T100 in detail, critique & share

Malganis · Nov 29, 2016

I'm not new to the Civ series or Civ6. I've won a game with everyone except Teddy (no reason, he's just near the bottom of the list), but I'm not trying to brag either, as most of these wins are on Emperor where I'm most comfortable.

In an attempt to improve my game play, I thought I'd "log" in detail my first 100 turns of my first Teddy game and share it here to be critiqued. I was hoping it might also inspire better players to do the same and share their first 100 turns in detail for the sake of comparison.

There's a lot of great advice on these forums but I often find it lacking in specifics. I look at how far some of you awesome players are in your screenshots and I'm baffled how you got there from Turn 1. Enough preamble, the game itself:

Map: Pangaea
Size: Small
Difficulty: King
My Civ: America

Spoiler Turn-by-turn events :

T100 Status Report
-------------------
Capital 1: 3 pop (1), Comm Hub (2)
Capital 2: 5 pop (8), Settler (14)
City 1: 4 pop (6), Comm Hub (8)
City 2: 4 pop (18), Industrial (13)
City 3: 5 pop (52), Granary (2)
City 4: 3 pop (4), Builder 8 (1)
City 5: 3 pop (18), Granary (4)
City 6: 3 pop (8), Monument (2)
City 7: 1 pop (12), Builder 9 (12)
City 8: 1 pop (7), Builder 10 (19)

Tech: Education in 10
Civic: Feudalism in 4* (probably delay for builder wave)

Score: 137
Civics: 18
Empire: 91
Great People: 0
Religion: 0
Technology: 28
Wonders: 0

7 settlers built, 2 stolen, 1 capital captured & 1 enemy wiped out. Meant to do this peacefully so I could just focus on my own decisions, but "AI-1" (Kongo) tempted me with an unguarded settler. I would have taken his capital faster but a nasty barb camp swarmed me in the middle of the siege.

Screenshot at T100: http://imgur.com/a/BS5un

* How did I do?
* What could I have done better/differently?
* Where might you go with this game next? (assuming it's playable)
* How the hell do some of you take a start similar to this and win by T160-180? *baffled*

My average win with a start like this is around ~T250 +/- 15 turns. I don't think that's bad, but I can obviously do better. Thanks all!

Sun Tzu Wu · Nov 29, 2016

Looks rather good, but I think you could do much better. I believe more cities and and higher populations are possible. I suspect you aren't chopping forests, jungles and other features for food and cogs (even harvesting resources can be reasonable if you don't need them). Your capital should grow to Pop 5-6 to work more land, before building a settler.

Malganis · Nov 29, 2016

Care to elaborate?

I appreciate the reply, but this exactly the kind of advice I was talking about: General and vague with no specific details. Do you have an example of how to get from Turn 1 to Turn 100 with 12+ cities all at 5-6 pop each? What are the build, tech, civic orders for a start like that? I felt like I got rather lucky grabbing 2 settlers and a capital and probably would have ended at 7-8 cities without it. And if you look at what I was building, it was mostly builders & settlers. I think my count at the end was 7 settlers and 8 builders with only 5 archers. On higher difficulties I would have had to make more military and had even less cities & builders.

In my new cities I was going Monument first and realize now that's probably a mistake. But even builder-first in most new cities is going to take 15-20 turns, or maybe 12-15 with Ilkum and a good production tile or two. But not every single city is going to have a 1F/3P or 2F/3P tile. I also played as low as King on purpose to focus more on build order and the factors I can control. Compared to Deity where a big part of succeeding at that difficulty heavily revolves around taking the big AI advantages for yourself. I'm trying to think of this as a "race" against myself with limited RNG so I have a better optimal baseline to start from.

trojan13 · Nov 29, 2016

According to your starting, I think you did great.

I am not sure I can do better than you did but here's my tips:
1) Pantheon choice seems useless up to this point. I can't see any holy site/campus/theater so I'd pick up other useful pantheon for early boosts.
2) Because of the coastal starts, I'd go slinger or scout > builder > slinger/settler (exchangeable) in very early stage. Because capital can't grow by the time, I would pump out settler earlier.
3) I usually skip monuments with the help of +culture pantheon nowdays. It saves many turns in early game.

What victory to go for is up to situation you encountered.
Have you seen AI running away with high culture? > If so, culture victory is not favored. Otherwise, America is good at culture victory imo, so culture is a solid choice.
What CSs are around you in defendable location? In the current screenshot, it seems like science + commercial. This is great combo for domination with faster techs and more golds to upgrade/buy.

Victoria · Nov 29, 2016

One golden rule is everything snowballs.

A city starts small and grows slow then everything gets faster.
Look at each city and say how can I snowball it?... If it is food rich growing it first may be best. If it is production rich, getting a builder in there may be best. Using a trader to trade back toward the capital for 2-3 extra production while small is a HUGE difference in speed.
Using builders to harvest can be an amazing speed up.
Judging what to sacrifice and what to keep is a hard one.
As you get nearer turn 70-80 the stronger more developed cities can even churn out builders to go to other cities to chop down forest or harvest stone.
It is hard to balance this and get your eureka's... try to store eurekas up also... if you cannot make a water mill in time, stop half way and get the metal working one done as you have no iron around,
So when you found every new city think hard... what resources have I got in my empire to speed this thing up and how.

All of that said... its not something done wthout turn by turn screenshots and then you say

"well that was a good start" .... but I tried 20 maps before I was happy

I just did all of this on deity because I had seen others make the claim and was unsure... but yeah, if you can take a few developing cities it is. taking a settler is not the same as taking a city state that has built an early campus and has a pop of 4.

Also I saw you say oops... there is not room for oops. There is plenty of room to restore 6 turns and take something else.

... now I am going back down to prince and emperor for a while... much more enjoyable for me

Malganis · Nov 29, 2016

Thank for the replies and kind words so far. Response to some points brought up:

* About Pantheon: I agree from T1 to T100 Divine Spark didn't produce a single GP point and that's a problem. I really struggled with what a good Pantheon would be. @trojan13, you mention "3) I usually skip monuments with the help of +culture pantheon nowdays. It saves many turns in early game." Which Culture pantheon are you referring to? I only know of 2: God of Open Sky (+1 per Pasture) and the +1 per certain plantation crops (forget its name right now). "God of the Open Sky" was already taken when I got my Pantheon and the other one would have only netted me I think +2 or +3 culture across all those cities even at the end. Pantheon choice was tough for sure. Other ones that would have been useful but only marginally would have been the +10% Growth or +15% Border rate but neither of those are that exciting.

TL,DR: If you couldn't pick "God of the Open Sky" and could only get +2 or 3 from the other plantation pantheon, would you still skip monuments? 10 monuments x 2 Culture ea. = +20 Culture per turn by T100, not sure a Pantheon can do that.

* "Because of the coastal starts, I'd go slinger or scout > builder > slinger/settler (exchangeable) in very early stage." My build order was Slinger > Builder > Slinger x2 > Settler, so unless I'm misunderstanding, that's what I did no? I like the 3x Slinger into 3x Archer "mini-wave" as it made it possible to deal with barbs. While there's very few barbs pictured in the final shot, I had to fight quite a few to expand that fast.

@Victoria: First of all you should know I'm a big fan. I've been following your Culture threads and research religiously and can't wait for you to finish your full guide (I hope you didn't already finish it and I'm just not seeing it). So I'm flattered you responded to my silly thread

* "Using a trader to trade back toward the capital for 2-3 extra production while small is a HUGE difference in speed." Agreed! I definitely did that this game. I got my first trader on T52 and I think I changed cities to City 1 and sent the trade route to the capital.

* "Using builders to harvest can be an amazing speed up. Judging what to sacrifice and what to keep is a hard one" Ugh, seriously? I didn't even know people did this. I wonder how to make that decision... there's gotta be a way to calculate when it's worth it to harvest vs using it for yields. I'm guessing you'd at least keep it limited to cities with duplicate resources, like excess stone? I mean, jungle only gives 24 food and 24 hammers (for King, Standard speed anyway), which is only 12 turns worth of yields if it was on a hill which is already a nice 2F 2P tile on its own. I also have this problem with chopping and probably don't chop enough. I do chop though, and did so in this game as well.

* "As you get nearer turn 70-80 the stronger more developed cities can even churn out builders to go to other cities to chop down forest or harvest stone." Yep! Definitely did this, except the harvest resource part *shudder*

* "It is hard to balance this and get your eureka's... try to store eurekas up also... if you cannot make a water mill in time, stop half way and get the metal working one done as you have no iron around, so when you found every new city think hard... what resources have I got in my empire to speed this thing up and how." Yep again, also definitely putting this into practice. You mentioned my (...Oops). That was me slipping up and accidentally letting the research finish on that. For the most part I try not to research any tech or civic past half and let eurekas or inspirations do the rest. I do make an exception for beelining certain things. Because I like to play on smaller maps I don't always get the eureka for Poli. Philo. for example and have to research that whole thing. It sucks, but a new 4-slot govt seems too important to delay until I find a 3rd city state.

* "well that was a good start" .... but I tried 20 maps before I was happy " Yes, exactly! I knew someone would understand, lol. I plan on doing the same, just decided to record and share the results of my first one for feedback and to see if I could inspire anyone else to do the same. I would seriously pay money at this point to see the decision-by-decision breakdown of a better player's first 100 turns in great detail. I know I'm decent at Civ, but right now my logic has my skill capped. I am simply thinking about the game wrong or have the wrong assumptions. Like harvesting resources never being worth it. Or not chopping enough. Or building too many monuments. They're never bad ideas by themselves, but a better player in that situation sees an even better idea, and I think I've hit my "figure-things-out-on-my-own" soft cap. The AI sure isn't going to teach me anything. And with most of the community saying Deity is too easy I'm too intimidated to try multiplayer at the moment, plus like you, Victoria, I don't really care for the game at Immortal or Deity anyway.

Thanks again. Hope someone shares their opening 100 turns!

mayhemster · Nov 29, 2016

With the harvesting resources, its more thinking ahead to what you will want to develop the tile into later. e.g. Would this tile be better for a district? Good for mines/farms? etc... If you will redevelop the tile later then you may as well use the resources early as the small boosts early on really pay off later. I'm not great at this this sort of thing but it can really make a difference.

I also agree about the monuments, I feel like its a waste of production in your first 100 turns to build them as you can always be building something else that will help you snowball later when you can catch up on culture. Units help you capture cities, settlers/builders help expansion, districts obviously are great. Monuments only cost 240 gold at standard speed so you can just rush buy them if you really need to.

Malganis · Nov 29, 2016

mayhemster said:
With the harvesting resources, its more thinking ahead to what you will want to develop the tile into later. e.g. Would this tile be better for a district? Good for mines/farms? etc... If you will redevelop the tile later then you may as well use the resources early as the small boosts early on really pay off later. I'm not great at this this sort of thing but it can really make a difference.

Thanks, that makes sense and sounds like a good starting point for making that choice.

mayhemster said:
I also agree about the monuments, I feel like its a waste of production in your first 100 turns to build them as you can always be building something else that will help you snowball later when you can catch up on culture. Units help you capture cities, settlers/builders help expansion, districts obviously are great. Monuments only cost 240 gold at standard speed so you can just rush buy them if you really need to.

I agree, especially since my goal is as many cities & pop as possible to be in a strong position to pivot to mid-game. Thanks for your feedback.

Victoria · Nov 29, 2016

Malganis said:
So I'm flattered you responded to my silly thread

Do not be silly, its a great thread and I got on this forum when I was struggling with the finer points of the same thing in an earlier version so the question has soul to me.

You are shuddering at the chopping, do not be.... do not harvest luxuries... maybe doubles if you need to... seriously when you can cut the production of a settler or a commercial center in half.... wood & rivers can be handy to keep but wood off rivers not so much. Stone on flat land is just better farmland if you have kills around... most places start with some wood and jungle in the wrong place... they are first... then depending on how you feel start working up the resource list... baby steps, before you know it you will be asking to chop down mountains!

And naturally I read other threads, tried it and now can reply to this thread. A big thanks to all those that worked it out first.

elitetroops · Nov 29, 2016

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like your capital has been building settlers almost all the time and you were running Colonization for a very long time. I prefer spreading out settler production among several cities and running Colonization in short bursts while chopping into them. For example, build one settler early, run Ilkum to build builders in both cities, at Early Empire build settlers in both cities while chopping/harvesting. You get the +50% production bonus from Colonization on chops as well. This way you can get the settlers out quicker, then switch to Urban Planning, which benefits all cities. Later you might do the same again, but this time build settlers in 3 cities.

I'm no expert on reading strategic view, so I can't tell how many tiles you have improved. Overall your cities are quite small. Capital in particular, obviously because of all the settlers it has produced. If you spread out settler production, it also gives your capital a chance to grow larger. This is important to be able to place districts and lock the cost. I don't see many districts placed on your map. You should always do this as soon as possible. For example your capital could have placed a Campus as soon as you researched writing, then a commercial hub immediately at Currency. You could still keep building settlers and even finish the Commercial Hub before Campus, if you like, but the Campus would be half as cheap when you eventually decide to complete it. At this stage of the game, every city that is or has ever been pop 4 should already have 2 districts placed on the map. (Again, not sure if I understand the map correctly, sorry if I'm misreading it and you already did this.)

In regards to chopping, an early yield is always a lot more valuable than a late yield. Even if the amount of production you get from chops increases over the course of the game, it's still worth chopping early. Non-riverside forests are nobrainers. Early on chop those that aren't on hills, since you might want to work 4 yield hill forests. As soon as you have the builders for it, replace hill forests with mines, they are better at Apprenticeship. Some riverside forests might be left for lumbermills, but this also depends on what other tiles the city has available to work. And what you would gain from chopping that forest earlier. Sometimes it makes sense to delay chops if whatever you would chop them into now isn't that urgent, but a tech you are about to get soon will unlock something urgent. Overall I chop quite liberally, but I still usually have lots of unchopped forests in the end, because builder actions are limited.

Victoria · Nov 29, 2016

elitetroops said:
lock the cost.

now now, next you will be showing the thread where you owned the whole continent by about turn 37!... locking down is a bit of an exploit in my view.

Its good we do not have a 100% sure fire single way yet... makes it more fun. Just playing now in a game where most cities are settles and on 1-4 pop with builders starting to appear ... it just seems to be working better. first time trying... Also I rushed through to Acropolis so not the normal culture path.

elitetroops · Nov 29, 2016

Victoria said:
now now, next you will be showing the thread where you owned the whole continent by about turn 37!... locking down is a bit of an exploit in my view.

Ehm, it was turn 30.

But I think I was a bit more exploity in that game... Luckily it's not possible anymore.

I don't consider locking the cost of a district an exploit. To me it's a consequence of the mechanics that you have to do it that way. Though I do agree that it feels somehow wrong to always do that, just like avoiding completing techs to avoid district cost increase. It's not a good mechanic and it causes a lot of counterintuitive and weird tactics to be optimal, but that discussion is beyond the scope of this thread.

trojan13 · Nov 29, 2016

Malganis said:
Thank for the replies and kind words so far. Response to some points brought up:

* About Pantheon: I agree from T1 to T100 Divine Spark didn't produce a single GP point and that's a problem. I really struggled with what a good Pantheon would be. @trojan13, you mention "3) I usually skip monuments with the help of +culture pantheon nowdays. It saves many turns in early game." Which Culture pantheon are you referring to? I only know of 2: God of Open Sky (+1 per Pasture) and the +1 per certain plantation crops (forget its name right now). "God of the Open Sky" was already taken when I got my Pantheon and the other one would have only netted me I think +2 or +3 culture across all those cities even at the end. Pantheon choice was tough for sure. Other ones that would have been useful but only marginally would have been the +10% Growth or +15% Border rate but neither of those are that exciting.

TL,DR: If you couldn't pick "God of the Open Sky" and could only get +2 or 3 from the other plantation pantheon, would you still skip monuments? 10 monuments x 2 Culture ea. = +20 Culture per turn by T100, not sure a Pantheon can do that.

* "Because of the coastal starts, I'd go slinger or scout > builder > slinger/settler (exchangeable) in very early stage." My build order was Slinger > Builder > Slinger x2 > Settler, so unless I'm misunderstanding, that's what I did no? I like the 3x Slinger into 3x Archer "mini-wave" as it made it possible to deal with barbs. While there's very few barbs pictured in the final shot, I had to fight quite a few to expand that fast.

What was your first card choice? I use godking +1 faith soley to get Pantheon I wanted. I hardly miss god of the open sky in most deity game this way. But if already picked it then I would pick divine spark, planatation culture, or some production +1, depending on tiles and resources.

I agree that I don't have any information about early game. If barbs are problem then 3 slingers is solid choice. Building settler as 3rd in capital can be 5-6 turns earlier than 3 slingers opening, this is what I meant.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-to-found-10-cities-under-100-turn.605626/#post-14584785
This is Earth map T100 progress. I don't know my play was optimal, think it's not bad. It's about early expansion without stealing city or settler and the map is same for all, so it can be good practice if you are interested in a try.

Malganis · Nov 29, 2016

elitetroops said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like your capital has been building settlers almost all the time and you were running Colonization for a very long time. I prefer spreading out settler production among several cities and running Colonization in short bursts while chopping into them. For example, build one settler early, run Ilkum to build builders in both cities, at Early Empire build settlers in both cities while chopping/harvesting. You get the +50% production bonus from Colonization on chops as well. This way you can get the settlers out quicker, then switch to Urban Planning, which benefits all cities. Later you might do the same again, but this time build settlers in 3 cities.

You're right, my first Capital did most of the heavy lifting for Settler production and was often building them back-to-back. It had the best tiles so I thought it was the most efficient place to make them. Over all this map was one of the crappier ones I've played with very few 4-5 yield tiles, and was low on good freshwater settle locations. None of my settled cities felt good enough to make settlers. In any case, your build order and policy management sounds more efficient and I will definitely be trying it on my next play through.

elitetroops said:
I'm no expert on reading strategic view, so I can't tell how many tiles you have improved. Overall your cities are quite small. Capital in particular, obviously because of all the settlers it has produced. If you spread out settler production, it also gives your capital a chance to grow larger. This is important to be able to place districts and lock the cost. I don't see many districts placed on your map. You should always do this as soon as possible. For example your capital could have placed a Campus as soon as you researched writing, then a commercial hub immediately at Currency. You could still keep building settlers and even finish the Commercial Hub before Campus, if you like, but the Campus would be half as cheap when you eventually decide to complete it. At this stage of the game, every city that is or has ever been pop 4 should already have 2 districts placed on the map. (Again, not sure if I understand the map correctly, sorry if I'm misreading it and you already did this.)

Most of the cities which have 3 Pop appear to have a Comm. Hub down with a couple exceptions. But none of the cities which are 4 pop or higher have their 2nd one placed. I actually have a question about this. If you unlock the tech to drop a district, let's say Writing for Campuses, but that really sweet +3 or +4 mountain spot is 1-2 tiles outside your border and you don't have gold to unlock it, do you say screw it and just drop a +0 Campus anyway? The main reason I find myself delaying districts is waiting for enough gold or culture to get the tiles I want. This is especially true with Industrial Zones, except I prioritize their 6-tile region bonus over adjacency. This often means a tile that's at max range though, so even placing cities at minimum distance usually requires waiting for a tile or two.

elitetroops said:
In regards to chopping, an early yield is always a lot more valuable than a late yield. Even if the amount of production you get from chops increases over the course of the game, it's still worth chopping early. Non-riverside forests are nobrainers. Early on chop those that aren't on hills, since you might want to work 4 yield hill forests. As soon as you have the builders for it, replace hill forests with mines, they are better at Apprenticeship. Some riverside forests might be left for lumbermills, but this also depends on what other tiles the city has available to work. And what you would gain from chopping that forest earlier. Sometimes it makes sense to delay chops if whatever you would chop them into now isn't that urgent, but a tech you are about to get soon will unlock something urgent. Overall I chop quite liberally, but I still usually have lots of unchopped forests in the end, because builder actions are limited.

Victoria said:
You are shuddering at the chopping, do not be.... do not harvest luxuries... maybe doubles if you need to... seriously when you can cut the production of a settler or a commercial center in half.... wood & rivers can be handy to keep but wood off rivers not so much. Stone on flat land is just better farmland if you have kills around... most places start with some wood and jungle in the wrong place... they are first... then depending on how you feel start working up the resource list... baby steps, before you know it you will be asking to chop down mountains!

I would definitely like to chop more, and I think part of the problem was my lack of builders from a less efficient build order and policy utilization. Hopefully if I can get the hang of rotating policies and builder/settler waves in the early game down I'll see my chops go up as well. I have been following those general guidelines in regards to chop priority though: flat non-river woods > hills non-river woods > flat river woods > hills river woods. I try not to chop this last category unless it's for a district or a mine that would help an Industrial Zone though because they can become 1F/6P or 2F/5P tiles after Steel. Even +3 mines only top out at 1F/5P or 2F/4P.

trojan13 said:
What was your first card choice? I use godking +1 faith soley to get Pantheon I wanted. I hardly miss god of the open sky in most deity game this way. But if already picked it then I would pick divine spark, planatation culture, or some production +1, depending on tiles and resources.

I did go with Godking for my first Economics card and I too was kind of surprised it was taken, as I also see it available often. In fact, in the very next map I started I was able to get it with no extra faith, just 25 turns of Godking again.

trojan13 said:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-to-found-10-cities-under-100-turn.605626/#post-14584785
This is Earth map T100 progress. I don't know my play was optimal, think it's not bad. It's about early expansion without stealing city or settler and the map is same for all, so it can be good practice if you are interested in a try.

I did see that thread and have read through some of it. I actually thought about posting this there, but decided not to for fear of derailing or hijacking his thread. But you're right, I should look into trying the challenge myself and spend more time reading through other peoples' attempts.

Another big thanks to all of you for taking the time to read this and give me some really great feedback. Hopefully there's some other lurkers out there also learning from this!

elitetroops · Nov 30, 2016

Malganis said:
I actually have a question about this. If you unlock the tech to drop a district, let's say Writing for Campuses, but that really sweet +3 or +4 mountain spot is 1-2 tiles outside your border and you don't have gold to unlock it, do you say screw it and just drop a +0 Campus anyway? The main reason I find myself delaying districts is waiting for enough gold or culture to get the tiles I want. This is especially true with Industrial Zones, except I prioritize their 6-tile region bonus over adjacency. This often means a tile that's at max range though, so even placing cities at minimum distance usually requires waiting for a tile or two.

This would be situational. It depends on how much better tiles are available and how fast they would be available. If it's only one tile out, then I aim to buy it asap. If buying isn't an option in the near future and the difference is small, like +2 available now and +3 available 2 tiles away, then I might place it immediately. If the difference is large I might wait until later, in which case I can maybe place some other district earlier. It also depends on if I am about to build it immediately or merely place it to lock the cost. If the latter, I'm more likely to wait.

Getting the necessary gold to buy tiles for districts early can be tricky. Trading with the AI can be a good income source. Here earlier gain is also better. Let's say someone offers 30 turns of 3 gold/turn or a lump sum of 75 gold for 30 turns of a resource. I would often take the second option. 75 gold now is better than 90 gold in 30 turns.

T100 in detail, critique & share

Malganis

Chieftain

Sun Tzu Wu

Deity

Malganis

Chieftain

trojan13

Chieftain

Victoria

Regina

Malganis

Chieftain

mayhemster

Chieftain

Malganis

Chieftain

Victoria

Regina

elitetroops

Deity

Victoria

Regina

elitetroops

Deity

trojan13

Chieftain

Malganis

Chieftain

elitetroops

Deity

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