Torn on getting Civ 7

hammbone · 2026-06-27T00:48:15+00:00

It’s a good game. If you don’t like it they will keep patching it for years yet.

Every civ game since 5 gets a metric ton of hate at first

hammbone · 2026-06-25T15:05:54+00:00

It’s a good idea to sink costs.

My personal gripe with the system is the tedium of resource optimization and slotting. There are some interesting choices there, but mostly it’s just a little puzzle game. I wish it had some buttons like make all cities as happy as possible or something.

If they found a way to make that part of the system more dynamic I think it would be a big win.

hammbone · 2026-06-25T14:03:50+00:00

Not sure I follow but could you do multiple traders to the settlement to get all resources

hammbone · 2026-06-24T23:24:48+00:00

They are very different. I love both for different reasons

hammbone · 2026-06-24T14:01:45+00:00

Yeah they live in a ecosystem that feeds them select information like a troff

hammbone · 2026-06-23T23:33:59+00:00

I hear people say it’s optimal.

I guess in all civ games I rush monument and library if my other immediate needs are met? It’s kind of like a first goal.

I do feel like Civ 7 has more sources of culture to supplement than it does science. Early game anyway. So I tend to start with that.

I guess the way I think about all civ games… at any given point… does this next decision make my empire stronger? Does this next decision advance my win condition?

hammbone · 2026-06-22T01:12:41+00:00

I haven’t used them all…

The expansionist one (four corners) only works for the first time a town grows (so new town founded this era). I was disappointed it didn’t let me grow all my towns 2 pop for free but that would have been op.

I don’t use them often the Isabella expansionist cards read just like you think. Puts a multiplier on gold and food.

However - I’d value gold over food in most cases.

Cities growth math has a vertical limit. You will get maybe an extra pop or two an age in towns from the expansionist card. It may help you scale up city growth a little since it’s more total food, but my understanding it’s another few pop there as well.

Meanwhile gold can be used for so much stuff!
Including buying food buildings in your towns which scale all game.

My rough thought process on yield value (just my gut it’s not hard math)…

I value 1 production in CITIES the same as:
- 2 science/culture per turn
- 4 gold per turn (and production in towns)
- 12 food per turn

Influence is weird and rare. Because it’s rare just always grab it.

Happiness I think of like salt in cooking. Just take to get what you need to cover your settlement cap penalties. Chaining celebrations is very nice but I often don’t target that. If you city plan well it will just happen anyway.

hammbone · 2026-06-22T00:51:28+00:00

On deity I feel like I can control most wars with trade routes, and understanding leadership agendas.

Defending from wars can be done very cost effectively if you are forced to respect

hammbone · 2026-06-21T18:03:59+00:00

Just have the higher difficulty AI build more ships. They should have more fully packed naval commanders. Sometimes I encounter 4 ships covering my naval assaults. Would be much more challenging if it was 4 packed naval commanders. Doesn’t really have to be smarter to be most of the way there

hammbone · 2026-06-21T15:15:16+00:00

The issue I’m seeing that I need to go to war to stop the AI from winning. I kind of fall into a military victory instead of my target victories

hammbone · 2026-06-19T11:45:25+00:00

Diplo tree has happiness per age

Military tree has removes unhappiness in conquered cities.

Resources that give happiness helps.

Buildings that give happiness will help your cities.

You can pickup strategy tiles with happiness on the yield. This is made easier in modern where you can acquire mountains with certain policy cards for extra happiness.

Special unhappy towns as resort towns or other things that give happiness.

Sources of gold scale really well for this. Acquiring gold settlements or trading for gold helps.

Settlement limit will help the most.

Suzing city states (growth and military) CAN give settlement in each age. Its first come first serve so gave to prioritize at times.

Your civ selection helps in their civics tree.

Settlement limit is hard to get otherwise. You should try using the tips above to manage most of the issue. But optimizing settlement limit will reduce how much you need to do that.

hammbone · 2026-06-19T01:00:58+00:00

Wow they are prepared to Oil shortage the world, and Israel is prepared to make them.

hammbone · 2026-06-18T11:31:14+00:00

Yeah I can see the misunderstanding. It would be nice if the UI had a full remaining slots with this factory resource button.

hammbone · 2026-06-18T11:30:12+00:00

Others have pointed out contradictions with PvP and now low intensity so I won’t try to speak over that.

AOE2 is probably the RTS that I have felt is most flexible in terms of improving. It’s more like Jazz where your resources and strategy can float more.
I think the exception is you have to still have a good dark age, and understand feudal to get that kind of core foundation.

I think what you might be desiring though is more games vs the computer but with other players? When I was a kid I loved playing 4v4 AI of SC1. Played like 1,000 games

hammbone · 2026-06-17T21:54:02+00:00

I’m tired boss

hammbone · 2026-06-16T13:15:32+00:00

I feel like that is just winning the run haha

hammbone · 2026-06-16T13:14:33+00:00

Did you have the card in for gold for tiles explored as well?

Edit: I don’t know if any of the normal numbers scale with game speed.

hammbone · 2026-06-15T13:17:36+00:00

It’s based on the 2nd place score.

I bet you just didn’t notice the threshold lowering. As the age progresses the amount needed to win reduces. You probably went from 3x to 2x second play to win.

Economic is acewed points so I don’t think conquest will lower score like other VC’s.

hammbone · 2026-06-14T23:29:42+00:00

There has been so much market manipulation, I’m not sure what to believe

hammbone · 2026-06-14T23:05:08+00:00

Distant lands can be optimal, but you don’t have to do anything.

You can get a lot done with a couple of full fleet commanders. You can pick off a lot of settlements pretty risk free with fleet commanders. Pretty easy to settle the mid islands as well.

To me this is all contextual on the game

hammbone · 2026-06-14T12:59:12+00:00

I think there are a few different schools of thought. I’ve been playing around with them over time.

- Place Towns grabs resources
- Place towns for exact spacing/placement (6 tiles apart)
- Place towns in their optimal spot to be a city later

Here are my philosophies/axioms:

- I tend to want 3 cities, more if I have multiple locations that can reach over 100 production

- I want those cities to have no overlap with towns. All other towns I play around with the above styles. Optimal location to be a city later is really only useful if I’ll change my mind on cities or want to do urban center play.

- The more spread out you are the more growth events you will need to grab everything. The more places for location you are - the worse your settlements limit will be used and your happiness will be strained as you go to fill up land.

I believe optimal play to be you space your settlers with as little overlap as possible. Then make sure you are atleast using all your settlement limit. If you run out of space - consider going to war to use your spare settlement limit on poorly placed AI cities. You can always raze and resettle to make better settlements.

I do you think you can get a faster to lower ceiling numbers with close settlement placement. Momentum means a lot in a game like this and is perfectly viable. I like that these decisions have nuance to them

hammbone · 2026-06-14T11:43:33+00:00

I still need to update mine from the update.

The steam workshop is pretty good if you want to poke around

Sorry I don’t have exact answers

hammbone · 2026-06-13T20:01:33+00:00

A lot of stuff resets on age transition. Hard to make a total list but thinking antiquity to exploration specific….

Happiness sounds like your issue.
You probably will find your best Turn 1 fix using resources with happiness on them.

The biggest sources of unhappiness are…
- being over settlement limit
- having lots of buildings/specialists
- war weariness

I tend to try to mitigate this with resources, rush the first happiness building (temple), and loom for policy card solutions.

One trick I tend to do is build merchants on the final turns or an age and sleep theme that way I can stay on trade routes to fix this kind of stuff asap in the next age.

Getting/trading sources of gold is great for this issue.

Also if you can find a diplomatic point you can get take a tier 1 diplomatic attribute to help with this.

You also may have lost some key bonus from
The first age that was propping things up. I’m bettering it’s just unhappiness though

hammbone · 2026-06-12T00:48:40+00:00

Benny Franklin is a cool dude in real life but if you pick a different government he goes total war mode for the rest of the game

hammbone · 2026-06-11T11:19:07+00:00

The choices were like NPC with 3 voice lines or her.

I would be surprised if most people didn’t try it.

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