MH's Strange Settings Series 3 - (Hopefully I can edit this title later)

Welcome to MikeHendi's Strange Settings Series!!!

This will be a series of games where I’ll take some extreme approaches to normal civ IV concepts. Also we’ll often be using crazy settings, crazy rules, crazy WB-edited starts, and more crazy craziness in general.

I already have some ideas for a couple more games, but feel free to spam ideas for games in this thread. By the way, I usually play on Monarch or Emperor.


Game 3: Science Slider obsessed Ramsesses

Original pregame OP:


Everything below is posted after post #11 was posted


In this game, we'll be playing under our god Ramsesses of Egypt. He's humbly asked us in the nicest, friendliest and most polite way if we could spend the entire budget on science. For if we don't He'll find us unworthy, and will drop nukes all over our land. In a very friendly and polite way, of course.

The strangeness:

We MUST run 100% science slider for the ENTIRE game. If we fail even one turn, we lose. Ramsesses will then gift each AI 20 Nukes, and then hand out formal war declarations in our name like cookies.

So, as the head of the Ministry's Council, I'll have to come up with other ideas to fund the Empire. Unfortunately, Ramsesses is not completely ********, and to cover all (<-- He THINKS all) ways to sneak money out of his science budget, he's given us the 10 Commandments Against Wealth.

Wealth restrictions:
1) Thou shall NOT lower the research budget under 100%
2) Thou shall NOT directly build wealth in our cities (available with Currency) (building research or culture is ok)
3) Thou shall NOT recieve failgold from losing wonder races (including national wonders). Ramsesses says if we fail, we fail. no compensation for losers. Any failgold recieved must be WB'd out.
4) Thou shall NOT sell techs to the AI We may BUY techs from the AI though.
5) Thou shall NOT recieve gold to fit tech trades to the AI. Techs can be exchanged for other techs only, instead of lousy gold, Ramsesses says. Selling resources is OK, since they got nothing to do with science.
6) Thou shall NOT abuse whip overflow into gold. Ramsesses is an industrious God after all. Hammers = buildings or units, He says.
7) Thou shall NOT beg for gold. We are a proud nation. (We may make mighty threats/demands and suffer the consequences though)
8) Thou shall NOT do steal treasury spy missions. Ramsesses finds that that costs too much resources which could have been spent on the science budget
9) Thou shall NOT pop gold from huts. Our God has just cleared the land in 4200 BC, wiping the entire earth clean of developed civs and huts. The last leader of the egyptian people awakened His torn by not following the 10 Wealth commandments. Let this be a warning for us!
10) Thou shall NOT play a 2-gold high-food start, He added, as soon as he saw the original start with 2 gold in the BFC. So I'll generate a new one




The Normalness:

- Monarch difficulty
- Epic speed
- Fractal map
- Random opponents
- No huts
- No events


How to win:

- No restrictions yet


So who's gonna be our leader?

Ramsesses of Egypt (Spiritual, Industrious)


The Start:

I'll generate a new map as soon as I finally start this game EDIT: which is NOW!

The game starts in post #17




The OLD Start:




Once more the settings:

Privateers and (only BUG/BULL iirc) large hammer overflows.
Cost reduction: Forbidden palace (covered by courthouse)/Versailles

Hmm, only four. Err... Gifts by the AI if you are far behind?

[edit] Now I got it: Failgold from building wonders, of course!

So... Do I get a cookie for all five, or what?

How about ways that increase commerce, assuming you're going to convert it all into gold?

Corporations? Especially the artist one.

Mercantilism and the the civics that reduce costs (SP and the no civic maintenance, Nationalism and Pacifism).

Uh...Advanced Start?

Ah, right, spreading your own corps to foreign nations can generate a lot of income...

Very minor source of gold, but still possible: trade your map for lump sum

Stealing with spies.

Trading for gold generally isn't just techs-for-gold. Gifts, techs-for-gold, resources-for-gpt, map for gold... I'm not sure if it's possible to offer to declare war for gold (haven't ever actually checked).

Um the Muse said:

Uh...Advanced Start?

Click to expand...

O RLY
Nice one!

I've updated the OP in Christmas Red.


In my next game I MUST run 100% science slider for the entire game, or I lose. So the game isn't actually science-focusses, but about alternate ways to come up with gold to fund your empire.

I don't want this game to be "make it to currency = autowin" (i.e. have a few cities building wealth and play like usual), I want to exclude some of those ways.

Also, I'd like to rely as much on my own civ's strength as possible

I was thinking of the following.

Main rule: Must always run 100% science. (Even 1 turn of less then 100% = Lost the game)

Restrictions discussion:



Hmmm, Now that I've written all of the above, how about the following

- play an isolated start
- may not build wealth
- No failgold from wonders (deduct in WB)

This way, I must rely totally on my own civ until astronomy, and still allows late-game wars, tech trades, corp abuse and stealing treasury missions, and other AI-abuse. And it gives me a nice short ruleset (so I can remember the rules in-game )


Any ideas for nice rule-combo's?
And which leader would you choose?

Possibly Mansa Musa. With the restrictions about , the Mint could be a nice extra asset. The same reasoning could be done for an English leader, but you played them in your last forum game.

e. Gold compensation from losing hammers when whipping with too big overflow (Is this still the case? Didn't they remove the gold compensation?)

Click to expand...

It still gives some, but its broke to the point of being worthless in the unmodded game.

- No failgold from wonders (deduct in WB)
This way, I must rely totally on my own civ until astronomy

Click to expand...

Does that mean that failgold from national wonders is allowed?

Unfortunately with your ruleset its going to take quite a long time to be able to even settle city nr 2, as your sources of very early gold are extremely lmited. May be a niche that the Arab or Egyptian UBs could fill.

I like the idea of Ramsesses

- Monument UB lets me run 2 priests super-early
- Industrious for early Prophet and Merchant wonders
- Spiritual for cheap temples (which allow more priest specialists)

Other option is to use a PHI leader to generate a quick prophet from Stonehenge to fund expansion. Ramsesses seems more fun though. I'll go and generate a map and update the OP. Not sure about which wealth restrictions to pick though.

Opening plans start to take shape...

Ramses is probably the way to go: IND Stonehenge, Temple of Artemis, and Oracle. Bulb with GP, aiming for a fast CoL, followed by Spiral Minaret ASAP.

If you're lucky and talented, you might be able to do this with goody huts instead. What difficulty did you want to try this on?

Alright, the game is on! The OP is updated with the definitive rules!

I added a little story twist to it, but don't expect anything like Mad Scientist's games. I'm getting better at it, though! (At least i think )

Allright, the start turned out to be HOF-worthy (see OP for details).

When I find time to play, I'll generate a new map.

If you can get to CoL and Caste System, and run merchants with the Pyramids, you've won. At that point you can REX like mad.

Rushing is probably a good way to go too. You'll have to be careful and not over-expand though. Anytime it's negative gold and you have to be real careful.

Can you put up the old map's save?

Allright, let's finally get this baby started!

The new start:



SIP seems likely. I move the warrior 1N to check the tile 3W1N of the settler just in case, but nothing interesting was revealed, so



Great food, good production but very low commerce. Great place to wonderspam though!

Research is set to Mysticism-AH (we start with Agriculture). The goal is a very early Stonehenge, followed by running 2 priest specialists through the Egyption Obelisk UB.

The exploring warrior runs into trouble...


.


But he lives! Notice the 3rd panther in the upper left, he made the warrior flee away. I managed to retreat him inside my culture, where he could heal in peace, and we met:



from the east.



The worker completes, and we start on Stonehenge. I hope to be able to retreat the scouting warrior to serve a short duty as happy police, after he has scouted the east side a bit.

Next we meet



from the south.



I probably want to build the Temple of Artemis (for the 5 priest/merchant GPP) and/or Oracle (cheap 2 GPP + hopefully COL).

I first want mining-BW. It allows chopping, whipping, keeps the worker busy, and I should not neglect expansion.

Thebes at size 2,3,4 and 5:



Switched to the Cow after the worker finished pasturing it.



And finally timing the completion of Stonhenge simultaneously with growing to size 5



Leading to the construction of Stonhenge in 2700 BC:



Immediately I start running two priests, and our first GP will appear in 19 turns!

Isn't that beautiful? Running 2 specialists, along with working 3 6-yield tiles!



In the mean time, the worker improved corn-cow-pig, then started a road from the pig towards the corn and our 2nd city!

Even though the Great Prophet hasn't appeared yet, the priest specialists generate enough gold to support a 2nd city.



Thebes started on a couple of warriors to spawnbust the next city loaction, a great short term city which will help our research with the gold, AND enables War Chariots with the horse! A very bad long-term city though.

I timed finishing BW, and growing to 6 to 3-pop whip a settler on the same turn. The turn before I changed my mind. The 6-yields are too good to whip, and the specialists are needed to. The AI isn't about to take that spot, so I changed my mind and slow-build the settler, avoiding growth:


.


Instead of improving the new city site, the worker now has time to start chopping! The settler will now appear just before the Great Prophet.

Research is set to polytheism, hopefully I'll be able to chop the ToA.

Memphis is founded


.


All commerce (1st column) will convert to science, it's the 2nd column (Gold income) and 3rd column (expenses) that matter for this variant.

We meet the first barb unit:



Right in our backyard. Our warrior is woodsman II, so we need to do a little dance to get him defending in a forest.

The worker will improve the gold tile, and have it ready the turn Memphis grows to size 2.



2225BC, our great prophet is born! He is settled in the Cap, funding expansion for about 3-4 cities.

Now that we have him settled, the 2 priests are fired and offered new jobs as Workers:



This one was timed to max-overflow whip at the turn the GP appeared, overflowing into



another worker. Notice the food bar was almost full when whipping at size 5. Since the stored food exceeded the value of a size-3 city, I whipped for 2 pop, and the city STILL grows to size 4 after the whip, even when no food is added in the interturn!

Do you remember that first barb unit we saw? We finally managed to get our woody II warrior to defend against him in a forest:





He almost got away even without a scratch! Seriously!



We whip our 4th worker into the ToA. 3 will be chopping, 1 is improving and roading the gold and horse tile for the 2nd city.

I will try to also complete the oracle after PH-writing is in, and oracle COL.



As soon as priesthood completes, I put 1 turn into Oracle to discourage AI's to start building it.



There he is, the Mtrfckr. He gained between 5 to 9 XP from a single attack!



Apparantly, he also gained Settle skills, I haven't seen him anymore since.

And the last screenshot of this session, 1825BC:



Barb protection ability is up and running, the ToA is near completion with 3 forest about to be chopped, hopefully we can make a quick oracle after that, and then start some more settlers!

Such a nice cap! For your next whip in the cap, you might consider a fishing boat for that lovely fish.

Oracle>CoL and shrine and spread the religion. Far more effective than settling GP in the long run. In this situation where you seem to have a monopoly on religion on your landmass it's even better. Building missionaries is worse than building wealth, but still ok. Now you're building the ToA instead of missionairies (without marble the ToA is almost 6 missionaries). You could have CoL, a temple, 8 happiness, and running 4 priests in your cap, easily funding more cities. And if building a wonder the 'mids would've been far better.

It's still a nice challenge, though, good idea.

ps. I also recommend the spiral minaret.

Given the variant, I might have put more emphasis on long term city placement over short-term. Especially since this might be your holy city.

Did you consider placing your second city 1E, for the decreased maintenance and the health bonus?


I might have even settled for using warriors only for defense, placed it 1NE to get the gold and the other corn.