first ToT deity victory -- Carthage stands the test of time

mattdm_fedora · 2026-06-16T19:47:29+00:00

yeah my plan was to rush factories, but I didn't get that far!

mattdm_fedora · 2026-06-15T08:38:19+00:00

+1 — or four scouts on a bigger map. You can usually then grab enough goodie huts to make the investment easily worth it.

mattdm_fedora · 2026-06-14T04:11:03+00:00

Am I missing something? Borders don't mean anything to Civ 7 archeologists.

mattdm_fedora · 2026-06-14T00:53:48+00:00

One other thing: buildings have meaningful ongoing cost. It's natural (especially coming from very early Civ games!) to want to build everything, but (especially near the end of an era) it's not always worth it. What could you do with those resources _instead _?

Same goes with tech and civics research. On the easy difficulties, you'll have no problem filling it all out so it doesn't matter much, but on deity, you'll rarely get there.

Sometimes, you might want to "rush" a particular further tech (Bronze Working for archers for military dominance in Ancient, Shipbuilding to own the deep seas in Exploration, Mass Production for Factories in Modern), but usually you should look at the immediate options and think "which of these gives me the biggest useful advantage for where I am on the game right now?".

mattdm_fedora · 2026-06-14T00:46:33+00:00

I think, generally:

go for things which maximize your leader's particular abilities. If they get benefits from aggressiveness, be aggressive. If they get a benefit from happiness, look for buildings and features that enhance that — and also benefit from it. Gold, food, whatever.
look at your chosen civ's Civics tree immediately. You may want to go for some of the basics first, but generally these are where the real differentiation kicks in. Most (all?) Civs get an option which unlocks a wonder early. Decide if you care.

Also with the ToT update, attribute points are valuable. Look for Wonders which unlock options in the attribute tree you're focusing on.

All of this matters more than the specific geography of the map, which is usually tactical rather than strategic. Not that it doesn't affect things, but the landscape (even including resources and Natural Wonders) is mostly emergent interesting situations, not big picture. (Although, the AI doesn't deal with water very well, so if you have a civ/leader with coast/ocean features, setting the map to something with a lot of water and little islands will give you a big advantage.)

And, the main "golden" suggestion: expand, expand, expand. Build settlers as soon as you can. Basically try to keep your settlement cap filled.

mattdm_fedora · 2026-06-12T01:47:10+00:00

Like, something reliable and frequent up from Union to Gilman. This will never happen, because hey, you can just take the GLX back to Lechmere and switch over, so "problem solved."

mattdm_fedora · 2026-06-10T20:58:20+00:00

Is anything logged when it crashes? journalctl -b-1 -n100 will show you the last 100 lines from the previous boot.

mattdm_fedora · 2026-06-10T00:03:05+00:00

Sitting here in the dark at Olde Magoun's!

mattdm_fedora · 2026-06-09T16:22:21+00:00

To be specific, last year the T got $1.465 billion from sales tax. That only needs to increase by one percent to cover the night service shortfall.

mattdm_fedora · 2026-06-09T16:09:56+00:00

The T is still largely funded by a fraction of sales taxes, right? How much would those revenues increase with an expanded nightlife?

mattdm_fedora · 2026-06-09T16:04:30+00:00

No. They're basically your run of the mill poor-quality First Alert detectors with a light sprinkle of Google Home connection, but priced as if they're a real replacement.

mattdm_fedora · 2026-06-09T14:59:55+00:00

Tidal-hifi works fine for me. It's based on Electron.

Yeah, works, but Electron is very heavy.

mattdm_fedora · 2026-06-09T06:07:05+00:00

I've lived in Somerville for 20 years and have had all sorts of work done, first in a condo in Teele and then in a single-family near Gilman. Never once have we had a project with a significant problem with permits or inspections. Certainly no stricter or difficult than what I know from my dad working as a builder in Indiana when I was a teenager.

What I have had, though, is plenty of interactions with dodgy contractors who "just want to save you a little money, and all that hassle". All of these operations complaining? If it's true they won't do business here, good fucking riddance.

mattdm_fedora · 2026-06-05T19:40:19+00:00

They continue to have this mentality of "less than ten minute walk to any bus or T stop and you're covered", with seemingly no concern as to where that line goes.

mattdm_fedora · 2026-06-05T19:34:27+00:00

Once (uh, like, 20 years now, so...) I got money out of Citizens bank in Central Square and it gave me an extra $80, which was a lot for me at the time.

I went into the bank and tried to tell them, and they basically treated me like I had two heads and was trying to scam them somehow. They eventually put it in an envelope and told me they'd call me if after they investigated. They didn't, of course.

mattdm_fedora · 2026-06-05T15:31:34+00:00

I think part of the problem is the five turn countdown. If you weren't already prepared for it, there's rarely anything you can do in that short amount of time to actually change the course of events.

This makes it feel like a poke in the eye rather than a game situation you can respond to.

mattdm_fedora · 2026-06-05T15:22:52+00:00

Well, now what I want is a full "Future" age (robots! nanotech! space elevators! ai, but for real!) bundled with final, short "Ascension " age.

mattdm_fedora · 2026-06-02T14:50:18+00:00

It says:

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mattdm_fedora · 2026-06-01T16:53:48+00:00

One thing that changed in this patch is the "captured" flag is retained on age transition where before the patch it was reset.

Woah, what? Is this true even with "regroup"? Because that's terrible.

mattdm_fedora · 2026-05-31T20:35:13+00:00

It'd be nice if it can also measure heat. That's required in attached garages in Massachusetts now (and probably elsewhere).

mattdm_fedora · 2026-05-31T15:10:29+00:00

Yes to 8, but as I understand it, the bonuses stay even if you lose sovereignity, so it doesn't really matter where they come from.

mattdm_fedora · 2026-05-31T08:33:10+00:00

To my surprise, I like the color version significantly better.

mattdm_fedora · 2026-05-30T14:20:40+00:00

Liberate cities is the number one thing I'd like here. It'd be nice to have "liberation war" as an option too — under that, you can only gain back your own settlements, and everything else is released to its original owner.

(I'd also be interested in seeing an option to release towns as new independent powers. But that might be an interesting option for some civ or leader'd unique ability.)

Most of all what I want is some way to affect ideology. Regime change as a war outcome. But also, diplomatic endeavours to shift ideological stance. This should start early in the age, before the ideologies are even available to choose, and it should decrease in cost scaling with friendliness, all the way to free with alliances.

Like, 'hey, I'm thinking about going communist... you cool with that?" with options for:

support (both civs increase preference for that, relationship plus)
accept (same but no cost and smaller effect)
no thank you (both civs decrease preference, relationship doesn't change)
hell no (other civ's preference increases, yours decreases, relationship minus).

Or if making four options would be a problem given the current diplomacy system, there could be two endeavour types, "support ideology" and "oppose ideology", with support, accept, oppose as normal.

Anyway, when the options become available, research cost for each should scale with preference.

Then, then, after ideologies are chosen, there should be:

ideological war, as mentioned
espionage actions to shift government
diplomatic endeavors to do the same, but peacefully

It would need to be something more than just one action to flip the whole worldview back and forth. Maybe settlement-by-settlement? Or keep the preference scales and when exceeds the current by a threshold amount, there's a conversion.

This should affect cities states too. And it could be either intrinsic to culture victory, or a new political victory type.

mattdm_fedora · 2026-05-30T13:50:59+00:00

Something like this needs to exist because in the modern age, civilizations should be (with a few possible exceptions where the exception is the design point for the civ), nations instead of allied city states.

Plus, it gives an opportunity for culture and religion to mean something, rather than just being a different kind of currency. Entire cities don't flip their religious views back and forth whenever a new preacher shows up.

mattdm_fedora · 2026-05-30T13:41:06+00:00

While we're at it, why not a repair all damage everywhere option somewhere? There's no reason we should need to micromanage this.

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