All Age Fighting Game

[Spoonwood]

I want to do a game which encourages fighting in all ages and involves a victory by launching the spaceship. I read LK76 which pretty much did that but I didn't like the idea of not using armies at all. So, I've come up with the following idea:

Always War with the constraint that units in cities may only get attacked if they have gotten redlined (note occasionally, sometimes a longbow or other low defense unit is healthy and it appears that all units in the city have gotten redlined). I'll call this Redline Always War. I do NOT want to do this as Korea. I'll propose a few variants:

1. Artillery Redline Always War: No trading allowed ever. No units at all make attack units in cities, unless they have gotten redlined.

2. Tank Redline Always War: No trading allowed ever. Only tanks or modern armor make attack units in cities if not redlined. All other units may only attack a unit in a city if it has gotten redlined.

3. Initial Trade Artillery Redline Always War: May trade initial techs, but that's it.

4. Initial Trade Tank Redline Always War: Same as 3, except tanks and modern armor can attack anything.

5. Trading Redline Always War: May trade at any time, but have to redeclare immediately. With tanks and modern armor allowed to attack anything or not (5a and 5b).

6. Redline Always AT War: We must always be at war with someone, but it only has to consist of one enemy. The rest of the civilizations we can stay at peace with (or not), unless we capture or destroy one of their cities, then we will need to declare on a second opponent. We can only attack units in cities if they have gotten redlined.

6. seems the most relaxed variant and probably makes demi-god or deity possible. I'd also like to do this on a huge map in Conquests 60%, wet, warm, 5 billion pangea, as that limits specialist farms due to the city limit, and I like those settings otherwise.

Thoughts on which variant seems most appealing?

Edit: This will consist of an open succession game. The second post explains what I mean by that. Whoever uploads a save first with 10 turns played will basically pick what variant we go with.

 

[Spoonwood]

I'd also like for this to be an open succession game:

In order to play some turns here, you only need to say "got it" before you start playing and agree to not reload on your turn set. Also, please don't use a utility program such as CrPViewer, or playing ahead, to preview where all of the strategic resources lie or previewing AI behavior.

This will work roughly as follows:

1. The previous save will get uploaded.

2. Then someone, anyone except the person who just played, says "got it". Thus a player may play 10 turns, have someone else play 10 turns, and then play another 10 turns, supposing that perhaps the progress of the game seems slow otherwise.

3. From that point in time, the person who says "got it" has a maximum of a week to play 10 turns. They may upload their 10 turn set in less than a week or their less than 10 turn set in less than a week if they want to, and hopefully most players won't take a full week. Hopefully, much faster. A week, again, just makes for the maximum amount of time.

Exception: If no one uploads any new turns in a week after saying "Got It", then the player who played the previous turn(s) may say "got it" and play a second (or third or ...) consecutive turn set.

Following any sort of team strategy is optional, though recommended.

Posting any sort of turn-log is optional, though also recommended.

Leaving plans for other players to follow after you play is optional, though also recommended.

Leaving any sort of suggestions or strategy tips is optional, though also recommended.

There are no disallowed exploits, except for whatever constraints the first player who posts a save with 10 turns played wants, except for reloading (preserve random seed is checked), previewing the positioning of strategic resources, and previewing AI beahvior. If you don't like an exploit or tactic of some sort, then don't do such on your turns. You may argue for why your tactic works out as best, but anyone else can use or ignore your advice (or make your tactic more difficult to execute) for any reason whatsoever.

 

[Spoonwood]

After playing some today, I'm leaning towards Always AT war. Lack of expansion on a huge map does not seem very friendly.

 

[Spoonwood]

I've thought on this, and I think the solution I like best lies in at least having a war with one civilization always going on, playing on continents, and making the requirement that the Pentagon gets built as soon as possible, and all armies need to become 4 unit armies before they can board a ship. That also doesn't seem like a restriction without something solid to back it up. I'd prefer the game to have a space victory, and would like to not have landing units on the AIs main continent make sense until the modern age, without just saying 'may not land units on the AI continent until tanks'. I also want to motivate banks and stock exchanges without just having the restriction 'can't sell techs for gpt'. So, I think the solution lies in always being at war with everyone not on the home continent as soon as we contact them. What I'm less certain on lies in how to get the AIs to have more units to make a landing even more of a pain without an army. If we have a slower tech pace, then the AI has more time to build units, so that would imply something like a straight Always War with no trading for techs at all.

While thinking about this I also thought of an idea on the same lines kind of. You don't land on the other continent for a while, I think by not letting 3 unit armies land on the AIs continent. The spaceship can get built completely by MGLs. But, that borders on us adding the technological distinctiveness of an opponent to our own, which kind of motivates a Borg theme kind of game. Maybe something like we play passive (can't attack an enemy's city) until an army gets made via defeating one of the other civs units. Then we can assimilate them, implying that we capture and keep all of their cities. That would imply turning the domination limit off. Maybe 11 civs get kept alive until the Apollo Program gets built? That could mean waiting on a war with someone on our home continent. The Borg idea also could imply that we could trade for techs or extort techs from the AIs via peace treaties, but then an invasion without an army might be more feasible, and the modern age wars could be less competitive with the AIs.

Any thoughts?

 

[Dwarven Zerker]

Always War against the foreign continents should slow down the tech pace and increase the troop count. I've been reading many of the epics Tomoyo compiled (found here) an eternity ago and I've found across many different settings, constant war and slow tech pace seemed to universally increase AI troop count. One thing to consider is that such a heavy military strain on its economy may cause the AI to be easily toppled into Communism later in the game which looks like it makes conquest much easier.

Hope this helps.