Btw, has anyone had problems with grievances?
Current game, I am neighbors and declared friends with Gilgamesh. One minor problem along the way, he complained about my settling near him, but given the two answer options, I chose to promise not to do it again, which grants Diplomatic favor (the other option gives grievances).
So maybe 15 turns later, I go to the diplomatic screen with Gilgamesh, and he is still friendly, but in red print I see he has 50+ grievances against me. wtf is that about, I did nothing to him. Then a couple turns later, I go back for another look, and the print has turned green and I have 50+ grievances against him. Huh?
Either I am not understanding something, or this is a bug.
So, I’ve been playing a LOT of Civ6 the past 2 weeks. I have liked Civ6 the least of any Civ series, but have been exploring it with the Rise and Fall expansion and various DLC (do not have the Gathering Storm DLC yet).
I have found a way to enjoy the game, but my interest always, always falls off once I get to Flight.
The first thing I have done is completely ignore religion. I don’t build holy sites, and thus I don’t get bogged down in the tedium of religious warfare. The religion mechanic is awful awful awful.
By doing that I enjoy the game for quite awhile, and I try not to stress too much about district placement.
However, when I get to flight, the game becomes insanely busy. Visually, the map is a complete mess. Districts, improvements and units mix together to create an absolute mess.
But then the district and city mechanics are taken to the next, frustrating level. Appeal? Housing? Loyalty? Amenities? Governors? Plus your normal improvements, adjacency bonuses, variety of support units with corps and armies and then you start getting new districts like neighborhoods and aerodomes… and it just becomes a frustrating mess
This is where I miss the Paradox model. They wouldn’t be afraid to completely rip out bad mechanics like religion and rework them. Firaxis won’t do that, and thus you will be stuck with this for the duration of Civ6.
+1
Yeah, I forget that religion even exists, beyond choosing a pantheon.
rho21
3682
Oh the difference between playing against the AI and against real humans. In multiplayer, religion is really powerful, but of course it’s a fair investment to go chasing after one. And there’s no missionary spam: your faith is too valuable, and anyway a human would just declare war and kill the missionaries with military units.
Yet another fairly interesting and well balanced system ruined by the AI. :(
KevinC
3683
It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything with religion because I hate the tedium of trying to out-spam missionaries/apostles. What do they do with the faith instead of purchasing missionaries? Great People?
rho21
3684
If you can grab Jesuit Education belief then buying libraries and universities is a very good use of faith. Otherwise I think great people are probably the best option, though there’s much to be said for buying an army with Theocracy. It really depends how much you choose to invest into faith collection.
Hery
3685
I hate that you need faith to by the national parks guy. With the new expansion they added rock bands too which are pretty useful, but you can only buy them with Faith too.
KevinC
3686
Well, yeah. What else would you buy Rock Bands with?
Yes. Yes! YES!!! It becomes more like a puzzle game than a game about taking a civilization from the stone age to the space age. Bogged down in minutiae.
I am guessing it’s more powerful in MP because fewer people chase religion?
Districts game is ok until you start plopping districts over valuable resources, that bothers me a lot.
KevinC
3689
Like strategic resources? I notice they changed it at some point so that you still gather the resources even with a district on top of it.
Bluddy
3690
It’s funny because the early civ games were bogged down in late-game unit management hell, while building could just be done fairly carelessly. Now it sounds like they’ve added building management to the late-game micromanagement hell.
rho21
3691
There are a bunch of really valuable beliefs to pick up. Gold generation is hugely important in MP (mostly for unit upgrades), and Defender of the Faith for +10 combat strength in your own territory can make you a very unpalatable target for an attack.
Against the AI, gold is really easy to come by and you don’t need much help beating it in combat.
KevinC
3692
It’s one of my problems with the religious system. Spamming missionaries/apostles just adds MORE micromanagement and moving units around every. I liked the way religion worked better in Civ4 where it was more hands-off.
The other thing I’ve done to help my enjoyment is only play on small maps with the maximum number of civs and city states allowed. It fills up the map, and lets me continue to focus on 2 - 4 cities and military expansion.
Old civ games I used to like to play on large maps, minus a civ, because I liked the settling game so much… but city management is so tedious now that I enjoy it a lot more if I can just focus on a few cities.
My suggestions for enjoying Civ VI more esp. at higher difficulty (playing solo v. AI not multi-player)
In no particular order…
Religion and Faith: I used to hate it as well until I learned this trick. Scramble early to earn a prophet but DO NOT USE IT right away. (Yes, it is hard to get a prophet before they run out unless you use the mod that increases number of religions in the game which I do now.) Let the AI pound you with its religious units, even convert your cities. Make a Holy Site in each of your important cities (or all cities) and only when you have Holy Sites completed in each city you want, THEN spend the prophet and create your religion. It will instantly become the majority religion in every city of yours that has a Holy Site. I usually do this in late Medieval or Renaissance era. Can have a lot of Faith built up by then, temples in sites, and especially with the discount religious units era bonus, you can come from nowhere to completely overwhelm the AI.
Important mods: I use a lot of different ones but there are a few I always use and will not play without. The one that I think helps balance the game better for you at higher difficulty is a simple mod that changes the distance between cities from 3 tiles to 4 tiles. Total game changer; now you can really lock up your territory and leave no tiles available upon which the AI can spring a city up on you. Also helps keep the AI in check from spamming cities in general.
Playstyle: Embrace the chop mentality and grind up forests, jungles and many/most bonus resources early on. (I do always build a farm or a pasture on first available resources for the inspiration bonuses if still applicable; then later go back and bulldoze and chop.) If you eventually think you’ll want a national park, etc. it’s not going to be one of the first 3 or 4 cities but you have to keep up with the Jones in the Ancient and Classical eras. My ploy is to try and plan on the last charge for a builder to chop a forest while I have my next builder in the queue and keep the party going.
Other early game tips:
Too easy to fall behind in Science and Culture in the early going unless you luck into a few City States in the early going or maybe a good goody hut. I typically build the monument in my first city very early on and if I think I need it, in each of the first 3 or 4 cities. But my newest trick is for my first Governor to be the Science and Culture one; Pingala. He immediately gives a small 15% boost to both but I also use my next two promotions on him and take the two that give a flat per-citizen bonus to each which in the Ancient era is absolutely huge.
Spock
3695
Thanks for the tip on that 4-tile mod; I might try that. I’m enjoying Jam’s difficulty mod, which gives the AI increasing bonuses as the game progresses but no extra starting units. It’s designed for higher difficulty levels. I’m falling further behind as the game goes along, rather than the other way around – a nice change. But then, I’m not as good at this game as most people, it seems.
I’ve been having fun watching this guy’s comedy experiments with putting all the civs on true start locations (i.e., on actual Earth). He’s got a whole series. I get a laugh out of these.
Jam’s Mod didn’t do it for me. Felt like it had the effect of pacifying all the other civs; even the hawkish ones. Nobody ever declared war on me it seemed like. But I definitely am keeping my eye on it; I imagine it will get tweaked some along the way.
And I tend to like playing peacefully myself but I expect the AI to test me and try and knock me down. When that never happens it’s just too flat.
