Your Experience Starting New Game with Spring 2017 Patch

[Chibisuke]

From my experiences, if the land is flat you will pwn with an archer rush still because the civ just has not expected it,this is the case on deity too. As soon as we start talking delay due to barbs or distance and difficult terrain its not such a pwnership.The level of delay and terrain can be more the lower level you go is how I look at it. The AI now uses archers in turtle style and does not just rush in. This means you can have some real issues loosing a few archers too fast and your speed slows and then your are done, time to run.

Yes, this is a good point. Terrain is much more important now that AI us using archers effectively. They can cut down your units when you are just trying to get in range if there are lots of jungles or whatever surrounding the AI city.

My play style has had to change after the last two patches. Catapults, Bombard, Artillery, etc are becoming much more essential on Deity. Also, I have to end wars more quickly and gain as much money as I can from the war to speed up my progress. It's not really feasible anymore on deity to just steamroll a neighbor right at the beginning. They get archers and walls up by turn 30 to 40, at which point you can maybe take one city before you have to worry about the AI teching up to the next level and killing your remaining forces (either swordsmen, horsemen, or possibly knights if you take too long.)

Usually now I am focusing on taking a settler and then one city from closest AI, get peace deal where they give all money, then tech up and maybe take another city from them once I have seige units.

From that point on, ranged seige units are becoming more essential due to AI's increased ability to turtle.

 

[Leyrann]

Having finally had time to play for a while, I can say this: Alexander is freaking AWESOME (though a start with 3 spice resources next to one another doesn't hurt either). I've conquered 6 cities (3 french 3 aztec) and I'm only halfway through the classical era. On top of that, my army is extremely strong with all the unique units and a great general. I even took walled cities just by storming, and earlier on my unique swordsman (what were they called again?) could almost take Paris on his own while defended by a warrior. In the end I brought in a second to make sure, but it was a close call with just one. On top of that, it's just awesome to not have to worry about war weariness and just keep going.

Also, playing with 20 civs on a huge (pangaea) map... I haven't yet bothered to build a single Settler... And I doubt I need to, as all the city spots are getting filled up very fast.

 

[Chibisuke]

I haven't tried Alex yet. I tried Persia yesterday and can say he's pretty strong. The two biggest things thus far are his bonus movement on sneak attack and extra gold and culture from internal trade route. It allowed me to have more cash available than usual in the early game and tech up civic tree faster. Those differences became noticeable but I can't say yet that they are OP. The extra movement was nice with allowing me to steal settlers and escape more easily, and also I could preserve units that needed to retreat. Again though, I can't say he's OP at this point. His bonuses give you minor advantages but nothing game breaking. Also, the immortal is kind of nice but TBH it is weaker than I was expecting. They're really just archers that have better defense.

I think I put Persia in the same category as Rome. Solid choice but not best.

 

[gimper42]

the immortal is kind of nice but TBH it is weaker than I was expecting.

Agreed. Immortals need a stronger base ranged attack. They start 1 point weaker than an archer, and have fewer +combat strength promotions. If they were allowed to capture cities it might balance the equation.

 

[agonistes]

Agreed. Immortals need a stronger base ranged attack. They start 1 point weaker than an archer, and have fewer +combat strength promotions. If they were allowed to capture cities it might balance the equation.

And yet just before you dow you get to scream "I feel the need!" And that alone makes him OP. And better than Alex. Unless you prefer Fast Times to Top Gun. Which I admit is a tough choice.

 

[Victoria]

Also now the AI is using archers cleverly, that extra defence must be worth its weight in gold?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I think Persia's true strength is the combined Satrapies and Pairidaezas. So much gold and culture *drools*.

Stop playing slap and tickle with the neighbors in the Medieval Era and take up gardening. Watch the airliners ship in tourists.

 

[Disgustipated]

I'm seeing some old "bad" AI behavior come back with this patch. The AI is building LOTS of units again (good), but also putting those units in my territory (bad). Poland seems to want to store most of their units in North America (TSL Earth map). We are allies, but I still worry once the friendship goes away they may attack. Although they didn't do it the first time, and eventually renewed the friendship after about 5 turns. I think the AI is running out of room to put their units. I'm still not sure how they are supporting such a large army. Before it was a maintenance bug, I'm not sure about now.

Interesting the AI seems much more adept at culture victories now. China is at 50 out of about 150 tourists right now. They built a lot of wonders early on. How do I stop this? I'm not used to seeing any AI threat for culture on Prince difficulty. Will conquering China's major cities cause their tourism to go down? or prevent it from getting any higher? I'm building an invasion force right now. I'm not sure I can get my theater squares up fast enough to counter his tourism, so I may have to go the violent way.

 

[Leyrann]

I'm seeing some old "bad" AI behavior come back with this patch. The AI is building LOTS of units again (good), but also putting those units in my territory (bad). Poland seems to want to store most of their units in North America (TSL Earth map). We are allies, but I still worry once the friendship goes away they may attack. Although they didn't do it the first time, and eventually renewed the friendship after about 5 turns. I think the AI is running out of room to put their units. I'm still not sure how they are supporting such a large army. Before it was a maintenance bug, I'm not sure about now.

Interesting the AI seems much more adept at culture victories now. China is at 50 out of about 150 tourists right now. They built a lot of wonders early on. How do I stop this? I'm not used to seeing any AI threat for culture on Prince difficulty. Will conquering China's major cities cause their tourism to go down? or prevent it from getting any higher? I'm building an invasion force right now. I'm not sure I can get my theater squares up fast enough to counter his tourism, so I may have to go the violent way.

Just nuke 'em.

Tourism and culture are both added up over time. For every X culture you get a domestic tourist, for every Y tourism you get a foreign tourist. Once you have more foreign tourists than anyone else domestic tourists, you win. Both numbers can't be reduced, the only thing you can do is generate more culture (will slow it down, but the tourism vs culture is balanced with culture building up earlier but tourism eventually overcoming it and just becoming too much) or stop the other from generating tourists (by destroying their tourist sites).

 

[Siptah]

If you are not playing a game towards a cultural victory, it is usually nearly impossible to stop another civ from winning that way without waging war. Before patch, you could easily manipulate space ports to stop a science victory. Stealing Great Works was always too slow to stop someone from winning. When going for war, you still can prevent a science victory by conquering two or three cities. For culture, this is again different - you need to attack on a larger scale.

@Leyrann in your equation Y is 200. I don't know what X is though.

 

[Victoria]

Interesting the AI seems much more adept at culture victories now. China is at 50 out of about 150 tourists right now

Umm they are still not good, they seem to be throttled in the artifact arena which is so you can catch up and win. Better with resorts too now but I still get Eiffel which is great.

 

[nzcamel]

The slinger died because it was freaking impossible to get an enemy unit to the amount of health where the slinger would kill him, first he killed a warrior attacking him, which apparently didn't grant the boost for archery, and then he died to the barb slinger while I thought he'd survive.

Pretty sure you always have had to initiate the slinger combat in which the archery boost is gained. Makes for some interesting juggling... "No! Do not suicide onto my units dammit!"

That Wonder can save a lot of otherwise very bad starts. The first thing I do when I start every game of Civ 6 is press Y and look around for the wonky TDP yields.

Well...I can see why you're a better player than me! Smart

 

[Ferocitus]

It may be too soon to tell, but I think they fixed the exit freeze-up bug.

I thought that too. It doesn't happen as often, but it still seems to occur after long sessions, eg 200 turns or so.
Exiting to Main Menu, then Exit to Desktop seems to reduce it, but even that doesn't work every time.

 

[Victoria]

I still get the freeze on exit
Also slowdown in game indicates some thread contention when yours should be getting priority, someone mentioned when it was changing civic but I see it at random times while moving. They may be trying to speed things up with more parallel work and getting the opposite effect sometimes

 

[Smity2k1]

I too am getting freeze on exit. It happens less often if I quit to main menu instead of quit to desktop.

The march of progress...

 

[Naudilent]

Finally started up Civ VI last month after holding out, playing most games on Emperor setting. Played Australia yesterday, starting with Canberra surrounded by hills and isolated by mountains. Alex and Jadwiga were south of me, open terrain to the north. A & J started at each other's throats, giving me time to plant two cities that blocked any attempt to settle north of me. Alex tried to move a settler in, but I had gold enough to buy the land around it. Poor guy was stuck there for centuries. Ultimately I filled the north with cities, founded one more by the natural wonder that doubles terrain yields (and had Yosemite on a border city), and won by science. Some things:

*Alex finally DOWed me around the time I hit modern era. Artillery made quick work of his crossbows, but he had AT units as well that at least made it interesting. I brought his border city on the verge of destruction, pillaged everything, then got a very favorable peace agreement. He ultimately rebuilt his university but left the farms burning.

*China and I were friends much of the game. At one point it lapsed, and he DOWed me (while having been victimized by Poland much of the game). The attack was briefly effective, hitting a weak area in my defenses and resulting in much pillaging, but ultimately I repelled him and we made peace. Next turn we're friends again.

*Modern era, and civs are still offering hundreds of gold for Iron.

*I met Germany very late in the game, and they quickly decided not to like me. The reason given, which I hadn't seen before, was, "They just plain don't like you." Hilarious!

*The game stutters for me after policy changes. Math hard! My experience with lock up mirrors Ferocitus'. Long sessions mean game freeze.

*That Australia production bonus when DOWed is crazy.

Overall, great patch. The AI is less dumb but has a difficult time taking advantage of superior position as the game progresses, at least on Emp. A couple more games at this level and it will be time to check out Immortal.

 

[Piruparka]

*The game stutters for me after policy changes.

Ah! Me, too! i thought it was only me.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

It briefly locks up when I change policies. Only for a few seconds.

 

[gimper42]

*The game stutters for me after policy changes.

Yeah. I get this every time I change policy cards since the Spring Patch. It's a solid 2 seconds of unresponsiveness. Very jarring.

 

[Disgustipated]

Mine is MUCH more than 2 seconds. But the game used to crash on me when changing policies (once I had like 11 or 12 policy slots), so it's actually improved in that regard as I don't get any more crashes. I'd say it takes 5 to 10 seconds for me. I'm patient with it now, as I know the game won't actually crash even though it seems like it is.