Civilization VI

[Martinus]

Stumbling through my first campaign as Gorgo (random pick).

Hoplites are surprisingly weak against Brussels' warriors and Spearmen. I also picked up Hannibal Barca as General, but was surprised he didn't buff my units. Turns out Hoplites are Ancient, not Classical Era, and he only buffs Classical and Medieval.

Were you using hoplites' unique ability by lining them up next to each other?

[Syt]

Not yet. 

I feel I'm also taking it too slow. Gorgo should be out kicking ass, but it's 800 BC, I have only two cities (both have a military district, and Sparta has additionally a religious district and an Acropolis). I use money to buy units/buildings as I can afford them, and also try to get the boosts for research. And I'm on track for the 3rd Great Prophet.

I've only met Brazil so far; they're at war with Lisbon which I found funny.

[Martinus]

The hoplites are very good when played to their advantage, but otherwise are pretty crappy (they are just slightly buffed spearmen). One thing to remember is that when resolving combat, Civ6 is based on relative strength, not absolute strength of units. So getting an extra +5 over your enemy can be massive.

As for early game, based on 4 full playthroughs now, I noticed that the game is inducing you to play much more aggressively - this is also compounded by the fact that you get no warmonger penalties during the ancient era. So sweeping one or two early city states you encounter - especially ones that are not really that good for your play style, can be quite good. This is a marked difference for me as I used to play Civ5 very peacefully.

Also, given that there is no more global (un)happiness and no penalty to science or culture based on the number of cities, getting more cities is almost always good.

Usually, my early build order is Scout, Slinger, Builder and then either a district (usually Holy, sometimes Campus) and/or a Settler.

[Martinus]

Incidentally, make sure to make full use of the civics. You can change them for free every time you invent a new one, so mix and match (especially Greece's UA, which gives them one extra wild card civic is very powerful for that - for example you can run both the God King and the Production boost - or both military civics - right out of the gate). This, in fact, is one of the best improvements in the game, imho, and can be quite powerful, allowing you to pivot in response to events.

[Syt]

Thanks for the tips. At the moment I'm running Oligarchy; and yes - the extra wild card slot is pretty good.

I will see how far I can get in this campaign (not much of a min/maxer anyways) and get any other "duh" moments out of the way. I'm looking at taking out Brussels at the moment, while buttering up Jerusalem for the religious game.

[Martinus]

By the way, I really like how they gave the leaders (especially some of them) personality. I love how Catherine speaks French when she meets you first in an official capacity, but switches to Italian when she talks shit about you. Love Philip's passion and patos, or or the passive aggressive way Pedro glares at you when you outdo him in great people generation. The animators and voice actors really did a great job.

[Martinus]

One thing I am probably doing wrong right now is that I tend not to build any farms other than on food resources. This means my cities end up rather small. I think the ideal strategy should be to have farms early on and then replace them with other stuff as I invent new discoveries, which increase the farm output.

Another thing that I tend to forget about is building industrial districts properly - they, and entertainment district, have an area of effect which go for 6 tiles in all directions (9 tiles with special Great Person power), boosting production and amenities, respectively, in all cities caught in the radius. I guess this makes Brazil and Germany quite powerful as they can spam these districts at half the cost, without affecting the city cap.

[Tamas]

I am still hung up on how in the 1700s the AI invents Flight

Also, no railroad building?


I guess I'll just have to work harder on my suspension of disbelief, as otherwise this is easily the best Civ game ever.

[Solmyr]

By the way, I really like how they gave the leaders (especially some of them) personality. I love how Catherine speaks French when she meets you first in an official capacity, but switches to Italian when she talks shit about you.

Gandhi is the same, he switches to English when he's mad at you.

[Syt]

What about resources that are revealed later in game? In the past you could build an improvement on it before, which was not a big deal. Can it happen that you build a district or wonder on a yet to be revealed resource?

[Martinus]

Gandhi is easily one of the most annoying, along with Tomyris and Mvemba (?) (Yes, I just founded my religion this turn, shut up, my missionaries are on their way). Trajan, on the other hand, seems very easy to keep happy.

I also like how Peter makes sure to mention he is just as cultured and enlightened as you when he first meets you.

[Martinus]

What about resources that are revealed later in game? In the past you could build an improvement on it before, which was not a big deal. Can it happen that you build a district or wonder on a yet to be revealed resource?

Good question - I just realised this never happened to me because building a district or a wonder actually removes a resource.

I guess it's along the lines of "Well, back in 1500 B.C., when we built our holy site here, we had to remove all this black liquid rock. Fortunately it is gone now."

[garbon]

I don't know. I had where it told me I could now see oil (rather early because of a great person ability) and if kept going to where one of my districts was. I couldn't make out any oil anywhere but it had noted that I was receiving it.  On 2nd thought, could have been centering on my city where oil just happened to be located.

[Martinus]

So, basically, if someone declares war on you and you kick their ass and take their cities in a peace deal, you will still get a warmonger penalty.

Israel's reputation: finally explained.

[garbon]

Well presumably you could give them their cities back. Though I guess reputation still hit for having taken them in the first place.

Actually, how does the peace screen work? I declared a holy war on Japan (we were allies but they kept trying to push Buddhism on my Zoroastrian Rome even when I kept asking them kindly not to) and conquered all but one of their cities. However, I didn't actually want to rule them all and had intended only to keep a few. When negotiation screen came up, I had them offering me 2 of their cities but when peace broke out, I had all but the one unconquered city.