Time to retire "Tall vs Wide" for "Peace vs War"?

Nope, tested and now no longer the case since R&F began
Ah, great that they still keep hiding mechanics. I would guess it being formal war level? Because that would still put the advantage for the attacker. I guess we do have join ongoing war at least so preemptive war declaring isn't as good.
 
Ah, great that they still keep hiding mechanics.

I wonder if the development team even maintain a complete and up-to-date record of current mechanics?

Big picture, I'm sure they do. But they don't strike me as a small details group (other than the art team). It's possible the only place they track details like this is in the code itself. Which would make it difficult to document how the game works, if true.
 
I wonder if the development team even maintain a complete and up-to-date record of current mechanics?

Big picture, I'm sure they do. But they don't strike me as a small details group (other than the art team). It's possible the only place they track details like this is in the code itself. Which would make it difficult to document how the game works, if true.

It would be a terrible process to do it that way. I suppose it would help explain the inconsistent junk UI, but it's not justifiable. It's one thing to hide "how the AI thinks", a justifiable approach to simulating an opponent.

It's another to hide the rules, which isn't okay regardless of reason they're hidden.
 
Or to change the rules and not tell anyone. But in all fairness, stealth nerfs are everywhere.
 
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It's about something called change control. Unless its a Pharma company little things slip through where the developer/s CBA to tell everyone or are too busy to. Also its about everyone keeping up to date with the changes. Playtesters are typically the group that have the best clue beyond the coder but that also depends on quantity of testing which adds costs on an already ballooning project.
 
It's about something called change control. Unless its a Pharma company little things slip through where the developer/s CBA to tell everyone or are too busy to. Also its about everyone keeping up to date with the changes. Playtesters are typically the group that have the best clue beyond the coder but that also depends on quantity of testing which adds costs on an already ballooning project.

In most cases quality of testing >> quality of addressing issues brought up as a result of the testing.

Civ 6 gets a failing grade here. Small bug fixes can fall under some "other fixes" category in patch notes. Altering the consequences of player actions based on the rules is not an "other fixes" change, and it should be considered a significant oversight/error every time this happens in a patch.

That counts doubly for mechanics that should obviously be tethered to a UI display, regardless of whether that is actually the case. I don't know if Archon_Wing's theory for why Firaxis fails at this is true or not, but they have certainly failed at it. Repeatedly.
 
I prefer Peace but war is OP, so I don't really think Peace vs War works, at least not in a "which one is better" scenario. Peace isn't as unviable as Tall, it's a perfectly viable playstyle but still, you can't really discuss pros and cons since War will win every time, it's just OP. If you're the kind of player that want to always take the optimal path or at least something close to it, your only option is war, you can't ignore how good it's. If you're the kind of player that like to set a specific way to play and just go for it, regardless of how optimal it is, then Peace is just as good as War. You gonna win just as easy through Peace but War will do it faster and better.

I like to plan, build and play the diplomatic game. I would rather have my units doing "nothing" than have to move them every turn, to conquer yet another city I will have to manage. It's not like I need more cities to win, so I can't really see keeping my units idle as a waste, it's not a waste if I don't need it in the first place. I'm not trying to set any record on fastest Civ VI victory after all, I'm trying to have fun. I like to play War from time to time but for me, Peace is where the fun is.


I think Firaxis wasted an opportunity on loyalty/era, would be interesting if it worked as a representation of how hard it's to keep a huge Empire together. I been playing R&F since launch, I still didn't get a Dark Age since I refuse to hurt myself on purpose to do it. I'm going for war in my recent match, I'm on yet another Golden Age streak. You just can't get it naturally and it's even more unlikely that you will get one if you choose war when it should be the opposite. In a domination match, it should be extremely likely that you will get at least one Dark Age in late game, almost impossible to avoid.Instead you get one Golden Age after the other. They need to increase the penalty per city in the era points system and increase the penalty per golden age. It would also be interesting to get another penalty on top of the occupation penalty, one that stick around even after peace and maybe fade with time, to represent the fact that the city didn't join you, it was conquered. They are now part of your Empire but it will take time for them to be mixed into your population and truly become a part of it. A French city still French after conquered, that should be represented somehow.
 
So, let’s accept conquest is stronger than peace. Is there anything else interesting or useful to ask about this topic? I think there is.

Is war always the best option?

It usually is, but is it always? Some Civs aren’t well geared to war, but perhaps that doesn’t matter because you can only rush knights (unless you’re egypt). But what if you don’t have iron? Should you then play peacefully, or should you go all out to get iron? The AI seems to buy iron if it doesn’t have it - should humans do that too?

Is war interesting enough?

Well, sometimes it’s fun. What you capture is a factor - getting well laid out cities and a good wonder helps make it fun. I often wish Civs were better at getting “their own” wonders for that reason. Bit sad not getting the pyramids when you conquer Egypt, and also kind of weird getting it when you conquer Monty...

Diplomacy can be fun. I’ve got into the habit of making friends with some neighbours before I attack another. And then you can invite your friends to join.

But war is limited. Not too many ways to wage war tactically. I’ve had some fun with pillaging but it’s not exactly game changing. And not many proxy war options - loyalty flipping itself isn’t very easy, and religion is okay but is very close to just normal war. Maybe levy city states?

And war doesn’t seem to produce many interesting decisions after it’s over. There’s no great challenge holding onto your new cities. A few (or a lot) of other Civs might not like you, and you might want to return one city for diplomatic reasons, but that’s it.

(An aside: I’d love it empires we somehow aligned along say liberty, tradition or honour. Your citizens happiness would then be influenced by whether your government was aligned to that or not. Then, when you captured a city, the original citizens of that city would retain their original bias. So, if your empire is liberty, but you capture a city from sumeria who were tradition, your “liberty “ cities would be happier and more loyal when your government was Merchant Repubic or Democracy, but your “sumerian” cities would be less happy with that government.)

Is peace interesting enough?

Well, it can be fun building an effective empire - creating little specialist city triangles. Faith builds; production builds; culture v science builds.

But being peaceful largely means turtle, and that’s boring. If you’re not warring, they’re aren’t actually many ways to interact with your opponents beyond selling everything that isn’t nailed down and trying to get some alliances going. Bit more interesting once you get to spies, but that’s it.
 
Is war always the best option?
When you start getting down to around T100 and below victories, there just is not much time for war. On the right map on the right situation you can just build to win and building an army slows you down.
GOTM 40 is a classic example,
Spoiler :

RV with Yerevan and harvest on prince.
Just chop and win, sure you could build an army and beat people up but it does not really speed things up.
To me this is a classic exception, the trouble is it’s pretty boring once you found a route to your neighbours.
It was so easy I won without researching pottery... that’s just broken
 
^ anybody who is even kind of trying would declare war to block losing so fast to missionary conversion.

While we don't want to ignore SP, it's also not useful to consider cases of active game throwing as any basis for what is actually balanced.

If you win t100 religious victory in civ 6 the opponents threw.
 
When you start getting down to around T100 and below victories, there just is not much time for war. On the right map on the right situation you can just build to win and building an army slows you down.
GOTM 40 is a classic example,
Spoiler :

RV with Yerevan and harvest on prince.
Just chop and win, sure you could build an army and beat people up but it does not really speed things up.
To me this is a classic exception, the trouble is it’s pretty boring once you found a route to your neighbours.
It was so easy I won without researching pottery... that’s just broken

Who needs pots anyways. I'm sure there are other things you can put your water and food into. :D
 
Is war always the best option?
However since R&F release, in the community of our country, except domination victory, almost all the good records were achieved through peaceful, and much more faster than before. The game is already very different from Vanilla. (All records are based on deity-all-standard) I don't think these are all situational results on the right map.
But it is only for SP versus stupid AI. MP is absolutely a war game, no matter how to change the balance - war may not guarantee me win, but it will guarantee you out.
 
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However since R&F release, in the community of our country, except domination victory, almost all the good records were achieved through peaceful, and much more faster than before. The game is already very different from Vanilla. (All records are based on deity-all-standard) I don't think these are all situational results on the right map.
But it is only for SP versus stupid AI. MP is absolutely a war game, no matter how to change the balance - war may not guarantee me win, but it will guarantee you out.

@Boyan_Sun: can you share in simple terms - or point to an explanation of - how culture/science victories are being won sub T150 without war?

I find on Deity that the investment to survive the initial Warrior rush and the follow up Knight rush requires (a) a delay in expansion beyond 3 cities in the first 50 turns in order to build enough military to survive the initial attack, and (b) a diversion of research into some tech capable of allowing you to survive Knights during the second attack, as Warriors and Archers alone don't cut it for me at that point.

Admittedly, I haven't actually tried to win quickly post R&F (I've been too busy avoiding winning in order to track AI victory times), but with the 8 to 10 cities I could typically have space for by T100 using peaceful play and the two issues noted above, I have trouble envisioning a sub T200 victory.
 
@Boyan_Sun: can you share in simple terms - or point to an explanation of - how culture/science victories are being won sub T150 without war?
Money, you get horrendous amounts of it trading on deity.
Also the AI now does not grow strong in science and culture so fast anymore which allows you to push and concentrate, especially chopping in slingers.

I play a lot of deity but I play the map I get and it’s not easy to be peaceful. It’s playing a map that allows peaceful play with enough space and the right CS. It’s a way to play and a lot of people seem to enjoy it.
 
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@Boyan_Sun: can you share in simple terms - or point to an explanation of - how culture/science victories are being won sub T150 without war?

I find on Deity that the investment to survive the initial Warrior rush and the follow up Knight rush requires (a) a delay in expansion beyond 3 cities in the first 50 turns in order to build enough military to survive the initial attack, and (b) a diversion of research into some tech capable of allowing you to survive Knights during the second attack, as Warriors and Archers alone don't cut it for me at that point.

I'd like to see those peaceful sub T150s too.

For settler expansion, build an initial settler just so you aren't slowed down as much. Buy a second even if you can. When you can fit it in build another settler to within 1 turn and overflow it with Magnus and Colonization. You can't chain them but you can overflow again in a few turns. You can burst 2-3 out pretty easy if you have the chops.

I kinda showed it here where I had 4 settlers built and in place by T50. Along with 7 military units, 3 builders and some monuments.. Granted that it was a rough terrain start with some mountain protection which gave me some security. Just don't forward settle the AI until your last city.

Civ of the Week: Greece
 
Money, you get horrendous amounts of it trading on deity.

For settler expansion, build an initial settler just so you aren't slowed down as much. Buy a second even if you can. When you can fit it in build another settler to within 1 turn and overflow it with Magnus and Colonization. You can't chain them but you can overflow again in a few turns. You can burst 2-3 out pretty easy if you have the chops.

In my (limited so far) experience, I've found it a 50/50 proposition as to whether I have anything to trade to the first two civs I meet. As often as not, they have the same starting Luxuries I do. I settle on a luxury if possible and improve nearby luxuries with my first Builder to maximize the possibility of trade as soon as we meet, but planning on being able to trade with other civs until you have found a second continent would seem to be a "nice if it happens" sort of thing, rather than something that could be planned on. Perhaps I need to be more aggressive with Scouts if a second continent isn't found quickly. I'm usually building something else (Settlers), which may not be efficient.

Similarly, with nearby woods or stone, the Magnus chop is possible, but those starts can't be counted on. Plus they need to wait until your first governor appointment and require you to buy (or build) a second Builder (assumes your first is used up to get the Craftsmenship inspiration). I'm not sure how likely it is that you have more than a couple of woods/stone to chop early or a gold generating Luxury. Either of those situations would speed up your early expansion, but they seem to me the exception rather then the rule. Again, not enough data observations on my part to know for sure. I guess the idea is put your second city in the middle of the most woods/stone your starting Warrior can find and then chop it all out as soon as you can get Magnus and afford the Builder. I'm likely not as efficient on that front as I could be.

I typically start Builder, Settler, switch to Slinger/Warrior/Slinger (chopping these in if necessary) once a threat appears or Agoge is available, and buy a second Settler as soon as I have the gold to afford it (or sometimes buy a second Builder and chop in the second Settler instead). Then build Settlers as soon as the 50% discount is available until I've filled the available space with as many cities as I can, while filling in my military with whatever I'm going to use to counter the upcoming Knight attack (Knights of my own, or if no Iron then Crossbowmen + Pikes).

I've also been playing Tamar exclusively (since the objective is to avoid winning), so with no bonuses to either research or culture, I may not appreciate the amount of these yields that can be generated by some other civs early.
 
how culture/science victories are being won sub T150 without war?
I'd like to see those peaceful sub T150s too.
Statement: In our side, things like overflow/neighborhood exploits are not considered "bugs" or "cheating", so they're widely used. Magnus chopping is the key, R&F is usually called "lumber dlc" by us. if it doesn't conform to your values please ignore it.
Spoiler :

All based on Deity-All-Standard, most on Pangea. All of these are in Chinese, but I moved some to CFC, here I collected some discuss thread links here:

Fast peaceful SV
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-to-quick-sv-share-your-view.628174/ #76(T151 SV video, no Harvest pantheon, no save/load) #86(T135 SV) #89(T117 SV) - can clearly see how strategy evolved over time
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/scoring-civilizations.632554/page-3#post-15133374 (T115 SV after spring patch, using a specific strategy only suitable for Japan)

Fast peaceful CV
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/deity-culture-victory-strategies.630965/#post-15090328 (several links for "salt fish SV", win at about T80~100 before spring patch)
As far as I know the fastest is T77 CV before spring patch using Kongo. And l heard someone will try Gotm39 in new version, I expect it not to be later than T120. (OK finished very quick -either game time or reality time, maybe 3~4 hours? T107 CV https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/6otm39-after-action.632447/#post-15146121)

The peaceful CV has benefited greatly from the dramatic enhancement of the theater square:
  • +1 to +2 from each adjacent wonder, by Magnus overflow chop the wonder is easier to built, and also trigger inspirations for TS.
  • Wonders also provide lots of tourism, especially for specific Civs like China and France.
  • Oracle-Pingala combo, which makes GPP output explode, 1 city over 6 cities.
  • great people are no longer era+1 in Vanilla, but equals to the era. Era time is constant, 40 turns on standard, so they won't be skipped easily. Fast TS will ensure you 4 classic and 3 medieval writers, only need 60 * 4 + 120 * 3 = 600 GPP, which provide 14 * 4 culture and 14 * 8 tourism from printing very early
  • Great writers are all the same effect - 2 books which provide totally 8 culture and 8/16(printing) tourism without any policies, but different cost by era change. Comparing to Museum, it only provide 9(base 3*3) +9(theme) +9 (policy) = 27, and is too late.
  • if you get cheapest writers, AI will no longer get cheap writers, then their domestic tourism will increase very slow.
  • books can even be sold with a good price, very good for economy.
One-City-Challenge SV & CV & RV
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/occ-one-city-challenge-science-victory.629956/#post-15076580 (Kongo, China, Australia OCC SV)
Some OCC links on Chinese forums, while OCC isn't something encouraged by official
https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5627452738 (T239 SV, Greece)
https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5676120587 (T234 CV, China)
https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5554999547 (T185 CV, China)
https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5529240485 (T145 RV, Russia)

BTW, we also have some discussions for DV (though only on Pangea). This is a famous ranking link before spring patch: https://www.bilibili.com/read/cv379252
Unlike someone who like to speculate, this ranking was made from testing every civ for 2~3 times.
Fastest civs can dominate within 60 Turns, even poor Egypt can easily win DV in 103 turns, without any save/load/repeat. (I know the fastest was T41 DV using Persia)


which allows you to push and concentrate
AI will only forward settle for their first 3~5 cities, then they will stop and attack CSs or player. There's always a lot of space on the map that is unoccupied, with AH we always can fast expand 10+ cities, if using Harvest-Monumental it will be more. The biggest problem is more trees as possible. Also need to be good at using garrison command and tortoise promotion to defend with least armies - in that T151 video you will see only 2~3 warriors and archers to defended 15+ AI/Barbarian armies.
 
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In my opinion, they've had plenty of time now to engineer a fix to the overflow "bug" that it can now be called a feature or working as intended. Unless a dev has publicly stated otherwise. Personally, I use overflow as effectively as I can. Thanks for sharing
 
And the fact they doubled the public transport gold bonus rather than changing the gold to be given at completion indicates they expect everyone to start making neighbourhoods but never finishing them, which is a tad poor in my view.
 
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