Have you always been able to melee attack through your new units or is that new in GS? I don't remember being able to do that before and it makes cities on good defensive terrain much easier to take now.
If I remember right, if the unit you are attacking with would have killed the other unit, or captured the city, then they would be able to attack through a covered tile.
Are you saying you can do this now without killing the unit/capturing the city?
Have you always been able to melee attack through your new units or is that new in GS? I don't remember being able to do that before and it makes cities on good defensive terrain much easier to take now.
If I remember right, if the unit you are attacking with would have killed the other unit, or captured the city, then they would be able to attack through a covered tile.
Are you saying you can do this now without killing the unit/capturing the city?
Yea, my melee units were able to attack from 3 tiles away through a mountain pass against a city that had its walls still up. They'd teleport up adjacent to do their attack animation then teleport back to their starting hex.
I assume it's something about the moutain pass making multiple tiles 'adjacent' to the one that you're attacking? Maybe I'm not understanding the question though
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Inca might be my new favorite civ. I have a terrace farm sandwiched between two volcanos that's giving me 7 food, 4 hammers, and 1 science. And because I have Liang as my governor it's immune to being damaged by the volcanos.
Have you always been able to melee attack through your new units or is that new in GS? I don't remember being able to do that before and it makes cities on good defensive terrain much easier to take now.
If I remember right, if the unit you are attacking with would have killed the other unit, or captured the city, then they would be able to attack through a covered tile.
Are you saying you can do this now without killing the unit/capturing the city?
Yea, my melee units were able to attack from 3 tiles away through a mountain pass against a city that had its walls still up. They'd teleport up adjacent to do their attack animation then teleport back to their starting hex.
Must have been something wonky with the mountain pass then. I just ran a test with three warriors attacking a city, and the one blocked by the other two wasn't able to attack unless it went around the other two.
Inca might be my new favorite civ. I have a terrace farm sandwiched between two volcanos that's giving me 7 food, 4 hammers, and 1 science. And because I have Liang as my governor it's immune to being damaged by the volcanos.
I just started a new Inca game, and this is the start it gave me. No restarts, too!
I don't think I'll ever have such a good start again.
Edit: It gave me golden age points for being the first to set foot on a new continent, finding killamanjaro, settling near killamanjaro, and seeing the smoke rising from killamanjaro from the city.
Inca might be my new favorite civ. I have a terrace farm sandwiched between two volcanos that's giving me 7 food, 4 hammers, and 1 science. And because I have Liang as my governor it's immune to being damaged by the volcanos.
I just started a new Inca game, and this is the start it gave me. No restarts, too!
I don't think I'll ever have such a good start again.
Edit: It gave me golden age points for being the first to set foot on a new continent, finding killamanjaro, settling near killamanjaro, and seeing the smoke rising from killamanjaro from the city.
OK, AI will stop you from getting a diplomatic victory with the vote if you can, so timing the three bonus points or aggressively buying/making favor has to be done for the last one. Getting to 8/9 is stupid easy though.
And Rock Bands make the tourism win more fun. Or you can get a couple Indie bands and have some tanks follow them around to take cities without any penalty.
One complaint: there is a MASSIVE diplomatic malus (-40+) for adopting a tier 4 government, feels like.
Also won on emperor without a coal/oil plant. But ironclads/battleships apparently are just as bad as power plants emission wise.
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Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
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Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
I think it works off units of coal/oil ‘burned’ so if you’ve got a massive fleet then yeah. Also, big ships use way more juice than people tend to think, typically.
How does loyalty pressure work? I was playing Eleanor of Aquitaine and another civ settled right in-between three of my cities on an annoying spot. I had tons of great works for her special ability but it seemed like the civ was easily able to keep the city loyal and even grow it pretty large while never actually being threatened with a switch. Which is Eleanor's while thing.
It felt like a really pathetic ability after playing the ridiculous Inca
I also really wish I could excise the whole religion system. There's some good in there but missionary spam is so annoying. It should have been more similar to espionage. Something that adds but doesn't needlessly complicate.
Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
There is a Loyalty lens.
Basically, cities exert 1 loyalty per pop, and start at 100 loyalty. The range of each city is 9 hexes, with the total pressure going down linearly with distance so even at minimum separation two equally populous cities can never flip each other because they’re only exerting 50% of their loyalty on the other civ but 100% on themselves. However a ten pop city next to a one pop should be exerting five against their one, total minus four. Each turn that happens, the city’s loyalty goes down by four and once it reaches zero, it rebels and becomes a Free City* which has another 100 loyalty to itself and the same basic influences.
There are loads of ways to mess with that though; dark ages and lack of amenities reduce a city’s output/resistance, golden ages and an excess of amenities boost it, governors add 8 loyalty just for being there, numerous policies add bonus loyalty and one or two even cost it.
Eleanor’s ability is twofold: first is that if she is the majority pressure on a city when it flips, it flips straight to her, skipping the Free City stage. Second, Great Works in a city add one to the outward pressure of that city per Work and, even better, that bonus pressure doesn’t degrade with distance.
So you don’t just need lots of works, you need full Great Work slots (theatre squares, Wonders etc.) near the city you want to flip.
*Free Cities are basically barbarians in all but name; you can’t bargain with them, or talk to them at all, and they generate units at the equivalent tech level of the Civ they defected from, which will attack anyone nearby. I for one wish they would become City States but I’m not the devs so…
You can also raze free cities and no one cares. That helps when forward settlers try to mess with you, or when you want someone wiped out without the penalty for taking their last city.
In other news, I REALLY wish resource icons still showed when they have districts on top of them. Makes it really annoying to see who I can knock over for uranium in the late game.
There is a Loyalty lens.
Basically, cities exert 1 loyalty per pop, and start at 100 loyalty. The range of each city is 9 hexes, with the total pressure going down linearly with distance so even at minimum separation two equally populous cities can never flip each other because they’re only exerting 50% of their loyalty on the other civ but 100% on themselves. However a ten pop city next to a one pop should be exerting five against their one, total minus four. Each turn that happens, the city’s loyalty goes down by four and once it reaches zero, it rebels and becomes a Free City* which has another 100 loyalty to itself and the same basic influences.
There are loads of ways to mess with that though; dark ages and lack of amenities reduce a city’s output/resistance, golden ages and an excess of amenities boost it, governors add 8 loyalty just for being there, numerous policies add bonus loyalty and one or two even cost it.
Eleanor’s ability is twofold: first is that if she is the majority pressure on a city when it flips, it flips straight to her, skipping the Free City stage. Second, Great Works in a city add one to the outward pressure of that city per Work and, even better, that bonus pressure doesn’t degrade with distance.
So you don’t just need lots of works, you need full Great Work slots (theatre squares, Wonders etc.) near the city you want to flip.
*Free Cities are basically barbarians in all but name; you can’t bargain with them, or talk to them at all, and they generate units at the equivalent tech level of the Civ they defected from, which will attack anyone nearby. I for one wish they would become City States but I’m not the devs so…
I guess I don't understand why this city didn't flip then. Because when it was founded, I had 3 cities in a triangle around it, including my capitol. It would occasionally dip down to 'flipping in 326' turns or something ridiculous and then next turn it would bounce back up to +6 loyalty per turn despite my capitol being filled with great works.
SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
Was there a Governor in the city? They can really make the difference when it comes to keeping loyalty stable due to a +8 a turn bonus, especially Amani who can get even more later in her tree
I was pretty excited to go for aggressive forward settling and flipping with dido (her cities on the coast in the same continent as the cap are always loyal). 3 games later I finally flipped a city. Took 4 of my own cities all doing bread and circus and Amani with -2 to enemy loyalty. And it was only a size 3.
actual large-ish enemy cities are really tough to flip even if you're doing bread and circuses and neutralizing any governors they have; I dunno how much easier eleanor makes it, haven't really spent any time with her yet
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I got a couple size tens and two city states to flip with her. But stalled out because the new cities were German and thus had way too many districts so I couldn't make a theater.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
Also didn't Poundmaker used to have a start bias towards pasture/camp resources? Recent games have lead to starts that seem aggressively devoid of them. One time the continent had a single instance of sheep and that was it for things you could use with his ability.
Suspect the storm moved south but I don't think there's a way to find out.
Pretty much this, someone reported on this on the Reddit on the day of release. Like, turn 2: storm hits, everyone dies. That'll teach you waiting a single turn to settle.
I love that that happened to Jesse, it is 100% on brand.
Just got finished with my first Gathering Storm game.
As has become tradition, I used the same settings I used for my first vanilla game and my first Rise and Fall game. Prince difficulty, pangea map, huge size, maximum disaster intensity, marathon speed, legendary start, all other settings on standard. I was Arabia, and all of my rivals were set to random.
I ended up in the northmost horizontal center of the landmass. Surrounding me, going clockwise, were Rome, Macedon, England (Eleanor), Egypt, Brazil, and the Ottomans. To the east of Rome and Macedon were the Aztecs in the north and the Mongols in the vertical center. To the west of the Ottomans and Brazil were France (Catherine) in the north, Phoenicia in the vertical center, and Indonesia in the south. The Aztecs were present in both my vanilla and R&F first games, so it was good to see them again here.
I started out doing what Arabia does in the early game, rushing theology as fast as I could. The Educator governor's new promotion that gives culture per population helped a lot with that. I don't always grab the Steward governor, but I was in an area with a lot of rainforest and woods, so I did this time. Between those two governors, I managed to hit most of my research boosts in time, and had finished drama & poetry before the end of the ancient era.
Since I had only settled two cities at this point, there was still plenty of empty space on the map for barbarian camps to spawn, so I had no trouble getting plenty of era score. For my golden age dedication, I chose pen, brush, and voice to help me make the last push I needed to get theology. I also got my great prophet from my civ ability, which just goes to show you how the A.I. prioritizes getting a religion. Even on price, I would have ended up missing out on a religion if I had been playing as any other Civ. I spent The rest the classical era making sure I had a madrasa and a mosque in both my cities, as well as Mahabodhi Temple for the two free apostles. I also got the new wonder that buffs gurus, which turned out to be a real asset in the long run.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world, people were getting wrecked. Brazil ended up in a classical dark age, and Egypt flipped all but three of their cities. Rome as busy conquering every city state in its territory. France went absolutely ballistic and wiped out Phoenicia and Indonesia completely, which worked out well for me since it eliminated two of my religious rivals. War wasn't something I had to worry about, because of the friendship locking technique I mentioned earlier in the thread, so I was free to focus completely on building up my infrastructure.
Another golden age in the medieval era. This time I chose exodus of the evangels as my dedication. I went on a bit of a settling spree, founding four more cities in rapid succession. Two were on floodplains and another was wedged in between three active volcanos, so it it didn't take them long to grow. Two of them were also near some geothermal vents, so primo madrasa locations. Over the course of the game, I learned that natural disasters create so many high yield tiles that they more than pay for themselves when districts get pillaged, so always settle in dangerous areas when you can. While my new cities developed, my capital got started building the Hagia Sophia, the most important wonder for any player who intends to be religiously aggressive. And all the while, I kept making missionary after missionary, slowly establishing my religious foothold in the world.
Soon came the renaissance, and with it another golden age. Once again, I chose exodus of the evangels. This is when the world congress started to come into play. I pretty much never take off the charismatic leader policy card, which combined with some cleaver use of the diplomatic league card in the wildcard slot, usually results in me dominating the competition over city-states. Since I had all the A.I.s friendship locked, I also had no problem making alliances with whoever I wanted. The result of this was me having more diplomatic favor than I knew what to do with. Despite practically downing in the stuff, I never spent any favor on any world congress resolutions except one, World Religion. That came up three times in my game, and every time it did I spent every ounce of favor I had making sure I won it. Between that, the religious orders policy card, and the super gurus I received from that wonder I mentioned earlier, my missionaries were bodying rival apostles with ease.
Oh, and every once in a while, someone would get hit with a natural disaster and ask for some foreign aid. I won each and every one of these. I'd run the project in my two highest production cities a few times, then toss a few hundred gold coins around to top it off. Whenever I got hit with a natural disaster, I always declined the offer for aid. The proud Arabian people don't need your charity!
Anyway, the industrial era hit, and my luck with era score finally ran out. I was in the darkest of all possible ages, a dark age. I chose heartbeat of steam as my dedication this time, since I knew my cities were just going to focus on building while I continued to spread the sacred word. On that front, I finally got the Cardinal governor's patron saint promotion, so it was time to start mass-producing apostles. Between my mosques, the Hagia Sophia, and patron saint, I was now unstoppable. Religious victory was inevitable. One by one, rival faiths fell. First Rome's Zoroastrianism, then Macedon's Taoism, and finally England's Shinto.
Meanwhile, France had been establishing itself as the only true threat of this game. Their earlier conquering spree had left them the widest empire by far, and they used that size to start wonder spamming all over the place. Wonder spamming is the correct way to play France, so this is to the A.I.'s credit. But it was a problem for me because France was already halfway to cultural victory, and I knew I needed theater squares and their respective buildings to hold them off, pronto.
When the world's fair began, I was only able to come in second. My tall cities couldn't hold a candle to France's sprawling empire when it came to great person generation. I'll get them next time!
I managed to squeak out a heroic age at the end of the industrial era by just 2 points of era score. This was my first heroic age ever, so I was pretty excited about it. I chose reform the coinage, heartbeat of steam, and wish you were here as my dedications. To arms! was pretty much irrelevant, because friendship locking. It was time to take down the final boss of this game, France's Catholicism. I started spreading my holy faith west until I reached France's border, then began converting her cities, from the south end that was once Indonesia, all the way up to Paris in the snowy north. Even with every faith generating policy card I could stuff into my government, France still had more faith per turn than I did. But my apostles had 5 charges to their 3, and I understood theological combat better. She never even started an inquisition!
It was around this time that I ended up losing a seaside resort to global warming. I didn't really need it, but I was still kicking myself because my production was high enough that, even on marathon speed, it would have only taken me a few turns to build a flood barrier. That'll teach me to pay attention to the climate screen.
While I was busy showing her people the light, France was off running a military campaign against poor, backwater Brazil. This was stupid, because Brazil was separated from her territory by the Ottomans and a bunch of city-states, so she had no way to exert loyalty pressure on the conquered cities. Egypt flipped two, and I flipped Brazil's original capital. Another city was going to flip to me, but it was in a stupid location, so I razed it while it was still a free city. I was now in second place for domination victory, without ever being in a single war! Meanwhile, England managed to flip a city state, which is impressive as those don't flip easy!
Paris was converted shortly before the modern era ended, and I entered the atomic era with another golden age. I chose Sky and Stars as my final dedication, which I didn't need because I was getting so much science from my religion that I was already two eras ahead of everyone else in technology. But it didn't matter. With Catholicism extinct, I could take my time slowly winning the game from that point on.
Before the game ended, France's wide strategy came back to bite them. Remember how, when Eleanor was first announced, I said her leader ability doesn't have much synergy with England's other bonuses? I might have to reevaluate. Eleanor built a city southwest of some city-states, used a royal navy dockyard to secure it's loyalty, and grew it to size ten. France ended up in an atomic dark age, while England was in a golden age. All those 4 and 5 pop cities in the southern part of France's empire started turning real British real fast. By the time I had won the game, half of France's empire had been lost. I was quite impressed with the A.I.'s ability to play both France and Eleanor to their strengths!
I was able to switch to a tier 4 government before the game ended. I decided on digital democracy, just for the sake of protecting myself from the rock bands that France had started to send into my territory. I wasn't able to build a giant death robot in time, however, so I'll have to check those out in another game.
Before I converted the final city I needed to win the game, I decided to set all the A.I.s free from the friendship locking I had been keeping them trapped in for the entire game. Once they were no longer under my spell, Rome and Macedon immediately denounced me, despite both having been long time allies. I don't think I'll use friendship locking in future games. Frankly, it feels a little too much like an exploit.
England's production is BONKERS now btw. I did not have a ton of hills but once I got electricity their bonuses just make them obscene. London was around 160 hammers and didn't have a river for Ruhr Valley. Think about 5 hills.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Currently playing Eleanor as France. Yea her ability is way more broken than the dido one for flipping. Forward settled on a China city early. I declared war a bit later and took two more. Once those 3 cities had great works of writing along with Amani, the loyalty started to decrease. Once the art gallery came online in the centre city, all the remaining cities started to flip one by one till I wiped out China. Moved my great works into cities onto my other border and flipped a Russian city. Their cities are a bit bigger than the Chinese ones were so going to need to add some spies to eliminate govenors and cause some unrest I think but that should push them over too.
I never thought the Maori would be good, so I'll settle for interesting.
The Maori are insanely good. They get a huge amount of flexibility on their starts, they almost always get the eurekas for crafsmanship, foreign trade, and political philosophy for free, they basically get free lumber mills in every forest and rainforest tile from the jump, their unique unit is better than most, and most importantly their unique building comes in early and is basically a cheat code.
The Marae adds +2 culture and +2 faith to every tile with woods, rainforest, marsh, or flood plains, on top of the +1 production (eventually +2) Kupe adds to woods and rainforest. Means your cities founded near a bunch of woods and rainforest will be chock-a-block with tiles that give yields like 2 food/3 production/2 culture/2 faith without even needing to be improved first. Alternately, if you want to look at it another way, it's easy for a Marae in a well-forested area to basically be a cheap building that makes something like 20 culture and 16 faith per turn (and then it also eventually adds 2 Tourism to all those tiles to boot).
Once you get a couple Maraes up your culture per turn can easily shoot up to 200+ before you even hit the Renaissance era. This also lets you hit Conservation way earlier than you ought to (~turn 100), which is what activates that extra +1 production to every forest and rainforest tile. I'm running through a couple Immortal games with them before I bump it up to Diety, and in the current one I'm about to be able to build Sydney Opera House at turn 120 while the game's still in the Renaissance just so I have somewhere to stick the great musicians I've generated. I'll be making Rock Bands by turn 140.
They're no slouch on the military front either - their swordsman replacement is basically a Roman Legion that shows up 10 turns later but gets extra bonuses on top (debuffs adjacent enemies by 5 power and has a lower maintenance cost), and all that early culture means you'll be making Toa Corps before you even get to Musketmen.
I need to play around with things more, but right now they seem clearly better than any of the other expansion civs and competitive with Rome et al overall. Their biggest problem is just finding room to put down the districts and wonders you want because rainforest/woods tiles are so good you almost never want to put anything over top of them.
maybe I just had bad luck with their starts, I dunno; I would always move toward the nearest landmass, then discover that there was barely anywhere I could naturally expand to.
Maybe it'd be better to play them on an island map and just throw settlers out into the ocean, I dunno
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
Currently playing Eleanor as France. Yea her ability is way more broken than the dido one for flipping. Forward settled on a China city early. I declared war a bit later and took two more. Once those 3 cities had great works of writing along with Amani, the loyalty started to decrease. Once the art gallery came online in the centre city, all the remaining cities started to flip one by one till I wiped out China. Moved my great works into cities onto my other border and flipped a Russian city. Their cities are a bit bigger than the Chinese ones were so going to need to add some spies to eliminate govenors and cause some unrest I think but that should push them over too.
What makes it really overpowered is that the AI doesn't get mad at you for flipping their cities. You can be allied to the entire world while absorbing them without a fuss.
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
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Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
maybe I just had bad luck with their starts, I dunno; I would always move toward the nearest landmass, then discover that there was barely anywhere I could naturally expand to.
Maybe it'd be better to play them on an island map and just throw settlers out into the ocean, I dunno
Have you just been landing on the nearest bit of dry regardless of what’s nearby?
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If I remember right, if the unit you are attacking with would have killed the other unit, or captured the city, then they would be able to attack through a covered tile.
Are you saying you can do this now without killing the unit/capturing the city?
Yea, my melee units were able to attack from 3 tiles away through a mountain pass against a city that had its walls still up. They'd teleport up adjacent to do their attack animation then teleport back to their starting hex.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Must have been something wonky with the mountain pass then. I just ran a test with three warriors attacking a city, and the one blocked by the other two wasn't able to attack unless it went around the other two.
I just started a new Inca game, and this is the start it gave me. No restarts, too!
I don't think I'll ever have such a good start again.
Edit: It gave me golden age points for being the first to set foot on a new continent, finding killamanjaro, settling near killamanjaro, and seeing the smoke rising from killamanjaro from the city.
Oh man that is going to be ridiculous
Also, what's a good civ to play as kinda VI noob without Gathering Storms?
And Rock Bands make the tourism win more fun. Or you can get a couple Indie bands and have some tanks follow them around to take cities without any penalty.
One complaint: there is a MASSIVE diplomatic malus (-40+) for adopting a tier 4 government, feels like.
Also won on emperor without a coal/oil plant. But ironclads/battleships apparently are just as bad as power plants emission wise.
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It felt like a really pathetic ability after playing the ridiculous Inca
I also really wish I could excise the whole religion system. There's some good in there but missionary spam is so annoying. It should have been more similar to espionage. Something that adds but doesn't needlessly complicate.
Basically, cities exert 1 loyalty per pop, and start at 100 loyalty. The range of each city is 9 hexes, with the total pressure going down linearly with distance so even at minimum separation two equally populous cities can never flip each other because they’re only exerting 50% of their loyalty on the other civ but 100% on themselves. However a ten pop city next to a one pop should be exerting five against their one, total minus four. Each turn that happens, the city’s loyalty goes down by four and once it reaches zero, it rebels and becomes a Free City* which has another 100 loyalty to itself and the same basic influences.
There are loads of ways to mess with that though; dark ages and lack of amenities reduce a city’s output/resistance, golden ages and an excess of amenities boost it, governors add 8 loyalty just for being there, numerous policies add bonus loyalty and one or two even cost it.
Eleanor’s ability is twofold: first is that if she is the majority pressure on a city when it flips, it flips straight to her, skipping the Free City stage. Second, Great Works in a city add one to the outward pressure of that city per Work and, even better, that bonus pressure doesn’t degrade with distance.
So you don’t just need lots of works, you need full Great Work slots (theatre squares, Wonders etc.) near the city you want to flip.
*Free Cities are basically barbarians in all but name; you can’t bargain with them, or talk to them at all, and they generate units at the equivalent tech level of the Civ they defected from, which will attack anyone nearby. I for one wish they would become City States but I’m not the devs so…
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In other news, I REALLY wish resource icons still showed when they have districts on top of them. Makes it really annoying to see who I can knock over for uranium in the late game.
I guess I don't understand why this city didn't flip then. Because when it was founded, I had 3 cities in a triangle around it, including my capitol. It would occasionally dip down to 'flipping in 326' turns or something ridiculous and then next turn it would bounce back up to +6 loyalty per turn despite my capitol being filled with great works.
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Seems real hard to do.
Origin: KafkaAU B-Net: Kafka#1778
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
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Pretty much this, someone reported on this on the Reddit on the day of release. Like, turn 2: storm hits, everyone dies. That'll teach you waiting a single turn to settle.
I love that that happened to Jesse, it is 100% on brand.
But tbh my Maori starts all seem so terrible anyway that it’s no great loss
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
As has become tradition, I used the same settings I used for my first vanilla game and my first Rise and Fall game. Prince difficulty, pangea map, huge size, maximum disaster intensity, marathon speed, legendary start, all other settings on standard. I was Arabia, and all of my rivals were set to random.
I ended up in the northmost horizontal center of the landmass. Surrounding me, going clockwise, were Rome, Macedon, England (Eleanor), Egypt, Brazil, and the Ottomans. To the east of Rome and Macedon were the Aztecs in the north and the Mongols in the vertical center. To the west of the Ottomans and Brazil were France (Catherine) in the north, Phoenicia in the vertical center, and Indonesia in the south. The Aztecs were present in both my vanilla and R&F first games, so it was good to see them again here.
I started out doing what Arabia does in the early game, rushing theology as fast as I could. The Educator governor's new promotion that gives culture per population helped a lot with that. I don't always grab the Steward governor, but I was in an area with a lot of rainforest and woods, so I did this time. Between those two governors, I managed to hit most of my research boosts in time, and had finished drama & poetry before the end of the ancient era.
Since I had only settled two cities at this point, there was still plenty of empty space on the map for barbarian camps to spawn, so I had no trouble getting plenty of era score. For my golden age dedication, I chose pen, brush, and voice to help me make the last push I needed to get theology. I also got my great prophet from my civ ability, which just goes to show you how the A.I. prioritizes getting a religion. Even on price, I would have ended up missing out on a religion if I had been playing as any other Civ. I spent The rest the classical era making sure I had a madrasa and a mosque in both my cities, as well as Mahabodhi Temple for the two free apostles. I also got the new wonder that buffs gurus, which turned out to be a real asset in the long run.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world, people were getting wrecked. Brazil ended up in a classical dark age, and Egypt flipped all but three of their cities. Rome as busy conquering every city state in its territory. France went absolutely ballistic and wiped out Phoenicia and Indonesia completely, which worked out well for me since it eliminated two of my religious rivals. War wasn't something I had to worry about, because of the friendship locking technique I mentioned earlier in the thread, so I was free to focus completely on building up my infrastructure.
Another golden age in the medieval era. This time I chose exodus of the evangels as my dedication. I went on a bit of a settling spree, founding four more cities in rapid succession. Two were on floodplains and another was wedged in between three active volcanos, so it it didn't take them long to grow. Two of them were also near some geothermal vents, so primo madrasa locations. Over the course of the game, I learned that natural disasters create so many high yield tiles that they more than pay for themselves when districts get pillaged, so always settle in dangerous areas when you can. While my new cities developed, my capital got started building the Hagia Sophia, the most important wonder for any player who intends to be religiously aggressive. And all the while, I kept making missionary after missionary, slowly establishing my religious foothold in the world.
Soon came the renaissance, and with it another golden age. Once again, I chose exodus of the evangels. This is when the world congress started to come into play. I pretty much never take off the charismatic leader policy card, which combined with some cleaver use of the diplomatic league card in the wildcard slot, usually results in me dominating the competition over city-states. Since I had all the A.I.s friendship locked, I also had no problem making alliances with whoever I wanted. The result of this was me having more diplomatic favor than I knew what to do with. Despite practically downing in the stuff, I never spent any favor on any world congress resolutions except one, World Religion. That came up three times in my game, and every time it did I spent every ounce of favor I had making sure I won it. Between that, the religious orders policy card, and the super gurus I received from that wonder I mentioned earlier, my missionaries were bodying rival apostles with ease.
Oh, and every once in a while, someone would get hit with a natural disaster and ask for some foreign aid. I won each and every one of these. I'd run the project in my two highest production cities a few times, then toss a few hundred gold coins around to top it off. Whenever I got hit with a natural disaster, I always declined the offer for aid. The proud Arabian people don't need your charity!
Anyway, the industrial era hit, and my luck with era score finally ran out. I was in the darkest of all possible ages, a dark age. I chose heartbeat of steam as my dedication this time, since I knew my cities were just going to focus on building while I continued to spread the sacred word. On that front, I finally got the Cardinal governor's patron saint promotion, so it was time to start mass-producing apostles. Between my mosques, the Hagia Sophia, and patron saint, I was now unstoppable. Religious victory was inevitable. One by one, rival faiths fell. First Rome's Zoroastrianism, then Macedon's Taoism, and finally England's Shinto.
Meanwhile, France had been establishing itself as the only true threat of this game. Their earlier conquering spree had left them the widest empire by far, and they used that size to start wonder spamming all over the place. Wonder spamming is the correct way to play France, so this is to the A.I.'s credit. But it was a problem for me because France was already halfway to cultural victory, and I knew I needed theater squares and their respective buildings to hold them off, pronto.
When the world's fair began, I was only able to come in second. My tall cities couldn't hold a candle to France's sprawling empire when it came to great person generation. I'll get them next time!
I managed to squeak out a heroic age at the end of the industrial era by just 2 points of era score. This was my first heroic age ever, so I was pretty excited about it. I chose reform the coinage, heartbeat of steam, and wish you were here as my dedications. To arms! was pretty much irrelevant, because friendship locking. It was time to take down the final boss of this game, France's Catholicism. I started spreading my holy faith west until I reached France's border, then began converting her cities, from the south end that was once Indonesia, all the way up to Paris in the snowy north. Even with every faith generating policy card I could stuff into my government, France still had more faith per turn than I did. But my apostles had 5 charges to their 3, and I understood theological combat better. She never even started an inquisition!
It was around this time that I ended up losing a seaside resort to global warming. I didn't really need it, but I was still kicking myself because my production was high enough that, even on marathon speed, it would have only taken me a few turns to build a flood barrier. That'll teach me to pay attention to the climate screen.
While I was busy showing her people the light, France was off running a military campaign against poor, backwater Brazil. This was stupid, because Brazil was separated from her territory by the Ottomans and a bunch of city-states, so she had no way to exert loyalty pressure on the conquered cities. Egypt flipped two, and I flipped Brazil's original capital. Another city was going to flip to me, but it was in a stupid location, so I razed it while it was still a free city. I was now in second place for domination victory, without ever being in a single war! Meanwhile, England managed to flip a city state, which is impressive as those don't flip easy!
Paris was converted shortly before the modern era ended, and I entered the atomic era with another golden age. I chose Sky and Stars as my final dedication, which I didn't need because I was getting so much science from my religion that I was already two eras ahead of everyone else in technology. But it didn't matter. With Catholicism extinct, I could take my time slowly winning the game from that point on.
Before the game ended, France's wide strategy came back to bite them. Remember how, when Eleanor was first announced, I said her leader ability doesn't have much synergy with England's other bonuses? I might have to reevaluate. Eleanor built a city southwest of some city-states, used a royal navy dockyard to secure it's loyalty, and grew it to size ten. France ended up in an atomic dark age, while England was in a golden age. All those 4 and 5 pop cities in the southern part of France's empire started turning real British real fast. By the time I had won the game, half of France's empire had been lost. I was quite impressed with the A.I.'s ability to play both France and Eleanor to their strengths!
I was able to switch to a tier 4 government before the game ended. I decided on digital democracy, just for the sake of protecting myself from the rock bands that France had started to send into my territory. I wasn't able to build a giant death robot in time, however, so I'll have to check those out in another game.
Before I converted the final city I needed to win the game, I decided to set all the A.I.s free from the friendship locking I had been keeping them trapped in for the entire game. Once they were no longer under my spell, Rome and Macedon immediately denounced me, despite both having been long time allies. I don't think I'll use friendship locking in future games. Frankly, it feels a little too much like an exploit.
Origin: KafkaAU B-Net: Kafka#1778
The Maori are insanely good. They get a huge amount of flexibility on their starts, they almost always get the eurekas for crafsmanship, foreign trade, and political philosophy for free, they basically get free lumber mills in every forest and rainforest tile from the jump, their unique unit is better than most, and most importantly their unique building comes in early and is basically a cheat code.
The Marae adds +2 culture and +2 faith to every tile with woods, rainforest, marsh, or flood plains, on top of the +1 production (eventually +2) Kupe adds to woods and rainforest. Means your cities founded near a bunch of woods and rainforest will be chock-a-block with tiles that give yields like 2 food/3 production/2 culture/2 faith without even needing to be improved first. Alternately, if you want to look at it another way, it's easy for a Marae in a well-forested area to basically be a cheap building that makes something like 20 culture and 16 faith per turn (and then it also eventually adds 2 Tourism to all those tiles to boot).
Once you get a couple Maraes up your culture per turn can easily shoot up to 200+ before you even hit the Renaissance era. This also lets you hit Conservation way earlier than you ought to (~turn 100), which is what activates that extra +1 production to every forest and rainforest tile. I'm running through a couple Immortal games with them before I bump it up to Diety, and in the current one I'm about to be able to build Sydney Opera House at turn 120 while the game's still in the Renaissance just so I have somewhere to stick the great musicians I've generated. I'll be making Rock Bands by turn 140.
They're no slouch on the military front either - their swordsman replacement is basically a Roman Legion that shows up 10 turns later but gets extra bonuses on top (debuffs adjacent enemies by 5 power and has a lower maintenance cost), and all that early culture means you'll be making Toa Corps before you even get to Musketmen.
I need to play around with things more, but right now they seem clearly better than any of the other expansion civs and competitive with Rome et al overall. Their biggest problem is just finding room to put down the districts and wonders you want because rainforest/woods tiles are so good you almost never want to put anything over top of them.
Maybe it'd be better to play them on an island map and just throw settlers out into the ocean, I dunno
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
https://kotaku.com/everything-in-civilization-vi-crammed-into-one-real-ma-1790069270
What makes it really overpowered is that the AI doesn't get mad at you for flipping their cities. You can be allied to the entire world while absorbing them without a fuss.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Have you just been landing on the nearest bit of dry regardless of what’s nearby?
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.