Sid Meier's Civilization thread

[Jasen777]

Haven't played VI or V and barely IV, but getting a science bonus from a mine seems huge...

[MinnesotaNationalist]

Wilhelmina leads the Netherlands in Sid Meier's Civilization VI

Australia 2: Polder Bogagoo.

The Netherlands looks immensely powerful, as long as they're on the coast (like Australia), or a river. +2 to science, culture, and production if their respective districts are built next to a river. Polder gives food, production, and housing (and, I assume later on they provide culture as well), but it does look like it requires 3 coastal tiles to build it. I'm curious to know if Polder actually makes sea to land-like tiles, that land units can cross, although that might be a wee bit too powerful. Radio Oranje looks like a nice boon, increasing loyalty or culture to your cities. The Harbor culture bomb is possibly the worst bonus just because of the fact that most tiles, most of the time, will be ocean tiles with little resources, compared to land.

On a side note, does Wilhelmina look creepy to anyone else?

[Krall]

Dec 12, 2017 19:01:53 GMT MinnesotaNationalist said:

Wilhelmina leads the Netherlands in Sid Meier's Civilization VI

Australia 2: Polder Bogagoo.

The Netherlands looks immensely powerful, as long as they're on the coast (like Australia), or a river. +2 to science, culture, and production if their respective districts are built next to a river. Polder gives food, production, and housing (and, I assume later on they provide culture as well), but it does look like it requires 3 coastal tiles to build it. I'm curious to know if Polder actually makes sea to land-like tiles, that land units can cross, although that might be a wee bit too powerful. Radio Oranje looks like a nice boon, increasing loyalty or culture to your cities. The Harbor culture bomb is possibly the worst bonus just because of the fact that most tiles, most of the time, will be ocean tiles with little resources, compared to land.

On a side note, does Wilhelmina look creepy to anyone else?

I like building up infrastructure and tile improvements, so the Netherlands look like a good civ for me! Wilhemina does look a little creepy, but I think that's more an artifact of the style they're going for than anything else.

[MinnesotaNationalist]

Genghis Khan returns to conquer china lead Mongolia in Sid Meier's Civilization VI

Begin the Tomyris x Genghis Khan shipping. Tomyris Khan.

With the rise of Genghis Khan, we may have a new greatest war machine beating out Alexander. As long as they have horses, they're bound to decimate everything in your path (btw, they say "cavalry class" unit, and tanks are cavalry class, too, I believe, meaning super-mongol-blitzkrieg ahead).

My only problem is the Keshik, just because, like in Civ V, I fear that their promotions might not carry over correctly when upgraded to the next unit.

[Jasen777]

Dat comment section tho.

[MinnesotaNationalist]

Dec 19, 2017 18:51:03 GMT Jasen777 said:

Dat comment section tho.

uhg, don't get me started. The Civiliztion VI comment sections are possibly the worst of any channel I follow. Alternate History Hub is in a close 2nd.

[MinnesotaNationalist]

Chandragupta also leads India in Sid Meier's Civilization VI

I hear he also stars in pornos on the side. I believe it.

So yeah, Chandragupta gets his own special casus belli. Honestly seems egregiously OP to me, but I have yet to see it, so...

In other news, I thought I'd share some of the wonder movies and livestreams they've been having as well.

Making it's debut, I believe, the Kilwa Kisiwani wonder (sorry, no sound):

It will give you more envoys upon it's completion, and grants bonus yields from City States for which you're the suzerain (so, for example, if you get +2 gold per commercial hub, you get +3 or 4 instead). Willing to bet it has to be built next to water. I also speculate that this could hint at a East African Civ (I can only hope).

Making it's return is the Taj Mahal:

This gives you bonus era score for every historic moment for the rest of the game, so it's easier to stay out of dark ages and get into golden ages. Hard to judge how powerful this will be right off the bat. Probably will have to be built next to a river.

First livestream, just going over mechanics in general:

Let's see if I can sum up this one without watching it over again.
-Governors: These are a mechanic completely unique from the the Great Person system like I originally believed it was going to be. In fact, if there's any mechanic it's closest to, it's actually probably the Espionage system. They also don't automatically build stuff in cities like I thought they would. But basically, everyone gets the same set of available governors to choose from, you're not competing over them. Every couple of civics you get a "governor point" which you can spend either on recruiting a new governor or upgrading one you already have. Each governor doesn't have one specific thing they give boons to, there's no "Science Governor" or "Economic Governor," but there is stuff they lean more towards. For example there's the "Educator" governor, who's likely to help build up science a lot, but looking his upgrades it looks like he could help build a modern military.

-Loyalty and Free Cities: I want to start out by noting that Free Cities do not act like city states, you can't station envoys in them, they don't have special suzerain bonuses or any of that. Actually, it's kind of disappointing. It's also not as tied to Amenities as I thought they were, but I do believe they contribute. Anyways, Loyalty and Free Cities can definitely be best described as a "pulling" factor. Every Civ city is pulling on every other Civ city within a certain number of tiles, probably with a bonus towards "home team." If there's enough pull from foreign civs, a City can go up for grabs as a Free city, and what you can do is declare war upon these free cities without needing to go to war with anyone else. But what also happens is, that Civs start rounding up points in the form of of that loyalty pull again to claim that Free city, and whoever has the most points after a certain number of turns/ crosses the necessary threshold of points first/ whatever mechanic it is, gets to claim the free city. It's still a work in progress, like for example in this stream we get to see city have enough pull from a foreigner or a couple of foreigners to become a free city, but there was also enough pull from the home civ that it would just come back. There's a couple different ways to gain loyalty, I'm sure, that they'll cover more in depth in a different stream.

-Ages, Golden, Dark, and otherwise: This is gone over a bit more in the next stream, so I'll try to be brief with this. Ages are rather loose in this, and will change from game to game, and I believe it's dependent on how many civs are in an era. For those of you that have played Civ V with Brave New World, remember how to get the next level of the World Congress you needed to either have half of the civs be in next era or one civ to develop to the era beyond? I believe it's going to work something like that. The entire world passes from one age to the next, semi-independent of what era you're in. To get a Golden Age, you wrack up Historic Moments, which is posted in your Timeline, and these moments provide Era score, which helps judge whether or not you're going in a dark age, golden age, or normal age. Another part of the Ages mechanic is every time you enter a new age, you get to choose a "dedication," which every time you fulfill this dedication you get even more bonus moments. Specific dedications rotate age to age. A couple of examples from the Renaissance Age are "Reform the Coinage," which provides +1 era score every time a trade route is successfully completed (as opposed to being plundered) and "Here be Dragons" which provides +3 era score every time you find a new continent or natural wonder, and +1 era score for every non-barabarian naval unit you sink.
You may note that I differentiate Age and Era. Age is specifically tied to the Ages mechanic, while Era is for what level the Tech/ Civic Tree there is.

-Note on Seondeok: Her agenda is that she likes people with lots of science. If you start falling behind in science, beware.

Second livesteam, that focused more on the Ages system:

So you accumulate historic moments over time, and the era score they provide you can prevent you from going into a dark age, and can lead you into a golden age. Some of these moments, as noted before, include a first circumnavigation, founding a religion, building your unique unit/infrastructure for the first time, and building a district with high adjacency bonuses, but also reveled you get moments from: discovering a wonder, building your first unit that requires x resource, clearing a village, clearing barbarian encampments, meeting other civilizations, discovering your first tech/civ of a new era, getting a new government, so on, I don't want to name all of them. Also of note, for many of these, if you're the first civ in game to do one of these, you'll get extra era score as well, so if you're the first in the world to complete a circumnavigation, the first to build a unit requiring x resource, the first to get into the next era. Also interesting, they noted that civs will likely first build their unique unit/infrastructure around the time they would historically enter a golden age, so that kind of adds to that. Basically, you have to try really hard to get a dark age.

Speaking of Dark Ages: They do cover some of the policy cards that you can have elusively in the dark age. They rotate between what age they're in, just like the dedications. They all provide a strong bonus, but at a harsh drawback. Some examples provided include: +5 melee attack strength, BUT your units can't heal outside friendly territory; +1 trade routes, with +2 production and food bonus to internal trade routes, BUT you can't build, buy, or use settlers. Basically, they're all there to get you up off your feet at the cost of having to turn away from one part of the game for a while. They described it that their goal is to be punishing, but still fun, that Dark Ages aren't just game over.

Note on Genghis Khan and Wilhelmina: Genghis Khan likes attacking civs with lots of horses so that he can bolster his cavalry army (because, if we remember, one of his abilities is defeated cavalry units (note: they have to be defeated by other cavalry units) join his army), so Scythia really has to watch out. Also note, defeated cavalry unique units, such as the Scythian horsemen unit, or the Arabian Mamluk, do stay as said unique unit when they join the Mongols, so already buffy Genghis Khan just got buffier, and Tomyris really should be shaking in her boots. Wilhelmina's agenda is just being rich, so she likes civilizations that send trade routes to the Netherlands, and doesn't like civs that actively avoid trading with her. So she should be one of the easiest civs to placate.

edit: forgot to go over a couple more things:
1: Australia has a color change. They're now Green and Black _{damn anarcho-environmentalists} instead of Orange and White (probably because the Netherlands).
2: In the Genghis Khan video, they say that Genghis Khan gets a bonus to civs he has diplomatic viability to. A bit of edit to this, everyone gets a bonus like this now, but Genghis Khan's is slightly larger (also stealth buff for Medici's France).

[MinnesotaNationalist]

Poundmaker leads the Cree in Sid Meier's Civilization VI

Admittedly, I was hoping for Iroquois, Creek, or Dakota for our token USA/Canadian natives, but Cree work too.

It's obvious that with a trade route, the Cree will start sucking up a lot of land, so good for them. The new scout looks nice, like the old Shoshone scout without the ability to choose what you got out of a village/ruin. The mekawap seems pretty nice as well. Can't really judge how good the alliance thing is, although gaining bonus yields from camps and pastures seems really nice, I imagine Poundmaker and Genghis Khan geting along well.

[Krall]

Jan 2, 2018 16:50:10 GMT MinnesotaNationalist said:

Poundmaker leads the Cree in Sid Meier's Civilization VI
Admittedly, I was hoping for Iroquois, Creek, or Dakota for our token USA/Canadian natives, but Cree work too.

It's obvious that with a trade route, the Cree will start sucking up a lot of land, so good for them. The new scout looks nice, like the old Shoshone scout without the ability to choose what you got out of a village/ruin. The mekawap seems pretty nice as well. Can't really judge how good the alliance thing is, although gaining bonus yields from camps and pastures seems really nice, I imagine Poundmaker and Genghis Khan geting along well.

It's nice to see a completely new civ added to the series. I do like their bonuses to trade routes, though it sounds like they could be screwed over by unfavourable circumstances and diplomacy. With diplomacy in Civ VI relying on nonsensical agendas so much, I can see the Cree being annoying to play as. Maybe their bonuses all being quite early in the game (trade route at Pottery, unique unit replaces the Scout) will help balance that out, but I'm not sure.

[MinnesotaNationalist]

Statue of Liberty returns

Apparently it gives a free settler (or two, it's kind of ambiguous) and extra loyalty to nearby cities. (Apparently New England was threatening to culture flip over to the English Civilization)

[Jasen777]

Jan 5, 2018 19:46:36 GMT MinnesotaNationalist said:

Statue of Liberty returns

Apparently it gives a free settler (or two, it's kind of ambiguous) and extra loyalty to nearby cities. (Apparently New England was threatening to culture flip over to the English Civilization)

It kept the South from trying to leave again?

Used to use it to flip from Democracy to Fundamentalism if I got into a protracted war.

[MinnesotaNationalist]

Saint Tamara leads Georgia in Sid Meier's Civilization VI

Memed into existence

I'm honestly not sure how to feel about Tamar's Georgia, some of the bonuses seem so vague. Not only that, but I never build renaissance walls, so their unique infrastructure is pretty useless to me.

[MinnesotaNationalist]

Another livestream, focused on the Governor system. I haven't watched it yet ,so give me an hour or two to provide a summary

Firstly, something I forgot to mention from the last livestream or the one before is that there's a new district, the Government Plaza, which you can only have one in your country. This essentially acts like a second capital. Like many other districts, this has three tiers of buildings that can be created inside, but, unlike other districts, each tier has a choice of three buildings per tier. While they haven't gone over the second two tiers, the first tier is essentially a choice between deciding to play tall, wide, or aggressive (much like the initial policy tree choice back in Civ V, minus Piety).

Now, for the Governors themselves: While in the last two livestreams, and again here, they stated that each governor isn't strictly devoted to one victory type or another, but that's not completely true, but also not completely false either. But, let's go over them:
    Victor the Castellan: Pure defense, it will be extremely difficult to take a city with the Castellan there. He also has a shorter time to get established in a city then the others, three turns instead of five.
    Amani the Diplomat: She has two roles, both involving talking about how glorious your Civilization is. The first role is to make city states like you more, while you're stationed there, and the other is to make people feel a lot more inclined to join or stay part of your civilization.
    Moksha the Cardinal: Pure Religion, this is the guy you choose if you're going for a religious victory. Many of his abilities include increasing the spread power of your religion from the city he's stationed in, as well as providing an additional upgrade for apostles trained in the city he's in (between him and Mont Saint Michael, you'll be getting 3 promotions for a apostle, which is insane).
    Magnus the Steward: He's much more Industry based, allowing you to build factories faster and make them more useful than they already are. He also has an ability that provides extra food.
    Liang the Surveyor: She's the one you want to put in your newly founded cities, she allows for building built directly in the city center to built faster, as well as districts themselves. She also has a couple other useful abilities, but over all, she's probably going to be the one bounced around the most.
    Pingala the Educator: This is the main other governor useful for only a couple of victory types (although unlike the Cardinal, it's two this time): Cultural and Scientific. Also a little bit of dabbling into nuke building (must be a cousin of Gandhi or something).
    Reyna the Financer: Money money money. Also a little bonus in Culture. But she does have an ability that allows you to buy districts. Not buy buildings, but buy districts themselves.

Note: All the abilities I mentioned have to be earned through governor titles, which we covered before, and only work in the city they're stationed in.
One thing that was mentioned in the comments of the livestream that I kind of agree with (but not so much as to be upset at the developers) is the fact that the Governors are given more personality then the Great People in this game (and even, to some extent, more personality than the leaders themselves), and perhaps it would almost be better to remove the faces and names of Governors (or replace their names with generic names from each civilization, much like Spies do) and that could immerse a player even more. Just some food for thought.

Note on Chandragupta: His agenda is that he dislikes anyone bordering him. So if you start a new game and he's only like 10 tiles away from you, it's probably best just to restart.
Note on Tamar: Her agenda is that she likes people who build walls. Actually quite boring to be honest.
Note on Gilgamesh: He's getting boost for those that have the expansion. Now, if you're allied to him and you're fighting a common enemy, your alliance will grow stronger, faster. I can tell that Poundmaker and Gilgamesh will be the best of bruhs.
Speaking of Poundmaker, his agenda hasn't been announced yet.

in the meantime, Saint Basil's Cathedral is finally being labeled correctly as it returns

It provides a large tourism bonus to religious art, provides two relic slots, and gives a bonus to yields from Tundra tiles (so playing as Russia, this is a must have). It looks like the requirement for this one is that it just needs to built in flat land.

[MinnesotaNationalist]

Short summary of Civ VI: Rise and Fall features

Also, at 2:40, isn't that a song from CKII?

[Krall]

Jan 16, 2018 21:25:01 GMT MinnesotaNationalist said:

Also, at 2:40, isn't that a song from CKII?

Could be - I imagine most, if not all, ancient and medieval tunes are in the public domain and so crop in things from time to time. It's not one I recognise though, I'm afraid.

[MinnesotaNationalist]

another week, another livestream, this time on the Emergency system. Sorry, but I'm going to have to be short and vague on this one since I was only half listening while I was map making.


So with emergencies there are 5 kinds. The ones I remember are City State, Religious, Nuclear, and plain old Military.
City State emergencies happen when a city state is conquered by a civ, giving near-by civs the mission to liberate that city state (I can tell a coalition is already brewing against Germany)
Religious emergencies happen when a holy city is converted. (curious to know if Jerusalem counts), giving near by civs the mission to reconvert that holy city back. This is the only emergency that doesn't immediately turn to war, but war is one way to solve it.
Nuclear is when some Civ decides to launch a nuke. Civs who join get a mission take over as many cities from the aggressor as possible, preferably the capital.
Military is a generic one for when a civ gets to far ahead.

Note, because of mechanics in game, there tends to be only emergency going on at any given time, and doing all those things that can spark an emergency only have a chance of doing so. Also, those who join an emergency get bonuses as long as the emergency carries on (mostly related to fighting the target), and the winner, whether the target or the coalition, gets bonuses for the rest of the game.

side note: there's a new spy mission, which finally gives the ability to remove envoys from the game.
side note 2: Tier 3 gov buildings revealed. They're basically the choice between military, culture, and science (I assume religion is somewhere in Tier 2).

note on Tamar: This one goes a little more in depth on what Tamar's abilities are. So, apparently, when in a normal/dark age, dedications chosen only provide bonus era score without any other benefit, while in golden/heroic age, it provides other benefits, but no era score (so it's hard to chain golden ages together). Tamar, though, will always get this era score bonus, making it easier for her to chain golden ages together.

[MinnesotaNationalist]

We need a king to rule the land, and Robert the Bruce is in command of the Scottish Civilization.

It's the crown that's in his sights, and its the reason we will fight!

So they seem to be a civ where happiness is the most important component. Getting that extra bonus to production and science will be hella important.

As a side note, Bruce gets bonus production when declaring war, and John Curtin gets by being the target of war. I can't wait until I see my first Scotland v. Australia war

[lordroel]

Dec 13, 2017 16:51:42 GMT Krall said:

Dec 12, 2017 19:01:53 GMT MinnesotaNationalist said:

Wilhelmina leads the Netherlands in Sid Meier's Civilization VI

Australia 2: Polder Bogagoo.

The Netherlands looks immensely powerful, as long as they're on the coast (like Australia), or a river. +2 to science, culture, and production if their respective districts are built next to a river. Polder gives food, production, and housing (and, I assume later on they provide culture as well), but it does look like it requires 3 coastal tiles to build it. I'm curious to know if Polder actually makes sea to land-like tiles, that land units can cross, although that might be a wee bit too powerful. Radio Oranje looks like a nice boon, increasing loyalty or culture to your cities. The Harbor culture bomb is possibly the worst bonus just because of the fact that most tiles, most of the time, will be ocean tiles with little resources, compared to land.

On a side note, does Wilhelmina look creepy to anyone else?

I like building up infrastructure and tile improvements, so the Netherlands look like a good civ for me! Wilhemina does look a little creepy, but I think that's more an artifact of the style they're going for than anything else.

Now i can finally buy the game.

[Jasen777]

Jan 24, 2018 15:59:02 GMT MinnesotaNationalist said:

We need a king to rule the land, and Robert the Bruce is in command of the Scottish Civilization.

"I see your puny civilization has not even developed golf courses!"

[steve59]

Jan 25, 2018 23:01:24 GMT Jasen777 said:

Jan 24, 2018 15:59:02 GMT MinnesotaNationalist said:

We need a king to rule the land, and Robert the Bruce is in command of the Scottish Civilization.

"I see your puny civilization has not even developed golf courses!"

  That brought a grin from he as well.    Think the game designers are scrapping the bottom of the barrel in finding special national abilities.