[NFP] Apocalypse Mode

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

No, various disasters happen constantly and on their own. Have you really checked that box in the settings?

Well, I can buy Soothsayers so I must have!

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I agree. Those Soothsayer blokes are awesome - a few controlled jungle fires and I put a new city amidst 6f5p newly regrown and virgin jungle tiles. Next game I will be the most accomplished and dedicated arsonist from the get go

I'm curious, did self-made disasters give you fertilizer bonuses? I flooded my river three times and got nothing.

Do you need to use the Soothsayers for anything to happen? I assumed there would be passive changes but turn 100/250 and nothing has happened, colour me confused.

The only new disasters to occur normally are Forest Fires and Meteor Strikes. The exclusive two ones only happen when the Climate Change reaches max level.

 

[MrRadar]

Well, I can buy Soothsayers so I must have!

Hm, maybe online speed is to blame. That’s a second post I see mentioning online speed and nothing happening. Have you got climate change phase I at the start? Turn 2 or so?

I'm curious, did self-made disasters give you fertilizer bonuses? I flooded my river three times and got nothing.

I didn’t try to flood yet, but self-made forest fires definitely add yields. First I tried at other AI’s borders, but when I saw what were the results, it is really better to burn some forests where you intend to settle.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I'm curious, did self-made disasters give you fertilizer bonuses? I flooded my river three times and got nothing.



The only new disasters to occur normally are Forest Fires and Meteor Strikes. The exclusive two ones only happen when the Climate Change reaches max level.

I see. And is climate change supposed to be more rapid?

Hm, maybe online speed is to blame. That’s a second post I see mentioning online speed and nothing happening. Have you got climate change phase I at the start? Turn 2 or so?


I didn’t try to flood yet, but self-made forest fires definitely add yields. First I tried at other AI’s borders, but when I saw what were the results, it is really better to burn some forests where you intend to settle.

Yes Climate Change Phase I happened very early but no movement since.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

But none of that detracts from his point whatsoever. The devs themselves said the purpose of the modes is to have fun with being able to go beyond strict history.

And you know what? I love it. Keep this stuff coming because I'm having a blast with Apocalypse mode.

I don't have a problem with it either way as you can choose to play it or not.
I just meant that they seem to be hiding the Red Death Mode whereas the Apocalypse Mode is in your face and it subliminally makes me click it.
Honestly I don't even know what Red Death is lol... I don't really have a desire to play it but after I have talked about it now, twice, I have more of a desire to try it.

I agree. Those Soothsayer blokes are awesome - a few controlled jungle fires and I put a new city amidst 6f5p newly regrown and virgin jungle tiles. Next game I will be the most accomplished and dedicated arsonist from the get go

Perhaps they aren't as irrelevant as I once stated in a thread I created.
I'll have to check with Lone Star and Barf to make sure!

 

[acluewithout]

I think Apocalypse Mode will seem better when there are more game modes along side it. At the moment, part of the reason it seems a bit nuts is just that it’s the only game mode, the only thing like it in he game.

Soothsayer is fine. Bit fantastic, but it’s just one thing. If you sort of squint, it’s not even supernatural. It’s just sort of a very gothic shaman that, er, happens to always be in the right place at the right time. It’s like Neil Stephenson sort of Sci Fi. Anyway, I’m giving it a pass.

I do thing the Apocalypse Mode could use a small additional pass. I don’t know if FXS might tweak it a bit, but I’d like to see a bit (just a bit) more mechanics.

And yeah, I’d like to see Kaiju too. GDR and Kaiju fights would be awesome.

 

[Equilin]

Anyone tried sacrificing levied CS units for the competition?

 

[Kibikus]

Just finished my first (dare I say only) Apocalypse game as the Maya. For most of the game it doesn't feel very different than a standard game. The disaster intensity is locked at 4, you get a lot of disasters, but that's about it. It's when you reach Phase VII that you starting seeing the big ones.

Comets wiped out my capital and a couple of other cities. Every tile belonging to the city was destroyed, even tile improvements that were nowhere near the impact location, and within 3 tiles of another city. Not sure how I feel about that. Luckily by that point I'd already managed to launch the exoplanet expedition, so it wasn't too crippling.

A couple of solar flares also hit me. They destroyed/pillaged almost all of my industrial zone buildings, research labs, spaceports, solar panels, wind turbines, which I then had to repair/rebuild, so I could push for the necessary techs. And once more when the solar flare hit again, and then another time. I was just rebuilding things, so I can wrap up an already won game, that got unnecessarily stretched out. Wasn't very fun. (Also it made it impossible to reach late game great engineers like Wernher von Braun, since everyone's GPP generation was annihilated.)

As other's have said, this game mode is great for a Diplomatic victory, Aid Requests are flying around constantly. At one point, I had 4 suggested at the same time, I tried to use all of my diplo favor to downvote them, because that's 8 DVP right there, and Alex (of all people) was getting close. Luckily I managed to win the game before those aid requests ended.

I don't see a point in Soothsayers and Appease the Gods, unless, once again, you are going for a Diplomatic victory and want to trigger Aid Requests. If you sacrifice units (i.e. production or gold) to win the competition, all you get is... more soothsayers with more charges. For Domination, you're better off using the units to conquer the enemy. For Religion, you've other things to spend your faith on. And for Science and Culture, Soothsayers do nothing for you.

Overall, this looks like "never again" to me. I just doesn't fit with how I like to play the game.

 

[Deggial]

What I really would like is, if the disaster intensity could be chosen between 3 (if not 2) and 4 in the 'Apocalypse Mode'.

• 4 would be the current "total apocalypse", including the enhanced pre-apocalypse disasters and "The world is ending!" fun.
• 3 would still deliver all the mode's disasters, but at a slightly lower and less frustrating rate. Asteroid impacts not every turn, but every 1-3 (or even 2-4) turns. Solar flares in halved frequency. Natural disasters would happen in the usual level 3 frequency.
• 2 would basically play more or less like a normal game, just with the soothsayers and the potential occurrence of meteoroid impacts (maybe about 5 in total) and solar flares during he endgame. The global heat level wouldn't be increased at the beginning of a game.

Personally, I could see me using this mode way more often - probably even as standard mode - if the outcome would be a little bit more sane. Currently not so much. (Which is a shame, because I will effectively lose 1/6th of the season pass's modes.)

 

[Sostratus]

What I really would like is, if the disaster intensity could be chosen between 3 (if not 2) and 4 in the 'Apocalypse Mode'.

• 4 would be the current "total apocalypse", including the enhanced pre-apocalypse disasters and "The world is ending!" fun.
• 3 would still deliver all the mode's disasters, but at a slightly lower and less frustrating rate. Asteroid impacts not every turn, but every 1-3 (or even 2-4) turns. Solar flares in halved frequency. Natural disasters would happen in the usual level 3 frequency.
• 2 would basically play more or less like a normal game, just with the soothsayers and the potential occurrence of meteoroid impacts (maybe about 5 in total) and solar flares during he endgame. The global heat level wouldn't be increased at the beginning of a game.

Personally, I could see me using this mode way more often - probably even as standard mode - if the outcome would be a little bit more sane. Currently not so much. (Which is a shame, because I will effectively lose 1/6th of the season pass's modes.)

If we had a button on the city screen to just “repair all damaged districts/buildings” I would be fine with an option to just disable rocky rain drops from space at phase 7.
I actually enjoy the wacky disasters!

 

[Equilin]

I edited the game files so the apocalypse happen from turn 3.
I regret my decision.

An update on that game: it's Marathon speed, the world in in the classical era with me in the medieval techs thanks to the Bermuda Triangle and YnaMP.
Spain and France got destroyed (by America, but both former capitals got comet'd anyways), and several other AI civs got their capital annihilated, as well as countless numbers of city-states and natural wonders.
It's turn 200, i finally get my position stabilized, and then a comet hit my capital.
Game aborted.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I'm not sure what the Appease the Gods competition is about, I assumed it would be linked to disasters in some way (e.g. if you don't meet a certain threshold of points then a disaster strikes, or something), seems a bit odd that it just gives diplo points and a Soothsayer. All in all I am perplexed by this mode but I'm still hoping to see much more apocalypse towards the end of the game.

 

[Sostratus]

I'm still hoping to see much more apocalypse towards the end of the game.

Shovel more coal, boy! You'll get your apocalypse.

The actual psychological effect of permanently losing tiles in a civ game is pretty crazy. I mean you probably think of a nuke, but this is so much worse.

 

[racha]

Solar flares only come at level 7, thank God.

My first game I had a solar flare within the first 5 turns (starting in the ancient era) and subsequently got one early in another game. Didn't see any at all in the games since then.

 

[MrRadar]

I'm not sure what the Appease the Gods competition is about, I assumed it would be linked to disasters in some way (e.g. if you don't meet a certain threshold of points then a disaster strikes, or something), seems a bit odd that it just gives diplo points and a Soothsayer. All in all I am perplexed by this mode but I'm still hoping to see much more apocalypse towards the end of the game.

Appease the Gods is about promotion of Soothsayers. If you get silver reward, all your Soothsayers get a random promotion including future ones. And promotions are interesting, like getting more charges for causing disasters, or granting +5 CS for adjacent units.
Someone on reddit posted a Great Bath city where Soothsayers were used to get 200 faith tiles. Firaxis may have removed the pantheon exploit, but added some 'legal' ways to get high (yields) in return.

 

[Kibikus]

I really think they missed an opportunity with Apocalypse to introduce some interesting gameplay mechanisms late game.

I just had this idea in the shower. What if you got a warning that a comet is headed towards one of your cities, x number of turns in advance. Then, you can use your spaceports to launch an Armageddon-style mission to destroy the comet. It would be something that requires a lot of investment of production or gold, and you can even choose to involve your other cities. It would be similar to world competitions, where you have a choice - do I pause everything my cities are doing in order to save this one city, or do I let it burn and choose to focus on something else. If the mission succeeds, the comet is destroyed, your city is saved, maybe a meteor shower is triggered from the debris, they can use the newly introduced meteor strikes.

As it is right now, when you reach late game, at some point randomly one of your cities gets deleted, then another, then another, etc.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I think my mistake was choosing Maya for my first Apocalypse game, I should have been experimenting with Soothsayers to get the most out of the mode but with Maya it didn't seem like a sensible idea for several reasons, although this may purely be strategic naievity on my part: 1) I was trying to stick to a small collection of tightly grouped cities since this is clearly what the devs intended (and I wanted to try it out) but this restricts the number of available district tiles and forces you to be more selective, so no holy sites and therefore no faith to buy Soothsayers; 2) they have an early housing problem which puts more emphasis on getting the builders out, so disasters that pillage tiles are more problematic than for most civs; 3) combat bonuses are defensive rather than offensive, so whilst I had enough strong units to keep any attackers at bay, I wasn't especially keen to sacrifice the few units I did have for the sake of some Soothsayer promotions.

 

[newbie2]

So how many promotions can a soothsayer get? 5?

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I'm not sure what the Appease the Gods competition is about, I assumed it would be linked to disasters in some way (e.g. if you don't meet a certain threshold of points then a disaster strikes, or something), seems a bit odd that it just gives diplo points and a Soothsayer. All in all I am perplexed by this mode but I'm still hoping to see much more apocalypse towards the end of the game.

It does not give you diplo points.

Appease the Gods is how you "train" your Soothsayers.

If you get first place, you get a free Soothsayer (their price does scale like Builders, Missionaries, etc)

If you get within the top group, you get a promotion on a Soothsayer (randomly selected from a choice of 5, which give:
- +5 Combat Strength to adjacent units
- Automatically sieges cities when adjacent to a city.
- Stealth
- Bonus Movement
- Bonus Charges

Additionally, each promotion also grants +1 Charge.

Additionally, if you score high enough you also get up to +4 Faith per turn.

Soothsayer are POWERFUL.

 

[James_Champagne]

Yeah, I saw my first solar flare in the medieval era.