Filler post.

Unsure about my civ lineup until DLC and expansion is decided. Definetly going builder this time.

Players keep out 

Do you do this? I've opened a poll because I'm curious to see what the fellow players think.

Is it kudos to block AIs? Like at the beginning when the settlers are on their way towards a good spot?

Is it kudos to bring this to the final consequence of trireme borders around your empire, so that the "allies" can't explore it? (I failed - there's 3 red stacks, red is ally and I'm at war with blue)

Or does virtue lie in the middle... And then what's your middle, how do you decide what's kudos and what isn't?

So I just got an iPad Pro 10.5".  I don't actually have a PC anymore, and I am tempted to get Civ 6 since it seems to be the full game.  Is Civ 6 any good, and is Civ 6 on the iPad usable?

Darrell

Current players- Superdeath, RFS-81, Coeurva, shallow_thought, Charriu, Magic Science.

Current Dedlurkers- Zalson, masterjason, chumchu, Mr. Cairo, haphazard1, OT4E

mapmaker- Commodore
settings-
Mod: Rebalance the Realms 2.0.8.3.
Difficulty: Monarch.
Speed: Normal.
Era: Ancient.
Turn Speed: 24 real hours/turn.
Vassals, Huts, and Events: Off.
Tech Trading: Off.
Barbarians: On, Normal.
Espionage: On, no active missions, no spies.
Diplomacy: AI Diplomacy. No trading cities or using the trade window to communicate. Exceptions: fish for fish and copper for copper deals are allowed.
Double Moves: Standard Realms Beyond rules. Don’t be a jerk.
Map Trading: Allowed, but only after researching Paper (even though the mod allows it at Writing).
Blockades: Allowed.

Pick style- Snakepick

Was curious if anyone was feeling upto setting up either a variant or non-variant run.

For me a big part of the game is learning how to deal with the weaknesses of each of the various schools. Here are my observations:

Life weakensses:


Logistical problems. Life has no way to deal with water and, other than Endurance, no way to really make units much more mobile on the strategic map or to move units around rapidly in general.

This problem is compounded by the lack of militarily useful summons. I mean, you can use them, but they aren't generally effective other than as support units for other Normal units. This is a problem because it means you can't put a Summoning Circle anywhere and pull in an army very easily. The best thing really with Life is the use of Recall Hero, which is less than ideal.

Speaking of lack of summons, Life's biggest weakness is that it is the slowest school to get going offensively with. This is because Life lacks militarily useful summons for the early game. Not counting 11 book starts, a mass of Guardian Spirits isn't a very viable strategy for Life, which means you are depended on building Normal units, which is costly and time consuming and slows down development. In addition, many of Life's buffs cost more than summoned units from other schools. For example, compare the cost just building a single spearman and putting Heroism on him. That's likely a few turns, plus 1 food, plus 100 mana to cast and 2 per turn for upkeep vs a Hell Hound with is 40 mana and 1 upkeep, with no food or production time.

No way to help units hit flying units. Unless a unit can naturally hit flying units then there is nothing Life offers to help to address this issue and with no direct damage, you can be left unable to deal with a flying unit entirely. This is a big weakness for units like Paladins, etc.

How to deal with these issues:
1) Use races that address these issues
Good races for Life are Draconians, Lizardmen and Barbarians as these races deal with many of Life's problems. Draconians are highly mobile, and because they can fly they can cross water and can of course also hit flyers naturally. Both of these races also have strongly early militaries that don't require much building to produce. Lizardmen also have a strong multi-figure unit in Javaliners, which take well to to buffs and Dragon Turtles can hit flyers. Barbarians can hit flyers and have a strong sea presence in case you need to use ships for transport.

2) Use complementary magic
Sorcery with Word of Recall vastly helps Life deal with it's logistical problems and Spell Lock can help protect your buffs. Also the prospect of Flying can help with other logistical issues and hitting flyers.

Nature with Water Walking and Web can help Life with many of its issues, as well as the prospect of Path Finding. 

Chaos with Hell Hounds and Fire Elemental can help early game aggression. Given that these would be full cost spells they won't be great, but they can still be good enough to take some early towns or weak nodes without producing units. Having some direct damage can be useful in battles, especially if you pre-buff and the prospect of Flameblade as a pre-Lionheart buff is nice.

Sorcery weaknesses

Lack of good early strategic summons is a major problem for Sorcery. This makes it difficult to be aggressive early with Sorcery and the reliance on Phantom Warriors isn't good for taking non-Sorcery nodes early on. 

Lack of real buffs makes even using Normal units difficult early with Sorcery. This puts Sorcery in the weakest position for taking early nodes, though Sorcery can be quite powerful in taking early towns with Guardian Wind, Confusion and Phantom Warriors. 

Many Death creatures are immune to Sorcery's illusions. 

How to deal with these issues:
1) Use races that address these issues
Gnolls, Beastmen and Klackons deal with many of Sorcery's problems. Gnolls have strong early units that can fill Sorcery's early weak offensive power. Flight also helps Gnolls deal with hitting flyers and water transport. Gnolls weak late game is easily taken care of with Sorcery;s strong late game. Same with Klackons. Their Stag Beetles don't need much in the way of buffs, but Flying + Guardian Wind + Resist Magic on Stag beetles makes them decent even in the late game. Likely you'll rely heavily on heroes and late game summons with Klackons, which Sorcery excels at. Beastmen are again inherently strong and don't require much buffing, but flying Minotaurs are fierce.

2) Use complementary magic
Life with heroism and Just Cause can help jumpstart the use of heroes, which Sorcery tends to rely heavily on. Life also gives the possibility of some spells to help deal with Death. 

Nature doesn't offer much for Sorcery.

Chaos again offers Hell Hounds as an early summon as better than Nagas, which can work very well with Phantom Warriors. Also Fire bolt can help against Death creatures immune to illusions.

Death doesn't offer a whole lot, unless you get lucky and get Black Prayer or Shadow Demons.

Nature weaknesses

Nature's biggest weakness is lack of any way to boost resistance or counter curses, etc. in addition to the fact that Nature summons tend to have low resistance.

How to deal with these issues:
1) Use races that address these issues
High Elves, Barbarians, Halflings, and all Myrran races deal with many of Nature's problems. All of these races have enhanced resistance, making the lack of ways boost resistance less of an issue. Of these I think High Elves are the best, as they benefit a lot from Gia's Blessing, have the highest resistance of Arcanian races and take well to Nature's buffs. They also complement nature' strong early summoning strategy due to their extra mana production. This helps to make the most of Nature's early game strength with Sprites and War Bears.

2) Use complementary magic
Life is always helpful, but doesn't particularly help Nature much. Endurance for even faster strategic units, paired with Pathfinding is good. Early Basilisk with Endurance, Water Walking and Pathfinding can be insanely powerful. Healing and Guardian Spirit can be put to good use.

Sorcery for Resist Magic is fills a major weakness of nature, as well as Counter Magic of course. Word of Recall is always helpful, though not necessary.

Chaos offers little for Nature. You are better off with Sprites and Bears than trying to use Hell Hounds. Fire Elements can be nice though if you took Conjuring. 

Death doesn't offer much of anything for Nature.

Chaos weaknesses

Chaos's biggest weakness is again lack of any way to boost resistance or counter curses.

Lack of any economic boosters or defensive measures in general.

Lack of reliable ways to traverse water, especially early on.

How to deal with these issues:
1) Use races that address these issues
High Elves, Halflings, and High Men races deal with many of Chaos's problems. High Elves again complement Chaos' strong early summoning with additional mana and protect against curses with naturally high resistance. Lack of Healers is a bit of an issue, but these can often be acquired. High Men are also good with their Paladin's natural immunity and access to Priests. Chaos' strong early summoning offers a way to help High Men quickly build toward their high end units.  

2) Use complementary magic
Life is always helpful, but doesn't particularly help Chaos much. Endurance for even faster strategic units. Healing and Guardian Spirit can be put to good use.

Sorcery for Resist Magic is fills a weakness of Chaos. Word of Recall is always helpful, though not necessary.

Nature offers Water Walking and Earth Lore to help with early conquest using summons.

Death doesn't offer much of anything for Chaos unless you get lucky and get Black Prayer.

Death weaknesses

Deaths's biggest weakness is again lack of any way to boost resistance or counter curses.

Lack of any economic boosters or defensive measures in general.

Lack of strong early summons capable of taking nodes.

How to deal with these issues:
1) Use races that address these issues
Halflings, Nomads and High Men races deal with some Death's problems. Halflings are actually quite good for Death. They get Cathedrals and have strong early units that can be used to take nodes. Death's Ghouls and Skeletons aren't much against nodes, though they can can weak Sorcery nodes, but they are excellent at taking early towns, which is again a strengtht of being Halfling for diplomacy. The Halfling weaknesses of poor mobility and poor high end units are countered by Death's reliance on high end summons. High Men and Nomads are also good, though they lack early strength. Trolls are okay, but Troll lack of early economic power doesn't help Death and generally speaking Troll are a weak starting race with bad diplomacy. Generally with death you should be relying on summons anyway, not normal units. 

2) Use complementary magic
Sorcery can help Death defensively and potentially logistically early on. Flight, while somewhat redundant, can vastly improve the strategic use of Shadow Demons by giving them 3 movement (which converts to 6 in some patches). Word of Recall is always helpful, as is Counter Magic. Resist Magic can be useful if going against a Life wizard.

Nature offers Water Walking and Earth Lore to help with early conquest using Ghouls. IMO Earth Lore benefits Death more than any other school. Resist Elements helps make summons more resilient against magical attacks, which are the bane of some Death summons. 

Chaos doesn't offer much of anything for Death.

Overall, though, Death works best by itself.

So it seems allied (or neutral?) AI wizards don't cancel curses on cities that formerly belonged to a (joined) enemy and are now allied?

So walls do work against non-corporeal melee attacks, and regardless of flying, illusion, armor piercing? So flying/non-corporeal units should move inside the walls and only then attack? And walls always protect against ranged attacks?

Also, do walls work when the unit inside the wall initiates the attack to the outside square (as the AI often does)?

In Haphazard's thread on Alpha Centauri, we diverged into quite a bit of a side tangent, deep enough that it's probably best to bring that out into an off-topic thread.  It started here:

(May 20th, 2018, 09:58)T-hawk Wrote: The quotes for some facilities and techs may sound disturbing... but over time I've come to realize that Yang is basically right about everything.

(May 21st, 2018, 06:52)Fluffball Wrote: It's like a schizophrenic; once you accept their initial delusion, everything else is perfectly reasonable and logical. 

(May 21st, 2018, 10:02)T-hawk Wrote: I was thinking in bed last night about a followup post on Yang, and this hits the nail on the head.  Yang starts from his stated first principles: "life is chemical processes and nothing more", "life's only purpose is life itself".  Everything else follows from that: "does the genetic code brook no improvement?" and up to the Genejacks.  Personally, I've come to believe he's right in those principles: we are all merely aggregates of atoms, behaving deterministically by physical laws, free will is an illusion.  That's not a popular opinion societally and it's actually refreshing to see Yang openly advocating it.