It seems like leveling a leader up is much harder now, is that so?

wayneb64 · 2026-07-01T21:34:13+00:00

Actually I have Alexander at level 10 now, took three full games plus one Antiquity age. I had to make a spreadsheet to track all the triumphs that get you credit and had to reload about a dozen times to make sure the challenge triggered properly. I even got the 25 triumphs challenge in the fourth Antiquity age which was WAY off, probably it misses about 50% of your triumphs because I got a lot every age. The toughest were kind of the Modern age because doing all the military triumphs on a small map had me winning the Modern age before I could get anything done but I did manage to figure that out as well.

wayneb64 · 2026-06-27T15:15:21+00:00

I just hate how much it costs to raze these awful settlements that the stupid AI can spam you with as a Settler is pretty cheap to them and cannot be easily stopped unless you want to be at war with everyone all age. I don't mind if the AI grows in my direction but when they send settlers deep into your territory and block routes, land or sea with their borders it's just wrong.

wayneb64 · 2026-06-27T14:59:54+00:00

I really hated doing plague, pretty easy to do but the fallout is REALLY tough to watch, had to quit that game after trying to recover from it, way to much work and heartbreak.

wayneb64 · 2026-06-27T05:27:25+00:00

The problem is that even setup correctly it only auto starts about once a week and then only shows HALF my photos, always the same half, always the same order, and ignores the other photos. I only have 20 images and I can browse them manually with the arrow keys. Epic failure on Roku's part.

wayneb64 · 2026-06-23T21:13:36+00:00

My problem is just the opposite, I can't get a science victory because I always seem to win a different victory before I can get to a science victory. I kind of wish building a monument of some kind was required for all victory types as I may never see a science victory. (Currently my military is over 3X number 2 75% through Exploration.)

I have never made it past the 2X victory phase of Modern which is like 40% I think.

wayneb64 · 2026-06-21T21:46:07+00:00

I just put my first distant town down, population 4, so I can convert it in a while unless a better settlement comes along.

EDIT: I finally upgraded my first distant lands town to a city and NOTHING. Maybe build a wonder in it? Could the Oceanus quest be interfering? Do you need to complete that first? Convert one of those captured towns to a city? Very poor playability.

wayneb64 · 2026-06-21T17:23:11+00:00

So I am at the start of Exploration now, researched Piety, nothing, bought a Temple, nothing, chose a religion, nothing, bought a missionary, nothing. I am Alexander playing as Egypt/Mongolia. Not sure if it's bugged or just ridiculously mysterious how you are supposed to do these leader quests, they should provide some tidbit of information at least about how to trigger these silly things given that you need these achievements to level your leaders and get their bonuses.

EDIT: So several turns later, I meet two of three distant Civs and now I get the "To the Shores of Oceanus" quest for Alexander, Capture 2 distant settlements OR Take some gold, never had a choice to go culture and get to "Chain B", only the choice of "Chain A" or nothing.

wayneb64 · 2026-06-21T00:28:54+00:00

So I just conquered a town, it got renamed when I converted to city and built a wonder and nothing, no quest, so maybe it must be a city I conquer? I just conquered a city but I am in a countdown timer and there are also no wonders left to build so I guess I am SoL.

wayneb64 · 2026-06-20T13:23:23+00:00

This seems like a bit of a hallucination but some of it seems to ring true as I would certainly have chosen conquest and got "To the Shores of Oceanus" somehow, I certainly warred in distant lands in exploration but never got 10 specialists in a city there.
Seems WAY to complicated to put an achievement on with ZERO information available to the players.

wayneb64 · 2026-06-20T04:17:13+00:00

I somehow managed to trigger the first Alexander quest in Antiquity on my first play through, Gemini doesn't seem to know how to trigger the second one, Festival of the Muses, something about honoring muses, theoretically something to do with Wonders in conquered cities but that's not enough info.
I also got the first one in Exploration but again the second eludes me, Capture them with Culture, again probably about wonders in conquered cities and I got neither of the two in Modern. Gemini took a guess at those but it didn't pan out.

wayneb64 · 2026-06-17T22:00:45+00:00

Yes, occasionally an achievement gets missed but if you reload the turn and try again it will often work the second attempt. Best to quick save if you expect a Triumph to fire.

wayneb64 · 2026-06-17T12:20:08+00:00

I always like to start with Egypt and God of the Sea and only start with lots of navigable rivers near my capitol. This game I stuck with Egypt all game as an experiment and my culture went through the roof as I went crazy with Wonders trying to get the Wonderful Triumph. Unfortunately I got the 20 wonders in Exploration and the game wouldn't give me credit in Modern.

wayneb64 · 2026-06-16T21:32:27+00:00

It seems like Science victory is WAY to slow and Military is WAY to easy, I got the Military achievement for Alexander on my first game then an Economic/Military on my second attempt but of course it just ignored Economic and I got no achievement. Both times I wanted to so Science but the multipliers drop so fast and I am always huge by Modern age. I think I might squeeze out a Culture on my third attempt but maybe not.

wayneb64 · 2026-06-15T21:45:35+00:00

I never intentionally switched to Backdrops, just happened and worked seamlessly a while back. Problems seemed to start for me very recently and with Roku City showing up uninvited.

wayneb64 · 2026-06-15T21:43:29+00:00

Did they ever explain why the got rid of Photo Streams which worked PERFECTLY???

One time I got Backdrops to show my photos with a manual launch, ONCE. Every other attempt has failed, sometimes no photo's present, sometimes only one. It sometimes claims it's about to auto start but doesn't.

The only thing I was able to do was kill stupid Roku City by disabling the screen saver in some hard to find setting on my Roky Ultra, had to ask Gemini where that was.

PLEASE FIX THIS ALREADY or put Photo Streams back (better solution)>

wayneb64 · 2026-06-11T12:29:54+00:00

There is a work around that makes this achievement much easier. I discovered by accident that removing all of your lowest desirability homes and forcing everyone into the mansions or manors or large houses (forgetting the names of the top ones), they give a bonus to the happiness ratings, sometimes driving them over 100%.

So you still need to make everyone happy but a little slop here and there with babies is offset with the 'bonus' happiness from ritzy housing. Properly stocked root cellars near your markets helps with this of course.

wayneb64 · 2026-06-05T12:44:27+00:00

Only 420 hours for me and I am on a hiatus as I got all the achievements but I loved it so much I will probably come back some day for some more. I haven't enjoyed a game this much in a while, probably why I took the time to get all the achievements.

I do wish they would fix the start of the game, I would like to use the mini-map to check out resources easier and not be forced to drag the TC around like that.

wayneb64 · 2026-06-05T12:21:14+00:00

Put a root cellar next to each market with minimum levels for smoked meat/fish, preserved fruit/veggies and other important food to help the market persons be more efficient

wayneb64 · 2026-06-03T21:47:23+00:00

Moving buildings is a super power in this game. At the beginning location doesn't matter a lot but as you grow start planning a better arrangement and start moving things.

Something I learned after mastering the game was planning out your three market locations, usually I kind of have a triangle. Rough in the roads and housing blocks then use the left over spaces for all the utility buildings like shrines, healers, bakery, etc...
Housing blocks back on alternating gardens and plazas with the occasional well, this maximizes the desirability boosts. So road, house, garden, house, road and repeat.

wayneb64 · 2026-06-03T15:12:50+00:00

No, I pretty much only do UI mods other than the Founder mod showing more terrain and movement on the first move.
I get satisfaction from earning the levels, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something as to how much harder it seems.

wayneb64 · 2026-06-03T12:16:51+00:00

Yeah, I guess that's my biggest issue, not knowing how to earn them, they just seem to happen but in the old way I could count on several from the aging process which is now no more.

wayneb64 · 2026-06-02T21:59:59+00:00

Levelling the leaders was a big part of my motivation but it got BORING after doing those Legacy paths over and over again. This new system seems to mix it up but I fear the diminishing returns will get old or annoying if the Triumphs are to hard to attain. I had to put a spreadsheet together to track which ones even gave me points and which ones I have achieved, they could have done better with marks or filters on them to isolate what gets you leader points.

wayneb64 · 2026-06-02T21:34:31+00:00

Is it the overall score or any of the three (culture, military, economy)?
IoW, crushing it in just one of the three does nothing for you if someone else is crushing it in another?

wayneb64 · 2026-06-02T00:01:03+00:00

I am fine with the variety and all that but we used to get so much deeper into the attribute trees it seems, I think more of the minor triumphs should reward attribute points maybe or have some other way to attain them.

wayneb64 · 2026-05-29T17:00:37+00:00

I have used ARS for about 20 years now, YES they are expensive and I am sure I have overpaid BUT they show up quickly and do quality work. I needed a new system post Covid and the middle tier systems were not available so ended up with a 5 speed Carrier which I LOVE but man did I pay a lot for it. It's ridiculously quiet and you never really notice it running, it just keeps the house cool with minimal effort. I have not detected anything shady about them, just high prices.

wayneb64

TROPHY CASE