New monthly challenge: Rotating Reduxes + Civilization VI is now Steam native! (2K Launcher No Longer Required)

[FXS_Sar]

Hey all! This month's challenge is now available across PC, Steam Mac, and consoles. If you're new to the challenge party, it's a great time to jump in, because we're introducing Rotating Reduxes: four fan favorites revamped with altered parameters and a new option to play in Deity mode. The challenges include:

Aug 14 (starting today!) - Seven Seas Redux

Aug 21 - Robot Revolution Redux

Aug 28 - Three Stars Each Redux

Sep 4 - Reach for the Heavens Redux (originally designed by Potato McWhiskey!)

Check out the full details here: https://civilization.2k.com/news/monthly-challenges/

One more update: the 2k Launcher is no longer required to play Civ 6 on Steam!
That's right, Civ 6 is now officially Steam native. Additionally, the 2K Launcher will also not be implemented in Civ 7.

If you have any questions, please feel free to DM me or leave a comment And let us know what you think of the challenges - we hope you guys have as much fun playing these as our team has designing them!

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Great news about the launcher!

 

[Haig]

Sounds good, going to start Seven Seas tomorrow morning with some coffee.

 

[Blue whale]

Great! Now i cam experience the challenges!

 

[The_J]

I think we can now safely say that the 2K launcher is not the beloved franchise which will see a new title in the coming year. The community will be deeply disappointed.

 

[crocivfanatic]

I dont remember water poisoning and permanent dark age being part of regular game.

 

[Equilin]

OK the Babylon one sounds more interesting i guess, -99% yields mean further quest hunting than normal.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Goooood. get rid of fauty launcher unit.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Those Redux versions of Scenarios sound fun! I think the scenarios would've gotten much more attention had they had these little quirks.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Very much appreciate the deity challenge!
Though I see what you did here, trying to ease players into your first deity challenge.
The start is ridiculously OP, on a map type where Norway is ridiculously OP in the early game as well.
Will nevertheless play this since I've been missing a deity challenge!
Cheers for the effort to make one!
And do feel free to ramp up the difficulty later on as well!

 

[Civinator]

RIP launcher - and never come back!

 

[Benevolent Dictator]

The start is ridiculously OP, on a map type where Norway is ridiculously OP in the early game as well.

Funny how different players perceive things differently.

Fired up the Deity challenge. Never played the OG.

Saved Turn 1. Probably restarted a dozen times because I hated the Start Location so much.

Really struggled with Food when planting my capital in different spots Kupe style. With the capital starting at 4 pop in the Classic era & not many unimproved 2 Food tiles available in the desert or tundra coast, I was immediately being plunged into starvation if I didn't have a builder immediately to improve a tile.

Got frustrated after so many restarts & gave up for now.

 

[Disgustipated]

Thanks a bunch for getting rid of the launcher. It's just an unnecessary step. We appreciate the response on this.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Funny how different players perceive things differently.

Fired up the Deity challenge. Never played the OG.

Saved Turn 1. Probably restarted a dozen times because I hated the Start Location so much.

Really struggled with Food when planting my capital in different spots Kupe style. With the capital starting at 4 pop in the Classic era & not many unimproved 2 Food tiles available in the desert or tundra coast, I was immediately being plunged into starvation if I didn't have a builder immediately to improve a tile.

Got frustrated after so many restarts & gave up for now.

The clue here is that you get Matio Tipila right next to your capital, which will let you get the pantheon of your choice (which would ideally be either dance of the aurora or lady of the reeds and marshes if you intend to rush etemenanki) as well as generally great tiles to work.
Heck you dont even need to work the wonder tiles to get the pantheon, as you can slot in +100% towards naval units, get a viking longship in 4 turns, and sail it due west to pillage rapa nui's moai tile.
That gives you 40 faith and an instant pantheon choice.
From there on you can spam holy sites to get work ethic up as your religion, or finish up etemenanki if you like.
Or you could just spam settle the islands to make it so that your longships dont die from long voyages.
Either way, it this start is pretty much as good as starts go, and I think that the wonder was no accident since it seems relatively intended in order to let people abuse work ethic.
I also got hippolyta as the hero on this map, which should be extremely powerful since it lets you negate any health lost from sailing on water tiles.
Hippolyta is practically immune from water damage since she heals every turn, and since she can heal longships an infinite amount of times (until she runs out), you can take down city states relatively easy with her.
In order to win on domination here it should be pretty straight forward to attempt to get as many cities as possible along the coast in order to let your ships heal up, and try to tech up to frigates as soon as possible (since the AI is incapable of holding such a push from the sea).
Great lighthouse is also recommended since it lets you indirectly cut down on water damage taken by travelling further before your turn ends (and you take 10 damage).

 

[Evolena]

I also got hippolyta as the hero on this map, which should be extremely powerful since it lets you negate any health lost from sailing on water tiles.
Hippolyta is practically immune from water damage since she heals every turn, and since she can heal longships an infinite amount of times (until she runs out), you can take down city states relatively easy with her.

Have you actually tried that? Because it seems that as well our longships can't heal the damage that they take from the sea (being stuck in place using the healing action and still losing 10 HP per turn), Hippolyta does not regenerate from the sea damage either, and using her ability on a longship has no effect in this regard. No matter what I try to do with them, they both lose 10 HP per turn.

 

[Benevolent Dictator]

Have you actually tried that? Because it seems that as well our longships can't heal the damage that they take from the sea (being stuck in place using the healing action and still losing 10 HP per turn), Hippolyta does not regenerate from the sea damage either, and using her ability on a longship has no effect in this regard. No matter what I try to do with them, they both lose 10 HP per turn.

Does keeping a ship in the actual coastal city garrison to heal for a turn or two actually allow healing or do they still suffer the -10 penalty?

I didn't test if this would work, but I was unable to get ships to heal otherwise in neutral or owned territory.

 

[Evolena]

Inside the city center tile, they're safe, no damage, can heal.
So I assume inside a Canal too.

 

[Aurelesk]

Does keeping a ship in the actual coastal city garrison to heal for a turn or two actually allow healing or do they still suffer the -10 penalty?

I didn't test if this would work, but I was unable to get ships to heal otherwise in neutral or owned territory.

The -10 HP/turn is atrocious. All units, including Traders, are affected by it. "Square" civilian units cannot even heal the damage.

I have just tested Canals: they work! As Evolena suspected.

I also tried Moksha's Laying On Of Hands title: it doesn't work.

I believe they forced all units on Water-tiles to heal, then set the heal at -10 HP, overriding any heal. Therefore we don't get passive heal such as +5 HP from district, the +100 HP from Moksha, and I assume: the +30 from God of Healing Pantheon. It would explain why passive heals from Hippolyta (and Medic) doesn't work.
I guess Oya is the one: she has 6 charges of 40 direct heal.

The map is weird. A lot of Coastal Lowland are Water-tiles, but eligible to Flood Barrier.

Spoiler :

Also:

• Hero Discovery Rate x2 for all AI leaders

I have not doubt about this assertion: the AI leaders might discover them two at the time instead of one. But they do not go for them anyway, at least on my Prince game. I could pick 11 of the 12.

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

Seven Seas Redux (Deity): What an interesting and yet frustrating challenge! I can't access my game, so going by memory. I settled N a bit, on a coastal river, and took Lady of Reeds to get extra production, as I decided NOT to use Work Ethic for a change. 2nd city went West, on the 2 tile lake, to get more Marsh production. 3rd city was on Gitjara's continent, to get more Iron. 4th and 5th were East of that, as forward bases to kill Naval Barbs and possibly setup invasions to the North. 6th city was SW of capital, to get a great Holy Site and bust fog more efficiently. 7th city was NE of Rapa Nui, we shared Moai adjacency nicely, and 8th city was towards Gitjara, at which point I had a Cultural Alliance. I kept expanding, 9th city was SE of capital near the Tobacco(?), 10th N shore of Gitjara's island, 11th on a small island West towards Australia, 12-14 East on the Island towards Japan. Producing Settlers was a real challenge with no Golden Age faith buys.

Religion had Religious Settlements as gold was clearly an issue, and Stupas as there were so few Lux to be had. Later got CC Dialogue for more Science and Holy Order for cheaper Rel units. I was swimming in culture once I Suzerained Nan Madol (9 envoys), and I was always at or near the top with military. The land Barbs kept me busy at home for a while, and some of the naval Barbs were a big headache, what with -10 damage even after battles. I had a Scout and Chariot exploring the northern part of the map, and had almost circumnavigated them by the end of my game (challenge ended). I suicided a naval unit West meeting Australia and England. I think I met all but one Civ, Dido was my last meeting.

I never did get Oya, I had the Twins first to clear out the SE Barb camp, they even got me like 4 Man At Arms and a Skirmisher. Then I had Maui to try to get some new Lux, but he only spawned ones I had. I did have crazy food in the Iron city near Indonesia with Liang's fisheries. Then I had Sinbad, thinking I could clean up with new discoveries East, but he only got me maybe 1500 gold. He did at least kill one of the Barb camps in the wonder island near Japan.

When I was already quite far in my game I realized that there was no Science Victory enabled(?) so I began to lose interest. I had figured a Domination game was very unlikely - it would be near impossible to heal enough without allowing healing outside city centers. So very frustrating, I enjoy flying around with Frigates and Caravels normally. So I barely played the last several days, I know I was about to start getting Archeologists. In retrospect I could have just pumped Naval units to die as I went.

I turned off all my usual mods. I can't believe people actually play with the regular trade routes, ugh. I bet my 1st route between my two cities took 40-50 turns. What a waste. Silk and Spice mod is a must-have to connect cities as you can't build roads. Also, the Golden Age mods allow limited unit stacking (one of each class?) which would have made naval healing doable.

All in all an fairly enjoyable diversion, and I appreciate the Deity option!

 

[crocivfanatic]

Skipped first on deity as water poison was too irritating and there is no challenge in diplomacy win, so i did second one deity.
But this was so easy, no challenge at all . All you have to do is build bunch on encampments to defend against barbarian wawes and that's it. What i find it strange , how second civ had only 136 score, i think in original emperor challenge second civ had atleast 300 score. Maybe this is because of a lot of barbarians preventing expansion and inability to build trade units. This game basically would be same in case there would be 0 opponent civs.