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No Improvement Challenge, AKA – Barbarian’s Challenge
Background:
From the “Breath of God: Only the Penitent Man Shall Pass” thread’s revival back on December 12, Catt gave fruit to the idea that the most efficient way to win (i.e. the method by which you will win most often while playing CIV with having the least possible chance of losing), would be to build nothing but units and possibly barracks. Not fully believing this to be possible, I postulated that we could create a new challenge. With deference to OCC, which is for the most part a builder’s challenge, I give to you the No Improvements/Infrastructure Challenge, which for the most part is a warmonger’s challenge.
Rules:[list=1][*] No city improvement may be built, only units and (if so desired) wealth.[*] When capturing a city, all sellable improvements must be sold (wonders, aqueducts, hospitals, and wonder produced improvements cannot be sold).[*] All leaders created must be turned into armies or used to rush a military unit, no improvement rushing.[*] Once you build your capitol city, there your palace stays.[/list=1]
You could think of your civilization as a barbarian tribe intent to pillage and plunder while spreading like a horde with your “uncivilized” ways. As you capture cities, you raze them, and those that you don’t raze, you destroy those unnecessary improvements like courthouses and factories that take up space and cost money to keep up. You may also notice that your tribe is akin to a Civilization II barbarian tribe but with the ability to build more than one different kind of unit and also cities.
Personally, I would change rule number 2 to read: “No cities will be captured, only razed with the exception of cities you built yourself but were later captured by another civilization” to make the rules easier to follow without changing the underlying challenge. With captured cities, the strategy of capturing wonders comes into play where capturing Sun Tzu’s gives you barracks in all your cities, the Pyramids granaries, etc. which you could not have built by yourself. But I’ve left rule #2 as is since that was the rule I began playing with for my personal NIC and have since gone to razing.
What we can hope to gain from the challenge:
Some insights I believe could be better understood would be:[list=1][*] How to best use those 99% corrupted cities. [*] How to fight (and win) when behind in technology the entire game.[*] Usefulness of tighter city placement (for those of you like myself who still like a full 21 workable city radius for all cities).[*] Learning just how far the capital influence vs. corruption reaches out.[*] Usefulness of armies.[/list=1]
There may be other insights but for the moment that’s all I’ve got.
AU Game?
I personally am still stuck with CIV III 1.29f (it’s wife vs. PTW for me and my wife holds the trump card) making myself unable to create an AU scenario for everyone. This scenario might not be for everyone, but it is certainly a good learning challenge and one that I hope one of the AU creators will incorporate into a later AU game.
Hint for those who start:
You may already know this but if you want a cultural border without gaps in the middle, the farthest you can build a city from another is 4 tiles NE, SE, NW, or SW.
Background:
From the “Breath of God: Only the Penitent Man Shall Pass” thread’s revival back on December 12, Catt gave fruit to the idea that the most efficient way to win (i.e. the method by which you will win most often while playing CIV with having the least possible chance of losing), would be to build nothing but units and possibly barracks. Not fully believing this to be possible, I postulated that we could create a new challenge. With deference to OCC, which is for the most part a builder’s challenge, I give to you the No Improvements/Infrastructure Challenge, which for the most part is a warmonger’s challenge.
Rules:[list=1][*] No city improvement may be built, only units and (if so desired) wealth.[*] When capturing a city, all sellable improvements must be sold (wonders, aqueducts, hospitals, and wonder produced improvements cannot be sold).[*] All leaders created must be turned into armies or used to rush a military unit, no improvement rushing.[*] Once you build your capitol city, there your palace stays.[/list=1]
You could think of your civilization as a barbarian tribe intent to pillage and plunder while spreading like a horde with your “uncivilized” ways. As you capture cities, you raze them, and those that you don’t raze, you destroy those unnecessary improvements like courthouses and factories that take up space and cost money to keep up. You may also notice that your tribe is akin to a Civilization II barbarian tribe but with the ability to build more than one different kind of unit and also cities.
Personally, I would change rule number 2 to read: “No cities will be captured, only razed with the exception of cities you built yourself but were later captured by another civilization” to make the rules easier to follow without changing the underlying challenge. With captured cities, the strategy of capturing wonders comes into play where capturing Sun Tzu’s gives you barracks in all your cities, the Pyramids granaries, etc. which you could not have built by yourself. But I’ve left rule #2 as is since that was the rule I began playing with for my personal NIC and have since gone to razing.
What we can hope to gain from the challenge:
Some insights I believe could be better understood would be:[list=1][*] How to best use those 99% corrupted cities. [*] How to fight (and win) when behind in technology the entire game.[*] Usefulness of tighter city placement (for those of you like myself who still like a full 21 workable city radius for all cities).[*] Learning just how far the capital influence vs. corruption reaches out.[*] Usefulness of armies.[/list=1]
There may be other insights but for the moment that’s all I’ve got.
AU Game?
I personally am still stuck with CIV III 1.29f (it’s wife vs. PTW for me and my wife holds the trump card) making myself unable to create an AU scenario for everyone. This scenario might not be for everyone, but it is certainly a good learning challenge and one that I hope one of the AU creators will incorporate into a later AU game.
Hint for those who start:
You may already know this but if you want a cultural border without gaps in the middle, the farthest you can build a city from another is 4 tiles NE, SE, NW, or SW.
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