[NFP] Community Monthly Challenge

[PiR]

Unless four or more persons submit an entry, next month will probably be the last challenge.

You got me there, Chrisjen!

I always followed this topic without participating, I enjoyed reading but never felt ready to try a challenge. Being used to marathon and reloading to do things perfectly, I had to let go of that to try.

Spoiler :

Civ - Lady Six Sky
I was thinking Indians with as many religions as possible, but it seems tedious (max would be +7 amenities?). Then I thought Lady Six Sky with a second city close to the capital but enhanced by Maui with luxury resources all around it (+6?). Suleiman could also be a good pick for a city with many many lux around. A very good Ice hockey rink would mean low tiles for food... unless I make a lot of blizzards with soothsayers, that would be awesome, but again a good concept but a bit tedious for me to implement without spending too much time. Other leaders/civs seem to give max +2/+3 bonus for amenities. I did not consider housing because I thought amenities would be harder to increase. Maybe I'm wrong. We'll see.

Difficulty Deity - I don't see any impact on the objectives, except if AI quickly kills me lol
Disaster intensity: 4
Map - continents to be safer on my own at start, duel to have a fast game
Resources - abundant

Ideally I would need Maui to spawn lux and Anansi to eat when Maui generates a bonus - or I could do without her, and cheat my way out with the RNG saving/loading idk
CS picker: Akkad and Jerusalem for the AI, Buenos Aires, Cahokia, Muscat, Zanzibar (for the amenities)
That would be 3 each as I only need to suzerain Cahokia just to build 2 improvements and then AI can have it
Natural wonders: Iceland volcano, Pamukkale -- we'll see who gets them
World age old
Start legendary
Heroes & Legends
No barbarians

This was my start. I was actually positively surprised. I started a few turns, expecting to reroll soon. I didn't play perfectly but almost never reloaded (that's a habit I have that completely explodes my average number of hours for a play), I even forgot I took continents to be alone and I could have explored in a more efficient way. I got a religion quickly, thinking the AI couldn't but it turns out they can if you are 2.

So it's turn 1 and I have 5 points already, nice.

I wasn't very lucky getting Maui, I found so many heroes before him.

BUT I was extremely lucky with what he generated:

Tikal was doing good.

But then I stupidly lost on turn 123 when she sent her missionnaries. A couple apostles could have prevented this. Too bad!!!!

Ok so let's reload the turn of this screenshot. It's 7 pop + 14 amenities.

Let's try to max it out before loosing (yeah I could go apostles but 123 is not so far from 150 anyway).

And that would be... 25.
With wasted potential (harvest jungle, move Mangus there sooner, EC sooner instead of campus, maybe even Colosseum with chopping, etc.).

Well it was fun to try!

 

[PiR]

I gave it another try, same parameters and same seed so same map but on Prince.

Spoiler :

Again, rushing project to get Maui

And again very luckily he gives me 4 new lux!!! wow

Once the god Artemis is pleased, the amenities start to rise

Of course, AI chose Zanzibar as a favorite... took me a while to figure out how to suzerain it on time

Meanwhile, an unintended CV approached but no, it was OK
(and I have no Corporations mode, just wonderlust)

This pearl ocean is really nice and will provide the capital with jewels to make people happy!
Those pearls are so beautiful that the Congress recognizes multiple amenities for this

Annnnd 21 pop + 38 amenities on turn 148

was fun, thanks!






EDIT : I ended up taking my revenge on Korea after the Deity defeat.

 

[canadamufc]

Decided to do this one as I thought it would be good fun . I don't expect to do well but I'll do my best.

Spoiler :

Civilization/Leader- Jayavarman because I thought I could just accelerate my growth rate to insane amounts while holding amenities with TOA. I would also take advantage of my religion to grow even more.
Prince Difficulty
Continents
Standard Size/8 players
Disaster intensity 2
abundant resources
CS: Anything that gives growth and amenities such as Buenos Aires or Mitla
New rainfall (I think that's what's the setting called? idk)
Standard world age

Everything else normal.

Turn 52- Got an awesome TOA, I also picked up Hercules to get holy sites up and am in the process of doing heroic tales for Maui (hopefully!!). Also I want Hanging Gardens for more growth, and for my pantheon I chose fertility rites (as you can see there is a bit of a theme here).

Unlocked my T1 government and went for Autocracy (to get Hanging Gardens). I plan to soon switch to Classical Republic though. For my government building I went for the Audience Chamber to give extra amenities and housing for my Capital.

Turn 64- After using Amani to take Zanzibar I found Maui! Once the Hanging Gardens are finished I'll get to work on recruiting him.

RIP No Feed the World

Anyways...am taking Zen Meditation for more Amenities and Gurdwara's for growth and housing. Also you can see the Hanging Gardens 5 turns away, fingers crossed! I got an envoy from somewhere (don't really know to be honest) and now have Mitla on my side for +10% growth.

Turn 77- Forgot to do Halfway at T75 but just reporting that my cap is at 11 Population with +12 amenities.

Forgot what turn this happened but I eventually found Maui and I am in the process of recruitment.

Got Maui. I plan to use him to create luxuries in the desert for more amenities, and then I will settle in said desert.

First Maui Charge: Generated Incense which I did not have access to.
Second: Generated Ivory which my suzerain, Mitla, had already improved.
Third: Generated Salt which I had settled on. Maybe doing the desert wasn't the best choice.
Fourth: Went on plains and rolled... wheat? I'm not gonna lie, I didn't know Maui could generate bonus resources. Oh well.

Turn 107- Currently 3/4 of the way to recruit Maui again. My capital, Angkor Thom is at 17 population with +15 amenities.

Turn 119- Decided to settle a 4th city as it had cotton, a luxury I did not have. However I told it to stop growth completely so it wouldn't soak amenities (I think that's how it works?)

Turn 121- Recalled Maui, and going back to spawn more luxuries for hopefully more amenities.

First Maui Charge (Pt 2): Gypsum which I did not have!
Second: Also Gypsum.
Third: Ivory which I had gotten before.
Fourth: Gypsum... again.

Sending a settler up north so I can gain some more Bonus Resources that count as luxuries thanks to Buenos Aires

Turn 150- Had to put some city parks so in exchange I chopped some rainforest. I was pretty disappointed though, because for some reason my amenities dropped from +18 to around +15. Oh well.

Done! Final Score is 39 I believe. As suspected, I didn't do too well but I had lots of fun! Just want to say thank you to @Francel for the fantastic challenge.

 

[Francel]

Yay! New blood! Fresh meat for the grinder! I can't wait to see what else we get. We already have more submissions than last month - that's amazing!

Exciting announcement with more details to be released at a later date. Some outstanding thread participants will be taking charge for the months of May and June. Hopefully rotating the challenge sponsors will become a permanent feature.

I figure for those months I won't have any advantage and can play too.

_______________________________________

In order to build on the community/symposium aspect of the thread, I had a thought and would like to solicit your feedback. Basically, it's to create a post for collecting and summarizing all the tips/ideas/suggestions people have submitted for the month so far. There would be a spoiler tag for anyone who didn't want to look ahead of time.

There doesn't seem to be a need to keep anything a secret, since some people are submitting well before the deadline and including lots of helpful details.

Let me know. Ya'll da best!

 

[frokost]

Decided to give this one a go. Although I normally play on diety I must admit I haven't paid particular attention to amenities in a while and so I started a game on prince to get a feel for the challenge.

Didn't go exactly as planned, but OK for a first try I guess. No mods installed except for the "show great works mod" because i didn't bother disabling it. It's just a UI improvement for the great works screen.

I also forgot to save at turn 1, because I normally never reload saves and since this is my first upload here i completely forgot. Added the first save i did, which was turn 24, because thats when I realized that I would have to upload save files for the challenge.

Spoiler :

Civ - Robert the Bruce
Might not have been the best choice tbh. While the golf court didn't seem huge in of itself, getting a constant 10% science and hammer boost seemed pretty good for getting important techs and buildings down.
Prince difficulty
Standard disaster intensity, Heroes and Legends + Secret societies active.
Wetlands map, standard size, abundant resources and legendary start

I set opponents from my nice guys-pool, meaning no warmongers, and made a pool of City states I thought would be helpful (amenities, growth).

Chose 5 wonders as that is the amount that spawns in standard map (I think?). Also decided on no barbarians, although that might have been a mistake looking back.

Started out pretty good, with Torres del Paine right next to me and good resources for artemis. Got Maui as my first hero and he planted 4(!) unique luxuries. Lucky me! However, I was alone on my continent with one cs, and so lost out on some eurekas and early trade.

Decided to settle another city because of my starting location so I could explore the seas, even though it didnt give me any unique luxuries. I initally planned on sticking to one city unless I found something worthwhile, but being landlocked alone hurts too much.

Built Temple of artemis, Hanging gardens, Colosseum and Huey Teocalli (in that order), and picked up Zen Meditation and Stupa for my religion. For my pantheon I got Fertility rites, as river godess wasn't avaliable.

Managed to grab suz of Buenos Aires which gave me amenities from maize, wheat, deer and fish. Big boost. Other than that, built a third city right in the end to grab two luxuries I couldn't trade the AI for

Turn 150. A forest fire killed two pop around t140, so i missed out on a pop or two there. 17 pop, 33 amenities. Total score: 50.

 

[Banazir864]

Spoiler my ideas :

If the scoring is the sum of amenities and population, then is each population is worth more then each amenity, since each two population only removes one amenity? genuine question here, I have no idea.

To answer your question...

Spoiler Analysis :

...it’s the other way around:

• Every 2 Population increases your total score by 1 (+2 points from Population, -1 point from Amenities)
• Every 1 Amenity increases your total score by 1 (+1 point from Amenities, no effect on points from Population)

Thus, Amenities are twice as valuable as Population (or, more precisely, only the even-numbered Pops net you points).

Additionally, an increase in Population decreases the rate at which you gain additional Population, but an increase in Amenities does not (and can actually increase your growth rate if you’re not to Ecstatic yet).

 

[Planktonic]

Wow, that Maya result from PiR is spectacular.

I also have enjoyed following this thread and don't want to see it die, so I thought I'd take a spin at it using Kupe. I figured the Maori could at least easily get to different continents to get access to different luxuries for amenities. Deity, standard size, city states and wonders picked, opponents random, Heroes + Secret Societies + Corporations enabled.

It was only partly successful (18 pop + 9 amenities = 27 final score). I managed to place 5 cities on 3 continents and held 10 unique luxuries at the end of the game. I clearly don't yet understand how amenities get apportioned between cities. I built the Angkor Wat thinking it would help increase pop (which it did, but empire wide and resulted in decreased amenities in my cap city. I'll have to think harder next time.) And I'm now thinking that probably 4 cities is the max with this kind of approach before diluting down the effect of luxuries gained below the equivalency point....

Some other problems: despite two rounds with Maui I only got a single novel luxury out of him; never did discover Buenos Aires, which in retrospect seems to me to be incredibly important; the map setup had no camps, and no opportunity to build ToA; and to add insult to injury on turn 149 the World Council decided to nix one of my luxuries (predictably) despite spending all my accumulated Diplo favor to the contrary. I guess that's the way the cookie crumbles.

But it was fun exercise, helped by the fact that the number of turns was held to 150. Thanks for the challenge!

 

[PiR]

And I'm now thinking that probably 4 cities is the max with this kind of approach before diluting down the effect of luxuries gained below the equivalency point....

Yeah, I wouldn't go above 4 cities either, as a luxury can only give bonus to 4 cities (6 in certain conditions?). Unless the challenge changes to total pop of all cities + total excess amenities of all cities, then I'll have to rethink everything!

Check out this page https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Amenities_(Civ6) and try again on Prince, you'll be chilling after sweating!

But it was fun exercise, helped by the fact that the number of turns was held to 150.

Definitely, a reasonable number of turns and the constraint of standard speed make it realistic to do it in "not too much time".

 

[canadamufc]

Yeah, I wouldn't go above 4 cities either, as a luxury can only give bonus to 4 cities (6 in certain conditions?).

Yup, that was precisely my mistake. I went over 4 cities and my amenities had dropped from there, however it's very good to know for the future. We live and we learn .

 

[walkerjks]

Spoiler :

Abundant resources, legendary start, Temple of Artemis seem necessary for this challenge, with the last 2 being the really critical elements (I'm not sure how much abundant resources adds to camp/pasture/plantation heavy legendary starts). But I'm almost certain that's the direction to go.

Play this as Menelik for some added fun. You can get 50+ faith/turn by turn 50 from the capitol alone with certain legendary starts. If you don't want to play a religion but still want faith, Menelik with legendary starts is sometimes (so RNG map dependent) an excellent way to do it.

 

[Francel]

Amalgamated Tips and Strategy for April Challenge

(Spoiler tag for anyone who wants to try on their own first)

Also, I'm trying to give credit to the first ones to suggest something, but I will probably miss you at first and might need some time to make the right attributions, so please be patient or remind me.

Spoiler :

-You may want to limit your total number of cities to four or fewer so as to minimize the diffusion of luxury resources (PiR, Canadamufc)
-Temple of Artemis is crucial for boosting housing and amenities
-In terms of pantheon, you may want to look at river goddess or fertility rites
-In terms of religion, feed the world seems appealing
-Amenities seem more valuable than food though, so Stupas probably better than Gudwaras (thanks to Banazir864 for doing the calculation)
-You can secure luxuries in ways other than expanding, such as through trade deals, suzerainities, or the use of Maui, if you've enabled the heroes mode
-Some civilizations get intrinsic amenity benefits, such as the Mayans
-You may want to save choppable food resources (wheat, rice, marsh, etc) until the end of the challenge for maximum city size (hhhhhh)
-Rapid border expansion through tile purchasing, culture bombs, and high culture output may allow for more chopping within the turn limit (hhhhhh)
-You can set up cities with food-generating districts for optimal internal trade routes (hhhhhh)

-In terms of configuring the map, legendary start and abundant resources are recommended (walkerjks)
-Natural wonder picker may be of use, as the Pamakkule can give two extra amenities
-City state picker use advised for Zanzibar, Buenos Aires, and possibly others
-City state Mitla can increase growth 15% (hhhhhh)

(Here's a start, but I'll be sure to glean more useful facts from your posts)

 

[hhhhhh]

Amalgamated Tips and Strategy for March Challenge

You probably mean April.

Also the CS Mitla maybe a good idea if one want population to be high. Although its unique bonus kinda useless in general games it can help in this case. Zanzibar only brings 2 amenity to a single city so helpful but not that useful.

It may be a good idea to save all the chop-able food resources (rice, wheat, marsh, rainforest) and chop the X out of it at the end of the deadline. Those are unaffected by housing (I believe one cannot go beyond max housing +5 but I'm not sure in this case, will that 0% housing modifier be ignored when you chop? At least the 50% 25% low housing penalty are ignored when you chop food).

 

[Francel]

@hhhhhh Added your tips about Mitla and harvesting. Thanks for pointing out what month it is. I sometimes forget

 

[Deadly Dog]

Hey all this was fun! I actually played this out last weekend but just getting around to sorting the screenshots and saves. It's beeen a loooong time since I played Standard speed so this felt pretty hectic with that 150 turn limit. On Epic speed I'm usually just getting things going so I had no idea if what I imagined would be possible. My setup is with Poundmaker with very few adjustments other than choose all my city states for the game and enable 4 of the optional modes:

Spoiler :

Poundmaker because I'm very at home with making tall happy cities with him. Add that I often build both ToA and Colosseum with the Cree so I have a pretty good pathway to that worked out.
Heroes for Maui and Himiko
Owls for envoys and card slot
Industries for gold and yield bonuses
Dramatic Ages so I can swap GA cards around, plus GA is easy in this mode when playing tall.

Other than that, I put in Zanazibar, Buenos Aires, Cahokia, Kumasi and Nan Madol, Nazca and a few others totally overlooking Muscat!

I made some doozy mistakes and utterly failed to get ToA built....in the right city

Spoiler :

Paskwaw-Askihk Was almost size 20 at one point when a dust storm reduced population by 10 over three turns. Yes, I left disasters on 2

So for most of the game I had 2 cities competing for the top score. I know, it's bad strategy but I began assuming that ToA was just not very good in my capital and by building it where i had eventually 4 pastures and camps there it was a good internal trade route to get Mikisiw-Wacihk growing.

So here's my best on a one-shot flythrough. I did quite poorly and missed out on some easy amenities but also got very lucky with Maui (though I had to run Tales to get him and had no time to recall him for a 2nd go). Nonetheless I feel I played the culture tree quite well I think the only inspiration I missed was Def Tactics:

Spoiler :

Final Score 36. Sadly I did not successfully chop out extra population in time. But I was very pleased with the last 15 turns where I suzed Zanzibar (tyvm DiploLeague Card!), got Reyna promoted in time to buy districts (tyvm Casa de Contratacion!), used all my DF to pass a resolution making EC building cheaper, and unlocked Water Park + Zoo +Aquarium on turn 143. In hindsight I could have built a dam in time that I totally never knew they gave amenities.

So thanks for that it was fun and I bow to the truly awesome scores everyone has been posting. Those all look like places I could live

 

[PiR]

In hindsight I could have built a dam in time that I totally never knew they gave amenities.

wow +1 Amenity from Entertainment, I didn't know that, thanks

 

[Francel]

Hey ya'll. The person who makes the challenge isn't eligible to compete. Ya'll looked like you were having fun though and I wanted to give it a try. Here's what I got (deity):

Spoiler :

30 pop plus 21 amenities.

The configuration was as follows: 4 players (tiny), pangea, legendary start
Used the modes of heroes, corporations, and barbarians.
Picked the city states of Cahokia, Zanzibar, Mitla, Muscat, and a few industrial ones. Only kept suz of Zanzibar, but managed to suz Cahokia long enough to make a cahokia mound for the +1 amenity. Never met Muscat, so maybe they fell early.

Built a holy site first and chose River Goddess. Kept friendly relations the entire time, except at the start when I suprise DOWed Gilgamesh to stop him from building Stonehenge before I could get a great prophet. After that brief skirmish, we were friends. The faith generation was enough to resurrect Maui one time, and I got some extra amenities (silver, amber, chocolate and sugar). Using Maui got me an extra sugar so I could make an industry for +20% growth. Also, for religion, chose feed the world and gudwaras. Stupa would have been better.

My rationale for choosing Egypt was to hope the riverbanks would flood and generate lots of food. They flooded three times. For governor I chose Liang, primarily for water works (dam and aqueduct).

For wonders, I was able to build ToA, as well as Hanging Gardens and Alhambra.

In retrospect, I had too much housing relative to population size.

Also, regarding chops, it was quite frustrating. I can't figure out what the deal is, but it seems only half the time the food yield goes to the city, and the other half of the time nothing happens. Obviously housing wasn't the issue.

Oh well. Good luck everyone who hasn't submitted yet or chooses to try again!
_______________________

(Okay, I have been thinking about what else could have been done better, and I think if I had Buenos Aires, that could have been like 6 more amenities...)

 

[PiR]

Congrats, very nice one!

Spoiler :

I did not improve so much my pop as you did, and yes disasters can really help with that. Is 30 pop a BIG city for that turn, for you who play small and tall (according to your signature)?

In retrospect, I had too much housing relative to population size.

Housing is perfect, it's your score!

 

[hhhhhh]

@hhhhh Added your tips about Mitla and harvesting. Thanks for pointing out what month it is. I sometimes forget

You counted one less "h" BTW.

So if we are talking about chopping then I'd say culture is also very important. I don't know if one can gain all tiles within the 5th ring of city center, if that's doable then a lot more things will be chop-able. To expand fast some of the culture bomb civ may be useful (e.g. Australia and Maori), or Cree (trade route expand tiles and also gives food). Khmer and Kongo can be good choices too.

One may also want a nearby city whose districts are all food-providing when you send internal trade route.

Also, regarding chops, it was quite frustrating. I can't figure out what the deal is, but it seems only half the time the food yield goes to the city, and the other half of the time nothing happens. Obviously housing wasn't the issue.

I believe this is only an UI issue. So the next turn it will be reflected.

 

[Francel]

I'd like to announce our next three challenge "hosts." They will be responsible for designing the challenge, setting the rules, arbitrating any questions that arise, compiling the tips and strategy section, and determining the winner. They have been given wide latitude to come up with something that will pique our collective interest.

May: PiR
June: AriaLyric
July: Mr. Salt

Many thanks to these standout individuals for agreeing to help! I am confident the thread is in good hands.
_____________________________________

If you would like to devise a challenge for a later date, please feel free to DM me.

Good luck to all participants!

 

[PiR]

Thanks Francel!
I'm thinking very hard on what can be fun for everyone to enjoy participating & watching others' results!
Based on the idea I got today, I can't wait to see what you will all create