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[Civilization] VII Announced!
JusticeforPluto
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
OP Stolen from Aldo, let me know if the OP needs updates.
https://youtu.be/IOT9T15mkX0
Let’s set the mood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJiHDmyhE1A
[/center]
Sid Meier’s Civilization: one of the greatest gaming series in world history.
The concept is straightforward: imagine running a historical civilization from its most humble beginnings all the way to world domination with you at the helm.
Read more about the history and details of the series on the Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_(series) or the official site http://franchise.civilization.com/en/games/
The most recent addition in the series is Civ VI, released on 10/21/2016 on Steam. The first expansion Rise & Fall was released on 2/8/2018, the latest, Gathering Storm was released on 2/14/2019.
Rise & Fall improves a bunch of stuff from Civ VI. The following stood out.
Obviously it comes with new civs, leaders, wonders, units, etc. But more exciting: new features!
Leaders and Diplomacy: improvements upon the base game’s AI silliness.
Internal shit to deal with: maybe the AI won’t pose a challenge, but there’s new bonuses to acquire or difficulties to work around.
So Civ VI was released with a lot of promises, unfortunately not everything worked as well as we had hoped. It is still a strong game and the patches and expansion have really improved the base game. If you haven’t paid attention to the last year of content, the below is a short summary:
New leaders and Scenarios: Every major patch came with one or two new civs. These can be purchased as DLC or came with the DeLuxe edition. These cvis are: Poland, Australia, Persia, Macedon, Nubia, Khmer and Indonesia. The packs also come with scenarios, most of these were combat focused, but the Australia pack had an Outback Tycoon scenario which has zero combat which makes it my favourite.
Religion view: In the base game a religion victory could come as a surprise, because it was hard to see how far along a religion was to becoming the world religion. Improvements to the UI have reduced these issues.
Alert for units: base game lacked this feature, but it is back now. Just plop down a unit on Alert, and it will automatically awaken when an enemy approaches.
Older Civ games can still be played, and they’re widely available for modern systems through Steam. Heck, you might even like them better than the latest instalment, because Firaxis is amazing with support and has been patching and adding stuff to their previous titles for years after initial release. There are three titles that I consider relevant to the modern gamer:
Civ V including two expansions: Gods & Kings and Brave New World. The first game to use hexagons instead of squares, which is a change that wasn’t cheered on by everyone. The game comes with lots of DLC and makes full use of the Steam Workshop. It has a big and diverse following: ranging from people, like me, who play a game every other week against the AI up to people who play multiple 6 to 8 hrs long multiplayer games per week. The beauty of Civ V is that it offers so many options to tweak the difficulty and complexity to nearly any level, without ever taking away the core “civ-feeling”.
Civ V: Beyond Earth including one expansion: Rising Tides. A spin-off from Civ V running on the same engine but taking the base game to an alien planet. With fictional civilizations, resources and aliens it allows for completely new concepts to be introduced, such as taming aliens or merging humans with robots. The game isn’t as big as Civ V and is a bit difficult to get into because there is no frame of reference to fall back on. Many people were left with a sour taste after the initial release and even in its current form it just is not as elaborate or as smooth as Civ V.
Civ IV including two expansions: Warlords and Beyond the Sword. The last Civ to feature square tiles and unit stacking. It improves on many concepts from the previous three games and allowed for a lot of customization. I haven’t played this one as much as Civ V and BE, but the soundtrack by Christopher Tin (see start of OP) I have listened to over and over.
USEFUL STUFF:
Cheat sheet for district/wonders placement
Some edits to the options file that can't be edited in-game. Thank you Inquisitor77!
Mods as recommended in this thread:
https://youtu.be/IOT9T15mkX0Let’s set the mood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJiHDmyhE1A[/center]
Sid Meier’s Civilization: one of the greatest gaming series in world history.
The concept is straightforward: imagine running a historical civilization from its most humble beginnings all the way to world domination with you at the helm.
Read more about the history and details of the series on the Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_(series) or the official site http://franchise.civilization.com/en/games/
The most recent addition in the series is Civ VI, released on 10/21/2016 on Steam. The first expansion Rise & Fall was released on 2/8/2018, the latest, Gathering Storm was released on 2/14/2019.
Rise & Fall improves a bunch of stuff from Civ VI. The following stood out.
Obviously it comes with new civs, leaders, wonders, units, etc. But more exciting: new features!
Leaders and Diplomacy: improvements upon the base game’s AI silliness.
- Enhanced Alliances: they took steps to fix the stupid AI this time fo’real. There are extra bonuses for having allies now, and the AI seems a bit more predictable than where it was at release..
- Emergencies: when a civ is really freaky then other civs can band together and deal with that specific threat. Think “the enemy of my enemy…”
Internal shit to deal with: maybe the AI won’t pose a challenge, but there’s new bonuses to acquire or difficulties to work around.
- Golden ages are back from CivV! When you’re doing well, you trigger golden ages with bonuses.
- Dark ages and coming out of them leading to Heroic ages: When you’re not doing well, your civ will enter a dark age, with the challenge to come out on top. If you do well you will enter a “heroic” age, which is like a stronger golden age.
- Loyalty: also making a return from Civ V: when things are not going well your cities might rebel and even flip sides or decide to continue on as an independent state. Just conquering a city is not enough, the population won't stand for it.
- Governors: recruit characters that can manage cities for you, they will gain experience, unlock specific bonuses and improve loyalty.
So Civ VI was released with a lot of promises, unfortunately not everything worked as well as we had hoped. It is still a strong game and the patches and expansion have really improved the base game. If you haven’t paid attention to the last year of content, the below is a short summary:
New leaders and Scenarios: Every major patch came with one or two new civs. These can be purchased as DLC or came with the DeLuxe edition. These cvis are: Poland, Australia, Persia, Macedon, Nubia, Khmer and Indonesia. The packs also come with scenarios, most of these were combat focused, but the Australia pack had an Outback Tycoon scenario which has zero combat which makes it my favourite.
Religion view: In the base game a religion victory could come as a surprise, because it was hard to see how far along a religion was to becoming the world religion. Improvements to the UI have reduced these issues.
Alert for units: base game lacked this feature, but it is back now. Just plop down a unit on Alert, and it will automatically awaken when an enemy approaches.
Older Civ games can still be played, and they’re widely available for modern systems through Steam. Heck, you might even like them better than the latest instalment, because Firaxis is amazing with support and has been patching and adding stuff to their previous titles for years after initial release. There are three titles that I consider relevant to the modern gamer:
Civ V including two expansions: Gods & Kings and Brave New World. The first game to use hexagons instead of squares, which is a change that wasn’t cheered on by everyone. The game comes with lots of DLC and makes full use of the Steam Workshop. It has a big and diverse following: ranging from people, like me, who play a game every other week against the AI up to people who play multiple 6 to 8 hrs long multiplayer games per week. The beauty of Civ V is that it offers so many options to tweak the difficulty and complexity to nearly any level, without ever taking away the core “civ-feeling”.
Civ V: Beyond Earth including one expansion: Rising Tides. A spin-off from Civ V running on the same engine but taking the base game to an alien planet. With fictional civilizations, resources and aliens it allows for completely new concepts to be introduced, such as taming aliens or merging humans with robots. The game isn’t as big as Civ V and is a bit difficult to get into because there is no frame of reference to fall back on. Many people were left with a sour taste after the initial release and even in its current form it just is not as elaborate or as smooth as Civ V.
Civ IV including two expansions: Warlords and Beyond the Sword. The last Civ to feature square tiles and unit stacking. It improves on many concepts from the previous three games and allowed for a lot of customization. I haven’t played this one as much as Civ V and BE, but the soundtrack by Christopher Tin (see start of OP) I have listened to over and over.
USEFUL STUFF:
Cheat sheet for district/wonders placement
Some edits to the options file that can't be edited in-game. Thank you Inquisitor77!
Inquisitor77 wrote: »[…]
Make Fog of War Look Amazing and Distinguishable from Unexplored Terrain
Go to: [Your Civ VI Install Folder]\Base\ArtDefs
Copy: FOW.artdef (in case you mess up)
Open: FOW.artdef
Find:Set: 0.70000 to 0.10000<Element class="AssetObjects::FloatValue">
<m_fValue>0.700000</m_fValue>
<m_ParamName text="Models_ParchmentWeight"/>
</Element>
[…]
Jealous Deva wrote: »Some mods I use:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1292617460
Steel and Thunder Unit Expansion: By default, unit types (anti-cav, light cavalry, seige, etc) have an age gap between upgrades. This mod fills in some of those gaps, and makes some minor balance changes to accommodate the additions, so that the player has more options and the AI can keep its units up to date better.
For example, by default, for melee infantry you have swordsman --> musketman --> infantry. So it's not uncommon for swordsmen to be running around into the gunpowder era before an upgrade becomes available, or musketmen to be fighting beside modern tanks and infantry. This mod makes the upgrade sequence swordsman -->longswordsman -->musketman --> rifleman -->infantry, more like Civ 5, so units can stay more up to date. All unit categories have similar additions, it ends up feeling a lot more like civ 5's upgrade sequences. There is also a companion mod which adds an additional unique unit for every civ, but I feel it is a bit less essential.
Sukritact's resources:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1150492115
Adds a few more resources, including Camels, Gold, Obsidian, etc. I think this is a good balance of variety without overdoing it, and like his work in general.
He also has some new natural wonders in his workshop which are good as well (grand canyon is one off the top of my head). Also 2 new animated leader civs in Iceland and Gauls, they are very nice but probably a bit unbalanced.
A few random bug fix mods by Fearsunn:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1333457772
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1386554385
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1387045386
Those are what I can remember using off the top of my head, I will check when I get home and see if there is anything else I really recommend.
Some Mods I use and would recommend: (All steam workshop links)
Combat and Gossip Log:Moves the gossip and combat messages from a somewhat hard to read floating text to windows in the top left of the screen (under the science/culture info)
Quick Start:Removes the annoying 2k and firaxis pop ups and takes you right to the game menus when you start Civ6
Numpad Unit Controls:Name kind of says it all.
Double Natural Wonders:Just doubles how many wonders will be on the map.
Buffed Natural Wonders or Terra Mirabilis: The first just adds extra resources to wonder outputs, while the second adds 13 wonders and adds a civ wide bonus to any civ that controls the wonder (or at least 1 tile of the wonder for a multi tiled wonder).
Extended Diplomacy Ribbon: Adds info to the top panel of the game screen so you don't have to go into the diplomacy screen to see, for example, how many luxuries a civ has.
Civitas Resources: Adds 4 new resources, pairs well with Sukritacts resource mod
Edit: Gold Resource: Just adds the Gold resource that is in the DLC that includes Australia, but for some reason firaxis only had the resource appear in the Outback Tycoon scenario. Gold is also a part of Sukritact's resource mod, but his has gold add +2gold and +1Culture while the Gold from this mod adds +4gold (1 more than Silver's +3gold).
Civitas City-States: Adds 40 city-states and 4 new city-state types (Agricultural, Consular, Entertainment, and Maritime)
Population Notification: Lets you know when a city gains or loses. Mod maker also has separate mods for notifications for religion, border changes, when deals with another civ end, and when a barbarian camp spawns.
Historicity++: Small changes to make names and info more historically accurate. Also changes the district help text to be more helpful
Policy Manager: Adds a better way to select which policy you want to use.
Edit: While getting these links I saw a new mod, New Random Agendas
Claims to adds 40 new agendas for the leaders to randomly use. No idea how effective or good they are, but I am intrigued.
Jealous Deva wrote: »Sorry for the double post, I was going to throw one more mod recommendation in.
Real tech tree;
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=871465857
What this does is add more prereqs the the tech tree to get rid of dead end techs and keep players from beelining more than 2 eras ahead. [...]
Sterica on
+1
Posts
It's pretty fun! You can get some out of control yields on resource tiles increased by their ability, plus being able to feed cities taller with useful farms in tundra helps.
I played once or twice up to a victory tipping point, and found that no matter how far I settled cities apart, I was always starving for more room to plop down National Parks.
Wouldn't Hermetic Order be the optimal secret society to pair with Khmer? Khmer is a tall civ, which means increased district capacity in every city, but not necessarily good places to put all those districts. Leylines would help with that. And Alchemical Societies + Natural Philosophy/Five Year Plan + Heartbeat of Steam seem like they would get you more yields that you actually need compared to Chorus + Simultaneum.
Is there any other reason to play this game?
That seems too harsh. Their use cases are definitely a lot more narrow than the other three, but they do fill some specific niches. They synergize really well with gold-hungry civs (Mali and Hungary), civs that can build a lot of districts but don't necessarily have great places to put them (the Aztecs and Germany), civs that can generate loads of great people without even trying (Brazil, Russia, and Columbia), and civs that only care about raw yield quantity above all else (the Maya).
I have some friends that like the first 100 turns and then stop, time to move on to a new game. You can make some really impressive tiles though with natural wonders, preserves, the right civs, and vampires.
Play them with France or the new reworked China for a ridiculous wonder spam game.
Or play them with Canada or Sweden and never lose a scored competition.
Or play them with Babylon, since most Eurakas are either about building things or doing things with something you have to build first.
alright yeh this describes me 90% of the time lmao. just the 10% that actually make it to endgame are because I have a really good yields rolling or have a chance to spam a million national parks
Welcome to turn 56
Also, just printing ponies with entertainment districts is fun.
I just ... it's not clicking.
There are a bunch of others out there. Well worth a GIS search to find one you like.
Campus & Holy Site - In corners surrounded by mountains.
Commercial Hub - On rivers.
Industrial Zone - Next to 'watery' districts (aqueduct, dam, canal) and quarries.
Harbor - Next to your city center and next to as many sea resources as you can get. You have to plan ahead for this when settling a coastal city.
Theatre Square - Next to any wonders you build, and then you can build one of the amenity districts next to it if you want to. But that's usually overkill unless you REALLY need those amenities.
And then of course, there's the core mechanic that making triangles of districts is generally good practice. For example, if you have a long line of mountains, you can build your Campus and Holy Site along that line—giving them both +2 from the two mountains they're against—and then build any other district next to them to complete the triangle. Since they're both next to two districts, they both get bumped to +3.
There's all the minor adjacency bonuses to worry about, especially with the industrial zone, but that's more optimizing your play than getting a grasp of the mechanic in the first place. The nuances of when you want your holy site surrounded by woods vs when to chop those woods out and put more districts there instead is another tier of play to strive for.
Edit: OH! A tip I recently got told of. If you hit the map tack button—one of the ones just above the minimap—and click to bring up the tack screen, it shows you ALL the districts and wonders AND lets you hover over them. That hover will let you check all the adjacencies and requirements without needing to go to a build menu or the civopedia or anything.
This is with "I know adjacencies are a thing, but I still don't quite understand what gives what to what" for instance I though all districts provided each other with some sort of adjacency bonus.
Also it takes a while for cities to grow enough population to even use all the tiles in their range. If you have an area with a lot of nice tiles, you can utilize them faster with multiple cities rather than waiting for one city to grow enough pop to use them all. Faster utilization = stronger civ
Also please feel free to offer any criticisms or feedback regarding my screenshot. I know I didn't make enough builders over the course of the game, and I obviously need to settle more cities. I understand the most basic principles, but even watching online games and the like it's just hard to really grok it right now. Which isn't a bad thing, I'm having fun and learning and I haven't really had to learn anything new in a long time so it's nice to feel like I finally have something in my life challenging my brain muscle.
Also I am not an expert but I’d take over Kabul. It’s probably the only way you’ll get that iron and it will give you a slight buffer against...Spain? Down to the south.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
It's Strategy View filter, gives it a slightly more top-down view so it's a little bit easier to tell what tiles have what on them (for me, sometimes).
Also I have an Iron mine 2 tiles SW from Rome, but yeah another source ain't bad.
I'll probably finish this age and then just restart. Honestly that close to Tundra I think screwed me, although it was nice to have the buffer area, but I missed my best chance to expand into the gap between Kabul and Mexico City and Spain (and also grr so many mountains).
Mountains are good! You want to settle near mountains for better campuses and holy sites.
I'm not an expert at reading strategic mode, but in terms of being fancy with districts I think you got a pretty wet noodle start for that. The mountains to your south are in some pretty bad terrain (desert is obviously bad, and it's even arranged in such a way that Petra wouldn't save it), and pretty much that entire grassland strip you settled on is super flat, so there isn't any really primo campus spots. Sadly all the reefs (the coast tiles that have production by default) aren't next to land, else you could have gotten a decent campus out of those.
One thing you could have done is instead of one of the many wonders in Rome, build a commercial hub that's both on the river and next to both your campus and your city center. That'd give the campus an extra +1 and would be a +3 hub (+2 from the river, +1 from 2 adjacent districts)—and then you can build a market in that hub, which gives you an extra trade route, and trade routes are VERY powerful in this game. It's usually best to make sure each and every one of your cities gets either a market or a lighthouse (only one will give you a trade route per city) in a relatively reasonable amount of time.
In Ravenna you could have put the campus on the other side of your city or one tile to the left (after harvesting that... stone?), so that again it'd be next to both the city center and the harbor. That district triangle would give you an extra +1 on both the campus and the harbor. Could have gone for a similar setup in Mediolanum, putting the campus to the top-right and a harbor to the right of the city center. Notably you could also get a +3 harbor by going bottom-right instead (+2 from city center, +1 from the fish tile), but in this case it'd be better to put it to the right so it can buff the campus.
Finally, if you wanted a second holy site (which isn't always necessary depending on how you're playing), you could have replaced either of those forests next to both dead sea tiles to get a slick +4 one. Holy sites get +2 for each adjacent natural wonder tile, so natural wonders that take up multiple tiles are an easy way to get a big one.
Other two are Macedon and Canada
Love having a neighbor you know will never ever declare a surprise war
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
All districts give
— +½ to every
—— Holy Site
—— Campus
—— Theater Square
—— Commercial Hub
—— Harbor
—— Industrial Zone
The Government Plaza gives
— +1 to every
—— Holy Site
—— Campus
—— Theater Square
—— Commercial Hub
—— Harbor
—— Industrial Zone
Pamukkale gives
— +1 to every
—— Holy Site
— +2 to every
—— Campus
—— Theater Square
—— Commercial Hub
Mountains give
— +1 to every
—— Holy Site
—— Campus
Woods give
— +½ to every
—— Holy Site
Natural Wonders give
— +2 to every
—— Holy Site
Rainforests give
— +½ to every
—— Campus
Reefs give
— +2 to every
—— Campus
Geothermal Fissures give
— +2 to every
—— Campus
World Wonders give
— +2 to every
—— Theater Square
Entertainment Complexes/Water Parks give
— +2 to every
—— Theater Square
Harbors give
— +2 to every
—— Commercial Hub
All sea resources give
— +1 to every
—— Harbor
The City Center gives
— +2 to every
—— Harbor
Mines give
— +½ to every
—— Industrial Zone
Lumber mills give
— +½ to every
—— Industrial Zone
Quarries give
— +1 to every
—— Industrial Zone
All strategic resources give
— +1 to every
—— Industrial Zone
Infrastructural districts give
— +2 to every
—— Industrial Zone
The Commercial Hub's unique bonus: The Commercial Hub district gets a +2 gold bonus for being built on a river tile. It does not get any bonus for adjacent river tiles, so there is no need to build it on the most bendy part of a river.
District bonus stacking: Because adjacency bonuses stack, building districts next to each other is often more valuable than it seems. Below is a list of effective adjacency bonuses when stacking is considered:
The Government Plaza effectively gives
— +1½ to every
—— Holy Site
—— Campus
—— Theater Square
—— Commercial Hub
—— Harbor
—— Industrial Zone
Entertainment Complexes/Water Parks effectively give
— +½ to every
—— Holy Site
—— Campus
—— Commercial Hub
—— Harbor
—— Industrial Zone
— +2½ to every
—— Theater Square
Harbors effectively give
— +½ to every
—— Holy Site
—— Campus
—— Theater Square
—— Harbor
—— Industrial Zone
— +2½ to every
—— Commercial Hub
The City Center effectively gives
— +½ to every
—— Holy Site
—— Campus
—— Theater Square
—— Commercial Hub
—— Industrial Zone
— +2½ to every
—— Harbor
Infrastructural districts effectively give
— +½ to every
—— Holy Site
—— Campus
—— Theater Square
—— Commercial Hub
—— Harbor
— +2½ to every
—— Industrial Zone
Industrial Zone bonus stacking: Industrial zones receive a +1 production adjacency bonus for strategic resources. However, five out of seven strategic resources are improved by building mines on top of them, which Industrial zones also have a +½ production bonus for. These two bonuses stack. Below is the effective adjacency bonus when stacking is considered.
All improved strategic resources except horses and oil effectively give
— +1½ to every
—— Industrial Zone
Holy Site bonus stacking: The Holy Site's +1 faith adjacency bonus for Pamukkale stacks with its +2 faith bonus for all Natural Wonders. Certain Pantheon Beliefs also give the Holy Site additional adjacency bonuses. These bonuses do not stack with the Holy Site's existing bonus for Mountains, because all varieties of Mountains are considered to be their own unique terrain types. However, these bonuses do stack with the Holy Site's existing bonuses for Woods and Natural Wonders, as those are considered features that exist on top of the terrain type of their tile. Below is a list of effective adjacency bonuses when stacking is considered.
Pamukkale effectively gives
— +2 to every
—— Campus
—— Theater Square
—— Commercial Hub
— +3 to every
—— Holy Site
Tundra Woods with the Dance of the Aurora Pantheon Belief effectively give
— +1½ to every
—— Holy Site
Tundra Natural Wonders with the Dance of the Aurora Pantheon Belief effectively give
— +3 to every
—— Holy Site
Desert Natural Wonders with the Desert Folklore Pantheon Belief effectively give
— +3 to every
—— Holy Site
Desert Pamukkale with the Desert Folklore Pantheon Belief effectively gives
— +2 to every
—— Campus
—— Theater Square
—— Commercial Hub
— +4 to every
—— Holy Site
I legitimately do not get that part. Why doesn't Holy Site give faith to adjacent tiles?
With the exception of the Preserve district, districts do not give yields to adjacent tiles, they get yields from adjacent tiles.
When you place a district on a tile, it automatically generates +X yields per turn, with the value of X being determined by the district's adjacency bonuses. Unlike improvements, districts do not require populations to work their tiles in order to gain their yields.
So a Holy Site placed adjacent to a mountain and two woods will generate +2 faith per turn. +1 because of the mountain, +½ because of the first woods, and another +½ because of the other woods.
Districts only give yields to the tile they are on. Adjacency bonuses are applied to the district that they are for (for example if you have a theatre square and build a wonder next to it, the tile that it is on now produces an extra 2 culture. Builf another next to it and it gets 2 more.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2428969051
Is absolutely wonderful when you want to plan out your industrial zones, wonders, and such.
edit: the better you get at the game, the fewer pins you probably need.
Although I have a friend I play with that as he gets better, he starts adding more pins earlier. SOB takes like 15 mins planning 5+ cities worth of pins and districts on turn 5-10 when we all know strategic resources are going to start ruining those plans.
*Certain districts gain Specialist Slots when buildings are constructed in them. Specialist Slots can be worked the same way tiles can. However, they only generate +2 yield per population working them, meaning they will normally only be worked when you order a city to prioritize a specific yield or when a city has an enormous population. To order a city to prioritize a yield, click on the yield in lower right corner of the city screen. Click once to prioritize, twice to avoid, and three times set the priority back to normal.
And okay I think that makes more sense to my brain. The whole "give" language was messing me up I think. Like, a theater district next to a campus should be like "oh the school got a drama department, so they're more cultured now" was kinda how I was thinking.
I knew to put campuses next to mountains, I did not know to also out holy sites next to them. That is very useful.
In people's experience, is the City Center/Harbor adjacency worth the coastal settle? Or is it better to settle just off coast and just, for instance, plan your commercial hub for the tile in between? I feel like coastal cities tend to have lower production; or does that problem even out with enough population?