Let’s give Civ6 multiplayer a shot. I’m effectively a Civ6 noob. According to Steam, I’ve logged 60 hours, and approximately 30 of those were right after the game was released, so that barely applies now. Add another 25ish on Switch, and it's not a ton of experience. I’ve owned DLC of any kind for less than 72 hours. I only kind of know how cultural victory works, and apparently that’s THE victory type in this game. I have no clue what things get you Era Points. So, if you’re looking for high level play, boy have you come to the wrong thread. If you want to see a Civ4 vet stumble his way through Civ6 multiplayer, this might be fun. I do mostly know what to do. The main gap is just general knowledge gap, especially expansion mechanics and the later game.
I have some thoughts on our civ choices, which I’ll break into its own longer post. Our seven choices are the following: Inca, Mapuche, Norway, America, France, China, Persia.
Here’s my preliminary thoughts on my choices. I’m gonna spell them all out, and hopefully Chevalier can weigh in. I’ll stick them into tiers in roughly reverse order.
No Thanks
Mapuche
I like that Firaxis went with some civilizations I had to google this time around. I just wish they made this one worth playing. The UU seems fairly bad, because if I’m needing its additional strength to defend my cities, I’ve probably already lost. The Toqui golden age thing seems a bit too cute and fairly difficult to exploit on purpose. I’m not a fan of abilities that only make a bad idea feel less bad. Chemamull is probably helpful for cultural victories, but if that’s the best we’ve got, PASS.
USA
I just wanna throw this out entirely because it seems like a massive gamble on where the continental divides just happen to land. The UUs in general seem underwhelming. The wildcard slot thing is nice I guess, but I gotta think I want those envoy point policies anyway, so I don’t see a ton of benefit from that. I’m guessing that Film Studio is pretty good? I can’t imagine it’s good enough to rescue this civ. PASS.
Talk Me Into This
France
I have no idea if spies are any good, and diplomatic visibility seems worthless in a MP game, although that may also be my ignorance talking. I’m mainly sticking this here because I can’t figure out if the Grand Tour is good or not. My general sense in Civ6 has been that the wonders suck. Production is king, and they cost a lot and mostly have underwhelming perks. That said, given that I only have 3 competitors for wonders, this would give me my pick of them while also getting the tourism ball rolling early. The UU/UB seem underwhelming to me. Seems like we have better options than this?
China
This is all about the builder thing, yeah? The ability to get 60% of an early wonder at the cost of one builder seems crazy to me, and past that this I don’t see tons of value here? The Great Wall thing seems kinda worthless, and the UU not much better. The eureka thing seems fine I guess, but it doesn’t seem like a game breaker.
Norway
Norway is pretty interesting to me, but this map will be mostly land-based, so it feels like this has to be a pass, right? This civ seems insanely powerful on water, but water will be a footnote here if we’re aiming for one landmass, so this probably has to be a pass. Open to being convinced otherwise, though.
Strong Contenders
Inca
This is a super interesting civ to me. New world map age would add more mountains I believe, so Inca has a lot to work with. The Terrace Farm seems super strong to me? Especially in the early game it seems especially good. The only tricky part is just that you want to build them in the same spots that you want to build campuses or holy sites. I know Inca are also featured in the current Civ6 PBEM, but I can’t really comment on that here too much given that the game is still ongoing. The UU seems like kind of a dud, though.
Persia
And here we have the other civ that has featured in the other ongoing PBEM. The only snag here is we’re looking at a map where we’ve got a bit more space, so the surprise war + Immortal thing feels less strong, as it may be a later era when we’re finally in war range. That said, we have no rule about killing city-states, so maybe that would be a good use. The Pairidaeza seems like a way to pursue a cultural victory, but it doesn’t necessarily help you get into a contender position to begin with. I’m actually talking myself out of this a bit, but I’ll leave Persia in this tier for now.
That’s my early feel on this. Chevalier, any thoughts? My gut says Inca.
Well you got at least 1 dedlurker here. Note I haven't played too much GS.
1. Mapuche. I think they are stronger than you think. Golden Ages in this game are important just for monumentality that allows you to buy settlers/builders/traders with faith. While this civ probably won't go a heavy religion strategy, you could leverage the ability to attack a weak neighbor who is in a GA. The Chemamull is actually important since culture early game is so hard to come by.
2. USA. the 5 str could mean the difference in defending an early game rush.
3. France. Diplomatic visibility is actually very important in MP since each higher level of diplomatic visibility gives you +3str against your opponent.
4. China. The great wall got buffs but I still dont know if its worth building.
5. Norway. PBEM13 was on a pangea and navies still made the difference in that game given how strong navies are compared to say civ4.
6. Inca. No comment. Not much experience.
7. Persia. Surprise war against city states dont give you the movement bonus.
Welcome, Alhazard! Thanks for the input, that helps a lot. I'll definitely check out PBEM13 for Norway. They're the hardest to quantify for me. France also looks more interesting to me now - I had no idea about the +3str thing. I'm still unsure whether I'll be building many early wonders given the name of the game will probably be expansion early on due to the extra land, but it's interesting at least. The Chateau seems easier to use than the Chemamull, for example.
Speaking of - I'm still having trouble envisioning working Chemamulls because it requires working tiles in which you don't get any additional food/production. I suppose it's pretty good on forested hills? Although you're also constrained to breathtaking tiles. Maybe I'll play a little test game with them.
Is the game really anything goes for city states? America looks a lot better since when I play SP, I always wish that the diplomatic policy slot was something else to aid expansion/military. USA or Persia would be my recommended pick just for pure power.
If you want to read up China play, go read sullla+singboy's thread in pbem7, although China got nerfed since each builder charge used to give 20% now 15%. Not the easiest civ to play, but definitely different from every other civ.
I am going to dedlurk without much dedication. In other words I'll only follow your thread but I susspect I will be in and out a lot.
Regarding your civ choices, I think Persia or Mapuche are your strongest options. Persia is all about getting extra movement which is a major problem in civ 6. Plus that plus gold and culture to internal trade routes will be helpful once city states die off. You probably won't get their surprise war bonus off. Most of your neighbors are just going to auto declare if they susspect anything.
As for Mapuche, like Alhazard said, +10 combat stregth is nothing to scoff at. It will make your neighbors think how badly they really want a golden age. Their UU synergizes well with their agressive playstyle too.
Norway used to be pretty lackluster to be honest. The production bonus was ok, but the stave church didn't synergize well with the rest of their stuff. Now though, they are the only ones who get science and culture for pillaging stuff other than appropriate districts. You will be making enemies though by doing this. Depends on your level of comfort with that.
The US still kind of a crapshoot. +5 combat bonus depends on the map, extra favor depends on the agendas. Wild card policy slot is nice, but not sure it's nicer than anything else the other civs you have can offer. Everything else comes in too late to matter.
China is a solid pick for buidler charges. Extra strong eurka and inspiration are never bad, it's basically free culture and science with some strings attached.
France is ok, but like the US, their abilities kick in kind of late. Most of the best wonders are ancient or classical. (Pyrimids or Stonehenge for example). Not sure if any of the new wonders change that.
(September 29th, 2019, 09:14)scooter Wrote: Here’s my preliminary thoughts on my choices. I’m gonna spell them all out, and hopefully Chevalier can weigh in. I’ll stick them into tiers in roughly reverse order.
No Thanks
Mapuche
I like that Firaxis went with some civilizations I had to google this time around. I just wish they made this one worth playing. The UU seems fairly bad, because if I’m needing its additional strength to defend my cities, I’ve probably already lost. The Toqui golden age thing seems a bit too cute and fairly difficult to exploit on purpose. I’m not a fan of abilities that only make a bad idea feel less bad. Chemamull is probably helpful for cultural victories, but if that’s the best we’ve got, PASS.
USA
I just wanna throw this out entirely because it seems like a massive gamble on where the continental divides just happen to land. The UUs in general seem underwhelming. The wildcard slot thing is nice I guess, but I gotta think I want those envoy point policies anyway, so I don’t see a ton of benefit from that. I’m guessing that Film Studio is pretty good? I can’t imagine it’s good enough to rescue this civ. PASS.
USA is pretty weak. The only early game bonus they have is the +5 strength and the wild card. Both are highly dependent on geography, like you said. You need a lucky continent roll. The wildcard slot is not to be underrated, since it's possible that all your city-states will be eaten by hungry civs. But it's not enough to save everything else. The UU is useless in multiplayer - I've never seen a single air unit built. The Film Studio is also useless, coming way too late in the game to matter. Pin won with the USA in PBEM5, but he got a really great continent roll, and otherwise basically just crushed it via a really good religion -> culture play.
Mapuche you may be underrating. Stacking combat bonuses is really good in Civ VI, since 1UPT means you can't really just crush someone with numbers past a certain point - you need some kind of qualitative edge. If you stack a Great General AND the combat bonus near your own territory (really good to pair with the Logistics policy, +1 movement in your own territory) AND the Golden Age combat buff and you're looking at a +20 unit - which makes a Malon Raider push damn near unstoppable. The Golden Age combat bonus is real solid - either your opponents have to avoid powerful buffs like Monumentality or the one that gives science to Harbors and Commercial Hubs entirely, or they give you +10 CS against them. And humans getting Golden Ages is really common - they're practically more normal than Normal ages. The UI is underwhelming, but it does come early and can be used to boost culture research, so not too bad if you can place it on a decent tile. I'd move them up a tier to Talk You Into It. You'd definitely want to push culture and go for good policies and governments, grab a Great General, and then launch an unstoppable Malon Raider attack around the Medieval or Renaissance era. A warmongering civ for sure.
Quote:France
I have no idea if spies are any good, and diplomatic visibility seems worthless in a MP game, although that may also be my ignorance talking. I’m mainly sticking this here because I can’t figure out if the Grand Tour is good or not. My general sense in Civ6 has been that the wonders suck. Production is king, and they cost a lot and mostly have underwhelming perks. That said, given that I only have 3 competitors for wonders, this would give me my pick of them while also getting the tourism ball rolling early. The UU/UB seem underwhelming to me. Seems like we have better options than this?
China
This is all about the builder thing, yeah? The ability to get 60% of an early wonder at the cost of one builder seems crazy to me, and past that this I don’t see tons of value here? The Great Wall thing seems kinda worthless, and the UU not much better. The eureka thing seems fine I guess, but it doesn’t seem like a game breaker.
Norway
Norway is pretty interesting to me, but this map will be mostly land-based, so it feels like this has to be a pass, right? This civ seems insanely powerful on water, but water will be a footnote here if we’re aiming for one landmass, so this probably has to be a pass. Open to being convinced otherwise, though.
I just can't see France working. Spies are useful and probably haven't been used to their full potential in MP yet, and diplo visibility gives combat buffs to the side with the advantage. +3 is modest but again it stacks with stuff like Great Generals. However, that's just about all France has going for it. The Chateau is roughly similar to Mapuche's UI, but river tiles are in kind of high demand for various wonders, districts, and improvements (eg a river forest lumbermill tile is as good as a plains hill mine). The GI is like Teddy's bonus - entirely dependent on the map and anyway comes way too late on the tech tree to really matter. And Grand Tour...well, Tourism is useless in MP, you'd much rather just have straight culture. Games are over by concession before tourists matter. And most Medieval/Renaissance/Industrial wonders are just too damned expensive. I've done some math on just about all of them, and they're just about all overpriced. China is a much better wonder building civilization - Ancient and Classical wonders tend to have much better cost/benefit ratios and China can do 'em even more cheaply and quickly than France. I'd swap France with Mapuche in your tier, to be honest.
China is one of the stronger civs. The extra builder charge matters a lot - paired with Serfdom, the Pyramids, and Liang and you can get 8 charge builders! You build the Ancestral Hall and run Serfdom (+Pyramids) and every settler is ALSO a 7-charge builder, instantly getting new cities up and running. China should always have improved tiles everywhere, which means easier eurekas, more production, more food, more gold - it's really good. Spending builder charges to rush wonders is also great. One clever move is to keep 1-charge builders lying around, then use 5 of 'em in one turn to 1-shot any wonder you please (pair this with Autocracy government + Corvee policy card for best returns). And early wonders are great:
1)Stonehenge means China gets free first pick of religion if Russia isn't in the game and in an absurd Great Prophet race with Khmer (see PBEM7).
2)Pyramids recoup the cost of a builder AND give lots of builder charges through the game, easily one of the best wonders.
3)Temple of Artemis gives lots of amenities, housing, and food.
4)Coliseum gives absurd amounts of culture and amenities if placed ideally.
5)Great Lighthouse buffs naval units, +1 movement means you can get the all-important first strike
6)Petra makes an instantly powerful desert city.
7)Terracotta Army effectively adds +7 to CS for your entire army - stacking buffs is the way to go!
etc.
Any early wonder China wants, China gets, so you can tailor them to any playstyle you want. With faith-purchasing builders, builders from settlers via the AH, you'll never want for tile improvements, chops, or wonders. AND, since wonders give era points, you'll have an easy time landing Golden Age after Golden Age.
Dynastic cycle is good, too - a modest boost but it adds up over the game and just gives China a little edge in research if you're diligent about chasing boosts. I've never seen the Crouching Tiger or Great Wall matter. China can do anything but I think it's strongest with a good faith game to take advantage of the free religion and to purchase builders.
Norway would be good on a naval map. The buff to naval melee units and to pillaging are all they need to be good there. On a land map, they don't have much going for them. The Stave Church has always been kind of weak - a bit expensive for what it does, and the beserker just isn't my cup of tea as a unit. I'd give them a miss.
Quote:Strong Contenders
Inca
This is a super interesting civ to me. New world map age would add more mountains I believe, so Inca has a lot to work with. The Terrace Farm seems super strong to me? Especially in the early game it seems especially good. The only tricky part is just that you want to build them in the same spots that you want to build campuses or holy sites. I know Inca are also featured in the current Civ6 PBEM, but I can’t really comment on that here too much given that the game is still ongoing. The UU seems like kind of a dud, though.
Persia
And here we have the other civ that has featured in the other ongoing PBEM. The only snag here is we’re looking at a map where we’ve got a bit more space, so the surprise war + Immortal thing feels less strong, as it may be a later era when we’re finally in war range. That said, we have no rule about killing city-states, so maybe that would be a good use. The Pairidaeza seems like a way to pursue a cultural victory, but it doesn’t necessarily help you get into a contender position to begin with. I’m actually talking myself out of this a bit, but I’ll leave Persia in this tier for now.
That’s my early feel on this. Chevalier, any thoughts? My gut says Inca.
I'll spoiler my thoughts on Inca and Persia due to PBEM15, since that influences a lot of my thoughts on them.
Persia is decent, but is dependent on the others letting you get away with stuff. Alhambram and Woden both shouldn't have gotten the surprise wars that they did. So you can't count on the strength boost and movement boost at all. The Immortal is a good UU, flexible, can win you an early war, but that's most of what Persia has going for it. The trade route buff is nice, but nothing game-breaking, and the paridaeza is likewise. Good if you want more gold and culture - never bad things to have - but not the strongest thing on the table, either. On the whole, Persia is more on a tier with Mapuche, while China is a strong competitor with Inca.
The Inca, though, are really strong. Pin has led in science rate for virtually the entire game in PBEM15 thanks to his absurd campus adjacencies. The terrace farm is a really good UI, and you only need one tile per city for a campus district anyway. You can get absurdly populous cities with plenty of tiles to work as the Inca. Their fancy tunnel is easy to build and lets you teleport units across entire mountain ranges (ie build one at one end of a 20-tile range, and one at the other end, and units can cross your entire empire with 2 movement points). The UU is underwhelming, but that's their only weakness.
The mountain start bias is really good. Mountains and volcanoes give the best adjacencies in Civ VI, and the Inca LOVE mountains. Not only do you get easily boosted Campuses (campi?), but Holy Sites are also easy, and they shouldn't be neglected. Woden's domination of the Faith game is one reason he's running away with PBEM15, but pin could be and frankly should be winning the faith game. It does mean giving up a tile for a Holy Site, but Holy Sites give lots of faith - basically supplemental production - and can add culture, amenities, science, housing, whatever you want, with a bit of investment. They're not a bad district at all. As Inca, I'd run a science/faith game, maybe take choral music over Jesuit Education (since I can spend faith on builders instead of science buildings, and this way I get my culture bases covered) and Church Property so I'm generating gold, faith, science, and culture all in absurd amounts. I've got populous cities working good tiles and I've got mountains for defense and even transportation. The Inca do better with more land, but unlike other civs they don't NEED a land advantage to eventually run away - just having a roughly equal amount of land should make you extremely competitive.
On the whole, I think your strongest choices are either Inca or China. China takes more micromanagement, so personally I agree with your gut instinct and favor the Inca.
The Inca can grow tall, snug and safe in their mountain fortresses.
Too bad you can't do Qin Shi Huang of Inca. Lose the mountain portals and a small amount of the huge food boost, but gain all that sweet builder-y bonuses.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
Awesome input everyone, thanks . The overwhelming consensus is that I’m being unfair to Mapuche. I’m not sure I’m going to pick them, but I definitely get the appeal much better now. I think if we landed on Tiny map size instead of Small, they might just be the choice. It definitely does feel like it's going to be either China or Inca. I didn’t know about Ancestral Hall - that’s extremely powerful combined with China + other stuff. I have one major concern with both of these choices, though.
China: My concern here is that wonders may be a bit less strong in general given that we’re likely to have lots of room to expand given the map choices we made. Time/resources spent on wonders is a real opportunity cost when there's abundant land to be claimed. 4 players on a small map would make this an expansion game. Granted, the builder bonus charge can help with that too, so it’s not like China has nothing for that.
Inca: My concern is I’m not sure how this map will be created, and therefore I’m not sure if the Inca mountain start bias is actually going to happen here. It may seem like a small thing, but even a 25% reduction in the amount of mountains near me would be very real nerf. I’m unsure if it’s out of bounds at this point to ask how the map and start positions will be made.
For sure, there's a danger in too much wonder-whoring as China. The key is to pick out a couple targeted wonders (ie Stonehenge and the Pyramids) that you can get for the cost of a builder, and otherwise focus on a normal early game. The nice thing is the Pyramids gets you the builder back right away, so it doesn't slow the snowball at all, and the extra builder charges means even spending a builder on Stonehenge equalizes with a non-China civ after 3 builders anyway.
For Inca, the map questions are definitely important. Inca without the beautiful snaky mountain chains is kind of gimped. (I had basically no mountains in PBEM7, 12, or 13).
. The overwhelming consensus is that I’m being unfair to Mapuche. I’m not sure I’m going to pick them, but I definitely get the appeal much better now. I think if we landed on Tiny map size instead of Small, they might just be the choice. It definitely does feel like it's going to be either China or Inca. I didn’t know about Ancestral Hall - that’s extremely powerful combined with China + other stuff. I have one major concern with both of these choices, though.