The Apollo Challenge Lineup - Game #2 - PAC A cold barren world

[Acken]

Courtesy to DingleBirdy on civ5 forums for his layout in the Deity Challenge series.

The Apollo Challenge Lineup - Game #2 - PAC A cold barren world

"It feels ironic that the future of humanity lies in this cold and inhospitable world. Our scouting parties report very infertile lands or cold as ice as well as aggressive fauna. Can the different colonists truly find a common ground ? Or will we fight for our ideas and resources and repeat the mistakes that led us here ?"

Welcome. Mimicking the Deity series available for Civ5, this is a biweekly event with games posted every other friday or saturday. All games in this series will be set to Apollo difficulty. User sponsor, seeding options, maps and options, will change with each challenge, but the pace will always be set at standard. This isn't an official competition but players are of course encouraged to play to their best.

For reference:
Deity challenge

ACL Game #2
Sponsor: Pan Asian Cooperative
Colonists: Engineers
Spacecraft: Lifeform Scanner
Cargo: Machinery
Total AI - 7 (+1 player)
Map – Taigan Lush, Small Warning: The taigan script does not generate any artifact/pod.
Settings - 3 Billion Years, High Sea Level, Pangea.
Options - Quick Movement/Combat (you are free to deactivate these in the game), Don't Stagger Starts, Frenzied Aliens.
Game Version - 1.0.0.574
Downloadable Content – None required
Default Victory (see informations) - Domination

Note: Seeding options are picked for variety or theme, not reflecting what is usually the best combination.

Starting Location (save downloadable at the end of the post)

Spoiler :

Rules, additional information and questions (unchanged from #1):

Spoiler :

There is no predefined or official victory condition. You are therefore free to win however you want. There is absolutely no consequence choosing a victory over another. A "default" victory will still be indicated for players like me wanting someone else to chose for them If I start recording results in a spreadsheet, every victories will always be on equal grounds.
Default Victory is indicated with game settings.

Who can play?
Anybody can play. The more the merrier. Even if you don't play at Apollo you are encouraged to participate and I guarantee you will learn a thing or two. Strong players are encouraged to race between themselves for the win !

Do's and Don'ts
As in civ5 we use a honor system. Feel free to restart, reload, play the same game multiple times. It's still a little early to really know what could be considered an exploit or not (and will probably change as Firaxis fixes the game). For now, anything is fine and if some really strong exploits appear and the community is unanimous we will discourage the use or ask you to indicate when you use them. Meanwhile just play based on your conscience and personal enjoyment
Also, please use the spoiler tag if you post a picture, comment about neighboring AI and other game related stuff. You're free to spoil as much as you want after 2 weeks when the next game is "released"

We also encourage you to make detailed write ups of your play. It helps comparisons and new players

Game Rules

I won't restrict gameplay by "house" rules. By experience, it has a tendency to make players flee that kind of forum games. However, players are free to have their own rules and experiments if they want to make the game more challenging for themselves. I am 100% aware CivBE isn't challenging for Civ veterans but I won't impose arbitrary rules. If you find the game too easy I strongly suggest you then try to achieve a fast victory (fighting for it with other good players) or chose your own handicaps.

Finally, note that the game is in a very early stage so the game will be subject to change (by Firaxis) and this series will have modifications after feedback from players.

Edit:
If your game crashes after 1 turn, you can try the following fix by cord:

Disable Core Threading
Go to the install folder of your game and open the file config.ini with a text editor like Notepad. Find the line EnableGameCoreThreading = 1 and change it to EnableGameCoreThreading = 0. Save the file and restart the game. This hopefully fixed your problems.

Good luck, the map shouldn't feel comfy

 

[Manannan]

Taigan! I knew I didn't uninstall for a reason. Thanks Acken <3

Edit: Map looks like it's lush, not fungal. Very green, no blue. Not that that matters, but y'know.

 

[Acken]

Ha yes I changed it at some points because I couldn't see on fungal, I'll modify OP.

 

[stormtrooper412]

I really like this series. Obviously, I'm gonna give it a spin, even though I only war when I have to, and almost never go for Domination

 

[Tarukito]

Have you considered going 6 AI to make the Affinity quest not bug out? Or is this just an intentional handicap?

 

[Acken]

Have you considered going 6 AI to make the Affinity quest not bug out? Or is this just an intentional handicap?

That's a good point that I did not consider. View it as an additional challenge

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Acken: I'm still playing. I am not sure if this is an "undocumented feature" or a coincidence:

[warning, spoiler]

Spoiler :

I did not find a single resource pod at all. This has never happened before. Did you turn it off? Had I known, my decisions would have been totally different right from the beginning.

[/warning, spoiler]

 

[Acken]

Yes I should precise it, the taigan script does not generate any artifact/pod (probably a bug). Feel free to start over

 

[KingMorgan]

So, will the pod quest bug along with the cultural burden. And no doubt we'll need some Biofuel plants in the capital.

Thanks for posting the map Acken. Gives me a reason to play again.

 

[Acken]

Yes, the odds are stacked against the player in this game. No pods, crappy map, crowded map, some quests that won't be possible. Good luck gentlemen

Depending on how it goes with players of this, next map will be adjusted accordingly (and also maybe we'll get a patch before then).

 

[metagross]

Very nice. I shall go Might, eradicate the Aliens and everyone else who stands in my way!
For the glory of Asia!

Spoiler :

Ugh, it's an inland sea start - gotta love those.

 

[pwoz]

100 turns

Spoiler :

I had 6 cities up, but Elodie and ARC were not happy about it. Declared war and there wasn't much I could do because they had affinity levels (upgraded marines, rangers and rovers) and I couldn't get any without quests. At least I know what it feels like to be the AI when I'm smashing their face with high level affinity and they don't have it. Too much of a power gap there.

Not a very fun map to play with basically the whole early game broken from lack of quests and pods. I could probably win if I tried again seeing how this one went (tech some affinity earlier and get enough rangers, but the map is too much of a grind to be very fun. I'll see how I feel later for another try.

 

[Lucius_]

I just completed a PAC domination game, so I will join in on this game next week.

 

[Manannan]

Yes, the odds are stacked against the player in this game. No pods, crappy map, crowded map, some quests that won't be possible. Good luck gentlemen

I beg to differ. Lots of space to expand into, lots of floatstone, reasonable amount of firaxite, lots of space to terrascape (complete with PAC bonus for workers!), frenzied aliens mean the AI lose lots of colonists (hint: forward settle Elodie on this map), etc. Maybe it isn't standard "build all the battlesuits, ????, profit!" but it's still pretty good for the player.

 

[TLHeart]

up to turn 130

Spoiler :

settled on the coast... find out it is an inland see, and with all these canyons, I want floatstone.

See 9 to the northeast, and 8 to southwest... but dang stating block the southwest... and I get culture from them... so maybe later.

Settle on the coast to the north with the 2 floatstone, can expand borders out to the 9.

Settle 2 more cities around inland see, to send cargo back to my capital.

Space is getting tight, took 3 into prosperity, for the settler, and then into might, for science from aliens, and have reached level 4 purity, but NO titanium in area...

Wars amongst the AI have been going on, really need to be able to see who is fighting who

been sending trade routes to brasil, for science, and we are now cooperative.

now he wants a war with africa... sure give me ten turns... hopefully that will pull his troops off my border. And Elode destroyed far base one.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Sorry about off topic, please remind me who Manannan is. I think I heard it in Dragon Age or something!

Anyway first run my explorer got killed 10 turns in. Reloading

 

[Manannan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manannán_mac_Lir
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoXCcSU8yKc#t=73

Sorry, no (intentional anyway) gaming reference here.

 

[Xenotitan]

Ugh, Taigan. I know it sucks for the AI too but I still hate playing Taigan.

 

[Anomandaris]

Man, I saved at turn 130 and had to end it for the night. This is harsh and I made a few stupid decisions. I'll probably play it some more to get a better feel of the map and to time a few things but I'm pretty sure I will have to reset to beat it. Finally something challenging in this game!

 

[Tarukito]

This game is turning out to be a lot of fun for me so far, very challenging. Turn 139 and I am now at war with 4/6 remaining AI. Been taking notes and will post bloody AAR someday.