January 2024 Challenge Robot Revolution DISCUSSION THREAD

[blackbutterfly]

So I just wanted to share playing the challenge map on Deity with Apocalypse mode, the GDRs are super-smart and will move away from fires (unlike zombies) but you can still do them damage:

 

[dwcole78]

As someone with only the vanilla game this was fascinating. Played a few turns and quickly after city getting attacked by GDRs was like well - I can't defend my cities AT ALL .. and just sitting in the city and hitting end turn defending not fun. So will not mess with this one likely but man would love to see youtubers play this one - and good advertizement for the expansions. When money allows going to pick these up now change the game in rather dramatic ways..

 

[Ed Hesse]

the first 3 or 4 turns in this game are important for a good start after that you cant get a settler past the barbs

 

[Nares]

knowing the map and special features I wouldn't be surprised to see someone hitting 2000+.

2346, though I only conquered two of the AI, and only settled one city on Australia's landmass; 2500+ is definitely possible, but it's such a slog I can't see myself trying for it.

 

[blackbutterfly]

2346, though I only conquered two of the AI, and only settled one city on Australia's landmass; 2500+ is definitely possible, but it's such a slog I can't see myself trying for it.

I challenge you to play on Deity.
(With or without Apocalypse mode - though to me it seems like the challenge was originally designed with showcasing Apocalypse mode, given the biome, disaster intensity and of course the theme).

 

[Draco84]

Diety would likely make a high score game easier, more money to take, more cities, barbs would be taken care of by the AI.

The fun of this challenge is its you vs the barbs, which isn't really impacted by difficulty.

Congrats @Nares I don't have the interest to play again and optimize play, but would love to see how high people can get.

Wish the leaderboards were global.

 

[blackbutterfly]

Diety would likely make a high score game easier, more money to take, more cities, barbs would be taken care of by the AI.

Actually no.
Barb GDRs do get more aggressive at the higher difficulties.

You as well as the bots will have a much harder time expanding.

C'mon! How long have you been playing Civ? You must know that by now?!

BUT there is one significant way it is easier at Deity.
Bots tech faster so you reach the golden age sooner. (Though you do have to get era score quicker. Not a problem TBH).
That means with Automation Warfare dedication you get a GDR sooner.

I unlocked Moksha with Healing Hands, so was able to eliminate several barb GDRs just with my 1. (Or on the challenge map, just the two or three on your home continent).

Also Apocalypse mode is harder at Deity

In principle this challenge almost was a PvE game...except they didn't turn on Apocalypse mode (I think because the challenge system is bugged. E.g: no re-growth, etc.)

 

[Tuvok694]

What the hell? Started playing (on prince) without getting any information/spoilers from the internet, just to see how it goes. After three turns a death robot appeared, killed this one starting AT crew (which I had moved to get some scouting information) and pillaged everything that could be pillaged. Not enough production or anything to even scratch the surface of a robot. I have no idea what I am supposed to do with this start. Very frustrating. (And I have over 14K game hours in Civ6, but never started a game in such a late era.)

 

[Arcaian]

What the hell? Started playing (on prince) without getting any information/spoilers from the internet, just to see how it goes. After three turns a death robot appeared, killed this one starting AT crew (which I had moved to get some scouting information) and pillaged everything that could be pillaged. Not enough production or anything to even scratch the surface of a robot. I have no idea what I am supposed to do with this start. Very frustrating. (And I have over 14K game hours in Civ6, but never started a game in such a late era.)

I started and finished it last night, and if you're looking for clues on what to do at the start:

Spoiler :

• There's no religion in the game, so getting the free settler on turn 1 is likely the best use of your pantheon
• The GDRs seem much more interested in raiding your stuff then destroying cities, so try and attack them with the city defences. To make that easier, you can get an encampment with basically 0 production in any city, which will make it 2 attacks (they do 3-4 damage or so, not great), purchase a machine gun to increase your city's damage (it was like 4-7 damage at that point), and you've got a huge amount of governor upgrades, so you can get the warfare guy's upgrade to shoot twice in one turn. All that together gives 4 city attacks + a machine gun attack at ~5 damage, so the GDRs go down pretty quickly - just don't build farms or anything they can pillage for HP at the start.
• Your units are not and will never be relevant against the GDRs, essentially - you can get a free GDR of your own if you get a golden age in the Information Age, and that's going to be your only unit that stands up to the barb GDRs. don't waste resources on units that can be attacked - ranged/siege troops in cities are the only ones I ever built, I think.
• If you want to explore then naturalists, rock bands, and great people should all be unable to be destroyed by the barbs - they'll just go back to the nearest city, so it's a pretty safe way to explore.

 

[Tuvok694]

I started and finished it last night, and if you're looking for clues on what to do at the start:
(...)

Thank you for your response. If I had the patience to keep trying this "challenge", I probably would have started the game dozens of times before I made any real progress. But of course this could also just mean that I'm not intelligent enough to come up with a strategy like the one you describe.

 

[Ed Hesse]

Robot Revolution Video #2

 

[Ed Hesse]

Robot Revolution video 3#

 

[Nares]

I challenge you to play on Deity.

Thank you for the invitation. I'll keep it in mind if I decide to ever tackle this challenge again. The best part about the mod is that I assume it will persist even after the challenge event ends. Anyway you could do the same for the previous two challenges?

Congrats @Nares I don't have the interest to play again and optimize play, but would love to see how high people can get.

Thank you. I credit my score in part to your advice to orient city placement around canals. The major adjacency bonus they provide to industrial zones is great. In addition, I mapped out high adjacency ice hockey rinks for each city, including several ice hockey rink/theater square wheels built around an entertainment complex. I also did what I could to squeeze as many campuses around geothermal fissures as I could manage.

As I don't know whether I'll play this again, I've included some of my opening strategy below.

Spoiler :

I opened with classical republic as my government. My build order was encampment, government plaza and commercial hub to the south of the capital, then ancestral hall. I switched to fascism when I completed the hall. I selected fertility rites as my pantheon, and bought out to the oil tile south of the capital. I assigned Magnus to the capital, promoting him with Surplus Logistics and Provision, then purchased a settler which I settled to the north, creating a pocket north and east of the capital where I could set up a farm triangle in relative safety.

My second city opened with an encampment, then built a commercial hub. I assigned Victor to my second city, promoting him with Logistics, and Embrasure for double city/encampment attacks. I purchased two naturalists and one rock band, and used them to distract the GDRs/barbarians while improving tiles as best I could. Once I switched over to fascism, my goal was to print as many settlers in my capital as possible, using my naturalists and rock band to create lanes for them to reach good city locations. Meanwhile one-charge builders explored the world for me, finding an entire tank army that had fallen from the heavens, and eventually netting me enough gold through AI contact to afford two biplanes.

Jet fighters are the best answer to GDRs, and jet bombers are the best option for breaking down city defenses. A good civic path would prioritize near future governance, global warming mitgation, and finally exodus imperative to unlock aluminum. I'm not certain of a good science path, other than to use the already-boosted guidance systems to buy you time to boost other techs, and to pick up both lasers and stealth technology around the time you complete exodus imperative. It wasn't hard to find cities to build all four of the world wonders, and at some point I switched to digital democracy for the amentities until I eventually built Estadio. Afterward I switched to synthetic technocracy for the production boost on city projects, which helped net me all the great people.

Finally, in the last ten turns or so I paved the world in districts, dropping down any aqueducts I hadn't needed, space ports I hadn't bothered to build, and neighborhoods wherever I could fit them. In cities which had grown large enough to support another specialist district, I dropped whatever was available from the list of districts which start with two buildings: campus, commercial hub, entertainment complex, harbor, holy site.

 

[HiRezAudio]

Another way to add era score is to build Theater districts and send archeologists across the map. The robots can't hurt them.

That's what I did.
Worked like a charm, too - artefacts everywhere

 

[The_J]

From

https://twitter.com/x/status/1750960042617282996

.

Who here is defending our honour ?

 

[blackbutterfly]

Who here is defending our honour ?

That's 1 in 150.

I wonder how many people completed Robot Revolution?

 

[blackbutterfly]

I'm guessing that in the default setup they maybe manually set up those burnt forest tiles (or when they saved it for the scenario something broke them and caused them to be stuck), such that those tiles don't regrow and stay burnt forever.

Yeah, in particular the burnt tile E of Ottawa. It never recovers. So you were right, it may not just be the challenge system that is bugged, it's also the map.

This weekend I'm taking on the challenge of trying for that 0.66% Conquest victory (before T100)

I started with playing the map from my mod (so I can play at Deity and with Apocalypse mode - I was trying to see if a forest fire would make that tile recover, but it doesn't).
TBH conquest at Deity is impossible as the GDRs start to attack cities, in particular AI cities. So you can't cruise over with your GDR and conquer cities so easily.

Anyway, I'm going to see if I can edit the map via SQL and "cure" it. B'cos that tile is perfect for a canal.
With a canal there you can have your fleet traverse the home continent (avoiding the barb GDRs to the south).

Conquest is an altogether different strategy (which also scores well BTW) and I shall post tips if/when I succeed.

 

[Disgustipated]

Can't imagine conquering the entire map. How is that even possible? The build times for units are crazy. The golden age GDR would help, but that's only 1. Grats on everyone for those high scores, I never did get my score that high on my 2 games. Can't be bothered to play this more than 3 times (my first was a loss since I had the wrong strategy and discovered too late in the game to pump up my score enough).

 

[blackbutterfly]

Can't imagine conquering the entire map. How is that even possible? The build times for units are crazy. The golden age GDR would help, but that's only 1. Grats on everyone for those high scores, I never did get my score that high on my 2 games. Can't be bothered to play this more than 3 times (my first was a loss since I had the wrong strategy and discovered too late in the game to pump up my score enough).

There's no beating war and conquest in Civilization.

• Secure Uranium. (So settle strategically, rather than wide).
• Slot in Total War and pillage your way to Robotics for GDRs. (Also take the free GDR from Automation Warfare).
• Supply Convoys will give GDR extra movement.
• First GDR: Washington -> London.
• Buy a second GDR: Canberra -> Bogota -> Gyeongju.
• Moksha (gov) with Healing Hands promotion was useful to heal up armies quickly.
• Build a navy for home continent and an army of artillery and Mounties for Australia.
• (Don't forget) Canada: cannot surprise attack, so plan ahead and denounce leaders so by the time your units move they can attack.

I think getting the Deity Alexander scenario achievement might have helped considerably
B'cos it's all about strategic military planning.

EDIT: So you do need to eliminate all civs rather than Domination.

I ought to have won here (for Domination) but shoulda known better (as a modder) that that victory wouldn't trigger.
I was 3 cities away from wiping the map. So close. But I'm done.
This is for anyone else wanting to attempt the 0.66%.

 

[crocivfanatic]

Easiest challenge ever, 540 score on emperor . All you had to do is put victor in capitol, promote him to make 2 shoots, and encampment on bottom, and once first 2 gdr gone you can do whatever you want.