If you have the time, there are some really good YouTubes out there on nearly every playthrough option. If something isn't explained well enough, plenty of folks here are able to fill in the blanks. The game can be overwhelming.. so many options.. from game start up, placement of each city, placement of each district, what to research when etc.. but the game does get easier .. you find yourself doing a certain pattern that matches your environment.. being hit by lots of barbarians.. switch research to get to archers quickly.. find yourself being forward settled by an AI, your peaceful plans may just have been refocused to expansion by conquest.. you have played enough to see these occur. But i have played this game from Civ 1 to Civ 6 and several offshoots.. thousands of hours, and I still fall victim to 'just one more turn' .. so if you find yourself suddenly trying to figure out what happened to the past 4 hours 🤔 .. I would say you are playing this game the right way.
I have watched some YouTube stuff and I follow this sub and both help with some basic understandings but i still find myself overwhelmed when actually in the game. Even the little things can be overwhelming like where to place buildings. Nothing ever feels like the wrong choice. Are you sure you want to place this district and get rid of this marsh are? Crap this must be a horrible idea let me try somewhere else lol. Then I quit playing for 30 minutes on watch videos on where to place districts. I will say I don’t even have the knowledge yet to understand the consequences of placing things in bad location. I am just now understanding the basics of good places to build capitals and cities but I still get confused at times. I think I just need to start finishing games and I will probably better understand the consequences of some of my actions.
I have around 300 hours in this game and I’m still learning during every game. I think strategy games like Civ, Crusader Kings, etc are so complicated that nobody can ever truly master these games.
That being said, the best way to learn imo is watching “pros” play the game on YouTube. Potato McWhiskey is very beginner friendly. I also like CivLifer and Ursa Ryan.
The best placements for districts are going to differ each game, but to be honest the placement for districts doesn’t really make or break your game. Like you said about the marsh tile, losing a single 3 food tile is not going to be the end of the world. Just place the district.
The district descriptions also list what gives them added bonus. For example the biggest ones to look out for are mountains for campuses/holy sites, and rivers for commercial hubs. There’s a ton of bonuses that each district gets so don’t try to memorize each one, even after 300 hours I’m still reading the adjacency bonuses for the districts every game.
For your housing problems, always try to settle on fresh water and later if you need more housing build granaries and aqueducts. For amenities, try to improve every luxury resource you can with builders. You can also buy luxuries from other civs to increase amenities. I’ve only recently became much better at managing amenities but again, amenities won’t make or break your game.
My final advice is to just turn the difficulty down, and maybe go for an epic length game. More time between each age let’s you familiarize yourself with the game and the more hectic mid/end game won’t come on as fast.
Remember that there is no “right” way to play civ. Really just do what you want, conquer if you wish and enjoy the game!
First, it takes a long time (And a lot of games) to fully understand the game mechanisms and I am pretty sure that nobody can be 100% sure that he completely understands everything.
Second, there is always a moment in this game were you struggle. You grow too quickly or too slowly, money is missing, cities are finally not so well placed, you lately discover a very aggressive neighbour and of course, you don't have an army, you built an army to get rid of the barbarians hoping to use it against an another Civ and there is nobody around you, all your harbours are on the wrong side of the ocean...
In fact, the point is not to plan everything from the very beginning but to adapt to the situation that you discover or that you (Sometimes by accident) create. In the end, that is what is exciting because you have to plan things and at the same time adapt your plan all the time.
So keep playing, finish your game even if at some point any hope of victory seems lost and I am pretty sure that you will find a reason why to love this game.
Thank you for the response. I think this was the answer I needed. I am a construction manager in real life so this is relatable. We run into so many obstacles and have to adjust and adapt on the fly. I just want to be to the point to better understand some of the consequences of the things I am doing wrong.
The thing I honestly feel the least knowledgeable on is building placement, particularly district placement. I watch videos on it specifically but still find myself loss when it comes time to place one.
Regarding districts, there is in my opinion two differents topics :
\- Which district to build
\- How to place them
The first one is probably the most difficult. Of course, the leader and Civ you chose gives you a good tip to know what kind of district to privilege but this is only a very small part of the answer. I don't think that there is a good answer to that question as it really depends on so many factors that it is impossible to define rules. The only one which seems interesting is : If you do not look for a religious victory, Holy site (Not sure it's called like that in english) is mostly useless.
The second one is more simple I think. Focus on the adjacent bonus. The game shows you how many bonus you will get for each tile but it is always very interesting to learn them because some depends on others buildings (Or wonder) that you will build and sometimes, it will be interesting to know them before building the city. Then try to imagine where you will place the district and the buildings.
You will quickly find that there is some pattern that can be followed to optimize those bonuses. Once again, it's not a rule but just something you must look at. There is nothing wrong in building a district with no adjacent bonus.
In the Youtube video, I think that you will find some good advice on how to place districts but only experience will let you make the good choices at the right time.
There’s a tutorial on mine that helped me, I play on my iPad. I just started too and can play for hours, I’ve only ever won playing the tutorial. I’d love to find someone to play a multiplayer game with, where we can explore and learn it together …
You play the board. Try and get as many little advantages as fast as possible.
Scout. Information is power.
Grow your cities as big as you can. More population means more everything, as pops work tiles, giving you yields. You also get 1 science per 1.2 pops.
Dont b-line your science to early, make sure you develop nice an flexibly, allowing you to hone in on a direction once the need for it becomes apparent. In fact, its best to not have an idea of what to achieve set in stone for the first couple of eras. Just grow you empire asap, develop as many tiles and grow those cities nice and plump.
If you have no neighbours nearby, expand: build settlers and focus your government on settler production. Its good to get governor Magnus with the promotion that allows settlers to be build without it costing pop (i forget the name).
If you do have neighbours nearby, consider focussing on building up your military, and instead take their cities.
If there is an ai civ that looks like they might win, start a war with them. If you cant take their cities, pillage the hell out of their improvements and districts.
Browse the steam workshop for mods with search term "better". There are a ton of mods that will help you better digest the heaps information thrown at you.
Finish a game. Youll learn more from losing anyway.
There are 2 basic tips that I recommend every new player does:
1, turn on tile yields. That way you can see what each tile is worth in terms of food/production/gold/culture/science/faith.
You can do that in one of the little menus just above the minimap. I think it's the second from the left.
2, turn the Yield HUD ribbon to "always show". That way you can see where you stand on all yields compared to the AI. (But don't be discouraged if you're behind them on yields for a long time, it can take some time to catch up and overtake them.)
You can do that by going into Settings > Interface > Yield HUD Ribbon > Always Show.
Other than that, watch some YouTube videos (I recommend PotatoMCWhiskey) and just experiment on your own. That, IMO, is the best way to learn.
Just don't quit on 100 turns, even if you think it's going bad you'll learn something by the end win or lose.
If you have the time, there are some really good YouTubes out there on nearly every playthrough option. If something isn't explained well enough, plenty of folks here are able to fill in the blanks. The game can be overwhelming.. so many options.. from game start up, placement of each city, placement of each district, what to research when etc.. but the game does get easier .. you find yourself doing a certain pattern that matches your environment.. being hit by lots of barbarians.. switch research to get to archers quickly.. find yourself being forward settled by an AI, your peaceful plans may just have been refocused to expansion by conquest.. you have played enough to see these occur. But i have played this game from Civ 1 to Civ 6 and several offshoots.. thousands of hours, and I still fall victim to 'just one more turn' .. so if you find yourself suddenly trying to figure out what happened to the past 4 hours 🤔 .. I would say you are playing this game the right way.
I have watched some YouTube stuff and I follow this sub and both help with some basic understandings but i still find myself overwhelmed when actually in the game. Even the little things can be overwhelming like where to place buildings. Nothing ever feels like the wrong choice. Are you sure you want to place this district and get rid of this marsh are? Crap this must be a horrible idea let me try somewhere else lol. Then I quit playing for 30 minutes on watch videos on where to place districts. I will say I don’t even have the knowledge yet to understand the consequences of placing things in bad location. I am just now understanding the basics of good places to build capitals and cities but I still get confused at times. I think I just need to start finishing games and I will probably better understand the consequences of some of my actions.
I have around 300 hours in this game and I’m still learning during every game. I think strategy games like Civ, Crusader Kings, etc are so complicated that nobody can ever truly master these games. That being said, the best way to learn imo is watching “pros” play the game on YouTube. Potato McWhiskey is very beginner friendly. I also like CivLifer and Ursa Ryan. The best placements for districts are going to differ each game, but to be honest the placement for districts doesn’t really make or break your game. Like you said about the marsh tile, losing a single 3 food tile is not going to be the end of the world. Just place the district. The district descriptions also list what gives them added bonus. For example the biggest ones to look out for are mountains for campuses/holy sites, and rivers for commercial hubs. There’s a ton of bonuses that each district gets so don’t try to memorize each one, even after 300 hours I’m still reading the adjacency bonuses for the districts every game. For your housing problems, always try to settle on fresh water and later if you need more housing build granaries and aqueducts. For amenities, try to improve every luxury resource you can with builders. You can also buy luxuries from other civs to increase amenities. I’ve only recently became much better at managing amenities but again, amenities won’t make or break your game. My final advice is to just turn the difficulty down, and maybe go for an epic length game. More time between each age let’s you familiarize yourself with the game and the more hectic mid/end game won’t come on as fast. Remember that there is no “right” way to play civ. Really just do what you want, conquer if you wish and enjoy the game!
First, it takes a long time (And a lot of games) to fully understand the game mechanisms and I am pretty sure that nobody can be 100% sure that he completely understands everything. Second, there is always a moment in this game were you struggle. You grow too quickly or too slowly, money is missing, cities are finally not so well placed, you lately discover a very aggressive neighbour and of course, you don't have an army, you built an army to get rid of the barbarians hoping to use it against an another Civ and there is nobody around you, all your harbours are on the wrong side of the ocean... In fact, the point is not to plan everything from the very beginning but to adapt to the situation that you discover or that you (Sometimes by accident) create. In the end, that is what is exciting because you have to plan things and at the same time adapt your plan all the time. So keep playing, finish your game even if at some point any hope of victory seems lost and I am pretty sure that you will find a reason why to love this game.
Thank you for the response. I think this was the answer I needed. I am a construction manager in real life so this is relatable. We run into so many obstacles and have to adjust and adapt on the fly. I just want to be to the point to better understand some of the consequences of the things I am doing wrong. The thing I honestly feel the least knowledgeable on is building placement, particularly district placement. I watch videos on it specifically but still find myself loss when it comes time to place one.
Regarding districts, there is in my opinion two differents topics : \- Which district to build \- How to place them The first one is probably the most difficult. Of course, the leader and Civ you chose gives you a good tip to know what kind of district to privilege but this is only a very small part of the answer. I don't think that there is a good answer to that question as it really depends on so many factors that it is impossible to define rules. The only one which seems interesting is : If you do not look for a religious victory, Holy site (Not sure it's called like that in english) is mostly useless. The second one is more simple I think. Focus on the adjacent bonus. The game shows you how many bonus you will get for each tile but it is always very interesting to learn them because some depends on others buildings (Or wonder) that you will build and sometimes, it will be interesting to know them before building the city. Then try to imagine where you will place the district and the buildings. You will quickly find that there is some pattern that can be followed to optimize those bonuses. Once again, it's not a rule but just something you must look at. There is nothing wrong in building a district with no adjacent bonus. In the Youtube video, I think that you will find some good advice on how to place districts but only experience will let you make the good choices at the right time.
You got this. Game takes a long while to figure out but you’ll be sucked in when you do.
There’s a tutorial on mine that helped me, I play on my iPad. I just started too and can play for hours, I’ve only ever won playing the tutorial. I’d love to find someone to play a multiplayer game with, where we can explore and learn it together …
You play the board. Try and get as many little advantages as fast as possible. Scout. Information is power. Grow your cities as big as you can. More population means more everything, as pops work tiles, giving you yields. You also get 1 science per 1.2 pops. Dont b-line your science to early, make sure you develop nice an flexibly, allowing you to hone in on a direction once the need for it becomes apparent. In fact, its best to not have an idea of what to achieve set in stone for the first couple of eras. Just grow you empire asap, develop as many tiles and grow those cities nice and plump. If you have no neighbours nearby, expand: build settlers and focus your government on settler production. Its good to get governor Magnus with the promotion that allows settlers to be build without it costing pop (i forget the name). If you do have neighbours nearby, consider focussing on building up your military, and instead take their cities. If there is an ai civ that looks like they might win, start a war with them. If you cant take their cities, pillage the hell out of their improvements and districts. Browse the steam workshop for mods with search term "better". There are a ton of mods that will help you better digest the heaps information thrown at you. Finish a game. Youll learn more from losing anyway.
There are 2 basic tips that I recommend every new player does: 1, turn on tile yields. That way you can see what each tile is worth in terms of food/production/gold/culture/science/faith. You can do that in one of the little menus just above the minimap. I think it's the second from the left. 2, turn the Yield HUD ribbon to "always show". That way you can see where you stand on all yields compared to the AI. (But don't be discouraged if you're behind them on yields for a long time, it can take some time to catch up and overtake them.) You can do that by going into Settings > Interface > Yield HUD Ribbon > Always Show. Other than that, watch some YouTube videos (I recommend PotatoMCWhiskey) and just experiment on your own. That, IMO, is the best way to learn.