Shaka The Barbarian

We are essentially barbarians. Although we are technically a "proper and modern civilization", we shall recreate the barbaric life of the barbarians.

Rule 1: Except for the capital, you may NOT build any buildings that add culture. If the culture from the capital also covers another city, that city may still only have the 8 squares around it.
Rule 2: Only Slavery allowed. We will not complicate ourselves with higher forms of organization.
Rule 3: If any religion enters any city we created ourselves, we go into Worldbuilder and remove it. We won't learn anything from those "gods".
Rule 4: If we capture a city, we must raze it.
Rule 5: Raging Barbarians on. The more the merrier.
Rule 6: We can't build any wonders that give any culture.
Rule 7: Any type of victory is possible, but Conquest is probably the only one that makes sense here.

And so the story begins... Shaka leads his people from his former civilized town to a tribal and barbaric life.

The settings for our match. Note this is on Prince because of the handicap.
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu345/Yes_Wii_Can/Civ4ScreenShot0041.jpg

Our truly barbaric leader...
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu345/Yes_Wii_Can/Civ4ScreenShot0000.jpg

And our forsaken start...
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu345/Yes_Wii_Can/Civ4ScreenShot0002.jpg

Remember this is our only city that can have a complete BFC. The other cities are limited to the 8 tiles around them.

Where shall we go on our start? Please post feedback.

Ouch. What harsh rules. I understand the prince difficulty. We don't even get a strong food capitol, which is the only place we can run specialists...well that's not true I suppose we could build a market and run merchants in other cities X_X.

The only thing that will keep me out of this is the religion rules :(. On marathon you will be seeing the WB a LOT unless fractal gives you a continent-type place and you just warrior rush everything.

An interesting loophole in your rules is that it is ok to BUILD culture directly, but also useless because you can't work the tiles. Preventing a pop isn't the intent of that rule, however. I'm guessing the true intent is to block libraries and similar buildings, and the no culture wonder blocks gwall although on prince raging barbs should be ok.

City spacing will obviously be tighter than usual. Does the kremlin give culture? You could do some nasty whipping post-bio with all the tightly spaced cities.

Conquest victory?

Ouch. What harsh rules. I understand the prince difficulty. We don't even get a strong food capitol, which is the only place we can run specialists...well that's not true I suppose we could build a market and run merchants in other cities X_X.

The only thing that will keep me out of this is the religion rules :(. On marathon you will be seeing the WB a LOT unless fractal gives you a continent-type place and you just warrior rush everything.

An interesting loophole in your rules is that it is ok to BUILD culture directly, but also useless because you can't work the tiles. Preventing a pop isn't the intent of that rule, however. I'm guessing the true intent is to block libraries and similar buildings, and the no culture wonder blocks gwall although on prince raging barbs should be ok.

City spacing will obviously be tighter than usual. Does the kremlin give culture? You could do some nasty whipping post-bio with all the tightly spaced cities.

Thanks for input TMIT.

Yes, no religion. It gives culture and that's NOT what we want. After all, there are only a few things barbarians think about: Food. Fighting. Seeing other people dying. Sleep. Women.

We CAN build Culture, but that's still generating Culture per Turn, and the hammers are better spent somewhere else. Like more swordmen. :devil:

Like the Barbarians in regular Civ, they don't have any culture buildings, yet making them very easy to flip.

I'm checking the whole list of wonders that don't give culture. They are:

-Ironworks
-West Point
-Hermitage, Broadway, Rock N' Roll, Hollywood, as long as there isn't any culture in the city
-Kremlin :woohoo:
-Pentagon
-Space Elevator
-3 Gorges Dam
-UN

So Diplo is possible, but I'd prefer conquest. Thanks for your input TMIT! :goodjob:

EDIT:Conquest victory?

Added Rule 7. Thanks for reminding me. :D

Oh, one thing I didn't think about - balls-out espionage is probably doable. You can't get the way but you can build every multiplier in every city, and if you can make it to constitution you can put amazing EP pressure on the AIs.

I guess it would be somewhat tempting to run up a lib/academy bureaucracy capitol and farm some spies for it later (first going for lib, just the capitol with cottages will steamroll the AI tech rate).

If I don't have to constantly WB religion away :( and we're allowed to run other civics in the non-slavery column (you didn't mean ONLY slavery and nothing like HR/bureaucracy/economic right?) then maybe I'll shadow after all :p.

If we got to something like cavalry reasonably early I don't think prince AIs could recover.

Oh, one thing I didn't think about - balls-out espionage is probably doable. You can't get the way but you can build every multiplier in every city, and if you can make it to constitution you can put amazing EP pressure on the AIs.

I guess it would be somewhat tempting to run up a lib/academy bureaucracy capitol and farm some spies for it later (first going for lib, just the capitol with cottages will steamroll the AI tech rate).

If I don't have to constantly WB religion away :( and we're allowed to run other civics in the non-slavery column (you didn't mean ONLY slavery and nothing like HR/bureaucracy/economic right?) then maybe I'll shadow after all :p.

If we got to something like cavalry reasonably early I don't think prince AIs could recover.

Only slavery unfortunately :(

If you really want to, you don't need to WB religion away. But it kinda takes out the feel of a barbarian. Give it a try?

Hahaha. Well, if it's really ONLY slavery, then no need for WB religion - we won't be getting any. Fast, suicide conquest attempt is the only way out. Maybe settle some :) resources if they're reasonably close.

At least success or failure will be quick.

Hahaha. Well, if it's really ONLY slavery, then no need for WB religion - we won't be getting any. Fast, suicide conquest attempt is the only way out. Maybe settle some :) resources if they're reasonably close.

At least success or failure will be quick.

So will try and shadow it? ;)

Also, I need a suggestion for a starting place. Should I move the settler anywhere?

I want to know where your food resource is. If we can get it and still work those grassland hills we see, we want to do that.

Edit: Those are pigs under the scout X-X. 1 W for me then.

I will probably use up some turns getting an optimal capitol - marathon and the rules make it really important with less harm in wasting a turn.

Yeah...I'll probably shadow. Can't make promises on victory with the restrictions.

Instead of constantly entering WB to remove religion, how about letting the AI capture your cities that have religion at the end of the game. However, you could beeline Theology to adopt Theocracy to prevent any religions entering your cities. Finally, before researching Theology, you could Close Borders with everyone to stop the religions.

Also, would you care to show the resources with the resource bubbles please?

Edit: TMIT said it.

Does atheistic theocracy keep religion out? I recall several threads on the topic but I remember hearing both that it does and doesn't, what was the definitive answer?

If it does in 3.17, you could WB yourself into theocracy from the start which would be simpler...

To quote:

+2 experience points in cities with state religion;
No non-state religion spread

:confused:

Instead of constantly entering WB to remove religion, how about letting the AI capture your cities that have religion at the end of the game. However, you could beeline Theology to adopt Theocracy to prevent any religions entering your cities. Finally, before researching Theology, you could Close Borders with everyone to stop the religions.

Also, would you care to show the resources with the resource bubbles please?

Edit: TMIT said it.

I guess we can close borders till Theo. The point of no religion is the culture problem. When I get home I'll start the first round.

And next time I'll activate resource bubbles :D

Personally, I think it would be even harder if you arent allowed any civs at all.

Imagine a game in the late medievil or modern age and still running the default civs.

Regarding the game itself, you could delay Archery a while because it is Prince but not too much because Raging Barbs are on.

Early rush with Impi and Aggressive if someone is close by? And use Ikhandas for the new land to reduce maintenance costs?

Edit: @Kevie, you mean no AI, and turn off Conquest and and Domination?

I guess it's time. I'm running the first round now.

I'm not good enough at IV to comprehend how hard this is, but I'll be keeping a keen eye on this one. Would've thought a couple of the economy civics are a tad barbarian as well though (the anti-corporation ones, although this is already hard enough without mercantilism).

I guess it's time. I'm running the first round now.

Don't you DARE quit this game just because of the start we rolled :lol:. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

So much for religion troubles.

So we really only get slavery, huh. I've been faithful - just slavery, NO other civics are different than default. This is mighty entertaining.

Edit: I'm around 705 AD.

Edit2: Interestingly, we can make observatories in all cities.

I guess we can close borders till Theo. The point of no religion is the culture problem. When I get home I'll start the first round.

And next time I'll activate resource bubbles :D

Open borders have nothing to do with religious auto spread, sadly.

Also, NSR theo doesn't stop auto spread, it was fixed to avoid screwing AIs like izzy.

But, I don't think culture press is the problem in this one.

Are you going to change the colour of your civ to black so you can appear more barbarian-like? Personally, I think that is a good idea :goodjob:

Are you going to change the colour of your civ to black so you can appear more barbarian-like? Personally, I think that is a good idea :goodjob:

This game is really obnoxious. I'm taking a break from it, but it certainly does feel barbaric. I got some really bad luck too. One AI is...around 25ish cities or so. Really lame.

The border pop rule is a bit annoying to keep, but no caste/hr/bureaucracy is worse. Probably worst of all on this map/settings is no SP. A buncha tightly packed workshop supercities would be ridiculous, but nope. No drafts either. Grrrrr. Nothing but a (poor) capitol and a bunch of weak cities.

Round 1

4000 B.C. We settle 1W. Move scout 1N1NE. Popped a map from the first hut.

We have no definite plan right now; let's see what we get!

3775 B.C. Our only cultured city pops borders.
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu345/Yes_Wii_Can/Civ4ScreenShot0003.jpg

3655 B.C. Buddhism founded. Let them enjoy their beliefs.

3595 B.C. We popped Wheel from a hut. :)
http://s662.photobucket.com/albums/uu345/Yes_Wii_Can/?action=view&current=Civ4ScreenShot0005.jpg

3580 B.C. Our scout shows us we are isolated. :cry: Now we cannot leverage our AGG trait, except for cheak Ikhandas.
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu345/Yes_Wii_Can/Civ4ScreenShot0006.jpg
And the bottom half of our island.
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu345/Yes_Wii_Can/Civ4ScreenShot0007.jpg

3565 B.C. AH discovered. Do we have horses?
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu345/Yes_Wii_Can/Civ4ScreenShot0008.jpg
Yes we do! However, it isn't next to a food resource and we won't be using a military for a while.

3430 B.C. War Chariots quest. Might as well do it for the fogbusters.

3280 B.C. Archery discovered. Working on Mining.

3235 B.C. Gibbon says that we are the second richest civ in the world. Maybe it's from that hut we popped earlier.
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu345/Yes_Wii_Can/Civ4ScreenShot0009.jpg

3220 B.C. I discover there is an island near the tip of our continent. Maybe we aren't isolated after all.
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu345/Yes_Wii_Can/Civ4ScreenShot0010.jpg

3205 B.C. Hinduism founded.

3010 B.C. We tech Mining. Time for fishing.

2785 B.C. Fishing teched. Time for sailing.

2605 B.C. Our first culture-less city is founded next to rice and 3 hills.
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu345/Yes_Wii_Can/Civ4ScreenShot0013.jpg

2490 B.C. Tacitus says that we are the most uncultured civ in the world. Totally expected.
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu345/Yes_Wii_Can/Civ4ScreenShot0014.jpg

2450 B.C. Judaism is founded.

2430 B.C. Sailing discovered. BW is up next.

2190 B.C. We build The Black Pearl, a galley that will explore the northwestern lands.
http://s662.photobucket.com/albums/uu345/Yes_Wii_Can/?action=view&current=Civ4ScreenShot0015.jpg

2130 B.C. BW discovered. Do we have copper?
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu345/Yes_Wii_Can/Civ4ScreenShot0017.jpgYes, right next to my planned city.

We also find out that the island is useless. We are truly isolated :cry::cry::cry:
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu345/Yes_Wii_Can/Civ4ScreenShot0018.jpg

2040 B.C. Barbarians are coming rapidly now. :eek:
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu345/Yes_Wii_Can/Civ4ScreenShot0019.jpg

2020 B.C. After defeating a few barbarians, we now get a Cover warrior and now it is a great idea to fogbust.
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu345/Yes_Wii_Can/Civ4ScreenShot0020.jpg

We also find our third city.
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu345/Yes_Wii_Can/Civ4ScreenShot0021.jpg

2000 B.C. We are stopping the round for now.

The top part of the island
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu345/Yes_Wii_Can/Civ4ScreenShot0022.jpg

And the bottom we have yet to settle
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu345/Yes_Wii_Can/Civ4ScreenShot0023.jpg

And the happy little useless island
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu345/Yes_Wii_Can/Civ4ScreenShot0024.jpg

What should we tech next?

Nice start although it sort of sucks to be isolated. Play it out though!

My suggestion is to target pottery and lay down ALOT of cottages!

Worse case scenario. Just be barbarric and tell all the other AIs off. They will be bringing Galleons full of troops soon enough

:lol: at the island.

Not much advice can be said... your doing good on your own.

Edit: Not a lot of grasslands and no flood plains for cottages, ouch.

:lol: at the island.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

This game totally cracks me up, although I really do think you should change your civ colour to black!!

I definitely think that being isolated (totally sucks imo) and lacking in the food dept that an empire-wide cottage spam is really the only way to go in order to be able to pay the huge maintenance costs of your empire.

On the plus side, when it comes time to invading and grinding your enemies into dust, you will have a huge number of cities with which to produce troops. I echo TMIT that it would be beautiful at that point to be in SP and workshop spam, but that's not going to happen, lol.

You only really need the :) to support an 8-10-pop city, so HR isn't a big deal.

Are you going to avoid building culture/running the culture slider. If you don't avoid these things then you will have an insane amount of MMing to do to avoid your cities working preferable outter-ring tiles. However, if you do avoid them then managing late-game :mad: without HR or the culture slider is going to be funny :lol:

I'd say the best bet is to make tons of cities. Screw it - even if they can only grow to size 2, build it anyways. Sprawl on the island with like 100 cities, each getting 5 hammers a turn. Sure, it'll take you forever to build anything, and maintenance costs will be crazy, and even if it takes you 20 turns to build a rifleman, you'll still have so many cities that it won't matter. Especially with Ikhandas to reduce maintenance, it won't be insanely expensive.

@Futuerhermit

I saw your 5000th post, and you forgot to celebrate... I'll do it for you!

[party] :band: :goodjob: :D :woohoo:

:lol: :lol: :lol:

This game totally cracks me up, although I really do think you should change your civ colour to black!!

I definitely think that being isolated (totally sucks imo) and lacking in the food dept that an empire-wide cottage spam is really the only way to go in order to be able to pay the huge maintenance costs of your empire.

On the plus side, when it comes time to invading and grinding your enemies into dust, you will have a huge number of cities with which to produce troops. I echo TMIT that it would be beautiful at that point to be in SP and workshop spam, but that's not going to happen, lol.

You only really need the :) to support an 8-10-pop city, so HR isn't a big deal.

Are you going to avoid building culture/running the culture slider. If you don't avoid these things then you will have an insane amount of MMing to do to avoid your cities working preferable outter-ring tiles. However, if you do avoid them then managing late-game :mad: without HR or the culture slider is going to be funny :lol:

Slider and building culture are both within the rules...

Slider and building culture are both within the rules...

Yes it is, but the hammers are better spent elsewhere. You still can't use the other 12 tiles.

@Futuerhermit

I saw your 5000th post, and you forgot to celebrate... I'll do it for you!

[party] :band: :goodjob: :D :woohoo:

Thanks, I'm an old hand around this place. Pretty amazing that I've posted 5000 times on these forums. Quite the community we have here! :goodjob:

Slider and building culture are both within the rules...

Micromanagement tedium extraordinaire from the midgame onward then, if the goal is to avoid working the outter ring... :eek:

Yes it is, but the hammers are better spent elsewhere. You still can't use the other 12 tiles.

You've said that twice now, but if it prevents the AI from settling on your land it might not be such a waste hammers, regardless of what you can use.

Micromanagement tedium extraordinaire from the midgame onward then, if the goal is to avoid working the outter ring...

That and the religion spread constantly have forced me to stop playing this, at least until I'm in a SUPER patient mood. My marathon will was drained out of me quite a bit in mad's time victory RPC.

You've said that twice now, but if it prevents the AI from settling on your land it might not be such a waste hammers, regardless of what you can use.

Ah I see. Maybe this RPC should have been called Shaka The Lazy, where the citizens can only walk one tile to where they work, or even better, inside the city as a specialist.

Is using world builder to delete religion really necessary? If you don't convert when a religion spreads to you it says something like "Its nothing but superstition anyway" that seems barbaric enough.

If preventing border pops by religion is the concern, you could get a religion only in your capital, convert to that, and fill the other cities with different religions. As long as no one sends missionaries to you (don't convert to a zealot's religion) no city will get extra culture. You get no culture from non state religions, unfortunately they all get 1cpt under NSR. It's a pretty circuitous route to avoid religion culture, but then again, so is using worldbuilder every few turns, in marathon no less.

double post

I would say don't bother with negating culture to the extreme. So called "Barbarians" also have some sort of culture: customs, folk songs, legends and so on. Even dressing or hairing style or national dishes are part of tribes culture. And religion definitely is, I don't know a single (historical) atheistic tribe, however "barbaric" it may be :D I believe it's perfectly acceptable to have some culture. Not to the point of Cultural Victory ofcourse.

Religious culture is exactly the kind of culture barbarians supposed to have. It's not Statue of Zeus or Sistine Chapel ofcourse. But it can be religious customs, dances, legends, shamanism, totemism... e.g. culture that religion spreads by itself (in game terms).

What I meant was, no using "Free Religion" or "Slavery" or "Rep"
No gov't, legal, labor, economic, and religion changes.
Play a game completely without using any of the civics, meaning you can only use Depotism, Barbarism, Tribalism, Decenteralism, and Paganism.

That would be a great challenge. I though about suggesting it to MadSciencist in his RPGs before, but never got around to do so.

He already did something similar, stuck around with old outdated civics in his Elizabeth game...

He already did something similar, stuck around with old outdated civics in his Elizabeth game...

Pretty sure he could get HR though! That is pretty vital! HR and courthouses/currency=robust, although no bureaucracy hurts.

I would like to say that barb cities get culture. I'm not sure what they're coded as allowed to build that yields it. They even work all their BFC tiles :p.

Maybe they just don't get to make buildings and wind up building culture once they get access to music.

Yeah, I've seen barb cities pop borders, but it usually isn't until quite late in the game.

Yeah, I've seen barb cities pop borders, but it usually isn't until quite late in the game.

Probably because of how barb research functions. They don't have a palace and are therefore set to have terrible income - but don't lose units to strike. So they'll be getting the default 1 beaker per turn and I think a flat 3% tech cost for each civ that knows the tech per turn too. Not sure on the exact %, but basically once everyone knows the tech the barbs will probably get it pretty fast. However, they still have to choose to research it over alternates IIRC. It's not surprise, then, that they won't have something as delayed/late as music (by the normal AIs) until quite late in the game for all but the highest difficulty levels, although of course on higher levels they're all going to be captured quickly too unless you're on something like terra.

Minor nations are a little different. They're more like regular civs, that start at war with everyone :p.

Aside from the culture/religion/border/worked tiles issue, any suggestions how I should run the next round?

I would say just start settling your island, prioritizing the best city locations, as well as defending your empire against (other) barbarians. And don't forget to change your civ colour to black! TMIT can tell you how ;)

Changing the civ color to black would be a tad of a pain now, since we'd need to make it a WB save. It's also very likely this would reveal AIs that have not been met yet, assuming they weren't revealed after getting murdered by barbs or other AIs.

Given our civic limitations, it may be necessary to go vassal crazy...I hope you get there in time :).

Changing the civ color to black would be a tad of a pain now, since we'd need to make it a WB save.

:sadbanana:

I will run Round 2 when I come back home.

Oh, and after Biology the happy useless island will have a use! :D