HELLO ARCHDUKE, ALHAMBRAM, SINGABOY, WODEN, OR ANYONE ELSE STARTING THIS THREAD LATE

I regret to say that my primary hosting service provider, Photobucket, changed their account policy in mid June. Their free account (which I have), no longer supports 3rd party hosting, and they put that service behind a $40/month plan. Unfortunately, most of my images from early in this game (and all my pre-2017 threads  ), now are not showing. Apologies, as I know this will make your reading experience of my game here quite bare and sad compared to what you might have been hoping to find. 

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Ugh, I actually really didn't want to have Rome as an option to play this game, I just really wanted to play China. It's actually killing me that one of the groups I had to reroll gave me China as an option. So now I face a conundrum. 

Rome is objectively better than Gorgo's Greece or Kongo. However, after having two Romes in the first Civ 6 PBEM, I really would like to see something different played. I also don't want to Praet Rush someone, which seems like it is the natural play pattern and something that now everyone will be expecting.

Alright, it is my first time playing multiplayer at Realms Beyond.

I need to make a choice from India, Norway or Russia. At this moment i am leaning towards Russia, it seems better option than India and Norway with current PBEM 2 settings.

Any dedlurkers are welcome!

Hopefully everyone are going have fun with this game, all other players and you lurkers included!

It's curious that I'm getting to be infamous for Sprite abuse, seeing as I'm actually more of a builder type of player with a penchant for Life and buffing. My recent experiments with omniscient sprites brought that back a bit, and I realized that there really isn't any combo there. It's just  two strong strategies lumped together.

Omniscient is paired much better with Life. It lets me focus 100% on buffing, and Heavenly Light is enough of an early boost. Life also lets me take neutral cities early, Halfling Swordsmen with Holy Armour/Weapons, Endurance and Heroism can kill almost anything. With 8 books you can cast Heroism in combat, meaning you only need the first 3 cast overland.

Halflings are ideal for this, having excellent swordsmen for buffing + excellent high end units + excellent economy. Nomads are almost as good, their swordsmen might work decently for taking an early neutral city. Horsebowmen are almost as good as slingers with powerful rangers later on, economy is decent. High Elves are a little weaker but doable.

Recommended setup:
5x Life (Heavenly Light, Endurance, Heroism, Holy Armour)
1x Chaos
1x Death
1x Nature
Omniscient
Cult Leader
Spellweaver

I think this setup is strong and expect to consistently do well with it, but I'll hold off on claiming it's unbalanced. I would really like to add Warlord to it, but I don't see what to remove without ruining the power combo or taking away essential Life spells.

I want to test this after the sprite issue is settled.

So, here we go. I got the choice of those three civilizations.

Honestly, after looking at Egypt, I doubt I would choose them. I am more the warmonger type than trying to win a game via culture or religion. Special abilities also are not my preference.

Now, what should I do? Take the Aztecs and do what Yuri didn't do in its full glory and go on a rampage, trying to gain as many builders fighting city states and then ultimately other players?

Or go for the production powerhouse Germany. This would require a more defensive initial phase, maybe taking out a city state or two (those that do not give me much) and then slowly unfolding its power?

I have two weeks to think about it.

For the lurkers (and especially those that look forward to my many mistakes), I am going to try and update more frequently as in PBEM1, but won't be so crazy as to dedicate my life to civilization to report as extensively as Sullla does.

Quote:Given I'm the one doing all the complaining, I'm quite serious about going through and examining the spell priority algorithm and seeing if I can make actual suggestions that work, instead of just asking you to do it all.

Extreme, 4 opponents, max power, fair land, fair minerals, fair climate.

6 Life books, Myrran, Warlord, Tactician, Alchemy
Beastmen, Heavenly Light, Just Cause, Holy Armor, Endurance, Holy Weapon; guaranteed Divine Order, guaranteed Lionheart
I also pick up 1 Sorcery book from a lair.

My capital starts with Mithril. Not great. A nearby neutral Draconian city is very welcome (air ships!). I colonize a few more locations (including one more with Mithril), and Jafaar shows up, trying to colonize my continent.

Jafaar is Peaceful Perfectionist, 9 Sorcery, Channeler, Myrran, Dwarf.

I wipe out his outposts on my continent, he declares war, but nothing happens, and he asks for peace. I colonize 6 cities on my continent and 1 city on a nearby island.

Ariel uses Astral Gate to visit my continent.  Maniacal Militarist, 10 Life, 3 picks worth of retorts, High Men.  She declares war, I sit a halberdier on the spot the Astral Gate comes through, nothing happens.  Eventually she asks for peace; and later on Raven defeats her before I can really interact with her (around 1411).

The rest of my continent has 3 more cities colonized by Jafaar, and 2 cities colonized by Merlin, and another Neutral dwarf city, that I conquer.

Merlin, Peaceful Expansionist, 3 Nature, 7 Life, Myrran, Specialist, Dark Elf.  Merlin uses Astral Gate to get to Arcanus.

I pick up 2 more Dwarf Neutral cities on other islands (including one very nice one with Mithril and very high max pop, that I later use for building Hammerhands.)

I break and control all 6 towers, meeting Raven:
Ruthless Theurgist, 4 Nature, 4 Sorcery, 1 Life, Archmage (argh), Runemaster (argh Aether Binding), Conjuror, Lizardman.

I never go to war with Raven, Merlin, and Jafaar.

I end up with 12 cities. Jafaar has 11, Merlin 21, Raven 35.
I end up with 6 towers, and 18 nodes. Merlin has 3 nodes, Raven has 9 nodes.

All 3 remaining AI are in a 3 way alliance (Raven has Aura of Majesty, plus 2 peaceful AI)

In 1415, Merlin casts Life Force, forcing me to go to war (i'm already losing ground to both Raven and Merlin; Life Force will make that difference simply insurmountable.)
On the first turn of the war, I take out Merlin (capture) and Jafaar (raze) fortresses, and one other city of Jafaar. Merlin comes back on Arcanus; I immediately raze that city. I raze 3 of Jafaars cities, and capture another one. I capture a second fully developed Dark Elf city from Merlin; Merlin captures my weakest dwarf city and my weakest beastman city.  I lose several node garrisons, but don't actually lose the nodes.

Neat news: No one has spell blast, or dispelling wave (or if either Jafaar or Raven do, they never use them).  Only Merlin has used any very rares (Arch Angel, Life Force, Crusade, Call to Arms).

I did not get or find Unicorns, Angels, or Archangels (I do steal Unicorns and Archangels from Merlin).  I am entirely dependent on city troops. I also don't have inspirations (no 1 turn hammerhands *pout*), but I do get consecration (useless), prosperity, stream of life, and altar of battle. I try to use Crusade, Charm of Life, Enlightenment and Life Force, but Raven always uses disjunction on them. With Aether binding (that I can't get rid of) and 500 casting skill, he has no problem with this.

I have never received a hero offer; I found 2 heroes (the assassin and the witch), and I summoned the Swordsmen champion.  All 3 are sitting guarding my fortress.

My 2 main offensive stacks are: Airship + 8 Hammerhands, all 9 with Mithril, Resist Magic, Holy Weapon, Endurance, Holy Armor, Lionheart, Invulnerability; the 8 Hammerhands also have Focus Magic and Flight.

My secondary offensive stacks are: Airship + 8 Beastmen Halberdiers, exact same spells as above. I also have one mobile defense stack that is exactly the same as this, which will turn into an offensive stack to clear my home continent as soon as there stops being massive stacks of silliness incoming.

I don't think I've seen a single Magician unit in the entire game, although I'm sure there a few hiding in some of Raven's High Men conquests somewhere.

As requested, here is my attempt at coming up with a "formula" for how I play sprites. It's more or less the same every game, although Omniscient should make the games slightly more varied due to having more colours at my disposal. Bear with me if it looks rushed, Seravy requested that I make it available in time for the start of his next game. Seravy, do you want to upload the game you start so we can all try it for comparison? Note that after Conjurer is weakened I recommend swapping it for another Nature book (taking Web) instead.

1) Early magic priorities
a. Heavenly Light on any city that doesn't have it.
b. Earth Lore (centered on your capital unless there is a lot of ocean).
c. If you have one or more useful targets, summon enough sprites to take out those targets.
d. When you're running low on targets, cast Earth Lore again to locate more.
e. Run max mana until you can fuel your casting skill fully with it, then start prioritizing skill.
f. Do crash spending on research whenever something really important is available (especially useful combat spells and Summoning Circle) and you feel you can afford it (typically after you have a node or 2 cities with Shrine + Heavenly Light).

2) Strategic priorities
a. Neutral cities with zero threats are top priority.
b. Sorcery nodes with zero threats are almost as high priority, especially if there aren't nagas.
c. Neutral cities with small threats are also very high priority (Web is a life saver here).
d. Lairs without threats should be put in your strategic plan whenever they fit, make sure to optimize your movement points.

3) Economic priorities
a. Use enough Alchemy early on that you can use all your casting skill each turn, stop using Alchemy when you've located mana treasure or your power is high enough to fuel your spells with your power base.
b. Settlers are very high priority, I recommend spamming settlers non-stop until all decent spots within 15 tiles or so are filled. Don't worry too much about defenses (change this priority a bit depending on how close your enemies are).
c. New cities should rush builder's hall => housing => sawmill => shrine (high pop sites) or sawmill => shrine (high production sites). Use spearmen for garrison as needed.
d. Once you've expanded decently and shrines are up, start putting up marketplace + granary + farmer's market + forester's guild in roughly that order (my analysis of those buildings isn't complete yet).
e. Run max taxes at all times, supplement with spearmen as needed.
f. Selling your smithy is recommended.

4) After the early game
Once you have a few cities with Heavenly Light and 1-2 nodes, you have a very strong power base. Start building bigger sprite stacks so you can take out the bigger targets, and make sure to formulate a strategic conquest plan that lets you minimize wasted movement. Give high prioritiy to Earth Lore, and try to take as many neutral cities as possible.

Depending on how close your nearest rival is, you may want to do an early strike (1404 or sooner). War Bears, skeletons or hell hounds can help greatly in assisting your main sprite stack. Find his capital quickly and send a unit of sprites to see what his defenses are comprised of. Typically there'll be nagas if he's sorcery, ghouls if he's death, sprites if he's nature and hell hounds if he's chaos. Only sprites and ghouls are a threat to you. If he doesn't have either, go for the throat as fast as possible (keep taking out other targets while you build a stack of 9 sprites and maybe a secondary stack to soften him up if necessary). It's important that the sprite stack can finish the kill, otherwise fortress lightning will tear you apart.

If you can't take out his capital, consider taking out all his outposts or let them grow to size 1 if you can commit enough troops. Your casting skill should be very high at this point, and it shouldn't take you long to conjure enough troops to go on the offensive. Don't worry too much about defenses, just make sure you have early warning of his movements.

Past 1405 or so, play it as you normally would. You're off to a powerful start unless you've been very unlucky or messed up and lost your sprites, and your economic base should be phenomenal with all the boosts each city gets. Try to consolidate your possessions and start focusing more on defense, then find your next target and take out another AI by 1408 or so. With two Arcanus wizards down you'll have a very large empire with very productive cities. Use whatever spells come your way and keep building large armies so you're ready to go on the offensive when you see a weak spot. Scout out the entire plane with Earth Lore and keep taking out all the easy nodes, you should have 5-6 in no time. Put a single unit in each for defense, don't overdo it.

You should be able to pick up a few heroes from lairs and a handful of items for them. Make the most of them, include them in your lair stomping stacks so they can pick up easy experience.

By the time you're ready to take out your third AI, chances are he'll be fairly formidable and require multiple fortress strikes to take out. Scout out his cities thoroughly so you know what defenses to plan for, build a number of medium strength stacks that can take out medium strength cities with minimal casualties. You should be able to take out 6-8 cities per fortress strike for maximum efficiency.

5) Game setup
This strategy is very reliable for almost any setup, even more so now that we have Omniscient. I like playing with High Power and Huge land, but it doesn't make that much difference. Play on Impossible, you should have better than 50% chances of winning.

6) Wizard setup
3x Nature (Sprites + Earth Lore)
2x Life (Heavenly Light)
1x Chaos
1x Death
2 Spellweaver
1 Omniscient
1 Conjurer
1 Cult Leader

I'm not 100% sure how the power bonuses compound and round, but this will get you 5 power per shrine, 8 power per Heavenly Light and 10 power per parthenon. Shrine + Parthenon Cathedral + Heavenly Light = 38 power per city.

I'm fairly certain this is the strongest setup for a sprite strategy. Note that you don't win with sprites, you just achieve a powerful start that will allow you to do anything you want a little while later. There isn't much room for change either, everything above is needed. When Conjurer is weakened I'll probably swap it for another Nature book and start with Web.

Multiple races are viable for this strategy. You will want to spam your starting race in many locations, so having access to all 3 religious buildings is a must. That leaves Halflings, High Elves, High Men, Nomads and Orcs. Of those, Halflings and High Elves have advantages that help you right out the gate: Halflings have extra food and research, High Elves have extra power. Those are my 2 favourite races for this strategy right now. Nomads are also good, letting you supplement your creatures with the excellent horsebowman unit very quickly and upgrading to the incredible ranger unit later on. High Men seem unimpressive to me, their advantages come too late to be of substantial assistance and they suffer an unrest penalty. Orcs are equally unimpressive, they grow fast but they don't have any great units.

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.