Starting Civ 6 with Rome - should be fun! My Civ skills - which were not terribly great to begin with - are extremely depreciated since I played only about 20 hours of Civ 5 many years ago (but a few hundred of 4!). Also, I am coming into Civ 6 more or less blind with respect to new mechanics and gameplay elements. All I really know (from 5 minutes of Sullla's youtube channel and the first posts of a couple other adventure reports) is that it's still 1UPT! This potluck should be a great way to explore some of the new ideas while constantly being confused about how or why anything works the way it does.

Before we get started, I'll copy Brick's summary of Rome and its leader, Trajan:

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Rome
Unique Ability: All Roads lead to Rome: All cities start with a trading post, and new cities in trade route range of your capital will automatically have a road going to them. Trade routes going through your cities earn extra gold.
Unique Unit: Legion: Replaces the Swordsman. Has higher combat strength and does not require Iron to build, but is more costly. Can construct roads and forts as though it were a Military Engineer.
Unique District: Baths: Replaces the Aqueduct district. Provides an additional bonus of +2 Housing and +1 Amenity.

Trajan
Leader Bonus: Trajan's Column: All cities start with an additional City Center building. (Starts with a Monument building in the Ancient era)
Leader Agenda: Optimus Princeps: He tries to include as much territory as possible into his empire, and he dislikes civilizations who control little territory.

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Looking at the Civilopedia, it seems that trade is now automated once you have a trader, but it's limited to 15 tiles on land (30 on water) and that Rome's ability allows for easier rebasing and extension of these limits. Apparently trading posts provide a "bonus to yield" but the Civilopedia doesn't say how much... But the automatic road placement between cities seems great! Automated road networks within your empire must be the biggest draw of the Roman ability.

The Legion is Rome's unique unit, and replaces the Swordsman. It is slightly stronger (40 vs 35) and slightly more expensive (110 vs 90) but doesn't require Iron to build. They can also build a Roman Fort a unique (?) upgrade that provides a defensive bonus as well as automatic fortification. So Rome's early to mid goals may be: build a front-line city to a neighbor, quickly move your legions to the front (from the automatic roads) and then build a fort as a forward base to launch an invasion.

Rome's unique district is the Bath, which replaces the aqueduct and supplies fresh water with a bonus to housing and amenities. I am totally unclear on what districts, housing, and amenities are! Districts look like special city extensions that let you build on other tiles? Housing and amenities look more straightforward: city and empire growth limiters.

Then we have Trajan, who automatically generates a city center (it's not clear whether the "additional" means 1 or 2 total though...) At least in ancient times, it's just a free monument in every city - sounds good!

Finally, we have his agenda, which I'm guessing is for an AI controlled Rome.

So, as discussed, it looks like Rome's plan is to expand fairly quickly and use the free monuments to control territory while taking advantage of a more powerful trade network to use gold to further expand. Heading towards Engineering (for Baths districts) should help keep the cities growing and then Iron Working for early warfare.

Alright, let's fire up the start and see what we've got!

"Let the Gaians preach their silly religion, but one way or the other I shall see this compound burned, seared, and sterilized until every hiding place is found and until every last Mind Worm egg, every last slimy one, has been cooked to a smoking husk. That species shall be exterminated, I tell you! Exterminated!" --Academician Prokhor Zakharov, Lab Three Aftermath

Okay, so I am not really so good at reporting games. I figured I'd do some random reports at certain points of the game, so that's how it's going to be. The first report is from turn 65 (arbitrarily chosen number of course - it just seemed like a good time to make the report based on the state of my empire  ).

A few thoughts on my civ, start, etc:

- Rome is a very powerful civ in Civ6 because of the ability to get free roads and tradeposts, and also the free monument that gives 2 culture is an absolutely amazing ability, seeing as the monument is one of the buildings I usually build first in cities except for my capital, due to the need for culture to "research" civics. I've already played Rome earlier, and won a culture victory (I was aiming for science, but the culture victory decided it wanted to step in before that...).
- The start for Rome (I decided to SIP) is not a particularly good one. In Civ6 I have noted that production is king, whereas science was king in Civ5 - and Rome is an atrociously bad production location. On the other side though it's an amazing food production center.
- The starting area around Rome is also definitely not among the best starting areas I've seen! I'm boxed in inside a peninsula-like area, with lots of mountains and jungle to my north, and tundra and snow in the south - and some city states "handily" placed in such a manner that I am seriously contemplating conquering at least one of them. Yay. The mountains will net me two quite good science cities though, so that's not SO bad - but I am very limited in terms of settling new cities without my settlers having to drudge through 1-move tiles in the north. I think I've done a moderately good job at getting things up and running though.
- The barbs are annoying - and they were a real nuiscance in the first 30 or so turns. I even lost my initial warrior and a slinger, that I built early, to them. My city state neighbours saved me though, so Caledornus Toastmasterus did not repeat history and fall to barbarians!
- One goodie hut was nice enough to provide me with a free builder. Yay goodie hut!

My initial build order for Rome, after SIP, was: Scout, Slinger, Settler, Builder
My research order was: Mining (that stone tile is vital for Rome since it provides production), Pottery, Animal Husbandry, Writing, Archery (I got an Eureka thanks to some luck in killing off a barb with my initial slinger - but that cost me the slinger)
My civic order was: Foreign Trade, Craftsmanship, Early Empire, State Workforce, Political Philosophy (to get the first tier governments asap)

As soon as I got Political Philosophy, I decided to go with Autocracy, because of a lot of barb camps that was annoying me.

Screenshots from T65 (Achtung! 2560x1440 resolution )

I wish I had an interesting story to tell, but I don't. Prince difficulty is just too easy.


For a long time the only AI I met was Cleopatra, who denounced me for having too small a military. True, I had 1 archer, 1 warrior and 1 scout, but I could just as easily denounce her for not expanding: she had 1 city and I had 4. No matter, I declared surprise war immediately and coincidentally it was 1 turn before classical so no war mongering penalty. Not that it mattered because at that point, I still had not met any other AI. There followed a sitzkreig while I built up some military. First blood came when an unescorted Egyptian settler sauntered up to my city, thank you very much. On turn 119 I captured the Egyptian capital with 1 swordsmen, 3 crossbows and a knight, 1 turn before I met the next AI. During this time, (I found out much later) Teddy had captured the Japanese capital. I was way ahead on score, but I persevered to space victory on turn 295 so that I could test out the new space race mechanic.

The funniest thing about the game was earning 2 achievements I had no idea about:
1) activating Darwin in the Galapagos Islands-- I just went there because it was close and gave best output.
2) activating Darwin and Newton in the same game with a captured Egyptian city!
3) levying Nan Madol military-- missed that one because I didn't know about it.

I thought long and hard about what to say about this picture, that would be the perfect blend of wit, sarcasm and self depreciation, but I failed. It sums up all the discussion about Civ 6, I feel. I'll let the image speak for me.

Summary:

Domination Victory, Turn 161. ~20 cities at end. 490 score.

Built about 25 knights, ran over everyone in 3 simultaneous military campaigns. I lost more units to barbarians than I did to the AI.

Hoping the AI gets better on Immortal. It was no challenge at all here.

Full Report will be up this weekend.

With the release of Civ VI (But, sadly, my inability to have any money to buy it for any foreseeable future) and the fact that my current situation leaves me in a state where I can often play offline games but not online games, I have been playing quite a bit of the ol' favorite Civilization IV.

Starting with a game I had that had the theme of "forgotten leaders" and reading the old AI Survivor games Sullla reported on (and listening to the Troll Kon game again), it sparked on me to do a bit of a variat idea on it, specifically playing 1 game on each of the 52 leaders in Civ IV! Yeah, probably a bit old hat given Civ IV's age, but it is still a pretty monstrous 52 games, and I am not somebody who has worked to the bone and is able to beat Deity easily, I usually play on Monarch and Emperor!

That also got me thinking of the fact that, hey, people might appreciate hearing about it...although only after I'd finished two games. In the end, I decided to throw out those games, in part because they were played on slightly different settings than I will use. If you're wondering, the leaders for those games were Frederick and Hannibal. So I thought I would open this thread up for writing more detailed reports! I will probably not exactly be updating this every day, but I will try to not just let it die!

The Rules

1. Restricted Leaders is on and each leader gets 1 game, win or lose, barring exceptional circumstances like somehow starting on a 20 tile island with no nearby islands to expand to or something else crazy. You get one shot to be hot or not. Map rerolls are not permitted except in those kind of extreme scenarios. Enemy leaders may be picked or randomized and will usually be some mix of it based on thematics, such as putting Roman leaders in a game with Hannibal or having a "Conquest Leaders" theme.

Leaders will be played for the most part normally, but I may at times sneak in some "in-characterness": For example, I will more likely try to found a religion first as Isabella. Retiring early is not allowed: I must play until someone wins.

2. Maps with all-landmass, absurdity or otherwise far out there things like Oasis, Highlands, Fantasy Land and others are not permitted. Expect to see mostly maps such as Pangaea, Continents, Custom Continents, Tectonics, Hemispheres, Big & Small, Medium & Small, Archipelago Shaky Continents and such. Climate and such will usually be random, except in cases where it is leader appropriate. For example Saladin will get an Arid start, while Stalin would get a Cold start.

3. Choose Religions is on, along with No Vassal States and No Technology Brokering. No Tech Brokering has been chosen over flatout tech trade banning because it gets kind of boring to have no tech trading, not to mention it can force out a lot of strats like early religion when I am hoping to give them all somewhat unique games, and I find having some level of tech trading tends to help the AI. Choose Religions is because I enjoy the flavor of different religions being around and No Vassal States should be obvious. I will also be experimenting with Aggressive AI, due to what I find to be a low number of conquests/wars in the first two games, although I have yet to have the real aggromongers...

4. The difficulty will be Emperor, although the first two games were be played on Monarch: I felt like it did not punish me enough for mistakes and I want there to be challenge, so for the time being at least I am bumping up the difficulty to Emperor. This is also why I decided to throw out the previous games, as it felt unfair to give them both a lower difficulty. I'm not good enough to fight Immortal consistantly and it tends to constrain strats a bit too much anyway (like the aforementioned Isabella religiousness).

5. Leaders will be chosen either at random, alphabetically, because I feel like them/at whim or if this ends up being popular perhaps by vote.

6. Winning leaders will be listed according to how fast they won, although they will also have their Score and Normalized Score shown, along with how they won. Losing leaders will be listed according to how long they lasted and always below winning leaders. Victory type will also be listed.

Remaining Leaders By Civilization:

Bold denotes the leader is the active game. 

America: Abrahamn Lincoln (Philosophical/Charismatic), Franklin Roosevelt (Industrious/Organized), George Washington (Organized/Charismatic)
Arabia: Saladin (Spiritual/Protective)
Aztec: Montezuma (Aggressive/Spiritual)
Babylon: Hammurabi (Aggressive/Organized)
Byzantine: Justinian I (Spiritual/Imperialistic)
Carthage: Hannibal (Financial/Charismatic)
Celts: Boudica (Aggressive/Charismatic), Brennus (Spiritual/Charismatic)
China: Mao Zedong (Expansive/Protective), Qin Shi Huang (Industrious/Protective)
Dutch: Willem van Oranje (Financial/Creative)
Egypt: Hatshepsut (Spiritual/Creative), Ramesses II (Spiritual/Industrious)
England: Winston Churchill (Charismatic/Protective), Elizabeth (Financial/Philosophical), Victoria (Financial/Imperialistic)
Ethiopia: Zara Yaqob (Creative/Organized)
France: Charles De Gaulle (Industrious/Charismatic), Louis XIV (Creative/Industrious), Napoleon (Organized/Charismatic)
Germany: Otto von Bismarck (Expansive/Industrious), Frederick (Organized/Philosophical)
Greece: Pericles (Creative/Philosophical), Alexander the Great (Philosophical/Aggressive)
Holy Rome: Charlemagne (Protective/Imperialistic)
Inca: Huanya Capac (Financial/Industrious)
India: Asoka (Spiritual/Organized), Gandhi (Philosophical/Spiritual)
Japan: Tokugawa Ieyasu (Aggressive/Protective)
Khmer: Suravaryman II (Expansive/Creative)
Korea: Wang Kon (Financial/Protective)
Mali: Mansa Musa (Financial/Spiritual)
Maya: Pacal II (Expansive/Financial)
Mongolia: Genghis Khan (Aggressive/Imperialistic), Kublai Khan (Aggressive/Creative)
Native America: Sitting Bull (Philosophical/Protective)
Ottoman: Mehmed II (Expansive/Organized), Suleiman (Philosophical/Imperialistic)
Persia: Cyrus (Charismatic/Imperialistic), Darius I (Financial/Organized)
Portugal: Joao II (Expansive/Imperialistic)
Rome: Julius Caeser (Imperialistic/Organized), Augustus Caeser (Industrious/Imperialistic)
Russia: Catherine the Great (Creative/Imperialistic), Peter (Philosophical/Expansive), Stalin (Aggressive/Industrious)
Spain: Isabella (Spiritual/Expansive)
Sumeria: Gilgamesh (Creative/Protective)
Viking: Rangar (Aggressive/Financial)
Zulu: Shaka (Aggressive/Expansive)

Hall of Fame

The spoiler tag below is for the finished games as mentioned. Do not click if you do not wish to know the results of previous games.

Hey. Civ6 needs an RBmod. Discuss what to change here.

I've written down the numbers for growth and border expansions that are available through some UI-mods that float around. For those interested, I've used

Custom City Panel as well as QuickUI 

though QuickUI is changing quite a bit more stuff, some I'm not so keen on.

Anyway, on to the numbers:

Grow to - Food
size      required

1. --- 0
   
2. --- 15
   
3. --- 24
   
4. --- 33
   
5. --- 44
   
6. --- 55
   
7. --- 66
   
8. --- 77
   
9. --- 89
   
10. -- 101
    
11. -- 114
    

1. --- 10
   
2. --- 20
   
3. --- 35
   
4. --- 52
   
5. --- 72
   
6. --- 93
   
7. -- 115
   

Game played

Religion win T212

OCC