ThERat plays AW (Always War)

I build the Colosseum, and really, all it does is to increase amenities in 3 cities by +3.


But with the ever present amenities issues in a AW game, it's better than nothing. Time to take out Japan to alleviate the war weariness in her former cities. We move the stack south towards Kyoto. Here, we will have to take care of the encampments first in order to avoid double defensive fire.


As you can spot maybe, my crossbowmen have some nice promotions by now. The ultimate power crossbow would be at level 4 with double attack.


After taking out the encampment, the way is ope to attack Kyoto proper. I lose one of the crossbows due to city defense fire, but manage to take out the walls. The fate of the city is clear. Unfortunately, Japan is not eliminated, though their capital would be enough to count towards domination. I want them out of the game so their cities can become meaningful for me.


Below an overview of the eastern part of my empire
 
Awesome updates!! This AW game is a great way to get an idea of AI combat ability. Good to see Japan have advanced units and targeting your cats, didn't look like they had significant numbers though.

Cheers!
 
I don't suppose you could give a little run through of you cities or at least the ones you think are worth a closer look at?
 
Sure, I can have a look at my capital, the only city really worth talking about. It has roughly a production of 60 hammers. I will take a screenshot tonight when I play the game.
 
Good to see Japan have advanced units and targeting your cats, didn't look like they had significant numbers though.
Nobody really has troops in numbers. Mine are thin too. If I would ever lose 5 units, my frontline troops are gone and it would take a long time to replenish them. I think war weariness is linked to troop losses too and hence, the AI might be too scared to lose them.

Something is really amiss in this game. Fundamental flaws. If I look at the myriad of card for policies, they all look shiny, but bear so little consequences beyond a few. As I mentioned in other threads, lots of options with little consequences.
 
Before going into my cities etc, some update of last night's play:

Japan is more or less wiped out, but still in the game. Rome is the next target, they must be around. I used a 4 tile move knight to do some recon work. This is the result: Three cities south of Japan. There is another city east of Takamatsu, but it's a small town that I will take last. The usual knight, berzerk, crossbow catapult combo does all the work here.



Ostia and Rome do not pose any real threat to me, especially since I ship in another knight and catapult from the west. Rome shows no resistance.


I manage to break through with little losses (if any at all), time to heal the troops before going after Aquilea. The biggest worry is currently my economy that is slowly but surely tanking. I need banks and probably mercantilism.


Wait a moment. What are these three knights doing next to Kyoto? Did I have a revolt there with barbarian knights spawning (many people talked about this). At least there should be some warning in-game. If I didn't see them by chance, I wouldn't even have noticed them there. Despite all the autocycling going on, you don't see enemy troop movement in or near your territory. This is very bad from a tactical point of view.
Look at this scary situation: Kyoto has zero defenses, no walls. The enemy could simply walk into the city.


I quickly send a few troops back but with the limited movement, even knights will take some time to get there. So, what does the AI do? Will they sack the city or simply take it?

No, in fact in the IT, the AI does absolutely nothing noteworthy, they don't even pillage. This is beyond immersion breaking here. First, no warning about the enemy sneaking into my territory and then no threat because they refuse to take the city. C'mon Firaxis, didn't anyone test this game beyond admiring its supposed beauty?


They (English troops as it turns out) simply wait for me to pick them one by one. Sure, they attack every now and then and pillage a little. But nothing of real impact here. This is a huge let down. I don't play AW games to just steamroll the world. No fun.
 
The AI seems programmed to just roam about a little to 'scare' the players but pose no real danger. They actually do come in numbers now that cause some concern. England near Kyoto and Arabs in the south where I took over all three Roman cities. But again, they might attack you a little here or there, but no real urgency or something that makes you think they could ever take a city of your own.



It basically just takes patience and time to rid your land of them. Even Germany now shows up in the northwest with some troops. Same behavior again, dance around until purged. The AI has never been so bad with regards to warfare. Total joke.



The simple consequence. I am able to get rid of my first foe, not Japan, but Rome. As there is still one unmet AI, I have 8 to wipe out and 7 capitals to conquer.


Below a view of my core Island around turn 300. Income is slowly improving thanks to banks that I have/am building. Every other cities beyond a granary and walls, will get a commercial district, a market and bank to ensure I will have enough money to support my troops (trade routes will also add to that due to commercial districts).


Finally, let's have a look at the social policies I am using now (and thanks to that my income is getting a real boost). I have monarchy as my government for the many military policy slots. I chose conscription and retainers as crucial policies to reduce maintenance for troops as well as added amenities. The other two policies are temporary to suit my current needs. As I use city wall defenses often, bastion seems to make sense. Mercantilism's triangular trade is one of the few game changers in my case as +4 gold per trade route amount to +50gpt at this moment. Unbeatable. The diplomatic policy bear no consequence as I don't play the city state game (there are times when city states simply make peace with you without you being able to deny that and in order to get rid of the envoy prompter, I use one such peace to send those envoy away in one go). There should be an option to play without city states.
 
Very disheartening to read about the AI behavior you are experiencing. I must say that it matches what I have seen as well - but it becomes very obvious in the AW setting when you see it over and over again, no chance for it being an 'isolated incident'.

I sure hope this is fixable by Firaxis and not an overall design decision.
 
Yeah the non aggression of the ai is something I've seen too. I had 2 ranged units hold off the ai horde for around a dozen turns with them only being hit once. Let's hope they patch soon
 
WW is a big problem in this type of game. At later times you get 3 policies that will reduce it, 2 that give 25% reductions each (I assume they are additive) and one that gives 0 WW for battles in your area. I really don’t understand the happiness but in my current AW game (deity, continents) I finally finished off my continent and then revolution was popping up all over. This is not trivial, like 4 infantry and a field cannon way behind my lines on 2 cities. Worst thing is they pillage districts that take like 20 turns to repair and more for the buildings. This happens at -5 a city. What I don’t understand with the distribution of amenities is that I have some cities with +2 happy and some it lets go to -5. And Madrid, which I took to eliminate Spain 150 turns earlier has -8 WW forever and it never goes down. Some other conquered cities are 0 WW. There are a few later civics (+2 amenities for cities with 3 districts and +1 for garrison) but it takes forever to get up stadiums and this is not easy if there is constant revolution.


For AI combat I have seen mostly lame actions as discussed but one smart thing they do is target artillery. I assume the ancient battering ram doesn’t work with infantry so it is really not possible to take a city w/o significant arty shots and they can only take about 2 city hits.
 
That doesn't sound good.

I will give an update of my game tomorrow. All I can say now that I am at a stalemate. Cities are almost impossible to take. India is showing up with half a carpet of doom. Things are getting a little out of hand. I might need to change my strategy. I won't be able to outpace the AI by taking some cities. Doesn't work.
 
Lurker:
I just found your game, AW in civ6 going to be rough. WW is so harsh currently.
 
That doesn't sound good.

I will give an update of my game tomorrow. All I can say now that I am at a stalemate. Cities are almost impossible to take. India is showing up with half a carpet of doom. Things are getting a little out of hand. I might need to change my strategy. I won't be able to outpace the AI by taking some cities. Doesn't work.

Don't worry you can do it easily I think. If you hit a roadblock stop and consolidate for happiness. The WW does go away. I don't understand it but I was all unhappy and a few turns later I checked and everyone was happy again (ex Madrid). Check the civics for the one that gives 0 WW for battles in your territory and beeline that and turtle until you are ready to strike out again. The -25% WW civics are in Commie and Fascist civics, I think.
 
AW game: continued war and running into stalemates

As requested, let's have a look at my two best production bases, my capital and Bergen (in my mind pitiful really). Our capital has still positive amenities due to some entertainment I built there. Production and gold are decent and contribute a lot overall to our empire. The city grew to size 11 even though there is a housing shortage. I do not want to city to grow too big as it would only end up being unhappy due to the ridiculous WW issues in this game. In my mind, the war weariness mechanisms make it very hard to get big cities.



My second 'best city' is Bergen. Compared to our capital, it really falls short. Everything in this game takes forever to build in the fringe cities. And by fringe cities, you can basically say, all cities except maybe 1-3 core cities. This is no fun.


I try to expand northwest, where we spot German cities. The first city, Frankfurt is taken by the usual tactics of bombards, crossbows and some melee units. So far so good.


In between we meet the last for, Kongo. So now we are at war with 8 foes. Maybe a bit too many.
 
Lurker:

The good news can be that you will likely have units with many promotions and they will not. Not mention that scores of units cannot hit you in the same turn, thanks to 1upt.
 
The battle for Aachen turns out to be somewhat more difficult than the pushover at Frankfurt. Germany has a lot of horsemen and movements become really difficult. You need to get the bombards in position for a shot or two before they get wounded (or the crossbows). The you need to retreat them. You can't move on hills with partial moves left etc etc. Whoever designed such a game, doesn't like warfare at all. They have some micromanagement fest in mind, where people shuffle traders around and MM their districts and specialists. Not warfare by any means.



Luckily, humans are still smarted than the AI and we manage to take Aachen after long last. What I didn't show but what you can sense, after taking Aachen, there starts a carpet of doom from India, fielding endless amounts of war elephants from the west. The entire stretch to the west reveals endless supplies of those creatures. I do hope that killing them all will cause massive WW for India.



And we get some sort of boost from a Great Merchant. My first great person of the game:


Now with so many trade routes going on, the implication would be super micromanagement. 2 gpt for strategic resources improved by the destination city. Ugh. Ok, whatever, I take the extra gpt, we shall see how much extra gold we get.

Now, if I complained about the feeble AI, they seem to have heard my complaints. England and Arabia keep sending wave after wave of knights and mameluks into our territory and I have to painstakingly fight them every turn.



Given that my military output averages 1 unit every 5-10 turns, progress is very slow, if any. I upgrade muskets into infantry. That doesn't really help though. 350/750 turns are over and I still need to take 7 capitals. Wish me luck
 
I don't mind the new movement rules so much if they were in a vacuum but they aren't. When combined with 1UPT its a total cluster.... of frustration and micro managing. Actually when you try to move a unit and it doesn't have enogh points and then the game swings back to it at the end of the turn is annoying too. Hmm maybe I don't like the new movemement rules after all!

Thanks for the view of the cities.

Could you rush to Steel and get artillery, save money to mass buy and upgrade? Such a powerful ranged unit would make short work of the AIs poorly upgraded units and allow you to move faster maybe?
 
Could you rush to Steel and get artillery, save money to mass buy and upgrade? Such a powerful ranged unit would make short work of the AIs poorly upgraded units and allow you to move faster maybe?
In fact, AIs only field older units until you take care of them, the next wave of units will be more modern. Most AIs are hitting the modern age too. Germany in the meantime has infantry too. Taking their cities is really not easy now.

What frustrates me most in an AW game is the lack of enemy troop movements. In every Civ game I played, I could see the AI entering my territory with their troops. In Civ6, you only see fights, if any. Their troops however, just move invisibly. That way, it is very easy and easily deadly to overlook new troops in your territory. Why did those basics slip through to a final version? As if they had forgotten then previous civ iterations.
 
Thanks for the entertaining game. :)

I really enjoyed the cIV let's plays back in the day. :)

You've set a really tough challenge here with war weariness. Oof!

I am saddened to read about the incompetent AI but am pretty sure it'll get fixed eventually. :)
 
Of carpets and war weariness

So, we got enemies in the east (mainly English) and a beautiful carpet from India in the west. This needs to be taken care of before moving on in bigger style.


I use one of the free settlers provided by the AI to found a city to make defense a little easier. With civil engineering, any city can shoot at enemy troops.


With more trade routes and some improvements, our capital (on turn 375) makes now 81 hammers per turn. Not too shabby.



Unfortunately, all the fighting on both fronts do not make our people a happy bunch.


No unrest yet, but only the smallest of cities are fine. This is certainly an issue (you will see soon)
 
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