How to catch up

[Trash Elo 101]

So there are so some games where one or two opponents start with a perfect location, no nearby competitors, etc. and get far ahead in say science, culture, faith etc. how do you bridge such a large gap? I get that there are trade routes and research deals but none of the things most people mention can bridge more than a small gap?

When it comes to the "Just kill them" arguement sometimes they are too far away or have ridiculously higher tech.

Basically just wondering if at the end of the day this game is one where somebody gets ahead then everybody else is just dragged along until inevitable loss after hours of play.

[Off-Suit Nines]

The answer to everything in this game is 'just kill them'. War is the most optimal solution to almost all problems. You might not like that answer, but it is the only meta-accurate one that can be given.

Grossly uneven starts are just part of the "fun".

[gimmethegepgun]

Spies are definitely an option for that. Steal the boosts for the techs that they have to greatly speed up your own science research, steal their great works to take their tourism/culture for yourself, steal their money and use it to buy buildings or military.
Also, you may be able to cause significant havoc by recruiting partisans, and sabotaging the space facility can buy you time against a science victory.

[Gonzo_o0]

I always consider my games as "scenarios" or as a "problem that needs to be solved". I would get bored very quick if all my games were the same, win or lose. That's why I welcome an unbalanced game where the AI has stronger or weaker starting locations since I need to adapt to the "scenario" of the current game.

Originally posted by Han:

So there are so some games where one or two opponents start with a perfect location, no nearby competitors, etc. and get far ahead in say science, culture, faith etc. how do you bridge such a large gap? I get that there are trade routes and research deals but none of the things most people mention can bridge more than a small gap?

Originally posted by Fury Golem:

The answer to everything in this game is 'just kill them'. War is the most optimal solution to almost all problems. You might not like that answer, but it is the only meta-accurate one that can be given.

Grossly uneven starts are just part of the "fun".

In this particular example, I have to agree that you need to lower the AIs' yields somehow. The easiest way is in fact capturing their cities. As for the tech imbalance, their units *should* cost more than yours, therefore you *should* be able send bigger armies composed of weaker units, if you start now...

Concentrate on taking down their units first if you can. Also keep in mind that unit promotions heal you, the different types of pillage yields (i.e. heals on farms), the terrain's defensive bonuses to suffer less damage, etc.By pillaging, you also lower the opponent's yields short term. It may give you enough time to tech up militarily to be on par with them, then upgrade units in newly captured cities, etc. until they're not as menacing anymore and you can peace them for the captured cities.

I can't claim that it's gonna work, but most people would agree that this is what needs to be done to adapt to this scenario.

I recently played a game where one of the AIs, on a Tiny map, had already converted most of the cities of the two other AI players and was slowly converting the city-states around me and one or two of my cities. There were no other religions in the world apart from his. I had to stop everything I was doing (I was going for Culture VIctory) to immediately concentrate on spawning a Great Prophet, filling my Faith districts with buildings to produce religious units to spread my Religion defensively. I caught it just in time to be able to stop its progression and I ended up winning the game.

[Trash Elo 101]

What if they are on a different continent? It's quite impractical to capture their cities if 1: They are on a diferent continent 2: They have much higher tech and wall defenses

[Trash Elo 101]

Alright so I just had a game where an example of this happened. I started off pretty good, egypt was one of the civs that started far from me. I had a great start at everything and a decent defensive military. Egypt decides to attack me, I easily destroyed their units defensively but due to their absurd science advantage from being so far away from any competition they have much stronger units so I can only defend myself.

Although they are making no progress, they have now been at war with me (with nothing happening) for over 100 turns no joke. Nothing I offer will make them end the war and the war weariness is so bad that my cities aren't growing at all, rebels are popping up almost every few turns, and basically even though I had a lead, I can't do anything about it.

I don't know how after 100 something hours I just realized it, but war weariness is the most broken ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mechanic. Literally if you have a ton of amenities naturally you can just declare war on everybody and just defend yourself while they all get crippled?

In the event of a multiplayer game, I can't even imagine how bs the war weariness thing could be. It's bad enough that unless im missing something I might just drop this game completely.

[gimmethegepgun]

There are policy cards that decrease the generation of war weariness, which makes it more manageable (it degrades over time), and one in particular makes it so that you don't get any at all from combat in your territory, so if you're getting attacked constantly you might want to use that.
The policies are Propaganda (-25%, available from Mass Media), Martial Law (-25%, available from Totalitarianism), and Defense of the Motherland (-100% from combat in your territory, available from Class Struggle)

Also, simply declaring war on people doesn't cause them war weariness. It's generated by combat. Units in combat, especially ones in foreign territory, and units dying cause war weariness. You only get to crush people with war weariness by fighting them (and you'd be a lot more effective at hurting them if you actually captured their cities with that fighting).

[Gonzo_o0]

Originally posted by Han:

What if they are on a different continent? It's quite impractical to capture their cities if 1: They are on a diferent continent 2: They have much higher tech and wall defenses

Originally posted by Deriveur:

As for the tech imbalance, their units *should* cost more than yours, therefore you *should* be able send bigger armies composed of weaker units, if you start now...

If the solution to the problem can only be spamming units and sending them to their deaths to the other side of the world in an attempt to "not lose" but you don't do it because it is "impractical", may as well just hit the Retire button. I didn't say it was practical or easy or that you would like it. If you don't like wars, why not remove the Domination Victory from your games' setup?

[terry]

Play deity for a while and you will learn how to deal with it. You are always catching up on deity.

[Duck from State Farm]

Originally posted by Han:

unless im missing something I might just drop this game completely.

Well this game does have a steep learning curve and it's not a good game for some people who struggle with steep learning curve games.

[Off-Suit Nines]

Originally posted by Duck from State Farm:

Originally posted by Han:

unless im missing something I might just drop this game completely.

Well this game does have a steep learning curve and it's not a good game for some people who struggle with steep learning curve games.

You don't have to be bad at this game to loathe its unbalanced mechanics.

[paugus]

Originally posted by Fury Golem:

Originally posted by Duck from State Farm:

Well this game does have a steep learning curve and it's not a good game for some people who struggle with steep learning curve games.

You don't have to be bad at this game to loathe its unbalanced mechanics.

It definitely helps though.

[Off-Suit Nines]

Originally posted by paugus:

Originally posted by Fury Golem:

You don't have to be bad at this game to loathe its unbalanced mechanics.

It definitely helps though.

Actually, I disagree. The more I came to understand Civ VI, the more I came to hate it. To the casual player it may seem compelling, but once you see through to the core gameplay the lack of competitive balance pretty much destroys the game.

The AI is too garbage for SP, and the balance is too garbage for MP. What are you left with? A casual empire building experience with a lottery system for who wins(unless there's a significant skill gap).

[paugus]

Originally posted by Fury Golem:

Originally posted by paugus:

It definitely helps though.

Actually, I disagree. The more I came to understand Civ VI, the more I came to hate it. To the casual player it may seem compelling, but once you see through to the core gameplay the lack of competitive balance pretty much destroys the game.

The AI is too garbage for SP, and the balance is too garbage for MP. What are you left with? A casual empire building experience with a lottery system for who wins(unless there's a significant skill gap).

If you think the game is decided by lottery, I've gotta say it doesn't make a strong case for you having a good grasp of the game's "unbalanced mechanics." Disagree all you want, but the vast majority of complaints I've seen about this game are couched in almost total ignorance of the underlying mechanics.

"Maybe I missed something, but..."
"The AI does X for NO REASON AT ALL!"
"Agendas are stupid and I can't understand why I'm being denounced."

All of these should sound familiar to anyone who frequents any Civ VI forum.

PS the majority of your arguments are just subjective appeals to emotion. You "hate" the "garbage" mechanics and balance and AI, claim they "destroy" the game, but that's apparently the limit to the depth of your complaints. "They're bad. HATE GARBAGE DESTROY" Not really much to discuss there.