What Video Games Have You Been Playing? #23: Lost in Shalebridge Cradle

[Chukchi Husky]

Perhaps, when you play with him you need a new style that focuses on army strength.

That won't work. Even if I did he'll still have far greater army strength. He focuses on everything. The few times I did win a game against him were with civilisations that have a strong focus on culture like Sweden.

 

[EgonSpengler]

That won't work. Even if I did he'll still have far greater army strength. He focuses on everything. The few times I did win a game against him were with civilisations that have a strong focus on culture like Sweden.

I've never played Civ VI multiplayer, but I'm not at all surprised that someone who's played single-player for a long time has developed bad habits. As someone who grew up playing tabletop wargames against human opponents, I find the 'AI' in that game to be beyond atrocious. The other Civs don't even seem to know what game they're playing, half the time. It would be like getting good at playing football/soccer against a bunch of 6-year-olds, and then playing against other adults. Even if the adults are novices, your approach - and to some extent, your skills - will be built on the relative strengths and weaknesses of 6-yr-olds. You might, for example, get good at dribbling around them without bumping into them, to avoid knocking them down. Then a flailing adult just runs up and knocks you off the ball with all the grace of a drunken rhino and leaves you thinking 'WTH?'

 

[Arakhor]

SP & MP are totally different beasts, I agree!

 

[Chukchi Husky]

So I'm just too stupid to play the game?

 

[PhroX]

I haven't played Civ MP since 4, but, yeah, it was a whole 'nother beast compared to SP.

So I'm just too stupid to play the game?

No, you've just spent a lot of time learning to play a different game.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

We're not playing these multiplayer games alone, we play with AI opponents at a chieftain level as he doesn't want the difficulty any higher. In one of our games I was defeated by the AI before he could win.

 

[EgonSpengler]

We're not playing these multiplayer games alone, we play with AI opponents at a chieftain level as he doesn't want the difficulty any higher. In one of our games I was defeated by the AI before he could win.

Just taking a guess, you might not be building enough military units early. The biggest risk the AI civs pose is an early military rush. Don't feel like you're wasting time or resources building an army for a peaceful game: The greatest benefit of a big army is deterrence. If you have a big army, the AI is much less likely to attack you, and will even start to 'like' you after a while. At Emperor-Immortal-Deity, I play almost exclusively peacenik games because fighting wars against the AI is basically an exploit (yes, it's really that bad). I rarely even get attacked, and I've usually declared friendships with every other nation by the middle of the game. It all rests on having a good big army, right from the beginning.

My opening build order at Emperor and above is frequently 4 Warriors, then alternating 2-3 Slingers and 2-3 Settlers. I use the 4 Warriors to scout around me, meet City-States, collect huts, and smash Barbarians (the benefits you get from finding those before your neighbors do more than returns the investment of building all those Warriors, even if you don't use them to fight a war - being the first Civ to meet a Scientific, Religious or Cultural City-State is pure gold). I like to get enough coin to send an emissary to every Civ I meet on the turn that I meet them (on the higher difficulties, if you don't send an emissary immediately, they'll usually reject it and then you're on the back foot diplomatically). Keep your eyes peeled for Barbarian camps spawning horsemen. You need to burn those to the ground immediately. Also watch out for the more beligerent Civs: Rule of thumb is anybody who starts with a military Unique Unit could be inclined to use it, although some are worse than others. I find Montezuma to be a real [screw]head, but Poundmaker never attacks me.

Play around with the map you're using, as well. It can make a difference in the difficulty. I usually play on "Continents & Islands", which I find favors the human player.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

Just taking a guess, you might not be building enough military units early.

How do you do that and build all the wonders before everyone else and have every district available in your cities and have a religion?

The biggest risk the AI civs pose is an early military rush. Don't feel like you're wasting time or resources building an army for a peaceful game: The greatest benefit of a big army is deterrence. If you have a big army, the AI is much less likely to attack you, and will even start to 'like' you after a while. At Emperor-Immortal-Deity, I play almost exclusively peacenik games because fighting wars against the AI is basically an exploit (yes, it's really that bad). I rarely even get attacked, and I've usually declared friendships with every other nation by the middle of the game. It all rests on having a good big army, right from the beginning.

My opening build order at Emperor and above is frequently 4 Warriors, then alternating 2-3 Slingers and 2-3 Settlers. I use the 4 Warriors to scout around me, meet City-States, collect huts, and smash Barbarians (the benefits you get from finding those before your neighbors do more than returns the investment of building all those Warriors, even if you don't use them to fight a war - being the first Civ to meet a Scientific, Religious or Cultural City-State is pure gold). I like to get enough coin to send an emissary to every Civ I meet on the turn that I meet them (on the higher difficulties, if you don't send an emissary immediately, they'll usually reject it and then you're on the back foot diplomatically). Keep your eyes peeled for Barbarian camps spawning horsemen. You need to burn those to the ground immediately. Also watch out for the more beligerent Civs: Rule of thumb is anybody who starts with a military Unique Unit could be inclined to use it, although some are worse than others. I find Montezuma to be a real [screw]head, but Poundmaker never attacks me.

The highest difficulty that I can play comfortably in single player is Prince. Our multiplayer games are at Chieftain. There are times I feel like restarting the game because I start close to an aggressive neighbour. That's what happened in the game where I lost to the AI. I started next to Gorgo. I do try to send delegations when I first meet a civilisation but it doesn't always work.

Play around with the map you're using, as well. It can make a difference in the difficulty. I usually play on "Continents & Islands", which I find favors the human player.

I found that out the hard way. We always now play on Continents & Islands but my friend really doesn't like restarting the map at all.

 

[EgonSpengler]

How do you do that and build all the wonders before everyone else and have every district available in your cities and have a religion?

I don't.

I very rarely found a religion. That's the one Victory Condition that's usually closed off to me, but I can usually tell right away whether it's an option or not. On the higher difficulty settings, if I don't find a Natural Wonder and am the first Civ to meet at least one Religious City-State, I usually don't bother with building any Holy Sites at all.

At the higher difficulties, there are a lot of Wonders I almost never build, but there are some that the AI rarely goes for. I almost always get the Colosseum, for example, and relatively late. The AI is slow-in-the-head on all of the maritime aspects of the game, in general (which is why the Continents & Islands map favors the player), so I can usually get a few of those Wonders. The AI loves the religious Wonders, but that only matters in the rare game where I'm going after a Religious Victory. It also loves the Scientific Wonders, but I still sometimes get one of them, maybe one game in four.

I don't usually build any Districts at all the first couple of Eras, unless I'm going after a Religion. The one District I usually build early is the Government Plaza in my capital, and I put Magnus there as my first Governor. Then I build the Ancestral Hall (+50% production of Settlers in that city, and a free Builder in every new city). Combine that with Magnus' "Groundbreaker" (+50% yield from plot harvests), "Provision" (Settlers trained in the city don't use a pop point), and "Surplus Logistics" (+20% growth in that city; and trade routes to that city generate +2 Food for the city sending the Trader). Magnus is my man. Magnus almost wins the game, all by himself.

Number of cities is the key to the whole game. Don't worry overmuch about spacing them out. Cram them in wherever you find a good spot. After I've used my four Warriors to scout in a circle around my capital, I take a moment to put down some map-flags, plotting out where my next 5-8 cities will go (I think of it as concentric circles, but of course that'll get messed up by the terrain almost immediately).

Early on, I concentrate on building my army (just as a deterrent and to deal with Barbarians) and then Settlers, and I take land. I start by building Slinger-Settler pairs in my capital, usually 3. Once I have four cities, I build up my infrastructure a little, 1 or 2 Builders to get Luxuries and maybe a farm or a mine, if one of my cities is lacking food or production. Maybe a Trader, if one of my cities is really struggling to build or grow. Once my initial 4 cities are at ~4 pop each, I apply the Colonization Economic Policy card (+50% production of Settlers) and build a Settler in all four cities, and double the size of my nation. Then expansion pauses while I built new military units for my first four cities, and build some Builders and infrastructure. A while later, once those four new cities are at ~4 pop, I'll do that again, building 6-8 new Settlers and doubling in size again, more or less. By this second round of Colonization, I'll usually have built my Ancestral Hall, so I'll get 6-8 free Builders with my new cities.

So by then I've got at least 12 cities, maybe more. That's when I'll start to dig in, build Walls and Districts and Traders, maybe launch a few Scouts.

"Conan, what is best in life?"
"To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to make them listen to whatever music you want."

The only thing that really derails the plan is starting the game next door to a belligerent p.o.s. who declares war on me early. Moctezuma, I'm telling you... don't do it... don't... no... ugh... At that point, I just have to go into Conan the Destroyer Mode, whether I wanted to or not. The worst thing that can happen is to get bogged down in an early war that doesn't end with me sitting on a bunch of cities.

If you do feel like curb-stomping the AI, the biggest "I Win Button" in the game is to build a big army at the beginning and attack the first Civ you meet. Just wipe him out. Take his cities and send him packing. You'll have a few cities and all the room for growth you'll ever need, and nobody will be mad about it, because you haven't met them yet. Game's basically over at that point, you can do whatever you want and you'll never have to fight another war if you don't want to.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I started a formal Legacy challenge in The Sims 4, using my own rules loosely based on those I remember from TS2 legacy challenges. The general idea is to make myself experience parts of the game (especially pets and collecting crap) that I usually ignore. General rules are: I can't reuse primary traits, no use of cheats beyond fixing game issues, all generations live in same house. Sim traits are randomized and will drive gameplay. Game to be played at Normal lifespans, with the except of when a kid is doing university. I'm also going to be using a Star Trek naming theme for all the kids born in the challenge.

Gen 1 started with my founder in Brindleton Bay, my favorite. He began as a homeless and penniless teenager who immediately used fishing to make money. Once he got a tent, he was pretty much fixed: the high school lot gave him access to skilling objects, etc. By the time he aged to young adult, I had enough money for a little one-room cabin with a seperate bathroom. Fishing, painting, and writing kept bringing in money, and then his girlfriend proposed marriage. The Founder had a daughter, Jadzia, who would become the 2nd gen heir/holder. Unfortunately, she got smacked by an asteroid (Gul Dukat strikes again), so my Founder became a wizard and brought her back to life. By the time he got to that spell, he was an elder, so Jadzia had to pop out a baby as soon as she hit YA so the Founder could be a grandfather. The Founder never had a formal job -- he was just a painter, fisherman, and writer. Not a bad life, actually.

Gen 2: Jadzia. Jadzia had a great advantage in dying and coming back, because when she was a ghost I had her move in the lot, so she kept skilling up and not aging. This, combined with the fact that I switched time to Long while at uni, meant that she became a powerhouse of skills, aspirations, and jobs. Tobias had 40,000~ points per my system when he died. Jadzia, at the start of her elder years, was well over 400,000. She not only had her ghost time, but her uni time, and then her daughter's uni time, and then her granddaughter's uni time. Jadzia was a great sim who was really into programming, so I had her do the programming career first, then switch into computer engineer. She was very popular and knocked out both Friend of the World and Serial Romance, as well as several babies. The oldest was a girl named Kira, who became my Gen 3 heir. Jadzia had a LONG life. When she took over from her dad, the family fortunes stood at 500K. When she died, they were close to 4 million. It helped that I almost always had a full house, four members of which were working adults -- but the money is alll hers.

Gen 3: Kira. Kira was both outgoing and mean, so I played her as a bit of a sociopath. When I was controlling her, she was very friendly, supportive, and popular. When I was working with another sim, she'd do things like heckle her teenage daughter who was trying to learn the piano. She was physically active, logical, and a 'commanding' type, so she went the military route, which I used as an excuse to let her do the Strangetown scenario. Then used her hero status to go into politics, encountered a vampire, and pursued the dark arts herself. She was close to completeing the vampire aspiration when I told her to go outside to suck blood from a rando, and despite it being 9:30 at night, she burst into flames. Then Jadzia died, so Kira's daughter La'an was all alone.

Gen 4: La'an. I don't have a handle on La'an just yet. She's a young adult orphan living in a big home by herself, and since she rolled the Cat Person trait I've had her adopt a cat. When she was a kid and teenager, I had her develop a social media following, and currently she does a lot of youtube videos in addition to the comedy career. She's an expert chef, though, so I think I will have her maybe open a restaurant? Not like I have to worry about losing money at this point, what with the 4 million.. Going to delay her producing an heir until I know where I want to go with her character. I did rebuild the house, though, to add more socializing space.

 

[Arakhor]

Nice theme!

 

[Takhisis]

Hm, so I have my new pc now
Can you suggest some strategy games?

Civ3 (obviously)

Widelands
Wesnoth

 

[Kyriakos]

Civ3 (obviously)

Widelands
Wesnoth

But Widelands is just a beefed-up Settlers II.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Starfield NG+
Lot of new paths open up now that I have a level 50 charactor with many skills.

 

[dusters]

Hm, so I have my new pc now
Can you suggest some strategy games?

For the king.

 

[Grendeldef]

It's been my PoE season again after a summer of Civ 5. As much as I like PoE I didn't like the past leagues so I didn't play at all but now I've used the screw-the-league-mechanics option fully and even melee feels decent again. I'm a happy lvl 90 Shield Crush camper though only doing red maps because whatever - the path is more important than the goal.

BG 3 has gotten overwhelmingly positive reviews everywhere - everywhere but here which seems a bit odd - that I'm even thinking of buying & trying it as one needs a new game to play every decade. Roughly.
HC WoW is another place I should step into at some point but I'm thinking of the time sink it'll be so I've postponed it everfurther.

 

[GenMarshall]

Just bought Cyberpunk 2077 bundle.

 

[Birdjaguar]

It's been my PoE season again after a summer of Civ 5. As much as I like PoE I didn't like the past leagues so I didn't play at all but now I've used the screw-the-league-mechanics option fully and even melee feels decent again. I'm a happy lvl 90 Shield Crush camper though only doing red maps because whatever - the path is more important than the goal.

BG 3 has gotten overwhelmingly positive reviews everywhere - everywhere but here which seems a bit odd - that I'm even thinking of buying & trying it as one needs a new game to play every decade. Roughly.
HC WoW is another place I should step into at some point but I'm thinking of the time sink it'll be so I've postponed it everfurther.

I've been playing the league and got my Boneshatter to 90 today. I tried the Trial of the Ancestors and found it unremarkable and mostly no fun. But Now that I got to level 90, I am free to spend as much time in standard doing fun stuff as I want: blight maps, Legion Emblems, metamorphs, etc.

 

[Kyriakos]

Played Victoria III.
They changed way too much, imo. No army units visible on the map (indirect control), no ability to manually set building upgrade rate (dependent on other factors in your infrastructure and set automatically), and worse diplomatic interaction for war (way too easy to lure the great powers - as if they need you to take a treaty port which isn't even in your continent).
For me, VicII was certainly a lot better.

 

[Grendeldef]

I dinged 91 with my morning coffee & respecced a bit for the first time in this league and at least it didn't seem to make things worse so I'm ok. On the other hand an old annoyance has escalated exponentially which makes the Atlas progression next to non-existent - I can't seem to remember to corrupt my red maps. It's like I've unknowingly joined a cult where usage of Vaal Orbs is strictly forbidden.