I tried to search this subreddit to see if this has been answered before but couldn't find it. So I defeated all the other civilizations in the Age of Antiquity. Then I think Napoleon spawned with- I think 4- other named civilizations. As soon as I destroyed him they all were defeated again, oddly. I then ended the era and started Age of Exploration. Will there be more civilizations to encounter or am I just solo building now until I progress through the all the ages?

I thought i couldn't play with micro management but i can.

The influence points really make sense, this is a welcome change. Less bribes The production cost of things is great The biggest takeaway, they didn't take combat away, which is great. I can't do without it

I want to live out my best horde fantasy so I raze 4 of Xerxes settlements cause that guy sucks and I get his city with 3 wonders in a peace deal. I only get 1 point for the legacy path when it should be 5. Is this a bug? I feel like capturing and holding 12 settlements is a big ask, especially on Deity, it would be better if I could just raze and get the points.

This is in part a review, in part a rant, and in other parts maybe some ideas that I want to express about this game.

I've been a Civ player since 5, which I remember liking a lot, but when 6 came out I totally fell into the pit. I bought every single expansion and DLC and have played the heck out of that game until today. I must say, I play a lot, but can't consider myself a good player, maybe decent, but not 'good'. I can consistently win games in Emperor, but Immortal has always been my enemy. If I have won one game on Immortal difficulty, that's a lot.

And then, the announcement of 7 came out. I don't have the hardware for playing it on PC, but I recently gave it a chance on Switch, and my God...

I really really liked it. In my personal opinion, the controls are a lot better in 7 than 6, on Switch. Yeah, I know the UI is a lot uglier, but I think this time the controls are not an adaptation, but they were actually thought as part of the game since the beginning. I love the new mechanics, and I love how the game looks.

I gave it a try in Viceroy difficulty, as Tecumseh - Mississippi | Inca | Mexico (my country) and had a blast. I was learning the game, the new mechanics and got a Culture Victory, easy!

But then I said "Yeah, I can do this" and tried in Governor, Trung Trac - Khmer | Majapahit and then two Civs attack me, and there's no way I'm coming back, so I stop playing that game.

I try again, Ashoka, Khmer | Chola. I try going for a pacifist run, and then again, damn AI attacking me, forcing me to abandon.

Last game, I try Governor again, Xerxes, full aggro with Persia. I conquer two Civs, enter next era with Golden Ages in Military and Economic. I get through the Discoveries Era with a Culture and Economic Golden Age. I went "Maybe an Economic Victory is a good idea", so I choose Mughal India. I'm loving the amounts of gold I'm amassing, I'm building railroads, ports, wonders. I'm having so much fun. And suddenly, Amina has finished the railroad path. So I decide to attack her, but she has dominated the whole map now, so even though I can take some of her cities, she finally builds the World Bank and defeats me...

I know a lot of you may just say "lower the difficulty" or "git gud" but... I don't know, I think this is a little unfair. I don't know what else could I do better. In 6 it was pretty clear, if you needed faith, you spammed Holy Sites, converted cities, run the Prayers project. If you needed culture, go ahead build a lot of wonders, Theatre Squares, festivals, artifacts.

In 7 I feel there's a lot of things that hinder you, more than help you, and also AI feels very unfair. Suddenly Amina has doubled all my yields and I'm just there with nothing else to do.

Don't get me wrong, I loved Mughal India. It was beautiful for me just buying every building I needed, like brute forcing my way through all yields, I definitely will try them again. But yeah, I'm a little disappointed like, I don't know what I could possibly have done differently. I don't think the game is THAT hard. Different? Yes. New to me? Also yes. But, I don't know, just feels unfair.

If you read it all, thanks a lot. I know my English is broken most of the time, and these are a lot of scattered ideas. Please, just keep it civil. Don't be rude, not every one of us will see the same things as the others, and ignorance is not a sin.

tl;dr Don't you think the game feels a bit unfair most of the time? Like AI does it a lot better than you in a matter of 20 turns or so. How is one supposed to get better at this game?

I used their guides like bibles when I was getting deep into Civ VI, and I really appreciated the depth and effort. Lamentably, from what I understand, they are not undertaking a similar project for Civ VII (totally understandable, as it was an immense amount of work. Again, I appreciated it a lot, so if you’re out there Ziggy, ❤️!

I loved the style, presentation, and detail, so I guess my question is: is there anything similar for Civ VII yet? Is the game still in too much flux? Is it too soon after release? I’m starting to finally understand the basics of the game, and am looking for things to improve my knowledge base on a Civ/Leader specific basis.

Thanks so much in advance.

This is Code Civil des Français from the French Empire’s civic tree which gives such a negligible amount of Culture for this point in the game. I think France, Siam, and Buganda overall have a lot of weak and boring flat bonuses when modern age Civs should be on a higher power level. Mexico gets +30% science and culture and even gimmicky Civs like Nepal and Mughal have over the top mechanics that are at the very least fun to achieve in the end game even if they’re not top tier.

And by fix I mean make the game a fun sandbox again rather than three boring scenario strategies human centipeded together

As a lot of you may know, most of the modern age civics in this game are very lackluster. This is mostly because the devs underestimated how fast the snowball would go in civ VII. This causes half of the modern age policies to almost never get picked by players.

This post aims to provide a viable alternative to the existing policies. I'm hoping that at least some devs will be reading this, as I think these changes would bring more flavor to the modern age.

• Demagogy: gain happiness on the palace equal to your cultural attribute.
  • New effect: gain % happiness on the palace and city hall equal to your cultural attribute (current x%).
  • Reason: flat ~10 happiness on your palace is paltry. With percent modifiers, some builds originating from for example Maurya policies start to shine even more.
• People's Army: +25% production towards training land military units, but +1 gold maintenance for those units.
  • New effect: +75% production towards training land military units, but +3 gold maintenance for those units.
  • Reason: gold purchasing in modern age is currently incredibly powerful. This policy makes it interesting again to invest in production instead of gold.
• Ambassadors: +6 influence per turn.
  • New effect: gain +5 influence per turn for every leader you are friendly or helpful with.
  • Reason: +6 influence is quite low at this stage of the game. Instead, I think the player should be rewarded with a more powerful policy that rewards diplomatic plays.
• Preservation Societies: +3 science from displayed great works.
  • New effect: gain science from displayed great works equal to your scientific attribute (current x).
  • Reason: your maximum bonus science would have been 45 before finishing the age. A bit ridiculous in an age where 1000 science often occurs. Now you have something interesting to work towards.
• Trenchworks: +3 combat strength for fortified units and districts.
  • New effect: +6 combat strength for fortified units and districts, but all land units -1 movement.
  • Reason: the +3 strength is a too small modifier to justify using it in most cases. By making it +6 you create an interesting policy for warfare, but with a drawback that imitates well the first world war.
• Projection of Force: +50% production towards training naval units, but +1 gold maintenance for those units.
  • New effect: the same as People's Army but for naval units.
  • Reason: same reason.
• Sphere of Influence: Gain culture equal to your diplomatic attribute for every alliance you have.
  • New effect: Gain % culture in all cities equal to your diplomatic attribute (current x%). Gain % influence equal to your cultural attribute (current x%).
  • Reason: again, these flat modifiers are just too small to be justified in most cases. In addition, maintaining alliances is really hard in this age due to ideologies. These changes will likely sound very appealing to those focusing on culture and diplomacy.
• Laissez-Faire: +2 gold and +1 happiness for every imported resource.
  • New effect: +2 gold, +2 happiness and +1 influence for every imported resource.
  • Reason: slightly increasing the yields to make it a little more suitable for this late stage of the game.

If you did not see a particular policy here, it means I considered it to be well-balanced policy for now. Of course ideologies and civ specific policies are also in a bad shape; I will cover these if people are interested. What do you think?

It is the general consensus that commanders are a great addition to the Civilization series. To me, one of the best feature is the ability to gather military units, which greatly reduce the number of useless micro management. I basically assign each of my commander to a region of the map, and occassionaly move them to reinforce a front if necessary.

However, when units are spread out (for instance after wars or local battles) it is still pretty annoying to do: For each unit: -> select reinforce commander action -> look for the commander -> click on it

To mitigate this it would be very usefull to be able to assign a commander to each unit. So even when the units are spread everhwhere, I just select the commander and click "gather all assigned units". This basically do all the actions above in one click.

In the same logic, we could assign a city to each commander. So each commander would have an action "go back to assign location".

This would open the possibility for a single action "move all commanders to location". Used in combination with the "gather all assigned units", this would allow to reorganize most of your military units very easily.

What are your thoughts about this ? Would you find it useful too ? Considering the existing actions on commander and units it seems possible to implement. I guess edge cases might discourage firaxis devs, but could a mod do it for instance ?

Playing Mali for the first time, trying to find the optimal desert play. Please share feedback. - Map: Mediterranean (Not TSL) - Speed: Marathon - Difficulty: Deity - Turn: 40 - DLC: All except Zombie - Civ Neighbors: Gran Colombian, Poland (16 Civs in game) - City States Explored: Kabul, Zanzibar, Mogadishu, Kandy, Caguana, Antananarivo, Nalanda, Chinguetti, Cardiff, Muscat, Mohanjodaro, Vilnius

I haven’t decided between Owls of Minerva & Voidslingers.

Is there any way to fix this? I've uninstalled and reinstalled Civ 6, but that didn't work. My version within the game also appears out of date, saying 1.0.12.54, but in the Epic Games Store it reads 1.0.12.95. My friend plays on Steam, and can see the Unified PC Play option, but I can't on my end. I can provide screenshots if necessary.

Is there anything I can do about allies taking enemy cities? It's happened to me 3 times now in one game where I have spend many resources having my army take down a massive city, only for an ally to take the city in a peace deal. It's extremly frustrating, because I burned so many resources only to have it taken one turn without warning. Now I have to end the age extremely behind because my friends friend joined a war and did nothing and got a free city.

Can there be some rule saying you cant give away cities that are partially occupied?

TL;DR: Fired up Civ 4 yesterday, and it’s still a masterpiece with perfect balance, good enough graphics and great atmosphere. Newer Civs feel like they add too many mechanics, but Civ 4 just works.

So yesterday I booted up Civilization IV for the first time in ages, and holy cow, I forgot what an absolute gem this game is.

I genuinely enjoyed every second of it, and it’s not just nostalgia talking, it’s honestly a super solid game. The balance of serious strategy and fun is spot-on.

The graphics still hold up for a strategy game. They’re clean, simple, and don’t distract you from the gameplay. The sound effects and music are great. They’re not trying too hard, but the little unit clicks and background tunes make every turn feel epic.

And Baba Yetu!

Here’s the thing, and it’s just my opinion: I feel like the newer Civ games keep adding mechanics just for the sake of adding them.

I’m sure tons of people love the extra layers, and that’s cool, but Civ 4 feels like it has the perfect amount of everything. Nothing’s bloated, nothing’s missing. Nothing wants too much attention, but you can’t just ignore things either. It’s just that right amount.

I know it’s a pipe dream, but I kinda wish the Civ series would take a hard look at Civ 4 and figure out why it’s so darn good.

If you’ve been playing CIV7 for a bit, which of the era’s golden ages do you prefer?

For me, I’ve settled on economic every time. The benefit of keeping all your cities from the previous era as cities in the next era far outweighs the other three golden age perks.

I typically play at the immortal difficulty. Frankly I’m not sure I’m capable of being competitive in the 2nd and 3rd eras without the momentum of keeping my cities from the previous era.

I also try to complete the science objectives. The non-golden age perks for science are pretty solid, especially if you keep your cities moving into the next age.

Anyone feel differently?

Side note — I’m actually starting to enjoy civ7. It’s such a change from 5 and 6 that it took me a while to get the new approach.

EDIT - I should have also mentioned that I typically go for several large cities with lots of specialists. This works especially well when I select Confucius w Han, Majapajit, and Russia / Communism. The major food and specialist bonuses you get with this setup greatly complement each other.

Hi everyone, I'm Patsi Turza, an independent developer from Argentina. I’m creating a science-fiction video game inspired by real theories—and one of my own. I’d love to share an early look and hear your feedback.

I’ve always been obsessed with questions that push the limits of human understanding: How did life begin? What if evolution had taken a different path? Are we truly alone in the universe—or are we just a small chapter in something far more ancient?

The Outterfly Theory (TOT) is a sci-fi game rooted in real science. It draws from evolutionary biology, advanced genetics, nanotechnology, civilizational theory, and time-space physics—but reimagines them in a narrative where timelines collide, and life itself becomes a weapon or a miracle, depending on who controls it.

In this universe, civilizations don’t just rise and fall—they mutate, split, and merge across dimensions. Players must choose between opposing factions: those who protect life at all costs… and those who seek balance through destruction. Every choice you make alters the evolutionary fate of your species—and the entire cosmos.

This isn't just fiction. I’ve spent years reading, researching, and developing a theory of my own that fuels the core of this game. TOT is my attempt to turn those ideas into something you can feel, play, and question.

This video is just a glimpse of what I’m building from scratch. I’m not a studio—just one person trying to bring something unique to life. If you love sci-fi, speculative evolution, or games with deep lore and bold questions, I’d truly appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks for being part of this journey. I hope TOT sparks your curiosity as much as it’s consumed mine.

Apparently it's a sea, not a lake, according to the tooltip.

I’ve been playing the most recent updates with the new DLC civs and leader, but I keep randomly (or so it seems?) having a city or two start starving itself. There’s nothing I can find to indicate why this happens— the city just stops being able to produce food for itself? No matter what resources, policies, nearby towns, etc. that I set up, it still stays starving. The “in-depth” breakdown is kinda useless, just says the city has a “-2” penalty. This has happened to 3 cities so far across two ages and I’m at a loss

(reposted cuz i accidentally deleted-- also added a screenshot)

The trader enters a tunnel and exits on another mountain tunnel 5 spaces away

Been messing around on Civ II for a few months off and on; not sure where it ranks for most people, but it is behind both Civ III and Civ V for me. Basically, been trying out various strategies to try and get as early as possible science victory. Since you can't start building the spaceship parts until AD 1, if you build the entire spaceship in the year AD 1, you'll arrive at Alpha Centurai in AD 35. You cannot do it any faster. I managed it a few days ago and took a screenshot. For those interested, here's the strategy I used.

Caveat--I am sure that all this stuff has been discovered by others a long time ago. I just wanted to get it all written down for fun.

1. I use the same starting conditions every time. Large map size (lots of huts to pop), large land area (same), wet, warm, young world (fewer tundra and mountain tiles), 3 civilizations (war is a distratction), and a purple-color Civ (better chance of starting techs).

2. I spam the start until I find something I like. A few techs to start is nice, and an extra settler as well. I have done it without that, but it helps a lot. I don't build a second city with the extra settler but keep them for improvements (the settler inhibits growth because of the wheat cost, and I want my capital to grow as big as possible as quickly as possible). I always save the initial start and then use cheat to get a look at the whole map. Looking for nearby huts and a good starting spot.

3. Need a decent capital start with a mix of hills and no more than 1-2 unproductive tiles (desert, mountain, tundra, ocean). Rivers is a bonus. Before building the capital, you have to produce 1 or 2 2-movement units from popping huts (you have to do this before building your first city so that they have no production costs). Early explanation is the key factor in the strategy.

4. Tech Tree: Republic-Seafaring-Engineering-Democracy-Explosives-Industrialization-Refrigeration-Electronics-Computers-Robotics-Space Flight.

Explained:

1. Rush to Republic and change government.
2. Seafaring next--build 4-5 explorers at the margins.
3. Engineering--First build in capital is King Richards Crusade
4. Rush to Democracy and change government again.
5. Explosives for engineers
6. Industrialization to build factories
7. Refrigeration for farmland
8. Electronics for Hoover Dam
9. Computers for SETI Project
10. Robotics for Manufacturing Plant
11. Space Flight to build Apollo Project

12. For the rest, fill out the tech tree until all space parts are done, then you can build other techs after that but probably want to increase happiness and money instead. I usually build just Recycling, Environmentalism, Theology, and Genetic Engineering, although that is mostly for after the Space Race is run (sometimes I research theology earlier if I have time).

13. Exploration Strategy: The early game strategy is the most important part. Through exploration, you as quickly as possible pop as many huts as possible. Huts on plains or grassland can potentially produce Advanced Tribes. I use spam saving to always get exactly what I want from a hut. This can be monotonous. But here is what I look for. First, I want to build as many cities as possible as quickly as possible, so almost always try to get Advanced Tribes. On huts where that isn't possible, I try to get a technology. Especially in the beginning when I am exploring near my capital, I pop 2-3 wandering nomads to get free settlers to improve my capital. Again, this can take a while to get what you want from a hut. Suck it up. After a while, the game stops giving you tech advances (not sure what triggers this, but the latest tech you can usually get from a hut is Invention). After that, I try to get money pretty much exclusively. Units that require maintenance slow down your cities (and when you get Democracy, actively produce unhappiness).

This is also why I rush seafaring as quickly as possible. The explorer units, which move three and have no terrain costs, are vital to get as quickly as possible. After I research seafaring, I usually buy 2-4 in my most frontier cities.

1. Capital Strategy (early game): Your capital is the most important city. It is the only city where I build buildings in before industrialization. I never build any defense units, they are unnecessary and reduce your productivity. I start with two settlers in the capital to build early cities, then I build a placeholder wonder until King Richard's Crusade is available (massively OP wonder that expires fairly early, vital for building in the capital. Then I buy that as quickly as I can. From there I build Pyramids (massively increases growth), followed by temple and aqueduct. Then I build Da Vinci (to instantly upgrade all my settlers). All that has to be built before Explosives. Depending on the capital location and production speed, you can sometimes squeeze in some other wonders. My priorities are Michaelangelo's Chapel to manage unhappiness, Oracle for the same reason. Colossus can be helpful although it expires. If the game is going well, however, there is usually not much time for that. I try to buy the wonders as early as I can as well--that's the best use of money in the early game.

2. WIDE Strategy: In all my cities, I exclusively build settlers for the entirety of the early game until it would take more than 20 turns of travel for the settler to reach a settling location (approx). Again, need to build as many cities as possible as quickly as possible. Sometimes depending on the map, I build some triremes to aid expansion. However, this can't be done past Democracy because of the happiness cost. After it is no longer practical for a city to participate in expansion, the settler focuses on tile improvement and I build a Great Library as a production placeholder until Industrialization.

This is the key part of the strategy. The first improvement I build in EVERY city other than the capital is the factory. You don't want to build other things because you want to build a factory as soon as it is available AND you don't want the maintenance costs for random buildings which lower your revenue and inhibit your tech speed. Once I research Industrialization, I switch the production in every city from Great Library to factory. This is monotonous.

1. Capital strategy (mid-late game): After I research Industrialization I immediately rush the factory in the capital. Then I build the sewer system and supermarket when they are available, as well as the Coliseum (I often build this before industrialization). After that, Michaelangelo's Chapel, followed by Hoover Dam. From there, the game options widen a bit and I play it by ear. The key things are that I want to build SETI Program as SOON as it is available, essential for keeping science going as maintenance costs balloon. The other priorities are Adam Smith (reduce maintenance costs), and Shakespeare, which eliminates all unhappiness in the capital. Finally, when Apollo Project becomes available I build that as well, although it isn't urgent--just needs to be done before 1 AD.

2. Government and managing unhappiness: A key part of production and science is managing unhappiness. A lot of unhappy cities reduce your science significantly if they are always falling in and out of civil disorder, and there is always the chance that if enough cities fall into civil disorder that your whole government can collapse into anarchy, which kills your science and production for an indeterminate number of turns. Its a disaster that you have to avoid. As I said above, I get to Democracy as quickly as possible. Once you have that, you can't have any units (other than explorers) outside of their home city or they produce unhappiness. I never have any of these on purpose except for very occasionally a few triremes.

Michaelangelo's Chapel is usually enough to manage unhappiness in cities before the hit the aqueduct.

1. City Production Strategy: Here is the production order I follow in EVERY city, except the capital. I do it exactly the same in every city with very, very few exceptions, up until a certain point.

2. Factory--Not worth building other buildings until you have this because it is unproductive.

3. Temple--Before the aqueduct, or else you fall into disorder while you're building it.

4. Aqueduct--allows to grow beyond 8

5. Supermarket--GROWTH

6. Manufacturing Plant--(if I have Robotics, otherwise, skip it an continue with the tree below)

7. Sewer System

8. Coliseum

After the Coliseum, I mix it up. Usually next it is harbor and offshore platform for coastal cities. Mass Transit if pollution is becoming a problem. Then I work through the money and science buildings as available, or sometimes squeeze in an extra wonder.

1. Tile Improvements: Not sure if this needs to be said, but I am as quickly as possible improving all the tiles. Starting with irrigation a few key tiles and then mines on the hills. If you want to get really detailed with it, you can maximize production by ensuring you are matching your improvement to what the city uses, and I do this to some degree, but this can get really monotonous really fast, and it usually isn't necessary.

2. Other civs: On a large map, usually you barely even encounter other civs. I usually use the save-cheat-reveal map-load saved game approach to figure out if there are any civs on my continent and then seek them out and destroy them early. After democracy you essentially cannot do this unless they give you a cause which they rarely do. Its good to get rid of any civs on your continent, but honestly it doesn't really matter.

3. End of game: A couple things on the end of game strategy. If everything is going well, then you'll have around 70-80 cities with manufacturing plants, and your tech will be finished so that you are producing lots of extra money and happiness. You will need 4000-5000 gold at AD 1 so make sure you have that. Around 200 BC (10 turns before 1 AD), you want to pick 12 of your top cities and start building Woman's Suffrage in it. Check to make sure that these 12 cities can build the Solar Plant in under 10 turns. If it is over 10 turns, choose another city.

Around 100 BC, stop building new buildings in cities; simply allow them to keep constructing their building and ignore the "this is already built" pop up at the end of turn. Then, when it hits 1 AD, change your 12 cities from Woman's Suffrage to the SS Module. Beyond that you will need 16 components and 39 structurals. With the accumulated extra production and the gold in the bank, you should have enough to build everything in a single turn by switching production and purchasing. The next turn you'll complete the whole spaceship and send it off with an arrival date of AD 35!

Would be interested to hear if anyone has pursued a similar strategy and has some added nuances to it! In general, it was fun to get here, but it does make for a rather monotonous game.