What, in your opinion, are good strategies for realm combinations?
Obviously, you could pick all realms, but then you will not obtain a lot of depth in either realm. That seems more like picking the best spell for rush strategies from each realm and hoping for a good early game. 
However, I think two realms still allow for some long term planning. 

I have thought of the following, a lot has already been posted (spell combos). 

Life/death: enhance power base through heavenly light/dark rituals and the like. 

Nature/Chaos: ultimate terraforming if you get raise volcano change terrain and transmute, though you probably won't get them all. Conjurer very useful for these two. 

Nature/Sorcery: strong for focus magic combos (spiders; cockatrices) and even faster conquest through enchanted roads. Flight might be useful on great lizards?

Nature/Death: Spiders with cloak e.g.

Nature/Life: city enhancement (heavenly light/Nature's eye)

Sorcery/Life: very strong on artifacts/for Troll Magicians with focus magic.

Life/Chaos: normal unit enchantments

Any other suggestions? 

In general, which ones work best together and which ones don't really?

Ah, back in the saddle! It's been a while since I've played Civ VI, back before the winter (?) patch. Everything is apparently better, and now you can name your cities too. What else could you possibly want?

The information on the game seems pretty typical - map script Pangaea (thankfully). My third game I was playing an island continents game and the AI was completely broken - they would rush your continent with settlers and ignore their own, which just screwed everyone over. It's one difficulty level higher then I've played on Immortal, and it's domination too. Still, apparently the game is much easier if you have fresh water. I wonder what that's like.

I'm expecting to go into this and either be smothered in the cradle or eventually quit from disgust at the 1UPT system. Let's see how it shakes out, shall we?


Not an impressive start location production wise, which is what matters for an early rush. Can't get units out if you aren't working production tiles. Lots of flat rivers, food, and two luxuries. Horses are big, for the UU. UU Horse Archer rush is definitely a go here. Both abilities are excellent. Pantheon is needed, religion isn't. Agoge + pantheon belief for 25% quicker classical unit construction will greatly favour me over the AI if the bug still isn't patched.  My economy, for the record, will crash and burn from the military maintenance. Not sure how I'll deal with that, but I'm sure I can scrutinise the labyrinth that is poor documentation for an answer. Probably.

My biggest fear is being trapped in a 'there's literally city states all around me, help' situation. I want a second or third city to shoulder some of the costs. Looking at the save, we're on the border of Baltica and Ur. They're suggesting me to move down two to the south, but I'm not seeing any benefit. I misclicked and didn't show any extra tiles to make a move worthwhile. I SIP for no other reason then eventually the chocolate resource will be in my borders and with how the rivers are, I can probably get three cities on the three rivers. If I've learned anything, you should pack your cities within the 6 tile radii as much as possible. Combined industrial efforts are powerful. I immediately rename Pokrokva (a mouthful) to Lithuania. I can in no way be blamed for the map generator influencing my decision.

Begin Slinger, send Warrior north. Floodplains, desert, mountain... hm. Not a bad site for my second city. Next turn, I uncover a lot of desert hills. This looks like my second city site, and I've got floodplain food to help work those mines. Nice.

Pericles of Greece finds me (better him then Gorgo). I show him my city in the vain hope I will finally pick up an ally, even if it's just for a bit. He came from the south it looks like. Hong Kong is to my North, worrying me. C'mon, no city states to ruin my day, c'mon...

Barbarian scout pops in, great. Can't murder him since I'm off exploring. Slinger -> Builder, since I've only met Pericles and he should be pretty peaceful. Meet Hattusa, you're really starting to scare me here. Third city site spotted near Hattusa too, within six tiles of the capital and desert town. Animal Husbandry finishes, begin Horseback Riding due in... 34 turns. Yeah. Greece becomes unfriendly, and I murmur a curse at the diplomacy system under my breath.



Greece marches two warriors right up to Lithuania, uh... Can't get a warrior out to make a difference, so I keep builder in construction. For what it's worth, Slinger is right by there and my warrior was heading back home out of fear of this. I hope I don't get destroyed, I hope I don't get destroyed...

Greece does not attack (thankfully), and instead whacks a barbarian that came from behind. Code of Laws finishes, God King/+5 against barbarians (can't remember) are the two I pick. Begin Craftmanship. Greece continues to not murder me, I send Slinger south to pick up a barbarian kill to boost Archery. Worker completes, builds pasture, Horseback riding boosted, due in 11. Warrior returns to Lithuania next turn. Build Kurgan, probably a waste, but chips in +2 faith for the pantheon. I am, in fact, worried. Can't you tell?

Warrior -> Settler

Greece seems to be to the SE of me and they are running around with a lot of warriors. I am still scared. Greece moves three warriors next to the capital, I have a heart attack. Begin Mil. Tradition and Mining, begin wondering how close is too close for a city, the usual. Grab God of the Forge, not sure which cities to place first. I've got four picked out and I'm not seeing any reason to rush Pericles out the gate. I've got room.

Find Zanzibar with a noticeable lack of mercury. Greece has no less then six warriors around my city and four of them are on the tiles I'm supposed to be working. Help. Move warrior out in preparation to found my second city, since there's nothing I can do if Greece rushes me. Slinger is still hunting for barbarians (where are they?), warrior two is trying to find a city spot I like for the east of Lithuania, and warrior one was at my capital. Don't throttle me, please, please...

Greece brings up another warrior, the Baltic state screams. Find India, who is about as pacifist of a neighbour as one could get. Still has more military then one would think necessary struggling around. Jeez. Settler completes, worker cash bought, build Saka Horse Archer. We're going down fighting. Slinger continues to find citystates instead of barbarians, warrior continues to find barbarians instead of city sites. I'm thinking of making a comedy. Greece continues to insist on the Occupy Lithuania Movement, but this time with more milling warriors so my cashbought worker is useless. Nice.






Greece declares surprise war against me, yeah. I had a feeling that was going to happen. Scout takes unguarded settler because the unit spam is killer. 1UPT is my favourite mechanic. (I didn't realise at the time that Settlers and opposing enemy units don't stack. Whoops. ~ Later checking) Despite the ongoing war, Occupy Lithuania Movement mostly ends. Why? Why not, I guess. Builder is not taken despite them probably being able to do so, which was unguarded more out of a lack of military units.


I'll probably get wiped when I click next turn. One warrior attacks, bafflingly enough. It takes about 1/6th of my health bar off. Five turns until I complete my Saka Horse Archers, seven until both military units can come back. This will be tricky. Can I pull this off without horribly crippling my civilisation more then the settler capture already has?

End turn again. Lithuania is wiped by Greek warrior forces. Defeat T38, my first defeat ever in a civilisation game.


Closing Thoughts

This was my build path: Slinger -> Builder -> Warrior -> Warrior - > Settler -> Uncompleted Saka Horse Archer. That's three military units, one builder, one settler which seems pretty normal to me. What did I do wrong?

The only thing I can think of is 'I too aggressively chased eurekas', which is fair I suppose. I would have certainly kept my slinger at home if I wasn't going for the archery route. That would have been a warrior/slinger defence force with one warrior exploring. But I'm skeptical, really. The AI had five warriors around my city and about three or four scattered around Lithuania. I don't think I could have defended against that or at least for long. Maybe VI Immortal is too difficult for me? Or maybe you need to crank military instantly, instead? Go a full military path to defend against AI Aggression? But that would put you dangerously behind on the growth curve... If my two Saka Horse Archers came in earlier (chopping was definitely something I should have done if I was paying any attention - that was definitely my fault), I feel like it is likely I could have defended myself against the hordes of Greeks. But, that's with full out military boosts (25% from Pantheon, 50% from Agoge) and with the extra unit you get from being Scythia when you complete one. Could someone else have managed to defend themselves as a non-Scythian civ? Perhaps it's rhetorical, anyway. I don't think the AI should truly throttle the player in the cradle like this, in the interest of being fair. I don't think that falls into the 'play to win' argument at all - the AI gets boosts to make up for the fact that they aren't good at the game. They shouldn't immediately leverage those boosts to defeat the player instantly, making the whole charade pointless.

I feel cheated, anyway. I suppose I'll take this as a learning experience of some description, even if I'm not sure of what. Thanks for the game.

---

Didn't see any reason to hold onto a loss for a while nor edit it. Bound to be some gameplay mistakes due to being unfamiliar and my slight ineptitude. Thanks for reading.

This is where I decided to throw in the towel:



More spectacular fail details to come.

Quick tl;dr: I was last in everything and underexpanded at T115, so I gave up because I was pretty sure I was not going to ever finish anything.  Final wonder score was Pyramids.

I'm going to try to do better reporting this time: take a picture whenever I found a city or significantly change civics, and not report what I'm building unless it's score-relevant (i.e. a wonder).  Building strategies I'll try to report on.

This is also my first game with the new patch, I have to admit, but I've been warned that the AI is a lot more intelligent in its building choices, so I'm going to have to be aggressive about settling, since I'm not allowed to start wars to get land.

We're not allowed to do a lot of the usual culture stuff, which I've always been a little slow about anyway.  I only belatedly realized how good monuments actually are, but I do often lean on culture civic cards.  Building chateus sounds like a good middle ground to me.  I'll need to figure out a good strategy for that.  Also, we may want to take advantage of some of the weirder sources of GPP and art slots, given that we can't use the typical culture strategy of Theater Squares.  The early one that stands out to me is that the Great Library actually has writing slots.  If we can fill that up early, it could be good.  I'd also like to go for a religion and may particularly prioritize that, but I'm not sure which building I'll take with that.  There's some argument for the art slot in the cathedral, for a change.  However, without the usual GPP sources, filling any of those slots will be difficult.

Turn 1: I decided to settle in place.  This land is pretty lush, and I want to get started ASAP.  I haven't been punished for a farmer's gambit yet, so I'm starting with a worker.  We'll farm wheat and probably quarry rock for the rest.  I need to look at the chateu more, though.


A quick look at the chateu reveals that it gives +1 culture, +1 gold if next to a luxury resource, and another culture if next to a wonder.  I'm not quite sure what wonders I'll be dropping where, but I'm definitely going to want a couple of chateaux next to our incense.  We probably also want a campus near the mountains with The Great Library next to it, which should boost our chateaux as well.  That, or just a holy site to start with.  I think we may want to harvest the stone between the mountains in any event.

Based on the resources we have around, the early targets are Irrigation for that tobacco and mining for the zillion quarries we have around here.  I think I'll start with mining.  I don't immediately see a desert for the pyramids, but we're going to start looking immediately.  I will try for it to be city 2.

Turn 4: Ooh; first city state to be met: Buenos Aires.  They're industrial, which is great for us, they were first met by us, which gets us that wonderful free envoy, and they want a trade route, which is definitely something we can do.

T7: A barbarian scout found us, and my warrior is far away.  I'm going to build a slinger before finishing my worker after all, I think... especially because a second camp spawned here:

I just wish that camp weren't there luring my warrior away.  I'd go see what it is, but it's on a swamp and therefore will take a long time to get to anyway.

T10: Mining completes; starting on Pottery or Irrigation next.

Interturn, we meet Cleopatra, boosting writing.  (handy!)  Her scout came from the southwest.

T14: Buenos Aires helped soften up that barbarian camp to the northeast, and we destroy it, netting us gold and boosting military tradition.  I have no idea where the barbarian scout is from, but I never saw a scout from this one.  It also seems to have wandered in circles, so I guess it's time to intercept, maybe after some healing.

T15: Code of Laws comes in.  Civics:

I picked God King over Urban Planning because we have a choice between 2Food1Production tiles and 2Food1Faith tiles, right now.  This makes faith and production kind of fungible.  Next civic target is Craftsmanship, which I'm going to make sure to boost before getting.

T16: We go back to that first builder, now that we have some more units.

We also discover Hong Kong, which wants us to get a Great Prophet.  Egypt got to them first, unfortunately, so we don't get the starting envoy.


T18: Pottery completes; start on Irrigation, which we will be boosting in a couple turns.  I have a plan to boost it, so I'm having my warrior rest next to a village until I have done it.

T20: the builder finally finishes.  No barbarians ever showed up, and Hong Kong finally dispatched that scout.  However, we do have 2 units exploring now, at least.  We farma wheat, boosting Irrigation (4 turns now), and greet a village, which gives us gold.  (Next build is a scout for more exploration.  We need to look to our south a lot, as the north is a frozen waste.)  I decide to use some of it to send a delegation to Cleopatra.  She has City State Protector, which shouldn't be a problem for us.

Interturn, I learn that, while she won't mind our usual city state foreign policy, oh right, she's going to hate our military weakness all game.

T21: we explored another village... and this one gave us faith.  We now have enough for a pantheon.  Monument To The Gods and Stone Circles are tempting because of our start, but I'm unconvinced that the early faith bonus from Circles is worth it, and I don't like the fact that Monument phases out.  On the other hand, I do intend to build ancient wonders, and Monument phases out to our own civ's bonus.  Let's do it.  Founding the pantheon also boosts Mysticism.

T24: Irrigation comes in.  We're going to try to get Astrology to close to 50% next.  There's a barbarian scout to the south, which is hardly surprising.  I need to decide what I'm going to do about it.  Also, there's a bunch of desert to the south.  I'm sure it's good for the pyramids and I wonder if it will be good for Petra, given that I think I see desert sheep there.

T26: Craftsmanshp comes in.  Next civic is foreign trade,e ven though we haven't found a new continent yet.

In the west, we find Yerevan, that most awkward of city states, and it boosts Political Philosophy.  Someone got to this one, too.  In the south, a scout detected our city.  Good thing I have a garrison prepped.  There are also several units from Cleopatra.  I'm going to need to land-grab this quickly, so my next build, in a couple turns is going to be a settler.  I take advantage of the free civic swap I just got to put the +1 production card in.

T28: I'd taken a look at the continent lens when I met Yerevan and noticed it was on a continental divide.  Walking my slinger into its borders finally got us the boost for Foreign Trade.


T30: I found Cleopatra's capital:

Also, notice that road, particularly in the fog.  Cleopatra is sending us a trade route, which, incidentally, builds a road right into where I want to build that city.  I need to decide exactly where I'm putting it, but check out that monster petra city location there.  The only question is which desert tile I want to found it on, given that growth will be rough before we atually have Petra.

I also just noticed I'm past 50% on Astrology, so I switch over to Animal Husbandry for our upcoming city.

T31, I meet Arabia and exchange capital information.  He's way over here, but I hope Arabia doesn't know how to use Yerevan very well:


Also, this barbarian camp will need to be cleared out before we found our second city, it looks like:


Interturn, we meet Harald of Norway, too.  Capital trade reveals he is all the way to the south.

T35: I'm 1 turn from animal Husbandry, and my tile-buying costs are going to go up when I get it.  I have 396 gold.  I'm going to go on a tile-buying spree, especially now that I've figured out I can build the Pyramids at Paris where I already have good production.  Here's Paris after my buying spree:

There's one questionable spot near the mountains which might get a holy site or a campus.  The flatland to the northwest is for Stonehenge.  The desert tile in the southeast is for the Pyramids.  The cattle to the southwest is for our desert city, but it'll be cheaper to buy it now given wehre I'm thinking of placing that city.

T36: Animal Husbandry and Foreign Trade come in.  We're going to start on State Workforce, which I need to watch like a hawk and go for writing to get campuses.  My civic development is super slow anyway, though, so I should be able to get one up in time to boost it.

T38: We meet Lisbon, or rather they find us.  They want us to recruit a great writer.


Interturn, a barbarian warrior suicides on my Slinger.  Apparently, this doesn't qualify as "kill a unit with a slinger".

T40: We found Bordeaux in the middle of the desert:

Food is about the only thing it reliably has, so I'm going to start sinking production into a slinger.  Later, it's going to need serious worker support, and, next turn, we're going to buy a tile somewhere before the price goes up again.  Now I need to rush for Mathematics and Petra... and kill that barbarian camp.

Cleopatra complains I'm too close.  That's fair.  I'll go another direction next anyway.

T42: Well, I forgot to buy the district, but it also appears that costs haven't gone up for ring 2, at least.  It looks like we're expanding border in useful directions anyway.  Writing comes in, and I set Masonry to research for now.  I'm still holding out hope on that natural wonder, and it's 7 turns to complete this campus to boost State Workforce to get at the wonder accelerator.  We also got our first rade route and sent it to Buenos Aires for production, gold, and a quest completion.

T48: Cleopatra built Stonehenge this turn.  That's annoying, because I'm going to have to get a prophet the hard way if I want one, and I'm pretty far behind in the race now.  There are 8 players, which means 4 prophets.  One went to Egypt and one will go to Arabia.  3 other players have GPP cooking right now, and they're all around 20/60 for the first prophet.  The later ones cost more, though, so I might be able to race for a middle one, even now, especially if I put the card in.  I start building a worker, because I'm going to need one, and I get going on finishing Astrology.

Interturn, Cleopatra denounces me for being weak.  This could get super annoying.

The next turn, Harald wants me to join him in war with Cleopatra for pocket change.  I decline.  After all, I'm not too honorable to declare war.  That's good news, though, because it means we might not get declared on quite yet.

T51: State Workforce comes in.  The next civic is Early Empire.  It's time to push for governments.

Bordeaux also needs amenities.  Good thing we have a worker coming in 2 turns so we can finally put a plantation on one of those incenses.  I also pay 95 gold for a tile I'd like to use for my holy site.

T52: Astrology comes in.  Next tech is Currency.  I set up the holy site as well, but I'm more than a little worried about the fact that one of Cleopatra's warriers has the city-targeted exclamation point over its head.  I still don't know if that's a bug.

T55: Cleopatra has two or three warriors walked up to my land.  I'm getting kind of worried here, I have to admit.  (interturn, it's 4 visible)  She's also in Oligarchy, to make matters worse.

T57: I finally find a natural wonder!  It was practically next to Egypt's capital.  Would have been nice to find earlier...

T59: Currency completes.  Welcome to the Classical Era!  Next tech is archery because uh, Cleopatra has walked 3 units up to Paris.  Paris is going to start on the Pyramids soon, but first a brief interlude for a slinger while we line up a civic swap.  (because uh; cleopatra is wandering units around me)

T61: Archery comes in.  Next tech is Bronze working to find out if there is iron nearby.  Our slinger turned into an archer (2T remain), so I switch build to the Pyramids this turn.

We also find one of China's units.  Capital trade puts them in the east.

Interturn, Egypt starts converting my cities.  It does make me question my decision to contest religions.  (It's not like I need to own the religion, anyway.  I just want access to religious tourism stuff.

T62: New policies, hedging against attack by my neighbor:


Early Empire had finished, so my next civic is Political Philosophy.

Exploring, I meet the Kongo people.  They're east of Egypt.  At least they aren't completing for a prophet...

T64: Cleopatra declares war on us.  It's nice to get the defensive tactics bonus for a change. I switch back to the archer I'd been working on in Paris; it finishes in one turn.  I also blow away one of Cleopatras units this turn.  It's not clear to me she's actually ready to go wo war with me.  Let's see if I can snipe any workers with my scout, assuming there are any.

T65: Iron Working comes in.  I set the tech to Mathematics, which I'm going to need to remember to stop early.

T68: An unmet player built the Hanging Gardens.  That would have been nice, but it's not like it was critical.

T70: Total units killed by barbarians: 1  Total units killed by Egypt: 0  I put a warrior in a poor position and he got rekt.

Interturn, though, I lost a very damaged scout that I had left healing to a slinger.  Not sure who killed it.

Amusingly, despite our war, I have no kept my promise not to settle near Egypt.

T73: Having wiped out most of Cleopatra's expeditionary force, I think it's time to go pillage some tiles, soon.

T75: Mathematics is past 50%, so research switches to Horseback Riding.  I'll boost it either with the Great Library or by building a commercial district.

T76: Pyramids complete!  China thinks I should be looking at them for wonders, though.  Sucks to be China.  This got me an inspiration on Drama and Poetry, which got me an envoy to Buenos Aires, which set them at war with Hong Kong, which is apparently under the sway of Egypt.  I'll need to do something about that.

We also got governments this turn.  I'll want Autocracy later, but for now I guess I'll go for Oligarchy, since we've got units that are being shot at.  Next civic is Mysticism so I can soon get the great prophet card.  It's the only way I'll win a prophet race, and I probably need the Oracle on top of that.  (Realistically, I won't get it, and I'll take whatever religion someone else spreads.  Looking, total religions is 5, so I might get the last one.)
Policies for now:


Interturn, Cleopatra offers me salt for peace.  (Snark: Yeah, I'd be salty if my war went like that...)

T80: Mysticism comes in.  I need to pick something for my next civic.  The default is going to be Games And Recreation.

If I'm going to make a run for a religion, I'll get the last one, but I need a plan, and it's going to be a demanding one for sure.  So, here we go...
There are three great prophets left, and four civs going for them:

China has 4 points per turn, and Arabia is guaranteed one while getting 2 points.  The unmet player has 3 points.
Arabia gets the last great prophet if it doesn't win a prophet race before that, so we have to assume we need to get one of the 120-point prophets.  They're 39 points out, which is 20 turns.  The unmet player is 49 points out, but will get there in 17 turns.  Hoping Arabia gets another GPP in the pipe to give us extra time seems like a sucker's bet.
We need 98 great prophet points in 17 turns, which comes out to 5.7 average GPP per turn from now until the end.

We can bump our thing up to 4 points per turn right now if we put the great prophet card in, and we have a civic swap this turn for it.
If we finish the Oracle, we can get to 6 great prophet points per turn.  However, before construction bonuses, it takes 15 turns to build.  That means we'll only get a couple of turns of usefulness out of it, but it does mean we might be able to get away with using the purchase discount.
Depending on how the bonuses stack, putting the wonder card in while in Classical Republic will shave one or two turns off, getting it down to 13 or 14 turns to build.  With Autocracy, we should be able to get it down another turn, to 12 or 13.  Similarly, if we canibalize our growth, we can squeeze another two production out of our city.
Working backwards, if we're going to average 5.7 GPP per turn with the Autocracy approach, we will need to finish the Oracle in 2 turns, if we're not using its purchase ability to grab the last bit.  Meanwhile, if we are in Classical Republic, with it's 15% GPP bonus, we need to complete it in 5 turns.  Only one of these is remotely doable.
I know I have a certain amount of sunk-cost fallacy going on here, but holy cities are a tourism source, and the Oracle is going to be useful, especially since I think I can make Paris into a traditional monster city, with its several grain tiles.

I ended up setting the next civic to Military Tradition (4 turns) because we're getting some envoys right now and I want to use the doubling card and then switch back.  After that, we're going to put some civics research into Games And Recreation before lining up Drama And Poetry to arrive just as we're getting our great prophet.  China has a theater district, and I intend to grab at least one great writer.
Here's Paris in all-hands-on-deck build mode:

The base hammers of a forest are 48 right now, but I'm hoping I've got enough multipliers on that to make this somewhat competitive.  I'm not going to hit 5 turns, but I might hit 7 or 8, and then I'll have to save my pennies to buy the prophet.  There's a strong chance that we'll miss and can't afford it, at this point.

Interturn, Cleopatra sends a delegation.

T81: Horseback Riding comes in.  Apprenticeship is unlocked, so we're going to start researching towards it.  I still need to build the mines.

T82: I had actually forgotten to place envoys last turn.  I place them in Hong Kong and Lisbon, both doubled because it's the first.  This gives me +2 production and +4 gold in the capital compared to what it was before.

It's been 2 turns since we started on the Oracle, and already we're down to only 10 turns to complete.  This turn, I chop a forest.  It's rated at 48 production, but it takes us from 51/290 to 113/290, so we actualy got 62 or so.  (Production is a float, so it's more complicated than the display shows.)  We're gettin 22 listed production, and it's more like 25.5 after all bonuses are applied, based on that 51 number.  It's 7 turns to build normally, and it's closer to 4 or 5 if we chop in the meantime.  I have one more chop on this worker, and it will be delivered in 4 turns.  Hopefully it completes then, but I'll live with it completing the next turn.  Our unmet player went up to 4 points per turn, however, which means we're not getting a prophet unless we do it with patronage, unfortunately.  Arabia is still at 2 points per turn.
At 4 points per turn and 43 points remaining, the clock for the prophet is 11 turns, and we know we can't make that unless there is only one medieval prophet.

T83: Prophet report: 4.6 points of GPP reduces required faith from 1040 to 1000 and required gold from 1525 to 1475.  At this rate, we wouldn't be able to even afford the base markup, and I'm abandoning the great prophet race.  The worker whose last charge I was going to use to chop is going to mine silver, instead.  We'll need more workers soon, too.  I'll leave us in classical republic until the next wonder I want to build, probably, and then it's over to Autocracy.

T84: Another round of prophet timing, just for interest: this time, it dropped by 50 faith and 75 gold.  So, it looks like each point reduces things by 10 faith or 15 gold.  At 4.6 per turn for 10 turns (which we don't have, but), that'd be 46 points for 460 faith, dropping the patronage cost to 500 faith.  On the gold side, it'd be 690 gold, dropping that cost to 900 or so.  No, I was never going to be able to afford it.  Military tradition comes in, so our next civic is Drama And Poetry.

Confirming my drop out of the prophet race, here's my new civics:


T85: I have another harebrained plan, too: I'm going to chop a forest into a worker in Bordeaux, built a commercial district on the former site of the forest, and use that to boost mathematics to build Petra.  The builder is then going to mine some land around Bordeaux so we can actually build the thing in a reasonable amount of time.

T87: I go check the prophets again, just because I'm curious.  I'm surprised to discover that Arabia got theirs a couple turns ago, when they had been losing the race to the unmet player.  However, it turns out that the next prophet is also medieval, so I wouldn't have caught the unmet player anyway.

To add insult to injury, China finishes the Oracle one turn before me, so I have nothing to show for 10 turns of work and a chop.  If I hadn't stopped rushing for it, I'd have gotten it, too!

T88: I throw a builder on because I have the builder card in.  After that, it'll finally be time to build a library, like I had started before I tried to grab a prophet at the last minute.

T92: Three mines boosts Apprenticeship, only one turn before it is now due to complete.  Perfect timing!  Also, Drama and Poetry will be in next turn.

T93: Apprenticeship comes in.  Welcome to the Medieval Era!  Hong Kong wants a trade route, and Buenos Aires wants us to train a crossbow.  Our next research is the wheel, while our next civic is Recorded History.

Exploring, we meet Mohenjo-Daro, which also wants a trade route.  We're going to need to research some seafaring for that one.  OUr exploration for new city sites is not going amazing, either, given that we seem to have boxed ourselves in on this coastline:


T94: ... and this turn I notice that I forgot to change civics last turn.  I'm stuck with a wonder card that I'm not using right now where I meant to have a writer card.

T96: The Wheel comes in.  Next tech is Construction.  Also, I buy a tile and reserve an industrial zone for Bordeaux, because it's size 5 and we should get that out of the way.  It's an amazing +4 zone, once all the mines get up and running.

T100: Paris finishes its industrial district before Bordeaux even manages to finish its commercial district.  I'll let it finish, but then we're going to get started on Petra.

Taking a look at the score screen, I'm now behind everyone in basically everything.  That's awkward.  I need to build more settlers and go back to other stuff later.

T102: I start on Petra in Bordeaux.  30 turns.  Hopefully nobody else has a juicy spot to try for.

Interturn, Cleopatra declares war on me again, surprise this time, with open borders.  I just want to be left alone!
She's got a bigger army this time:


T103: It occurs to me that finishing an industrial district will give a huge boost in Bordeaux to building Petra because of industrial city-states.  I switch building to that.  We're going to need to mine around it sooner rather than later, too, which I had neglected before.

T109: I learn that Kongo has built the Great Library.  Well, that's annoying.  I guess the spot I saved for it can go to Oxford, if nothing else.
By this time, I have destroyed Egypt's invading army.

T110: Scouting, I discover that Cleopatra is building Petra and is not far from completing it.  This sucks.

Somewhere in here, Egypt offers peace again, and, being honorable, I accept.

T115: Egypt built Petra.

At this point, I was last in every subsection of score on the score board, from civics to empire to tech.  I had missed most of the early wonders my pantheon was supposed to accelerate, and I had lost my big bet on Petra.
("This sucks; I quit.")

Looking back, my big problem was that I did not expand appropriately fast.  Until about halfway through the civics tree, the only culture that you can get is from population, and that means you need a lot of it.  Bordeaux was not a bad city, I'd say, but it was not a good second city.  I should have dropped a second one somewhere else and put my third one there... and really, I should have done all that in the time that it took me to put those two down.  I'm not quite sure how I would have done that, but I think that's what would have been needed to keep on track.  I've always been weak at expanding in a timely manner, so this failure mode is, at some level, not a surprise, but this particular game also locked out the usual ways to mitigate that problem early.  Similarly, while there were ways to mitigate poor science output, and I even got a campus and library built eventually, having enough population to provide even remotely acceptable culture output would have provided much more science to keep up in tech as well as not fall completely behind in civics.

I also have to admit that the farmer's gambit also failed me this game.  I would have been significantly better off if I had had my warrior closer to home and had built a scout first to do the scouting my warrior was doing, as that would have spared me some time to finish the worker I was building without dropping everything for extra military.

My tendency to make plans 2-3 turns in advance that required precise timing, write them down, and then still somehow forget them was a problem, but a much bigger problem was that I simply did the fundamentals poorly.

Just scoring summary - late for work Monday morning when finishing.  I can't ever rush through things.  Hopefully high level report tonight or tomorrow morning

Win about T213/214 depending on how counted.  Had to get to 174 tourists (Kongo was leader in culture, at 170 to beat I think final tally).  IE was at 174/170 on T213 but had to end turn to see victory.  
17 wonders.
No city captures, so think 74 points.  

notable misses (full list of actually built to come...).  
Stonehenge + ones requiring founding religion  (Mahabodhi, Hagia)
Hanging Gardens, Chichen Itza (Kongo got then)
Cristo (under construction but won before done).  



Most divided between capital and desert city to the south (which was a monster with Petra, assume lots of others did this). 
Hill site east of cap did Potala, coastal SE by cows/horses did Great Lighthouse and Colossus, eastern salt/deer did Venetian, and southern jungle city did Forbidden Palace. 
Finished Eiffel, skipped Hermitage and Big Ben (could have done maybe but would need to clear Chateaus and my production capacity was getting low from chateau spam).  Really think it's dumb you can't pave over lux resources, a lot of tobacco tiles not doing a ton for me late game...would have been nice to Chateau or put wonders on them.   Basically was done with Modern era (both trees) plus computers of course when finished.

Had a blast - more soon hopefully.

Hello,

no real report yet (I have to get back to my game computer), but I did play through this adventure... twice !

I enjoyed the game a lot, and since it was quite fast I had a second go atit later. Surprisingly, my second go had a slower finish ??? I guess I wasn't as open to oportunity, and clearly that was a mistake, I finished almost 10 turn later.

First unspoiled non-shadowy game ended in a conquest by T166 (IIRC).
I have started my report but from memory, and since I played both game in a binge over two days, I am afraid of confusions between the 2. I'll have to check my saves and screenshots before posting. Just wanted to at least create the thread before reading other people's remarks about the game ;-)

Result: Cultural victory on turn 328 (20 pts) with 9 wonders built (18 pts) for a total of 38 points.  

Report to follow.

Result: Finish date T323 (20 pts) with 12 wonders built (24 pts) = 44 pts total.

Report to follow.

I haven't participated in this scenario in previous games, so this will be completely new experience for me.

Without monuments it will be really difficult for cities to grab tiles, so I cant rely on it at all and would need to be buying them instead. Therefore strong economy will be the key.  Only source of culture will be population until Humanism, therefore quick expansion an pop grow will be necessary.
 
If Kongo is in the game, it will be main opponent as  it can generate tourism rather quickly trough relics. Also good terms with other civs will be necessary to keep open borders for international tourists bonuses.
 
The initial starting strategy will be quick expansion and commercial/harbor district spam with occasional Industry/Campus districts in cities with higher population. Some wonders to be constructed within first 150 turns, however I do not expect any religious ones. Plan is to land hanging garden, colosseum, petra, great lighthouse and colossus. If possible, then also Potala Palace & Chitzen Itza. All should be placed alongside river to further boost Chateaus.
 
For research tree, first goal will be to get techs unlocking wonders and heading towards Computers to double tourism as soon as possible, then another important tech will be Flight.
 
For culture tree, first goal will be to head towards Humanism and build as many Chateau as possible. They can be only placed alongside river, so trying to avoid placing districts on riverside, even commercial districts will be placed off the riverside despite loosing +2gpt. Second goal will be technology for seaside resorts, then again avoiding to place districts on flat land sea sides.
 
Lets start. 

Moved warrior to west and uncovered river arm with some hills. Looks like I will be able to settle two more cieties along the rivier, each from another side, so I have settled on the spot. Then I sent warrior to souths to see how far the river goes there and soon found new continent and met Egypt (south). Stonehenge has been built on Turn 7. Hmm, seems I´ll have rough competition for wonders. EDIT: Stonehenge on turn 7 was most probably wrong note during playing scenario. I dont know however when it was completed.
 
I started my usual opening – slinger, slinger, builder, slinger, slinger, settler and scouted the surroundings. There is tundra region north of capital, dessert region in the south of capitol, grassland/plains region to south-east with great mounting range to east of capital.

Bought trader on turn 27 for spare Money. Also met three city states – industrial Hong-Kong in the north, industrial Buenos Aires in the east & Yerevan in the west.

In next turns I met Norway (south), Arabia (west) and Kongo (south-east). I was focusing on quick expansion – found Bordeax between Buenos Aires and capitol, Amboise south of BA, Nantes under Paris, Rheims south-east under mountain range, Rouen & Marseilles in the south at Egypt borders. Spent lot of Money to buy tiles on Egypt border to make sure to block them from passing & expansion.
 
Hanging Gardens have been built in Paris to have first wonder on turn 78. Few turnes later (turn 82)  Pyramids were built by AI. Started with Petra in Nantes early to make sure to grab it and having great dessert city. Unfortunatelly, Petra was completed by AI on turn 97, so I have lost production on it. I was still 30 turns short, so I wasnt that much disappointed. Another wonders were built by AI in next decades – Oracly on turn 97, Mahabodi Temple on turn 112, Great library on turn 113, Chichen Itza on turn 134 (planned to built, but was still missing tech) & Hagia Sophia on turn 143.

Turn 90 - French empire strategic view 



Turn 90 - French empire – 14,5 bpt / 8,6 cpt / 1 fpt / 23,9 gpt / 8 tourists / 2 trade routes



Turn 90 - Strategic view
 
On turn 112 met China, on turn 144 got first great persons – Great Merchant Jakob Fugger & Great Engineer Bisheng. Colossus has been built by AI on turn 155. One turn later Nantes completed my second wonder Colosseum & Terracota Army has been built by AI. Finally on turn 161 I have discovered Humanism and started to built Chateaus wherever possible including bonus resources, which of course are harvested in advance. Next heading towards my all favorite Merchant republic. At this point I was suzerain of Hong Kong & Buenos Aires and having 3 envoys each plus Lisbon. I have also completed city state Mohenjo-Daro quest unintetionally, so 1 envoy endded up there as well.
 
Turn 162 - French empire – 62,4 bpt / 40,6 cpt / 6,4 fpt / 72,2 gpt / 18 tourists / 5 trade routes



Turn 162 - First two wonders



Turn 162 – Culture



Alhambra built by AI on turn 169, met Rome on turn 170 and Potala palace built by AI on turn 170.
On turn 171 my scout popped relic „Beard of the evangelist“. I after checkin game variant rules I decided to keep it, as I hadd not aquired it trough prohibited way. I could not mention it in my report or sell it to AI, but It will be another way how to get advantage from this finidings. Therefore I´m mentioning it here honestly and leaving it on Sullla´s decision, if I should be penalized or my result discounted.
 
My third wonder – Great lighthouse has been built on turn 175. One turn later switched to government Merchant republic. Phony war started by Egypt & Arabia against French empire on turn 183 and peace was singed 10 truns later without single battle. Month St. Michel built by AI on turn 203. Until now I have expanded to the west peninsula, where I found 2 cities just south of Arabi and to the east continent, just east to China including small Island where I sneaked as 2 cities as well. Also found filler city on Egypt border & 2 cities in the east towards Yerevan.
 
Turn 203 - French empire – 111,8 bpt / 87,6 cpt / 28,3 fpt / 200,2 gpt / 45 tourists / 12 trade routes



Turn 203  - Ruhr Valley in production with Chateau spam



Turn 203 – Culture; international toursim 62/217 closest is Kongo with 25/133


 
Computers researched on turn 209 rocketing my toursims to 70 per turn. My fourth wonder Ruhr Valley completed on turn 213 and fifth one - Venetian arsenal on turn 216 . On turn 221 I have completed research of flight, further increasing toursim per turn to 224. Landed Oxford university on turn 223, my sixth wonder.
 
Turn 250 - French empire – 199,4 bpt / 123 cpt / 63,1 fpt / 446,3 gpt / 300 tourists / 26 trade routes



Turn 250 - Wonders & Chatteau



Turn 250 - Culture


 
At this point, I was able to found another 6 cities in the east part of the map. Also founded fishing village north of Yerevan to grab another source of silver.
 
Another favorite government has been researched by French empire , class struggle and immediately switched into it. Seventh – Forbidden city (turn 255), eight – Great Zimbabwe (turn 258), ninth - Cristo Redentor (turn 261) & tenth Eiffel Tower (Turn 264) wonder completed in french cities increasing my tourism output to 456 per turn. Eiffel tower especially crucial to my plan as it has increased appeal to all seaside tiles allowing my to place twice as more seaside resorts as it would be possible without it. After completing most of seaside resorts possible in my territory, tourism jumped to 1018 per turn.
 
Then on turn 257 Arabia somehow sneaked his settler trough my east border cities and found their own city in the awkward position without any resource in its surrounding. Oh, well, seems I need to live with it. I have quickly bought tiles around it to limit its expansion.
 
In next turns I have noticed Arabian units marching trough my land to the east and I was wondering where they are heading. I had open borders with them and neutral relations, so I wasnt really worried about them to attacking. Furthermore they were not massing on my borders but spending tens of turs of passing trough. That is why I was surprised when Arabia declared war to my French empire on turn 267. All its units were magically transported on my borders, but scattered based on where they were positioned one turn before. Three field cannons, one bombard, three mamluks and three AT crew against my archers in border cities and slingers in the back cities. Immediately switched to Big Ben construction. I was holding it off one turn before completion to build up some cash. Fortunately for me I have had researched technology granting city defense to all my cities already, so I started to soften Arabian attack.
 
One turn later, my eleventh wonder Big Ben had been completed with my cash doubled to 12.000 gold. I have upgraded archers and some slingers to field cannons and started to pick Arabian units one by one. They were just marching trough my territory without attacking cities, so soon I killed all units in this initial attack. No further attack came from arabia and they come asking for peace soon.
 
Broadway completed on turn 276 by AI. First French national wonder created on turn 282 in tundra city in the south of the map, second one turn later north of Bordeaux and north of Paris. Same turn Paris completed its work on Hermitage, my twelfth wonder.
 
In the next turns I was focusing on commercial hub invest in order to get great merchant adding 10 tourism per industrial zone or campus. On turn 300 I was close to finish with 273/306 tourists. On turn 305 my last, thirteen, wonder Estadio de Maracana has been completed. I had also Sidney opera house in production in Marseilles, but it would take another 13 turns to complete, when I have exceeded 312 Kongo domestic tourists by my 316 international tourists.
 
Turn 307 - French empire core – 425,3 bpt / 413 cpt / 115,5 fpt / 1859,3 gpt / 1646 tourists / 47 trade routes



Turn 307 - French empire north



Turn 307 - French empire south



Turn 307 - French wonders



Turn 307 - Culture from
 
 
Ending turn is 307 and built 13 wonders, so I scored 46 ponts. If I had finished 7 turns earlier it would be 8 more (not ten, as I would not finish Maracana). Oh, well.

To summarize my results.

What I did good - expansion (I may have one of the biggest empires) and Chatteau/Seaside resorts/National park spam.

What I did wrong - ignoring religion and related wonders and also skipping ancient/classic era wonders, when it was crucial to have early tourism in order to build up strong base and defend against other Civs tourism. I also have misread rules and though that international trade routes are forbidden, while only the ones bringing culture were.

Not to steal Quincy's thunder, but I'm hosting a modification of my ww41 setup on the Total War Forums. Link to signup sheet here.

Below is a copy/paste of the description.

The theme for this game is high fantasy, and not set in any existing realms.

This is a closed setup game.

There are no bastard elements.

Game setup can handle basically any number of players, as it is very flexible.

It will be balanced as best as I can once I see the numbers involved.

Game will start sometime between the 27th and the 30th of January if possible.



Basic setup outline is that all players have access to a spell book that is quasi-randomly assigned to character #'s, and then those numbers are assigned true random style to the various players. Players then pick a set number of points worth of spells(read single use roles) with various costs based on the utility of the spell.

Game then proceeds as normal. The game is structured in such a way as to make it impossible to use meta to break it open. I won't say don't go there, because I know you will, but just be forewarned.