Hello dear readers and welcome to another post here on Shoot the Rookie! Today is the latest edition of my Civilization VI Stories series where I take an in-depth look at my most recent game of Civ. This time I took on the challenge of Brazil, so why not join me to find out how I fared!
Last time out I described how I lead India to a glorious religious victory. As I often say, each game of Civ is unique and in this one I was playing as Pedro II of Brazil on a huge Earth map, so it couldn’t have been much more different to my last game.
This is the first time that I’ve played on the Earth map, with each country starting in their correct locations. It was also the first time I’ve played on a huge map. But what difference would this make and what victory condition would I go for? Let’s take a look shall we!
Game Setup
Difficulty: King
Map Size: Huge
Map Type: Earth – True Start Locations
Barbarians: Normal
AI Civilizations: 10
The Beginning
Starting out I was immediately struck by just how rich and full of resources South America is. I built a few cities and they were all surrounded by luxury resources and fertile land. After a little while it became obvious that I had a lot of space to play with as there weren’t any other civs in the vicinity. For a long while the only contact I had with foreign powers was with the nearby city-state Buenos Aires, whose Suzerain bonus offered yet more amenities for my small empire. I eventually ran into the USA, but even then the world felt very empty and like I had infinite room to expand.
The Middle
Expand I did, and yet not knowing any other civs apart from America came with the drawback of not being able to do trade deals and not having a clue how far advanced my competition was. As it turns out, a couple of them were very advanced scientifically to the point I thought a science victory would be impossible, and add to that the fact that a religious victory was already impossible as I had failed to attract a Great Prophet, and I was left with the difficult decision of how best to proceed.
When I’d started the game I had wanted to achieve a science victory, but at this point my thoughts were wavering towards culture, and since I had a lot of pretty land I built a number of stunning national parks. With culture as a backup I decided to continue to focus on science and production even though I felt like I was miles behind. Kongo appeared to be my most advanced rival, but in that lay my hope as they seemed to be engaged in a constant war with a number of the other civs. Since I was so far away, war was never an issue for me so I could focus on improving my cities, which were all developing very nicely.
With so much space to expand I was also able to have a bit of fun and build some cool wonders, including the geographically appropriate Cristo Redentor, and the nearly geographically appropriate Chichen Itza. My bank balance was also looking healthy at this point since I owned all the coffee in the world and everyone wanted to buy it. Generally things were going well but victory still felt like a stretch.
The End
Ta-da! I’m not sure how, but victory turned out to be a walk in the park. Although Kongo and the USA had both started the space race, it became apparent that they lacked the production levels necessary to build the projects quickly enough to compete with my crazily productive cities. It says something that my biggest problem in the game was that France rocked up and built a city in the middle of the Amazon rainforest forcing me to abandon an hour and a half of gameplay so I could prevent such a horror from happening!
What looked in the middle game like a lost cause, turned into one of the most comfortable victories I’ve had.
Final Thoughts
Although victory was easy in the end, this was a super interesting and enjoyable game. Playing on an Earth map was enjoyable and gave a different feel to exploration. Along with America (and to some extent Kongo), I had a huge advantage because of the sheer amount of empty space I had to expand, and it would be fascinating to try this game again with the Aztec civ playing as that might change things significantly.
This game also taught me a lot about the value of amenities. By the end of the game every one of my cities was ecstatic. In some places we had double the number of amenities we needed. This had huge benefits, but was also interesting as having so many luxury resources meant I didn’t take advantage of Brazil’s great bonus, the Street Carnival district which helps you earn more great people. If I played as Brazil again I would certainly build more of these early on in order to get ahead quicker.
For all the strategy and focus that goes into playing Civ, what this game really highlighted for me is how much joy comes from adding little personal touches to the way you play. From building Cristo Redentor in the city it occupies in real life, to protecting the Amazon and keeping the peace, with this civ I was able to reflect things that are important to me in the real world, and it is things like that that make Civilization a truly compelling game.
So there we have it! A glorious victory for Brazil! But what do you think? Do you enjoy playing as Brazil? Are you a fan of the true start locations map? Perhaps you’ve never tried Civ before and want to know more? Let me know below in comments and don’t forget to join me next time for more video game and anime nonsense!
Thanks for reading,
Pix1001
Shoot the Rookie 