A little over a month after its release, I have completed my goal to win a game playing each of the new civs and leaders in Gathering Storm. I played all at Prince level of difficulty, standard game pace, standard map size, and beginning in the Ancient era. All but two were set at the default level of 2 for disaster intensity. The map types varied to take advantage of the strengths of the civ/leader.
Playing all the leaders and civs meant learning quite a bit more detail about the changes in Gathering Storm, as well as the unique strengths and weaknesses of the civ and leader. I found each to be strong in different ways and well worth playing again. As I look back on all ten games, I realize I won three each through Science, Culture, and Domination, and the final one through Diplomacy.
My original plan was to go through the civs in alphabetical order by their leader name, but for some reason I did not have the Inca and Pachacuti on my “list”, so I ended up playing him last. It turned out to be good, because after trying to win a Diplomatic Victory a couple of times (with Canada and France/Eleanor) and failing, having to settle for Culture victories, I was finally able to win via Diplomacy with the Inca. I will be writing a separate post about that game and win strategies.
The record for shortest game so far is a Domination win on turn 228 playing the Ottoman Empire with Suleiman. I think it helped to be on a Pangaea map as building a navy and time for sea travel was not a factor, but this is an overpowered civ.
Not surprisingly, the Maori with Kupe is quite strong on an Archipelago map, in this case resulting in a Domination win on turn 335.
Hungary with Mattias Corvinus was dominant due to their ability to levy city-state troops and upgrade them without cost. Result: Domination win on turn 356.
Mansa Musa of the Mali is fun to play because of the huge accumulation of gold and faith. It made winning by virtually any method viable, but I chose Science and won on turn 449. I enjoy getting deep into the late game that is inevitable when pursuing a Science victory.
In my next post, I’ll say more about the effects of a higher disaster intensity level, but as a result of what I learned so far, I think from now on, I will be playing with the disaster intensity level set at the maximum of 4. Watching Mabozir’s series of play-throughs, where he always sets the level at the maximum, I’ve seen the effects of the worst, and in most cases, the ultimate benefits outweigh the negatives.
In the two games I played at level 4, disasters were a major problem a few times, especially one tornado damaging 11 tiles (five districts!), killing 3 population, and otherwise creating havoc, but I’m learning how to mitigate natural disasters and the eventual improvement of tiles makes it worth it in the long run, even if it takes a number of turns to fix the districts and buildings damaged.
While watching Marbozir videos, I learned of a very useful mod, Concise UI. I used it in the last four games I’ve played. The first two games I used the original version, but that is now obsolete. The last two games were using the updated version with the core module and several add-ons. In those last two games, I discovered one glitch I think was caused by one of the add-ons: the Statue of Liberty reverts to the old version providing two settlers upon completion instead of 1 Diplomatic Point. In the game I discovered this, the one point not gained meant not winning a Diplomatic Victory. In the last game played, I believe I found the culprit add-on (by replaying from the turns just before completion of the wonder several times) and was able to get the correct result for the wonder. My next game will probably either confirm that as the problem or I will need to look for another solution.
In summary, I have found Gathering Storm to be engaging and fun to play. I now plan to try some of the civs and leaders again at higher levels of difficulty.
Tech Muddler 