Thanks for saying this. I was going to, but then I realized I wasn’t going to be as diplomatic and abstained.
Yeah, definitely hammers, hammers, uber alles in Civ VI.
I’m finding that jamming cities closer together seems generally more advised than in previous games (aside from that one weird time in V when you were best off with like a jillion 4-pop tiny burgs…that was dumb, heh). This is a combination of a bunch of things:
- You’re badly constrained by Housing for much if not most of the game.
- Trying to build “tall” doesn’t really work all that well as there are few if any percentile bonuses. Most everything is a flat +3 hammers or +2 food or what have you.
- Multiplying the bonuses for Industrial+ buildings like Factories and Zoos is yuge.
- Specialists seem generally pretty good, reducing the need for more land.
- Probably some other things I’m not thinking of at the moment.
I dunno, just some thoughts from early play and consideration of the rules. Could well be that I’m wrong or not taking something into account.
I lost another Emperor game. I was playing as Arabia. I stole China 2nd settler early and settled in flood plain. The +1 production in flood plain, oasis, and marsh is great pantheon. Around turn 60 Russia and China declared war on me. I easily beat back the attack with 4 archers. I had four cities, and was doing well despite being barely beaten to both Pyramids and Petra. I finally researched the embark technology so I sent most of my army out exploring. Russia declare war again, but this time their 10 spearmen and 2 catapults easily took my capital. Guarded by a single archer. Not being able to rush build walls makes the game more challenging than Civ V.
Now mind you the AI is still pretty brain dead, but I am finding at Emperor the game is pretty respectable.
Has anybody else played Arabia? Their main ability getting the last great prophet, and building at 1/10 cost is interesting. But I found the time I got the religion up and around most of cities were already converted to something else.
Tim_N
2010
It is a strange bonus, as it makes you think Arabia is very strong for religion but really they aren’t as they are too late to the party (at least in the map types I played). It is a great way to defend against an AI religious victory with 0 effort in getting Great Prophet points, though, so that is how I approached it when playing them.
Granath
2011
I have put over forty hours into Civilization 6 and while I think it is a good game I am not yet incredibly impressed. I think the foundation of the game is strong and they have varied the formula of the game enough to make it feel new. I quite enjoy the new Wonder movies and the tile placement in cities adds a nice strategic flair.
Right now however I am struggling to overcome what I see are two major deficiencies that are causing me no end of frustration when I play. The first is the brain-dead AI. If anything it seems to be worse than 5s. I am not talking about the unit movements because the AI actually will retreat and gang up on units. The leaders are atrocious. One turn they are making merry and the next they are declaring war with only a couple of units on the map. In each of the half dozen games I have started at least one AI civ has declared war on me with a tiny army early in the game and has been subsequently wiped out quickly by my larger force. They usually want to do this in tandem with another nation that has no hope of getting their troops to the battlefield. This brings up two issues. The first is how is the AI coordinating such a joint attack so early in the game with so few diplomatic options available and the second is the AI being brain-dead about who they are attacking when comparing relative strengths.
As an aside, one amusing bug is that on three separate occasions the AI has declared war on me by my own nation. t was quite a shock to me to see England and Germany declare war on Germany. You are not reading that wrong.
The second and greater issue for me is the religious war. The AI just constantly spams apostles at rates that are impossible to duplicate. I have had the AI spam 1 to 2 apostles per turn when they have had only two cities. This is not just once but constantly and my 5 or 6 city empire can not hope to keep up that pace even trying to produce missionaries at that rate. If my missionaries are going to cost over 200 faith per turn, the AI churning out apostles at that rate must be 500 faith each or about 750 faith per turn. That is not possible early in the game out of two cities. So the AI here has some sort of incredible advantage over the player.
Moreover, the AI constantly breaks their promise to not convert my cities with no penalty. The conversation always seems to go something like “do not spread your religion”. “AI: Ok, I will not”. Then the very next turn 3 apostles spread their religion. There is no message about them breaking their promise. I get no option to denounce them. My only option is to declare war either instantly with huge warmongering penalties or after 5 turns with moderate warmongering penalties. There seems to be no defense against this tactic. I can not shut the borders nor can I hope to produce apostles at the same rate the AI gets to do so. It appears my only option is to declare and maintain a permanent state of war with such enemies to have the option to mow down their religious spam. This whole part of the game seems to be poorly balanced or even outright bugged given the AIs ability to spam these units without the appropriate faith costs. It seems to be so poorly done that on any new game I just turn the religious victory off.
I think the core of the game is solid and this may very well become another classic in the series to go along with 1, 2 and 4 (+BtS). I hope they patch some of these issues soon though because until they do it is going to be a bit tough to deal with some of these problems.
Miramon
2012
There is a message and an icon, and you can always denounce them whenever you like. For what pathetic good it does you. But yes, the AI for this feature is completely broken. It has never kept its promise even once.
But see, being denounced has no negative effects in this game I can see. The very next turn I am often offered trades by the denouncing civ. Npt that they’re fair trades, but they aren’t anyway, so what the hell. So the warmonger penalty appears meaningless so far, (which is just as well as it’s applied incoherently). It just doesn’t seem to affect me.
It’s like this whole diplomacy feature set is irrelevant. If you want to stop being proselytized you can either have a lot of inquisitors or you can just wipe the offending civs off the face of the earth.
SlyFrog
2013
Back to the actual game instead of my ranting about Paradox.
Is there a way to tell the game to allocate your citizens to certain areas (e.g. food, culture, etc.) like there has been in past Civ games? Or at least a button you can click to maximize them and take off all of the citizens that you have locked onto certain squares?
The actual citizen management seems really basic. I see that you can move citizens around lock them into a certain space, but there does not seem to be any automation that I’m seeing. For example, in prior Civs, I could tell it to maximize production (without starving my people to death) with a single click.
The tactic regarding AI missionary spam being espoused on Civfanatics.com is to never completely ‘expend’ your missionaries or apostles. Don’t spend their last usage and then maintain them as a religious army to block or combat your opponents at your borders.
Denouncing is mostly good to be able to declare Causa Belli (sp?) in 5 turns and go to war without (as much of) a Warmonger penalty.
Discuss is good also if you are in a better position militarily but do not wish to get embroiled in further wars. Caution all your neighbors to not settle close to you or not send missionaries to your cities. If they are really weak they tend to obey this but you have to be right on top of it when the ‘30 turns’ or whatever speed you are playing wears off and re-warn them.
Granath
2016
In many cases the message does not appear nor do I get the option to denounce them in the diplomacy screen. There are times I have seen it but more often than not there seems to be nothing. It is like the game does not register the fact that it is not keeping track of that promise.
KevinC
2017
The bug appears to be when an AI does a joint war declaration and you haven’t met one of the AI’s. The unmet player shows up as you. Of course, it begs the question of why an AI would go to war with someone they’ve never met (and therefore have no idea where they are). I had such a war span thousands of years, because it took me that long to run into the other AI so I could finally access the diplomacy screen and make peace.
I agree though that the diplomatic AI is wretched. I love how they lifted so many ideas from EU4, like warmonger penalties, having a casus belli for wars, and the AI personalities/agendas. It’s all rather pointless, though, because the AI once more is just a bunch of crazed psychopaths.
I know some people will retort that it’s a “board game” and the “AI is playing to win”, but it’s really not, it’s just making bad decisions. The incessant and almost random wars are especially bad for civs that are geared towards Cultural-type victories. I love when Brazil, in 3000BC, will go to war with me even though there’s room for 7-8 cities in between us, all because it’s on Emperor difficulty so he has more warriors than I do.
The AI personalities and agendas could be really cool. Hell, it might make France really fun to play. But as it is, the whole system is rendered irrelevant. I don’t need trade routes and diplomatic delegations to feed me rumors, I know very well what the AI is going to do. It’s going to praise me for something one turn, then turn into a bloodthirsty warmonger the next. And then I will slaughter them at the gates of my cities, they’ll sue for peace, and then do it all over again. It’s all very boring.
I’m OK with the AI being aggressive, especially if it fits the personality. But it makes no sense for Brazil to march across hundreds of miles of empty fertile ground to declare war on me and lose all their warriors at the start of the game. They should be focused on building up their civilization, settling new cities, and hell… maybe making a friend or two.
Enidigm
2018
Click the citizen button (which you have already found) to allocate citizens. Below there is a fairly small row of icons showing gross hammer/food/science output of the city (the detailed city spreadsheet shows net food). Click on the round circle next to the resource icon to prioritize that resource. Click again to ban that resource. Click a third time to return to default.
On the city Window on the bottom right of the screen you see how much faith, production etc is produced by that city. There are tiny circles beside them, click on them, there are three states normal, max and none.
Got bored before the win on my France/Prince game. My lead is entirely too massive. At some point I’ll probably go back to it just to check out aircraft and such and get my cheevo.
Started King/Aztec. Built/bought almost nothing but military, because founding cities and building infrastructure is for slave races, not mighty Aztecs. Especially since a band of well-meaning simple village folk doomed the world to millenia of dystopian Aztec hegemony by boosting Archery on like turn 10.
Mowed down Vicky with ease after she ran a bunch of warriors at a nearby CS only to retreat them at half-health. Gathered my party before venturing forth to have a conversation with Sally (of Arabia) about the relative merits of big fuckin’ sticks.
Sally should have repulsed me or at least hurt me pretty good, especially since he got walls up just as my debate team rolled up on Cairo, but the AI’s timidity with its units doomed it once again. Three Eagle Warriors (who are, it should be noted, total badasses. 28 strength!) and three Archers should not smoosh three warriors, three chariots, two spearmen, and two cities while also bashing in two barbarian camps that spawned mid-freaking-war. I only lost one archer due to my own carelessness.
It was nice to not have the worst terrain ever to attack over for once. Also, getting the Pyramids as Aztec is pretty great. A bonus build for all those free workers is pretty, pretty good.
The only question now is whether to send a letter to Cleo (the contents of the letter are murder) and invite Peter to an international forum on the merits of Aztec culture (my Aztec culture is primarily based on murder), thereby securing the continent against the spread of any dangerous antisocial ideas, or to settle some of the massive tracts of wilderness that are uncontested after the foreseen-by-the-ancestors falls of England and Arabia.
I’m amused, but I think city defenses have been nerfed too far. And really, would it be too much to teach the AI to garrison a ranged unit and shoot at the bad men? Parking a chariot for +7 passive defense or whatever is not a good use of your hammers.
robc04
2021
I played my first 2 games primarily peacefully, and 2 games where I was aggressive. Playing aggressively makes the game much easier.
Only played one long game, still in it, as the Americans. Only war has been with Egypt, twice. Once Elizabeth Taylor, er, Cleopatra, attacked me, and got thwacked. A few centuries later I surprise attacked her and took a city that was annoyingly positioned. Though now, a thousand years later, I’m still seen as a warmongerer by her, I am peacefully co-existing with Brazil and Norway, and haven’t been in a war since. I’m not winning though; I’m in like third place across the board, but it’s my first game and I’m unsure about a lot of the stuff.
Diplomacy is as always in Civ a crock. Declare friendship one turn, threaten my cities the next. Declare war from across the map, then make peace ten turns later without any fighting. I’ve had Greece tell me my empire is bankrupt (it wasn’t it was flush with cash) and then the very next turn say isn’t it great I have such a strong economy. Etc. Whatever numbers behind the scenes are plugging away at things they certainly aren’t being used as well as they could be.
wilykat
2023
reading the end of the Delnar thread, it looks like this may not be the time to try his mod - there’s some problem with the settler logic.
If you can’t denounce, do you have the option to Discuss? I have seen it work for me. Where after I ask, I either have no missionaries incoming, or missionaries incoming and a promise broken notification, or Discuss is back up, indicating it “wore off” and I need to re-ask.
Not that there may not be a bug for you. Was it early game? Maybe you need one of the casus belli granting culture things researched? Did the AI change friendliness state? Weights change when it does (poking in xml) so maybe that bugs existing agreements.
Now on bugs. Reasons for AI state changes, here is one example from Kongo. He was my neighbor so was both getting my religion (happy!) by border influence bleeding, and was too close and was competing for settle (unhappy) and units too close to border (unhappy). But then the neighbor would manually convert a city, which had just osmosis converted by me so he then started messaging me that I wasn’t converting (unhappy). I would get alternating happy/unhappy due to the city religion flipping on alternate turns.
Norway has no idea what constitutes a Navy.
I too am seeing the AI, with two civs on the opposite side of a huge map declare joint war. I think zzzzz. 20 turns later when they realize their troops can’t reach me in 20 turns “Peace?” ok. As soon as the declare war rest timer is up, rinse, repeat. Can’t the AI make this distance check first?
The other one is the “Paranoid”. I had a moderate army due to an expansionist minded neighbor. I’m top right on a huge map. All units except ONE scout are within my borders. The scout finds the civ in the bottom left of this map. A few turns after finding him I get the “You have too many troops and they are too close!”. Umm no. They are not. That was one starting built scout, not ranger and you are in the modern era. Nope.
I am seeing a trend where civs too far away don’t know that and act stupid. Civs that are sharing a lot of border with you also don’t know that and act stupid. AIs that are close but have a one city build area buffer seem to act sane. It is obvious a civ has no idea how far away you are and if that matters at all.
KevinC
2025
Yeah, it feels like the AI lead was wrestling with improving the AI’s tactical ability to move and utilize units, which is noticeably improved from Civ5 in my opinion, but hasn’t spent much time on the diplomacy/strategic side of things. This is unfortunate, because the AI personalities and agendas never have a chance to coalesce into something interesting.
Thankfully, a lot of these issues are something that can be fixed. Of course, the same could be said about a lot of Civ5’s most glaring problems, but at least this time around they have a dedicated AI lead. I’m more optimistic for this one!
Enidigm
2026
In one of the many games i’ve played for a few turns - i don’t even remember who i was playing, but in this case it’s not relevant - i had England move several units suspiciously on a b-line to my capital during that phase of the game where you can move into other civs’ territory, and actually had two warriors camped in the tiles next to my city. Then i finished a slinger and they all moved away. It’s almost as if there is some kind of power bar threshold that happened and switched behavior. Undefended capital? You’re dead meat! Defended capital? Nah, we’re good, back to being friends. I’ve also noticed when i war against what appears to be a weakly defended capital the AI throws up walls asap.
