Now that we have 3 game variant toggles, which will you use regularly?

[iammaxhailme]

Apocalypse mode, secret societies mode, and tech/civic shuffle.

I like all three, but I think apocalypse and shuffle mode will be for special occaisons. I am tempted to keep secret societies on permanently, though. Although they could use a rebalancing...

 

[xaiviax]

I'm glad they all exist for occasional variation. But regularly, none.

 

[bite]

Regularly, none. But most often would be the tech tree shuffle.

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

Pretty sure tech tree shuffle will be standard for me. Haven't even bothered trying out the other two modes...looking forward to the allegedly more historical modes coming in the future.

 

[monikernemo]

played a domination game using tech shuffle + ss; tech shuffle was kinda challenging was really hard to bee line. You need plentiful of eurekas. but luckily was playing macedon so.... prolly keeping tech shuffle + ss on more for a novelty.

 

[tedhebert]

apocalypse, never. Secret society I think will be always. Haven't had time yet to try shuffle since I had a game going that i wanted to finish, so will try that now that it's over, but my feeling is probably always (at least when the reported bugs have been hotfixed or correctd in next DLC)

 

[Linklite]

1. I don't really get on with Apocalypse,so once my current hot seat game is done, I wouldn't be surprised if I never use it again.
2. Secret Societies will probably be on the majority of games I'll play from now on. It depends on if I can tolerate the cultists spam though, it frustrates me at the moment.
3. Haven't tried shuffle, but I will. I imagine it will be the occasional mix-it-up mode, just to keep things somewhat interesting. I'd use it to hone my skills (so I keep thinking things through, rather than memorising and playing an optimal strategy) or just to keep things from going stale.

 

[leandrombraz]

I'm conflicted about Secret Societies. I enjoy the mechanic, but it has three issues: First, balance. Second, it was designed to be as meaningful and as game defining as Civs/leaders unique abilities, and I think they succeeded at that. The problem is that, if you always play with it on, every game will end up being played in a similar way, the experience will feel more repetitive, because your strategy will tend to revolve around the secret society and, since you can choose the society you want, you might end up always using the same strategy for the same victory. For example, religious victory as the Voidsingers or diplomatic victory as the Owls of Minerva. The last issue is that it is affected by that same issue the AI has in a lot of other mechanics. There's that one option that most AIs will always go for. Most AIs pick voidsinger, so playing with the other three societies means you get a relationship penalty with almost every AI, while playing voidsingers means almost every AI will be friendly to you. There's no variation, the AI seems to pick the first society they find, which usually is the voidsingers. I wish that would be better balanced.

So, for now I'm playing with Secret Societies, but it's quite likely that I'll get sick of it pretty soon.

 

[Nerevatar]

The problem is that, if you always play with it on, every game will end up being played in a similar way, the experience will feel more repetitive, because your strategy will tend to revolve around the secret society and, since you can choose the society you want, you might end up always using the same strategy for the same victory.

There's no variation, the AI seems to pick the first society they find, which usually is the voidsingers. I wish that would be better balanced.

I cant believe no mods exists for SS, and specifically this. This will be first thing I fix myself if/when NFP becomes interesting enough for me to spend time on. Right now im more interested in buying NFP to fix it then to play, which is wrong

 

[JJOne]

You forgot that red death update..

 

[cain3456]

I will never, ever use Apocalypse. Secret Societies I will use sometimes, Shuffle will probably be a permanent.

 

[Haig]

Apocalypse mode maybe in 5-10% of games.
Don't get me wrong, it's very cool but it's so destructive that it's not for most of my games. Love the content of the DLC a lot though, city-states, civs etc.

Secret Societies, love it, maybe in 30-50% of games. The mode has lots of content but I will need to see how it works with other future game modes.

Hidden tech & civic trees, really like it and going to use it in all the games on near future, I like the unpredictable it brings. Maybe I get frustrated with it in the future though, hehe..

 

[topsecret]

Shuffle, 90% of games.

Secret Societies, 20%.

Apocalypse Never.

 

[MrRadar]

Shuffle - often
Secret societies - sometimes
Apocalypse - occasionally

 

[SirWill90]

Apocalypse: Never

Secret Societies: Often once they are balanced, never again before then

Shuffle: Occasionally

 

[Kmart_Elvis]

Apocalypse mode whenever I feel like doing a Diplomatic victory, although maybe that's kind of pointless since I could just set Disasters to 4.

Secret Societies will be definitely used again in the future when i want to spice some games up (Phoenicia/Owls, Kongo/Voidsingers, etc). It's a fun mode when you want to have a pretty OP game, but for balance reasons, it won't be regular.

I'm not sure if I'll play Shuffle again. I'm not a fan of random elements in the game. Plus, when I play a civ I like to know where the important civics/techs are that I need, and the shuffle just screws around with my planning.

 

[AriochIV]

None of the above.

 

[UWHabs]

I kind of want to try the various societies out, so until I get through them, will probably keep going there. Once I have tried each, whether I keep going is hard to say. The societies themselves are one thing, but getting those 3-4 super early governor titles changes the flow of the game so much that I'm not sure it's for the better.

The random tech tree is a nice wrinkle that I think it's hard to go back to the old way, other than maybe on some random times when I want to make sure the "random" tree comes up in that form, if I play too many games where either you need one civic to move past the ancient era, or on the flipside, where almost all the ancient era ends up as leaf techs and you can go the entire game without craftsmanship.

 

[pokiehl]

All of them, all the time. They make the game way more exciting

 

[Red Adept]

All of them, All the time. Give me chaos, make bad stuff happen. I like working for a win.