[R&F] Your Best Little Strategies

[NoonePerson]

For low level play:

1. Eurekas and inspirations are king. On higher levels you may want to beeline techs or civics, but on low levels, leaving a tech half complete if you know you're going to get the boost saves precious turns.

2. Upgrades are solid in this game. Keep troops alive during the barb/scout phase. Stick to rough terrain near barbs and never fight over rivers earlier on if you can help it. Take merc civic and professional army policy for discount upgrades to maximise Gold saved mid game. Refer to civilopedia and tech tree for upgrade paths for units.

3. As in all civs, vision and map awareness = opportunity. If you see an unprotected civilian unit early on, surprise War and take it. If you're sieging a barb encampment but you're parallel to an AI doing the same, let the AI do the work then get the final hit and capture for the gold. If you're lucky enough to be isolated with a city state early on, annex while no one is looking.

 

[Victoria]

On higher levels you may want to beeline techs or civic

You will find eureka's/inspirations are part of that bee-lining. - every cloud of eureka's has a silver bee lining.

never fight over rivers earlier on if you can help it

This is not true, know thine modifiers and circumstance and strike where it will speed your game up.

If you're lucky enough to be isolated with a city state early on, annex while no one is looking.

Do I like the CS and want to keep it... no, then take it regardless, its early days, its what the Romans would do.

Seems like you have a good general handle on the game but missing some subtleties. hence @Lily_Lancer 's earlier strike to your heart.

 

[NoonePerson]

You will find eureka's/inspirations are part of that bee-lining. - every cloud of eureka's has a silver bee lining.


This is not true, know thine modifiers and circumstance and strike where it will speed your game up.


Do I like the CS and want to keep it... no, then take it regardless, its early days, its what the Romans would do.

Seems like you have a good general handle on the game but missing some subtleties. hence @Lily_Lancer 's earlier strike to your heart.

Yep. All these strategies are standard difficulty ones I've used, so I can't claim to know anything above that.

A lot of them are also hand me downs from previous civ games. Early map awareness I think is very key because those first few turns are just so crucial no matter what map size or difficulty you're on.

Though I still wouldn't attack over a river if I can help it

 

[Victoria]

Early map awareness I think is very key

Sometimes you may want a dark classical age so exploring is out but mainly exploring does slow down expansion and quite a few good players will try and open builder-settler.
This version of civ has a bit more choice.

 

[eleven11]

1. Take what's given to you. Anticipate when it's no longer conducive to taking or will simply be gone (Classical Age ending, AI conquered CS, expansions sites gobbled up). Prioritize accordingly.
2. I don't care what level of difficulty you play, an early military will unlock options for you. Build it and USE it. Conquering a CS, dealing with Barbs, taking out your nearest neighbor, map control, exploring, military deterrence, WAR, defending against 20 war-carts, CS delegates, Eurekas, Inspirations, etc etc
3. Anticipate what you could be doing in 10, 25, 50 turns in both a perfect world and if predictable setbacks occur.
4. Determine early what type of victory condition to pursue but also think of a Plan B.
5. Break the tech and civic tree up into 10, 25 turn goals that work towards your victory condition. Adjust your science and culture per turn to meet those goals.
6. The long game is 2 phases: Exploration/Exploitation/Expansion and End Game. Learn when you have achieved all you can efficiently achieve with the first phase and move to the end game.

 

[Victoria]

BTW @NoonePerson my original list may seem jokey but is rather serious, especially rule 1 and rule 17. I also recommend rule 48, there you get to play the same map as others and can ask questions / get tips. The speed some people can do these games in is awesome and the maps are never boring.
Just ignore 10 & 14.

 

[NoonePerson]

BTW @NoonePerson my original list may seem jokey but is rather serious, especially rule 1 and rule 17. I also recommend rule 48, there you get to play the same map as others and can ask questions / get tips. The speed some people can do these games in is awesome and the maps are never boring.
Just ignore 10 & 14.

Your guides are lit. I was especially impressed by your war weariness article. Very helpful.

 

[Victoria]

Your guides are lit. I was especially impressed by your war weariness article. Very helpful.

Tx, unfortunately WW is ongoing and getting odd results, all a little annoying, wish they would just tell us.

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

One may argue you just marginalized yourself
A fun wonder nevertheless

Hehe kinda true but I like a big army - I err on the side of too much. There is definitely something to be said for building as few troops as possible to capture cities.

 

[BTSeven7]

Yep. All these strategies are standard difficulty ones I've used, so I can't claim to know anything above that.

That’s cool. The point of the thread wasn’t to start a debate over which strategies are better than others per se. It’s a complex game and I think for a lot of people the replay value is in exploring its depth. Some play for pure efficiency and some play to have a different experience or just simply do things a different way. A great thing to me about Civ6 is the journey of the build and how it never looks exactly the same. But I get in a rut and just keep doing the same things and same policy cards.

I find it fun to find little advantageous tips. They don’t work in every situation but it’s fun to find little tips that you can add to your game play. Things you never thought of before.

Diety is a game of survival, explotation and catch up. Prince is a sandbox. Your little tricks maybe cool and fun to one person and just silly to a hardcore Diety affecienado.

That being said:

1. Bring a battering ram and not archers to anything with walls. I even find it better than the siege tower.

Also settling on resources! Great little tip. I never did that before.

 

[Aristos]

2. When going for science victory or insane production build lots of IZ within 6 tiles of your production city so in the late game Magnus gives the IZ bonus effects from all of them.

This, combined with efficient use of spies, will get you out of any apparently losing scenario against the AI, up to Deity, with your one and only spaceport in same city. "Time efficiency" may or may not be an issue, if you are one of those that cares for early finishes.

 

[NoonePerson]

That’s cool. The point of the thread wasn’t to start a debate over which strategies are better than others per se. It’s a complex game and I think for a lot of people the replay value is in exploring its depth. Some play for pure efficiency and some play to have a different experience or just simply do things a different way. A great thing to me about Civ6 is the journey of the build and how it never looks exactly the same. But I get in a rut and just keep doing the same things and same policy cards.

I find it fun to find little advantageous tips. They don’t work in every situation but it’s fun to find little tips that you can add to your game play. Things you never thought of before.

Diety is a game of survival, explotation and catch up. Prince is a sandbox. Your little tricks maybe cool and fun to one person and just silly to a hardcore Diety affecienado.

That being said:

1. Bring a battering ram and not archers to anything with walls. I even find it better than the siege tower.

Also settling on resources! Great little tip. I never did that before.

I had great success with keeping a battering ram around for ages, before turning it into a medic late game.

That, and horsemen in conjunction with the pillage multiplier bonuses late game. The AI really struggles with scorched earth tactics on standard difficulty, against huge empires that have declared war on you, you can get a trickle of faith/science/gold, snipe units, peace out and get very little warmongering penalties.

Meanwhile your opponent is heavily crippled. And because of the way Districts work, they have to spend valuable turns rebuilding them.

 

[Disgustipated]

One may argue you just marginalized yourself
A fun wonder nevertheless
Good points, no 1 is a classic noob point

A very fun wonder, and easy to get as the AI usually lacks the adjacency needed to build it. That said, unless you actually plan on using those ships, this may not be the best strategy. But if you do plan on using those ships, coastal cities can be very easy to take with battleships/ironclads (later destroyers). The AI is very susceptible to these attacks because a) they cannot properly manage a Navy and b) they love building cities on the coasts.

A strategy of my own (not really as I saw someone else use this): During a war when you want to upgrade, move your unit as far as you can, but leave your last movement point to do your upgrade. Just have to be careful about hills and things using up too many movement points. That way you aren't losing too much time moving units across the battlefield when upgrading.

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

A very fun wonder, and easy to get as the AI usually lacks the adjacency needed to build it. That said, unless you actually plan on using those ships, this may not be the best strategy. But if you do plan on using those ships, coastal cities can be very easy to take with battleships/ironclads (later destroyers). The AI is very susceptible to these attacks because a) they cannot properly manage a Navy and b) they love building cities on the coasts.

A strategy of my own (not really as I saw someone else use this): During a war when you want to upgrade, move your unit as far as you can, but leave your last movement point to do your upgrade. Just have to be careful about hills and things using up too many movement points. That way you aren't losing too much time moving units across the battlefield when upgrading.

Oh I definitely use them. I wouldn't use that strategy on Pangaea - it's mainly for taking out lots of cities in a short period of time in domination games and as you mentioned the AI usually doesn't go for that wonder so it's pretty reliable. Good point on the upgrades, I also do that - especially useful with logistics and a GG.

 

[Victoria]

But if you do plan on using those ships, coastal cities can be very easy to take with battleships/ironclads (later destroyers). The AI is very susceptible to these attacks because a) they cannot properly manage a Navy and b) they love building cities on the coasts.

in 100% of my navy games I have pwned the seas... in one of them I built the Venetian Arsenal and realised I have to build ships rather than upgrade them.
Regardless its fun to spam a few ships and have a fleet in each ocean and useful for getting raiders in number, just do not encourage a noob that its a neat trick, the neat trick is getting quads and rushing to frigates to upgrade them.

 

[WillowBrook]

Install the better reports mod so you can see exactly what you're getting from each policy card. You won't have to either guess or spend time in endless counting. Very helpful for, e.g., seeing when the card that gives science from buildings starts to give more than the one that doubles campus adjacency.

 

[agonistes]

Personally, I've been avoiding building scouts and builders to start.

I tend to go warrior-settler-warrior-settler and keep going like that until I start my rush to religion.

I figure my warriors can explore and clear camps. My new cities build monuments. Its fairly uncommon for me to find a cs first with a scout, so why bother? I'll just double tap later. I'll start using builders once I can hook up resources that I can translate into gold to pay for great people, or to increase housing.

If my production is crazy good, I'll squeeze out a scout to farm settlers, or if my growth is very very slow, I'll grab a builder.

If I'm feeling pressured, I'll buy a couple of extra settlers with gold - provided it won't impair my gp hoarding.

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

in 100% of my navy games I have pwned the seas... in one of them I built the Venetian Arsenal and realised I have to build ships rather than upgrade them.
Regardless its fun to spam a few ships and have a fleet in each ocean and useful for getting raiders in number, just do not encourage a noob that its a neat trick, the neat trick is getting quads and rushing to frigates to upgrade them.

It's still a decent strategy IMO because you can pre-build 5 quads to 1 turn until completion then get double the ships by switching back after you build the arsenal which is probably more hammers than the wonder itself. Sure it's overkill but I'd still rather have 10 ships than 5 - just mentioning it because it works well for me and it's not completely obvious to new players. I'm usually focusing on my starting continent anyway so I often don't need the ships early on.

 

[agonistes]

I'd rather rush pirate ships than frigates. Rushing frigates can slow down progress to other important techs. Pirates are not out of the way. And if you are quick to pirate ships, they are just as effective long enough. Plus they are coastal raiders.

edit: in a current Scottish game, Spain and Rome, both coastal empires, dow'd on me jointly. I would have let it go - they weren't key trade partners and I wasn't doffing them... but Rome killed one of my scouts, then tried to suzy Nan Modal. Well now... bit of a faux pas there Trajan (I thought).

So I sent 1 navy to each, quads and galleys. Spain was just outclassed. But Trajan had walls, cities with just one coastal hex, and was putting warriors beneath galleys on all of his important coastal tiles, so I couldn't heal without getting scorched, and nor could I take pot shots at his walls. I sent about 12 ships, and its pretty much a draw - maybe I'm ahead in xp, and no units lost. I had to painfully buy that admiral that gives an ironclad, so I've got two solid hard-chargers headed that way, but still, fairly impressed by Trajan's tactics so far.

I guess I could spam great admirals until I have 2 battleships, but I'm playing as a not-so-wide Scotland, not as a massive Russia.

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

I'd rather rush pirate ships than frigates. Rushing frigates can slow down progress to other important techs. Pirates are not out of the way. And if you are quick to pirate ships, they are just as effective long enough. Plus they are coastal raiders.

Well with this you just pick some of each and double your output. I usually advance build a mix of melee, ranged, and Privateers.