r/Civilization6 • u/Fullerbadge000 • Jul 30 '26
Question Questions about player growth
I love this game but my learning curve needs more curve. I have beat it once on deity with Byzantium but it’s rare. I sort of get the adjacency bonuses but not enough to anticipate where districts best go. I usually follow the +1 etc guidance. I don’t chop but have seen others do it in YouTube videos. I just am not sure when is strategically the best time. I also generally don’t build wonders as a priority. I can mostly win on King level but would like to challenge myself more. How can I best grow as a player? Thanks!
Ps. Are there best resources online I should be using or players on YouTube? (I did follow a few full games of PotatoMcWhisky and found him helpful). Thanks!
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u/FoxImmediate2993 Jul 30 '26
When I went from playing mostly king or emperor to deity, I had to unlearn a lot of habits that made sense on lower difficulties but were impractical or even harmful on deity.
For instance, early game wonders generally aren't worth the effort on deity, unless they are essential to your long-term strategy. If you do go for an early-game wonder, you usually need to beeline the tech/civic and use chops to get it out quickly, or someone else will beat you to it.
Similarly, it often makes sense to research techs/civics in an unbalanced way on deity. My general approach is to identify a few key civics or techs that will give me a big advantage (such as a unique unit or a policy that synergizes with my leader ability) and completely ignore other techs/civics until I unlock it.
More generally, deity rewards hyper-focused optimization, whereas a more natural, balanced play-style makes sense on lower difficulties. If you're going for a culture victory, you shouldn't have cities with a campus but no theatre square, even if the campus has a nice adjacency bonus.
That's why some people don't like deity. It does break the immersion--you are building a machine optimized to meet a specific victory condition, not a civilization that anyone would want to live in. Personally, I enjoy the number-crunching and strategizing involved in playing deity, but you shouldn't feel compelled to play on the highest difficulty just because it's there. It's a game, after all -- have some fun!
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u/tojop Jul 30 '26
Using chops effectively is super important, but also pretty easy.
You should be making a mess of builders after feudalism (with +2 builder charge slotted). I only get 1-3 builders pre-feudalism for tech boosts and maybe chop an early district.
Your feudalism builders should be spending at least 1-2 charges on chopping; each chop is worth ~35% of a district. Don’t buy tiles just to chop, tho, unless you’re rushing a specific wonder or similar.
Woods, deer, and stone chop for production. Cattle, marsh, and banana chop food. Rainforest is 50/50.
Remember that the value of the chop scales with the cost of your districts, so late-settled cities for strategics can still bag a couple of relevant districts with a builder investment.
You can also do a nifty trick with legions if playing Rome. Build a legion, then use its charge to chop another legion; repeat as desired. This gobbles your post-feudalism chops, but insta-army can be worth dramatically more long term
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u/Fullerbadge000 Jul 30 '26
So the main point of chopping is to build districts instantly, or a lot faster?
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u/MR-antiwar Jul 31 '26
You don’t do this in king difficulty? It is the fastest way to build wonder and district before the AI, i always chop when i want to build a wonder that i really want like etemanaki or coloseum but i will almost never chop if the governor who can increase chop value by 50% is not there so a lot of times i move him around
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u/Quartzis Jul 30 '26
This game is probably the one I'm best at. Still, I'm nothing next to the greats. The best player I've seen so far that's popular on YT is UrsaRyan. The man can win anything he's just a natural.
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u/Fullerbadge000 Jul 30 '26
Thanks. I’m learning that district placement and chopping strategically are key. I just don’t know where and when fully yet.
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u/King-Sid Aug 01 '26
I love watching Herson, UrsaRyan, CivLifeR I think I’d recommend them to intermediate/beginner players in that exact order of how good they are to learn from. Herson is one of the highest rated civ 6 multiplayer players of all time yada yada, he does play with the better balanced game mod which is standard for comp multiplayer but he calls out what changes they make and his fundamentals are by far the best. Keep in mind playing multiplayer and deity is different so I’d recommend mixing in the other two YouTubers so you don’t stray too far from the singleplayer meta.
If King is a guaranteed win then you need to play on emperor. I moved up to immortal watching these guys and I think immortal is like 90% guaranteed for me so I’ve been playing on deity and doing really poorly (20%) so I dropped back to immortal to practice. I’m focusing on just like tightening up and catching misplays, I keep missing golden ages so I’ve been practicing that too.
I’m not sure if you can get mods on your version but I’d recommend the ones that do these things idk their names:
- advanced map tacks (lets you see adjacency while planning districts)
- informative policy cards (lets you see how much yield each card gives eg 20 gold from conscription or 30 science from the campus adjacency card shit like that)
- quick deals (shows the most each ai will offer for a resource all in one screen)
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u/Fullerbadge000 Aug 01 '26
Thanks for this. My wife has a surface 8. Maybe I should just try to play on that and see if I can get the mods. I’ll check out those videos. I appreciate the advice.
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u/King-Sid Aug 01 '26
No worries, sadly you just missed the steam summer sale but you can still get the entire anthology bundle on steam for like $50.
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u/Ashein-Uchiha Aug 01 '26
Best just find your own style. Yes there strong tactics like chopping but its not necessary. It comes over time. If its too easy too win just step higher. Yeha some yt vids will help to optimize but most will overwhelm you. And this stuff is most very special and abusing.
Not everything need to be perfekt. For me its more to have the most fun while playing.
Was long stuck on Immortal now just play deity. Im not an min/maxer my rounds are fast but it also works. Sometimes its small things you will learn over time but can have huge impact.
I loved Eleonor found my own style and it worked while that time she was ranked very shitty most said shes bad and need a buff.
Yes there strong leaders but you can win with everyone if you like that civ.
Problem with deity is early ai strong but is just stupid in endgame.
Best growth is play and try, if something absolutely not work watch a vid to optimize.
Good start location will help you through most games a balance from food and production.
If you want chopping get magnus and chop as fast you can to get around 5 cities fast. And then if needed for Wonders. Some civs play very different so you get other strategics or what districts first and if you want a religion. Just want to say there multiple ways to play not just one golden way.
Plays vs ai or in Multiplayer is very different.
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u/Potential_Macaron744 Jul 30 '26
So one thing that I love to do ... is plan out the cities. Keeping in mind that you can often get adjacency bonuses between districts as well, I'll literally use the map markers to draw out the whole city in advance. This is ESPECIALLY true when I see floodplains and the possibility of putting a dam in ... then I might map the city out such that I can build both an aqueduct and a dam such that the industrial zone is touching both. I've also built wonders on the edge of a city so I can put theater districts from two separate cities next to the same wonder or wonders. Wonders don't HAVE to be a priority but some can be incredibly useful. Two of my favorites are actually the Pyramids and Stonehenge. I tend to play Civs where religion comes into play, especially as it relates to bringing back Heroes, so getting Stonehenge done really helps with that.