Apocalypse game mode is rather special: it is a matter of taste. It focus on three things:
- Natural Disasters & Intensity
- Soothsayer, a special unit
- Appease the God, a scored competion
1. Natural Disasters & Intensity
The Natural Disaster Intensity is set to 4. It supposed to make all Volcanoes to go active at some point in the game, and allow them to reach up to 2 tiles away when erupting. In theory, it also increases the rate and severity of Natural Disasters. In pratice, since
the game can only trigger 1 Natural Disaster per turn, its rate is already maxed out once you play on larger map. The bigger the map is, the less common the Natural Disasters per area.
For severity, it makes all kind of storms more 3 times more common and more devastating: 75% of Blizzard are crippling, 75% of Dust Storms are Haboob, 75% of Hurricane are Category 5 and 75% of Tornadoes are Outbreak. Wildfires are twice more likely. Floods are either Major of 1000 Years one (never Moderate), and same for Volcanoes: never Gentle, either Catastrophic or Megacolossal.
But as I said, since they are 1/turn Disasters, even if Flood rate is supposed to be the same, since Storms are 3 times more likely, it reduces indirectly the rate of Flood on larger map. Same thing fo Volcanoes: they are more active on the map, the global rate of Volcanic eruption is the same, and withthe limitation of 1 Natural Disaster per turn, a single active Volcanic ends up to erupt way less often, oddly.
Once you reach the final phase, random Meteor Strike are spawning, destroying 4 diamond shapes tiles at the time, deleting everything under it. If it was a city, it is destroyed. Capitals city are not immune, and can a Meteor Strike would never strike a Ocean tile.
2. Soothsayer
It a faith-buyable unit that allows to create a Natural Disaster depending on biome: Tundra (Blizzard) or Desert (Dust Storms), or on features: Floodplains (Flood) or Rainforest/Woods (Wildfires). It can also create a Volcanic Eruption if it is next to a Volcano.
Sadly, you can't use those unit offensively since you can only active those Disaster inside of your territory, or on neutral territory.
Each time you use their ability, it procude 50 CO
2, speeding up Climate Change.
3. Appease the Gods
A random competition that appeared from time to time. It consists to sacrifice your units to your nearby active Volcano. Your score being equal to the Combat Strength of the sum of all your sacrificed units, but it procudes 30 CO
2 each, also speeding up Climate Change.
Being at least on Silver tier allows you to gain a promotion to your Soothsayer, allowing them to gain more charges and gain more abilities (act as General, became Invisible, move faster, besiege city...).
Conclusion
My subjective conclusion is... meh. The appeal of this mode depends a lot on how much you like the Natural Disasters in the first place. Taking part the Soothsayer game further speed up the Climate Change, to the point of facing Meteor Strike in the Medieval Era.
Soothsayer seems to be glorified Great General, allowing to increase the Combat Strength or besieged City with ease. Which is... meh once again.
This is a subjective: I am more a pacific builder type, and a warmongering / destroying mode was going to not please me the most
Some exploit are doable: the Great Bath allows you to mitigate flood and give 1 Faith per Flood on those tiles. Since Soothsayer are buyable with Faith, you can Flood your own tiles on purpose in hope to increase your Faith gain in the process. That extra-Faith synergise way to well with Heroes & Legends game mode. I believe the CO
2 generation with Soothsayer was created as a way to "balance" the Great Bath trick.
You can also do the same with Woods, since burnt woods througth Soothsayer have their +1 Production / Food, contrary to other Disasters generated trougth Soothsayer that do not increase yields.
To answer your questions:
- It is more difficult since Natural Disasters are more lethal
- It is a RNG-fest.
- If you do not play with Soothsayer, you would face any real change with Standard game, except mre frustating RNG-damage.
- Sadly, new strategies are more close to exploit (Great Bath, perpetual Woods burn cycle...)
- The AI seems to not really know to use them the Soothsayer effectively. But the Soothsayer are not effective so it is thematic, excluding the exploit or the Warmongering abilities. They manage to throw some units in Volcanoes.
