Sign-Ups

1. OleDavey
2. Woden
3. Alhambram
4. Singaboy
5. TheArchduke

Settings/Rules

Game Speed: Standard
Bans: Paid DLC Civs, Scythia, Sumer
Picking Method: Each player receives a pool of 3 randomly chosen civs to pick between, no duplicates.
Diplomacy: CTON/AI Diplo Only
Difficulty Prince
Map Type: Pangaea
Map Size: TBD
Huts: Off
Barbs: On
Map Size: Small/High Sea Level / Mapmaker's Discretion
World Age: New
Balanced Start Option
Default Everything Else
10 City-States

Map will be chosen by Sullla with an eye towards ensuring nobody has an exceptionally good or bad start, and everyone has decent access to 3 city-states.

No additional rules.

Deadline to pick civ is April 22nd.
Game will start April 29th

So, can you redo the mod for this game, instead?

http://www.c-games.info/games,002,4237.html

So I've watched this guy for a long time.  He used to make really nice reviews of Star Trek properties but then expanded out to general Sci-Fi like Battlestar Galactica and Babylon 5 and then broader into Speculative Fiction like Discworld and Foundation.  Recently he's been expanding into anime, comicbook, and video game retrospectives where he covers the history and development of a property (the Transformers and Marvel one are really amazing).

Today he just released his Alpha Centauri retrospective about the history of Civ and the development of Alpha Centauri. Like most of his game reviews, its more about the narrative and philosophies behind the game rather than the gameplay.

http://sfdebris.com/videos/games/alphacentauri.php

Thought you guys might be interested in that sort of thing.

Edit: Well I guess part 2 is more of a lets play so I can't really recommend part 2 that much.

Note: This is a re-post of an article I first posted over on the Wesnoth forum. I've done some editing and embellishments of it, based on the discussion following it and based on the types of games played here on Realms Beyond. It came due to a discussion about tactics in Civ 4 and Civ 6 between Sullla and me over in Civ 6 PBEM 1. Don't worry, this article is fully spoiler-free.

Battle for Wesnoth, for those unfamiliar with it, is a free software (GPL) tactical hex-based wargame in a fantasy world. It supports SP campaign play (on or more scenarios strung together) and MP scenario play. Most examples are pulled from the SP campaign Heir to the Throne.

Preamble

This is an attempt to bring in some pieces of a theoretical framework for discussing how to play and get better at Wesnoth, based on military theory. It's not so much a set of tactical or strategical advice, but an attempt to place such advice in context. It divides the decisions one makes while playing Wesnoth into three levels: tactical, operational, and strategic, instead of the usual two (tactics and strategy) that I guess most of you are familiar with.

Another consideration of this system is if it helps to analyse the character of different scenarios.

I am mostly focusing on SP play in campaigns here.

Tactics

Tactics is the lowest level of command decisions. It concerns itself with the movement of individual units, order and choice of attacks, and so on. The timeframe for tactical decisions usually is the current turn and the next. Typical examples of tactical decisions are:

• Using zone of control
  
• Setting up a defensive line
  
• Setting up and performing a counter-attack
  
• Placing and moving support units
  
• Deciding on attack order and which hexes to use
  

• Splitting the army
  
• Deciding on the battle tempo (ie when to force, invite, or avoid combat)
  
• Flanking movements
  
• Force planning for a scenario
  

• Deciding which scenarios to play (eg "Isle of the Damned" or "Muff Malal's Peninsula" as scenario 5 in the Heir to the Throne campaign)
  
• Building the recall list
  
• Deciding on exit conditions
  
• XP, gold, or other focus for a given scenario
  
• Focusing on an L1/L2 or an L3 army
  

The AI no longer shares spell pick choices with the human player, so we can define whatever we want for the human player.

Default spell picks have two effects :
-When the player makes a custom wizard, these are checked by default but can and usually will be changed
-When the player picks a default wizard, these spells will be selected.

We can only define these as constant, so any uncommon pick has to double as "guaranteed uncommon" and "guaranteed first turn research".

I'm awaiting suggestions for the default picks, according to these guidelines :

-5 commons, 2 uncommons and a rare in each realm, ordered from first pick to last each.
-avoid picking all the "best" spells - there should be room left for the player to improve
-the spells should be fun to play and easy to understand
-the spells should be good as a standalone - avoid spells that are mostly meant for combos. In general avoid spells with strong combo potential, the player should discover those on their own.

Finally! The latest Alpha of Remnants of the Precursors is now available. It includes two new races (Sakkra & Darlok), revamped UIs and new artwork for the GNN & Galactic Council screens.

Download instructions and an informational video can be found here: https://remnantsoftheprecursors.com/2017...available/

Sample of the Sakkra artwork:

Currently, the AI receives only a very minimal bonus per difficulty level on "Research from buildings".
However, they receive a sizable bonus on power income.
This has the following two effects :

-When the AI is in wars and actively spends mana crystals in large quantity in combat, they won't be able to afford spending much power on research. In this case, they are performing no better than the human player, and outright much worse if the human player can afford to boost research spending (either by holding back on combat spells or staying out of wars for some time) because they only receive research from buildings and they are not boosted.
-When the AI is not in wars, their research spending works as intended - they are progressing faster than the human player on high difficulty settings because they have a lot higher income to spend on it.

This creates a large gap on high difficulty - AI players who are participating in lots of wars are noticeably easier to defeat - not only are they lower on troops but their spells are also less advanced.

Question is, are we fine with this or do we want a higher bonus on buildings, something near what they get on power income?

Hey, all!

I'm playing this adventure, after taking a bit of a hiatus from Civ 6. I have to admit that part of the motivation behind it was the title for the Adventure, which I quite like.

I'm up to turn ~65, with no GPs yet. I'll write a report with pictures once I have the time at home (with Dropbox's demise, it's way harder to have the pictures uploaded online and avaiable for reporting when I'm not home).

My initial idea was to focus on chopping a lot to get a lot of early cities and worry about GPs later. I'm still a bit confused when trying to use builders and when to wait for Eurekas/Inspirations or just go for the techs without them. I think it's pretty hard to fine tune this things. Once I have the pictures, I'll try to put this thoughts into more specific in-game points.

First time poster and participate in the Adventures and the Realms Beyond forum.  A little background on me, I have been a long-time lurker, finding my way here through Sullla’s website when I was looking to up my game in Civ IV. I always like the idea of variant play but never had the time or machine needed to sit down, strategizes, play, and then write-up a report. I played quite a bit of Civ IV vanilla, never got into Civ 5 (didn’t have a useful computer or the time). Just before Civ 6 came out, I built a mid-range computer to finish my doctoral work and be able to play a few video games.  I am enjoying civ 6 and have been playing it a lot. I usually play on emperor/immortal because I like to build and not much of a domination player that is required when playing deity.

So enough about me, let talk about Adventure 4, chasing great people (GP) with Mvemba. I ran a test game with him and was able to get just over 40 GP, so I think I can do a little better here.  I don’t know if this will be competitive but we will see.  My strategy will be to expand during the first 100 turns, then build upwards with district and buildings. It should be easy to get most of the great artist, writers, musician, and merchants with Mvemba’s doubled points and I will build commercial and theater districts in every city. I will also try to get as many campuses as possible for great scientists, one or two encampments and industrial districts for great generals and engineers, and a harbor (if possible) for a great admiral or two. I think amenities will be an issue, so I will probably build an entertainment district or two.
In my theater districts, I am going to build archaeology museums instead of art museums because the +2 food, +2 production, and +4 gold for artifacts also double when themed. So, each city will have +12 food, +12 production, and +24 gold once the slots are filled. Add that to the +2 food and +4 gold for each Mbanza and you get quite strong cities. The only problem will be that I won’t have a place for all of the great works, but who cares.

There will be a few wonders that I will want to chase. First, the Forbidden Place for its addition wild card slot for an extra great person card. Second, Mont St. Michel for the martyr ability. This may seem strange since Mvemba can’t found a religion but he does get an Apostle with each theater district build and does get +2 food, +2 production, and +4 gold for each relic and with 5 slots in the palace, he can have +10 food, +10 production, and +20 gold once filled. I am going to send those Apostles to die against whoever has a religion, and see the relics come flying in. Third, I will build the Colosseum for amenities. I am going to spam the Mbanzas as much as possible and will need the extra amenities as my cities grow vertical.  Lastly, I am going to try and land Big Ben near turn 250.  After about turn 150, I am going to horde my gold and with the relics, artifacts and Mbanza gold, I hopefully will have somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 by the time Big Ben finishes and doubles my treasury. Then, hopefully I reached Democracy by then and buy as many great people at half the cost on the last turn. In my test run, I was able to buy 10 GP with ~40,000 gold. There may be a few other Wonders with great work slots that I may build if possible but they will not be a priority.
My plan is to play the first 50-100 turns tonight (after the kids go to bed) and report here in 50 turn blocks (maybe less in the last 50 turns). I can’t say how detailed my reports will be (since this is my first time reporting) but I figured I would give it a shot. My initial plan will be to settle in place. I was think of moving off hill to the tile southwest of the starting tile but I think that will prevent placing a city on the other side of the southern river (two tiles south west of the oranges).  I might be able to move across the river to where the warrior is, which might give a little more space for a city by the chocolates in the east, I really don’t like placing cities with first ring tiles in other cities third ring.  I will probably move my warrior to the east to see what is on the other side of the river. Will see when I start playing.

For builds, I probably will go slinger, slinger, worker. Send the first slinger west and circle back north as the warrior will go east and circle back south. After that, if I have a close neighbor, probably build another warrior and slinger and take their capitol.  If not, I will build a settler and trader. For tech, probably mining and animal husbandry, and see what I need afterwards. For culture, I will beeline to political philosophy and classic republic. Pantheon will be Devine Spark for the extra great person points.

There is my strategy, hopefully it goes somewhat as planned.

As Catwalk doesn't seem to care anymore, I've used my own calculator to have an estimate of the treasure a player can harvest using Sprites.

Any lair containing only the following monsters, but any number of them, is counted as valid, others as invalid. This is a rough estimate - some lairs containing only valid monsters but too many might be impossible without sacrificing a large amount of sprites, while others with only a single invalid monster might be doable anyway with fewer losses.