[R&F] Where to settle?+early game help

WideCoast

Warlord
Joined
Nov 17, 2013
Messages
163
Hi!

Sorry I do this this way, but I just lost everything when I was almost ready and it was a struggle, because I'm a potato in this kind of things. And I'm looking for errors in what I do :D

Anyway, I tend to look for fresh water, plains hill & preferably as many 4+yields in the first or second ring of my first city. I'm comfortable to move one or two turns, but 3 is where there needs to be a natural wonder or smthng like that for me to consider it. It's same for the next two cities, but I don't put so much emphasis on fresh water and then rest I just usually put where I can get the most land&districts.

I usually go for scout -> slinger -> settlers in the first city to get them up and running as fast as possible.
The rest I guess I usually do monuments/granaries/traders/few workers/troops if necessary, but I like to postpone workers a bit to benefit from magnus' skill set and enjoy that +1prod from forest for eg. at the start. That's also why I like to have good yield tiles in the first two rings.

Russia:
I moved one right to get that luxury and 2f2p1c citycenter. It was also freshwater site, sorry for bad picture :D
Spoiler :




Indonesia:
Now that I looked the picture again, I think I would probably settle on the cocoa, because of 2f1p3g citycenter and having two 2f2p tiles available immediately. The one I had in mind before was that green one.
Spoiler :




Arabia:
I would go one right, because of getting 2f1p1s citycenter and having that 2f2p tile workable immediately instead of 3f cattle.
Spoiler :




Brazil:
I would stay put, because of that 2f3p tile, but I was tempted to go on top of elephants to get 2f3p1g citycenter.
Spoiler :




Cree:
I really hated this one, but I would stay put, because I was at plains hill
Spoiler :




Norway:
I settled where I started and even before I remembered to take the picture... :D But yeah I stayedput, because of that 2f2p tile & two 2f1p tiles to work immediately, two 2f2p stone tiles in the 2nd ring and lot's of cattle and stone in the vicinity.
Spoiler :




E: Finally figured out how to put the images in the "text department" xd
E2: The problem is I feel like I hit a slump in earlymid-/midgame
 

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Why are the pictures there two times ? :shifty:

E: Got it sorted, but as you can see I'm bad at this :thumbsup:
 
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A good starting location will help you but won't make or break your game (apart from stupidly good or bad of course ... starting on a 2 tiles island totally surrounded by ocean would probably break your game). You appear to have a good understanding of where to place cities (plain/hill, on luxuries, near freshwater, those are all basic concerns) and your initial build order while not really focused isn't terrible either so if you are having troubles it's probably how you play on from that start.

It would be interesting to know which difficulty you are playing and what's your global strategy (are you trying to build peacefully, expand through conquest) and what kind of troubles you actually have (did you loose because you got conquered, did you just "loose" because barbarians plundered everything and you considered you wouldn't come back, did you loose because an AI was faster than you at victory?).
 
Well that's the reason I like to start that way is that it doesn't bind me to anything and I can start going for SV for eg. if I find a good science natural wonder in the early turns or smthng like that. Glad to hear it's not terrible and I'm not entirely clueless on settling cities :lol:

I'm playing on Emperor and I try to build my own cities, but if I notice I have room only for like 2 cities I'm going to war and of course that's the thing I forgot to write again.. But I can usually fend off barbarians and early aggression atleast long enough to get more troops out to fend them off properly with the starting warrior and scout&slinger I built and it seems to me that the problem is earlymid/midgame where everything starts to feel slow and I got nothing finished already, I feel like I slowdown/hit a slump or smthng if it makes any sense. I can't finish games in one sessions so that's usually about the time I get off and next time I turn Civ on I usually startover, because that slump feels too big so I can't say for sure who would win :D

And I usually play with almost everything random and "suffle"map to keep things "more exiting".

I decided to start a new game to hopefully pinpoint where I go wrong. I'll keep it under spoilers and update it there.
Spoiler :

So I got France, which I don't really like and neither did I really like that start either...
T1:
Spoiler :

But after a bit of pondering I decided to settle on the woods.


I went AH->mining->archery, because gorgo denounced me on t9 so I concluded that it's gonna be war anyway so might aswell start it and I kept churning slingers out.
T22:
Spoiler :

Sended one slinger to scout ahead and then a wild settler appeared and I decided to start the war.


T32:
Spoiler :

Finally got the settler "back home". I decided to settle on the diamonds to sell them for gold, altought if I would have moved it one more turn to the right I would have had 2f2p tile to work. Now I'm indecicive should I buy a worker or not on the new city with 200g. And yes I think I have "too many" archers, but I rather have one too many and have faster war than one too less.


I ended up building trader and buying one worker in the capitol, because I saw that Greece had a worker and pretty upgraded landscape.
T67:
Spoiler :

Destroyed Greece and added few settlements, but others beat me to few of them, because that war postponed my settlers and Arabia decided to DOW me 2turns after I accepted open borders for 1gpt...



T69:....
Spoiler :



Atleast I got emergency for it and swam in gold after taking back Rennes, but unfortunately my game crashed, after I took Medina aswell, for the first time for some error 09x0x90x0x02+34 or smthng like that :( But yeah I guess I'll end this, since I'm starting to think that it's probably pretty hard to spot mistakes with SS being 20-40 turns apart when so much can happen in just 2 turns... but feel free to tell me if you disagree. (I'm starting a new game if you do, since I hate to play france :D)


E: Updated 12.12.
 

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Reserved just incase and is it easier to read/follow if the images are inside of spoilers of their own?
 
OK, so you're not actually loosing the game, you're loosing the motivation to play further. That's actually wayyyy harder to solve.:dunno:

Production cost scales a lot faster in Civ6 than in previous Civs. Not only do new units and buildings get more costly, your basic infrastructure (districts) and civilian units (builders, settlers) also cost more as the game progresses. That's one of the reason why wide-conquest is the dominant meta (at least for players who care about being "efficient", which is often measured in fast victories).

Provided it's really the production cost that causes this "slowdown" there's a couple of ways to work around that cost increase and keep producing stuff.
  • Upgrade old units rather than build new ones. This is mostly relevant for militaristic players but even for defence it's often easier to build old units and upgrade them. At Emperor you shouldn't be rushed as early as you would at Deity (unless Monty or Chandragupta is next door) so you might actually delay a unit tech (EG Stirrups) long enough to build several of the old unit (Chariots in this case) and then upgrade them. This way you are paying part of the cost in production (for a cheap unit) and part as gold.
  • Don't care about production and buy stuff. You can buy any unit and building. It costs 4 gold to replace 1 production but you tend to generate 2* gold compared to production so you're actually only paying twice the cost doing this, however you can use gold from all your cities to help a single small one get started or quickly assemble an army.
    If you can get into a Classical/Medieval golden age, consider the Monumentality GA. It lets you buy civilian units with faith and reduces their gold cost. You can quickly get several builders and settlers this way, especially if you have a strong pantheon (Goddess of Harvest just makes this stupidly powerful)
  • Chop down forests and harvest stone. Especially with Magnus, you can get a district up and running really fast this way. The amount of production increases with your tech/civic level which is also the factor affecting districts cost and districts can't be bought. This is the most efficient way to get a new city productive quickly.
  • Run an internal TR to a high production city. If you can't/don't want to chop forests, a TR to a city with IZ, Commercial Hub and Encampment will give you +4 production/turn which can really speed up new cities development. Note that this is less efficient than chopping + buildings purchase with an external TR providing gold but it's an option.
  • Build mines and get Apprenticeship. For "mature" cities with enough population (around 7, you don't need to go too high in Civ6) a bunch of mines with the Apprenticeship improvement to production will really help you produce things at a reasonable pace. Don't just try to put farms and grow your cities. Population is mostly important for districts limits in this game.
  • Build an IZ in the middle of mines. This is probably the first thing new players will try and also the less efficient but if you have a lot of mines an IZ can help your city produce stuff fast and can be used to help other cities with trade routes. I wouldn't try to build the Workshop thought, unless you really have nothing to do. Use that city to crank Workers.
  • Don't build to many workers before Feudalism. Their cost increases purely based on how many you already built so wait for that +2 charges card before mass producing them. Don't fall into the opposite thought and build too few of them, you still need a bunch of workers to improve your lands. Governor Liang is useful early giving +1 charges to workers produced in her city. Also if you plan to build/capture the Pyramids save your 1 charges workers as they will get a free charge once you get the wonder.
  • Try to decide a victory earlier rather than later. You don't need a lot of Theater Squares (if any) when going for Science and don't need many Campuses when going Religion. If you concentrate on the districts you need you won't have to grow your cities as large to build every district everywhere which means you can work more productive tiles and build stuff faster.

And yes, it's easier to see the pictures when you put them in spoiler tags. Every attachment always shows at the bottom of the post so don't worry if the pictures appear to be shown twice.
 
Thanks a lot!
Well I guess that IZ thing is atleast one point I'v been doing "wrong".
That worker thing is also one that seems pretty interesting, never thought it that way. I did once do that "trick" with building workers till 1 turn left with all cities before feudalism and then when I got it I built them from worst to best city in production and the "jump" was pretty huge.
I seriously have no clue what I'v been using my money for, but buying buildings haven't been a money hole that's for sure.
 
I seriously have no clue what I'v been using my money for, but buying buildings haven't been a money hole that's for sure.
Can't blame you for that, i'm usually spending more money on tiles and workers than anything else but if you're going Science and don't have a religion with Jesuit Education buying a Library just after you finish the campus in a new city can help you and isn't too expansive. Once you start rolling in money you can buy more stuff and you can actually get a lot of money with international trade routes and the right cards. That's one of those situations where you have to choose between production (internal TR) and money (external) and production isn't necessarily the best choice even if it seems more obvious.

Nothing "wrong" with an IZ either but i certainly wouldn't spam them everywhere to get better production (no longer anyway), that's because :
  • The production boost isn't very large without mines while you don't really need it when you have mines.
  • The IZ doesn't directly help you towards any victory so if you build it, that means you're building it so you'll build "the real stuff" faster later, but if the real stuff is another district you need to grow your city bigger before you can build that district which means working farms rather than mines and in the end you might not actually build stuff faster, but you'll sure start it later.
That means IZ have become very situational for me. I might throw one in a city that can have a really large production and i know i can grow it large fast (this means a lot of hills or mining resources and some jungles and/or marshes to clear for instant growth) plus also some heavy food tiles (wheat on floodplains or the like) to prevent my entire population from starving, even thought it's not actually bad for your game if they starve after you placed your districts, but i don't like to starve my people, if only i could move them to another city.
 
Never really thought it that way.. I just usually thought that it's more hammers so everything will come faster later :rolleyes:
 
Russia, correct, Indonesia however I would settle on the swamp, the early culture cannot be underestimated for culture, money and selling value, Arabia yes, Brazil yes, Cree no, anywhere but where you are, incense to north, cotton to south or any bare plain hills, given the choice for fresh water I would take it over the coast... but plains hill 1 Ne is better that where you are and give great starting production. Norway 1NW probably, fantastic Great Zim start and that pasture culture from pantheon would be great. Culture is king early.
I would certainly fit a builder in before a settler personally.
 
Do you guys usually build Granaries? I'v been trying to stay away from them, especially in the later cities.
 
It depends whether you want to grow large or not.
The +1 food isn't much but the +2 housing does help to grow. I tend to fit them somewhere in my build order for my first 4-5 cities (those i plan to grow) when i don't have anything important to build or simply buy them (they are not very expensive).
For cities i don't want to grow beyond 4 (this gives you 2 districts and costs 1 amenity, the 3rd district at 7 pop will cost you 2 more amenities as amenity cost is rounded up if i'm not mistaken) i won't build them unless the +1 food allows me to work a specialist slot for culture/science.
Never really thought it that way.. I just usually thought that it's more hammers so everything will come faster later :rolleyes:
The question is what sort of "everything" need to come faster later?
  • For Science Victory the projects cost so much that it will take forever to hard-build them anyway. You can also speed them up with the latest Great Scientists (almost instantly building them all - but at lower difficulties you won't be able to recruit him because the AIs won't help you to recruit the previous ones) or with Workers when you have built the Royal Society (T3 government building). It takes 3 turns (and 3 full-charges workers) to finish a space project this way.
  • For Culture you don't really need to build anything late game. Archaeologists can be bought faster if you have enough gold. Wonders can help but are not strictly necessary especially if you have accumulated tourism for a long time with early Theater Squares and/or relics. If i plan to get some late game wonders for Culture such as Eifel Tower or Christo Redentor i will try to have a very production heavy city with an IZ but i just need one of those. You can also simply chop those if you have a city with lots of forests/stone left.
  • For Religion you really don't need to produce anything but Holy Sites and early culture to get to Theocracy fast.
  • For Domination there's a lot of way to get units without hard-producing them but again, if you plan to hard build armies in the late game all you really need is one city with a huge production.
Note that i'm not, by far, the best player around. I can usually win on Deity if not rushed by some strong military civ like Aztecs or India (Chandragupta) but i will finish 100-150 tuns late compared to the best ones :o
 
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Do you guys usually build Granaries? I'v been trying to stay away from them, especially in the later cities.
For extra science bonuses having a pop 10 city, yes. For any other, no, not for that reason. Granary when next to a culture wonder early can really help, every culture point is heaven early... up to a point, so there are exceptions.
 
Hi again @Lord Yanaek and @Victoria ! :D

There's one save. I guess I'm a bit past the "slump", since I think I was "feeling" it, but then I got into a war and decided to push back.
Idk how much you can say just from a savegame, but feel free to point stuff that I'm doing wrong etc.

Cheers!
 

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OK. I had a quick look at the save. Can't really see how you played the game from a T300ish game but anyway :
  • A lot of things have changed with GS and some of the things i said earlier are no longer valid. Victoria will probably be able to tell you more as i haven't played a lot of GS games yet but tall(er) is once again valid, at least for a couple cities with the new Pingala and Reyna so growing your capital bigger (and earlier) can help for Science/Culture. Clear-cutting all forests might also not be the brightest idea now as you have more risk to suffer from some disasters without forests. I haven't tested at all but i tend to be a lot more careful and don't play Magnus as much (my first gov is now Pingala and i try to get both Culture and Science from population ASAP).
  • Did you decide a VC yet? Seeing the promotion on Pingala and the Spaceyard in production at Erzurum i would guess you're going for Science. Or are you just playing to play the game without any focus on VC at all? (nothing wrong with that, but some advices won't apply if you're not going for a specific VC).
  • If going for Science you'll have to move Pingala to your spaceport city (it's also slightly bigger). I think the GS no longer allow you to complete several projects at once (no overflow) so i suggest you build the Royal Society and have a stock of workers when you start cranking space projects if you want to speed them up.
  • Why were you trying to build Orz...thing? Diplomatic Favour is mostly for diplomatic victory. You're not going for that VC are you? I see a bunch of Wonders without any focus. Did you capture those or did you build them just because you had nothing to do? City Projects are usually a better idea than trying to go for a Wonder you don't really need.
  • What's that spy doing in Antananarivo? Trying to make Trajan angry at you? :p You have 1 envoy and he has 17, even with scandals you won't become suzerain before the game is over. Spies are long to build and can't be purchased so use them on something that helps you reach your VC.
  • Even for someone who's not very fast like me, i think you should be a bit further in both Techs and Civics tree at nearly T300. Not sure when but you didn't have enough at some point. As said above, the new Pingala encourages you to grow at least one city so contrary to what i said 2 months ago, you should try to have a nice large city with both Campus and Theater Square early in the game to help with your research and civics progress. That means more farms and eventually running one internal trade route to help grow.
  • Good idea going on Gilgabro, he tends to become a big runaway in many games but you don't have enough troops. Did you loose many units during the game or did you really produce nothing? I tend to build 3 slingers and 2 warriors (for a total of 3) when i have Agoge policy. Then i try to build 3 chariots and 2 horsemen. Later i upgrade those units. This helps with many Eurekas and is usually enough to defend you or prevent enemies from declaring war because you appear defenceless. It's also a good start for a counter strike if you still get into a war. Even thought i didn't play them yet, Ottomans appear to be a conquest-centric civ so i think the best way to grow them would be to conquer a lot of cities as those have +1 free amenity, freeing luxuries to grow a bunch of "core" cities (not sure how many of those cities were self founded).
  • Take Buenos Aires that's sitting in the middle of your lands and is allied to your enemy. If you're waging war, others will hate you anyway.
  • I'm not a big fan of the Great People cards, they don't make much of a difference apart from very early. Not a big fan of Great Engineers either so i would at least drop that one.
  • A lot of unimproved tiles in some cities so unless those cities were recent captures you didn't use enough workers. It's been a long time since you got Feudalism, you should have better lands.
 
Thanks!
OK. I had a quick look at the save. Can't really see how you played the game from a T300ish game but anyway :
  • A lot of things have changed with GS and some of the things i said earlier are no longer valid. Victoria will probably be able to tell you more as i haven't played a lot of GS games yet but tall(er) is once again valid, at least for a couple cities with the new Pingala and Reyna so growing your capital bigger (and earlier) can help for Science/Culture. Clear-cutting all forests might also not be the brightest idea now as you have more risk to suffer from some disasters without forests. I haven't tested at all but i tend to be a lot more careful and don't play Magnus as much (my first gov is now Pingala and i try to get both Culture and Science from population ASAP).

Yeah, figured. I was way late into the game than I thought. So basically have two big or atleast one with pingala cities in addition to those who can get the +10pop bonus to what you want ?

  • Did you decide a VC yet? Seeing the promotion on Pingala and the Spaceyard in production at Erzurum i would guess you're going for Science. Or are you just playing to play the game without any focus on VC at all? (nothing wrong with that, but some advices won't apply if you're not going for a specific VC).
  • If going for Science you'll have to move Pingala to your spaceport city (it's also slightly bigger). I think the GS no longer allow you to complete several projects at once (no overflow) so i suggest you build the Royal Society and have a stock of workers when you start cranking space projects if you want to speed them up.

I was going for a science victory, but I guess I forgot it at some point when Gilgamesh got aggressive... So sort of yes, I think I'm still trying to achieve it.
Oh didn't know that. I thought I'd build atleast one more to maybe speed it up a little by building them simulataneously.

  • Why were you trying to build Orz...thing? Diplomatic Favour is mostly for diplomatic victory. You're not going for that VC are you? I see a bunch of Wonders without any focus. Did you capture those or did you build them just because you had nothing to do? City Projects are usually a better idea than trying to go for a Wonder you don't really need.

Both. I captured few and built some of them, because I had nothing to do. Okay, I'll stick to projects in the future!

  • What's that spy doing in Antananarivo? Trying to make Trajan angry at you? :p You have 1 envoy and he has 17, even with scandals you won't become suzerain before the game is over. Spies are long to build and can't be purchased so use them on something that helps you reach your VC.
  • Even for someone who's not very fast like me, i think you should be a bit further in both Techs and Civics tree at nearly T300. Not sure when but you didn't have enough at some point. As said above, the new Pingala encourages you to grow at least one city so contrary to what i said 2 months ago, you should try to have a nice large city with both Campus and Theater Square early in the game to help with your research and civics progress. That means more farms and eventually running one internal trade route to help grow.
  • Good idea going on Gilgabro, he tends to become a big runaway in many games but you don't have enough troops. Did you loose many units during the game or did you really produce nothing? I tend to build 3 slingers and 2 warriors (for a total of 3) when i have Agoge policy. Then i try to build 3 chariots and 2 horsemen. Later i upgrade those units. This helps with many Eurekas and is usually enough to defend you or prevent enemies from declaring war because you appear defenceless. It's also a good start for a counter strike if you still get into a war. Even thought i didn't play them yet, Ottomans appear to be a conquest-centric civ so i think the best way to grow them would be to conquer a lot of cities as those have +1 free amenity, freeing luxuries to grow a bunch of "core" cities (not sure how many of those cities were self founded).

Oh, okay. I just decided to try it out, didn't know how much or how often you would get their envoys away! Then again a little thinking and it wouldn't make sense that you'd be able to remove 17 envoys in a few turns :D How can I speed up my VC with spies? :o
About that tech/civic thing might that be because of lack of eurekas/inspirations? Usually I tend to try and do them at the start, but then the game goes on and I forget about them. Might be again a stupid question, but why bolded?
I didn't really build up my army, but yes I had a bigger one at some point, but I lost a few and then formed corps from the rest so their number definitely dropped quite a lot. That's why I guess I was fighting a defensive war altought I got few cities. (been a while since I last played that game).


  • Take Buenos Aires that's sitting in the middle of your lands and is allied to your enemy. If you're waging war, others will hate you anyway.
  • I'm not a big fan of the Great People cards, they don't make much of a difference apart from very early. Not a big fan of Great Engineers either so i would at least drop that one.
  • A lot of unimproved tiles in some cities so unless those cities were recent captures you didn't use enough workers. It's been a long time since you got Feudalism, you should have better lands.

Will do now that I picked this game up again. I had to put my troops to the south, because there werent many and gilgamesh had so it just stayed there killing its troops to my citys ranged attacks.
Okay, will focus on that. So before Feudalism only like resources etc. improved and then after almost everything? xept that pingala city.
 
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Yeah, figured. I was way late into the game than I thought. So basically have two big or atleast one with pingala cities in addition to those who can get the +10pop bonus to what you want ?
That's how i try to play now : a few big cities supported by lots of small or a bunch of medium ones. Pingala can really give you a lot of Science and Culture with 2 promotions as 1/pop is quite a lot, especially early and he will give +15% on top of that from his starting ability. Later in the game when you have a dozen cities with research labs it's not that great but early it makes a big difference.
Reyna is another good candidate for a big city if you can get the 2 gold/pop promotion. Again it's not that much if you''re doing 500 gold/turn from trade but can definitely help.
The 10pop cards is another reason to have big cities but you won't be able to maintain high amenities everywhere if you have nothing but 10+pop cities and negative amenities will reduce every yield so you would have to do the maths. I don't even always use those cards anyway but they reward tall play, yes.
Oh didn't know that. I thought I'd build atleast one more to maybe speed it up a little by building them simulataneously.
Well, having several Spaceport is another option but you can speed the projects a lot with workers. Note that i haven't played the new science victory yet so i don't know how much additional spaceports could help with the later projects that make your ship travel faster. Anyway Pingala have to be in the city that will build most of the projects as his ability only affects the city he's in.
Both. I captured few and built some of them, because I had nothing to do. Okay, I'll stick to projects in the future!
Wonders are a fun waste of time, a bit like playing a video game.:crazyeye:
There's nothing wrong going for wonders if you have fun playing that way but they require a lot of resources if you want to win that mini-game so they will almost always reduce your efficiency unless they really help your victory. The only wonders i would consider for science victory would be Oracle if i can get it early and Kilwa something if i can be sure i will stay suzerain of 2 scientific CSs.
Oh, okay. I just decided to try it out, didn't know how much or how often you would get their envoys away! Then again a little thinking and it wouldn't make sense that you'd be able to remove 17 envoys in a few turns :D How can I speed up my VC with spies? :o
You can use them on a civ that's ahead of you in science to steal Eurekas and use them defensively to protect your spaceports and the city center where Pingala will be. AIs will attempt to disrupt your efforts and for me they tend to be successful when there's no counter-agent unlike my offensive spies who inevitably fail:gripe:
About that tech/civic thing might that be because of lack of eurekas/inspirations? Usually I tend to try and do them at the start, but then the game goes on and I forget about them.
Might be as those make a big difference. Another possibility is that you didn't start producing enough culture/science early enough so you were a bit late for the next tech/civic that helps you gain more science/culture and so in the end you end up much later. Civ6 is all about snowballing and the later you start the snowball effect, the worse it will be. There's very few catch-up mechanisms.
Might also be that progress is a bit slower in GS, i don't have much experience with the new expansion so take it with a grain of salt.:dunno:
EDIT : Thinking again, actually your tech isn't that bad. Not great but not really bad. You still have a long way to go for a science victory but you now need more techs than before so pre-GS time is probably not a good comparison (but i don't have another one). You should definitely have a T3 government though so more culture would have helped. It's easy to overlook culture in a science game but you need enough to reach T3 government. Seeing you only have a single GW of writing you probably didn't build a theatre square until very recently. It's possible to play without TS for science but then you need other sources of culture. Your Pantheon helps but isn't enough. Colosseum can help (it's another wonder that could be worth building, don't remember if it's one of those you had). Pingala promotion does (it's the first one i take after recruiting him). Some civs have unique improvements that help. Running TRs to cultural CS or Major civs with Theater Squares does help. But you definitely need more than just Monuments and your Pantheon.
Might be again a stupid question, but why bolded?
You're talking about the internal trade route?
They provide food in addition to production so they can help a city grow. Before GS i would always use internal TR going from a new city to the capital to help them get started. Now i think it might be worth keeping one from cap to a high food destination to help cap grow faster for Pingala.
I wouldn't use too many that way thought (unless maybe playing Inca) as an international TR can give you science and culture immediately rather than later when population grows, in addition to gold.
Will do now that I picked this game up again. I had to put my troops to the south, because there werent many and gilgamesh had so it just stayed there killing its troops to my citys ranged attacks.
Well, you don't have to capture that CS but unless you can quickly end the war with Gilgamesh (with your army i have some doubts, but then if he lost a lot of troops already he might propose a good peace deal) it will stay as an annoyance in the middle of your empire sending troops to plunder trade routes or pillage stuff.
Okay, will focus on that. So before Feudalism only like resources etc. improved and then after almost everything? xept that pingala city.
Well, it's never a simple "always do that" rule but basically yes. Before Feudalism you improve just enough to grow and have some production for cheap ancient units and districts because every builder increases the cost of the next one. If you have a lot of resources improving those in priority is a good idea, especially luxuries/strategics that you can sell for a good price but don't limit yourself to only that. Some farms can help grow a lot as they provide not only food but also housing (1/2 per farm) and a pair of mines (especially after Apprenticeship) really help your production a lot.
After that, you make as many mines/lumber-mills as you can work, and as many farms as needed to grow to the size you want (usually one that allows a new district or 10 for the cards) which might be more than you will work (for housing). You can always remove it later if you want to place a district or replace it with a Neighbourhood for quick cash with the right card. You definitely shouldn't have unimproved wheat T300 anyway, even on a secondary city, either farm it or harvest it for quick growth.
Note that you don't have to keep the serfdom card always active. The best way to play it is to produce a batch of workers, then use another card and slot it again when you need more workers.
You don't have to improve every tile if you can't work them, but you really have a lot of unimproved tiles in some cities, unless those were recently captured from Gilgabro and the Zigguratopia just vanished of course, thinking of this right now.:hmm:
 
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Okay, thanks a lot! I'm starting to think that "slump" was because I lost focus instead of going for a specific VC.

Here I thought I was becoming decent at this game and then I go and realise that only one copy of amenity is useful to me without trade, lol. Been thinking 2 = 8 amenities since day 1...... Suddenly restricting pop makes so much more sense and so does trading with the AI.. Here I have been holding on to every goddamn citrus I can get my hands on xD

Zigguratopia was at south, but Im at fault also since there was few unfarmed wheats with my own built cities :rolleyes:

You're talking about the internal trade route?
They provide food in addition to production so they can help a city grow. Before GS i would always use internal TR going from a new city to the capital to help them get started. Now i think it might be worth keeping one from cap to a high food destination to help cap grow faster for Pingala.
I wouldn't use too many that way thought (unless maybe playing Inca) as an international TR can give you science and culture immediately rather than later when population grows, in addition to gold.
Okay, makes sense. I thought there was something "hidden" that I didn't know of :p

Well, it's never a simple "always do that" rule but basically yes. Before Feudalism you improve just enough to grow and have some production for cheap ancient units and districts because every builder increases the cost of the next one. If you have a lot of resources improving those in priority is a good idea, especially luxuries/strategics that you can sell for a good price but don't limit yourself to only that. Some farms can help grow a lot as they provide not only food but also housing (1/2 per farm) and a pair of mines (especially after Apprenticeship) really help your production a lot.

Well in a game like this it's way too complicated so "rules of thumb" are more than fine! =) You can't possibly cover every possible scenario..
 
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Hi! I'm kinda unsure regarding settling, because I had quite a lengthy break.

Anyway, I decided to settle in place, since that Amber is not on fresh water. Should I have settled somewhere else?
Spoiler gotm Canada start. :


Cheers!

WideCoast
 

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