What'll be your first game on patch 1.2.2?

[Leucarum]

The Inca and Nepal changes are luring me to a Pachacuti game. I'll be firing it up in 10 mins or so and find out which antiquity civ draws me in...

 

[MutilationWave]

The Inca and Nepal changes are luring me to a Pachacuti game. I'll be firing it up in 10 mins or so and find out which antiquity civ draws me in...

Mississippians! Mississippians!

 

[Leucarum]

Mississippians! Mississippians!

I tried Maurya for their UQ working off mountains too... But mountain spawns are still extremely rare it seems. I've done at least 10 restarts on continents plus and not seen more than 1-2 mountain tiles in range of my capital... All I want is a mountain game!

 

[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.

Been thinking a lot about this since your post yesterday, and I do have a question: How much space do you leave between your settlements?
I always try to leave six hexes between all my settlements. Of course, it depends on the map type, on archipelago I sometimes end up with just 3-4 hexes between certain settlements (and other times more than 6). Then again I don't play archipelago very often.

The reason I'm asking is that I suspect that settlements with less space are more suited to remain towns.

Also, the more I read about this town vs city debate, the more confused I get, there's so much conflicting advice out there! Would love to see a proper guide (or ideally a video playthrough) of a town-focused strategy.

 

[Berrern]

Mississippians! Mississippians!

I recently played a game with them for the first time, and it annoyed the hell out of me.
I play with a lot of ranged units, and those damn burning tiles kept burning my own units and/or slowing down my momentum! Need a better strategy for my next game with them, heh.

 

[MutilationWave]

I recently played a game with them for the first time, and it annoyed the hell out of me.
I play with a lot of ranged units, and those damn burning tiles kept burning my own units and/or slowing down my momentum! Need a better strategy for my next game with them, heh.

How about that two tile one movement pillage though? Insane- worth a bit of the old hot foot.

 

[Suicidekills]

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

Haha glad you liked it! To each their own! (not sure I'd be advertising the old thing though.... ) but with a new game like this, especially one going outside the box compared to previous versions, you gotta try everything out and see what works for you. I say this fully convinced that based on your playstyle, you can find a way to make it better with towns. On the other hand, it goes to show that there are many ways to play Civ VII efficiently compared to previous iterations. What's their saying? "Build something you believe in"?

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

Excuse me?! So you haven't reaped the rewards of 15% science, culture, gold, and happiness across all your settlements following your religion? Have you not done the Exploration Culture legacy path??! It's one of the easiest ones of the age!

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.

This confuses me even more.... The game's too easy so you keep doing the same boring thing without challenging yourself?! Nah, all jokes aside definitely play the game how you want.

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

Yes, it is true your town stops growing, but the food doesn't disappear, it just gets dispersed among qualifying cities. Additionally, your towns are automatically providing gold from their gold and production outputs. Add a specialization like hub town and now you got a settlement feeding your cities, providing a good chunk of gold, and providing diplo influence. Sometimes, I don't specialize them. Maybe I still need access to resources. Maybe my cities are already good on food. Maybe I plan to convert it into a city. These are just a few thoughts regarding the town mechanic.

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!

Yes, you must! My second game will be Isabella as Carthage on a Huge map so you should join me.
Augustus/Rome would also work.

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

I decided to go with Egypt with the idea of picking Shawnee in the Exploration age. I was inspired by your adjacency comment and moved my settler one spot to make way for a future Necropolis with +5 gold desert and +4 happiness navigable river adjacencies. By the way, if there's a Wonder on a desert tile, would I get double adjacency? I got excited to find Mount Everest early as it provides 4 tiles of +2 diplo influence and it was next to a navigable river, but the AI beat me to it by 2 turns I decided to adjust my location and now Ashoka is angry with me. Would love to take that Mount Everest settlement away from him but have been trying to go more peaceful and defensive. I'm attempting to see how long I can survive without an Army Commander...not going very well haha. All three surrounding IP's spawned as hostile lol so taking a minute to gain suzerainty. Going to settle my third settlement on a navigable river....We'll see how it goes!

Been thinking a lot about this since your post yesterday, and I do have a question: How much space do you leave between your settlements?
I always try to leave six hexes between all my settlements. Of course, it depends on the map type, on archipelago I sometimes end up with just 3-4 hexes between certain settlements (and other times more than 6). Then again I don't play archipelago very often.

The reason I'm asking is that I suspect that settlements with less space are more suited to remain towns.

Also, the more I read about this town vs city debate, the more confused I get, there's so much conflicting advice out there! Would love to see a proper guide (or ideally a video playthrough) of a town-focused strategy.

It varies depending on the situation. In the game I mentioned above, all 3 of my settlements are at least 6 hexes apart. I do agree with your thinking that a settlement just 3 hexes away could be more suitable as a town. I've provided my two cents about towns above. Playing Carthage will be your best bet on exploring the town mechanic.

 

[Suicidekills]

Catherine was killed by hostile IPs.

That's hilarious. What difficulty is this? Also, after one hour what turn are you on?

 

[Disgustipated]

My first game currently is Trung Trac playing with Mauryan civ in antiquity and Majapahit in Exploration. I'm just starting modern era where I left of and I'll be playing Siam. Standard size Pangea plus map. I only turned off the plague crisis, and I kept all the legacy victory conditions on for every age.As for difficulties I did play custom difficulty, I didn't change too many options around in there, but in the future I may mess around even more with those settings.

Nothing too dramatic this game, I had to stretch out the exploration age to the very end in order to get enough treasure convoys for economic legacy path. That said, I still find myself liking the Pangea map over the Continents plus map.

I didn't do too much warfare, but I did mostly annihilate Hatsheput, someone else finished her off in the exploration era.

 

[Sagax]

On the topic of Cities vs Towns: there was indeed an argument circling around this forum (and also propagated by a few YouTubers) that an all-city strategy is just straight up better than keeping any towns. The justification is basically that stopping your town growth to feed cities is not worth it, and no amount of specialization can catch up with the yields you obtain from well-developed cities.

The audience here remained largely unconvinced, but couldn’t definitively rebuke it either. The prevailing counterpoint was mainly “we just like less micromanagement”.

I don’t know if the debate has changed after updates to the growth curve, but take it as you will.

 

[Disgustipated]

All I want is a mountain game

Play pangaea plus. I get so many mountain ranges and cliffs, it can be a challenge to explore in the antiquity age.

 

[Suicidekills]

I tried Maurya for their UQ working off mountains too... But mountain spawns are still extremely rare it seems. I've done at least 10 restarts on continents plus and not seen more than 1-2 mountain tiles in range of my capital... All I want is a mountain game!

Hmmm, I believe my second game ever turned into a mountain game. I wanna say I played Continents plus. My capital didn't really start with much mountain but there were a couple of good mountain ranges in settling range. The real benefit to mountains comes in Exploration age with the Incans and continues with Nepal in the modern age. In that game for Exploration, I ignored distant lands and focused on expanding to mountainous homelands keeping in mind the best locations for Terrace farms. That would be my recommendation, don't get frustrated that you don't start off next to mountains, but definitely set yourself up in Antiquity to make an expansionist push in Exploration. And once you accomplish that in Exploration, Nepal will thrive in Modern. Also, I love Sherpas. It's so much fun to say.

 

[Disgustipated]

On the topic of Cities vs Towns: there was indeed an argument circling around this forum (and also propagated by a few YouTubers) that an all-city strategy is just straight up better than keeping any towns. The justification is basically that stopping your town growth to feed cities is not worth it, and no amount of specialization can catch up with the yields you obtain from well-developed cities.

The audience here remained largely unconvinced, but couldn’t definitively rebuke it either. The prevailing counterpoint was mainly “we just like less micromanagement”.

I don’t know if the debate has changed after updates to the growth curve, but take it as you will.

Personally I prefer most of my settlements to be cities. The exception being if there just isn't room to put a whole lot of districts (like small islands I settle just for resources in the exploration age). If it has a decent number of production tiles, and I have the money to convert, it's going into a city.

 

[MutilationWave]

On the topic of Cities vs Towns: there was indeed an argument circling around this forum (and also propagated by a few YouTubers) that an all-city strategy is just straight up better than keeping any towns. The justification is basically that stopping your town growth to feed cities is not worth it, and no amount of specialization can catch up with the yields you obtain from well-developed cities.

The audience here remained largely unconvinced, but couldn’t definitively rebuke it either. The prevailing counterpoint was mainly “we just like less micromanagement”.

I don’t know if the debate has changed after updates to the growth curve, but take it as you will.

I think that debate is finished. I'd say at least 50/50 cities to towns, probably more towns than cities. The best players on the forum right now playing the GoTMs are only using three cities in modern. I think one of the current best ever games was 4 cities in antiquity, 7 in explo, and 3 in modern. They are winning on deity in roughly 180 total turns for all ages. 30 turn wins in modern.

 

[Suicidekills]

Personally I prefer most of my settlements to be cities. The exception being if there just isn't room to put a whole lot of districts (like small islands I settle just for resources in the exploration age). If it has a decent number of production tiles, and I have the money to convert, it's going into a city.

I forgot to ask Berrern in my post, so I'll ask you... how many settlements do you typically have? Do you keep within your limit or go over? What are your solutions for gold? The more cities, the more buildings, and the more happiness and gold maintenance. I understand you can negate these within the age with efficient play but once you move on to the next age you have a bunch of obsolete buildings draining your gold and happiness. Yes, overbuilding is a thing but it takes time. If you had like 8 settlements going into Exploration, by what turn would you plan on having all settlements into cities?

I think that debate is finished. I'd say at least 50/50 cities to towns, probably more towns than cities. The best players on the forum right now playing the GoTMs are only using three cities in modern. I think one of the current best ever games was 4 cities in antiquity, 7 in explo, and 3 in modern. They are winning on deity in roughly 180 total turns for all ages. 30 turn wins in modern.

Yeah, my last game I think I finished with 3-4 cities. To me, towns are there to support your cities and once your empire is ready to expand, you can convert them, but I don't think the idea of turning all your cities into towns as fast as possible is as efficient.

 

[Leucarum]

Play pangaea plus. I get so many mountain ranges and cliffs, it can be a challenge to explore in the antiquity age.

In the end that's what I did, but I do like the distant lands being populated so it's not my favourite solution!

Hmmm, I believe my second game ever turned into a mountain game. I wanna say I played Continents plus. My capital didn't really start with much mountain but there were a couple of good mountain ranges in settling range. The real benefit to mountains comes in Exploration age with the Incans and continues with Nepal in the modern age. In that game for Exploration, I ignored distant lands and focused on expanding to mountainous homelands keeping in mind the best locations for Terrace farms. That would be my recommendation, don't get frustrated that you don't start off next to mountains, but definitely set yourself up in Antiquity to make an expansionist push in Exploration. And once you accomplish that in Exploration, Nepal will thrive in Modern. Also, I love Sherpas. It's so much fun to say.

Mountain starts do happen... Just never when I want them

I do enjoy sherpas but I thought they were consumed upon use rather than being usable once every 3 turns. I built 30 in preparation for building mountain powrr plants then realised I was gonna have to spend 10 minutes deleting my excess.

I had a fun first game in the end. The changes to Nepal mean there is finally a modern era civ that I like playing!

 

[Disgustipated]

by what turn would you plan on having all settlements into cities?

Perhaps I exaggerate how many settlements I have as cities. I find antiquity era I have the highest percentage of settlements that are cities, but even that takes time since gold is hard to come by in the early game. By the end of antiquity age it's probably over 50% of my settlements are cities. In exploration age I usually only start off with 2 cities. I try to have around 5 halfway through. By the end I'm sure less than 50% of my settlements are cities. In the modern era I usually select the option to keep my cities as cities, and I usually don't add too many more, maybe 1 or 2. 7 is a number I seem to gravitate towards.

After seeing the above post about 3 in modern, maybe I have too many. But aesthetically it's what I prefer. When I see a town that has a huge land area that isn't really being used for anything, it seems wasteful to me. So yeah, if I have a lot of tiles to put districts, I will consider making a town into a city even if it's not the ideal meta.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

That's hilarious. What difficulty is this? Also, after one hour what turn are you on?

I was on turn 50, although about 10-15 minutes at the beginning was spent combing through the new advanced game options. It was Governor difficulty.

 

[Sagax]

I do enjoy sherpas but I thought they were consumed upon use rather than being usable once every 3 turns. I built 30 in preparation for building mountain powrr plants then realised I was gonna have to spend 10 minutes deleting my excess.

Wait what? That was definitely not the case pre-patch, a Power Station would consume the Sherpa for good.

Another undocumented change?

 

[MutilationWave]

Perhaps I exaggerate how many settlements I have as cities. I find antiquity era I have the highest percentage of settlements that are cities, but even that takes time since gold is hard to come by in the early game. By the end of antiquity age it's probably over 50% of my settlements are cities. In exploration age I usually only start off with 2 cities. I try to have around 5 halfway through. By the end I'm sure less than 50% of my settlements are cities. In the modern era I usually select the option to keep my cities as cities, and I usually don't add too many more, maybe 1 or 2. 7 is a number I seem to gravitate towards.

After seeing the above post about 3 in modern, maybe I have too many. But aesthetically it's what I prefer. When I see a town that has a huge land area that isn't really being used for anything, it seems wasteful to me. So yeah, if I have a lot of tiles to put districts, I will consider making a town into a city even if it's not the ideal meta.

Oh I agree, we play similarly regarding town vs city distribution. I almost always take both keep your cities legacies, I probably end up 50/50 as well but with more settlements overall.

It's not efficient, it's how I like to play. And the game is so easy even on deity that I don't really need to optimize the fun out.

I have yet to get competitive in a GoTM, but when I do, I'll be playing differently.