Ok, a few people (hi Aelf :cool: ), including myself, feel like things usually degenerate into a same ol' same ol' kinda thing in higher level play. This usually includes much warfare.

So, I thought, why not do some games where we try out some different, and potentially crazy, things?! I learned a helluva lot from Aelf's EMC game where he ran a trade route economy using GLH and TOA early on. I thought that game really emphasized a unique style of play.

If people are interested in participating in this kind of game, then I would like to suggest the following game (see Cabert's excellent guide on happiness for detailed info as well):

The Don't Worry Be Happy Challenge

Leader: Brennus (who in there right mind usually plays this guy?)

Traits: Charismatic and Spiritual (Good!)

Starting techs: Mysticism and Hunting (Pretty bad imo ;) )

UU: Gallic warrior; replaces swordsman and starts with gorilla ( ;) ) promotion (ie., it gets bonus defence on hills)

UB: Dun; replaces walls--units build in these cities become gorillas

The combination of the Celts UU and UB is generally considered the worst in the game!

Strategy:

Ok, so here's the thing. Sorry I don't have a link to my first thread with this idea, but if you search you should find it. Basically, the goal is to secure every means of increasing happiness in all cities as possible. Let me give you an example.

Archaic age:

:) resources: gold, silver, fur, gems, ivory. If we see these, we beeline for them.

other means of :) :

state religion, so we'll found one early.
temples. we're spiritual, so that will help. priesthood means oracle imo.
charismatic. hey we're charismatic so with monuments that means 2 :)
etc. you get the idea

Other wild and crazy goals:

-Oracle on caste system and then running artists to get a GA to lightbulb music. This gives a free GA so it's like getting another tech for free just like the oracle (albeit one we can't pick). The thing about music is that it will allow us to build notre dame for 1 :) in all cities (who builds this usually?!). It will also have good trade value.

-Now we have another GA. How about lightbulbing Divine Right?!?! Again, who does this? Then we can build the divine right wonders, which are actually pretty good, especially Versailles.

-With our temple and wonder priorities, I suggest going for a cultural victory this game. This is also a less commonly pursued victory path, which is another reason why I'm suggesting it. With the UB, as long as we try and build our cities on hills as much as possible our archer troops should provide rock-solid cost-effective defense.

-With a defensive game in mind, we can run a very nice hereditary rule. We can garrison our cities with lots of gorillas for lots of happiness. It will be a gorilla love-fest--break out the bananas!!!

-We can also get theatres and coliseums in place and once we start cranking the culture slider, we will have even more happiness!!!

The question is: What the heck do we do with all of this happiness?!?!?!

Well, obviously, the first priority will be to grow to work the city tiles. But I would also suggest running a FE so that when we break the 20 :) mark we can run specialists. This is not to say that we won't run specialists much earlier, but again, you get the idea. Basically, we can run a mix of merchants (to keep slider at max) and artists (for GAs for cultural victory).

We'd need to secure 9 cities I believe (please correct me if I'm wrong) for an optimal victory on standard map size.

I'm thinking we would found possibly 3 religions: 1) Christianity (first GP lightbulbs); 2) CoL (oracle); and possibly 3) Islam!!! (Music GA lightbulb).

Since the Celts' starting techs suck so bad, we would need to start researching some worker techs right away. Plus for a cultural victory we'd want to avoid making enemies early if possible. We can adopt confucianism once we get oracle and are set up a bit and hopefully convert a neighbour with the free missionary.

With hunting, I am going to suggest another wild and crazy idea, however: early archery. Few do this because it is a deadend tech, but this thread is about the wild and crazy, so why not?

Anyways, enough for now. If there is enough interest in this, I'll do it. Please also vote for whether you'd like to see the game played on monarch or emperor. Those are the two skill levels I play on :)

Useally people playing Sacession games when they want something like that, as it is just set of intentions, not hurd and fast rules.

Useally people playing Sacession games when they want something like that, as it is just set of intentions, not hurd and fast rules.

I toyed with the idea of playing it as a succession game, but it is a strategy and I'd like to see what we can do with it.

Sounds like fun.

I actually played Brennus and I liked his traits, but the UB and the UU? Shudder.

But for a fun-variant he is definetly worth a try.

Sounds pretty straightforward, though with Mysticism, I usually go for Polytheism and grab Hindu immediately. This naturally lends itself to Priesthood and the Oracle.

Based on your comments:
1) I'm thinking early war to get to prerequisite 9 cities -- maybe come up with a fast date when we have to finish fighting?
2) Cultural victory all the way as you're thinking, especially since the Sankore/Minaret/Wat idea has been done by Aelf already though we could still try that angle;
3) Leveraging Charismatic for happy (read BIG cities, lots and lots of pop) and early xp, that's it;
4) Spiritual for quick and easy switching if need be.

Other thoughts:
a) Religious monopoly -- ie. must get 5 of 7 religions? lol... know you only need 2 or 3, but 5 would allow most diplomatic variation and again another reason to avoid war;
b) No early war -- medieval war only with set dates... would be tough but provides flexibility for securing additional shrines;
c) may be require a GA and a GP farm -- one for shrines and such, one for culture.
d) I like the archery idea, but in this case doesn't seem to work... would rather try that w/ Mongols or Carthage and force us to do a different path, getting two useless techs, etc.

Monarch is best for me. I still only win with better leaders at that level, so will be a good challenge... for me anyhow. My 2 cents.

Cool, sounds interesting. What difficulty level are you planning on doing this. You may have difficulty getting 9 cities, which i think is optimal for a culture win. Maybe a gallic warrior rush????

I will play on emperor or monarch, depending on how many votes come in for each. I'll give it a day or two and probably start this weekend if there is enough interest.

edit: religious monopoly may not be a bad idea. research poly and mono outright. oracle col. prophet lightbulb theology. gs lightbulb phil. music ga lightbulb divine right. if buddhism pops up on our continent, that is our first and hopefully only war (razing if far away). if it is on the other continent, we will be in free religion by the time it pops up.

we'd have to avoid a first ga for music so we can get the prophet and the scientist, but hopefully a music beeline would be sufficient to still get the ga.

thoughts?

Well there doesn't seem to be much interest so far. I will only do this if there is sufficient interest because it will be a lot of work.

Haven't noticed this thread before. I'd really like to see it done as I rarely grow my cities a lot early in the game. My main worry is that going for a few big cities won't be enough for later on, but maybe a cultural win is the way to go. My last cultural win was a pretty weird one as I was left alone by everybody, settled nine cities (out of which quite a few where really crappy) and just went for culture all over the place. But I haven't started with that idea in mind, it just happened along the way.

I think you should get going. People will join the discussion as you go along. It's tough to start a new series, but if it has good commentary and presentation, I believe people will be attracted to it. Anyway, nothing beats seeing a starting screen for starters. We all love looking at game starts, don't we? ;)

^^^indeed. i guess i'll start it on the weekend.

@cc: the goal is not just a "few" big cities. the goal is cultural victory (again, because it is less-often pursued). so, like you mentioned, 9 cities is optimal. If we can settle them ourselves, ok. If not, we'll go to war with pointy sticks and then hopefully settle down for peace. If we can shanghai most of the religions this should help us keep the peace as we can keep the majority suppressed and spread our dominant religion.

This is a really good idea, I'm looking forward to see how this pans out. I may even try my own non-succession version; I've been feeling like another Brennus game lately.

Obviously this should be on Deity.

No, seriously, Emperor!!

I think that going for a lot of religions and/or an early settler rush to get the 9 cities is a good idea.

Go ahead. I will follow with interest. And of course, to be sure it is a sufficient challenge: My vote is on emperor.

With enough happiness you also need enough health otherwise the cities will not grow. Is there any place for a hanging garden?
Also things to consider for extra happiness if you want to go crazy with happiness.
Forges in cities to increase happiness (market propably will not do much good in this variant)
Globe theatre without a question
Broadway, rock'n roll, eiffel tower and holywood is of course a must.
Civics to run:
Either heriditary rule or representation
Nationhood for the barracks happy faces of course
Emancipation
Environmentalism for the 6 health and the happy faces from jungle
Free religion especially with thinking about founding at least 3 religions

Now get this game started. I want to see this. I am getting this song in my head by REM "Shiny happy people everywhere"

^^^LoL!

Ok, I'll start the game tonight :D I work Saturdays and take Mondays off, so you can expect me to play more extensively on Sundays and Mondays.

I agree health may be a concern, but I always seem to find ways to increase health. With all our other wonder priorities, hanging gardens will probably go by the wayside. However, with granaries and grocers I'm hoping we won't have any health problems.

I definitely plan on forges AND markets (good happiness bonuses), and I definitely plan on running all of the happiness civics.

Basically, my goal is to play it that we are compelled towards anything that increases happiness.

EDIT: Doesn't having a vassal increase happiness??? ;)

go emperor...


and, if possible, try the blocking trick (move initial settler inland and build blocking cities) because building 9 cities is much better then conquering some because:

more peace - more friends - more trade - more happy:cool:



Some side notes:

After you have liberalism go directly for astronomy for oversee-trade (you will need the oversee health/happy trades)

Don´t forget to gift everybody you meet later (=not on your starting continent) a tech when meeting first time for the permanent +4 relations



When lucky, and not going to an early war you will end up with some cities at 20pop from 1300 on...

Good tips. Maybe we will try and get astronomy as our free tech?

I normally pick nationalism, because at that stage of the game I usually go for expansion (prerequist to mil.trad = cavalry & allows drafting)

But for this approach, picking astro would be a big thing (and astro has a quite high trade value to most AI´s)

Yeah, maybe I'll go for that. I usually take nationalism too, but since we're not going for warfare maybe astronomy would be best :)

I just dit a test-run because I was curious about the liberalism-astronomy thing (and beelining for optics).

Better is to stick to the standard research path (to save your economy from breakdown) and to trade for optics before you reach liberalism. Like that you should be able to get astronomy about 1000 - 1100 AD

I posted a save of my testrun (vanilla) in your beeline to optics thread (if you are interested...)

Hey guys, don't forget when you get liberalism that astronomy can be gotten from a hut... if there are still huts left, its something to think about... I had it happen on Monarch once. I was REALLY glad I picked Nationalism (I just wanted Cavalry and Frigates came quicker than I thought!)

i agree about trading for optics prior to liberalism if this is possible. i did it in my most recent game and it worked great. or at least trade for the prereqs for optics and then self-research optics before liberalism. i think that's actually what i did. still worked nice and got both liberalism and circumnavigation.