Civ 6 Adventure 1 - Kongo Bongos

[Yazilliclick]

Starting out as Kongo.  I figure I'll go for a culture victory as they seem pretty well suited with bonuses from great works of art and double great artist points.  Mbanza should allow for some good growth if some nice forest areas, maybe even go for their achievement (30 pop capital).  And a nice unique unit just when I'll be fighting barbs a lot.

This is going to be my first full game.  I played about 120 turns as America prior to this and haven't followed the game in too much depth.




So here's the starting area.  Nice forests which is great.  Rice is nice.  Diamonds fairly close.  A river, mountains, stone, hills, what more could a guy want?  I don't know because I don't know how to play yet and haven't actually played a game of civ in a good while now since I mostly skipped V.




And just like that Mbanza Kongo is founded.  Moved down a little bit for more forests and boy are there a lot!  Founding also revealed dyes so bonus!.

So tech wise going to go mining which opens up masonry and bronze working.  Probably go bronze working first because may be able to get it boosted first.  That gets me close to Iron Working for my UU in case I need it earlier.  Otherwise I can get things like pottery and writing and the like.  For culture will go Foreign Trade first and possibly Mysticism (since I'll be going great person and works the Oracle may be nice).  Problem is I can't generate faith really so unlikely to found a pantheon to boost it.  So chances are will be going early empire and then drama.




Began exploring to my south and look who I should find.  So that gives me a boost to writing.  




They were fighting a barb, let them get it down so I could get the kill and camp.  Gives me some nice gold and a boost to military traditions.  Next found the White Cliffs of dover to the north west with scout, so there's another boost.  Would be nice to get a city up there for the culture maybe.





Met the amercians to the south.  Sent a delgation.  Going to try for peaceful there.  Less likely will stay happy with Cleopatra.  Amercians have the Big Stick Policy which means they should like me being peaceful and being on their continent.

New government time.  Enacted Discpline to handle early barbs and God King to see if I can found my pantheon.  Work begins on foreign trade next.

[Yazilliclick]

Turn 16

2nd warrior is done and fighting a barb scout, moving other warrior who was south back up.  Scout scouting north.  Building a builder now to start improving some tiles.

Turn 18
Warrior returning from south manages to find a goodie hut which gives me a boost to irrigation research.

Turn 20


Meet China up in the north.

Turn 25
Manage to kill of a 3rd barb unit using my scout in the north.  Thanks to this trigger a boost to bronze working research which will come in very handy for my unique unit.

Turn 28
Sitting at 21 faith, growing at +2.  Didn't notice that dyes give +1  faith.  So I'm researching Mysticism now with 12 turns remaining so should get it boosted in time to make full use of boost and go for oracle.  Though not planned well because trying to build a settler which will take a while.

Turn 31
Pantheon founded of Oral Tradition.  Gives bonus to culture from banana, citrus, cotton, dyes, silk, spices and sugar plantations.  Gives me the boost I need towards Mysticism research.




Little overview of my territory as it stands now.

Turn 43
Mbumbi to my west

Turn 44
Oracle started, at first it wouldn't let me because no hills, I bought hill tile but still wouldn't.  Guess needed to end turn?  Bug obviously.


Turn 58


Entered classical era with research of currency.

Currently working on oracle, 12 turns left.  Hope I get it because it will boost Drama and Poetry which has 16 turns left.  Mbumbi is trying to build a granary.  Mbanza needs housing bad.  Have a scout out going north east.  Two warrios, both level 2.  Trade route between cities.  Egypt just declared war on Rome.  Unfortunately no iron near me it seems.

Turn 70
Oracle completed.  Oracle boosts Drama and Poetry.  Drama and Poetry completed.  I need a new government so I can do something with these cards now.  Must say wonders seem to take a long time to build.  I mean obviously I did next to nothing to rush building this, overall playing pretty lazy game, but that was 26 early game turns for one wonder.

Turn 76
Iron working done, can upgrade warriors.  One upgraded, costs 110 gold.  Gold hasn't been a problem for me so doesn't seem too bad.

[Yazilliclick]

OK so from here on in the game I must say I was pretty much on auto so not many notes.  I'll post some final thoughts at the end on the game and how it went.

Turn 110
Colosseum started.  3rd city selected.

Turn 120
Finally meet rome, basically stopped exploring after losing scouts.

Turn 124
Founded Kwila in south.  Immediately purchased tiles for Gypsum.  America, Rome and Egypt all complain that I'm settling too close.  Accidentally click option of "I'll settle where I want!" to the amercians, chose sorry option for others..  Looks like Amercia is trying to settle North east of me, has settler.  Probably about last remaining spot near me.  Others would have city states in middle.

Turn 130 350 AD
Egypt finally finishes building the pyramids!

Rome is apparently happy with me for amount of territory I have.

Turn 131
Yikes my 3rd great writer.  I'm going to be out of places to put their works here.  I choose to pass for n ow.

Turn 132


Finish coliseum.
Have this in range of first 3 cities so they each gain +2 culture and +3 amenities.

Turn 150
China just conquered the city state of Kumasi in NE.  I was max rep with them, not sure if I just missed it or if there was any real warning.  Doesn't appear to give me a casus beli to declare on china.  I denounced them just to role play it and will start adding to military.

Turn 214
Meet Saladin finally

Turn 236
Meet Japan

Turn 330


Culture victory! Unfortunately didn't get Mbanza Kongo to pop 30 yet before wining, will probably have to play a bit more to do that having come this far.


Thoughts on the game

So I played this game pretty casually as a real first game to the end.  I wasn't playing any other games beside this one so it's the furthest I've played the game so far.  I generally played pretty poorly and got a little bit bored with this game, not Civ 6 itself, by about turn 100 which I think shows in my notes.  Namely the problem was the AI was giving me no challenge at all so there was nothing pushing me to try to win.  From early on I was lead in science and culture and nobody came close to either ever.  I mean not even remotely close even when they stole some of my techs.  At end I was easily producing more than double the culture and triple the tourists than the next closets civ and the 3rd place one was well behind that.  I was never attacked once.  Nobody did anything to stop me.  

Mid game I was considering starting a war just for fun as something to do against China (who was #2) but I ended up not doing so largely because of a misunderstanding of how strategic resources worked I wasn’t upgrading units.  So I had my basic UU as top unit until pretty late in game.  Most of the game I had two swordsman and a crossbow as only military units.


So mistakes I made and things I learned:

• Encampment district lets you build units with only 1 strategic resource.  This is why I wasn’t upgrading / building new units, I thought I needed 2.  This also made me expand a bit more trying to get resources but generally they were too few and placed too poorly that at best I could get one.  Never had a single strategic resource pop in my borders other than horses.
  
• Encampments offer almost as good of industrial bonuses as the Industrial Zone district itself (ignoring adjacency bonuses).  I really should have been making these.
  
• I could have built up my capital MUCH better if I’d planned things more.  But at the start I didn’t really understand how districts and Mbanza/Neighborhoods would work as well as what else would be available.  So I never really planned and ended up with a lot of poorly used tiles.
  
• I would say there is a lot more planning required to be optimal in planning what to put on what tile in this than previous games.  First the obvious that you now have wonders and districts taking up tiles outside of cities so you have to plan them around your tile improvements.  Next you have all sorts of adjacency bonuses from the basic district ones with what’s on tiles next to them up to wonders and districts giving bonuses to other cities within X tiles.
  
• Mbanza unique neighborhood building seems pretty crazy for building up cities and I made poor use of this by not really pushing growth or planning tiles better.  Ended up with not a whole lot of food production to keep growth strong.
  

Not too bad a foray into the game and learnt and improved for next time.  Got some achievements.  Played a bit longer to get 30 pop capital achivement for Kongo too

[Magil]

Got any screenshots of you empire towards the end of the game? Be interesting to see how you developed your land!

[Yazilliclick]

Yeah here's screenshots of land at the end. I really didn't plan things well at all so don't use me as an example to learn from lol

[Magil]

That's interesting, so Vicky actually conquered Roosevelt in your game! And dang Kwila looks like a nice city, Petra and Rhur Valley.

[Dp101]

Huh, despite different civs and victory conditions, we ended up finishing on the same turn.

[Yazilliclick]

Roosevelt isn't out but yeah he was pretty weak all game and got picked on some. Tried being his friend but he didn't really want to be very friendly