My Legion, Pikeman and ancient Warrior units were no match for the Japanese Samurai units. Those Samurai units descended in droves. In a few turns, the Samurai units surrounded my city of Rome. To fight off the enemy units, I had to rush production of Knight units. They were my strongest available melee unit then. Rushing production means paying for them in gold. It is an expensive way to build an army for counterattacks. It could work in a pinch, if you have a lot of gold that is. But maintaining a group of defenders is a better strategy going forward. Upgrading defender units when needed could work too. But some units cannot be upgraded past a certain point. For example, not all the units I had could be upgraded into a Knight. So, it still pays to keep your defending army up to date by building modern units when you can. Thankfully, I was able to defend Rome long enough for Japan to call off the war.

One thing that I confirmed was how good Archer units are as city defenders. Because they can shoot from range, they don't need to get out of the city to attack enemy units. They can stay inside and rain arrows down on the enemy. Another thing I learned is that I can perform a kind of “hit and run” attacks on enemy units. This is after grouping Knight units into a platoon. As a group, they can take more damage. And when they need to retreat, they can get away quickly because they are on horses. Lastly, building walls around a city can help in delaying the capture of your city. Sometimes, that's all you need to get your counter-attacking units in place to drive off the enemy.

Anyway, I kept at it. This time around, I kept my defending army updated with modern units to stave off future attacks. I converted Japan, then Greece, then Macedon to my religion. Russia and Scythia were the last two civilizations that needed to be converted. Russia put up a good fight. It didn't help that my Apostle and Missionary units had to cross oceans to get where they needed to be.

If you're wondering what kind of battles Apostles and Missionary units engage in, the game calls it “Theological Combat.” It is a different form of combat, not like military warfare. In fact, the Apostle, Missionary and Inquisitor units do not even count as military units.

After I converted Russia to following my religion, it didn't take long for Scythia to fall. And then I won my first ever game of Civilization 6 on the Xbox One.

Might be some minor spoilers to some, but this video shows the last turn that lead to my win. It also shows the end game cinematic for a religious victory in Civilization 6.

Tags: #GameLog #Civilization6

• Builders only have 3 uses or charges. What this means is that after using their “Build Improvement” ability for the third time, the unit will be consumed and will disappear. You'll have to build a new one if you want to build more improvements. This is different to the Builders in Civilization 5, which stay in play for the duration of the game and don't have a limit on how many improvements they can build.
• Archers are pretty useful with their ranged attacks. Useful in the sense that if they attack an enemy unit 2 tiles away, the enemy units won't be able to deal damage back to the Archers. However, out on the open field, they are a little vulnerable against melee units, so it is best to have them escorted by your own melee units.
  • I have found that having them garrison in a city makes them good defenders as they don't have to venture out of the city to attack enemy units; they can simply fire away from within safety of the city walls.
• Keep the envoys and don't send them to other city-states until you really need to. – This one is actually a tip from Coney, who has played the game a lot on the PC.
• Focus on sending envoys to city-states that are in close proximity to your cities. This is so that if you gain enough influence on them, they will not go against you when wars breakout.
• You don't need to build Fishing Boats to build improvements on water tiles, instead you can just use the Builders. – Wasted a lot of turns on this, waiting for the game to allow me to build fishing boats >_<
• Astrology is the early tech that gives you Holy Sites or unlocks buildings than can generate faith.
• Be wary of constructing buildings as some buildings can only be built if you satisfy certain conditions. For instance, some buildings can only be built on a tile that is adjacent to a river.

Tags: #GameLog #Civilization6