Welcome to our first PBEM game for Civ6! I'm hoping that this game will demonstrate that Civ6 contains much of the same gameplay depth that we've experienced over the past decade with Civ4, i.e. that the problems with Civ6 are mostly due to the game's AI, not due to the mechanics themselves. In the few Civ5 PBEM games that were played on this website, the basic concept seemed like it would be fun, especially with the tactical battles being played out between human intelligences. However, those games always seemed to be dragged down by Civ5's sloppy fundamentals, such as the fact that expanding penalized your civ's culture/science costs and the way that everyone always seemed to be losing money no matter what they did. From what I've seen over the last few months, Civ6 is a like a version of Civ5 where the mechanics actually work in practice, and expansion is no longer needlessly penalized. This game will be a good test of my expectations.

For anyone who's new to Civ6, here's the most basic thing that I want to emphasize for a MP game: production is king. Production in Civ6 holds the same role that food did in Civ4. It is the driving force behind the gameplay, it is the engine that makes your civilization run. In Civ4, food is king because it gets converted very easily into whatever else the player wants to emphasize: into production via Slavery civic, into gold/beakers/culture via the use of specialists, into commerce via cottages by working more total tiles (with cottages not growing unless they are worked), and so on.

All of these mechanics have been either removed or reworked for Civ6. In this newest iteration of the Civilization series, food is relatively easy to come by. Buildings like granaries and watermills supply food, trade routes supply food, and resources with big food bonuses are fairly commonplace. With no Slavery whipping going on, your cities grow relatively quickly and stay at those sizes. The restraint on growth in Civ6 is not food but the housing mechanic, which places a strict cap on city sizes in the early game. It really doesn't matter if a city has +10 food/turn once it runs into the -50% and then the -75% growth penalty due to lack of housing. And with no ability to whip population, what good is all that extra food anyway? You can't even run citizen specialists, and the other specialists are off-limits until expensive districts and their buildings are completed. High food cities in Civ6 tend to grow to the housing cap very quickly and then sit there not really doing much of anything. They are much, much less valuable in Civ6 than in Civ4.

The only way for cities to build stuff in Civ6 is through, well, building it naturally with production. (Or by using money for cash-rushing, which is also extremely powerful.) High production cities are therefore the hot commodities in Civ6, as it's typically easier to supply food to a city than production. Any location with hill tiles and fresh water is a very desirable location indeed. Similarly, anything that boosts production or saves production is something for the player to target. Food and gold are both cheap in Civ6. Production is extremely valuable. As best I can tell, all of the power strategies in Civ6 revolve around finding shortcuts to boost production in some way. I plan to explore some of these during my game here.

OK, here's the short version of the gameplan for this game. Details to be filled out in forthcoming posts:

- Pick Rome as civ
- Expand ASAP to claim disputed land
- Claim the first Great General
- Build cheap warriors/slingers and do a mass upgrade to legions/archers
- Conquer neighbor with timing push attack

In my test games, I've been able to get 4 cities out on the map by Turn 45, and hit a timing push attack with 8 legions/3 archers (with Great General) around Turn 80. I'm still working on the details and trying to refine things, but that's the general idea. That's the theorycrafting side of this game, at least. We'll have to see how much of this will work in practice. I doubt it will be quite so easy against the other players as it was while testing against Prince AIs.

Civ6 is still the new car in the garage right now. Let's take it out for a MP test drive.

First  I'm sorry I played the game some weeks ago and wrote the report but didn't manage to prepare all the screenshots to accompany this report.

Part 1 the BC-years:

Start: we are right at the line between 2 continents.
But where is my production ?? I see only one lonely hill in the south noting in the north.
So I sent the settler south to get the Hill first ring and the plains.
T2 Settled Slinger started:

The ai doesn't scout. They simply know everything. However, they do keep track of what cities they have encountered, so they can't do things like city curses on a city they haven't actually found.

This gives rise to several problems.

First, the AI can target any enemy stacks with their own units, even if they can't actually 'see' it the way the human can.

- This I believe is not a problem. Given Seravy's updates to overland AI movement and pathfinding, this can stay as is. Since all stacks get new orders every turn, the AI stacks will often act as if they were going for enemy cities (which don't need sight range) or for enemy stsvks within sight range. Even if we could improve this, I don't think it would actually change much.

- Sub point: AI navy follows this rule, which I find can be troublesome, as they can chase down things a human might lose track of; as well, its harder for the human to rationalize what that fleet was doing when it was out of sight range. However, as fleet movements (despite being important) are not the primary actions of the game, I think trying to fix this should have lower priority. (Its also probably the hardest of the problems to solve.)

Next, ai overland spell targeting against enemy units. The AI can currently cast unit spells on any enrmy units. To me this is the biggest lapse in realism that AI scouting has, and is the problem I would most like to see fixed (especially when casting things like dispelling wave onto the other plane when the AI has never even been to that plane.)

- To solve this, I would love if the targeting parameters for the spell could actual sight rules. Since it's an immediate effect, all that would happen is that any targets not in 'sight' of the AI would simply be invalid targets. Then the AI would follow its normal targeting rules, but if it picked an invalid target it would move onto the next target (and not lose the spell).

- However, its quite possible this is not possible - especially if human sight rules is not easily callable.

- At the very least, I would like to see the AI only casting spells at enemy units on the same plane as its own units.

- Between 'proper sight' targeting and 'only on the right plane' I have another solution, but it was conceived for AI settlers; it also doesn't make nearly as much sense for spell targeting as it does for settlers. So I will describe it below.

Targeting nodes/lairs/towers. The AI targets these based on their strategic strength (with lots of other modifiers as per ai overland unit orders). Unlike the human the AI simply knows this - doesn't have to scout for types, nor guess at the exact strength even if the types ate known.

- Honestly, the human can save/load here, and do things like sprite or naga abuse. I'm OK with the AI having this advantage and do not think it should change.

Targetting cities: as previously mentioned, the AI can only target cities it has found. I believe this is for city curse targeting only, and works exactly like the human player, where once a spot is explored, then if a city appears there, the AI knows. I believe targetting the city with units acts just like targetting units in the overland movement decision logic.

- I think this is all good.

- I have one question though: can the AI target a city with its troops for overland movement, if it has not found the city (and so can't use city curses on it?) If so, what if the enemy city has 0 units in it? I believe on either case it should be able to.


Finally, settling. The AI knows the whole map, so when it decides a place for a settler to go, it always gets good choices.

- This doesn't really break my immersion (unlike targeting enemy units with offensive overland spells) but it probably has the biggest affect on the early game difficulty.

- This is the second area I would like to focus on improving.
Ideally, we want the AI to have some advantage, because humans are better at choosing city locations based on the needs of that moment in that game.
Because of this we do not want the AI to actually follow the same rules as the human. But it would be nice if the AI was not quite so perfect about it, and if there was at least the pretense that it actually sends scouts out.

- Therefore I'd like to add in a condition on settling based on turn. If the target square is beyond 1.5 squares per turn from the capital, it should simply be an invalid target.
Settling on the other plans would be based on distance from any tower, and the distance would be (turn-100)*1.5 (minimum 0) +3.

- Then I'd increase number of magic spirits by 1 or 2 and when no nodes need meldong (either not cleared or blocked by enemy troops) have all magic spirits move about 'exploring'. Make them move generally away from their capital, preferring land squares (and not going into the poles), and not be part of the normal stack creations. If we do away with magic spirits as the normal exploration unit for the human then I'd suggest a sub routine for exploring, but I haven't come up with a good way to identify which units should go exploring. I'd want some ships, and non heroes with scouting 2, but it would interfere a lot with stack creation.

- If the scouting sub routine is interesting I can try to come up with specific numbers (whether for magic spirit or others).

- I'd also specifically keep the current rules about spirits per plane to ensure that as soon as possible the AI appears to 'scout' the other plane. Scouting with non magic spirits, on the second plane would be much more difficult.

As mentioned above, targetting enemy units could be based on the turn based distance limit; however if we did something like that it would probably need to be refined quite a bit more. Since turns would fairly early cover the whole plane anyway. (Which is intentional for settlers, but doesn't do much for overland unit curse realism.)

Merged the Grand Vizier and AI production procedures to save space, as they are ultimately doing the same thing, except use different priorities for the decision. (The original improvements like not building units are kept)

For the time being, the following priority table is used to decide what to build :

This has been a pet peeve to me ever since I started playing MoM. Magic Spirits are broken. A cheap spell that everybody starts with effectively removes exploration as a meaningful challenge. I think convenience is the only good reason why they're so mobile at a low cost, it's game breaking. In my current game I summoned 4 early on and 80% of Myrror mapped out in year 1403. At minimal cost I now know all about how to expand and can keep track of my enemies' expansion. I really like the new Earth Lore spell, but it's rendered irrelevant by Magic Spirits. It's a good spell for lazy people who don't want to move units around, but that's about it.

Magic Spirits should have a movement speed of 1 and normal movement. If the AI would be able to utilize this correctly, I think that's vastly preferrably to the current system. You can change summoning circle for 0 mana, so it's not very difficult to get one closer to a conquered node. And at 30 mana with an upkeep of 1, it's easy to have 1 or 2 running around if you know you're shopping for nodes anytime soon.

 Does anyone else feel that Magic Spirits ruin exploration?

Hi everyone!  This is my first post on these forums.  I heard of you guys a few years back when I was having fun with civ 4 and looking at strategies online, and I always thought it might be fun to try some of the adventures myself and see how well I could do.  This report was written as I played, so it's just my thoughts as I progressed.

Pregame thoughts:  

I'm playing with no game spoilers, and I've not read any reports.  Disabled all my mods except one that adds a build queue to the UI.

Pregame strategy thoughts:  Scythia is incredibly powerful with its unique abilities.  You don't just get double horses, you get combat bonuses against wounded units AND heals after kills.  I wasn't a big fan of the unique unit when i tried it before, it never seemed to do enough damage and could often not be used offensively because of its extreme vulnerability to counterattack.  They aren't good against cities, basically, and I can kill AI units just fine with other units.  With heals after kills, normal horsemen seem good enough for eliminating units.  I'll probably build 2 or 4 scythian horse archers and use horsemen for support early on.  Scythia gets a unique tile improvement that provides faith and gold.  I can use this to avoid taking the awful god-king policy early on to get a pantheon, and maybe i could work them to get faith to buy units with Theocracy later?  That's probably not that efficient.


Turn 1:  I move my warrior two hexes northeast, then I move my settler two hexes north.  Mercury is not a fantastic early tile, the horses are first ring anyway, and now I have a base 4 food tile and will soon be working the cocoa.  Also, this 'opens' a second city spot four tiles south.  There's a mountain and a floodplains sugar with 5 base food now in range of the cap as well.

Turn 2:  I settle.  Foreign trade inspiration.  Working the 4 food tile to grow in four turns and building a worker because i fear no barbs (and because i want a kurgan for the military production pantheon ASAP)  

Turn 3:  Barb scout shows up southeast of the capital.  Maybe I should fear barbs.  I've already invested 3 whole hammers into this worker, though.  Sunk cost.  Gotta carry it through.  Time to chase that sucker back home and fight them there.

Turn 4:  Turns out there's two more sources of horses east, within range of the cap.  I'll probably buy my way to one so that I can build horsemen without an encampment.


 
 
Turn 7: Oh for God's sake.  Often I can kill the camp before these spawn.  Switching from worker to a slinger.  Will it be too late?

Turn 8:  A second barb horse spawns right next to the warrior and I'm starting to seriously suspect that one of the AI mods i've gotten used to using also toned down barbarians.  I meet pericles.  Maybe i can run my warrior away from my capital and the horses will chase it into an AI.



Turn 10:   Pericles has a warrior helping quite a lot in the fog.  I'm screwed if these horses decide to go after my capital, though.  Like I had hoped, they chased my warrior a bit.

Turn 13:  I kill a horseman and watch my warrior magically heal to full.  I have to remember that i can do that.

Turn 17:  I still have no worker.  Halfway through another slinger.  Pericles is helping me a great deal against the swarming barbs.  I've seen seven horse units spawn from this single camp - one horseman each turn on turns 7-10 and three horse archers after that.  I have to work my way over there and destroy it as soon as possible.  At least I haven't lost a unit yet, just barely, thanks to the Scythian healing ability.




Turn 20:  [ss] Pericles charges two warriors into my capital to destroy barbarians.  What the hell?  We don't have open borders!  I finish a second slinger and finally start on that worker again.  At least it's almost done (like my entire game almost was from building it first).

I'm going to pause here and have a quick overview.  I've done no real scouting and have no improved tiles.  There's very little in the way of production in the future for my capital.  I don't see a strong place for an industrial district.  The three horse tiles i can eventually work will be helpful, but how much money will I be willing to spend getting third-ring horse tiles for a little production?  At least there's some plains forests.  I will likely be settling the next city at C, where there is fresh water, a 2 food 3 production 1 gold unimproved tile in the first ring, and lots of hills for production.  It's not impossible that these could be the only two cities i build.

Turn 22:  I blew it.  I had planned to keep archery at 1 turn research, but I zoned out and hit next turn and now i won't be able to spam a load of slingers and upgrade them, which had been the plan.  The new plan is to get a settler to the second city site as fast as possible and do something from there.

Turn 24:  Got my first Kurgan.  Should be able to pick up a pantheon quite fast now.  Also took out that horrible barb camp a few turns ago.  Greek warriors are still lurking south of my capital and I might just declare war on them soon to get it over with.

Turn 26:  Used up the builder and finished Craftsmanship.  In a very unusual move, I'm going straight for military tradition, which is boosted already.  The plan is to get this and horseback riding at the same time, finish the first settler and build a worker, while using gold to buy the third-ring horse tile I will need to build cav units sans encampment.  Then I can hopefully finish some horse units around turn 40.

Turn 29:  The expected war declaration from Greece.  His warriors actually popped back because they were inside my borders somehow.  Time to xp farm!




Turn 37:  There's a lot of curse words I could put here, but the screenshot should be good enough.  Gandhi saw my city dot and realized he could do me one better, and did.  This is the kind of thing that really makes me feel stupid - i could have put my city on the spot he did instead, or blocked his settler with my warrior instead of escorting my own, but now it'll be quite a bit delayed.

But wait, I'm still going to be able to buy the second horse tile and I can probably capture that stupid city in a few turns.  I can keep moving the settler south, and claim a different spot soon.  Perhaps it's not such a disaster.  I pick up my pantheon from the Kurgan faith and of course the military production pantheon is taken already.  I take culture from pastures instead.

Turn 38:  Pericles offers 15 gold/turn for peace now that most of his warriors are dead to archer fire.  I accept.

Turn 44:  Got my first two horsemen out with a forest chop and move them into position.  Finally settle the second city, which buys a worker and immediately begins building more horsemen.

Turn 45:  Declare surprise war on Gandhi because I forgot to denounce him.  I want to steal some workers from Greece with my starting warrior, but I've still got a peace treaty I guess.

Turn 46:  Capture the city that should have been mine.  Hey, that only took nine turns from when Gandhi settled it!  Now I have three nice cities.

Turn 49:  Pulverizing Indian units with Scythia's ridiculous healing ability.  Stole one builder and got another one from a hut, surprisingly.  Bought a trader with gold because all of my cities are building horses to take advantage of the +1 and +50% production bonuses.

Turn 52:  I pillage an Indian trade route and use the money to immediately buy a forest tile, simply for chopping.  I want as many horses as I can possibly get, as quickly as I can get them.  With luck I should be able to grab quite a bit before the AI gets too many walls up.  If they do get walls up, I'll pillage them until i can move up some melee with battering rams.

Turn 55:  Horsemen count:  10.  It dawns on me just before I snipe a Greek settler that he's paying me 15 gold per turn and I'm down to +1.7 gold per turn including that sum, so i don't do it.  Horses are expensive!




Turn 57:  Captured Madurai and made peace for 200 gold and 11 gold/turn.  Gandhi is down to just the capital that he built walls in after i surrounded it.  I'll wait out the gold timer and then go smash him.

Turn 61:  I capture Zanzibar.  I think this might be the first city-state I've captured in civ 6.  It seemed like a waste in other games because I always wanted the bonuses but here, I can't see a reason not to pick up an essentially free city.  These city-states don't have walls yet and capturing them shells out several points worth of science and culture each turn from their population.  Meanwhile, I'm moving a warrior with a battering ram up towards Athens.  Either I'll upgrade him to a swordsman or just attack as-is.  Battering rams are great against walls but I believe they only work with "melee" units.  Athens is at a pathetic strength 25 so I should be able to capture it despite the walls.

Turn 63:  Declare war on Carthage.  I have four horsemen and two archers in position.  More horses are moving up towards Athens and waiting on the battering ram.  Just built my first (x2) saka horse archers up at captured Madurai.  A forest chop from a captured worker sped them up.  Maikop builds horsemen and I queue up more horsemen, perfectly aligning with my plan to build a lot of horsemen.

Turn 64:  Picked up political philosophy and switched to Oligarchy.  Running the unit cost reduction, the cavalry building bonus and the +1 production per city.  




Turn 66:  Here's a silly play to save a few turns:  spent almost 400 gold buying three tiles: one iron tile, which i mined instantly with a prepositioned worker, triggering the eureka for iron working and completing it, and two tiles out from Zanzibar so that i can upgrade the battering ram warrior into a swordsman.  Meanwhile, where the heck are the other AIs?  I should be scouting more - this is an area I have always been weak in in Civ games.  I'm heading for the shipbuilding techs in case I have to embark.

Turn 67:  I foolishly declare war on Greece and India(because they had a settler coming out) and lose almost all of my gold income.  I'm at -8 now, I'll have to start sending horses on suicide missions.

Turn 69:  Is this map really small size?  Seems larger.  It's going to take a while to get to wherever Rome is, even with horses.

Turn 72:  Oh, battering rams actually do apply to horsemen.  Well, that's extremely overpowered.

Turn 74:  Starting on Cartography.  20 turns at present.  I have the feeling the horses will need to go overseas to find the last AI.  I've finally got a handle on where Rome is, and I'm sending horses there.  Horses are everything, build nothing but horses (and a few monuments).  Horse count:  24 horsemen, 2 saka archers.

Turn 80:  A horseman that starts its turn on a farm can pillage and heal to full and then attack the city at full strength on the same turn.  The first roman city has fallen.  Made peace with Greece for 11 gold per turn which they will somehow provide from their one remaining size 2 city.

Turn 82:  Found Cleopatra and Barbarrosa on the same turn.  Both of their capitals look close - and vulnerable!  I won't be needing Cartography now, nor anything but all the horsemen in the world, barring some bizarre geographic anomaly.




Turn 83:  I tech Writing.  You don't need those books to ride a horse.  Just go.

Turn 83:  It's still turn 83 because I had to move so many horsemen it felt like multiple turns.  Let's count the horsemen.  42 horsemen, 2 saka horse archers, 3 rams which are lagging behind, a few archers, a warrior.  The game lists my military strength at 1,451 while giving Germany second place at 195.




Turn 85:  I found the Horse religion (because horses are the Absolute) with a prophet spawned from the captured holy sites.  I pick Work Ethic and the belief that gives +2 gold per city and start buying missionaries to sort of convert faith to gold.  I trade luxuries to Germany for 192 gold straight up.  I guess that old civ5 stuff still works on occasion.  I use the gold to buy a battering ram in the first captured Roman city.  Now I have one on the frontline for Rome.  Meanwhile, the northern Roman city of Aquileia still has no walls and is surrounded and captured by horsemen.

Turn 86:   Captured two city-states, Hattusa and La Venta.  Battering ram and horses took out the blue bar of Rome's encampment, and now it can't shoot, so I start surrounding the city with horsemen.




Turn 89:  Declare war on Egypt

Turn 91:  Stirrups is on the research list.  Oh right, knights exist.  I'm at 38 gold and -25 per turn, so I don't really think I can afford upgrades, but maybe I can build some?  Also I'm going to have to start deleting units.  I declare war on Egypt, surround the capital immediately and delete some units that are too far across the map.  I start building Kurgans with my captured workers because this is a gold improvement for flatland.  Is Scythia broken or what?

Turn 92:  I can't delete damaged units, which is a big problem, so I sell Rhodes back to Greece for 14 gold/turn that they have somehow.  Now I'm up to a princely 37 gold and -9 per turn.  Don't know what happens if you run out of gold, don't want to find out.

Turn 95:  I declare war on Germany and discover that their city in the fog doesn't even have walls and is defended by... slingers.  Yeah, that's not going to last long.  Meanwhile the battering ram finally gets to Egypt's capital and I attack it down to a sliver of health.  Memphis, an egyptian city that has no walls, is also captured on this turn.  I finish healing an archer so that I can delete it, haha.




Turn 100:  The final boss is spawning adds!  Two pikes might stop four horses, but not forty or however many I have.

Turn 102:  Remarkably, the two battering rams from the north and south converge on the German capital at the same time.

Turn 103: I capture Aachen.  Victory!  I built one settler and no districts that mattered - a few commercial districts completed a couple of turns before the game was over.  Never actually had a BC win date in a civ game before.  It was pretty helpful to stop after each turn and type this stuff out, that helped me to plan a bit.  




Postgame thoughts:  The scythian horsemen are absolutely insane.  They heal on kills.  If you take advantage of this and flanking, you can weaken and kill units with multiple horsemen and end up actually gaining health on balance.  I used this tactical trick to basically stampede across the map without stopping to heal.  Once I realized that battering rams worked with horsemen (which is not made clear and might be unintentional?) it was even easier.  I pretty much never stopped building horsemen and I didn't even lose a unit until the 80th turn or so.  Strategy-wise, beelining the civic that gives +production to cavalry (which the unique unit is not classed as, but which ordinary horsemen are) and chopping the first few horses probably helped to shave quite a few turns off the victory.

I feel like i got really lucky early on, because I was basically able to lure four barb horsemen into Greece's warrior rush and shut both down.  Don't normally get that lucky...

I haven't played multiplayer civ6, but I wouldn't want to face a human who was playing Scythia.  I mean, I had a carpet across the entire map by turn 70 or something.  I wanted a really impressive screenshot but i couldn't fit all the horsemen onto one screen.

Hope someone enjoyed that!  It was fun to write and play, even if civ6 is usually more fun with peaceful gameplay, I had a good time thinking about just how fast I could possibly win.  Huge thanks to Sulla for hosting the adventure, I always enjoy reading your site and watching your videos.

Placeholder post.

Epic Two: Eastern Gem Whale Dealers

Sponsor: Sullla
Opening Date: Monday, February 13
Duration: Four Weeks



Map Script: Island Plates
Game Speed: Normal
Difficulty: Emperor
Civilization & Leader: Gandhi of India
World Size: Standard
Resources: Abundant
Opponents: Six
Rules: Standard
Victory: Any
Version: Second Patch (including Aztecs)

We return again to one of the classic Realms Beyond scenarios for Epic Two. This game asks players to focus on expansion and trade, building your civilization while sharing your resources with the other AI civs. In the past, we've used gems as our trading resources, and there is one diamond resource present at the start in a shout-out to past games. Given that there is still no map editor at present for Civ6, we'll be substituting a slightly different (and larger) resource this time around.

Variant rules:

* Sources of Whales must be connected with fishing boats.

* You must sell Whales (for a profit, no gifts!) if a customer is available and willing to buy or trade. This includes selling your last available Whales, leaving none for your own citizens. You must always heed this mandate.

* After reaching the first governments at Political Philosophy civic, you must have one of the policies related to trade routes in effect at all points in time. These policies are as follows: Arsenal of Democracy, Caravanasaries, Collectivation, Ecommerce, Market Economy, Online Communities, Trade Confederation, and Triangular Trade. Having more than one of these policies is fine, but at least must be part of your government.

* You may not trade your own cities to the AI to boost relations.

Custom Scoring:

25 points: Victory (any sort)

5 points: EACH source of Whales you control at game's end. (Must be within your borders and netted.)
5 points: EACH "Customer" for your Whales at game's end.
5 points: EACH source of Whales you control on Turn 150. (Must be within your borders and netted.)

5 points: EACH city of size 25 or higher on Turn 250. To qualify for this scoring category, each city must be self-founded by the player.

3 points: EACH island (of ANY size) under your complete cultural control on Turn 250. (All of the land tiles on the island don't have to be workable by a city, but they must be within your borders. Purchasing tiles to achieve this is fine.)

1 point: EACH active trade route with a unique destination on Turn 200. Each trade route destination city can only count one time towards this scoring goal.  

25 points: If you complete the game without ever capturing/razing any cities, and avoid capturing any settlers.



Closing Date: Monday, March 13. Game results must be posted within 48 hours of the game's closing date. Note that this is a scored event, which means NO SPOILERS about your game while playing. Do not post information about your game while it is in play, or afterwards until the finish date. The time to post reports will be on the closing day, where everyone will share the results of their individual games. The Epics are Single Player events, and we take the no spoilers rule seriously. Good luck!

Starting Savegame File

This is the Closing Day for Civ6 Adventure 3. Players have until the end of Tuesday, February 14th to post a game result. Please post your results in the Event Reports and Discussion Forum if you have not already done so. Thanks to everyone who took part in this game!

After toying around with Focused Magic + Sprites, I've turned my attention to Troll strategies. And I must admit I'm having a lot of fun with it. I'll retract my previous early review of the mod and make another one later, for now I want to complete a game and beat Impossible.

Troll seems like a strong pick to me, and I'm racking my brain to find the strongest wizard to completent my brutes.

I feel Life is an excellent partner for Troll strategies. My basic units are the strongest and most effective in the game (a steal at +50% cost) and will form the cornerstone of my strategy.
Common

• Endurance 9/10 (helps a lot with mobility issues and makes a huge difference for the resilience of my units)
  
• Holy Armour 9/10 (same as Endurance, and no upkeep)
  
• Just Cause 9/10 (excellent economy boost)
  
• Heavenly Light 8/10 (nice little boost and significant bonuses when defending my cities)
  
• Holy Weapon 8/10 (very good option at no upkeep, except it doesn't work on my shamans and wizards who need this bonus badly)
  
• Heroism 8/10 (no longer gives me a bonus to hit, but still good up until I have war colleges in my troop factories)
  
• Bless 7/10 (situationally useful, can be a life saver)
  
• Star Fires 6/10 (useful but not crucial, can't use it on much early on as I'll be fighting mostly normal units)
  
• Guardian Spirit 5/10 (the melding feature is neat but insignificant, haven't tried using these for combat yet)
  

• True Sight (not crucial, but shores up a few weaknesses)
  
• Astral Gate/Planar Travel (appropriately costed and a great boost for my poor mobility)
  
• Prayer (awesome)
  
• Divine Order (other wizards often cast it, but I just realized that it compounds which is awesome)
  
• Resurrection/Raise Dead (lets me utilize heroes actively)
  
• Exorcise (what counts as undead? not sure how good this one is)
  

• Lionheart (excellent for 4-figure units)
  
• Invulnerability (awesome)
  
• Inspiration (nice bonus)
  
• Prosperity (ditto)
  
• Stream of Life (good in a long game, especially with Inquisitor)
  
• Incarnation (awesome, and with in-built revival, perfect match for regenerating trolls)
  
• Altar of Battle (great for mid-game once I'm mass producing trolls)
  
• Angel (should be able to survive reliably, holy bonus and caster 20 is great)
  

• Arch Angel (looks awesome, haven't done cost-efficiency analysis on it)
  
• Life Force (ditto)
  
• Supreme Light (might be a good combo with trolls if I plan on using angels and wizards a lot)
  
• Crusade (less impressive than before and less crucial with trolls, but still great