Civ6 Adv 1 - Saladin and the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Religion

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Hello Civ 6!

Despite not being a fan of Civ 5, I find myself quite excited by Civ 6.  And while it still has a lot of 5's icky underbelly (looking at you 1UPT), there are a lot of things to get excited about.  And while it was tempting to just jump in and get my bearings a bit before playing the adventure, I thought it would be more fun to just jump in the game and give my impression of things as I played them.  Which was a great idea until I took forever to actually write up the report after playing.  Because I wanted to play more Civ 6!  So immediately there's a big improvement over 5:  I like the game.  Despite it's flaws -- and I'll find a lot of them, and pick at all of them -- I think it's a far better starting point for a civ game than 5 and offers a lot more replayability options.

And that gets us to maybe the biggest change in Civ6:  we start on turn 1 and not turn 0.  I don't know if I will ever adapt to this change; it's clearly inferior.  Everyone knows civ is a snowball game and that starting later means you start the snowball later

So without further delay, here are my first 20 turns.  And I promise to report on many more than that soon!



I didn't see any reason not to settle in place.  Nothing worth moving for -- or rather, I wouldn't know if there was or not!  Civic set for Code of Laws, and Technology set for Mining.  We've got a nice 2 food, 2 production tile on the marble, so I figure I want to improve that first.  First build is a scout because while it appears goody huts aren't as strong as they were in Civ 5 (far less free population), they are still worth going for, and it is worth finding out the lay of the land.

We Eureka! right away, on turn 2.  Turns out that there is a continent divide right by our capital, but it doesn't seem to check for Eurekas until turn 2.  This makes Foreign Trade come at half the cost.  Such a huge bonus, it almost feels like it's a mandatory requirement to the different trees now.



t4 - Barbarians!  They show up a lot sooner now, which makes it feel like you're jumping into the game a lot sooner.  That is one improvement over Civ 4 and 5 - it feels like you ramp up into the action a lot faster.  No more sitting around 12 to 15 turns for that mandatory worker-first in Civ 4; maintenance free ancient era units makes spamming and using them to fight barbarians actually fun in 6 as compared to the mandatory 1gpt cost of everything in Civ 5.  That said, I stayed away from this camp and just scouted the initial area with my warrior, leaving my scouts to take on the bigger stuff.

Scout finished turn 7, Builder next.  I sent the scout west to explore the other continent.  Well, turns out that was a mistake as the "continent" didn't comprise much at all.  I did run into another barbarian scout from a second camp in the south, and circled around the southern coast, revealing lots of ice and nothing.  But my starting warrior did find something more:



t10 - Kabul is the city state to my east.  They are militaristic, so increased production to units in my capital I'm the only one to have found them, so I get the bonus.  And they have a quest!  I need to get the Masonry Eureka bonus -- looking at the tech tree that means hooking up a quarry.  Well, good thing I just finished Mining and am building a Builder

Pottery is the next tech; I'm aiming for hookin up that Tea luxury next.



t15 - Code of Laws is in and I go with Urban Planning (+1 production) and Discipline (+5 strength vs barbs).  It looks like we are on an island, or at least a secluded peninsula, so I don't think there will be a ton of exploring early on either.

Builder done and I move it to the stone



t16 - Quarrying the tile on the following turn gives me both the Masonry Eureka! and the quest reward of 1 envoy to Kabul.  Craftmanship is the next Civic to research; I will have the builder use up it's charges just to get the boost... I think that's right?  Building a second scout for my next build.  You can see the 2nd barb camp in the fog to the west of the scout, as well as a pair of silver luxuries.  I also have found a goody hut that I'll pop the following turn for yet another Eureka! - this one for Irrigation.

Speaking of Eureka!s, as someone who plays a fair bit of Europa Universalis IV, it annoys me to no end that you can't click and drag the Eureka! popup window around the screen to see what is going on behind it.  Sadly bigger doesn't mean better, at least when it comes to studio budgets.

t18 - A third barb camp appears, this time in the fog just to the west of the capital.  Damn.  With my second scout finishing this turn I figure now is the time for a slinger.



t19 - Capital at size 3.  I just bought the Rice tile in order to irrigate it.  Turns out this is a 4 food yield, the very same thing that would have happened if I had just farmed one of the floodplains.  Well, there's 50g wasted.



Even in single player I somehow manage to scout the wrong direction every time.

t20 - Is this really as far out as you can zoom in this game?  God, say what you want about Civ 4's faults, at least they knew that people wanted to view their empires and gave you the functionality (flying camera) to do it.

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Turns 20 - 50:  The Second City


t22 - Irrigation Done!  Timed perfectly for the builder to reach the tea and improve it.  Which in turn gives me the Eureka! for Craftsmanship.  Yes, I can definitely see how the micro lover in me could get his OCD rocks off here.  I am going to even claim that I planned this one out, because I was already researching Craftsmanship and now it is just 3 turns away.  See how well I planned that?  (Despite showing no indication previously that I was planning it    )



Jakarta found to my west, but this time I don't get an envoy or bonus because I'm not the first person to find the city state!  And until I meet that civ I won't know who I'm vying for Jakarta's favors for.  I also didn't have any plans of fulfilling it's quest:  Make a holy site?  Arabia doesn't need your holy sites; Arabia is guaranteed a prophet.

This misguided thinking about Arabia was behind my thinking.  The Madrasa gives Faith according to the adjacency bonus of the Campus district, so my plan was to skip holy sites, and emphasize science and campus districts early on.  Later, when I got my prophet I would found a religion -- forgetting that I need a Holy Site to found the religion; my notes say that it's "useless" for Arabia, heh -- but then I'd later fill in with Holy Sites and use the cheap faith buildings with science boosts to get even more science.  Science to Faith to more Science, or something like that.

Decide to start Animal Husbandry next.  And although I really want to get a settler out I went for a warrior next as I recognized that all these barbarians mean I will soon need more defenders.



t23 - As if to prove my point, the spear leaves the encampment to attack my slinger, and a horseman appears from the east.  My warrior can now clear the camp and give me the Eurkea for Military Tradition.  I am really glad I picked the +5 barb combat policy.  It seems like a pretty clear winner over the double XP for recon units.  The horseman later pillages the rice, and the spear pillages my tea, but my units are able to fend them off without any real damage.  The barbs don't ever even attempt to take my city.

t25 - Pop a hut for 20 faith

t26 - After the second warrior completes I decide on builder next to repair the pillaged tiles.  Probably should have just done another military unit or even a settler here.

t27 - The next barb horseman wave comes in, but they advance right where my units can pick them off.  I'm able to kill 1 horse and critically wound the other.  Slinger kills the last horse archer for double Eurkas! - Archery and Bronze Working.  My warrior also gets promoted for Battlecry: +7 strength.  With the Eureka I decide that Archery next is actually better and swap to it, so I can upgrade my slinger.

I end up building 2 more archery units in the following turns ahead of the settler, part of which is a city state quest from Jerusalem, and in part because I realized I needed them.  All this time my scouts continue to meet city states, but I'm never first to find them.  Nan Modal to the northeast, Hong Kong to the northwest, and Jersulaem beyond them.  But still I don't meet any real civilizations.  I get the Early Empire Eureka! from a tribal village, really speeding me along to the 1st tier of government.



I do find my first natural wonder however!  This Eureka prompts me to go for Astrology and get a Holy Site going.

And then finally...



t38 - There's Egypt!  Also, I like how you can move units through city state lands without pissing them off.  That was an annoying part of 5.




t39 - First settler is done and I've already got my units ahead to clear up the camp that sitting right where I want my second city to be.

A really cool thing for future iterations of civ would be to merge the city-state and barbarian camp concepts.  Hell, then even merge city state and AI civ systems.  That would be a complicated thing to do, I'm sure, but it would be more interesting and organic an experience than these separate entities you have to work with now.  Anyway, thinking on a tangent there.  And while it would be neat conceptually the devil would be in the details.




t43 - 2nd city founded, Eureka for Sailing.  I decide to just spend the 240g right away and buy a monument to get the tile spread started.

Meanwhile, the barbs are hitting Egypt really hard.




t46 - Early Empire and Bronze Working both complete.  Next up are Sailing and State Workforce.

Egypt builds Stonehenge.



And they want to give me money for open borders!  Sure, I'll take free money.  In hindsight, these were 2 very bad things for me, but I had no idea at the time.


t50 - Empire shot



So I know that Traders are a good thing.  I remember this from Civ 5: they're a great way to start up a new city.  However, having the new city build the trader is probably not the best way to go about things.  I'm building a spear in the capital to deal with the horseman raids from the south still.

[oledavy]

Just wanted to drop in and say I'm enjoying your report thus far (and definitely understand the wanting to keep playing Civ6 versus actually report on it XD)

[pindicator]

Thanks! I'll try to write the next segment up tonight. I've had the game finished, just need to write now

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Turns 50 - 103: Expanding and Foreshadowing 


t52 - Egypt says I'm worth her time.  Ah, thanks Egypt.  She asks for open borders for money.  Blinded by her affections and gifts I accept.

t53 - Around now I realize i'm going to need a Holy Site to found a religion, even if the prophet comes for free.  I look at building one at Cairo but there are no good synergy locations so I pass for now.



t55 - Baghdad, however, has fantastic adjacency bonuses, and I fully intend to leverage those with the Madrassa.  I pay the 75g for this wonderful spot.
The trade route I built at Baghdad gets sent to Hong Kong.  Hammers and Gold are what I could use now, and Hong Kong also has a trade route quest.  It also boosts Currency



I'm also sending my two archers and spear south to clear out the southern barb encampment that's been sending horsemen north at me since the game's beginning.

t56 - State Workforce completed and now I'm headed for the all-important Political Philosophy.  I want to push some settlers out now too so I use this free swap to change from Urban Planning (+1 production) to Colonization (+50% settler production)

t58 - Clear the southern barb camp.  Also, it may be late but I'm going to go for my first wonder: start tech on Masonry, aiming for the Pyramids.

t59 - Cairo goes Settler -> Settler to take advantage of my current policy.  I don't expect to stick with it much longer.  The settler heads south to where the barb was in order to found Sana'a, my 3rd city.

t62 - Egypt founds Judaism.  It's amazing at how after a few games of civ I can see all the warning signs now but at the time didn't realize what was about to happen.



t63 - Political Philosophy is done and I take Autocracy but it sure didn't give +1 yield to every tile at the capital.  Instead it seems to improve just the capital building.  Oh that's some dirty lawyer speak right there, Firaxis.  I also like the wonder production bonus for my upcoming Pyramids.

With my new governmen I pick the following policies:

• Discipline: +5 strength vs barbarians
  
• Agoge: +50% production for ancient and classical era ranged and melee units
  
• Corvée: +15% production for ancient and classical era wonders
  
• Urban Planning: +1 production in all cities
  

t67 - 2nd Settler is done and we start on the pyramids





t75 - Found my 4th city, Damascus.  Feel really good about the location for Damascus, as rainforests seem to give a ton of production.  Forests and hills in general are just really good it seems.

t80 - With 'Mids a turn away I swap policies again:  Keep the same military policies but change the rest to Colonization and Inspiration (+2 Great Scientist points per turn)



t82 - Egypt says my army sucks and that I suck too.

The next few turns are kind of dull.  I find some more of the city states to the east of Egypt; she hasn't explored there yet.  I find the Dead Sea, but it is so far away that I don't ever plan on heading up to claim it.  I head for Engineering and Apprenticeship for Industrial Districts and Aquaducts.  Sana'a really does need an Aquaduct.  Then I head for Celestial Navigation to be able to build Harbors.  I get into a bit of a pattern of just letting the turns go by, not really aiming for anything except expansion and waiting for things to be built.  Production seems slow in this game.



t100 - Here's an empire stitch in the Strategic screen.  Can't even zoom out to get my full 5-city empire in this mode.  I've just laid my 5th city, Hattan, and we're gearing for a big Madrassa push, which means I'm building the campuses that I maybe should have built earlier in the game.  I still want to get in settle push and fill up my end of the landmass, because it's seeming pretty obvious that just spamming cities is the best way to improve production (well, grow capital, spam cities, but you may even want to get a first settler out faster than that).

t102 - Celestial Navigation done.  Iron Working next
Baghdad finishes it's Holy Site.  I don't think I need these?  As Arabia I just want Madrassas, or at least that's the route I want to try.  But Baghdad has a great location for it, so I went ahead and built it anyway.  The city is up against it's housing limit but I need to take out that barb camp, so we'll build some military before the settler or granary.

I went ahead and took individual screenshots of all my cities on t103, so that's why I'm ending my post on t103 and not the nice and even turn 100

Cairo:




Baghdad:




Sana'a:




Damascus:




Hattan:

[pindicator]

Sorry for the delays btw.  I'm having some tough RL stuff going on and not reporting really on any of the things I've signed up for.  If you want to spoil yourself to how the game ends, I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say I won.  But how did I win?  Click the spoiler if you don't want to wait for my piecemeal reporting...

Science Victory, turn 342.  Holy Moly, those production parts are expensive!

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The Rest of the Game


So yeah, I had a crazy November, and while things have settled down now I lost momentum on this report.  Adventure 2 is even out and I can't wait to mess up that game, and give a better report.  So here goes the remainder of what happened:


I Finally Got a Religion



I didn't say it was my religion.  Egypt has started to flood the board with missionaries, converting Damascus and now headed towards Baghdad.   But my own prophet was right behind, finally being born on t110.  I can see Arabia's ability being good in higher difficulties.  But at Prince?  The AI don't have good bonuses and the religions fall way too late.  For adventure 2 I expect ... well, I should keep that to myself until after the reporting day for Adventure 2

At this point I think everybody knows what is going to happen.  I founded the religion at Baghdad, because that was where my only Holy Site was located.  And then the flood of missionaries returned, turning Baghdad Jewish.  I thought I would fight back, but ... well ... apparently the Apostles are the religion of majority religion regardless of whether or not it is yours.  That is a really fun game mechanic!  (That previous sentence should be read as dripping with sarcasm.)

So I did the only thing left for me to do...


Conquering The AI with 2 Units



This is me killing Egypt with a pair of Mamluks.  Aside from being way ahead in technology at this point, they also heal at the end of every turn, regardless of what they did.  So when one got a little low -- and they really didn't ever -- they just took a turn off.  We took the capital shortly after.

At that point I really got rather bored with the game.  I didn't know where the other AIs were.  I rather didn't care.  I didn't care to settle up the rest of my land.  I was already stupidly ahead and figured I just wanted to hit enter through the turns, get a feel for what comes in later in the game, explore some of the features, and call it good.  I settled a few more spots, and the north ended up a bit like so:



That's turn 214.  I ended up getting to the Space Race techs around turn 290.  And then spent a full 50 turns trying to build the projects because I didn't have very good production.  Trade routes are broken -- we all know that now -- and I even discovered chopping outside of borders for the last few parts.  But in the end it was a Science Victory, turn 348.  I probably could have taken a number of turns off that if I had kept expanding and if I had my cities set up well ahead of time for production.  You need 1 city initially and by the time the last tech comes in you need 3 cities with good production to get a good time.





I did also get the funny interaction where a civ that you haven't even met yet declares a joint war, and so you get the image of yourself declaring war on yourself.




And that's roughly what happened.