Douglas E. Berry

Today's Giants game was giving me ulcers, I had to play phone tag with two ophthalmologist offices over my authorization for tomorrow's visit with Yet Another Doctor. Honestly, I feel like I'm getting passed around the Bay like a hot potato.

My solution? Play Civilization VI. Comfort food, Trajan on Prince, huge map. Early on Kupe of the Maori popped up and built a city right where I was going to build my gold-churning port. Suprise war! And five turns later, No more Maori in the game.

Now, I have a mod that gives more realistic names for cities, and as a fun bonus, if you conquer a city that has a name in your Civ's language, it will change it to that. For example, if the Romans took London, it would be called Londinium.

Of course, this only works for cities that have programmed alternate names. Roman and the Maori never crossed paths. So I was left with the original city name.

This would not stand. So I changed it.

To Hobbiton.

I had a great game going, Alexander, Standard-size Pangea map, King difficulty. I had already eliminated the Netherlands and Korea and was just lining up Poland in my Early Infantry, Heavy Artillery, and WWI tanks sights. I was pulling in over 200 Research points a turn, about 300 gold a turn, and my army was the strongest in the world.

I even kept people happy with entertainment districts and luxuries.

Then the game crashed. No error message, so hopefully it's still there, but I am quite annoyed.

I did find a fun tactic. If you're playing an aggressive civilization (Macedonia, Mongolia, etc.) and you play with the Secret Societies mode on, and you get the Voidsingers, chose Crusade when you get your religion. Because the Old God Obelisks that replace the Monument pump out +4 Faith a turn, and have a Great Work slot. So build up an army of Missionaries, go covert, then attack with a +10 for attacking a city of the same faith.

Really pissed. I've invested about 14 hours into this game.

So I have embraced conquering a bottle of Corona. Victory is mine!

I just finished a very successful game of Civilization VI. Playing Rome on King difficulty, continents map, and I was using the Secret Societies game mode.

This is fun, there are four secret societies, the Voidsingers, the Owls of Minerva, the Sanguine Pact, and the Hermetic Order. Each has benefits and adds a new level of play. Early in the game, I was offered a chance to join the Voidsingers.

The Voidsingers follow a dark religion of ancient gods and sow chaos to control adversaries. Joining them unlocks the Old God Obelisk, which replaces the Monument. It has all of the Monument's base effects and provides additional Faith and Great Works slots. The Voidsingers also have a unique unit, the Cultist. Purchased with Faith, Cultists can spend a charge to recruit followers in enemy cities, reducing the target city's Loyalty by calling its citizens to madness.

The fun part is that every city Rome builds starts with a Monument, so all my new cities started with the Old God Obelisk already in place, which meant a quick +4 Faith from each city even before I built a Holy Site! When I did, I used a custom religion called the Eye of Madness. I also didn't stint on the research. As a result, I won a religious victory in 1560 after conquering 6 or the 11 rival states and converting the others. In the end, I was pulling in over 300 Faith a turn!

As I won the victory, all I could think of was the vine-choked Imperial Palace in Roma, past the hollow-eyed guards and the gibbering priests, to where the withered husk of Trajan, the Imperatoris Aeterna, rises from his throne for the first time in centuries, his dry voice echoing with eldritch force.

"The stars are right."

Just finished an amazing game of CivVI. Trajan on a Large Continents map, King difficulty.

As an aside, King is a good challenge for me, and the new computer has solved the slow play issue.

I started with the Cree and America to my South, Kongo to the Southeast, and Persia to my Northeast. I really lucked out in terms of a starting location, as there were plenty of mountains making high-yield spots for campuses and holy sites.

Because I was on King, I built four warriors quickly (I use mods that give you a starting scout and warrior.) Some nice villagers gave me the Holy Lance, so I very quickly was able to select the pantheon that gave me a Settler. As I was building one already, Rome quickly had three cities, and a strong flow of money and Iron.

Which was important, because Poundmaker of the Cree is an ass. He attacked America, taking Washington. I responded by taking Washington, and all of his cities. I gave Washington back to Teddy Roosevelt. But it kept getting conquered, in the end, it and New York were Roman, and America was a backwards state stretching along a pretty barren cost.

Fast forward here. I eventually met the folks living on the other continent. . . the Maori, Sweden, and the Ottomans. Spain had existed but was swallowed by the Ottoman Empire.

But Kongo was becoming my problem. He kept declaring war on my ally America! As I had Mechanized armies and jet bombers at this point, I took about half his cities along with wiping out his invasions force (We had a little WWI recreation of cavalry vs. emplaced machineguns. It got ugly.) and settled so I could develop those cities for myself.

Then he did it again. This time, I had a Giant Death Robot and I nuked one of his remaining cities. Evacuated art from a theater district threatened by rising sea levels and went back to a twin-pronged victory approach of both a Science and Cultural win.

Which is when Darius of Persia began demanding tribute. He had three poorly developed cities and no armies to speak of. Whereas the Grim Death Mechanized Army had all the possible promotions. It was a joke, I literally took each of his cities with a single turn of fighting. So that made four capitals I had conquered.

Which is when Kongo declared war on America. Again. This time, I went Dr. Strangelove on him.

Took about five days of playing, and I got the highest rating possible. Science victory in 1996 or thereabouts.