Suggest ways to freshen things up

truenarnian

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I've been playing this game way too much for way too long, and generally enjoy every minute of it (except when Siam backstabbed me in my first Immortal game...)

But I've reached some sort of wall in my enjoyment, and the game feels a little "done" for me. I would guess I'm not alone.

Now I know there are mods to radically alter the game, but I want to stay a little closer to home. I *like* the game as is, I just need it freshened up. Recently I've tried randomizing my civ, but I usually end up with Germany or India (bleh!), so that didn't work - and even if I did it, it doesn't change the staleness. I've played the scenarios, I've played for accomplishments, but I just want a fresh way to play the game.

Today I realized I've never played with random personalities, and that one of the reasons I'm tired of gameplay is how well I know this game. Randomizing personalities means I won't know what Dido will do for once! (I know some complain this makes the game too easy, but I can always up the difficulty to compensate.) Are there any other ways to freshen up the game that you have found work for you?

Things I've tried:
- TSL mods - I love these but the maps are too big for my PC. (Are there smaller TSL maps?)
- Random landforms - This actually is fun, since I have to stay a bit more flexible early.
- Random civ for me - Too often I end up hating the one I'm assigned.

What else?
 
Create rules for yourself. If you always play tall Tradition games, or generally stay peaceful and spam wonders, commit to Liberty (no Tradition and no fewer than 8 settled cities before turn 100 or so) and no World Wonders. Or refuse to build any archer-based unit (just melee and siege). Do something to shake up your routine that's more radical than random personalities.
 
Try playing Polynesia on Terra map. Don't found your first city, instead sail to the new world and build a mighty civilization there in your isolation. You start ~15 turns late, but then you can grow with no competition. When the others finally find the new world, you can have a massive empire. From there, try to colonize/conquer them.
 
DOWNLOAD GOOD MODS

DOWNLOAD ADDITIONAL CIVILISATONS AND TRY THEM (some of them are so awesome they should appear in the main game ;p)

download little but surprisingly awesome mods, like Emigration

etc
 
Create rules for yourself. If you always play tall Tradition games, or generally stay peaceful and spam wonders, commit to Liberty (no Tradition and no fewer than 8 settled cities before turn 100 or so) and no World Wonders. Or refuse to build any archer-based unit (just melee and siege). Do something to shake up your routine that's more radical than random personalities.

This. I find that pretty much every game I play, I have Tradition, Rationalism and Freedom pretty much maxed out.

Drop yourself a difficulty or two and ban those policy trees from your game. Don't play to be "optimal", try something new. It's often more fun playing at lower difficulties with a few self-imposed house rules than it is to follow the same path at high difficulty over and over.
 
If you are competent with C++ you could make your own mod. Add the Skynet wonder for the late game challenge of a robocalypse, and the nukes should clear up the late game turn lag from unit clutter :D

There are so many mods out there, that idea has probably already been made. I even saw some Touhou Project mods, I have no idea how that would work... turn based bullet hell?
 
Set up your own win conditions. For example, as Spain I once set a goal, and succeeded, in getting every natural wonder into my territory. (Make an exeption for Krakatoa). Try a Time victory, that will force you to not just grow into the biggest civ, but to keep everyon else from winning as well. I'm considering a religious victory condition as well - converting every other civ to my religion. Could also shoot for 66% or 75% of cities following your religoin. Would be an interesting challenge. Another thing I've done is randomize eveything, including randomly rolling for a game speed and a victory condition, before I know which random civ and map I get. Trying to win a domination as Ghandi, or a CV as Atilla, will really shake up old patterns of thought
 
If things are getting stale then you should look up some of the Mods that are around. There are custom maps, Civs, scenarios - everything! Some of my favourites are InfoAddict (Small, but VERY useful), Cultural Diffusion (Brings back tile flipping) and Culturally Linked Start Locations, and the Tectonics maps script. With Tectonics I've found a great combination of settings which creates an amazing map; a pangea but with massive walls of mountain ranges completely blocking certain areas off from each other. It really spices up the game, it's like a mix of continents and pangea, but instead of Civs being separated by seas, they're separated by mountain ranges.

As others have said, you can also make your own custom rules, like trying to do what your Civ did IRL, or only building certain unit types. One thing I heard recently was playing as Germany and deleting your starting settler, having to rely on Barbarian Conversions to amass an army and take other people's cities.

Random personalities is just a REALLY bad thing. After all, certain Civs work certain ways, and changing how the AI approaches that Civ could break it. Like a Venice that doesn't build any navy or trade units, or a peace mongering Mongolia or the Huns, or if a really expansion oriented Civ (Rome) gets the Venice personality. The only real way to balance it out is if the player were to also do something like that - do the exact opposite of what they would usually do as a certain Civ.
 
If you don't like using mods (because you like to populate your 'Hall of Fame'); I think the best thing to change things up is to play different maps. It sounds cliche, I'm sure; but there are dozens of map types, and most of us play on the same two or three every time. Try a donut map (with ocean or mountains in the middle), or Ring, Sandstorm, or my favorite, Tilted Axis. It makes the "same old game" slightly different, especially maps like Tilted Axis and Ice Age.
 
1) Change MIN_CITY_RANGE to 5.
2) Select Large Map, 10 civs/20 CS
3) Random Personalities
4) Disable start bias
5) Raging barbs

Thanks to MIN_CITY_RANGE = 5, you will enjoy:

+ An unpredictable number of CS due to a little bug in the settlement code of CSs that freeze their settlers in place if they start less than 5 tiles apart from another civ/CS. You will have no less than 10 but less than 20 CS in your game, but you will not know until revealing the map.
+ A better maneuvering of the Tactical AI, a better challenge because of that and due to the fact that the Inter-City killing corridors that obliterate the attacking AIs are no more (cities 5 tiles apart or more).
+ Fight for land becomes highly strategical
+ Large map without the bog down of ICS.

Enjoy!!!
 
Lots of good advice in this thread..... Although I have my "favourite" approach....if I'm getting particularly bored....I'll do things differently.... like filling out the Honour tree first....or, in a recent game, going down the Piety tree after finishing Tradition..... I ended up with a cultural win there... three main cities and one later city, which grew fairly fast..... Only one war... I was attacked by the Zulu who were eventually erased from the map by Washington.....

I might try a game where I refuse to build any wonders and see what happens....playing as Ghengis might be the "ticket" there...the AI will help you quite a bit by "scooping" the choice wonders before you even get a chance.... ;)
 
Here are a few suggestions:
Try to complete different policy tracks.
There are other steam achievements that you could unlock and you could maybe go for those when you try out different victories.
If choosing random civilizations chooses the same boring civilization that you used last time, then choose a civilization that you are curious to try out.
Listen to how the other civilization leaders sound like and their backgrounds, there's many different unique leaders with unique languages and backgrounds.
 
Not sure why this hasn't been mentioned.

But an amazing way to freshen up even your standard game you play is to go play or do something else for awhile. I'm not being sarcastic or cynical when I say that. Civ will stick around and when you do come back to play it'll be super fun all over again. I typically jump back and forth between games and frequently bing on games then put them down for other things for awhile. Everything stays fresh.
 
One thing I've tried before is only adopting social policies and ideological tenants that fit with the history of my chosen civ. Kind of fun, can produce interesting (though not necessarily optimal!) results.
 
The biggest single limitation I can think of would be adopting a rule of not selecting Rationalism. That would be like playing a full difficulty level higher if you always go Rationalism.
 
Give up trying to win the game using the optimal tactics and strategies you'll have tried or read about on this forum. :eek: Instead, indulge in some role playing that maximises what you most find enjoyable with this game. In my case, an example being to thoroughly explore by sea a huge world, sending out scouts, then later missionaries and Indiana Jones clones to explore the discovered islands. England and Polynesia are good civs to pick for this type of game.

If you still wanted to play optimally though, I suggest you try and help another A.I. player to win the game. Be there best buddy come what may. :)
 
how does that happen?? can you please elaborate a little bit. :- ) would be really glad to know it.

Use your imagination...try it and see what happens ;)

[I think the idea would be to try to gather as many warriors as you can from Barb camps ....and you might even get a few lucky upgrades from ruins..... Potentially I guess you could have a sizeable army ....and, I'm guessing here...because you have no city, there would be no expenses.... You might even be able to take over another city...though it might be tough.

The biggest problem would be getting cornered and having your first one or two warriors wiped out..... :)]
 
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