Barbarian Game

If you have played Civ V too much, like me, and find it a little same, I can recommend a variant that me and my son call the barbarian game. The rules are:
1) Start as Bismarck.
2) Delete settler as first move.
3) Try win the game.
This setting really changes the character of the game. Forget build and tech order, religion, diplomacy, etc, and use your wits. My best win so far is on Emperor level, but I have had a few good shots at Immortal. There are however a couple of bugs that one needs to be aware of:
- The game crashes if one gets a pantheon before taking a city. Avoid ruins after turn 20 or save before taking one.
- Settle a city to start technology progress. Capturing a city does not work.
Cheers,
-B

Didn't you make a thread on this already few years ago? Showing the barbarian bismarck being successful on a pangaea map something.

It's been done

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=13956625&postcount=16

I did not see that post (or forgot reading it), thanks for the pointer. I still think the variant is worth playing for fun though, not just as a challenge.
Cheers
-B

Yea, it was done on deity too, so pretty impressive. You will have to get lucky with capturing a newly planted expo as it'll serve as your capital. Main caveat is the capital won't produce any science until courthouse is built, and it takes forever to get that much science passively, so you'll need to steal techs and settle new cities.

Just don't get enough faith from city states/ruins that you'd get ask to pick a pantheon. The game will crash if you don't have a capital.