This game is great. One day you're disappointed and lose interest, the next day you boot it up again it turns into a classic. My disappointment didn't last very long as I later found that I was surrounded by natural wonders. Mount Everest to the North, Grand Canyon to the East (Amina got that one but that's fine), Thera to my South, and Bermuda Triangle to my West. After I got the two other navigable river settlements down, I settled the NW's as soon as possible. Later on, Ashoka decided to attack me. I'm not sure what he was thinking. He literally started the war while his units were sandwiched in between my two city-states. I believe I had 3 suzerainties at this point and was working on a fourth.
Yes this game is incredible in that way! It could also go the other way though, you're having an epic game, the age transitions, you pick it up again the next day and you can't get into it again.
I've got nothing against the new age transition system, by the way, in fact I love it (I seem to be in the minority ), but I try to play at least a few turns into the new age if I have to stop playing.
I read in the patch notes that the AI would be smarter about declaring war now - seems that's not the case in your game!
I just finished Antiquity myself, and only had 1 war declared on me during the whole age, that's a first for me! That war declaration was clever though - the borders between Himiko and me were extremely tight, and I managed to snatch all wonder tiles + both resources in a settlement vs settlement expansion battle where there were only 4 tiles between our settlements! She had had enough of my shenanigans, declared war, and if I had 4 less gold I'd have lost my capitol to her! Luckily I didn't, and managed to buy a second Hoplite just in time, and just about managed to stave off her attack.
Spent the rest of the age working on my empire. My capital turned into a Wonder Building Behemoth. My 4th suzerainty provided the cherry on top with 5% production towards wonder per CS. Was very sad when I missed out on Colosseum, Nalanda, and Angkor Wat by a turn or two (and by that damn Ashoka!!!), but by the time I got to Monks Mound it only took 4 turns for my capital to build. I had the Wonder building Tjaty also, so I was able to build the Wonder in one turn! (a first for me) On the topic of Tjaty, I was also able to build all of them (also a first for me), and was a big fan of the one that provides the codex (didn't realize this existed, definitely useful). My culture and gold were bonkers. I was comfortably in the culture lead halfway through the age.
That 5% wonder production boost is immense, I got 4 wonders in my game, but could've gotten more if I prioritised (but my priority was purely influence). Most surprising was to see the Pyramids still hadn't been built on turn 98 (!), so I did it in just 3 turns - at that point I had 10 city states under my belt, which meant +50% wonder production, as well as quite a few wonder-boosting resources to help.
And the Tjatys can be brilliant! I typically only build them towards the end of the age when there's nothing else important to build, but should try building them earlier as they can be really powerful. I just dislike the randomness of which type you'll get.
I built quite a few Legios in my game as well (first time playing with Greece), and they give some great benefits, although it was too late to really take advantage of them.
Overall, I'm underwhelmed about the changes to IP's as well as the pantheons so far. The settlement limit from Military IP's came in handy and I can see bonuses to warehouse buildings being strong especially if you're playing someone like Ben Franklin, but it's not anything game-breaking. I'm also not really sure why they added the option that multiple civ's can take the same bonus or pantheons with some of them. The AI needs some help with IP's because I didn't even realize that if another civ takes a city-state bonus, you're no longer allowed to take that one. When it comes to town specializations, I love the new changes. Obviously, a big fan of the resort towns in this game, but Fort Town also came in handy when an AI gave me a settlement on the other side of the map. Hub towns needed to be nerfed, and at least they're trying with the mining towns. I'll still probably take food over gold in these situations (Farming vs Mining town). I like the idea of urban centers as well, but I just had no need for them in this age.
Agree with you on the new IP bonuses. A few are great, especially the Wonder boost and Settlement limit, but some are quite meh, especially as they don't stack. At the same time, most of the ones that do stack, become way overpowered. They need to find a better balance here, perhaps a 'stacking limit'.
Not sure about your last sentence, you're saying the AI needs help with this - yet you're the one who don't realise most bonuses can only be chosen once?
I sometimes miss the notifications of the AI suzeraining an IP, but from my experience it seems that the AI prioritises the unique units and especially the 50% commander bonus.
I tested this out and you would get both! A wonder on Desert Tile gave me +2 gold adjacency instead of one. I assumed +6 would be the highest you can get, so this changes some things.
I know there's the market but after that there's one? more building further down the line. And the market is on the opposite side of the tech tree you want to be usually for the library and monument. And by the time you get to the market, you're really just paying for the building maintenance of previous buildings, No?
And regarding the gold buildings, after the market comes the lighthouse (Currency -> Navigation). Both can be very powerful if placed well on coastal settlements. While you're right in saying that you need those buildings to cover the increasing maintenance costs, with good adjacencies they do way more than just that! Just check out these yields from my current game, which isn't even with a leader or civ that get economical yield bonuses:
I ended the age on 630 gold per turn, which would've been 717 without the crisis policies... Mind you, I skipped building many of the cultural and science buildings, as I got enough techs and civics from all the city states!
As for the technology research: the market is indeed on the opposite side of the tree from the monument, but not from the library - in fact it's the next tech after Writing!
I'll make a separate post a little later, summarising my Antiquity age.
I think there might be something in this... Just check out those delicious mountain ranges around Xerxes in my current game! The more you look, the more mountains you spot... And there's Mount Fuji there to boot!
So, for anyone specially interested (like maybe our friend the Mutilated hamster ), here's a summary of my Antiquity age run!
Time played: I don't think it's possible to see this anywhere, but I played about 6 hours each day, so 12 in total. My longest Antiquity game by far, but I micromanaged A LOT to reach (most of) my main objectives - and I also played with 'Long' age length, adding another 40 age progress. City States obtained: 16 (5 militaristic, 4 cultural, 4 economic, 3 scientific). City States obtained by AI: 6 (2 economic, 2 militaristic, 1 scientific, 1 cultural). IPs not converted: 1 Settlements: 8, all full cities (Sorry @Suicidekills) Final yields per turn: 630 gold (would've been 717 were it not for the crisis policies) / 37 influence / 203 science / 315 culture. Mind you, this was while on a 9/8 settlement cap, so unhappiness screwed my yields. Best opponent final yields per turn: Catherine (Maya), with 120 gold / 27 influence / 637 science / 664 culture Legacy paths: Culture 5/8 (Wondrous heritage), Military 10/12 (Fealty), Science 8/10 (Collector of Knowledge - I was ONE turn away from getting Mathematics II ), Economic 20/20 (Silk Roads Golden Age).
So, in total 23 IPs spawned on a Large map. The number could've been higher as some may have been dispersed or later conquered during wars.
I could've gotten the last IP + 1 of the ones the AI got, but left them alone, as I ended up getting too many free civics!
The last 2 CS gave me 2 'Future civics', which added 20 age progress to the era, causing it to end earlier than I would've liked, and scuppering some of my late war plans as well as the Science legacy path...
SpoilerHere's a list of when I got the city states - and what bonus I chose: :
29 cultural, Free civic per CS
39 cultural, 5% towards constructing wonders per CS
48 scientific, Free tech per CS
58 scientific, 20% towards constructing science buildings per CS
59 militaristic, +1 combat bonus for ranged units per CS
67 cultural, +2 culture to monuments per CS
70 militaristic, +1 combat bonus for infantry units per CS
81 cultural, +3 culture on warehouse (not stacking)
82 militaristic, +1 settlement limit
85 economic, +5% gold for each CS (+32 gpt!)
99 militaristic, +1 war support
101 militaristic, Hillfort improvement
102 economic, +1 gold on gold buildings for each CS
103 economic, +2 resource capacity in capital
105 economic, +1 gold on warehouse buildings (not stacking)
109 scientific, +1 on warehouse buildings (not stacking)
I got the free civic per CS on turn 29 and free tech per CS on turn 48. This meant that I didn't focus much on constructing science buildings until the late game, where I needed them to slot the codices.
In fact, the disparity in science yields between Catherine and myself was ridiculous at one point :
The combat bonus for infantry coupled with the Greek Civic Hoplite bonus (+1 strenght per CS) gave a wild total combat bonus:
I reached most of my initial objectives, the big exception being the Weyiang Palace wonder (+7 influence).
I got the required civic on turn 86, and with my stacked 5% bonus (per CS) towards constructing wonders, it was supposed to be a breeze, but 2 turns later Catherine built it! Fair enough, I figured I would steal it by conquering her capitol after I had boosted my commanders during the barbarian crisis - but due to the 2 unexpected 'future civics', I didn't have time. But I wasn't far away when the age ended - a few more turns would've done it:
Due to this, I couldn't complete the militaristic legacy path - but at least I got Fealty thanks for capturing one of her towns.
I learned that if an AI is 15 points ahead of you when trying to suzerain an IP, don't bother. I boosted it EIGHT times, wasting nearly 1000 diplomatic points in the process, only to end up converting the IP on the same turn as Catherine, and for whatever reason she got it (I guess because she initiated the first contact with them).
It was the most peaceful game of Civ VII I've ever played on Deity, and looking back on it, I guess it was because of the enormous combat boost both my infantry and ranged units had.
Still, before declaring on Catherine, her army strength was nearly triple what i had - but I'm guessing this doesn't take into account the combat boosts.
Prior to that, only one war was started, by my neighbour Himiko, after some border tension where I snatched the Jade & Horse resources + all 3 natural wonder tiles (Redwood forest) we were competing for:
My capitol was in massive trouble after she declared, but I had just enough gold to buy a third Hoplite and stave off her attack, before we made peace. If I had 4 less gold, I would've lost my capitol to her!!
Another interesting situation with Himiko was after the discovery of Mount Everest up North-West, 11 tiles from my closest settlement and with one of my CS sandwiched in-between.
I sent a settler up there ASAP (it was a 13-turn travel), and when it got there, I was met by this:
I was going to settle on that spot where her near-dead fire archer is sitting, and I had no military backup. I managed to levy two units from my CS nearby, and together we managed to kill her units so I could settle as planned!
Towns vs Cities debate
In order not to make this too long (it's only the first age after all!), let me sum up my conversion of towns to cities. As mentioned earlier I finished with 8 full cities, which was the cap (thanks to the +1 settlement limit from a military CS):
- Turn 70: First town converted to city. This was way later than I had hoped, mainly due to Himiko declaring on me on turn 51...
- Turn 84: Second town converted. I had 3 towns and 3 cities.
- Turn 93: Third town converted. 4 cities and 2 towns. The GPT down from 107 to 92.
- Turn 102: Fourth town converted. 5 cities, 2 towns. GPT down from 145 to 135.
- Turn 106: Fifth town converted. 6 cities, 1 town. GPT down from 245 to 234.
- Turn 110: Sixth town converted. 7 cities, 0 towns. GTP down from 293 to 284.
- Turn 113: Founded my eight town and immediately converted it to a City. GPT down from 293 to 286.
As you can see, the impact on gold isn't huge, possibly because I converted them fairly late in the age - and due to the fact none of them were specialised.
An interesting "benefit" of not specialising towns (or converting them all to cities), is the fact that it always gives you at least one easy way out when it comes to crisis policies :
Final shoutout of the age goes to my scout Patrick, who survived the entire age. On the final turn, he gave his dog one last pet, climbed up his tower, and was never seen again.
Transition to Exploration Age
I did the transition to the Exploration age, and before choosing my legacies, I was on +128 GPT. After choosing to keep all my cities as cities, this went down to -34 !! Can't remember this happening before... Am now building bazaars in all 8 cities, which should more than rectify the situation. Luckily I've got a stockpile of 2287 gold!
For the first time I chose the Confederation legacy, which means -2 Settlement limit, but a massive +100% influence towards befriending IPs!
Using Fealty and 1 militatristic attribute point I got my settlement limit to 9. This means that for the first time I'll ignore the economic path in Exploration entirely. I'm obviously not ignoring scouting the distant lands, cause I want those IPs! There's plenty to explore:
With all my bonuses, befriending now costs only 114 points. I've got 563 influence points in the bag + I got a bonus of 50 influence from a turn 2 event, so I could start befriending 5 IPs on turn 2!
I counted, and theres a total of 20 IPs on our continent: 3 economic (all friendly), 3 science (all friendly), 7 cultural (5 friendly), 7 militaristic (4 friendly). And who knows how many are lurking in the distant lands?
I'm making 86 influence points per turn, so I can befriend a new IP almost every turn .
Let's not forget about "my" Weyiang palace, which rudely resides in Catherine's ex-capitol Baak! My army got scrambled during transition, so I'm moving all my troops SE to attack her and get my 9th settlement. From there, who knows what'll happen? Can I get all 20 city states + a fair few on distant lands?
If you made it this far, hope you enjoyed it and maybe even learned a thing or two? I know I did!
Wish me luck for the next Age!
Yes this game is incredible in that way! It could also go the other way though, you're having an epic game, the age transitions, you pick it up again the next day and you can't get into it again.
I've got nothing against the new age transition system, by the way, in fact I love it (I seem to be in the minority ), but I try to play at least a few turns into the new age if I have to stop playing.
I've completed every game I've played so far. In Civ VI I don't think I've ever completed one game. I went straight to Diety and since I didn't know the game well enough, I would lose interest and restart. This time I started at lower difficulties and made sure I finished the games. Working on my 7th Diety Victory and having an absolute blast.
Yeah, definitely not the case at all. Maybe it's because it's a Small Pangea? Maybe the alliances had something to do with it? Ashoka was my only hostile neighbor. Charlemagne and Tubman were too far away to affect me.
And the Tjatys can be brilliant! I typically only build them towards the end of the age when there's nothing else important to build, but should try building them earlier as they can be really powerful. I just dislike the randomness of which type you'll get.
Yeah, I think my last two were both the Wonder-building ones but luckily I still had Monks Mound to build. Maybe the solution is to offer 3 random Tjatys and pick which one you prefer at the moment. Kind of what they used for Inquisitor beliefs in Civ VI (I think? it was one of the religious units)
Only made it to turn 30 in Exploration age but for some reason, the only sign of Ashoka can be found in history books.... O and I took Tubman's stupid Capital
Not sure about your last sentence, you're saying the AI needs help with this - yet you're the one who don't realise most bonuses can only be chosen once?
Let me clarify lol I was aware that bonuses can only be chosen once. I wasn't aware that this was a global effect not a per Civ effect. I just never have come across a moment yet where I'm selecting a CS bonus, and I see a significant chunk of the bonuses missing because the AI selected them. At most I've seen an AI with 2 maybe 3 CS's, so it just never registered.
In your game that you mention, even if one AI has 4 of the 6 CS's, you still have 4x more CS's than the best AI. This is what I mean by the AI needing help. The player should have more resistance when it comes to claiming IP's. Like for your game, I think the ideal number of CS's you should have ended up with is about 10. Either the AI needs to compete for CS's better (I don't think I've seen a case where the AI has put more than one round of influence into befriending an IP) or maybe be more aggressive militarily (O you're trying to get nice bonuses from that IP next to me? Let me just go over there and flatten their settlement) They seem to toy around with IP's as opposed to just annihilating them.
I sometimes miss the notifications of the AI suzeraining an IP, but from my experience it seems that the AI prioritises the unique units and especially the 50% commander bonus.
As for the technology research: the market is indeed on the opposite side of the tree from the monument, but not from the library - in fact it's the next tech after Writing!
Towns vs Cities debate
In order not to make this too long (it's only the first age after all!), let me sum up my conversion of towns to cities. As mentioned earlier I finished with 8 full cities, which was the cap (thanks to the +1 settlement limit from a military CS):
- Turn 70: First town converted to city. This was way later than I had hoped, mainly due to Himiko declaring on me on turn 51...
- Turn 84: Second town converted. I had 3 towns and 3 cities.
- Turn 93: Third town converted. 4 cities and 2 towns. The GPT down from 107 to 92.
- Turn 102: Fourth town converted. 5 cities, 2 towns. GPT down from 145 to 135.
- Turn 106: Fifth town converted. 6 cities, 1 town. GPT down from 245 to 234.
- Turn 110: Sixth town converted. 7 cities, 0 towns. GTP down from 293 to 284.
- Turn 113: Founded my eight town and immediately converted it to a City. GPT down from 293 to 286.
As you can see, the impact on gold isn't huge, possibly because I converted them fairly late in the age - and due to the fact none of them were specialised.
Transition to Exploration Age
I did the transition to the Exploration age, and before choosing my legacies, I was on +128 GPT. After choosing to keep all my cities as cities, this went down to -34 !! Can't remember this happening before... Am now building bazaars in all 8 cities, which should more than rectify the situation. Luckily I've got a stockpile of 2287 gold!
For the first time I chose the Confederation legacy, which means -2 Settlement limit, but a massive +100% influence towards befriending IPs!
Using Fealty and 1 militatristic attribute point I got my settlement limit to 9. This means that for the first time I'll ignore the economic path in Exploration entirely. I'm obviously not ignoring scouting the distant lands, cause I want those IPs!
Yikes negative gold to start an Age? Wouldn't have that problem if you had some towns
I also tried out this legacy for my game. Too easy to get all CS's. Only problem was when all the wars started. Lost a few CS's. Not sure about all the benefits, but I noticed that even when the CS was eliminated, I would still retain the bonus. Like combat strength and gold % for example. I know for a fact you still would be able to build the unique improvements, but I didn't realize the other bonuses would still exist. If a CS is eliminated, the bonus should be too. This might help balance out the great benefits CS's can provide.
Yikes negative gold to start an Age? Wouldn't have that problem if you had some towns
I also tried out this legacy for my game. Too easy to get all CS's. Only problem was when all the wars started. Lost a few CS's. Not sure about all the benefits, but I noticed that even when the CS was eliminated, I would still retain the bonus. Like combat strength and gold % for example. I know for a fact you still would be able to build the unique improvements, but I didn't realize the other bonuses would still exist. If a CS is eliminated, the bonus should be too. This might help balance out the great benefits CS's can provide.
You could also provide an increasing cost
For every CS you are befriending or suzereined, the next one takes more influence to start befriending (reduced cost back if someone else suzereins it first)
Yikes negative gold to start an Age? Wouldn't have that problem if you had some towns
I also tried out this legacy for my game. Too easy to get all CS's. Only problem was when all the wars started. Lost a few CS's. Not sure about all the benefits, but I noticed that even when the CS was eliminated, I would still retain the bonus. Like combat strength and gold % for example. I know for a fact you still would be able to build the unique improvements, but I didn't realize the other bonuses would still exist. If a CS is eliminated, the bonus should be too. This might help balance out the great benefits CS's can provide.
There is one downside to losing a CS as far as their abilities are concerned. Any that say +whatever combat strength or yield per CS suzerained will go down.
There is one downside to losing a CS as far as their abilities are concerned. Any that say +whatever combat strength or yield per CS suzerained will go down.
So this is what I thought, and admittedly I didn't confirm this, but it seemed like the combat bonuses remained the same even after I lost city-states. Definitely, could be wrong though.
I've completed every game I've played so far. In Civ VI I don't think I've ever completed one game. I went straight to Diety and since I didn't know the game well enough, I would lose interest and restart. This time I started at lower difficulties and made sure I finished the games. Working on my 7th Diety Victory and having an absolute blast.
I guess I didn't explain myself properly. What I meant is that if I have to stop playing for the day, say it's way past bedtime, and I'm having a blast... And the age transition comes along, which makes me even more excited, so I have to finish it.
If I then immediately save and stop playing, sometimes it's hard/slow to get back into it the next day. So I always play some turns first, set some goals and production queues, plot some tacks - and then I call it a night.
I very rarely abandon a game anymore, I finish basically all of them.
Earlier on I would abandon a game if I was too far ahead in Modern, but then I learned you don't level up your leaders very fast if you don't finish the games.
Your comments on the AI needing help with IPs make perfect sense now, and I totally agree!
They need to put more effort into befriending them, even if that means giving the AI a further advantage such as a lower cost of befriending. I like your military idea too! As well as the suggestion from @Krikkit1 .
I would like to see the possibility of spending (a lot of) influence to try to sway an already befriended CS to your civ. And would definitely like to see a cap on the stacking, it's ridiculous to get +32 combat bonus like in my screenshot!
You're right about the bonuses remaining even if the CS is wiped out, this doesn't make sense and should get fixed (I reported it to them!).
And yep, there is a notification every time an AI you've met suzerains a city state, but sometimes I miss a notification or two for whatever reason.
Yes, there's 10 civilizations, but only 8 at a time fits in the top-right corner. If you look closely you'll see that there's an arrow icon on the right and left side of the leader area, to scroll back and forth. It's a pain to be honest, I've got an ultrawide screen so would like to see all 10 at a time and not have to keep clicking back and forth.
But I guess I can't complain compared to you, I see you're playing on a Playstation, and I've heard rumours that resource allocation isn't all that fun...
So this is what I thought, and admittedly I didn't confirm this, but it seemed like the combat bonuses remained the same even after I lost city-states. Definitely, could be wrong though.
But I guess I can't complain compared to you, I see you're playing on a Playstation, and I've heard rumours that resource allocation isn't all that fun...
Yeah.... resource management and unit micromanagement is a little bit unbearable right now. I specifically try to do less in my games now, so I won't have an enormous amount of units or resources to manage.
(Note: this is on Deity difficulty). I played the Exploration age, it was as easy as they come. I finished so many future techs (4) and future civics (2) that I only had 9 treasure fleets! Didn't help that the only good locations were on the other continent, I screenshotted my 2 main cities on the other continent, I can't believe how good those cities were but the age ended on turn 79 before any of those 10+ turn 4-resource treasure fleets could get home.
I never build exploration age wonders but I got almost all of them. Maybe Hawaii after Maya with Ada is a cheat code or maybe the AI is just worse now? It certainly seems that way. Honestly after the initial war which didn't take many turns to take Waset and the rest of Anima's on-continent cities, and taking Ashoka's best 4 cities, it was mostly next turn without much drama, and pretty boring, so I probably won't finish this one out. The attribute trees are mostly done too, already.
For completeness sake I finished this one up, only 66 turns in modern age. Economic was one turn from done, and culture 2 turns, science a little farther, but military won out again. Along the way I eliminated Ashoka and Frederic, and had Ben Franklin on the ropes, 2 or 3 more turns and he would have been done as well.
i started another with Ada/Maya, taking only the +1 exploration +1 diplomatic cards (my standard ones), to see if the previous game was a fluke or if I started it on the wrong difficulty. It was apparent that it was not a fluke, this time I started in the center east of the map with Frederic/Egypt directly north of me, Tecumsah/Maurya to the SW, and Lafayette/Rome to my NW. This time I had iron working before they attacked me, so the war went about as well as could be, took one city from Frederic, everything except Tecumsah's capital (multiple walled tiles on an island, impossible really in Ancient Era), was building my 7th and 8th wonder when the age ended, but got all the other paths, and ended on 13 settlements because I settled 3 on the last turn for a +1 culture point quest. 4 cities with Maya's unique building, so that will result in domino during ensuing ages. Did both Future techs (2) and a Future civic. Same basic start with civics, got discipline late then mysticism but it didn't seem to hurt, could defend against city states with 2 hulche. The nearby friendly scientific city state helped, as well as getting Layfette on my side with 2 cities having gold, I had 2 more so purchases were very cheap. I can see how the rest of the ages will go, so I will stop this game and try something else next time.
One thing I have noticed is that the AI settles their cities much later now, the second city is pretty quick, but they are very late to cities 3 and 4.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
), but I try to play at least a few turns into the new age if I have to stop playing.
), here's a summary of my Antiquity age run!
), Economic 20/20 (Silk Roads Golden Age).
but luckily I still had Monks Mound to build. Maybe the solution is to offer 3 random Tjatys and pick which one you prefer at the moment. Kind of what they used for Inquisitor beliefs in Civ VI (I think? it was one of the religious units)
O and I took Tubman's stupid Capital
