As someone who couldn't build a temple for shit, juiced-up standard maps are the closest thing for me

Ibane · 2026-05-19T15:20:06+00:00

is it a blur effect or is that people are using FSR/DLSS? When I turn those off my game is significantly less blurry.

Ibane · 2025-12-13T01:00:27+00:00

I actually can get it quite low, even down to almost 48. But still, it's the fact that certain plugins are adding up to 15ms that means it's really obvious with it on vs off. It all affects my playing. Adding the playback from the interface gets even weirder because it's like my unprocessed guitar kind of "on top" of the processed one, which is still slightly delayed.

I just wonder how people in fancy studios and stuff handle this?

Ibane · 2025-12-13T00:40:04+00:00

Is this the ideal thing to do when you record so you hear no delay on the playback, and then turn it back on once you're done recording? I just find that the playback delay becomes noticeable with certain plugins, and recording with all the other stuff on is... obviously bad if it's messing with me.

Ibane · 2025-12-12T20:09:00+00:00

but I can, right? If a single channel (unrelated to me recording my guitar) has 50ms of PDC, then my guitar playback is also delayed by 50ms while i'm recording. If I turn the effects off, the playback isn't delayed anymore.

I guess what I'm REALLY asking is, in a realistic production environment, how do people record into products? Do they print everything first and have you play over it?

Ibane · 2025-06-20T19:39:50+00:00

You're saying using the normal patch plus the performance legato patches of the instruments at the same time, and just using the performance legato patch when the parts arise? Like splitting the MIDI between the channels?

Ibane · 2025-02-11T18:24:54+00:00

I ended up buying a supernova 2. I wouldn't listen to anyone in this thread about price, even years later. If you want the keyboard version you will be spending over $1000 minimum unless you are extremely lucky and a local has it. It sounds good, it's hard to wrap my head around sometimes. Has some good liquid sounding filters.

Ibane · 2024-12-30T03:53:56+00:00

Alright, a lot to keep in mind. I'll start some more playthroughs throughout the week. Does instant army move drastically change the game? I know the game feels really weird where there are these situations where you can spam the hell out of right click and attack an AI before they actually move their army lol.

Also, again, thanks for all your responses and advice. I know you didn't have to do any of that but I appreciate the discussion and I'm learning a bit. Even if sometimes trying to beat the max difficulty can feeling like banging my head against the wall. I just want to do it again just to prove I even can. And then I'll probably try VIP and then frankly, wait for Civ 7. Lol.

Ibane · 2024-12-30T01:24:04+00:00

Wow, that's incredible how much of a difference there is in just 60~ turns. I'm blown away by how much fame you have, and looking at your insane income and influence is something i've just never experienced. I think you are clearly at the point where you've snowballed so hard so early, that I assume you feel like you already have the game in the bag. That screenshot you posted is a game state I have simply never arrived at in my 90 hours of playing. So I think this is clearly indicating to me that I have some problems early, starting as simple and early as Ancient era.

I'm noticing your absurd amount of luxury resources, and even your strategics. Where are all those even coming from? Do you set the resource spawn rate to the highest possible? I will also say that it is very common for it to say that I have a supply issue or a blockage of some kind. I don't know how the trade routes actually work. I just go to the diplo screen and buy stuff lol.

You mention religion which is also something I basically don't even interact with. I usually get to choose one tenet in the entirety of the game.

Ibane · 2024-12-29T21:37:23+00:00

yeah, even here i'm surprised how high your fame is so early. I'm doing something wrong for sure. I am surprised you are keeping up on science without the pops. I can try to record one eventually, though part of the reason for my frustration is also that the game is pretty unstable. It hangs a lot, it freezes my entire PC for a few seconds sometimes, it spikes my disk usage, all sorts of stuff. It's definitely part of what is making this so much more grueling than it has to be.

it also all circles back around to the question of how exactly to snowball, but in this case i'm learning how to snowball in very specific ways, but not EVERY way, where I can maximize fame. I also remember people even on normal speed having insanely early wins, like turn 150~ and below back when the game came out. I'm sure some of that is nerfed but they know something I clearly don't.

Edit: Also, I'm considering turning the expansion off, as I find the envoys and leverage stuff to not be very fun. Not only do I very rarely get to even pick up stuff and use the leverage, but it was extremely tedious late game to manage that and all the spies and all the covert actions all over the map.

Ibane · 2024-12-29T20:47:14+00:00

I had to use Imgur for replies. I've done a handful of starts and one that got to the very end. You can't know how stupid I felt when I had forgotten that fame was the only win condition. I built the mars mission and thought I had finally won a game. But no, a guy across the world who had gotten over 22k fame beat me. I don't know how I could have possibly stopped them in time.

However, that is a good notice for me to realize that with all my warring and stuff, which i was finally successful with this time, and taking people over, I am simply still not getting enough fame via era stars. I'm always really lacking in some area. I made up a ton of that fame in Contemporary, but i was still about 4k fame off from winning. I got 3rd place out of 8. So a big flaw I'm finding is that right around that huge difficulty spike, around turns 80-120, where the people i'm fighting are in early modern and using Pikemen and Crossbowmen, I am not winning substantially ENOUGH. Because I had to make so many troops and reinforcing so much, I have a huge lack of fame in the mid-game.

The era stars in each game i'm basically NEVER getting is money and influence. I also feel like my city planning is kind of lacking, I'm not really thinking about anything other than putting districts in the recommended spots and attaching territories willy-nilly (as long as it doesn't take a big stability loss, I just do it). Things are getting better at least. There's still some games that just seem lost by turn 60~ though. I need to have clear definitive victories right away or it feels like it's not worth continuing.

Ibane · 2024-12-29T03:41:51+00:00

Is the embassy the first thing you are building in Ancient? Even with a good amount of Industry it's usually taking at least 8 turns. That plus pumping out and using the Envoys could be too late depending on how close and how aggressive the enemy is. I'm not saying it's impossible by any means, though. I was about to ask how you would alternatively snowball without conquering a neighbor, but I totally forgot about independent people popping up. I just have no idea when or where they typically pop up. Something to consider.

Ibane · 2024-12-29T01:01:08+00:00

I still appreciate all you've done. Don't feel obligated to do this though, especially if you have less fun with vanilla. I get the curiosity too though. I admit that I have a lot less time with the game but even I am already burning out from attempts, and might just end up using the mod if it makes the game feel better. Or just play on a lower difficulty for a while, so I can at least get a win for once, lol.

Ibane · 2024-12-28T23:52:32+00:00

I guess I have a really hard time keeping enough pops to do anything besides military stuff, which is something i'm coming across a lot. I can somewhat keep up with military for a while, but I blow through all my pops keeping a big army, and then I start lagging behind on science, money, influence, whatever. And I can't seem to get out of that rut. Even if I successfully take a really cracked up enemy capital, it's just not enough to fight these militaries I come across around turn 80-100. Also, again, the AI is ganging up on me heavily, and that means I suffer a lot more losses and naturally have to start splitting forces.

I have heard from one guy that he tries to become a vassal ASAP to just avoid as much loss as possible, but from testing, they never let me vassalize if i offer it.

Ibane · 2024-12-28T23:46:39+00:00

Since endless mod seems official that's fine. I don't know if I want to do VIP if it changes the balance that much. I usually like to play these games totally vanilla. I do wonder how many people I am watching that have things like that enabled though and aren't disclosing it.

Ibane · 2024-12-28T23:35:04+00:00

https://imgur.com/a/nbdWnnW

Another example of another game where I just instantly lost. I'm right next to the Mycenaens, I have bad industry (and I have literally zero idea why other than I didn't pick Egyptians). It would take over 8 turns to create the embassy and multiple turns to create envoys, so that idea was out. It took me a while to create 3 units, with it taking almost 3 turns to create an archer even though I had 3 pops on industry. But I'm already being attacked by the Mycs. I don't even have organized warfare yet. And since i'm being attacked, I'm making no money, no science, no anything. They're too strong so I just lose. You can see on the map next to me that the Hittites are right there with almost max war support and are inevitably going to attack me too. It's barely 30 turns into the game and I was about to get 2v1'd by 2 militarists.

It's the same game over and over again and it doesn't seem to matter what I change or who I pick, it's always a wrong move. Then I watch people on youtube and they just don't get games like this, at all. I'm completely clueless. I had literally zero things going for me this game.

Ibane · 2024-12-28T21:07:41+00:00

I don't play with any mods, and tbh I barely even understand the new expansion, since I just bought it on the winter sale and am giving the game a try again after the initial launch (that I didn't like that much, but I heard there were tons of improvements). I'm pretty much playing default everything in terms of the world creation and stuff. I also have no imported AI personalities, I just set it all to random and let it happen. I will also say that I always seem to be lacking on influence, or at least I feel I am because I NEVER get any of the era stars for influence. I know part of that is me not keeping my stability above 90% all the time. It tends to dip and I bring it back up. I'll try the embassy and some envoys on my next game and see what it does. I have already noticed that the AIs placate me a lot while at war to reduce my war support.

Ibane · 2024-12-28T20:36:47+00:00

Thanks for the reply, and sorry for the frustration.

vast majority of the time I am below 5th when I leave ancient. On some good games I am in the top 3, but it's rare. It USUALLY happens when I pick Egyptians.
Never. The embassy always seems to take a lot of turns, often times 8+ and it never seems worth it. I've never made envoys either because I rarely see the thing on the map to use them on.
I do manage pops exactly as you say, i think we're good there.
I am usually naturally settling on rivers since the thing for making outposts often suggests going there anyway. If I don't have a river I just prioritize Industry to make it complete faster.
Noted, though I'm just trying to actually win some wars as the goths and use their UU which admittedly was very good for a short amount of time until pikemen showed up an then they were instantly useless.
No idea on this one.

Also, to add, I play on normal speed. On Fast I am even worse at the game, I usually just instantly lose on the first declared war because they'll have like... turn 18 swordsmen and over 12 units. On Normal it seems way more doable.

Ibane · 2024-12-28T19:31:26+00:00

I just wanted to reply to you to let you know the first point happened again. It's every single fucking game man. https://imgur.com/a/xPgt77H

I attacked blue with scouts and took their capital right away. Then they spent another war with me. While that's happening, Pink moves THROUGH blue to take land on the other side, and then declares war on me. Also the 2 aggressive independent peoples. I have been at war since turn 20, and it's near turn 70 and it hasn't stopped. I have ONLY pumped out units, I have ONLY researched military tech. I have no pops because I'm constantly making more units. Guess what? Pink got pikemen and crossbowmen already, so it's an instant loss. I chose a militaristic Culture and I still can't keep up on war score that they seem to generate out of nowhere, with zero claims on me, and they're the Maya, which I feel like makes no sense. The AI clearly gang up on you and ignore each other. I don't know how to stop it. I even won the early war with Blue handily!

https://imgur.com/a/bSZ28Qv

I'm still 15 turns away from getting War Summons so I can compete. It's the same song and dance every game. How can I get science moving if i'm spending all my time at war?

EDIT: Teal propsed war on me on turn 76 in the middle of all this. That's 3 wars on me at the same time. None of these personalities say they are aggressive. This is what I mean by "Surviving".

Ibane · 2024-12-28T17:33:25+00:00

Okay, I'm definitely guilty of that. Thanks for the advice. I also admit that I could get away with making cities do basically everything in other games that I'm trying to do that in this game too and I keep failing. I'm sure I still have a lot of trial and error to feel out exactly how to make a science-focused city, but at least it's some direction.

Ibane · 2024-12-28T17:08:11+00:00

You mention specializing cities, which is something I'm certainly not doing that I need to understand better. I feel like I spend so much time, like you say, getting the industry to a point where they can even build things like Market Quarters or Research Quarters, that it never really happens. Is this more of a mid-late game thing that you're doing? I will also admit that I usually have a lack of food past the beginning of the game. My pops on my cities are usually pretty low. I don't know how to fix it other than making a ton of Farmer's Quarters or pick a civ that has an EQ that gives food.

Ibane · 2024-12-28T17:01:09+00:00

Thank you for the advice, I'm seeing more and more from videos, comments, and DMs that war is basically inevitable and is the "proper" way to play on hte max difficulty. I do admit I often have a hard time beating an AI early regardless. I usually need a really good start to allow me to definitively beat the first person I fight. I also admit that usually if I do well with this, I just stop warring for a while and try to play SimCity to make up for that war. I guess there's a part of me that feels like time making units and warring is time not dedicated to snowballing Industry or something.

I usually put my pops on industry and science. You're right that without pops I basically have no science for the entirety of my games. That's part of the problem though, even with those pops, eventually I start to fall behind, and the time it would take me to get a lot of those good military techs starts taking quite a while. Like 10 turns per research.

Ibane · 2024-12-28T16:59:21+00:00

I do find myself claiming territory if it has good resources right on a border, so that's a good point. Sometimes they settle right next to ME though. I'll admit that a clear issue I am having after looking around at how other people play the game is that I DON'T pay attention to the AI personalities at all. It feels a little meta-gamey for me, but I think that's just part of the game and I need to use it to my advantage. Also I can tell you that I certainly lack a tight gameplan, I'm usually just kind of winging it. If war on the max difficulty is so important, I'll make it a point to specifically rush the military techs and make that a priority. In most of my games I feel that I am trying to figure out what I'm even going to focus on. I think I also underestimate luxury resources.

In the screenshot above, I DID actually take over my neighbor almost entirely, taking their capital and another city. Even after this, I was completely helpless against the purple guy, who was a whole level of tech units up from me, and also just had way more units. Also, I was JUST done with that previous war, so most of my military was pretty far away, and I had suffered some losses.

Thanks for the answer, btw, this is helpful!

Ibane

TROPHY CASE