I’ve heard it described, it’s
1. Fill Commanders with units (however many there are) and place the commanders in settlement centers,
2. Fill remaining settlement centers with units.

Edit - As stealth_nsk mentions below, all units are upgraded.

 

[stealth_nsk]

As I understand:
1. You carry some units, probably up to some limit.
2. All carried units are automatically upgraded to the basic unit of the next age (one more equalizing mechanic).
3. All commanders are carried thrugh ages.

 

[remconius]

As I understand:
1. You carry some units, probably up to some limit.
2. All carried units are automatically upgraded to the basic unit of the next age (one more equalizing mechanic).
3. All commanders are carried thrugh ages.

I think there is the option within the militaristic legacy to get a free unit in each captured settlement.

 

[Seek]

I think there is the option within the militaristic legacy to get a free unit in each captured settlement.

Yeah, the GA bonus from Antiquity. It’s in all settlements, not just captured, and [Edit: I see my info was outdated, it is just in Conquered settlements] We haven’t seen this implemented yet. Considering that Legacy bonuses are chosen after the next age has begun, I expect it will grant additional units beyond what holds over.

 

[Brutus2]

I think the obvious best “meta” strategy is the same thing it has always been in every 4x game - conquest. Taking cities away from opponents and simultaneously adding to your empire is always the easiest and most guaranteed way to win and you will likely gain codices, wonders and resources along the way, achieving the other legacy paths without really trying. I’m not saying this is the most fun or even my preference but it’s always the strongest strategy.