[SPOILERS] scooter tries Civ6

[scooter]

I'm starting to lean towards China with the recent comment by Woden in the setup thread. The map is going to be homemade to some extent, and if the bulk of it is already set, that means at the very least, we will not get the map generator bias from the Incas. It doesn't necessarily mean we won't have mountains, but it does mean we're, on average, likely to have fewer than normal. I will of course wait for the starting screenshot to decide that. If I see signs of nearby mountains, that may change the calculus some.


And this is fine, really. I've been reading PBEM7, and some of the things you can do with China seems quite fun. A lot is different here so it's more of a game of inspiration than a simple blueprint to follow. On the bright side, I'm extremely confident nobody is going to cheat their way into some free gold to steal my goals this time around . Plus I have not really used religion in Civ6 thus far, and this'll force me to learn some new things and get better.


Consider my current lean 60% China, 35% Inca, 5% other.

[shallow_thought]

I'll be going global, but as I got to this thread first ...

I've not even played GS (or the previous expansion), so my question would be: how much does getting a free builder with each city from AH (and one extra charge from a governor if I understand correctly) nerf China? Without that lots of expansion would surely boost China? Hard-to-come-by production could be spent on settlers, military and traders instead of builders (partly assuming Pyramids here - payback on that is pretty obvious, even after the change to 15%). You can get two charges more per settler than everyone else, but when everyone is getting 3-5 (4-6?), how good is that?

If it was a matter of worked tiles I'd be dubious (getting to 7 pop is hard), but even with the changes, chopping (into Magnus, I guess) is powerful, so: assume every city needs 5 improved tiles to work, then each Chinese city gets X hammers from 2 chops (Pyraminds amortises fast) where X scales with the game, without having to spend resources on another builder, assuming each new city site has two choppable resources.

Sorry, rambling now. Anyway, good luck! The first game I lurked at RB was your industrial game if IIRC: it's always good to have you posting.

[scooter]

That's a good question that I've been thinking about a bit. I don't really know, and it's hard to really do any sort of realistic test game with China given how different early wonders are with AIs versus humans. My general feeling is the extra builder charges over time are not really the main appeal of China, and in reality they just feed back into the real benefit: ultra-cheap wonders. Granted, it's only the first two eras, but those seem to be where the good wonders are anyway. The extra charges I think just let me keep pace with expansion while building wonders, rather than give me some huge expansion edge. I think that's where the value is. The bonus charge in the later game just seems like a nice perk. Some of the other ded-lurkers may have better or different answers to that, though. Would be curious to see what they think.


Also, thanks! I miss the advanced era games. I really wish Civ4 games would stop being so married to ancient era. I know the religion issue is the main problem, but there are ways to handle that. The later era starts are way more interesting IMO.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I think this is largely right. Flipping back through the last couple of games EoG screenshots, it looks like your best, most sparkling city on a hill might top out at about 15 pop, while the vast majority of cities will hover between 6-10 pop. So the starting 7-charge builder from the Ancestral Hall will cover the vast majority of China's city-improvement needs, so most of the value is going to come from easy access to chops and the wonder-rushing. The main thing to consider, then, is to think of wonders not in terms of their total production cost but in terms of the builder production cost. Is getting (for example) an extra trader and trade route from the Colossus worth the price of a single builder? (Since R&F moved trade routes to Markets/Lighthouses, almost certainly yes).

After the Classical Age, the builders are simply nice-to-haves, letting you spend production on other things, rather than anything spectacular. But with few exceptions very few post-Classical wonders are worth their cost anyway.

Another good China game, although VERY outdated at this point, was Woden's PBEM2 game. He doesn't win, but he does do a good job showing off some wonder-building plans due to his insane goal of building every single ancient and classical wonder.

[Brian Shanahan]

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.

I'm expecting the world to be scorched in sub T100 speed with that inspirational opening.

[scooter]

I'm expecting the world to be scorched in sub T100 speed with that inspirational opening.

THAT'S THE SPIRIT.



I wanted to think a bit more about China and the early wonders and what benefits could be gained. I'm mostly doing this exercise for my own benefit. There are 17 Ancient/Classical wonders, and I don't even know several of them do. I want to go through all of them and spell out what they do, and figure out how valuable they sound. That'll help me gauge better whether I still like going with China. Hopefully Chevalier and Alhazard will have some thoughts too. Let's do Ancient Era wonders first.


Stonehenge

Effect: +2 faith/turn, free great prophet
Requirements: Built on flat land next to stone


This would be priority #1 and one of the mandatory choices. Getting a religion and likely first stab at beliefs at essentially the cost of 1.5 builders (assuming no multipliers early on) is great value.


Pyramids

Effect: +2 culture/turn, free builder, +1 builder charge
Requirements: Must be built on flat desert tiles


The other no-brainer. Get this one.


Hanging Gardens

Effect: +2 Housing, increases growth by 15% in all cities
Requirements: Must be built next to a river


This has always seemed pretty bad to me. I always feel constrained by happy rather than housing in this game. Maybe this gets better in MP when humans are actually willing to trade luxuries (the AI is particularly weird about this)? This is probably still worth it once you have some wonder multipliers and you're looking at 5-6+ charge builders, but I'm generally underwhelmed by this one.


Oracle

Effect: +1 culture, +1 faith, patronage of great people costs 25% less faith, districts in this city provide +2 GPP
Requirements: Must be built on a hill


Feels like the faith patronage discount is the biggest perk here, yeah? Although in the expansions there are more opportunities to convert faith into settlers, so maybe not. Still, given how hit-and-miss GPP powers are in this game, the easier ability to snipe an especially good one sounds useful.


Temple of Artemis

Effect: +4 food, +3 housing, each camp/pasture/plantation within 4 tiles provides +1 amenity
Requirement: Must be built next to a camp


This was one I knew nothing about, and this seems situationally pretty powerful. Seems much better than Hanging Gardens at the very least. If I could find a spot with quite a few camps that would benefit from extra population, and this is probably worth it.


Great Bath

Effect: +3 housing, +1 amenity from entertainment. Floodplains tiles along this river are immune to flood damage. -50% production/food yields from flood damage. +1 faith to tile yields in this city every time it floods.
Requirement: It must be built on a floodplains tile


I'll be honest. I don't understand this one at all . You are immune to floods, and also your flooding benefits change? What?

[Brian Shanahan]

From what I can gather, don't own the game, flooding causes damage which goes away over time(think FFH unhealthy at 30AC), but has a chance of increasing tile yields making riverside land more fertile after the damage goes away. Therefore the Bath wonder neutralises the flood damage at a cost of half the later benefit, but tiles that do flood get +1 faith per flooding.

So if you're playing a faith game and have a city with lotsa river tiles, it's good.

Again, I'm no expert.

[scooter]

From what I can gather, don't own the game, flooding causes damage which goes away over time(think FFH unhealthy at 30AC), but has a chance of increasing tile yields making riverside land more fertile after the damage goes away.  Therefore the Bath wonder neutralises the flood damage at a cost of half the later benefit, but tiles that do flood get +1 faith per flooding.

So if you're playing a faith game and have a city with lotsa river tiles, it's good.

Again, I'm no expert.

I think I misunderstood "immune to flood damage" as "immune to floods" AKA "it will not flood." Makes sense the way you've phrased it.

[scooter]

Let's take a look at classical era wonders next.


Apadana

Effect: +2 Great Works slots, +2 envoys when any wonder is built in this city.
Requirement: Must be built adjacent to civilization's capital


I'm a little skeptical on the value of this one in a MP setting given that I expect a lot of CS will be conquered. Sure, it lets you lock down the scientific/commercial city states, but if those are nearby another player, they'll simply capture them to get the land and deny you the value. Seems bad.


Colosseum

Effect: +2 culture, +2 amenities, +2 loyalty. These benefits are extended to all city centers within 6 tiles.
Requirements: Must be built on flat land adjacent to an Entertainment Complex.


I think the R&F changes (-1 amenity, +2 loyalty) is likely a nerf, but I'm still fuzzy on loyalty (beyond thinking it's a stupid mechanic), so I could be wrong. Despite that, this wonder still seems immensely valuble given smart placement.


Colossus

Effect: +3 gold/turn, +1 Admiral point/turn, +1 trade route capacity, free trader
Requirements: Must be built on the coast and adjacent to a harbor


Sure, why not. The payback horizon of the builder cost -> free trader + trade route capacity is very good.


Great Library

Effects: +2 science. +1 Scientist point/turn, +2 Writing slots, receive all Ancient/Classical eurekas, +1 Writer point/turn, receive a random eureka after another player recruits a scientist.
Requirements: Built on flat land adjacent to campus with a library


In vanilla Civ6 I thought this wonder sucked horribly, which was really disappointing as this has always been an iconic wonder in other Civ games. Now I think it's merely underwhelming. In theory there's some China synergy here, but I kinda doubt this will be a top priority.


Great Lighthouse

Effects: +1 movement for all naval units, +3 gold/turn, +1 admiral point/turn
Requirements: Built on coast adajacent to a harbor with a lighthouse


If water looks like it will matter at all, this would be worth pursuing. Kind of a TBD on this one. I do know how valuable first strike is for boats here with the extra movement, plus great admirals seem insane in general.


Jebel Barkal

Effects: Awards 4 iron/turn, +4 faith to all cities within 6 tiles
Requirements: Must be built on desert hill tile


The iron seems likely to be pointless on a moderately balanced map, but the faith could be quite useful, depending on how many cities could be reached.


Mahabodhi Temple

Effects: +4 faith/turn, 2 apostles, +2 diplo victory points
Requirements: Built on forest adjacent to holy site with temple


2 apostles seems like very good value for the builder charges. Given the high cost of apostles, that's worth a lot of faith in opportunity cost terms, not to mention the snowball benefits of the apostles themselves.


Mausoleum at Halicarnassus

Effects: +1 science, +1 faith, and +1 culture on all coast tiles in this city. All Great Engineers have an additional charge.
Requirements: Must be built adjacent to a harbor


Seems fairly underwhelming for our purposes. The Great Engineer thing is pretty minimal value given that we're definitely not space racing in MP. The coastal thing - I guess if I can find a coastal spot that actually wants to work coast to squeeze it into, sure. But meh.


Petra

Effects: +2 food, +2 gold, and +1 production on all desert tiles in this city.
Requirements: Must be built on flat desert/floodplains


Ahh, the Moai Statues of Civ6. Well, I guess the Mausoleum was already that, but you know what I mean. Anyway, I think this wonder is hot garbage if you actually have to scrape together 400 production for it (any city that can actually afford 400 production probably doesn't need this wonder to begin with), but with builder charges it's maybe pretty reasonable. Mileage may very depending on terrain.


Terracotta Army

Effects: +2 general points/turn, all current land units gain a promotion level, all archaeologists from the owner may enter foreign lands without open borders
Requirements: Must be built on flat grassland/plains adjacent to an Encampment with a Barracks/Stable


This seems very powerful in a MP game, and would likely be a very high priority.


Machu Picchu

Effects: +4 gold/turn, Mountain tiles provide a standard adjaceny bonus to Commercial Hub, Theater Square, and Industrial Zone districts in all cities
Requirements: Must be built on a non-volcanic mountain


This sucks. Also, I'm not even sure it's possible for China to rush this because units can't go onto mountains? Weird wonder.

[Alhazard]

my opinions on target wonders.

Henge
Mids
Temple of Artemis
Baths
Colosseum
Jebel Barkal. Now this might be controversial but if you are going to get henge, i think the strategy would be to go for a heavy faith build and buy tons of settlers at a classical golden age with monumentality. This wonder can give a lot of faith if planted in the right spot.
Terracotta Army.
Petra (map dependant).