Scenario: Extreme Ice Age

[SirRealSurreal]

Hello everyone! I've decided to share what has turned out to be a really fun and interesting challenge/scenario/setup. Basically, the idea is to play in a world that is a real frozen wasteland, where arable land and resources are very limited and civilizations have to scramble for every precious inch or be shut out and stuck in the extensive frigid polar regions. The map is Ice age set to cold temperature. I wanted to see how strategy and AI behavior changes in response to such systematic scarcity of not just resources, but good livable land itself. The other major aspect is picking specific civilizations that have some kind of workable unique strength(s) for a snow-and-tundra world. I’ll explain further below but now’s the time you can skip ahead if you don’t feel like reading or aren’t into the whole “details” concept.

It's turned out to be an overall even more different gameplay than I first predicted. And more fun; I originally worried it might get tedious and/or even the vox populi's relatively smart AI wouldn't adapt well tactically or logistically. But the scarcity is actually more fun and the AI adapt their strategies to a surprisingly comprehensive extent. I'm currently playing my third game with this as Brazil, but I'm going to go ahead and post a playthrough/photojournal of the my second, which I baaaaarely won (I lost the first one). I didn’t originally plan to post playthroughs, so I didn't do a great job saving good checkpoints or doing screenshots or anything for the first, but I could go back and do a sort of partial journal with a lot summarizing the gaps if there's interest in the first (I played Morocco for that one).

With each game I've removed a couple lowest performing civs and replaced them with other potentially strong ones. I'm open to ideas for who to include next, though if a civ does even mediocre I err on side of keeping them, mainly for comparisons sake. My current plan is to eventually get all 4 victory types, and perhaps a game or two on immortal, as these are all being done on Emperor for now. So, we'll see how many games that takes...

ANYWAY the map:

Size: Huge; Type: Ice age; Temperature: cold; Sea level: low; Landmass: Wide Continents; other settings at defaults.

13 civilizations: Inca (me), Denmark, Sweden, Russia, India, Netherlands, Polynesia, Spain, Egypt, Venice, Celts, Morocco, and the Ottomans; 26 city states.

Additionally, this game is VP 7-29 version, with only other mod being the Community Events for Vox Populi.

Other major scenario rules (for all iterations):

-Starting bias disabled.

-Must start far enough from equator that ice is visible on first turn (Since the point would be ruined by just lucking into (or retrying until getting to) a nice equatorial start).

-barbarian GG points allowed; this isn’t scenario specific per se, but is just a setting I always prefer and am baffled as to why it isn’t a default; it’s such a random and purposeless restriction that takes away tactically and entertainment-wise from early game... but I digress...

So, onto the actual game.

 

[SirRealSurreal]

Turn 1: I really nailed it with the icy start this time. Challenge accepted.

BTW, I chose Incs for the mountain bonuses and terrain farms making possibly hospitable land out of nothing, but I may have to leave the bulk of that to my non-capital cities. Hope there are some mountain ranges just out of sight...

Turn 22:

There actually are! Problem is most of the choice spots too the south on my continent have city states on them. I noticed last game that interestingly enough, much of the warmer and equatorial regions get populated with city states, rather than civ starting points; a couple get lucky, but there were mostly tundra SP overall. I'm not even past that yet and already its looking kind of crowded... It's starting to look like I will have to either embrace fire and blood or cold and peace. We shall see how I'm feeling later.

Also, speaking of lucky SPs, I met my first other civ! I wonder if he's the closest though, at least by land...

Really

 

[SirRealSurreal]

By turn 35, I've had a pretty good go of things exploring the lands to the East of me. I've now met 2 other civs, Polynesia and the Celts, but more importantly I've gotten like 6 ruins (ruinses?) with solid haul of 2 techs, a scout upgrade, a population boost, and some money. Also, there are already like 4 religious city-states, three of them right by my capital. Incidentally, their faith gifts from first meeting them allowed me to pick a decently early pantheon!

Guess which one I chose.
We now worship the fishes our enemies are destined to sleep with.

Also, I haven't mentioned but I chose authority for my first policy branch. One thing I learned last game is that battle for scarce resources often becomes literal, and besides, with all the city-states around me I'm gonna want military might whether clearing fighting them, fighting barbarians FOR them, bullying them, or likely some combination of all three.

Let's skip ahead a little bit. you know the drill, I met some people, explored some places, learned some technology, cultured some policy, yada yada. By turn 76, I'm getting a clearer picture of my world:

Not sure if you can easily tell by the minimap, but my growing suspicions that I was the only civ on a cold subcontinent infested with warmer city states has been confirmed. I also found what'll probably be two decent spots to settle, one nearby inland and one sheltered between some mountains with some real terrace potential and a bay leading out to the south. I also renamed it Machu Picchu because it annoys me that the second half is left off (yes I know its to distinguish it from the wonder, but I really don't think I'm in danger of getting them confused. I guess I'm cocky like that).

Also, this is only from a few turns later, but I love how Harald is being such a characteristic dick by actively trying to cut off Kamehameha from the real ocean to the East, leaving him to only settle the western inland sea and a frozen southern one that may or may not lead out anywhere.

More to come when I get the chance.

 

[SirRealSurreal]

Soon after that I was able to found a religion, one of the first which is NOT something I can usually claim., but thanks to the Incan people's steady diet of faith from their zealous lesser neighbors in wittenburg, kathmandu and Lhasa, my backwards fish-worshippers have evolved, with the help of the birth of famous historical Incan prophet, Zoroaster.



As time goes on, I get more of the world explored (spoiler, there's a lot of tundra). Even by the low 100s, most of the equatorial regions have been gobbled up. This is an example of the first big takeaway I've gotten from the ice age scenario, and I'll try not to be too broad or melodramatic here, but it is:

ICE AGE INSIGHT #1: AI actually plays WIDER when faced with scarcity.

This is something I suspected from my first game, but is appearing even more starkly now, and its the exact opposite of what I expected. I assumed originally that feweer good settling spots wold mean the AI as a general trend would make fewer settlements. Instead, cities are popping up quicker than ever where ever they can be remotely valuable or self-sustaining. Every region before the snow is a racetrack, and its creating some interesting results. For example, I went ahead and settled across the sea from my capital to put a foothold on the other large continent, and noticed something odd about my new neighbor Spain. See if you can spot it:

...Where is Madrid? Why is there a cohesive 3 city Spanish area some as-yet-undiscovered distance away from wherever the capital is? I somehow doubt Isabella is just deviously trying to cut off Egyptian access to the abundant wealth of the northern Ice fields above.

By the way, that minimap in the picture above doesn't really due this process justice. Though I didnt save any more games for a while, Right after this there was another worldwide rash of settling; even as city growth creeps along for most cities, the number of cities keeps speeding forward.

 

[CppMaster]

Cool photo-journal! One of the most interesting ones. Keep it up!

 

[SirRealSurreal]

thank you cppmaster, ya know I'll do my best.

Anyway, as I said I don't have any saved games for another 40ish turns, but here is how the world has shaped up by turn 155. Warring has become more commonplace. HArald finally stopped screwing around with his Croatia-to-polynesia's-bosnia expansion strategy and just went ahead and invaded, capturing tonga. This really sucks for them becuase Kamehameha was too slow on the settling game was beat to the nice land still left to the west by the expanionist Celts. Kame's 5th city was actually settled on the tip of a peninsula that they already mostly controlled.

As for MY region of the world, Ramesses has decided to expand onto my continent by settling like the only two eligible tiles to my south. I decided to invade wellington soon nearby, so I wasn't toooo annoyed by pi-rameses, but I hadn't even noticed there was that one settle-able tile where giza was put that was exactly 4 tiles away from like the 3 nearest cities. That one kinda annoyed me.

Meanwhile, Boudicca has declared war on me personally for reasons that never became clear; I never saw any sort of invasion force, and pretty much just sent in two triremes to go pillage fishing boats until she got apparently got bored and brokered a stale-mate peace treaty. I did however, lose a settler to a random pictish warrior I was about to use on the gold filled coastline to the southeast of machu picchu; I had actually built two almost concurrently to settle both there and on the resource rich tundra river to the north of MP, which I was able to do. I thought about redirecting that settler down to the more valuable southern spot, since it was more likely to be grabbed by someone else soon, but decided to just settle where I already was and send in another settler when I got the chance.

This was the wrong choice.

By the way, as you may have noticed on those minimaps, I found Madrid! It hilariously turns out that Isabella forward settled northwest of Egypt at the beginning, so Egypt just went and settled multiple cities right between North and south Spain. He also left like no room around the capital, leaving only the less desirable northern area for Isabella to expand to. Ah, I love me some punished forward-settling behavior.

 

[SirRealSurreal]

I forgot to mention but, Wellington aside, I decided to make satellite states rather than puppet states out of the CSes around me, and made statecraft my second branch. However, There is just one problem, visible in the last screenshot: William has clearly decided to go for diplomatic victory. His hordes of diplomats infest the land like a plague of locusts, and he keeps usurping MY allies almost immediately after I get them back. His strategy may end up being hurt however, by a dwindling pool of independent minor civs. You see, while I've noticed vox populi can lead to some slightly more aggressive attitudes towards city states by AI at times, it gets even more pronounced by the Ice age, and the phenomenon may already be starting to show itself:

ICE AGE INSIGHT #2: City-States beware!

For real, by the late stages of the first game there were more major civs than minor ones. I think it got down to 8 or 9 at one point if I remember correctly. Even in this game, The bigger civs like sweden and denmark have already swallowed up nearby city states, and I can personally attest to the fact that it makes it harder to win diplo because that was one of the two victory options I was originally going for as Al-MAnsur last game (spoiler alert, it didn't work). We'll see if it gets that drastic this time.

Some other notable things as mid game comes on:

-Spain declares war on me, which leads to a quick and easy victory against the technologically backward and, lets say, "logistically challenged" spaniards. I take and puppet both remaining northern cities and make spain my vassal in relatively short time.

- I explore more of the other large continent, finding that neither big civ founded a religion there! (prepare for some zoroastrianism guys). This is nice since they still have their pantheons to swamp while my homeland is surrounded by 4 other holy cities in relative next door neighbors. Sevillan buddhism is a migraine in itself given Spain's religious bonuses and propensity to KEEP SENDING MISSIONARIES TO MY CITIES STOP IT I KEEP HAVING TO WASTE MY FAITH ON INQUISITORS but anyway its fine.
- the other area I've explored more is a high altitude wonderland, the barely touched subcontinent to the southwest. While it probably isn't inviting to many others, with the mountain bonuses I have, Its a fertile breeding ground just for me (I hope):

I send in a settler to build a port city to the western side of the range, with plans to conquer and annex inland Sidon there on the East. Who knows, maybe Ill claim even more of it.

-I also eventually decide on industry as my final branch, since I'm actually one of the science leaders at this point and am not trying to play SUPER wide and aggressive. production and gold though, I could def use more of those.

-Finally if enrico doesn't stop buying all my religious allies... hes now decided that of all the city states, he wants wittenberg and frigid-ass Jerusalem. I need that faith to defend against the buddhists...

Dammit, Dandolo!

 

[SirRealSurreal]

I was able to get my revenge on Enrico by getting my allies back. It was nice to get some liberation bonuses to kinda dampen my ferocious warmonger reputation I got from taking 2 entire cities. Especially because I was also amassing my army to go go conquer Sidon soon. I happily liberated both Lhasa and Jerusalem, while moving towards Venice itself (though I doubt I had the firepower to take it) before getting him to capitulate to me as well. Just in time too, because something abou the way Egypt has been placing its troops seems just vaaaaaguely threatening...

Sure enough I was at war with them soon, where I liberated Barcelona for spain and finally got rid of the geographic grotesquerie that was Giza. Before I get ahead of myself though, there are two other things I want to mention from these early 300s of turns. One is the fact that despite literally not a SINGLE workable land tile that is not snow, Cusco is at this point (and consistently has been throughout almost the whole game) the most populous city on the planet. The God of the sea and 7 sea resources (ok plus the lake and a few towns and other great people improvements boosted by religious belief I forgot the name of) have made the Coldest capital on a very cold planet the most food-abundant city around. Was not expecting that at the beginning.

The other thing is that I got to choose my ideology.

So far, three capitalists and three communists... Fashies get no love this game. I was actually originally leaning towards autocracy this time after doing freedom last time, but to be honest its not worth the higher than even chance I just become completely ideologically isolated and get sanctioned or have everyon trying to wipe me from the planet. Besides, while I'm primarily going for science at this point, I've actually gotten to where I'm going toe to toe with William on the diplo victory track with my policies, attentive questing and cranking out great diplomats to build embassies. I still dont know how feasible it is but I don't wanna to effectively preclude myself from my plan B, because I dont own a single foreign capital and my tourism has kinda stagnated.

So I went with order, mainly because I went with freedom last time and also because order does seem more useful for this particular game even without the diplo-victory track. Hopefully my dear friend, war buddy and Genghis Khan of the tundra, Gustavus, will forgive me. Either way, even though I'm a little late to the ideology game, hopefully with my recently founded corporation Georgio Armeier, I can put out the culture to catch up.

Oh one more thing actually; my-spread-Zoroastrianism-to-the-pagan-East gambit worked like a charm. lets see Isabella convert that.

 

[SirRealSurreal]

So the thing is, by around 2/3s of the way through, I was doing pretty good by most metrics. I'm running a consistent second in the science race, and going toe to toe with William in terms of diplomatic dominance and potential world leader votes if the space thing doesn't end up working out. The biggest issue is my not-so-friendly now former buddy Sweden. Not long ago we were conquering a continent together, and then He just goes around and breaks our DoF with a denouncement, all while really starting to run away with things:

The 75% research penalty doesn't seem to be much of an issue either since hes several techs ahead of everyone else. Predictably, they seem to be the military branch as Gustavus consistently is like a full step ahead in unit upgrades (no wonder he has such an easy time just taking whatever he wants). At this point I'm building up my army and moving the bulk of my existing army on the western frontier of my empire, because I'm genuinely afraid for what happens if he decides to escalate his denouncing...

...Ok so I was right to worry.

Nothing is enough for this guy, I swear. by the way, He apparently decided that for alll his conquering, there was still more settling to be done. you see that silly ass colony north of Russia?

Look I get that late game colonies for once barren land that turns out to be full of important strategic resources is sometimes a solid strategy; its just that also, like, calm down Adolphus. Damn.

Also he takes Venice and Toledo (though I take Toledo back and give it to my pal and newly freed vassal (I was tired of the diplo multiple-vassal penalty and spain was so backwards that she was barely even giving any benefits at this point, so I kind of freed her on a whim). I didnt return toledo because I didnt want it still, but rather because I figured Swedes would just retake it again if I tried to keep it. Might as well not let it go to either of us!

I was juuuuust able to hold of the Swedish advances at Seville and Vilcabamba (northwesternmost city up there) by the 370s, getting a taste of peace for once. At least until Isabella has thanked my generosity with another bafflingly ill-advised war declaration against me. I take toledo back immediately.

Finally for now, I know the score doesn't always mean all thaaaaat much at higher difficulties, but it can be good as a basic yardstick, and seriously look at that. Sweden is 700 points ahead of denmark and 1200 ahead of me and William. I was actually starting to wonder if anyone would be able to catch up at this point.

 

[SirRealSurreal]

So one other think that may not be easily noticeable from just the photos is another effect of the scenario that's a little bit more subtle. I wasn't expecting it going into this little project, but perhaps I should have:

ICE AGE INSIGHT #3: Scientific progress is slower. Like, for entire world.

One thing that is very noticeable to me in higher difficulties (nowadays I always play either emperor or immortal) is a predictable result of a world where there's significant and comparably high bonuses to all (except human) major civilizations; that is, things advance faster, as every civ gets boosts that not only help accelerate progress long term individually, but even form sorts of international feedback loops with stuff like stealing techs with spies, tech trading, and more prosperous economies leading both to a little more gold for superpowers to spend on further acceleration as well as slightly larger scale mutually beneficial trade. The end result is that by the late game, things are shifted forward as compared to both lower difficulty games and the real world timeline. For example, you may see apollo programs completing by the early 20th century, or science leaders completing the tech tree before 2000. However, tendency seems to be mitigated by the harsh geographic conditions, and while scientific progress doesn't move at a glacial pace per se (god I'm hilarious) it is much closer to the normal timeline. I also have noticed that the gap between highest and lowest performers seemed a bit tighter but I could be wrong or even if not that could just be a coincidence/fluke. I'll need to keep an eye for that later though if I continue on with this.

This comes to the fore because by focusing all my non-essential resources on science and reaching my Great leap forward policy, I've been apparently able to match Sweden's previously runaway-adjacent pace of technological progress by the late 300s. Denmark is the only other civ able to keep up with me and Gustavus. I was afraid I'd have to bank on a diplo victory before sweden builds a spaceship, but I might still be able to catch up and build it myself.

In the meantime however, me and Sweden are busy rekking Ramses, who up to this point was doing ok but just cannot withstand both of our armies. The swedes taken Heliopolis and I take Memphis. Sweden has also closed in and laid siege to the capital as well.

As you may notice, I have parked one, then two units into surrounding tiles as Sweden continues its assault and occasional adjacent hexes arent immediately refilled as swedish units die. The goal is to hope that maybe at some point Gustavus will get Thebes severely weakened enough, like just short of capture themselves, so that come my turn, I can take it with like 2 or 3 troops.

And unbelievably it works! (This strategy for cheap capture on allies labor almost never works for me, leading to the rather annoying trend of me having to EARN my captured cities. Like a peasant.) BTW I doubt he'd have the time now but if the time but If he'd gotten Thebes Gustavus would be at 4 capitals, about to be 5 with his eye on the weakly defended Spain's Madrid like any turn now. In theory with his Gigantic Most Advanced Military, he might could make a late domination victory push (though I imagine science would still be the path of least resistance).

Anyway, other pre turn 400 developments:

- I did the math and realized that if I focus on science, and especially if I pick spots next to science boosting resources, I can settle more cities and quickly have them at decent enough net science positives (even if they might be drags on culture/policies), so I do that. Besides, my first round of colonization on the mountainous small southern continent of what I'm calling Antarctinca has proven to be very prosperous and valuable. Besides, My happiness is petering and I could also use some oil and aluminum. So, I settle in the so-far empty regions south of morocco and denmark. I might try and see if wirh another colonist and a citadel or 2 I can get a monopoly on coral since like half of it is unclaimed still.

- Ideologically, The workers of the world are in fact uniting. The 4-3 balance when I adopt order soon becomes a 6-4-1 (Isabella, the final one to pick an ideology (Polynesia and India are not culturally advanced enough yet and are both vassals that wouldn't get to 'pick' anyway) strangely decided to lone wolf it as the sole autocrat). Ottomans and Venice adopt Order as Egypt goes freedom, bu this actually changes as right after I capture thebes, I get Ramesses to capitulate (I know what I said about the multiple vassals penalty being a b*tch, but hey I could use the world leader cushion). He soon makes it 7-3-1. Looks like William made the wrong choice lol.

-Finally, one more thing:

DAMN IT DANDOLO!

 

[SirRealSurreal]

Alright so I recently have been pretty busy, but I'm going to put a quick wrap-up of the end of the game here.

So at turn 400, theres some more late game colonizing going on, such as morocco getting the some idea that I did south of Denmark:

Also, as you may notice in that mini-map, yes of course this includes Sweden (again)

I also saw a Celtic settler and escort wandering near hong kong around this time that I'm pretty sure only never settled cause they got killed. Who knows maybe they just froze to death. I'm not quite ready to put it as a full 'insight' yet, but it does seem like theres more super-late game settling in the two games I've played (not just like first half of 20th century like in most normal games I've played). If this happens again in my next couple games I'll codify it, so to speak.

Other late game developments:
-Morocco declares war on me. We trade Meknes and Chan Chan (my city right below the Moroccan mainland). Neither city puts up much of a fight as neither was really much defended. Its a relatively short and meaningless war.

-The ever-optimistic William proposes the United Nations! I was holding off because I thought it would be a sure loser based on tallies I had and the fact that I didnt have enough delegates alone to have any hope of singularly push it through, but hopefully now that William has changed his tune the both of us can overpower everyone else.
(Spoiler: We do).

-Isabella literally got completely conquered by sweden only a few turns after becoming the world's only fascist. looks like the military benefits didn't help her much.

-Enrico is using his generals all of sudden. Like, I'm not even mad that he took my land, this is bold:

-After United NAtions passes, my obvious next proposal is to make the world ideology Order. however, I have a dilemma for actual vote:

I dont wanna be sanctioned, but at this point I need to prioritize. Even though several other civs will probably approve the order resolution, all it takes is Sweden putting all its chips against it plus maybe a few from William. I end up splitting my votes, though I honestly dont remember what the proportions were. The end result however, was that both Order and the sanction win. The countdown towards my diplomatic victory begins.

This is important because even though I was able to finally catch up to Sweden and complete the tech tree a little before this with the help of a great leap forward and CERN, I cant assume I'll beat him to the spaceship. Denmark was also able to make a late tech push and even though he finishes a little later than me and sweden, Harald is cranking out spaceship parts remarkably fast.
Its hard to know exactly how close I really am at first due to not knowing how much of an effect my last great engineer will ahve, but It ends up that IT would still be a cuple turns after the hegemony vote before I made it and got my last part transported to capital. At this point I'm next-turning and hoping for basically nothing to happen.

Its gonna be close:

However, Finally, my moment comes:

On turn 441, Ironically enough July 2020 in-game, I am elected world leader and assume my rightful place as the All-Boss.

I do have a couple reflections/observations and maybe a couple random things I'd just forgotten to mention at the appropriate points, SO when I get the chance I'll include those along with a summary in a proper little wrap-up, hopefully soon, so if anyone is listening stay tuned.

 

[SirRealSurreal]

So haven't done that promised final update because I've actually been traveling a bit. A few quick final observations:

-As I said, this was my second game, and I didnt keep to think much of the saved progress from the first. What I'm thinking is I'll either do a shorter thread based on what I do have or maybe combine it with the third game I most recently did in one big main thread. I'll have to go back and do a detailed look on how much I have before I decide. It will also be affected by the fact that some comparability (one of the main goals) might be kinda shoddy going forward, because of the new version...
-When I started this little project, I honestly didn't realize how soon the new version would be out. I could just keep on and run it out on the old version, but frankly I just dont want to, I wanna start playing on the new vox populi. We'll see how significant the changes are, but since a lot of the stuff changing apparently has to do with AI strategy and diplomacy, I'm not sure how many of my Ice age Insights will hold. I may mostly restart the whole project, I may just go on as if game version is just another variable.
-This is my first playthrough/photojournal, and with that said, I'll also put in much more polished and (contemperoaneous) playthroughs from here on if/when I continue this, hopefully with much better chosen details and images and better formatting.
-Finally, and I realize more and more that I didn't exactly conduct it in a very traditional way as I've been looking through others on the forum, but hey I'm learning. Hopefully going forward, if I get some engagement and/or people show some interest in the idea, I'll keep doing these until I have several that I can really look at and draw some meaningful insights and comparisons. I'm gonna probably consider this a practice run lol.

Like I said, Ill post (possibly condensed) versions of my pre94 games and then hopefully make a more clean and polished, play as I go walk throughs, so stay tuned.

 

[Stalker0]

I tell you I took one look at your starting terrain and said "damn that's harsh...hmm, I kind of want to try it"

 

[tothePAIN]

So haven't done that promised final update because I've actually been traveling a bit. A few quick final observations:

-As I said, this was my second game, and I didnt keep to think much of the saved progress from the first. What I'm thinking is I'll either do a shorter thread based on what I do have or maybe combine it with the third game I most recently did in one big main thread. I'll have to go back and do a detailed look on how much I have before I decide. It will also be affected by the fact that some comparability (one of the main goals) might be kinda shoddy going forward, because of the new version...
-When I started this little project, I honestly didn't realize how soon the new version would be out. I could just keep on and run it out on the old version, but frankly I just dont want to, I wanna start playing on the new vox populi. We'll see how significant the changes are, but since a lot of the stuff changing apparently has to do with AI strategy and diplomacy, I'm not sure how many of my Ice age Insights will hold. I may mostly restart the whole project, I may just go on as if game version is just another variable.
-This is my first playthrough/photojournal, and with that said, I'll also put in much more polished and (contemperoaneous) playthroughs from here on if/when I continue this, hopefully with much better chosen details and images and better formatting.
-Finally, and I realize more and more that I didn't exactly conduct it in a very traditional way as I've been looking through others on the forum, but hey I'm learning. Hopefully going forward, if I get some engagement and/or people show some interest in the idea, I'll keep doing these until I have several that I can really look at and draw some meaningful insights and comparisons. I'm gonna probably consider this a practice run lol.

Like I said, Ill post (possibly condensed) versions of my pre94 games and then hopefully make a more clean and polished, play as I go walk throughs, so stay tuned.

I enjoyed reading this photojournal.

 

[azum4roll]

I tell you I took one look at your starting terrain and said "damn that's harsh...hmm, I kind of want to try it"

You can modify the map constants in Communitu_79a to generate a map like that

 

[CrazyG]

I really enjoyed this game. What a crazy capital. Describing a game like this takes a big time investment, thanks for sharing with us.

 

[Stalker0]

You can modify the map constants in Communitu_79a to generate a map like that

Don't know why I got the eye roll for this, I was in fact thinking of doing just that

 

[azum4roll]

Don't know why I got the eye roll for this, I was in fact thinking of doing just that

You'll get a map with extremely few horses/coal but loads of iron/oil/uranium
And maybe every coast tile has fish.

In fact I wonder if the civs can even spawn with such low fertility

 

[SirRealSurreal]

Thanks yall, im glad to hear it, especially since this is my first go try with a photojournal. I do plan to stick to this, but I decided to try a couple normal (well actually my current one is more like another scenario/challenge I came up with, but only affects me, not AI so) games first to get a feel for everything in the new version and decide whether I want to do it on the new beta or just stick to the June "main" version, but I'll probably do it pretty soon either way.

 

[sambrowny]

Thoroughly enjoyed reading this photo journal, hope you do more