Zombie Mode

[Uberfrog]

It seems illogical and wrong, Furthermore, I think it is new in Civ 6, as I'm sure I recall seeing Spain knocked out of the game by barbarians once in Civ 5. In my latest game, the sufferer is Mali - for about 200 turns Niani has been besieged my a huge swarm of zombies, and battered each turn by multiple attacks. What's the point? Mali is never going to accomplish anything and might as well be razed out of existence.

I can see the logic in the standard game when it comes to barbarians, but I must say it really spoils the concept of a zombie apocalypse if the zombies are forbidden from wiping out any civs.

 

[blackbutterfly]

Zombie mode feels a bit like masochism. Turning it on is essentially saying "Come hit me!"

IDK

I just played a MP game where they barely whimpered.

Does anyone know when or under what game modes/conditions do zombies snowball? It seems they are either super strong or negligible.
It's difficult to plan cities if you don't know who is going to be your main adversary - the zombies or the civs.

 

[lordhaw]

IDK

I just played a MP game where they barely whimpered.

Does anyone know when or under what game modes/conditions do zombies snowball? It seems they are either super strong or negligible.
It's difficult to plan cities if you don't know who is going to be your main adversary - the zombies or the civs.

Literally the only modes I've tried with Zombie mode are dramatic ages, monopolies and corporations and barbarian clans. With barbarian clans on it's the largely negligible one for the most part. With it off it's been consistently large swarms right from the moment the first city is settled. I have not tried with heroes or secret societies largely because I don't like playing those modes. And I don't really like apocalypse mode either. I almost always play with dramatic ages and monopolies and corporations and I don't believe they have any effect. Barbarian mode being off for sure does. Again no idea on the others or combinations thereof. And I found king to be worse than emperor as well (I don't play higher than emperor). They became annoying once in a game with barbarian on because there were a lot of wars between AI and between them and myself. In that game they became very strong (got me the Well Hello Mr. Fancypants achievement in that game, they were all over 70 strength) as I think with all the wars they generated more and of course got killed more so scaled in strength. But they never spawned large quantities, just ones and twos but at 70 strength when you units are not there, they take a big bite out of you.

 

[Yzman]

IDK

I just played a MP game where they barely whimpered.

Does anyone know when or under what game modes/conditions do zombies snowball? It seems they are either super strong or negligible.
It's difficult to plan cities if you don't know who is going to be your main adversary - the zombies or the civs.

Zombies are strong when you don't use barbarian clans. The problem is, that zombies either spawn from dead units, so you need a lot of war ( which doesn't happen often in my games), from units being killed by zombies ( which won't happen if you aren't spawning lots of zombies already), or from barbarian camps. When you have clan mode activated, most of the camps are gone by classical era so no where for them to spawn. I went from getting one zombie every 10 turns or so in a game with clans to easily getting achievement for having 20 zombies under my control in a game that didn't have clans on. In that game most of the AI were basically eliminated 2, couldn't handle it. Which leads me to...

I can see the logic in the standard game when it comes to barbarians, but I must say it really spoils the concept of a zombie apocalypse if the zombies are forbidden from wiping out any civs.

They do this for domination victory purposes. For domination, you need to control the other civs original capitals, which means they have to exist. Personally I think it would be cool if that civ got wiped out, but the capital became controlled by zombies, and called a zombie stronghold or something. More zombies would come from it every few turns. You would still have to liberate it for a domination game.

 

[Leah and Rachael]

While playing this mode I wondered, why apostles, inquisitors or a new type of religious unit - exorcist of some kind or so, couldn't remove the taint from the soil in friendly territory, so this constant headache would stop and you could concentrate into pushing them back on the outskirts? You would still be vulnerable to zombies raised by a spy action, but at least cleansing the ground would fit into this common loop in games, where you have a constant and nagging problem which must be dealt manually at first ,but then you do some progress and automate and remove it or solve it to a significant extent.

I think this is a BRILLIANT idea! Would make getting a religion worth more going for it in this game mode; I'd say give Apostles the ability to cleanse soil, consuming all their charges in the process as if you're Evangelizing your beliefs.

Other tweaks I propose:
1. A timer for units that have died in a particular tile. The chances of spawning a zombie reduces with turns, and additional reduction with passing era - such that you can pretty much get 0 chance after about 3 eras.

2. cities where traps and barricades are made will trigger a lens (integrated into the Religion lens) showing where zombie spawns are possible. Upgrading these improvements will give you more information on the chances, such as percentage chance, a warning of an eminent uprising within the city 3 turns before the zombie unit spawns, or a warning that an enemy spy is doing an operation to spawn zombies in your city.

3. Zombies cannot spawn on tiles adjacent to a barricade on the side between the barricade and the city centre.

4. Additional interactions with the other game modes. For example:
- Soothsayers can spend charges to kill all adjacent zombies and can cleanse soil where a unit died
- zombies cannot spawn in a city with Ley Lines, Vampire Castles or Old God Obelisks. Additional damage to zombies by vampires. The Guilded Vault unlocks a project that causes your entire empire (including units) to be immune to zombie attacks for 20 turns. Every zombie killed grants gold and faith equal to half the zombie's combat strength
- heroes get +10 combat strength against zombies. Zombies get -5 combat strength for each adjacent hero

5. Balance the starting combat strength of zombies, behavior etc...

 

[Abaxial]

For domination, you need to control the other civs original capitals, which means they have to exist.

This is bad design, and we are seeing the consequences. It would be perfectly sensible to declare a domination victory when controlling all the existing original capitals.Then there's no problem.

 

[Yzman]

This is bad design, and we are seeing the consequences. It would be perfectly sensible to declare a domination victory when controlling all the existing original capitals. Then there's no problem.

The (maybe?) issue with that is if zombies take out everyone else except me and then I automatically win a domination victory. Doesn't feel very domination like. I can't remember if it was really early on in this game or maybe a previous iteration, but I seem to recall an issue where someone could conquer 6/8 civs capitals and then you conquer just theirs and win a domination victory so I think they changed it so you had to own them all, not just be able to "snipe" the victory.

 

[Abaxial]

if zombies take out everyone else except me and then I automatically win a domination victory

Fair enough. You are the last man standing, the final human civilisation on a ruined planet.

 

[James_Champagne]

I can see the logic in the standard game when it comes to barbarians, but I must say it really spoils the concept of a zombie apocalypse if the zombies are forbidden from wiping out any civs.

Yeah, someone really needs to do a mod to make this a thing...

 

[blackbutterfly]

Yeah, someone really needs to do a mod to make this a thing...

Suggest to @Nerevatar.
He's already done a couple of Zombie Defence mods.

 

[Abaxial]

Still battling with my first (and last) game with zombie mode on and all others off. Out of seven AI civs, three were soon reduced to a squirming mass of zombies vainly beating themselves to death against an unwalled zero-health capital city. The other four developed more or less normally. Now at the start of the information era, the game is like whack-a-mole with titanium moles. I can hold my own, but each turn zombies pop up that now require two airstrikes and an artillery barrage each to dispose of. So gradually the game creeps towards diplomatic victory, and frankly I wouldn't mind a monopolies boost to tourism. It is all rather tedious.

 

[blackbutterfly]

So gradually the game creeps towards diplomatic victory, and frankly I wouldn't mind a monopolies boost to tourism. It is all rather tedious.

Yeah, the end game is a little tedious.

Try converting some of those Zombies using projects rather than killing them, then shuttle them off to your neighbors.
I am always amused when you plop them at your enemies doorsteps. Especially fun in multiplayer

 

[Abaxial]

I have been converting them with apostles. Having Yerevan on your side is a great help.

 

[blackbutterfly]

I have been converting them with apostles. Having Yerevan on your side is a great help.

Or play as Kongo (who get a ton of Apostles for free). At least that way you get to keep the Zombies. But I fear this is what can cause "Infinite Zombie Spawn"

Anyway, from the XML, Zombie Defense is referred to as TOWER_DEFENCE, which is indicative of what it really is. It's a Tower Defense game mode for Civ VI.

 

[Rotomagus]

what I specifically like in the Zombiemode is that the AI gets severly punished for it's stupid and aggressive forward settling and expansionism. Thus even later in game there are big stretches of Land free to settle, an oportunity I always missed dearly in vanilla Civ games. As I am a Zombiefan anyway, I will let the mode on.

 

[Earl of Pembroke]

I changed my vote in OP's top post, I had not really been interested but I recently played a few games. Not really thinking it through, I set up a game on huge continental map with regular barbarians and absolutely had a ball. Because the zombie's mutation strength is based on how many zombies are killed, globally, my game got completely out of hand and it was hilarious.

Multiple zombie hordes with 40-50 combat strength against my archers/spearmen/warriors and barely put up city walls. But then City states soon started dropping like flies which really made the zombies snowball. I had to cower on a peninsula behind a mountain ridge, and a river, desperately protecting a few gaps. Had to extensively plan coordinated lurches forward to settle cities to get strategic resources of iron and then niter.

Because it wasn't the usual game where you try to get an edge on the other civs with your military tech, in this game it was a matter of survival and it was fun to think that way. I didn't have any time to care about era score, I was just trying to eureka/science my way to better defensive/military techs. Economically, because all the city states got overrun there were no lucrative trade routes so I had a really hard time trying to afford my army without going bankrupt. And maybe I wasn't playing smart, but because the zombies' strength got so out of hand so quickly, I didn't really have any time to put up passive defenses or traps, it was all out unit production just to keep fresh troops at the front line. Shout out to the Statue of Zeus.

TL;DR It completely changed how I play and it was really fun.

 

[blackbutterfly]

I changed my vote in OP's top post, I had not really been interested but I recently played a few games. Not really thinking it through, I set up a game on huge continental map with regular barbarians and absolutely had a ball. Because the zombie's mutation strength is based on how many zombies are killed, globally, my game got completely out of hand and it was hilarious.

Yes, this is especially fun in multiplayer

I just wanted to post an update post Apr 2021 patch.
The new infantry units Man at Arms and Line Infantry help increase city strength, as it is based on the strongest melee (?) unit in game. That helps civs defend against Zombie hordes.

So Zombie Defense is certainly better since.

 

[Elhoim]

If I get it correctly, zombies you kill inside your land count as possible to resurrect at some point. So the best would be to use the holy site to take control of them and push them away from your lands. They even used the D&D term "Turn Undead", which what it does is "push" the zombies away. Since that might be a mess to do with hostile units to go through your units and outside your territory, I think they settled on giving you control of them, so you can move them away (plus using them).

 

[blackbutterfly]

If I get it correctly, zombies you kill inside your land count as possible to resurrect at some point.

Yes. Zombies or any unit that is killed inside your land (or outside) can re-animate.

And yes, the best (or better) solution is to use projects to take control of the Zombies and then move them away from your lands, as you say. Correct.

Owning Zombies might sound like a great idea at first but IMO it contributes to the "Infinite Zombie Spawn" bug/problem.

 

[Linklite]

Owning Zombies might sound like a great idea at first but IMO it contributes to the "Infinite Zombie Spawn" bug/problem.

What's the bug?