primeideal

Intermittent adventures in Civ VI continue. (It turns out that a couple of my cousins are/were into it as well, so we should have a family game at some point!) I've won the base game (well, with various expansions, but no "scenarios") on difficulty levels 2, 3, 4, and 5 out of 8 (where 4 is "normal.") Which feels pretty good considering how much of III I did on easy mode. A friend says "it's such a complicated game you don't have to worry about getting overwhelmed, because the AI are unable to handle it all either." ;)

The individual civ specialties are a lot more nuanced in VI than III: like, before it was "there are a bunch of 'traits' like scientific/cultural/military, and each civ has 2, so there are like (6 choose 2) possible combos." Here, it's like, "the Zulu are good at forming formations, the Nubians are good at archery and long-ranged weaponry, Byzantium are religious proselytizers," so it's easier to play to your country's strengths instead of being like "I just want to do science why is everyone declaring war on me." (Or maybe I'm just more callous these days, heh.)

My most recent game, I was Byzantium. 8 civs (7 AI plus you) is a "normal" map, so that's what I went with, as well as the "continents" setup. I happened to spawn in the middle of a giant landmass, and pretty quickly got boxed in by the neighbors. So basically no seaports. (I had 5 main cities--there were two others I built later, but they rebelled due to cultural disloyalty and got conquered by Chandragupta "hates his neighbors," respectively.) Fortunately, religious units ignore borders, so I was spamming missionaries and sending them out to convert other cities but also explore the parts of the map I hadn't found yet. My continent started with 6 of the 8 civilizations, and all 5 religions (including ours), so it's like "try to wipe out the weak ones early, the other continent won't be converting us so we should try to get the upper hand there." But of course, others got there first. Still managed the win though! :D

There are three main modes--the base game, "Rise and Fall" (the "timeline" feature I talked about with the Zulu), and "Gathering Storm" (introduces a UN council where you can vote on world summits and go for a diplomatic victory, but also deals a lot with climate change, #tooreal). Plus lots of other mini-expansions you can toggle on and off, which I've been experimenting with. The "heroes" are special units like Mulan or Beowulf you can create and bring back in later ages--they're quite strong militarily, even as the game gets later. Perhaps to compensate for this, I felt like the "barbarian" tribes were more aggressive with this on, at least at first--you can't really try to spread out and crush city-states while the barbarians are nipping at your heels. If you're not going for a religious strategy, it's easy to bring them back with accumulated faith, but I mostly ignored this as Byzantium. I also tried the "secret societies" mode where early on you can discover various alchemy/vampire/spooky things and invest your Governors in those, but that wasn't as engaging. Felt mostly like "okay, the AI civs who are part of the same society as you are more inclined to be friendly, those who aren't, aren't," but I didn't really think the governors added much.

Strategy note: if someone is threatening to win the game, don't declare war on them to blow up their spaceports, that'll just make everyone dislike you. Use spies instead, this is what they are for. This probably says...something...about life.

Also I don't actually understand "modern" military (what are planes? how do they move? how do I...make them fight things?) there's a lot of random clicking and guessing in the dark but that was how I won with Nubia. So! Confidence!

So for the first time in...A While, I won a full-length game of Civilization! On difficulty level 2/8, but you know, baby steps.

I was Shaka of the Zulu, who have advantages in building special military districts (ikanda), and forming "formations" (corps/armies with linked units) earlier than other nations can. So the comparative advantage in military bonuses led me to want to try a military strategy, but not necessarily antagonize the AI civs. Ultimately I went to war with a couple city-states and wore them down, capturing Brussels and Auckland. By that point, the other civs decided I was a warmonger (especially later-game when unprovoked wars are bad), so they picked on me for a while, but we were eventually able to resolve things semi-peacefully. Except for the Netherlands, who refused to make any trade concessions as part of a peace treaty, so we never declared peace and just continued to be "at war" through the modern era, but nobody actually attacked anything. (Oh, and I built a nuclear weapon just in case, but fortunately never had to use it. Especially because we didn't have any planes/submarines/equipment that could deploy such a weapon.)

I wound up focusing on science (and military) and not so much culture/religion, I think it's probably strategically better to specialize even though there's an urge to do everything at once. We wound up winning a science victory by completing a satellite, moon landing, and three-module Mars mission.

In the "Rise and Fall" mode/expansion, there's a "timeline" that gets updated with great moments in your nation's history that give you an "era score." You get penalties for a low score that puts you in a Dark Age, although you can also adopt "Dark policies" that are good at some stats and bad at others if you do. If you get a high score, you get a Golden Age, with extra bonuses. So anyway, at the end of the game you can export that to relive your triumphs, but it saves as a JSON file (at least I know what those are now, thanks work!) in a hidden folder tree so a bit clunky. And it turns out it also has saved all the AI's historical moments too, including "Egypt and Norway fought a battle this year, this may be useful for future archaeologists" which was not relevant to me as I never got into archaeology that game.

Anyway, amid the irrelevant data there are several amusing/detailed ones:
"Our Impi has captured the battle standards of a veteran enemy!" (if the other unit has promotions and you don't)
"Skeptics may ask: "What good are Horses?" But we know now that they are a formidable weapon for our Horseman." (who could have ever guessed??)
"After deliberation, Jeanne d'Arc chooses to bring their talents to the Zulu." (Almost as good as taking your talents to South Beach. Many other Great People have similar lines. This is especially funny in hindsight because two of the historical figures in an unrelated project* I'm working on showed up as my Great People in this game!)
"Soldiers march by in formation, calling cadence: I don’t know but I been told/Life in Ulundi gets real old." (when you build all the possible buildings in an Ikanda/encampment)
"The laughter of families and the sighs of lovers fill the air as the world’s first Seaside Resort opens in Ethekwini of the Zulu."
"A new front opens in the war between Norway and the Zulu, as control of Bandar Brunei changes on the borders." (you can send envoys to city-states, and whoever has the most envoys there above a certain threshold will become the Suzerain and get some bonuses)
"They say that people are drawn to the Commercial Hub of Nobamba just for the excitement of buying and selling in the market. But the money is pretty good, too."
"The armies of jealous civilizations fail to stop our people! The Military Emergency dissolves in recrimination and blame." (I captured a small Egyptian city and people got mad about it, so they declared an international crisis to recapture it. It gave me bonus loyalty, which helped, because shortly after the city would rebel and become independent, eventually rejoining Egypt. Oh well.)
"The Biplane of the Zulu went up, and did not immediately come down, to great rejoicing." :D
"Previous mercenary contracts are subject to renegotiation, when the Zulu overturns the old Suzerain of Mitla." (the envoy bonus can even flip a city-state who's previously been at war with you!)

Anyway, will probably go back and forth between shorter scenarios and longer games for a while. The * project I was talking about before, I'd confused it with a different thing whose deadline is December 31, but nope, it's in two weeks. So I keep re-focusing. :)

What I should have been doing over the weekend: probably Yuletide stuff

What I mostly did over the weekend: dust off Civilization VI.

I'm mostly familiar with version III of the video game, although I've played a couple others briefly. Civ is super alluring because it promises a world with many paths to victory--science! culture! diplomacy! religion--and then just when I'm trying to develop my pacifist utopia, the AI decide to invade me. :( Maybe I need to be better at bribing them, but that also feels a bit dishonorable. NationStates is more my speed.

But anyway, it was a freebie recently, and I picked it up (and then went back to Crying Suns and some other stuff). Finally I finished a normal game, without getting annihilated, although without doing well either. So I've been trying the "scenarios" that come with the game, they're shorter-scale and usually focus on just one or two major mechanics/resources, so it's easier to keep track of what's going on. Still doesn't mean I'm any good, mind you, but it's a thing.

So far, with one playthrough of each (and this is on difficulty level 2/8, where 4 is "normal"):

Alexander the Great: trying to conquer all the Persian cities in a relatively short time. Difficult. I think in order to produce enough units to storm the board, I'm going to have to keep the cities I conquer. Which in some game modes is dangerous, because you're occupying a city full of angry defeated enemies, that might not be good for morale--maybe it's better to settle your own cities to take advantage of the area. (The "achievement unlocked" for this game was "settle four cities, and name them all after yourself."
Gift of the Nile: play as either Egypt or Nubia trying to develop culture and religion while dealing with waves of invaders from the northeast. I was Nubia and started more in the desert, which is good for avoiding said invaders. The win condition is to have temples in seven cities. But you can't build settler units in this version, only unlock them through scientific/cultural accomplishments. So you have to conquer at least one other city, either an independent city-state, something that's already been conquered by the invaders, or the rival civ, to even have a chance. Again, this game is a bit warmongery. I came very, very close to winning within the time limit, despite this, and I think I'd have a better strategy next time. Also, as someone who doesn't know a great deal about classical world history, this gives you a nice summary/timeline of events. "The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold" okay, that's all I know about Assyria.
Jadwiga's Legacy: different factions in Eastern Europe trying to hold off waves of "barbarians." Usually barbarians are just "violent outsiders;" in Civ VI, they've gotten smart enough to "send a scout looking for cities, if it makes it back alive, then send waves of armed forces at that city." In this scenario the barbarians have their own identities--there are Swedes in the north and Ottomans in the west, etc.
Outback Tycoon: different states racing to colonize Australia and make lots of profit thereby. No warfare, just economic competition. And the random chance that you lose a unit to the dangers of the Outback. (There's an achievement for this, too: "Attack of the Drop Bears.") Also, they have a slow, moody, instrumental version of "Waltzing Matilda" in the soundtrack. Very fun. Didn't win, didn't get a good look at my opponents' scores, we'll see how close I come next time.
Path to Nirvana: East Asian cultures trying to proselytize/spread their religions to others. Again, no direct warfare, but there's a new "religious conflict" mechanic for this game that has units that can preach and fight with others. I was the Tufan people, who practice Vajrayana Buddhism and live up in the Himalayas. Apparently the Himalayas are treacherous enough that no one other than the Tufans wants to cross them, which made things relatively easy for me. So that was my first win!
Black Death: European countries trying to survive the Black Death. I was Alfonso of Castile and won by going hardcore atheist, down with the church, up with science. So...that probably says something. (Sadly, there is no "Dramatic Irony" achievement for losing a plague doctor unit to the plague.)
Vikings, Traders, and Raiders: different Norse cultures trying to pillage and plunder their neighbors. You gain the Faith resource by pillaging holy sites in other countries (???) and then can spend that on religious buildings at home, representing the conversion from the Norse pantheon to Christianity (???) I'm not sure how this works thematically, but okay. Also, once you earn a Great Admiral, you send him (or her) west in search of Vinland where they can retire to earn points. You don't start with the ability to build settlers, but you can unlock it. The question I had, playing as Denmark, is "where are they gonna go"--the map is already pretty full of city-states. (I stayed to the north so I never made it far enough inland to pillage the Andalusians or the Byzantines.) Turns out that Greenland and Iceland also exist, and Ireland is not occupied yet, so if nobody sinks you along the way you can send settlers there. (My aunt, who's into genealogy, suspects that our Irish last name may be derived from a Viking battle-cry--if so, art imitates life ;) )

Anyway. I will probably waste lots more time on both scenarios and "normal" games in the midst of all my other projects. But felt like bragging/rambling.