[GS] Won my first CV, feedback ( T232 Emperor )

[Hazmy]

Good evening!

First of all thank you so much for all the information that is spread on this forum, it helped me tremendously to start learning the game that I was always intimidated from to start! Now I've decided I'd like to join here aswell.

Today my roughly...7th total game, I've finally won my first Cultural Victory, and to my surprise it was faster than I've imagined I would get. Turn 232. It could have been a little bit faster - with my knowledge - but I made some lazy mistakes at the end.

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My Issue:
I'd like to ask some assistance and help on the other hand as I seem to have some major issues where I just start to fall behind a lot around turn 80-120 where most players I see on deity just boom their civilization.

As an example I see others reach 120 science with 270 Culture, where I am just around 60 Science with 130 Culture....pretty much halved. Not to mention I have abysmal gold income.

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My Early Game:


I think I should tell, I try to have peaceful games, and avoid warring.

I try to settle as many cities as possible, to reach 8-9 cities by turn 80, later I aim for 10-11 cities. Meanwhile I explore and maximize both my trees by researching and switching until I can boost them all. Scouting goes as it should. I sell my luxuries as soon as I can and spend that money on settlers, trade Open border for money.

I already fall a bit behind, as I can't seem to get Government by T50, more like T62 or so, and so all falls behind.

My new cities usually start with monument then go on with settler/builder depending on how late cities they are. I also place districts as soon as I can, but leave them there for later.

This goes on around until T90-100 where I get Feudalism, switch to builders and start making my districts - mostly Theatre and Campuses.

( I got a terrible Congress decision though that for 30 rounds I couldn't generate writer points, so that hindered me a bit )

THIS is where I know I fall off and I don't understand why.

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I start making builders and also the districts I've already placed down, builders improve tiles needed and chop for Cities with Magnus, in this game I also managed to chop Oracle, a great Colossus for 6 cities and a good Petra i think.

Despite this looking great for me, I immediately started struggling with really slow production, really slow districts and I end up with the earlier mentioned stats, instead of what...they should be.

True, I have won the game, but interestingly enough I think it was because the AI was terrible at culture instead of me doing things right.

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I am still not sure what and how I should describe my games when I am trying to ask for help, but really all feedback and assistance would be welcome, or if you have further questions please ask, I am not sure where I am messing things up.

Cheers and good to be here!

( I've attached the final turn save )

 

[playshogi]

The reason you fall behind is because you have to anticipate what you'll need in 20-30 even 50 turns ahead. And you have 11 cities, a dozen units, diplomacy etc etc etc. and you are probably like me playing at blitz speed. But if you stopped to think and plan, a game would take whole month to play.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

OK. I must say that i don't have experience with the new expansion so maybe some mechanics have drastically changed but based on my experience prior to GS.

• Your results are far from bad and your finish time is more than decent.

I think I should tell, I try to have peaceful games, and avoid warring.

• That's where you're failing. The very fast players are very fast because they have double the amount of cities a peaceful player have. Their own and those of their 2 closest neighbours. Nothing wrong with playing peacefully but unless GS totally changed the game, a peaceful player will never be as fast one who conquers everything close-by. Personally i hate it when every game is just a disguised domination, no matter what's written on the so-called victory screen so i tend to be mostly peaceful when i'm not going for Domination but i know i will never have the same finish time. From what i've read with the new pillaging you might actually not have to conquer their cities, just pillage them

True, I have won the game, but interestingly enough I think it was because the AI was terrible at culture instead of me doing things right.

• Learn to live with that. Anyone who wins at a high difficulty does it because the AI was terrible. Terrible at culture, terrible at science, terrible at war and plain terrible at everything. No way we could win against all it's bonuses if the AI had half a "brain"

 

[Hazmy]

I am currently attempting to try settling more than 11 cities before t100 - not sure how realistic but maybe I don't have enough cities to work with.

At least I know which stage of the game I am falling off, I'll update here when I can

Since then, I managed to win on Immortal so soon...going for that Deity. I think I can reliably win, but I am not happy with 300 turn matches.

Not for ego or anything, simply those games get too long for my liking, and I'd like to speed it up.

 

[kb27787]

Early game don't rush to expand in GS (although on emperor you can still do that).

Rush early culture as much as possible, focus on growth (0.3 culture per/pop--palace has now been buffed to give a lot of housing now) and monument... purchase a slinger into archer. Try to declare friendship with your neighbors if possible.

Then, get Pingala and put him in your cap. Get +1 culture/pop... this should double or triple your culture output. Beeline for political philosophy and then drama and poetry. Slot the +2 writer card and push culture. You will have plenty of time to expand and they made settler costs apparently not scale as much as it did; no reason to produce settlers until the +50% card is in place at least and your cap is hitting its housing cap. Ancestral hall strong as ever, and you do not worry about the wasted pop (no need for early Magnus) if you are already at housing cap. This means quite later in the game.

Lay down theatre squares everywhere and forget early campus (Pingala also has +1 science per pop which is better than a splendid campus by far).

Beeline tier 3 government and cold war; always take the culture cards over the science ones... (computers now heavily nerfed)... get some form of faith generation when you start reaching renaissance (no need for early holy sites, but you would want to build them once theatres and markets are already down). Get a rock band with +2 on wonder tiles and take them on tour. That should speed your win up into under 200 or early 200s depending on the civs in your map.

Of course I'm assuming you want to play PEACEFULLY, just for the sake of it. If you war then just smash all the capitals and win. Still peaceful play is not that slow... thanks to the new Pingala promotions. It's not the number of the cities, its the size of your capital which matters early on (kinda a throwback to BNW somewhat)

 

[hsj]

Early game don't rush to expand in GS (although on emperor you can still do that).

Rush early culture as much as possible, focus on growth (0.3 culture per/pop--palace has now been buffed to give a lot of housing now) and monument... purchase a slinger into archer. Try to declare friendship with your neighbors if possible.

Then, get Pingala and put him in your cap. Get +1 culture/pop... this should double or triple your culture output. Beeline for political philosophy and then drama and poetry. Slot the +2 writer card and push culture. You will have plenty of time to expand and they made settler costs apparently not scale as much as it did; no reason to produce settlers until the +50% card is in place at least and your cap is hitting its housing cap. Ancestral hall strong as ever, and you do not worry about the wasted pop (no need for early Magnus) if you are already at housing cap. This means quite later in the game.

Lay down theatre squares everywhere and forget early campus (Pingala also has +1 science per pop which is better than a splendid campus by far).

Beeline tier 3 government and cold war; always take the culture cards over the science ones... (computers now heavily nerfed)... get some form of faith generation when you start reaching renaissance (no need for early holy sites, but you would want to build them once theatres and markets are already down). Get a rock band with +2 on wonder tiles and take them on tour. That should speed your win up into under 200 or early 200s depending on the civs in your map.

Of course I'm assuming you want to play PEACEFULLY, just for the sake of it. If you war then just smash all the capitals and win. Still peaceful play is not that slow... thanks to the new Pingala promotions. It's not the number of the cities, its the size of your capital which matters early on (kinda a throwback to BNW somewhat)

How reliable is low city count in the early game in GS? I've gotten DipV and SV around mid 250 turns and all relied on settling massive amounts of cities, just like in RnF.

 

[kb27787]

How reliable is low city count in the early game in GS? I've gotten DipV and SV around mid 250 turns and all relied on settling massive amounts of cities, just like in RnF.

I've gotten sub CV 200-win with this strat on deity as I wrote above. Pop does not translate to culture very well aside from Pingala... getting that measly 0.3 culture/pop a few dozen turns earlier from extra cities is nothing compared to the 1.3 culture/pop (and +15% on top of that) in your tall capitol; so one more pop in your capitol is worth more than 4 pop elsewhere in terms of culture. Think BNW tradition opener... With science the difference is less (1.7 +15% in capital compared to 0.7 in other cities), but still pop in capitol is >2x better.

Of course, this means that food is a lot more valuable now than in RnF. Low food high cog starts make for slow early games (however, that scenario would be better for early unit production and war... however a peaceful tall strategy is now at least a viable alternative with Pingala's new promotions whereas in RnF that approach was severely suboptimal).

t250 is rather late (for culture wins even with both Greece and Russia in the game I can usually manage early 200-210's... and that was my first game with the civ in question; I feel with Maori I can do it much earlier now thanks to their UB)

You will expand very quickly once ancestral hall comes and your settlers take 2 turns to complete in the cap. Moreover the timing will be around theatres come up (so even if you had expanded earlier you couldn't fix the district price anyway... with ancestral hall your new cities now have a free builder to top it off so you can chop or harvest food to give your nascent city a significant boost).

 

[pkaem]

As decribed above, first two points in pingala into magnus. I chopped out apadana and the libary and beelined for print. I don't know if it's worth the even more delayed expansion but I am testing on emperor. I think this will be hardly doable on deity. I think I will chop out the hall in my 2nd city there and just grab as much land as I can and built theateres and commercial hubs.

 

[kb27787]

As decribed above, first two points in pingala into magnus. I chopped out apadana and the libary and beelined for print. I don't know if it's worth the even more delayed expansion but I am testing on emperor. I think this will be hardly doable on deity. I think I will chop out the hall in my 2nd city there and just grab as much land as I can and built theateres and commercial hubs.

In my experience, those wonders are not really important (although if you are Sweden, then I can understand). Important thing is to get culture and great writer output rather than wonders. An early wonder does help drama civics boost, but one is enough. In GS though AI does not build so many wonders (even on deity) such that you can afford to hard-build some... I would actually chop out settlers because you get more value for your chop (100% with ancestral hall and colonization).

 

[pkaem]

In my experience, those wonders are not really important (although if you are Sweden, then I can understand). Important thing is to get culture and great writer output rather than wonders. An early wonder does help drama civics boost, but one is enough. In GS though AI does not build so many wonders (even on deity) such that you can afford to hard-build some... I would actually chop out settlers because you get more value for your chop (100% with ancestral hall and colonization).

Was with Incas, wanted to play around with the aqueduct things aswell. Indeed it was very bad. T240. I just got the wonders for the early writer slots with an super early theatre, pol. P and print, but meh. Just built holy sites then and purchased rockbands. Quite fun.

 

[hsj]

I feel like if I had to drag the game on to rock bands, it has to be around 240-50 before one band survives and snowballs off wonder performances.

I'm interested in the settings you used for sub 200 victories. Standard Speed/Continent/Deity? How many Civs? Which ones? And what was the victory condition?

 

[Victoria]

Now I've decided I'd like to join here aswel

Welcome and good on ya, the more the merrier!

T62 or so, and so all falls behind.

No, it’s fine, it’s a measure mainly for getting knights faster, it’s hard to always get T50 unless you nowtook Pingala first. Knights =15-20 cities which is better.

I immediately started struggling with really slow production

well yes, if you have chopped your trees. You have to assess each city... so chopping in a Uni is not possible immediately... wait until your chop power is higher.... last tree chopped and no production... then place your pop in as specialists
As well said already, planning, planning amd more planning. The devil is in the detail.
262 culture by T100 is not always possible.
Hopefully you are slotting the Raid card and using it well.

 

[kb27787]

I feel like if I had to drag the game on to rock bands, it has to be around 240-50 before one band survives and snowballs off wonder performances.

I'm interested in the settings you used for sub 200 victories. Standard Speed/Continent/Deity? How many Civs? Which ones? And what was the victory condition?

Deity Pangaea 8 civ standard. Standard speed. Was Sweden at that time and culture victory without a single war.

Auto theme doubles culture as well as tourism so she just flies through the civic tree with Pingala... All you need is stuff like UB in government plaza, Hermitage and natural history museum in your capital and before you know it you get to cold war in the renaissance..

 

[Victoria]

I'm interested in the settings you used for sub 200 victories. Standard Speed/Continent/Deity? How many Civs? Which ones? And what was the victory condition?

I pretty much play standard map, continents, standard everything, no advanced options and 90% of my games are with Victoria... have played one deity with her since GS and it was turn 220 victory. It is harder with her, try Mongolia, Persia, Sumeria, Macedon, Maori, Rome, Noobia, they are sub 200’s. Victoria can do it but it depends on situation, especially at the start. Any victory condition ... RV In particular is faceroll.

 

[kaltorak]

I've gotten sub CV 200-win with this strat on deity as I wrote above. Pop does not translate to culture very well aside from Pingala... getting that measly 0.3 culture/pop a few dozen turns earlier from extra cities is nothing compared to the 1.3 culture/pop (and +15% on top of that) in your tall capitol; so one more pop in your capitol is worth more than 4 pop elsewhere in terms of culture. Think BNW tradition opener... With science the difference is less (1.7 +15% in capital compared to 0.7 in other cities), but still pop in capitol is >2x better.

Of course, this means that food is a lot more valuable now than in RnF. Low food high cog starts make for slow early games (however, that scenario would be better for early unit production and war... however a peaceful tall strategy is now at least a viable alternative with Pingala's new promotions whereas in RnF that approach was severely suboptimal).

t250 is rather late (for culture wins even with both Greece and Russia in the game I can usually manage early 200-210's... and that was my first game with the civ in question; I feel with Maori I can do it much earlier now thanks to their UB)

You will expand very quickly once ancestral hall comes and your settlers take 2 turns to complete in the cap. Moreover the timing will be around theatres come up (so even if you had expanded earlier you couldn't fix the district price anyway... with ancestral hall your new cities now have a free builder to top it off so you can chop or harvest food to give your nascent city a significant boost).

where do those numbers come from? 0,3 culture/pop and 0,7 science/pop?

And another question, you talk about delaying settlers beeing good now, but what about competing for the land against the AI for the cityu spots?

 

[kb27787]

where do those numbers come from? 0,3 culture/pop and 0,7 science/pop?

And another question, you talk about delaying settlers beeing good now, but what about competing for the land against the AI for the cityu spots?

I think the numbers there have not changed since RnF... But you can easily notice how much your science and culture increases per pop in an actual game (you start with 1.3 cpt for example, 1 from palace and 0.3 from pop... Once you reach size 2, you see it has gone up to 1.6)

If surrounded by AI even then Pingala first can be good too since you get more science and culture early with him so you can quickly get the tech for either horses or knights. Moreover fast expanding puts you at risk of getting backstabbed by AI (you hit one AI and while your army is away another AI hits your lands from the back) not to mention barbs...

When your empire has less surface area it is easier to protect... A single size 6 city is better than two size 3 cities early on where there are no districts.

Fast expand is OK if you have only one AI to deal with.

To be honest I rarely run out of land to expand to (play Pangaea) you don't need 10 cities straight up... You can get by with 4-5 and then adding more much later when you have cultural alliances available.

 

[kaltorak]

Thanks. Don't get me wrong, I prefered tall than wide, but I also dont like to play unefficiently. I am asking precisely bc I would love to change to a more tall strategy, which is usually bad in civ6 as far as I knew

 

[kb27787]

Thanks. Don't get me wrong, I prefered tall than wide, but I also dont like to play unefficiently. I am asking precisely bc I would love to change to a more tall strategy, which is usually bad in civ6 as far as I knew

It's not really tall Vs wide... It's more like tall early, wide later.

There is always a drawback to very early expanding and missing out on the early great writers.

 

[Iberian]

It's not really tall Vs wide... It's more like tall early, wide later.

There is always a drawback to very early expanding and missing out on the early great writers.

Honestly coming from Civ 5 this was hard to comprehend. Building a city after your 4 city tradition start was basically useless. In Civ 6 you can get a lot out of later cities. I typically try to jump start them with a trade route and buying at least the monument and granary to start. Get a builder to go in with the settler and you can build some high ROI cities even into the modern eras.

REXing in this patch isn't as powerful as it was in Civ 5. I still get at least 3 cities up early but then rely on faith purchasing settlers for my next round of expansion and those typically out of a newly founded city just up to pop 2.

 

[kaltorak]

REXing in this patch isn't as powerful as it was in Civ 5. I still get at least 3 cities up early but then rely on faith purchasing settlers for my next round of expansion and those typically out of a newly founded city just up to pop 2.

Do you mean "as it was in vanilla and R&F"? Otherwise I dont understand this.