Civilization VI

Sounds ok but I would have preferred them to focus on religion and the world congress. I love convincing land and cities on my borders to join my empire so i am happy they have decided to bring that back. Although i think this "loyalty" aspect of the city is a bit gamey. I really liked ...hmm I cant recall what Civ game it was but the one that every square had ethnic percentages of the population. Pushing your "culture" meant that land squares had a chance to join your empire. I played this as Yugoslavia fell apart and into separate countries and it felt very on point.

jrralls wrote:

I don't think I've ever "role-played" a game of Civ and I've been playing since day 1.

I was one of those who role-played my way through the first four. 'Winning' was always something of a side goal; feeling like I had directed a civilization through time, creating its story in my head with assistance from the computer, always seemed more interesting to me. V didn't seem to lend itself to that kind of play very well for some reason. Or maybe it was more that my reduced free time didn't allow for it. I haven't played VI enough to really even try that approach.

I've role-played in that I don't focus on minmaxing and that I let the nation I'm playing dictate which type of victory I'm trying to achieve (Greece = cultural victory, Germany = domination, etc.). In the end, I'm satisfied if I've told the story of the nation regardless of whether I actually win. In that sense, what absurddoctor said.

City flipping on loyalty reminds me of Endless Space 2 influence/border pressure on neighboring systems and flipping them using influence. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as a warmonger still needs to keep populations happy or face a revolt.

For those waiting for this expansion, I’ll say more in the Civ: BE thread but I bought Rising Tide and in my opinion it moved the game from passable to engrossing. Trade routes are dastardly powerful and the diplomacy/agreement system actually has me using it unlike other Civ games where I ignore diplomacy and focus on building an economic production powerhouse and send out mechanized infantry in the 1700s to crush whatever knights or musketeers the AI managed to field.

I'm glad City-flipping is coming back. Used to love doing Culture-bombs in Civ III (I think??) and totally surrounding the enemy city in your borders. It was only a matter of time then...

Interesting about Civ:BE + Rising Tide... I may even consider picking that up if it on the cheap during a steam sale...

Rising Tide does this thing where major diplomatic gains required a resource called Diplomatic Capital. So you can't just form agreements or become allied, even if the Civ is very friendly towards you.

To build on LarryC's explanation, in Civ:BERT you tend to generate Diplomatic Capital from buildings and wonders; or, if another Civ enters a trade agreement, it provides their Civ with a certain bonus (for example, yields on strategic resource tiles increase by 2) and remunerates your Civ with varying + Diplomatic Capital per turn. The reverse also applies - if you want a certain trade agreement, it costs upkeep in Diplomatic Capital. You don't need to take advantage of Diplomatic Capital to win, but it offers more ways of achieving victory.

Also, one thing I noticed was the war score feature in Civ:BERT - it's basically the same thing as the war score mechanic in Stellaris. I don't know whether Firaxis or Paradox came up with it first, but anyway, when I am playing Civ and my neighbour starts a war, it doesn't tend to end until I capture their last city and annex all their territories! Yes, I am the Ghandi and Catherine of Civ 6 rolled into one personality (except I won't force my religion on my enemies). So war score doesn't really bother me.

Civ:BERT?

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/CLQaG1r.png)

BadKen wrote:

Civ:BERT?

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/CLQaG1r.png)

Civilization: Beyond Earth with Rising Tide expansion.

Or what you posted.

omni wrote:

Used to love doing Culture-bombs in Civ III (I think??)

I don't think I played Civ III, but culture bombs were definitely in Civ IV. I used them a lot, especially the guy who looked just like Elvis in his white jumpsuit.

As for the expansion, after reading the overview, I'm cautiously optimistic. I'll definitely be watching for more info in the coming weeks. I'm most interested in more detals about the new Governor and Emergency mechanics.

I put close to 60 hours into the base game before moving on. I remember thinking back then that I couldn’t wait for an expansion just to have an excuse to play more. I’ll be in on day one for sure.

I finally started a game of this - I hadn't played since release. I was doing my usual thing, keeping as little military as I could, building up my economy. Arabia sneak attacked and I easily fought them off. I kept building the economy. Japan sneak attacked. They took 3 of my 5 cities. I was so under defended.

Their attack stalled after that and I refused their repeated peace deals. They were willing to give me back 2 of my 3 cities, but that wasn’t good enough. They even through in gold and luxuries. I want all 3 back or else they have to finish me off.

I finally took 1 back and have to advance for the next 2. This is on Prince difficulty - but I am very rusty.

I don’t like how willing the AI is to do sneak attacks, especially since there doesn’t seem to be any fallout over doing it.

robc wrote:

I was doing my usual thing, keeping as little military as I could...

This might be your issue, I'm fairly certain some of the AI personalities are set up to view civs with small militaries as tasty morsels. There's probably a relevant Sun Tzu quote about ensuring peace through a strong military. I try to ensure a bare minimum of two units per city, or more if I'm building a "tall" civ or my tech isn't up to par.

It's pretty common knowledge that you can easily provoke a DOW by underbuilding military. You want to be DOW'd to reduce your warmonger penalty. To compensate for not building military, you build suzerainty with neighbouring city states, build walls, and build war capacity with Encampments and production buildings.

Thanks, I know. I didn't mean to act like I was surprised I was attacked. Through the whole Civ series I generally try to walk the fine line of having just enough military to defend myself until I'm ready to get aggressive. I was just sharing that the AI was at least able to take some cities for me.

My cities did fall to some knights and a catapult more quickly than I expected. Did the devs tweak down how tough cities are to take? Admittedly mine were not very defended, but they seemed to fall fast.

They did tweak that a fair bit. You actually need to build walls now and walls add a heckuvalot of defense. Just having Ancient Walls is a big add and having Medieval Walls on top of that makes the city really tough even against Catapults and Knights. Make walls using the Limes policy and boost your defenses with Bastions, increasing defense by +6 and attack strength by +5.

Somewhat lesser known is that the City's strength is primarily derived from terrain, garrison, defensive structures and the Combat Strength of your strongest unit. So if, for instance, you surprise-upgrade your Galley into a Caravel and finish the Medieval Walls you had left with 1 turn to build, you can spring a really nasty surprise on the AI.

If you're playing as England, pursuing the top half of the tech tree, using Caravels and walls us how you defend yourself.

I finished up my game with a space race victory. I kept a fairly low profile. I attacked France once to defend my city state. Japan did another sneak attack late in the gate as i approached my victory, but my few units outclassed them. I ended up occupying one of their cities and got that one and another in the peace deal. This make some civs call me out as a warmonger, but those who had a solid relationship with me beforehand didn’t object - I had enough positive relationship modifiers to negate the warmonger penalty.

I enjoyed my game, even though there was a lot of end turn pressing for a long time before victory. I used that opportunity to do squats.

I still can’t believe a played game after game after game of Civ from Civ 1 through 4. I mean, I’d finish one game and immediately start another. I didn’t have a of of money when playing Civ 1 -3, but with Civ IV I was making a good living and still played the crap out of it. I just don’t think I can do that any more with almost any game. There is just so much variety to be had now. I can dive all in for a story heavy game like The Witcher series, even for the 125+ hour duration.

Korea in the next DLC

I've had a hard time grocking exactly what gets you the warmonger penalty and what doesn't.

Declaring war...?

I guess? except it happens when I'm attackee too.

I suppose I was expecting it to be something more than "you participated in a war"

Yeah, I've never looked into it, but I seemed to get the penalty after being declared against, but then refusing to make Peace repeatedly as I wiped them out for their aroogance at attacking me.

I want to try Australia when it is on sale. Go about with a puny army and insult everyone and bask in the wartime bonuses. Then take all their land and get denounced and DOW all over again.

You get a lot of warmonger points for taking and holding on to enemy cities.

But... but.. they started it!

omni wrote:

Yeah, I've never looked into it, but I seemed to get the penalty after being declared against, but then refusing to make Peace repeatedly as I wiped them out for their aroogance at attacking me.

Well... I guess that is a thing I do... maybe I AM a warmonger

Refusing a peace offer does not accrue warmonger points so far as I know. I've done wars I started where I took over most of a Civ's cities. As long as I gave them back during the peace deal, the penalties have been more than reasonable.

So.. what is the purpose of giving them back? I'm usually a "keep being them until they don't exist" kinda player, but also defensive/builder by nature, until someone pokes me.. maybe why I can't play anything above Prince..

Maybe we need GWJ Civ 6 school!

omni wrote:

So.. what is the purpose of giving them back? I'm usually a "keep being them until they don't exist" kinda player, but also defensive/builder by nature, until someone pokes me.. maybe why I can't play anything above Prince..

Maybe we need GWJ Civ 6 school!

I give cities back that I don't like or because I have 8 cities already and I can't be bothered to manage much more than that. You can pillage the hell out of the tiles for extra yields and Inquistor the cities to get religious gains from your conquest - then give them back so no one hates you for the rest of the game.

I am a warmonger. I will never start the war, but if you instigate one with me you better believe I am not ending it until you are ground into dust or external factors force me to make peace with you. And it really bothers me that the AI does not also behave this way. Warmonger penalty be darned, if you have an advantage, press it.

Also I usually want those cities to burn them to the ground because the AI either stole tiles from me or placed the city wrong by two or three tiles and it needs to be refounded.