Civilization VI

I'm brand new to Civ VI and I keep getting notifications that I don't have enough housing. Am I selecting the wrong things to build too early?

India asks me to go to war with them against China... proceeds to denounce me for being a warmonger.

Glad to see the AI continues to be the worst thing about the game.

Encampment Barracks adds 1 housing as well, so does the Military Academy and the lighthouse.

Quineloe said:

Ruhr valley - do you think it's broken?

I don't see the +30% on the stats, and it doesn't seem to be applied when checking between turns

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Yeah, I actually just noticed that recently as that was only the third time I've built Ruhr (and first time was in my first game when I had no clue). I definitely don't see it having any effect. That really sucks, because that city would have been up to 450! Just one more bug to fix.

calhoonjugganaut said:

I'm brand new to Civ VI and I keep getting notifications that I don't have enough housing. Am I selecting the wrong things to build too early?

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As others have said, farms are important. You get the housing from them even if you're not working the tile. However, as long as you have a decent growth rate, it's hard to avoid a housing crunch in the mid game.

Edit: Pretty good list of ways to get housing:

slippery said:

I feel like there is never any later game strategic resources from Coal onwards, I just never have it

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I agree. They need to distribute these a little better. In a recent game I had 12 cities with a sizeable portion of land and I had no Aluminum, no Uranium, and only one coal. That's bogus.

I really like the way great people are in this game (having different abilities) but I hate that you are kind of punished for advancing in eras because you can no longer claim certain ones. It really hurts if you were hoping to get some of the more useful ones that have an effect which will be applicable for all eras. This is mostly applicable in the early eras, but it can still happen later if you beeline, though I'm still not quite sure of the process (ie, does it just matter what civ is farthest along, slowest, an average, etc).

It's also possible that other civs are simply buying these up because they have insane cash/faith bonuses. It's really not clear to me.

Should Civ5 AI still apply, and its consensus that it still does, the AI cheats/buys up great people when in need.

For example when you converted a fresh founded AI religion with an great prophet in 5, the AI would cheat up an prophet with its own, gone extinct religion to repeatedly reconvert its holy city to its former founded religion.

Well, I'm not totally sure it's the case. I know they buy people but that doesn't explain it all. For example, I look at the list of Great Generals online and look in my game of the list of bought ones and I don't see all of them. Where the hell did they go? It feels like they're being removed if enough civs leave the Classical era when the latest one is bought/received.

Also, in Civ5, it wasn't so much cheating on the AI's part, but the religious pressure would never go away from a holy city even if fully converted unless you eliminated that civilization. I saw that happen with my own holy city which got converted (I was playing with a UI that showed a lot more detail too, so that's why I might have been able to see that pressure). Additionally, in Civ5, a great prophet would always be your own religion, even if all your cities were converted, so there was always a chance to get it back.

Total guess but the list is probably so long because of games with lots of civs in them, not because they're all supposed to be available in every game. I've never seen it happen but I've heard that they just run out at some point and no one gets any more. In games with 12 or more civs that's already some heavy competition to get more than a couple. So on shorter games it probably just randomly draws from the pool until everyone's moved on or it might be a finite pool based on game size, but still random. Either way, just another layer of the RNG like starting location or natural resources.

I like it from a storytelling/philosophical standpoint, though. Societies can foster a culture that promotes development of genius individuals that revolutionize some aspect of that society (great people points), but it's impossible to predetermine what that genius might be...or it wouldn't be genius. Still random BS in a mostly non-random game, though. If all were available, passing on great people would be more strategic and less of a dice roll. Civilization as a series should be difficult to "solve" because of its complexity, not because of chance.

Enob said:

Total guess but the list is probably so long because of games with lots of civs in them, not because they're all supposed to be available in every game. I've never seen it happen but I've heard that they just run out at some point and no one gets any more. In games with 12 or more civs that's already some heavy competition to get more than a couple. So on shorter games it probably just randomly draws from the pool until everyone's moved on or it might be a finite pool based on game size, but still random. Either way, just another layer of the RNG like starting location or natural resources.

I like it from a storytelling/philosophical standpoint, though. Societies can foster a culture that promotes development of genius individuals that revolutionize some aspect of that society (great people points), but it's impossible to predetermine what that genius might be...or it wouldn't be genius. Still random BS in a mostly non-random game, though. If all were available, passing on great people would be more strategic and less of a dice roll. Civilization as a series should be difficult to "solve" because of its complexity, not because of chance.

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Yeah, they do run out and they go by era. What I'm seeing is that it seems some are skipped, probably because of some threshold of civs being in a new era or something like that. It happens often in Classical but not so much in other eras. There's also a chance the skipping only happens for Generals and Admirals given their era-specific passive bonus.

That said, it's not random and there is strategy to it because it's the same order every time (the only problem being when they skip). So, for example, Adam Smith will always be the first Great Merchant available when the Industrial era is up on the Great Person view. Thus, you can try to plan for it if you really value it (by saving money or cash and/or by passing on current great people).

So, 250 hours in (probably about 20% idle time, though) and time to finally give it a rest (for real, this time). Just played a huge map marathon game on Settler for maximum building fun. Eventually decided to take all the capitals as the turn times were too long but it was fun making some ridiculous cities. I managed to get suzerain of Toronto and my capital had 16 IZ feeding it, haha.

Definitely looking forward to the first expansion (might come back for patches if they're interesting enough). With more game time, some of the things I initially hated I began to appreciate more.

Diplomacy has issues (especially shit like getting warmonger penalties with friends) but it's not as bad as I initially felt if you manage it right. As long as both of a Civ's traits aren't things easy to be negative on, I can usually have good enough relations that I can do some warmongering without much deterioration in relations. It also seems that if I am allies with someone (not just friends), I'm not getting warmonger penalties. In games I've gone for non-domination wins, I've usually managed to have half of the other Civs as my allies. One thing I find that helps is wait for all of them to be friendly, then try to do friendship and alliance with all in one turn, so any negatives from their relationships with each other will be offset by the alliance bump.

Minor little tip that helps early in the game: many civs will give you 1-2 gpt for open borders (somewhat uncommon but possible) and 2-3 gpt for alliance (more common). That's usually a huge help for me. That may just be a side effect of the broken trading system. In case you haven't noticed, if you remove gold amounts or lesson GPT amounts in a trade and then ask for a new offer, you'll often times get far lower offers. Play around with it some to figure out the patterns and it is seriously abuseable. I rarely use it since it is so cheap but I had a game where I was going to win by culture and I wanted to speed it up so I bought a ton of great works for super cheap (sometimes as low as 1 gpt). It's pretty ridiculous that you can trade for the great works of your main cultural opponent but that's a different issue.

I'm come to realize corps and armies are very useful but only when you can build them in the cities (10 or 17 extra strength is actually pretty significant in this game). Just combining single units is a waste unless you really need to break a stronghold. Observation balloons are awesome and I totally ignored them at first. Medics are great too. The support units are definitely worth making.

City-states definitely need some production boost. They get overrun too often and they are seriously out of date for most of the game. They (and the Civ) have a weird tech path as they seem to go from crossbows and swordsman to AT crew a lot of the time (only occasionally a Musketman inbetween). In Civ5 it was a lot harder to take a city state. That said, their regular and unique bonuses are fun to work with and add a little diversity to each game.

I'm sure the combat AI will never be any good so I just hope they get better about upgrading their units and maybe giving them a boost to having corps/armies. I also wish they'd figure out some way to have a better flow of difficulty for the game. The beginning is the hardest and then you usually know you've won before the game is half over (barring religious issues). Maybe something like an increasing production bonus (or other types of bonuses) through the eras. I really abhor letting them have extra settlers at the beginning. It would also make a more peaceful start a little better option. As it stands, based on the benefits and how easy it is to do, if I don't take some early cities I know I'm purposefully gimping myself.

My biggest concern to the future is whether they can ever get the AI to make good cities for this new system. It's so disappointing to roll in to a capital in 1800 and find it has two districts and like four tile improvements. If they could figure this out, I imagine they wouldn't need such gigantic bonuses and extra settlers.

But yeah, first game I bought at full price since GTA5 and I'm surprisingly happy about it.

Sylas said:

you still get warmongering penalties from your allies.

Last game I played when I gave a shit about the alliance system I was solid green (no negatives) with france declared friend, open borders, etc and same with England + allied to them, and had been the entire game. i agreed to every stupid little trade even though they were always in their favor, made sure not to expand beyond my initial continent to keep england happy, made spies to keep france happy, etc. Scythia was between england and france and since England and France were also declared friends they were both at war with Scythia, but scythia was beating them both. When the barbarians were at their fucking gates france finally unlocks the civic for joint war and initiates the trade deal, Joint war against scythia and they'll give me all their gold left. I agreed and cleared out scythia's armies and saved Paris. Scythia sued for peace from all 3 of us.

The moment our declared friendships/alliances ran out both france and england denouce me for warmongering. France threw in the added bonus (paranoia trait) since I had large armies in their borders (killing scythia and saving their city).

I wardec'd them both and razed every city they had to the ground save for their capitals, only because the game won't let you.

The diplomacy shit is for multiplayer, defense pacts and alliances, etc. The AI is too stupid to give a shit about it.

Ever since then my favorite way to play is Sumeria warcart rush. Wardec every single civilization or city state the moment you meet them and sow their fucking earth with salt. The only city state's I allow to live are the unit production bonus (early on) or science/gold later on. Everyone else dies before classical era. It's actually a really fun way to play and decently challenging at higher difficulties. Added bonus is you never have to make settlers. You should have taken out 2 civs and 2-3 city states (raze them if they are shit locations) by the time anyone makes walls and you can't rush as effectively. Capture all your builders from others, max out production and just make war carts

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That really weird. I feel like that has to be a bug. I have not experienced the same thing. Maybe it's something with joint war as I never use that -- I do a denouncement and/or use a casus belli. I've had alliances that have lasted through wars and getting renewed (and having some negatives along with the many positives). I just honestly have not experienced this and it would definitely piss me off if I did since I use alliances most games. But, this is something I have done in multiple games so it's definitely possible even if you hit on a buggy path.

But yeah, early rush is pretty OP right now since it's so damn easy. Even when it's not with a crazy UU like Sumeria it's still pretty easy.

BrotherWu said:

So I have some gaming time this weekend and I was thinking about picking up a strategy game. Looking at XCom and Civ VI. I've played and enjoyed the predecessors of both. Any suggestions?

My fear on XCom is that everyone complains about the timed missions and I hated those earlier and more of them would not be good. Civ VI reviews seem to be mixed. Both are full price.

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I thought Xcom 2 was a serious disappointment after EU and EW. One playthrough, immediate uninstall.

BrotherWu said:

So I have some gaming time this weekend and I was thinking about picking up a strategy game. Looking at XCom and Civ VI. I've played and enjoyed the predecessors of both. Any suggestions?

My fear on XCom is that everyone complains about the timed missions and I hated those earlier and more of them would not be good. Civ VI reviews seem to be mixed. Both are full price.

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I fucking love XCOM 2 and have gotten my money-value well back. Timers can be edited. The mod support is phenomenal and there are timer mods too.

Kiroy said:

I tried it a couple times with some friends on civ v, you get like 2 hours in and not even a quarter of the way through the game, gotta be pretty hard core to attempt. We never made it past halfway.

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It's not a good multiplayer game. Not a good MODERN multiplayer game. They have turn timers and all that crap, but so much of Civ is a mapstaring contest... or a "do nothing for 2 centuries then do ALL THE THINGS AT ONCE" sort of deal.

You could play it just fine multiplayer, but you'd have to do it in packets. You'd have to play it for like an hour a day or a few hours a week. You'd have to play it like a BBS game. A giant hosted "do 50 turns a day" sort of deal. That would actually be a fun way to play civ. But the ruleset... well, the game doesn't really know what it is anymore I don't think.

I do expect to be picking this one up after they release the 2 mandatory xpacs to make it not crap.