January 2024 Challenge Robot Revolution DISCUSSION THREAD

[blackbutterfly]

This game seems to be buggy. I'm on turn 82, winning comfortably, and have an archaeologist. He has dug up two artefacts and I haveroom for four more in archaeological museums. I move onto an antiquity site (in unoccupied territory) and dig up the artefact. It tells me, as usual, to select the artefact. But then it won't give me the selection screen, and the game is utterly stuck and can't move on. Save file herewith. Any explanations welcome.

Mods enabled?

 

[blackbutterfly]

Probably harder than you'd think.

Not really.

Super easy, if you've been playing Zombies and Apocalypse mode.

I won on a 670+ score comfortably (on Emperor).

Spoiler strategy :

Strategy​

• Go Democracy. Choose the card that gives +food for trading with allies.
• Like in Zombies mode settle islands (until next era). Choose Religious Settlements. There are two islands east and west.
• Send workers with (1 charge remaining) east and west to meet Australia and USA. Send delegations and open borders and soon you will have allies. Trade (a la Portugal).
• Key is getting a Golden Age.
  B'cos when you do, choose the dedication that gives you a GDR.
  Use the GDR to clear out and settle tundra south of Ottowa.
• Rewild - like zombies, GDRs can't see you if you're hidden in forest. So build workers to plant forest ASAP. (As a secondary measure, your Mounties can build national parks, which each give +3 era score!).
  (Anyone who plays Zombies + Apocalypse as Vietnam know this is the perfect strategy - also good for the climate).
• Build Destroyers. They have 3 sight (like GDRs). Use these to protect your traders, to explore and expand.

In my playthrough I eventually used my GDR to take out Korea's cap, but was a turn or two away from eliminating them for the era score.

 

[pokiehl]

Not really.

Super easy, if you've been playing Zombies and Apocalypse mode.

He wasn’t commenting on the difficulty of this challenge.

I think he was saying it’s probably not the easiest thing to make these challenges work for all difficulty levels, since they’re essentially bespoke save files set up for players to jump into.

 

[Bat14]

Won pretty easily with over 900 points on emperor difficulty. Strategy was to pump out as many cities as possible, making sure to stay along the water ways and only when safe. First governor was Magnus with settlers not using a population, settler % card, build ancestral hall ASAP, and plugging in the +1 movement policy card. Every cities' first district was an encampment for defense, then harbor for gold/trade. Had all cities only building settlers and kept slowly expanding (lost a few settlers to the GDRs )

 

[Kwami]

Not really.

Super easy, if you've been playing Zombies and Apocalypse mode.

I won on a 600+ score comfortably (on Emperor).

Spoiler strategy :

Strategy​

• Go Democracy. Choose the card that gives +food for trading with allies.
• Like in Zombies mode settle islands (until next era). Choose Religious Settlements. There are two islands east and west.
• Send workers with (1 charge remaining) east and west to meet Australia and USA. Send delegations and open borders and soon you will have allies. Trade (a la Portugal).
• Goal: you must get a Golden Age.
  B'cos when you do, choose the dedication that gives you a GDR.
  Use the GDR to clear out and settle tundra south of Ottowa.
• Rewild - like zombies, GDRs can't see you if you're hidden in forest. So build workers to plant forest ASAP. (As a secondary measure, your Mounties can build national parks, which each give +3 era score!).
  (Anyone who plays Zombies + Apocalypse as Vietnam know this is the perfect strategy - also good for the climate).
• Build destroyers. They have 3 sight (like GDRs). Use these to protect your traders and to explore.

In my playthrough I eventually used my GDR to take out Korea's cap, but was a turn or two away from eliminating them for the era score.

My post wasn't about the difficulty of the scenario itself. Please read the context that I quoted.

 

[blackbutterfly]

My post wasn't about the difficulty of the scenario itself. Please read the context that I quoted.

Soz, that's what happens when you skim the forums

Anyways, having had a playthrough, I think it was a mistake to move my GDR to take a foreign cap. Shoulda just used it to clear out barbs and settle more of the home continent.
I might have another go to see if I can beat my earlier 670+ score. (I forgot to actually look at the score before it ended).

I did crack 2 Steam achievements though!

EDIT: I went peaceful second time.

 

[HiRezAudio]

It's far too easy is my problem with it, plus digging up artefacts caused problems with being unable to select the artefact dug up.

 

[Bosque]

I finished Emperor with a score of 1019. I had 15 cities, 10 National Parks and 3 Wonders. As others said, it is important to prioritize Encampments, Harbors, Settlers and Builders.

 

[blackbutterfly]

For the love of god let us choose the difficulty of our liking...
Still haven't played a single challenge because of the constant low difficulty.

You can play this map on Deity if you wish.

1. Go to ~\AppData\Local\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization VI\Challenges
2. Copy CustomMap.Civ6Map into your WorldBuilder folder, under Saves. (You can rename it "RobotChallenge.Civ6Map if you wish).
3. Start a new game selecting the map. Set CS=0, start age=Information, disasters=4, etc.

@Kwami @pokiehl
Actually it would have been pretty trivial to have multiple difficulties.
It's just that there are actually two maps with slightly different resources(?) and I suppose the maps would have to have been tailored/customised a little for the higher difficulties.

I'm looking at turning Robot Revolution into a scenario/map/mod but...as people have pointed out, the map itself is bugged (re: archaeology excavations).
Also Tilted Axis (on which it is based) is actually broken with a rhombus north pole/ice shelf.

 

[Biologist]

So far I've only tried it on Prince to get a feel for it, but yeah, definitely seems like spamming cities with military districts is the way to go. I did make a bunch of machine gunners and tanks to protect my first couple of cities/districts, which kept the robots from overrunning the spots I wanted to send my settlers to. It's easy to run out of money very quickly though, so on Emperor I imagine I'll have to be more efficient. Installing a military governor in your capital can also help. Overall I think it's a fun scenario but once you work out what you're supposed to do it gets far easier.

 

[Bosque]

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

 

[blackbutterfly]

I finished Emperor with a score of 1019. I had 15 cities, 10 National Parks and 3 Wonders. As others said, it is important to prioritize Encampments, Harbors, Settlers and Builders.

Deity + Apocalypse mode

Actually, it's a missed opportunity: Firaxis shoulda showed off Apocalypse mode in this challenge.
I mean disaster intensity was set to 4 (max!) so it was basically Apocalypse mode but without Soothsayers...I mean there's a ton of faith in the challenge which is pretty useless.

I will upload this mod soon.
Certainly by the time the challenge ends.

It's definitely more fun just as a map.

Archaeology is still busted after the second(?) excavation.

 

[Draco84]

1st attempt I finished Emperor at 1296 pts. knowing the map and special features I wouldn't be surprised to see someone hitting 2000+.

My main holdups were the AI getting decimated, which resulted in a slow first age, and taking too long to get Aluminium

update, Ran the scenario again, even with knowledge of the map and what to expect I actually did worse. 1206. This time I rushed Aluminium and managed to get it much later than previously... :S

Oh well something different, worth playing, but I don't think I'll do a third.

 

[blackbutterfly]

My main holdups were the AI getting decimated, which resulted in a slow first age, and taking too long to get Aluminium

 

[Draco84]

There is another way to get aluminium besides on the map

 

[rpmazur]

What do you think would be the best way to win? Since there is no religion, which pantheon, Northern Tundra or the inspired great person points one?

I took the Northern Tundra and just started digging in. First thing I did was create an artillery and parked it in the city. The Modern AT gets one-shotted every time. Created a few builders to start terra forming and putting farms up to up the citizens/production. Then created another settler to wash rinse repeat, but not spreading the cities too far out. Using the builders to repair the roads between the cities. Will let you know how this works....lol

 

[UWHabs]

There is another way to get aluminium besides on the map

Yeah, it was one of those things where if you know the map, you can change how you decide to play. Knowing there's none, you play the game differently.

I found that once you get past the initial pesky GDRs roaming, it was pretty calm the rest of the way. Maybe I just got lucky in their spawns, but once I got my core like 3 cities down with encampments around, I only ran into trouble with them if I ventured off into the wilderness. A couple times I like had a builder or settler stolen, and then tried to send like a couple tank armies to get them back, but they both got killed easily. Just turtling up, expanding out slowly, they never really bothered me. One of my "smart" plays was parking an early battleship in my 2nd city, which was nice to get a ranged attack. At least, it was smart once I build my first battleship and left it out, and it was one-shot by the nearby GDR.

For me, I ended up going Religious Settlements as my pantheon to get the quick free settler, and I think that helped have a second city to get some more bombardments in. Having 2 cities, with Victor in, meant that I could actually kill a GDR once it got inside my territory. If I were to do it again, I would build less farms early on, to be able to handle them better. Given the disaster level, I do wonder whether trying to get a raging forest fire to get you your tile yields would have been better, but I was a little worried seeing those initial burnt woods not regrow that I wondered if they cheated and prevented all regrowth, and thus if your land burns it would become unworkable entirely. I'm curious whether Dance of the Aurora and trying to get a massive faith economy going to buy units with would have worked or not.

 

[Chuma]

Oh what horsetackey! This is IMPOSSIBLE! First turn and I get stomped by giant death robots IMMEDIATELY!

 

[blackbutterfly]

I do wonder whether trying to get a raging forest fire to get you your tile yields would have been better, but I was a little worried seeing those initial burnt woods not regrow that I wondered if they cheated and prevented all regrowth, and thus if your land burns it would become unworkable entirely.

Regrowth is Apocalypse mode only.

They didn't cheat: just turned off Apocalypse

I wanna play test my mod at least once more before uploading it and then you can play it with Apocalypse enabled.

But the GDRs are smart.
Unlike zombies they will move if they see fire

 

[blackbutterfly]

There is another way to get aluminium besides on the map

Does it matter though?
A GDR has anti-air defence, so getting your own GDR from the Automation Warfare(?) golden age dedication and securing uranium is strategically better.

TBH the challenge is way too easy...even on Deity.

For anyone who'd like to play the challenge on higher difficulties or with Apocalypse mode, etc. add me on Steam and sub:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3139241471

FYI for now it's the exact same map - bugs, warts and all - but I will turn it into a scenario with a (bug fixed) Tilted Axis map script.