My Experience After 65 hours |Civilization 6

I kept wondering if I have autism because sometimes I spend my time on things that are probably absurd. When I set my mind to something, I’ll see nothing else until I win or achieve my goal. This probably is a good trait except sometimes it’s on things that’s unimportant. For me, it’s gaming. I am not an esport player but somehow I started making it a competition when I got hooked.

First off, I am a sucker for strategy games. I remembered back in 2021, I got addicted to Wesnoth and I literally sat hours on end just to get that one more turn. I even lose sleep, forget eating and just stare into my screen for hours. It took me about 2-3 months before I completely forgot about it. Then today, I barely touched the game because I was already good and confident enough playing with some other player.

This time, it’s Civilization 6 that I got addicted to. It is a game which is a lot more complex and full of intricacies. It’s not the type of game that can be finished in a day because the mental strain is pretty significant. The maximum hours I spent on it was only 9 hours before I was getting a real headache from thinking about how to reach the atomic era and started nuking everyone.

The other day, I was also playing with a friend of mine. We played multiplayer for 250 turns and we only got to 140 turns because it was already late. I think that in this game once you reach more than 100 turns, it becomes a lot more arduous managing the units. It also gets overly exhausting to also micro manage some units.

I started playing this game about a few weeks ago now and learned that some civilizations and cultures are better than the others. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter if you get the best land but if you’re playing with a shitty leader it’s 100x challenging against the AI barbarians. There’s even a tier list of leader and I couldn’t agree more with that. My favorite leader is Hojo Tokimune from Japan and Qin Shi Huang - China while I also enjoy playing as Peter the Great - Russia. The worst that I’d avoid is Mvemba A Nzinga - Kongo but despite Tomyris - Scythia is something I play once in a while, I actually enjoy playing as Tomyris because it’s less shitier than Mvemba.

Finding what works for opening and my tips

After playing 65 hours, I started seeing the units more like pawns. The opening matters and despite checking out some best openings on youtube, I ended up experimenting on my own and found what works. I learned early on not to hire scouts but to be honest, they work best with automation exploration especially early in the game. But after it advanced to the industrial era, I don’t think hiring a ranger is actually viable. As you can see in this note, I first use slinger (ranged attack) after the one warrior unit that we get as we start. It’s actually, one scout, one slinger back to warrior.

Here’s my current opening and what I normally play with

• Land recond (scout)
• Ranged (slinger, archer)
• Melee (warrior swordsman)

I would repeat that until I get the option to Naval units as well as cavalry which usually takes a bit more time than the opening. When it comes to city production and managing them, I also focus on different cities. One city is only for recruiting units, another one is for cultural wins, the other is for religion victory. While it takes a bit of adjusting, usually the units can be moved around to increase the population of other cities. Sometimes I would start a war early on so I don’t have to produce a settler unit to increase the number of cities I manage.

As you can see above on my note, it was scribbled to find the best opening. In the past, I was just randomly playing but I found out that reaching victory is a lot faster with some type of strategy on the units as well as focusing on a few victories to win the game. The easiest is definitely religious victory while domination and culture can be a bit of a challenge. So for me, I like to speed up finding the religion and then making everyone within the same continent follow the religion I have. Not only that, with some beliefs where gold is present, free money too.

Revisiting My first saved game

Today I revisited the game that I saved when I first started. After playing a while and saw that around 100 turns all I got was only some swordsman and leading in domination, something is clearly wrong. Even the population number was way too low. I decided to find something that I can fix and apparently, after a few turns, it progressed into something better and I managed to expand to another city. This first game was done without too much planning and proper research. So it’s kind of all over the place and I was still at the stage of exploring how things work. In that map, I was settling on an area that has a lower amount of resources too.

That above is the comparison after I did a few turns and turned things around. I also managed to increase Cordoba's population despite now I am not friends with Greece anymore. While it’s fine, it just means that I am slowly moving my troops and planning an attack. I definitely wouldn’t have thought of that before. Anyhow, here’s to 100 hours spent on the game which is another 40 hours-ish left to get that 100 hours. Maybe I’ll learn something new or maybe I’ll discover something else.

	𝘔𝘢𝘤 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧-𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘺𝘦𝘥 𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘫𝘢 & 𝘤𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘶𝘳 . 𝘈 𝘵𝘺𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦, 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴, 𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘺. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘨, 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦. 𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴, 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸𝘴, 𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴, 𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘵𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘩𝘺, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘱𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵. 𝘖𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘣𝘭𝘶𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘰𝘯, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘪𝘯 𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘺. 𝘚𝘩𝘦'𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘰𝘤𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘧𝘰𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴. 𝘍𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸 𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘯 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘫𝘰𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯! 𝘋𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘶𝘱𝘷𝘰𝘵𝘦, 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬. 𝘈 𝘳𝘦-𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘨 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰𝘰.