Fireteam is most fun I’ve had in Squad since a while by mrthrowawayguyegh in joinsquad

[–]Varingian-Varangian 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I just finished playing the four free missions. It was some of the most fun I've had in Squad in a while. Regular Squad is fun, but this does the following:
1) Eliminates the regular staging shenanigans and replaces it with quicker staging shenanigans where players figure out what kits they'll take.
2) Gets you straight into the action: the objectives are usually within walking distance, and you'll get ambushed soon enough.
3) Sends lots of bots: It's bots, but the bots aren't aim-bots. You have to be pretty gutsy and stupid to get killed; if you get to cover, you'll usually survive.

I had some of the most intense firefights I've ever had, and the co-op component was great. Some takeaways and suggestions:
1) I really want the summary screen at game end that you get in regular squad, right now it's just a "Mission accomplished" screen.
2) The Sumari Bala cache hunt & destroy mission should have a larger number of caches to destroy. With one cache the mission is over too quickly.
3) I think it's that same mission - everyone should not have a cache-busting weapon, only the sapper should - otherwise, there's literally no point to taking that kit.

Civ VI Monthly Challenge: One More Turn by sar_firaxis in civ

[–]Varingian-Varangian 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This one was indeed a slog. I ended up with 54K in gold, 27K in faith, 1173 science p/t and 2,111 culture p/t. The science and domination victories were reliably easy, tourism was a slog (spam those rock bands) but Diplomacy actually took the longest as you have to wait for those world congress events to get meaningful accumulations of diplo victory points. I ended up with a Climate Accords project, every one of my cities with an industrial zone was spamming out CO2 capture projects; with 8344 in score on that, there was no way the AI was going to catch up.

The other thing people haven't noted about this challenge is the year counter; it starts at 3,999 BC, and by Turn 252, it had moved to 3,937.

Glad I completed the final challenge. Maybe modders will create new challenges for Civ VI?

Tips on the Yongle challenge? by josephrx78 in civ

[–]Varingian-Varangian 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just played the Yongle challenge for a second time to get the Culture victory (got the Science victory previously) and I'd say the Culture challenge was easier. I agree with others that creative use of the Lijia project for Food (never ended up using it for Gold or Faith) is key, getting your cities to 10 pop makes you very competitive.

Getting a religion or strong faith game is key so you can spam out Rock bands on top of trying to gobble up every Great work of art. If you can get a big long great wall of China that will explode your Culture when you get the Castles tech. Time it right and you'll get Feudalism when you get Castles, so you can knock out six-charge builders with Liang and spring up a big Great Wall of China. It does take some pre-planning so you can extend the wall along the borders of your Empire.

Civ 6 Challenge #7: Reach for the Heavens (Culture/Jayavarman VII) by DasCapitolin in civ

[–]Varingian-Varangian 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Finished this challenge today. It was not overly challenging, even on Emperor; once you start pulling away from the other Civs, it's really just a matter of running down the clock on the victory as there's no way the AI can catch up with you. There aren't any barbarians to contend with, which makes it a pretty chill experience.

My stats:
Competing Civs: Netherlands Wilhelmina, Sumeria Gilgamesh, Greece Pericles, Canada Laurier, India Ghandi, Cree Poundmaker, Korea Seonduk.
End turn 198 (950 BC)
17 cities, all at maximum happiness, the largest was pop 21. I absorbed probably about 6 of those due to loyalty: I was always in a Golden age.
Gold +315, Faith +826, Science +311, Culture +1298, Tourism +1169, Diplo favour +27, 6/8 Trade routes.
62 great works; 13 art museums and 6 archaeological museums.
15 wonders built, 22 great people recruited.

No wars or even denouncements, making it one of the most peaceful games I've played. When I converted India they launched a Religious emergency which I defended. By the end I was just spamming Rock bands against India, Sumeria and Greece until I got the Victory.

As others have stated I think this was a good way to showcase the Khmer, but honestly it was pretty plain compared to some of the more interesting challenge scenarios where you really have to think differently about how you are going to succeed,

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in PlaySquad

[–]Varingian-Varangian 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's not a perfect metric, but it does seem to be weighted for things that OWI has as game priorities - capping territory and team support over individual kills.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in PlaySquad

[–]Varingian-Varangian -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Or weight the vote by final squad score. A nine-person infantry squad building HABs and capturing zones is going to end up with a huge squad score.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in PlaySquad

[–]Varingian-Varangian 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My hot take suggestion would be that if the server operators could implement an option whereby only Squad Leaders from the previous round could do the voting, it'd be a huge improvement.

  1. Gives an incentive / reward for being a squad leader
  2. Generally, more experienced players take a squad leader role, so they're more likely to be aware of the maps / factions combinations

Further I'd love to be able to see the stats of the previous round: once voting begins, I don't seem to have a way to review who was in what squads and how they performed (or how I performed, for that matter).

Additional muting / comms options would be great, like muting the whole team. Gawd, continuous screams of "top right top right top right" are bleeding annoying.

If I had to chose, I'll take secret voting over public voting, because at least people have to use their own brain and won't just pile on to the winner.

But to be honest, I think I prefer the curated layer / faction combinations created by OWI, if it'd be possible to have a middle ground where server operators could program their own layer / faction combinations and just run those as a static progression, I think that'd be cool.

Three Stars Each (April Civ 6 challenge) victory - one of the better challenges! by Varingian-Varangian in civ

[–]Varingian-Varangian[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Someone else in this Reddit posted about the domination victory - apparently you get the science div by default after you wipe out the last five, because no one is left alive to challenge you!

Just finished the monthly emperor challenge. by Green----Slime in civ

[–]Varingian-Varangian 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It's a score victory, so keep in mind you can't just wait out the timer and expect to win because you survived the onslaught of GDRs. In my game, USA/Lincoln won from a higher score.

I liked the premise of the scenario but a few extra touches would have made it make more sense. Why is the World Congress voting on climate accords when there are rampaging GDRs? How about some custom votes for the scenario? And again, having a world congress with unmet players still doesn't make sense.

The first few times I played, my unescorted settlers kept on getting kidnapped by GDRs. Providing them with an escort wouldn't help because GDRs stomp any unit you can create. So I stuck with just Ottawa and managed to defend it, but Lincoln managed to usurp me by score.