People always talk about needing to improve the late game; but I find it's the mid game (medieval to early industrial) that's the tedious part.
You're largely done with settlers, there aren't any major grabs for resources until coal (nitre I suppose), maybe there's religion going on, just a slow upwards tick of civics and technologies, with nothing much more than the standard melee/cavalry/ranged stuff from the ancient era. Maybe it's supposed to be more for consolidating your empire, but I always find it a slog. But then I barely ever play aggressive.
Currently going for a diplomatic victory with Sweden (Civ VI), world congress always seems to propose knocking the points off me at a greater rate than I can gain them, so that's probably not going to happen. I'm very behind on the ol' military, so hoping I can churn out some reasonably modern defensive units and hold on for a culture victory. Feller I play with always plays aggressive and expansionist though, kind of has an unbreakable head of steam by dint of owning three different Civ's cities. Oh well.
In Civ 6, I think the leader’s abilities/bonuses affects how I play my mid-game a lot.
In the base game/R&F version of Victoria’s Pax Brittania, it’s mid-game that I’ll be aiming for rapid expansion via settlers. Amongst other things, the free unit you get mid-game is has utility for a decent amount of time without the need for upgrading, particularly if Redcoats are unlocked sooner than later.
I’ve just played as Canada (first time that I’ve tried it) and mid-game was able to expand without conquering or threatening others. The AI avoids tundra/snow areas, but Canada’s make these viable albeit with slow growth so could extend into areas that there was no competition for. The pantheon pick I made was +1 faith for every tundra
re: diplomatic victory - did you have any joy?
…Also, I havent played V, so do 2k games have form for removing huge amounts of content from their games just to sell for even more money? The game actually feels complete with the diplomacy UN stuff you have to download.
No, versions are quite different - for example, the base game of Civ 6 favours rapid expansion more than 5 and it included elements like civics cards and districts.
Also, DLC can change existing things not just add new content. For example, Victoria plays differently in Gathering Storm compared to Civ 6 vanilla or Rise and Fall, In the latter two, Pax Britannia means that when a settler founds a city on a continent other than the one where the capital is, a free melee unit is generated - and another one if a royal dockyard is built.
In GS, you ‘only’ get a free unit with the first city on a new continent but also an extra trade route; and when building a harbour/royal dockyard on any continent, you get a free naval unit instead.
Another change to Victoria was that archaeological museums had double the capacity for artefacts and they were automatically themed. This was scrapped in GS and a new bonus added. Personally, I liked the former but my impression is that a lot of people didn’t. The new bonus fitted the new mechanics in GS, but it feels to me (like the change to Pax Brittania) that 2K thought an overhaul was needed after considering rather than content always planned being withheld.
