Things learned that make the most difference in your success?

[DontTread]

I am an okay player who has been playing since Civ 1, but I often feel that my game has plateaued. What are the things that you do in your games that make the most difference in your success? I am looking for both big picture tips and little tips that make a big difference. I feel like I need some ideas for things to focus on throughout my games to make me better.

 

[Victoria]

@DontTread thats a big question because I am not clear what you desire. Are you talking about at deity/immortal level?
At these levels you need to understand that the AI civs have huge bonuses and to catch up with their science/culture climb you have to grow fast amd with agressive barbs you need a good starting army and it just makes sense and to a degree a necessity to take out anything close to you after this or you will seriously struggle.

At lower levels it is not that hard to win so it is about what you mean by plateau... Not winning fast enough? Not playing enough variety?

I play about 20% deity, 40% emporer and 40% prince. Of the three I find prince the most pleasurable playing different games. One of the best lately was seeing how many envoys I could create.
Emporer is a great challenge as I like to win without initiating a war and deity because many discussions are at this level

I am an OK player but not brilliant in comparison to what people post but always keep in mind that not every game played goes as well as those posted. I think the biggest tips are reading the GOTM games and certain people like @elitetroops post some very inciteful tips.

My best tip lately is the word you use... Focus. The first 100 turns it is easy to go off track and staying focused on the primary goals really helps, especially building certain districts quickly.

After 100 it is easy just to click next but there can be a lot of things like card changing I often loose focus on. Keeping focus seems to significantly increase my play

Try a prince game focusing solely on getting 100 envoys. Its not easy.

 

[KmDubya]

Just like in real life, violence solves all problems. If not just use more violence until problem is solved.

Start with building a defensive force of 3-4 slingers to combat the inevitable AI DoW from whomever is next to you. Then when you fight off their attempt, follow them back to where they came and take all their stuff. Then just go around demolishing the nearby civs as they start unfriendly and proceed to denounce pretty much in all cases. Once I realized that there is not any real point to trying to be friends with anyone, the game got much more streamlined.

There needs to be some AI civs that like aggressive warfare. As it is any conquering results in diplomacy being meaningless for the entire game. Meet a civ, they start with a bad first impression, give them a delegation and get the only trade available of two of your amenities for one of theirs. Soon after you are scolded for not meeting their agenda and then denounced or flat out surprise DoW'd since your empire and military started smaller than theirs.

I'm actually finding Total War Warhammer to have better diplomacy than ciVI which is rather ironic.

 

[Kelmort83]

tip #1 You can Pin stuff on the map, this one is obvious, but sometime it's help manage your empire and help remind what vision you had for that city. Great Zimbabwe come to mind.
tip#2 If you really like your starting area, save the map before taking any actions. You can then play your next few game from that save while always improving / making progress / trying new victory conditions on that fabulous map you generated.
tip#3 While exploring with a warrior, put a pin on goodies huts for your first scout later on. I believe delaying huts can result in better inspiration.

 

[diamond geezer]

Hmm I never seem to build a scout; I find them weak and on most of my maps they travel hardly faster than the opening warrior (sure after upgrades they are more useful, but I'd rather my troops were getting the upgrades). I use my army to scout. Also I think that a tech in the hand is worth two in the bush - at harder difficulties at least, you need the boosts early to help negate the AI advantages.

Anyway the approach will vary on your starting Civ, the level of difficulty and your planned victory. For instance I normally start with 3 Slingers, but with Sumer and Aztec (say) it makes more sense to start with your UU (and maybe 1 Slinger). Also your tech approach depends on these factors, although I try to get Archery quickly most of the time for the considerable boost it gives to the army.

 

[elitetroops]

I think the biggest tips are reading the GOTM games and certain people like @elitetroops post some very inciteful tips.

Heh, thanks, glad my posts have been helpful. But as a disclaimer I should say that I haven't played at all in the past month and haven't tried the latest patch, so I don't know how well my advice applies to the current version of the game.

As a general tip, I think the most common problem for people who plateau is building too much unnecessary stuff. To win a fast victory, everything you do needs to be focused towards this victory. And usually you should go for whatever pays off the fastest. For example, encampments with some buildings can give you units that level up faster, but if you instead put all that production into units, you will have a lot more units earlier, which allows you to take cities earlier, while facing weaker opposition and then of course also to make use of the new cities much earlier. Conclusion: don't build encampments with the intention to eventually have units that level up faster. Another typical example in Civ VI is housing. You'll keep getting notifications that your cities need more housing, but this only means that they need more housing to grow, not that they need more housing for you to win the game faster. If you look at the cost of a sewer, aqueduct or neighborhood, then calculate how many turns it would take for the extra population you can gain to pay back that cost, you'll find it is mostly not worth it to invest in those things. In my fastest science victories I've built none of those mentioned housing buildings/districts. It's much better to grow cities beyond housing cap by chopping jungle and harvesting resources. Don't build unnecessary districts and you don't need the high pop for anything.

 

[Chibisuke]

As someone mentioned, on Deity for sure, it is highly unlikely that your relationship with other civs will matter. (Unlike Civ 5 there is no meddling United Nations that can vote to restrict your empire.) If you are dominating they are all going to hate and denounce you. If you aren't dominating, you will be weak and most will hate and denounce you. It is a no win situation. Ignore their opinion of you and crush them into submission.

 

[DiffSarit]

The most important lesson for me in Civ6 is that it favor early aggression, especially in Immortal and Diety level. No matter what Victory condition you are after and what civ you play, you should try to take at least a few cities/settler from civs/CS around you within the first 50-60 turns. It will help you progress smoothly afterward.

Another important lesson is the benchmark of getting around 10 cities by around turn 100. It is a rough benchmark and don't have to be precise. If you got around 7-9 cities by turn 80s and there's no more room to settle and you don't wanna go to war anymore, that's fine. Just switching from expansion to build your infrastructure toward your prefer Victory condition. Try to focus your effort towards your Victory like @Victoria and @elitetroops siad.

The Early aggression and the Benchmark are important for me because in previous civs games ( I've played since Civ3), I like to have big cities and generally will expand to just 4-5 cities first and then expand more quite later (if ever) when the core cities are really developed. I also rarely go to early wars, if not aiming for Domination victory in that game in the the past. However, this playstyle is NOT optimal at all for Civ6. It favor early aggression and early expansion. After realising this, my Civ6 game improve a lot.

 

[Captain Potato]

The biggest thing I've learned from these forums is about how district production costs scale with techs. Basically every tech you learn increases production costs of districts. This affects your general strategy in a number of key ways.

1. Limiting techs. People take this to extreme and almost exploitative levels when they're going for speed runs by purposely leaving techs on one turn completion and not completing them till they're needed. You don't need to go that far, but generally it should be said that some kind of beeline strategy tends to be more effective than unlocking lowest cost techs. Go for what you need and don't feel bad about ignoring needless techs.

2. Locking in districts. When you lay the foundations for a district, that locks in its cost at the current tech level, whether you finish it then or 100 turns later. Therefore, you should plan very early on which districts you want in each city and in what order, and then make sure you put down that first stone on the very first turn it is available to you. If you're planning ahead right this means clearing the land beforehand (chopping woods etc).

3. Don't go too crazy on science. Unless you're going for a science speed run you'll find science should be a bit lower on the priority list than in other civ games. Wait till you've got the core districts of commercial, industrial and harbours where appropriate, then you've got a working economy and some productive cities, *then* start building campuses. That way you won't feel the production strain. If you go too heavy on science too soon you'll really feel a lag on production.

 

[Arent11]

1. Limiting techs. People take this to extreme and almost exploitative levels when they're going for speed runs by purposely leaving techs on one turn completion and not completing them till they're needed. You don't need to go that far, but generally it should be said that some kind of beeline strategy tends to be more effective than unlocking lowest cost techs. Go for what you need and don't feel bad about ignoring needless techs.

2. Locking in districts. When you lay the foundations for a district, that locks in its cost at the current tech level, whether you finish it then or 100 turns later. Therefore, you should plan very early on which districts you want in each city and in what order, and then make sure you put down that first stone on the very first turn it is available to you. If you're planning ahead right this means clearing the land beforehand (chopping woods etc).

That is *really* bad game design. Honestly, I'm doing everything I can to ignore such cheesy strategies. But they simply work. And that is simply bad game design.

 

[diamond geezer]

That is *really* bad game design. Honestly, I'm doing everything I can do ignore such cheesy strategies. But they simply work. And that is simply bad game design.

All true. There are a number of things that make you seriously question whether anyone actually play-tested the game before they released it.

 

[Victoria]

That is *really* bad game design. Honestly, I'm doing everything I can to ignore such cheesy strategies. But they simply work. And that is simply bad game design.

While I have some agreement with your comments I neither think the designers are stupid nor think you only have to do one thing.
If you read many posts you will fond I am the most vocal for trying the different.
Yesterday I decided to play with only 2 cities up to turn 100. Probably the best game for 2 weeks. More importantly I did not build IZ until about turn 150. I am finding playing CS well helps a lot, encampments are undervalued but most importantly not rushing era's. This is for "peaceful" play, domination is a different game of course.

I am now firmly gob smacked with how much I enjoy Civ6 becase of its flexibility and I am soooo enjoying diplomacy now.

I played a test game 2 weeks ago where the aim was just to take capitals. To spread out the taking of capitals to limit warmongering.... And it worked to a large degree. To win a domination without wiping anyone out and keep everyone happy. I played on Prince....deity may be too hard for this approach due to the hard diplomacy punishers up there. The main issie was woth Pedro, he really was not happy all game mainly due to not liking great people amd being a tad nervous I was powerful. I had to smack his cities twice which is rare. Smacking is raising all their lands but not their cities which is a great money/science/culture/faith earner amd just stunts their growth. They are so bad in clearing up raised land.

I just think people have not tried enough anything non brutal and like to steamroller. To me the game has much more depth if you play every angle. I often struggle with not enough slots and am always juggling civics, even making civic decisions based on how many turns to complete so I can change cards again.

If you want to talk about distaste at manipulation, the other week I took out a useless CS, gave it to my neighbour then took it back off him and freed it. I got a permanent +4 with all civs for this which is above normal diplomacy so helped my game a lot in the long term. Is that wrong or just using the game rules best. Both are true based on your viewpoint.

 

[Arent11]

While I have some agreement with your comments I neither think the designers are stupid nor think you only have to do one thing.
If you read many posts you will fond I am the most vocal for trying the different.
Yesterday I decided to play with only 2 cities up to turn 100. Probably the best game for 2 weeks. More importantly I did not build IZ until about turn 150. I am finding playing CS well helps a lot, encampments are undervalued but most importantly not rushing era's. This is for "peaceful" play, domination is a different game of course.

I think civ 6 does a lot well & I like it. I also did not want to imply that 'the designers are stupid'. If they can create a game that does so much right, they clearly are not.

The point is just that there are some strange mechanics I don't even grasp the reason for. I mean, *why* do districts become more expensive with more techs? To what end? Why does this game mechanic even exist? To discourage late game settling? I simply don't understand it.

 

[Victoria]

I would guess they are just trying to keep district prices matching over time so as you progressively get more production they get more expensive. Now that may seem wrong but for example last game, turn 250 I creat a city on another continent and it says it will take 150 turns to make a Theatre square. You can act horrified or instead reassign 2 trade routes to this city and suddenly its refuced to about 20. Chuck a builder in there to grow the pop and food and it is reduced further. Its not that bad really. I try and turn it around and say what would happen if it was a fixed cost. It would be a disaster with a mass land grab. We can argue what they used to make it more expensive may be odd but the reason I feel is sound. You can late game settle with skill, you just cannot late game settle 50 cities easily.
Last game I played 2 cities till turn 100 and added about another 8 asap after that. I really had no issue with their districts and in fact really enjoyed the game.

 

[Arent11]

I try and turn it around and say what would happen if it was a fixed cost. It would be a disaster with a mass land grab. We can argue what they used to make it more expensive may be odd but the reason I feel is sound. You can late game settle with skill, you just cannot late game settle 50 cities easily.

If it's about late game settling scale it with (1) raw science instead of number of techs (2) number of turns or (3) number of cities you have (like settlers becoming more expensive). Then no-one will stop researching a tech 1 turn before completion. Or reintroduce the "corruption" mechanic. Or make cities randomly request their independence & scale the numbers of cities you can control with your government.

 

[Victoria]

Everyone has a differing opinion. I just like the idea of scaling it with the cities production and agree that the mechanic they are using is being abused badly. But here we are,mtheir intention was nice which was what I was answering. Just execution of idea could be improved..

 

[Forster]

Something you could build 50 years ago is not going to cost the same today. Specific examples would be real property planes and armaments.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

Stretching further the discussion about the late-game settling and district costs, I believe there's no perfect district cost scaling.

• Raw science/culture/faith: How expensive are those end-game districts (Neighborhood, Aerodrome, Spaceport) are going to cost, when your science/culture output has (or should have) gone full throttle?
• Number of turns: That'll encourage even more early aggression, to secure more cities early. Moreover, it actually worsens the gap between wide and tall.
• Number of cities: Would that really impact much? Most of non-core cities only build 2-3 districts anyway, now they only take longer to build. While they build, I save up the money to buy the buildings I need and that's it.
• Number of districts: Not really impactful by the same reason above. The difference is that most districts will become even more useless.
• Number of districts of its specific type: I'll just trade some Commercial Hubs for Harbours and call it a day. You need to build your victory district in almost every city anyway, that's not going to stop you from doing it.

Back on topic, I feel the biggest leap was the realization that you need to expand early, whatever the means. Usually at the expense of neighboring civs and city-states. Also, focusing more on the victory path led me to shorter games: where I needed 300 turns to become master of all, I need now 240 turns at most.

 

[sugerdady87]

Something you could build 50 years ago is not going to cost the same today. Specific examples would be real property planes and armaments.

The cost of things in society generally decreases over time, not increase, particularly after you adjust for inflation. In the case that they do increase in cost, it's generally because the benefit is multiple times more than you would receive otherwise. This isn't the case in Civ6. Districts simply cost more as time goes on while providing the exact same benefit as it did on turn 1. This is the same type of arbitrary gameplay mechanisms I hated in Civ5.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

The cost of things in society generally decreases over time, not increase, particularly after you adjust for inflation. In the case that they do increase in cost, it's generally because the benefit is multiple times more than you would receive otherwise. This isn't the case in Civ6. Districts simply cost more as time goes on while providing the exact same benefit as it did on turn 1. This is the same type of arbitrary gameplay mechanisms I hated in Civ5.

That's how I interpret the rising costs over time: as your civilization develops, a district demands more and more to increase yields by the same amount.

Think about it: if you equipped a Campus today with the same things it had back in the 600s, would you expect a increase in science output?