SirRealSurreal
Chieftain
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2020
- Messages
- 35
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.
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.