I played Civilization for years. When Civ 5 came out, I was incredibly psyched. I specifically went to PAX one year just so I could get new information on the game. When I finally played it, it was the biggest disappointment of my gaming life. It just doesn’t feel like any of the previous ones. Civ 6 is way better in almost every way.
I’m wary of Civ 7 though. How can they improve upon the game without adding minigames or breaking it into insane amounts of DLC eg. Stellaris? I probably won’t pick it up until it’s on a steam sale with all its DLC at 50% off or something stupid.
I had a group of players in a Curse of Strahd campaign. They started killing soldiers in Vallaki indiscriminately and leaving behind their bodies - not even looting them! So I had Strahd return a bag of things they “left behind” including a letter from a loving wife about how much she missed soldier A, a drawing from a child for their father soldier B, a locket with a picture of soldier C and wife, etc.
Cook food. Lots of it. You can sell cooked food (especially meats e.g. rare meats) for crazy amounts of rupees. Use rupees to buy cold weather clothing from the various towns in game, then use that whenever you feel cold (same goes for hot weather, you’ll need hot weather clothes).
Don’t try to go way off into the mountains right to start. Find the shrines close to you, mark them on your map, and go there. Do the same for towns. You can then fast travel via the map around the game world, making things way easier.
Finally, when it comes to weapons, you really can’t get attached to any of them. The Master Sword is the only one that doesn’t break, but it will lose energy and take time to recharge before it can be used again. It’s just part of the game mechanics. While annoying, it does force you to plan out your attacks and consider your resource usage.