An Empire of Cards - No Metal Challenge

I don't know if this has been done before, but I would like to see if metals are really necessary to mankind. I propose that we build an empire of wood (or stone, or whatever else we find). There are three variants that come to mind, and I'm open to doing any of the three:

1) we can't research bronze working. This means the last military techs we can research are chemistry, rifling, and MT. Also, we will only have sailing for ocean-faring techs. Also, we can't chop any forests.

2) we can't research iron working. We will never research astronomy, steel, or artillery. However, researching bronze working does open up assembly line as a military tech. No iron working means no chopping jungle too.

3) we can research bronze and iron working, but we can't mine either of them (and must pillage any metal mines we find). This is significantly easier than the other two.

Vanilla (sorry, Warlords is on its way but I won't get it for another two weeks)
Standard map size
Civ to be determined later
For variant 1 or 2,
Noble/prince, pangaea, arid climate (fewer trees!), everything else standard.
For variant 3,
Monarch/emperor, Continents, arid climate, rest standard.

So who's willing to try this with me? (I personally want variant 1).

Roster:
Shyuhe

i would like to join this one as my first succession game. i can play on either prince or noble they are both levels i usually play on. i like varient 1 but it sounds tough. limits us to archers, catapults, gunpowder and horse units. no melee at all.

tycoonist

How will you win on 1 or 2? Cultural seems like the only possible option -- space is out and conquest/domination seems nigh impossible (you'll have very narrow windows of time where attacking is possible, especially if you don't start near horses). Diplo has the same basic problem, you won't be able to build the UN, and if you can't effectively go to war during most of the game, you probably won't have the necessary pop to be the other contender.

If you go route 3, will you allow the use of aluminum when it shows up?

Anyway, it sounds like a really interesting game: best of luck to you! =)

good point trundle, didnt think about that. i didnt know space was impossible. we could pull domination off if we had horses and a good start. im not too good at cultural

Seems to me that there is a 4th option, if you want to consider it. Mine/road any metal found for the hammers. But then, do not build any metal units. In other words, no melee units, no Cannons, no Frigates, etc.

A variant similiar to this has been done a couple of times, that I can think of. One was a game where they used seige units only. The other was one just recently where they limited themselves to archery units only. Sorry, but I don't recall the names of either SG.

No IW=>no jungle cutting, no BW=>no tree cutting,no slavery(!). Fun, fun... I want to play!

If we don't start in a tropical rain forest with Monty at our doorstep this should be doable as a cultural or diplomatic victory (with a huge population and/or (cultural) warfare). I have won mainly peaceful victories up to Immortal level, but of course without these handicaps. I suggest a financial leader, maybe Qin Shi Huang (ind/fin). Elizabeth is also good, but I'm a bit tired of playing her.

So do you guys mind doing variant 1? I will regenerate the start position so that it's not covered in jungle or forest. That would just be too much. This is going to be hard enough anyways.

A variant similiar to this has been done a couple of times, that I can think of.

Click to expand...

I guess I didn't search the forums well enough when I was checking to see if it's been done

I think we should pick our civ carefully - UU's that don't need metal would be a good idea. I think the Russians may be good, as their UU will allow us to finish up any wars when cossacks come online. The other non-metal based UU's are Mali (to save our hides early in the game), Hatty, the English, the French, Huayna, Mongols, and Cyrus. Granted, we may not need a UU, but I think it will help off set the penalties we're going to be working with.

No IW=>no jungle cutting, no BW=>no tree cutting,no slavery(!)

Click to expand...

No slavery is going to make caste system incredibly attractive, for lack of any other better option. On the upside, at least we'll get bonus health from forests so we shouldn't have to worry about health as much. I would prefer a Russian or English civ, mainly for their UU's. Plus, we can choose a financial or philosophical civ that way

Roster (so far):
Shyuhe
tycoonist
yena

I'm hoping for two more! Who else thinks metal isn't necessary to build a civilization?

What level do you guys want to do? I'm thinking noble might be a good starting point - I have no idea how bad it will be if we can't clear forests. At least we can control forest growth by roading the forests.

shyuhe said:

No slavery is going to make caste system incredibly attractive,

I think we should pick our civ carefully - UU's that don't need metal would be a good idea.

Click to expand...

What about Saladin? Don't recall if camels require iron or not. His traits would be nice if you are thinking about caste system and a peaceful victory.

No Bronze Working means no Metal Casting -> Machinery, so no Guilds, Engineering, or Printing Press. You'd end at Military Tradition, Constitution, Liberalism, Gunpowder. But you could spend the rest of your commerce on culture or, with the Pyramids... Cossacks? Careful, if you build or capture the Great Library you could research Bronze Working unintentionally!

oh, I missed that printing press requires machinery (I guess that makes sense). So no rifles indeed. So if we can tech bronze working but not iron working, we can get rifles

Let's make it hard and go for #1 (no metals). Some things to note:
1. No more research after constitution/MT/gunpowder.
2. Bad economy! No guilds/banks/free trade/astronomy
3. No democracy. If the game drags on will be serious.

Bad economy/unhappiness is a bad combo for cultural victories. Given this, going for Russians and their timely UU sounds good. I would prefer a cultural victory with Catherine (we need the money), but it is up to the team and the map. Cultural with this variant on Prince would be a challenge, but noble is OK too.

Military is also fine with me, but maybe with Peter for a SE economy. We'd better be quick so that the tech gap/democracy penalty doesn't get too bad.

You migth want to look at that:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=178323

Mutineer said:

You migth want to look at that:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=178323

Click to expand...

Interesting, but not really the same since that variation doesn't cripple the research, just (severely) limiting the military options. It seems that this variant is harder, and I certainly wouldn't try in on emperor. If you intend to win a military victory you really can't afford to let someone advance too high in the tech tree, and space victory is out.

Indeed, that is an interesting game. I agree with yena that this variant is going to be much harder though. No banks, no guilds, no grocers etc. On the bright side, if we capture the pyramids, we can go into such wonderful civics such as police state and universal sufferage, which we'll never be able to research.

I think the biggest problem going for cultural will be the fact that we can't clear forests. At all. So it might be hard to cottage up, depending on where we are. I think the arid settings will help somewhat, but this game will definitely drag on into the modern era, I think.

Since we'll be playing pangaea, it IS possible to hit domination just with cossacks (they're that overpowered). Diplo is possible if the AI ever builds the UN, but that's a pretty big if. Maybe if they tech mass media, we can gift them a GE in hopes that they'll build the UN for us, but we can't even see if they've teched mass media!

Prince will probably be pushing our luck, but I'm willing to try it if the team wants to. Or maybe the AI will cultivate the land better on prince? Who knows...

maybe catherine or peter as they have the best uu that we can build. is yena right about the constitution, mt, gunpowder. can we not get rifling?

i like either prince or noble, probably towards the latter due to the difficulty of this varient. But im happy to go prince if there are some really expierienced emperor players here

shyuhe said:

On the bright side, if we capture the pyramids, we can go into such wonderful civics such as police state and universal sufferage, which we'll never be able to research.

Click to expand...

Surely we can build the pyramids ourselves?

shyuhe said:

I think the biggest problem going for cultural will be the fact that we can't clear forests. At all. So it might be hard to cottage up, depending on where we are. I think the arid settings will help somewhat, but this game will definitely drag on into the modern era, I think.

Click to expand...

Cultural is not easy, no. But military is no cake-walk either. The longer the game drags on, the harder it will get. Better hit them hard and fast

shyuhe said:

Since we'll be playing pangaea, it IS possible to hit domination just with cossacks (they're that overpowered). Diplo is possible if the AI ever builds the UN, but that's a pretty big if. Maybe if they tech mass media, we can gift them a GE in hopes that they'll build the UN for us, but we can't even see if they've teched mass media!

Prince will probably be pushing our luck, but I'm willing to try it if the team wants to. Or maybe the AI will cultivate the land better on prince? Who knows...

Click to expand...

I'm open for a military adventure on noble if the team prefers that route.

Play as Peter. Go FE/SE using caste system. Play peaceful using Snaaty's strategy (see strategy forum) until gunpowder. Try and win the game via domination during the gunpowder era. If you play on continents map, this will be impossible (no astronomy), so you would need a different victory condition. If you play a no bronze or no iron game then you will need to go for cultural victory in which case you should choose a leader like Gandhi.

If you allow bronze and iron but not their units then you could go for gunpowder domination since you could get galleons.

If you allow bronze and iron but not their units

Click to expand...

We're going to be trying this without bronze Rifles are out because PP requires machinery. Chemistry is out because of engineering. So our last two military units are muskets and cavalry! So it's looking like a Russian civ here?

Let's start the game at noble and see how it goes. We can pursue either domination or cultural - I think it'll depend on the surrounding tiles.

Still looking for at least two more players!!! Come on folks, you don't ALWAYS have to axe rush to win your game