What'll be your first game on patch 1.2.2?

[Berrern]

I want to check out the 24 new bonuses they've added for independend powers - so I'll be going all in on suzeraining. I've been researching how to best do this and here's my approach:

Large pangaea map with 10 opponents (I don't want duplicates, it sounds silly), Deity difficulty. I'll leave the settings as default, except for Long age length - I want enough time to befriend them all!

My last game was with Benjamin Franklin to unlock the Bifocals memento (+50 influence for each mastery), so I'll be using this together with the +100 influence for each befriended city state.

I'll only do neutral greetings and reject all AI endeavours to save all my influence for the IPs.
I need to find a way to get 2 diplomatic attribute points ASAP, so I can choose the +50% influence towards befriending city states bonus. Hopefully I can get the Emile Bell wonder, and then there's the leader-specific challenge after researching Discipline, which unlocks what I think is a diplomatic point.

Of course I'll choose Machiavelli and Greece for this challenge, which will be interesting, cause I haven't played with either yet!

In Antiquity, when it comes to civics, I'll beeline Ekklesia (+50% influence towards befriending city states), then Agoge (building that offers +2 influence on rough terrain) and then go for Discipline II (Gate of all nations - to have a chance of surviving!), Code of Laws II (Emile Bell, gives a diplomatic attribute point) and finally Citizenship for the Weiyang Palace (+6 influence).
For techs, I'll beeline Masonry and then The Wheel to get the two influence buildings (Monument and Villa).

There's no civilization that gives direct influence in Exploration age, but there's Qing in Modern (+1 influence per imported resource). In order to unlock Qing you need 3 Jade resources, in case that's not feasible, I'll look to unlock Ming or Mongolia for Exploration era (they're fairly easy to unlock) - as playing with those automatically enables Qing in Modern.

In Exploration I'll beeline Diplomatic Service for the Brihadeeswarar temple (+3 influence). On the technology tree I'll do Astronomy first for the Serpent Mound (+4 influence), and then beeline Education for the Shwedagon Zedi Daw (wildcard attribute point). On the way to Education I'll get Guilds to build the Guild hall, and once Education is done I'll go for Castles to get the Dungeon.

And finally in Modern I'll beeline Political Theory for the Doi Suthep (+4 influence), then Nationalism for the Bouddhanath (+4 influence) and Nationalism II for the Taj Mahal (wildcard attribute point). As for tech it'll be a straight line to Radio, to get the Radio station.

I've never played with such a focus on influence before, meaning I have no experience with e.g. Hub towns. I've actually never specialised a town before, I always upgrade my towns to cities as soon as I possibly can, and focus on the Economic path to keep them as cities.

Should be a fun game! Any advice from any of you who've played influence-heavy games? Is there anything I've overlooked?

How about you, what will your first game be like?

Can't wait for the patch!!

 

[Leucarum]

I don't know if my first game with this patch excites me as much as my 15th will... A lot of the new stuff isn't things I plan to use. I don't want large/huge maps, I can't see myself turning crises on even with the picker, etc...

I can see myself customizing the AI difficulty settings, and turning off civ unlocks, but the latter I already did with a mod anyway.

It's the thought of what steam workshop modding offers which really excites me about this patch! Hence why I don't think it's my first game post-patch which is exciting me...

 

[Nikolai II]

I foresee a Confucous/Han game, with Huge Pangaea, friendly IPs, some tinkering with victories and free unlocks.

 

[evonannoredars]

Isabella, either large or huge map, with the goal of getting every single natural wonder in the world. Unsure which map I'll go with - archipelago I haven't done in agesss and would suit a naval playstyle, but I'm not sure how good it would look on a huge map, lots of islands could get very repetitive. I'll probably use the debug menu to get a good look at a few huge archipelago maps before I make up my mind.

 

[user746383]

Isabella Persia and go conquer all the beautiful places in the world on a large or huge map.

 

[Suicidekills]

Isabella Persia and go conquer all the beautiful places in the world on a large or huge map.

Isabella, either large or huge map, with the goal of getting every single natural wonder in the world.

I've been meaning to play Isabella and Carthage and now I know it will be on a Huge map.

I've never played with such a focus on influence before, meaning I have no experience with e.g. Hub towns. I've actually never specialised a town before, I always upgrade my towns to cities as soon as I possibly can, and focus on the Economic path to keep them as cities.

This is absolute insanity to me. You've never specialized a town before??!! That's a pretty important mechanic to have ignored for this long. I hear what you're saying with the Economic Legacy Path, but that Bonus gets diminished with the option to change your capital (which allows you to start with a second city) and the fact that your first couple of city conversions are relatively cheap. More importantly, you NEED towns to help your cities thrive. They buffed food a little bit but to get ridiculous populations, you're going to need towns plus the specialization comes with an added benefit. I much prefer having fewer cities and using towns to turn them into absolute beasts. I'd recommend trying out Carthage or Rome to see the power of towns.

In your game, I challenge you to test the new town specializations specifically the hub towns (they got nerfed but should still work well with your strategy). Also, it seems like you're going all in on getting every ounce of influence you can get, so I get why you chose Machiavelli, but Tecumseh would make all those suzerainships really shine. Which leads me to my first game.....

I'm excited about the new bonuses to independent powers as well and will be playing as Tecumseh/Diety/Small/Pangea Plus. My last game was Greece so I'd like to avoid that. Any suggestions for the civ? Any other options I should add to make it more interesting?

 

[Mudkip1001]

Isabella ~Aksum -> Inca -> Nepal on Large Archipelago. I've never played Isabella and I think now is a good time to see if that new potential 200% yield is worth it.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Isabella with Carthage into ideally Spain and Mex.

The NW yield is definitely strong enough to contend with sovereign AIs:

I have NO idea what Battuta is doing to get almost my level of absurd bloaty culture, but the rest of the numbers speak for themselves.

 

[Sagax]

Isabella with Carthage into ideally Spain and Mex.

The NW yield is definitely strong enough to contend with sovereign AIs:

View attachment 735134

I have NO idea what Battuta is doing to get almost my level of absurd bloaty culture, but the rest of the numbers speak for themselves.

Most likely the Hawlit spam.

 

[MutilationWave]

I've been out of town for a while so I'm going to abandon my current game even though I'm well into modern. I'd like to do a large 8 player map, Terra Incognita. My plan all along has just been to play with everybody, and I've never tried Ashoka World Renouncer (food Ashoka). I've also never played Maurya, Chola, or Siam, so I think I'll try that path out.

What I'm struggling with here is conflicting thoughts among us on what it would mean to turn off all legacy paths but leave Score Victory on. I don't have a ton of time to play so I don't want to start a game like that only to find out my only victory path is actually domination. Anyone got any new info?

 

[Berrern]

This is absolute insanity to me. You've never specialized a town before??!! That's a pretty important mechanic to have ignored for this long. I hear what you're saying with the Economic Legacy Path, but that Bonus gets diminished with the option to change your capital (which allows you to start with a second city) and the fact that your first couple of city conversions are relatively cheap. More importantly, you NEED towns to help your cities thrive. They buffed food a little bit but to get ridiculous populations, you're going to need towns plus the specialization comes with an added benefit. I much prefer having fewer cities and using towns to turn them into absolute beasts. I'd recommend trying out Carthage or Rome to see the power of towns.

In your game, I challenge you to test the new town specializations specifically the hub towns (they got nerfed but should still work well with your strategy). Also, it seems like you're going all in on getting every ounce of influence you can get, so I get why you chose Machiavelli, but Tecumseh would make all those suzerainships really shine. Which leads me to my first game.....

I'm excited about the new bonuses to independent powers as well and will be playing as Tecumseh/Diety/Small/Pangea Plus. My last game was Greece so I'd like to avoid that. Any suggestions for the civ? Any other options I should add to make it more interesting?

Insanity, that's one way of putting it, I like it!
Thing is, I've been playing this game since the original Civ back in the 90s, and I find it really hard to change my way of playing. Especially now that I'm getting old, and it's sometimes tough to learn new mechanics... To me, towns have just been an annoyance so far, I enjoy cities where I can build whatever I want, whenever I want Not to mention the sheer joy I get from working out the perfect adjacency bonuses for every tile in every city.
So I've essentially been ignoring towns (except for turning them into cities), similarly to how I completely ignore religion - I think I've built max. 3 missionaries in Civ 7

And I'm no slouch, I'm on 233 hours already, always playing Deity (except for my first couple of games), and I win the majority of my games - i.e. I do find it too easy. If I found it too hard, it'd be a different story, I'd be forced to explore this mechanic!
And I DO get massive cities even without towns feeding them, but I suppose you'll get more specialists in your big cities if you utilise towns effectively.

I think the main reason I haven't been specialising towns is because I like to see my settlements GROW! If I understand it correctly, specialising a town causes it to stop growing? Why would I want a settlement to stop growing?! Like I said, I'm new at this

All that being said, I'll take your excellent advice and play a game as Carthage (after my city state challenge!) to give this whole town mechanic a proper go. Any tip for a good leader to combine with Carthage would be appreciated!
But not now during this challenge, I'd rather not experiment more than I already am!

Regarding Tecumseh, WOW, I just checked and I didn't realise that he's THIS powerful when it comes to city states. Now I'm tempted to start with him instead, but I fear he'll be WAY too overpowered.. In another game, where by chance I ended up going for a city state strategy and getting up to +30 combat bonus after befriending 15 city states (you can see the details of that game in this thread), I worry that playing as Tecumseh will give way too much advantage. This time I'm aiming for more than 15 city states, and with his bonuses I fear it'll be a walk-over... But I'll take your advice and try him in another upcoming session

As for your question about whom to play as if you're not Greece, I'm afraid I can't give any advice. In my other game where I got 15 city states, I played as Ashoka with Maurya (and later Ming and Nepal) - not exactly known for influence... The reason I got 15 city states in that game was mainly down to the "100 influence points when you befriend a city state" memento.

Whatever you decide to do, good luck! And please report back on your experience. I'll be starting my game tomorrow!

 

[MutilationWave]

Tecumseh is the best leader in the game (that I've played so far) for my playstyle.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I'm playing Machiavelli leading Carthage on a Huge Terra Incognita map at Marathon speed. After one hour, I had only met two other leaders, Catherine and Himiko (QoW). Catherine was killed by hostile IPs. The Home Lands are archipelago style, so I'm interested to see what the Distant Lands look like.

 

[MutilationWave]

I'm playing Machiavelli leading Carthage on a Huge Terra Incognita map at Marathon speed. After one hour, I had only met two other leaders, Catherine and Himiko (QoW). Catherine was killed by hostile IPs. The Home Lands are archipelago style, so I'm interested to see what the Distant Lands look like.

I haven't seen a leader knocked out by hostile IPs yet, cool. Did you notice if that advanced the age the same as if you had been the one to finish her?

Another question, what did you do for IP hostility settings? I'm thinking all hostile sounds fun, especially on a bigger map.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I haven't seen a leader knocked out by hostile IPs yet, cool. Did you notice if that advanced the age the same as if you had been the one to finish her?

Another question, what did you do for IP hostility settings? I'm thinking all hostile sounds fun, especially on a bigger map.

I didn't check to see if it ticked the Age progress.

I left the IP hostility on default. Some are hostile and some are friendly.

 

[queenpea]

Isabella with Carthage into ideally Spain and Mex.

The NW yield is definitely strong enough to contend with sovereign AIs:

View attachment 735134

I have NO idea what Battuta is doing to get almost my level of absurd bloaty culture, but the rest of the numbers speak for themselves.

Has anyone played Isabella after her nerf? I didn't think she was OP, actually, and was surprised to see it in the patch.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Has anyone played Isabella after her nerf? I didn't think she was OP, actually, and was surprised to see it in the patch.

the above modifiers are after the 'nerf'. I had never played Isbella prior to this.

So set up a Pangaea game on a huge map.

Spawned on top of a NW.

Found three more and settled them.

It's in the funny screenshots if you'd like to see it. Not pictured: the INSANITY of a +200% boosted Grand Canyon giving absurd levels of happiness and culture, on top of +2 science to every flat tile.

oh and this is combinable with the new Urban Centre so I can use the Isabella gold to buy Settlers and then Libraries.

Somehow not the most imbalanced thing I've seen in Civ7.

 

[queenpea]

the above modifiers are after the 'nerf'. I had never played Isbella prior to this.

So set up a Pangaea game on a huge map.

Spawned on top of a NW.

Found three more and settled them.

It's in the funny screenshots if you'd like to see it. Not pictured: the INSANITY of a +200% boosted Grand Canyon giving absurd levels of happiness and culture, on top of +2 science to every flat tile.

oh and this is combinable with the new Urban Centre so I can use the Isabella gold to buy Settlers and then Libraries.

Somehow not the most imbalanced thing I've seen in Civ7.

Oh ok, I can’t really tell. I never thought she was that imbalanced in the first place so will have to play myself.

 

[MACKA0ili]

Gonna go for a large pangea map on Deity as Frederich with all legacy paths turned off. Going for full Domination!

 

[Kmart_Elvis]

I'm doing Friedrich Oblique with the Mayans. Gotta say I love the "friendly" IPs. I pissed two of them off by settling too close, but that's fine. It's nice having IPs that are default neutral, when before it seemed like every IP nearby was default hostile.