I'm a newbie - hit me with your best criticism/tips

[snuggleform]

I have vanilla civ6 and I am....totally overwhelmed. I can't tell if I'm doing anything right. I played civ 5 a bit but there seems to be a lot more complex systems in civ 6.

Right now I'm playing continents everything standard and I have 4 cities by turn 323, with population 13/9/6/11.

Let's start with the easy part - assuming I'm not attacking other civs (which I'm not) how much population/cities should I have by turn 300 or so?

[Imhotep]

That would depend on map size, number of other civs and game speed.

In my current game, on Emperor difficulty, Standard size map, 10 civs/15 city-states, I have six cities, which is the joint fewest number among the civs. I have 106 Population, which is probably about average among the civs in my current game - highest civ, my chief rival, has 172. It's Turn 363 and near the end of the Tech Tree/game. I'm on course to win a Culture Victory, though.

[snuggleform]

How do I get better gold income...I'm at -30 income from all my city stuff I built.

[leandrombraz]

You should aim to have 10+ cities. Population doesn't matter so much, what matter is how well developed your cities are. A 10 pop city is pretty strong if you build districts, buildings and improve the tiles. Just aim to have more cities, way more, way earlier.

[Lemurian1972]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

How do I get better gold income...I'm at -30 income from all my city stuff I built.

You should try to have a commercial hub or seaport in almost every city, and a trade route running.

[snuggleform]

Originally posted by leandrombraz:

You should aim to have 10+ cities. Population doesn't matter so much, what matter is how well developed your cities are. A 10 pop city is pretty strong if you build districts, buildings and improve the tiles. Just aim to have more cities, way more, way earlier.

I'm not sure what I'm doing right/wrong with developing cities...I try to max out production in each city so it doesn't take forever to make things, then science. Now I'm in negative gold income even when I click the gold setup for citizens. I'm so confused on what improvements to build beyond the easy-to-see suggested ones the computer tells you about...do you improve every tile, is there a certain amount of farms you want, I was trying to preserve some rainforest/forest but I'm just so low on food I might have to tear them down to make more farms.

[snuggleform]

Originally posted by Lemurian1972:

Originally posted by snuggleform:

How do I get better gold income...I'm at -30 income from all my city stuff I built.

You should try to have a commercial hub or seaport in almost every city, and a trade route running.

commercial hub what era is that? I don't see the option for it and I finished electricity recently/

[Imhotep]

Click on Manage Tiles in the city screen to see which city tiles are actually being worked. Ideally, you want all the city citizens working an improved tile.

Good ways to build income are through Commercial Hubs, Harbor improvements, Trade Routes, and Civic choices that generate Gold.

[snuggleform]

Ok but how about before gold, how many citizens on food should I be getting?

[leandrombraz]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

How do I get better gold income...I'm at -30 income from all my city stuff I built.

- Build a commercial hub or a harbor on each city and their first building (Market and Lighthouse, respectively). That will give you a trade route slot, you can get one from each city. Then produce a trade route on one of your cities and do international trade;

- Learn how adjacency works and build these districts on tiles that give it high adjacency.

- Use policies that give gold.

- Send envoys to commercial city states.

- Sell extra copies of your luxuries. Only the first copy give you amenities, any extra copy is for trade. Find an AI that doesn't have that luxury and see how much they pay for it.

- Sell strategic resources. You only need 2 copies of each. The first copy let you build units in cities that have an encampment, the second let you build in any city.

- Work tiles that give gold.

Originally posted by snuggleform:

Originally posted by Lemurian1972:

You should try to have a commercial hub or seaport in almost every city, and a trade route running.

commercial hub what era is that? I don't see the option for it and I finished electricity recently/

It's in the Classical era, Currency tech, a yellow icon. You definitely have it unlocked. District's are limited by population, with some exceptions (aqueduct, neighborhood). You can build one when you settle a 1, then another when it gets to 4 pop, then another at 7, then at 10 and so on. Even if you don't have a district slot to build it, it should be there in your production list.


You seems to be struggling with the very basic. I recommend watching a beginners guide like this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVxzvzYHpHI

I posted part 4 because it's where he builds his first district.

[Sledge Poteet]

Holy gosh dude, by turn 323 you should have already won. To give you a comparison, in my current game I'm on turn 146. I have 11 cities: 9/8/8/7/7/6/5/5/4/2/1. This is actually pretty slow. I should probably have three more by now, but I've been dealing with some complications.
You ideally should be aiming to have about 10 cities by turn 100.

[snuggleform]

Well let's back up what should my build order be? Does'nt have to be 100% specific but just some general guidelines, like do you always build 2 farms in each city or more? Which districts do you prefer?

[leandrombraz]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

I'm not sure what I'm doing right/wrong with developing cities...I try to max out production in each city so it doesn't take forever to make things, then science. Now I'm in negative gold income even when I click the gold setup for citizens. I'm so confused on what improvements to build beyond the easy-to-see suggested ones the computer tells you about...do you improve every tile, is there a certain amount of farms you want, I was trying to preserve some rainforest/forest but I'm just so low on food I might have to tear them down to make more farms.

You need as much tiles improved as you have population, since your population works the tile. You can manage which tiles are being worked in the city. The guide I posted shows that on the part 2 video. Don't follow the computer, he is leading you to the dark side, think for yourself. As a basic rule, hills are for mines, plan tiles are for farms. There's a lot more that goes into it but that's enough to have a working city. Chop rainforests and woods, it give you a one time yields boost and it's better to chop it more often than not, at least into you familiarize yourself with the mechanics. Definitely do it if you gonna build a district on that tile.

Growth depends more on housing than food. You want to have at least two more housing than you have population. Farms you should build in triangles since they boost each other, so an isolated farm is pretty bad while 3 farms together will be a strong source of food. You usually won't need much more than a farm triangle per city. You can also get food from trade routes.

Prioritize food in early game. Growing your cities will let you work more tiles, which means you gonna get more production. Science you get by building a campus, not so much by working tiles.

[leandrombraz]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

Well let's back up what should my build order be? Does'nt have to be 100% specific but just some general guidelines, like do you always build 2 farms in each city or more? Which districts do you prefer?

There isn't much of a build order. In early game you want some defense, then to settle your second city asap, then prepare to mass produce settlers and expand like there's no tomorrow. You want either a commercial hub or a harbor on every city, so you unlock trade routes, and you want every city to be covered by the industrial zone regional effect (basically you want to have an IZ in a 6 tiles distance of every city). Everything else depends on the victory you're pursuing and on the map. As a general rule, specialize your cities. While you build a campus in one city, build a theater square on another.

[snuggleform]

Originally posted by leandrombraz:

Originally posted by snuggleform:

I'm not sure what I'm doing right/wrong with developing cities...I try to max out production in each city so it doesn't take forever to make things, then science. Now I'm in negative gold income even when I click the gold setup for citizens. I'm so confused on what improvements to build beyond the easy-to-see suggested ones the computer tells you about...do you improve every tile, is there a certain amount of farms you want, I was trying to preserve some rainforest/forest but I'm just so low on food I might have to tear them down to make more farms.

You need as much tiles improved as you have population, since your population works the tile. You can manage which tiles are being worked in the city. The guide I posted shows that on the part 2 video. Don't follow the computer, he is leading you to the dark side, think for yourself. As a basic rule, hills are for mines, plan tiles are for farms. There's a lot more that goes into it but that's enough to have a working city. Chop rainforests and woods, it give you a one time yields boost and it's better to chop it more often than not, at least into you familiarize yourself with the mechanics. Definitely do it if you gonna build a district on that tile.

Growth depends more on housing than food. You want to have at least two more housing than you have population. Farms you should build in triangles since they boost each other, so an isolated farm is pretty bad while 3 farms together will be a strong source of food. You usually won't need much more than a farm triangle per city. You can also get food from trade routes.

Prioritize food in early game. Growing your cities will let you work more tiles, which means you gonna get more production. Science you get by building a campus, not so much by working tiles.

Ok I'll apply your advice to the next game. Question how much effort do you put into planning districts in advance? Do you tear down your initial farm triangle if it interferes with optimal placement of districts?

It seems to me overwhelming to figure out where to place them with the terrain interactions, etc. I would guess that this is more for advanced players to min-max but for scrubs like me just make the district that helps the most i.e. probably a campus district even if it's not lined by mountains helps the science go along.

[leandrombraz]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

Originally posted by leandrombraz:

You need as much tiles improved as you have population, since your population works the tile. You can manage which tiles are being worked in the city. The guide I posted shows that on the part 2 video. Don't follow the computer, he is leading you to the dark side, think for yourself. As a basic rule, hills are for mines, plan tiles are for farms. There's a lot more that goes into it but that's enough to have a working city. Chop rainforests and woods, it give you a one time yields boost and it's better to chop it more often than not, at least into you familiarize yourself with the mechanics. Definitely do it if you gonna build a district on that tile.

Growth depends more on housing than food. You want to have at least two more housing than you have population. Farms you should build in triangles since they boost each other, so an isolated farm is pretty bad while 3 farms together will be a strong source of food. You usually won't need much more than a farm triangle per city. You can also get food from trade routes.

Prioritize food in early game. Growing your cities will let you work more tiles, which means you gonna get more production. Science you get by building a campus, not so much by working tiles.

Ok I'll apply your advice to the next game. Question how much effort do you put into planning districts in advance? Do you tear down your initial farm triangle if it interferes with optimal placement of districts?

It seems to me overwhelming to figure out where to place them with the terrain interactions, etc. I would guess that this is more for advanced players to min-max but for scrubs like me just make the district that helps the most i.e. probably a campus district even if it's not lined by mountains helps the science go along.

A lot of effort but you don't need to be that perfectionist. Districts take time to build, so even though I plan where I'll build them, you can't just leave that tile unimproved, waiting for a district that will come 40, maybe 80 turns later. Unless you're about to build a district, use the tile, put a farm there or whatever and use it. Later you can adjust.

If you don't have mountains for a campus, for example, just make a cluster of districts. Your districts get 1 adjacency for every 2 districts adjacent to it, so just building all your districts together will give you some adjacency. You should try to aim for better adjacency, off course, but just getting adjacency from other districts will do the trick.