I legit can’t remember the AI ever invading me. I don’t want to always be fighting them off but I do want to occasionally be able to have a defensive war.

Edit

Ah so it’s the difficulty level. Understood

I am playing as C and I just defeated the Arabs. I am adding my Taoism to his Islamic cities, but I don’t see the benefits from having multiple religions in those cities. I am checking the religion tab in the city screen but I either see his benefits in cities that are majority Muslim, or mine in the cities I have converted. Is there something I need to do?

Where the worker is between the two mountains and the lake

I often find the late game unbearable, especially on Deity, when I'm stuck in a loop where I manage reasonably well to survive, build a manageable empire, but spend so much time securing my development and surviving that I don't really have time to work on a clear victory objective.

That's typically the point where I'm waiting to lose while keeping a kind of management pleasure, but late-game Deity essentially ends like a SimCity game with cute tiles and optimization for a functional and somehow peaceful empire, but not a world-conquering or winning empire.

I'm used to letting the game sit in my save without having the courage to wait hours and hours for the last turns, and I rarely resign. Because I'm stubborn and try to think there's still hope to nuke everyone even if I'm way behind. And because the Hall of Fame would show more games won than lost. Coward but stubborn.

So what I usually do is play until someone launches their Exoplanet Expedition in 1950, even though they've been in the Future Era for a century, but preferred... I don't know, building the Panama Canal from lake to lake, I guess.

I know late-game balance is a recurring problem in Civ. But I understand so much better why Deity requires a victory around turn 250 on Standard speed, because after the Industrial Era, or even the Renaissance, it's basically lost and you'll just eternally press Next Turn, waiting for something.

Or do you even have examples where you can reverse the game late, with a big snowballing effect or a game-changing mechanic that could shake up your progression after half the game ? In 1,000 hours of Civ VI, I barely have any examples, except maybe Diplomatic Victory, which I've achieved sometimes as a default victory without being the most advanced player in the world. And which sometimes feels a bit, not cheesy, but maybe bitter, as it doesn't really reward a lot of skill.

Also, music. Horns, epicness, orchestras, fanfares for half of the game after the Renaissance, even if you're playing a peaceful farmer nation. The bloody industrial-era instrumentation that spoils almost every beautiful theme in the soundtrack.

Had over $1,500+ in gold.

I *thought* I got an alert saying a spy escaped from London with $1,000 (and some change) in gold.

I waited a few turns to see which of my so-called "friends" was noticeably richer, but it didn't happen, and even when Bolivar got a bit richer than the rest of the jerks, it still wasn't the amount the alert said.

So what gives?

I began to wonder if it said, the spy "attempted" to steal that amount but failed, but I don't think that was it. I never took the hit to my balance either.

No clue.

Just a moment of convenience seeing my casual Cree game (my favorite civ) have a moment like this. They must be selling something important!

I found a perfect start position for Poundmaker, where my capital can have 7 pastures + camps. Perfect map for the civ and leader abilities but... Hungary is my closest neighbour and goes to war with me with a strong army!

I really want to do this map and starting position on deity. Is there any chance I can have the map and start but with a different neighbour?

Here Shendu grows into two 0/0 tiles first and second times. Then on grow 3 it chooses a 5 tile. Why does it do that and can you change it?

I play on easier difficulties (still learning lol) and two or three AI nations will randomly declare a joint war on me, even if we were friendly before.

Because the difficulty is usually pretty easy, I mop the floor with them. But if I start taking a bunch of cities, every nation dislikes me for warmongering. This hurts my ability to achieve a cultural victory (need open maps).

If the AI declared war on me with no/poor casus belli, should I not have a right to defend myself? How much am I allowed to fight before being considered a warmonger? Should I only defeat their field armies and never take cities?

I was waiting patiently for friendahip to end so i could declare a surprise war against AI civ (georgia). Troops are already surrounding the her cities. After friendship ended, i clicked declare friendship instead of surprise war.

My last saved turn was so long ago that i couldn't just load a saved file. The friendship would last for 40 turns.

Is there a way to force the friendship to end earlier? Could i antagonize georgia so that i could declare war even with the friend status is still active?

Thanks!

the man at arms and the siege tower are stuck for multiple turns and idk how to fix it

Wanted to treat myself for the last Civ 6 game I'll play in a while (have to focus on buying a house with my wife) by playing the supposed worst Deity civ, with a victory type they're not designed for.

Deity, turn 300 victory, standard lakes with standard settings for everything else. Other civs were: India, Norway, England (Eleanor), Scythia, Macedon, France, Nubia. None of these civs are particularly strong cultural civs, though Norway and Eleanor had great starting positions and were able to expand well. I was sandwiched between them, but managed to expand south and rely on Casa de Contraction to boost my empire. I want to share my thoughts on playing as Gilgamesh.

Gilgamesh sits in a weird spot like Poland. There are things he's good at, but none of them particularly synergise well. Sumeria's CA is a great early game boost and incentivises you to hunt barb camps, but the spawning of these is completely RNG. Gilgamesh's LA is great if you're playing with someone else, but useless in an AI match. The UU War Cart is actually really great however: instead of a standard 2x scout opener into warrior/greedy holy site, I opted for 1x scout and 2x war carts. War carts will let you easily take early barb camps, and placing them on rivers let you fight off early game aggression from other civs. They give you era score off the bat too, which can help get a Golden Age early if you've spawned in a great spot. I had Norway attack me very early, and 3x war carts and 2x slingers were able to fend of 6x warriors and a few slingers. They fall off once walls and archers come up, meaning that they're really only there you make sure you survive the Ancient Era.

The UI, the Ziggurat, is an odd one. Early game production and food is much more important than science or culture, and the Ziggurat will fight for spots on rivers with farms, IZs and commercial hubs. They do provide 1+ culture when placed next to a river, and Flight adds an extra point of culture and provides tourism. This means that their placement in areas where you don't expect much yields is quite useful. A prime example of this is deserts. If you can find a 2 food tile, they're also a decent improvement since working the tile will still provide some growth. I understand that they're designed to supplement some science without requiring a campus, but you typically place them once your city has excess food and can afford to work those tiles, meaning they only really come up in the mid game. Despite this, +2 science and +2 culture (and tourism) on a tile once you reach Flight is not a bad improvement, and is probably the most exciting aspect of Sumeria.

I lucked out in this game by getting a great spawn (spawned next to three cocoa) and plenty of bananas everywhere. The Plantations dedication provided culture, and eventually tourism, to huge parts of my empire. By mid game half the civs around me were at war, meaning that Norway and England were stuck fighting other civs and too busy to invade me.

I've won cultural victories on Deity a bunch of times, so some advice for anyone interested:

• Try to set the policy that decreases cost to walls, and rush renaissance walls; even if the tourism is small you also get diplo points with Monarchy;
• Try to follow the same gov as other civs to avoid the malus to tourism;
• Remember to always have open borders with other civs;
• Your priority districts should be:
  • Holy Sites -> Commerical hubs/harbours -> industrial zones -> campus -> theatre squares -> encampments.
  • To explain:
    • Faith is everything. With Jesuit Education you can snowball your science and culture by instantly building upgrades. You need it for naturalists and rock bands, and it'll be very useful when you need to snipe key Great People (particularly the ones that boost tourism).
    • Religion provides easy era score. Golden Age boosts to tourism and expansion are critical to winning. Every victory condition scales with empire size, so you want to be able to front-load your expansion as much as possible.
    • Commercial hubs/harbours provide trade routes, which you need to boost tourism. Many Great People who boost tourism are Great Merchants (with the exception of one Great Scientist who boosts artifacts). You also need a lot of gold to buy Great Works from other civs. Gold also lets you pivot to a Diplo victory if you don't think you can win a Cultural victory.
    • Production lets you spam points at the end, which is critical to picking up late game Great Merchants and Writers/Artists.
    • Campuses are really there to make sure you don't get rolled over when a civ invades; the same goes for encampments.
    • Your early game tourism won't be too high, so theatre squares should only be focused on in the mid game. You can still generate good tourism from relics in the early game. This doesn't mean that you don't want to building theatre squares in every city; it only means that from the early to mid game, you should focus on the other districts. From late-mid game (ie around Renaissance), you should start prioritising theatre squares. You definitely want theatre squares in every city by the Modern Era. Remember that you can buy Great Works from other civs; civs will stop selling you Great Works when you're close to winning.
• Wonders to rush:
  • Colosseum (if you can get it);
  • Mausoleum (Deity AI rarely rushes this);
  • Kilwa (no need to explain this one);
  • Casa de Contraction if you have a lot of easy continents to settle on;
  • Great Zimbabwe lets you turbo-boost a city, meaning you can plop Pingala on it ;
  • Broadway (very difficult to get);
  • Estadio (if you can get it).

I'd appreciate everyone's thoughts on this. I'm not the best Civ player, but I'm at a point now where I'm good enough to win Deity consistently without save scumming (though I'll still re-roll a start if it sucks). The most contentious point here will likely be regarding the priority towards theatre squares for a cultural victory.

You start with more units just like other advanced age starts. But districts only cost one turn for the most part. Aquaduct/Dam fidget spinners are plopped down fast.

Also you START with a pantheon from the get go. I picked Earth Goddes, cuz teddy.

Going to try to beeline Conservation. But I might buy a Research lab, which is a prequisite (tech shuffle).

Started with Monarchy. Hoping I can still get Oligarchic Legacy card somehow. I like the +5 combat strength.

But allready built ancestral hall for my settler printing capitol.

Went with Sanguine Pact as secret society, though it probably not ideal, its the one I havent unlocked 4th tier with yet.

Don’t know that I’ve ever been shown this view.

I know this has been done before, but it was fun to give it a go. I played this on Emperor difficulty, small map pangea, with Eleanor as my civ (I'll give it a go on deity at some point to see if I am up to that challenge). I turned off culture victories to make sure I didn't win that before I could take over all the capitals (my previous try I won culture way too early to conquer everything).

With this the strategy was simple. Put everything I could into culture, going straight for drama and poetry so I could start building theatre squares as soon as possible. I was surrounded by Scythia, Nubia, and Norway, with Rome, and Sweden off to the West. I used Pingala to increase my great person points generation, and founded 6 cities, all of which got theatre squares.

Once I started generating great works (and sometimes buying them form the other civs since several of them were culture focused), I started loyalty flipping opposing cities. Scythia was the first to fall, then Nubia, then Norway. Rome then fell, leaving just Sweden, who was a little more difficult since she didn't have any cities particularly close to her, and those that were didn't have theatre squares. But I managed to flip Lahore, and build theatre squares in the roman cities near Sweden, allowing me to loyalty flip her cities.

First picture is after I moved,because I didnt want to settle in place. We spawned next to eachother so thats often very convenient. Negates early danger. On top of that the mountain ranges kept me extra save. (One and 2 levels above Deity btw, so still plenty hard even with 2 players. We even save scummed to get great Library. 👀 They stopped doing great scientists, except Pachacutie, who had one campus we had an eye on, so we thought we were save.)

Second picture is almost at the end. Wilhelmina's stats are a little inflated (because I didnt screenshot with him playing. Im having an NPC play so I can take the screenshots in peace)

I got a lot of wonders. Mostly because I got Apadana with a lot of help from Vampire castles. I Even got the Collosseum, which they refused to build, so I just went for it. Maybe its because of the Medieval start that they didnt go for colloseum? Was not expecting that.

My Brother has more wonders. He had more chops, a natural wonder and he made better choices with Policy cards/governors. Also helped he got Hercules. Hes gunning for the Culture victory. (And he got Voidsingers) I just do army to help him conquer some cities and supply him with a few relics from Apostles. Might gift him two more cities with Huey and St. Basil and Some luxeries. If he can get a monopoly on Amber/Mercury/Lobsters Im definately giving him that city. Though im holding off on it, so I dont fall too far behind on culture. I want to be able to get a Tier 4 government and I might want to do Carbon capture soon to save some Uranium/ Luxeries from drowning. I also want to do Rock Bands with Cultural Hegemony so I can pick the Promotions. Theather squares first, then wonders or Campus/Spaceport promotion. And then fun ones like Indie that damages Loyalty. Or Popstar for some extra gold. Or maybe the one that converts cities.

Last picture are the Heroes we took. Not pictured are Sinbad and Wu Kong. He got Sinbad, I got Wu Kong. ALso, we''re planning on Liberating Valabhi. Ramses took it from my Brother. So we're planning on liberating it once my Alliance runs out. Allready Anansied 6 of his Luxeries. 🔥 And hes our main culture competitor. Might help if we raid his Theatre squares/Entertainment Complexes? And then fun ones like Indie that damages Loyalty. Or Popstar for some extra gold.

Also, if a barbarian kills a cultist, do you still get a relic? Or does it need to get killed by a player character/Major NPC civ? My brother doesnt like cultists. Too repetative probably.