What civics will you be running in your games?

[Ornen]

Curious what civics people here see themselves playing most frequently.

I can see the

For military, I see the production bonuses being pretty useful, especially Agoge (Ancient/Classical land units). Professional Army (50% upgrade discount) looks very useful as well, especially if you time it right and upgrade as many units as possible while it's in play. Reducing unit maintenance also looks handy, but it will depend on my gold needs.

It doesn't look like we'll have many options for diplo cards in the early game, but I see Charismatic Leaders (+2 influence towards envoys) being in play quite a bit.

For economic, builder/settler cards will rain supreme for me early on (Ilkum/Colonization/Serfdom). Housing bonuses might also be very useful, especially as the game goes on (Insulae/Medina Quarter/New Deal). And of course, science bonuses will be nice, making Rationalism a good choice.

For my wild cards, I'll probably switch things off between GPs and extra economic bonuses. If I think it's doable, I'll always try to score a religion. Aside from that, scientists look very useful and the merchants look surprisingly handy in the late game.

How about you? What civic cards will you be playing most heavily in Civ 6?

 

[Acken]

There is a nice combo with the 2 early diplo policies. Accumulate with the +2 one then switch to the one that gives 2 once youre ready to spend.

 

[Promethian]

There is a nice combo with the 2 early diplo policies. Accumulate with the +2 one then switch to the one that gives 2 once youre ready to spend.

I see myself using both at the same time on my Pericles games. The extra wildcard slot makes it an easy choice with his suzerain bonus.

 

[Acken]

You dont need to run the one giving a free envoy until you send an envoy.

 

[MadDjinn]

you mean policies, or governments? everyone will grab all civics or at least most of them.

and likely it'll all depend on the situation and game, but 'most of the policies' will inevitably show up in a game.

 

[ExemplarVoss]

you mean policies, or governments? everyone will grab all civics or at least most of them.

and likely it'll all depend on the situation and game, but 'most of the policies' will inevitably show up in a game.

Really? I find a great many (honestly too many) to be corner case, with a handful of 'always take' policies. There are a economic few that will cycle early on (+military prod, +settler prod, +builder prod), but things like the maintenance reduction cards are mainstays.

 

[MadDjinn]

You're going to want to shift around the cards when you're not doing the thing the card helps. So a lot of military cards will be in then out once used sufficiently. Same goes for some other economic cards.

 

[ExemplarVoss]

You're going to want to shift around the cards when you're not doing the thing the card helps. So a lot of military cards will be in then out once used sufficiently. Same goes for some other economic cards.

We'll, yes. That's pretty obvious, but there are quite a few military ones that aren't worth slotting in the first place- bastions, new world conquest, wars of religion, and others are really specific - the pillaging ones, for example. If pillaging isn't a key part of your strategy, giving up reduced maintenance for them is a little odd.

As far as economic goes, many (particularly the late game) are going to be used depending solely on the victory condition you choose. swapping them around a lot (especially between different victory types) just stifles your ability to win.

 

[Promethian]

We'll, yes. That's pretty obvious, but there are quite a few military ones that aren't worth slotting in the first place- bastions, new world conquest, wars of religion, and others are really specific - the pillaging ones, for example. If pillaging isn't a key part of your strategy, giving up reduced maintenance for them is a little odd.

As far as economic goes, many (particularly the late game) are going to be used depending solely on the victory condition you choose. swapping them around a lot (especially between different victory types) just stifles your ability to win.

You make an excellent argument for the power of having extra policy slots. Not having to make as many tradeoffs and being able to stack bonuses sounds really nice.

 

[CPWimmer]

Is there any reason why we won't always start with Discipline and God King once we have Code of Laws?

I can't really picture a scenario where you don't go God King out of the gate until you have secured your Pantheon.
And with Barbarians being a real early game threat, Discipline seems to out perform Survey until you have Archers in place.

It seems timing your Policy card switches (especially in the Early Game) is one of the key new methods of optimizing your game play.

 

[playshogi]

Is there any reason why we won't always start with Discipline and God King once we have Code of Laws?

I can't really picture a scenario where you don't go God King out of the gate until you have secured your Pantheon.
And with Barbarians being a real early game threat, Discipline seems to out perform Survey until you have Archers in place.

It seems timing your Policy card switches (especially in the Early Game) is one of the key new methods of optimizing your game play.

I didn't see anyone in the Let's Play take Survey and it was never really quantified how much +5 vs. barbs was really worth. Survey can get you scouts with combat strength of 30 (ambush) that can move after attacking (guerilla), but that requires 3 promotions. Scouts do get experience just from exploring the map, so I'm not sure how quickly you can get those 3 promotions, but if you start with 2 or 3 scouts, survey might be worth it.

 

[skyclad]

I will be trying to make survey work! It seems possible (maybe, we shall soon see for ourselves ) to avoid battle between your 1st and 2nd civic at least, during which it makes sense to me to have it. You should also have your second scout out and about this point. Remember scouts get exp not only from combat but from exploring.
God King seems like a no brainer in most situations. Only reason not to slot it in until you get a pantheon would be if you found a relic or found a religious city state first.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Well, i have only a rough idea of what's available from some streams and don't know exactly when most of them are available but i'll probably start with faster experience for Scouts and God King then switch to production after i get my pantheon and/or have another city.
I'll see if i actually need a boost to military production, otherwise as long as scouts are scouting Survey seems nice. But then there is an early government without any military slot that seems otherwise quite solid.
Later it's obvious you need to use the bonus to settler at some point if you want to pump a few of those quickly. In fact, it seems like economic cards are the ones most likely to be swapped around a lot.
As Acken pointed, once you have a diplomacy slot available, start accumulate envoys with the +2 card and once you want to actually send them, switch to the double-envoy card. Not many other diplomacy cards i've seen in the early game so not sure there are other options.
I really have no idea which GP card to use first. Prophet maybe if i don't have a religion yet.

So, no real plan here. Probably going to swap a lot

 

[CPWimmer]

There is a nice combo with the 2 early diplo policies. Accumulate with the +2 one then switch to the one that gives 2 once youre ready to spend.

One counter option to this in the early game:

If you slot Diplomatic League (the gain 2 when you assign 1 Envoy card) while you are exploring, any time you are the first civ to meet a City State you would get 2 free envoy's instead of just 1.

 

[Acken]

I doubt you are very likely to first meet a cs after the time you reach political philosophy. The AI seems to love making scouts.

Unless you play on a kind of map you know it will happen like a watermap where some CS are hidden.

 

[CPWimmer]

I doubt you are very likely to first meet a cs after the time you reach political philosophy. The AI seems to love making scouts.

Unless you play on a kind of map you know it will happen like a watermap where some CS are hidden.

Good point.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

I doubt you are very likely to first meet a cs after the time you reach political philosophy. The AI seems to love making scouts.

Yes. Even on Prince in one of the streams (i think it's Christopher Odd Scythia) the player was second to meet all the CSs. And yes, i know Chris didn't really play a great game but he went scout first and got one in his first goody hut with his warrior so his early exploration was good (he put his scouts on auto but later)

 

[Calouste]

Is there any reason why we won't always start with Discipline and God King once we have Code of Laws?

I can't really picture a scenario where you don't go God King out of the gate until you have secured your Pantheon.
And with Barbarians being a real early game threat, Discipline seems to out perform Survey until you have Archers in place.

It seems timing your Policy card switches (especially in the Early Game) is one of the key new methods of optimizing your game play.

You can get Faith in other ways. Some resources give Faith (Incense is one), Russia gets Faith from Tundra, some Natural Wonders give Faith or give Faith to adjacent tiles, you might get a relic from a goody hut, you might be the first to meet a religious city state (automatic envoy which means 2 faith in your capital).

 

[joncnunn]

Myself: My first military starting policy will always be +5 from Barbarians and the first economic policy will always be God King.
I'll switch military to something else as soon as I'm not worried about barbarians and economic to something else after getting the pantheon.

Diplomatic polices: I'm likely to start with the policy granting two envoys for the cost of one whenever there is any city state I don't have an envoy with and the one increasing envoy rate when I do have an envoy with all known city states.

Economic policies: There's several cards I see that I'll use when actively doing it. Serfdom comes high on this list.

Wildcard policies: I'm thinking I'll mostly use these for great people and very little as a extra spot for something else.

 

[Ornen]

Is there any reason why we won't always start with Discipline and God King once we have Code of Laws?

I can't really picture a scenario where you don't go God King out of the gate until you have secured your Pantheon.
And with Barbarians being a real early game threat, Discipline seems to out perform Survey until you have Archers in place.

We'll see. The case for the other two policies:

Urban Planning: +1 Production sounds small, but could be huge, especially if cities start with very low production. It get your entire build out faster, and could be worth running for a few turns before switching to God King to get your pantheon up. Especially if you have another way to get early faith, God King might not be necessary. Or if you don't have any one pantheon you're dying to get, getting in first won't make that much of a difference. You might even leave Urban Planning running a little longer, especially if you get two cities up and running quickly.

Survey: This seems tempting but greedy, and I'm going to be running it from Code of Laws to whatever civic I get next, at least in my first couple games. I'm going to be starting double scout, and I'd love to give them both a big XP boost early on – and though we can expect fiercer barbs than in Civ 5, we'll see if they come out swinging or if they become more of a threat after the first 15 or so turns have passed.

In tandem, they could be very useful. Survey gives your scouts a boost, while Urban Planning helps get more units up faster to deal with the barbs. It very much depends on how many turns you can shave with +1 production.