Am I the only weirdo Civ gamer?

[Zanarkin]

I play the game in a very unusual way. I turn off all victory conditions, set the game to marathon, and use the giant earth map mod (the map is friggen HUGE!) with 20 civs and 45 city states. My spawn point is always Australia (all to myself) and then the other countries have their true to life spawn points. I maintain my island and meddle in the affairs of others and more less watch the world play out and act like a super power nation policing the world with mostly my navy assets.

Because of this play style, I may have a defense pact with say China and then Korea attacks them so I auto declare war and send in my Pacific fleet (I have armadas docked at key friend countries around the globe for this reason). I crush a few of Korea's cities but have no desire to kill the AI off or settle anywhere other than my Australian island so I will raze them or gift them to a struggling empire nearby.

I play this game more like it is a world political simulator which is quirky. Whenever a AI player is close to death I'm the guy who swoops in and saves them. My game right now has been going on since June sometime lol. I defend the weak and knock the bullies down a peg or two. Poor Attila has been a good boy for the last several hundred years since going from a 30 city empire down to 5. Watching 25 cities raze to the ground must be humbling.

P.S. I turned nukes off to keep the AI players from ganging up on me or getting off a cheap shot or otherwise irradiating the world 10 times over as they lob nukes at each other.

 

[cman2010]

This sounds like alot of fun, I remember playing civ 3 and my goal was not always to win but just see how things play out.

 

[Ellye]

Personally, I think there are much better games out there for a sandbox style (Paradox Interactive games, for example). But hey, Civ is quite versatile, so why not?

But I must ask: how do you handle turn timers in such a game?

 

[Zanarkin]

But I must ask: how do you handle turn timers in such a game?

My evening consist of me kicking back in my office chair and watching Netflix on my second monitor and glancing over at the main monitor to see if it's my turn yet.

I believe my turn waiting time with my quad core is maybe 1-2 minutes. Many times I don't notice when it became my turn as I was too wrapped up in what I was watching. I might get through 75-100 turns in a long evening of playing and I am a micromanager by heart. I can't just park my fleet of ships any old way, they must be facing the same way in two rows of ships.

Australia is a VERY organized country with micromanaged units, roads, and cities lol.

 

[HiroProtagonist]

I've actually been contemplating playing a no victory game such as this. I hadnt considerd turning off all the victory conditions, I just wasnt going to pursue a victory condition, but I guess you need to kill the AI's victory conditions to keep the game going.

Bit of a newb question but how do you set your spawn point.

 

[Glassmage]

I think he play Gedemon TSL Giant map. You can set start location for any civ in the xml file.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I've actually been contemplating playing a no victory game such as this. I hadnt considerd turning off all the victory conditions, I just wasnt going to pursue a victory condition, but I guess you need to kill the AI's victory conditions to keep the game going.

Bit of a newb question but how do you set your spawn point.

I am pretty sure you can also load the map into worldbuilder and set it there. Plus, that let's you plot resources and units down and otherwise cheat your butt off.

 

[glider1]

How much RAM does it need to play this way and does the game play out differently each time you start again? 1-2min turn times is fine if you remember back to previous civ series.
Cheers

 

[Eveningstar2]

That is cool as hell. My hat's off to you.

It's easy to get caught up in the theorycraft/optimization side of Civ, playing it by the numbers in order to squeak out a win on the highest difficulty.

But Civ was also designed to be a bit of a sandbox. A game where you could throw civilizations together, create a big "What If" scenario and see how things look in 2050.

I've been obsessing over trying to win on Deity, but when I play normally, I play like you. Just seeing how things work out, trying to create my own nation.

 

[Zanarkin]

I've actually been contemplating playing a no victory game such as this. I hadnt considerd turning off all the victory conditions, I just wasnt going to pursue a victory condition, but I guess you need to kill the AI's victory conditions to keep the game going.

Bit of a newb question but how do you set your spawn point.

I use the 'Yet Not Another Earth' Game map mod I believe it's called. The giant earth is so massive it takes maybe 6 turns just to cross the Pacific Ocean with a modern war ship. The AI has plenty of room to grow out while I can be left alone in the early game on my own secluded island of Australia.

Once you find the spawn coordinates of Australia (forgot off the top of my head) you can just edit the XML of the civ you want to play to spawn there...all the others will spawn in their true to life locations.

Since I just use a rough guesstimate to make my civ spawn in Australia it is not a prime location so to save myself 10 turns of exploring the island before founding my first city I use a game trainer to turn on unlimited movement. That way I can browse the island all I want and then when I'm happy with my spot I plop down my first city and then turn off the movement cheat. If I'm going to play this game for a few months, I'm more than willing to cheat to get a good spot for my capital.

The trainer I use can be found here. The only other time I really use it is when I want to help out a struggling civ nation with money. I hit shift+F1 a few times and then donate 15,000 gold to them and consider it AID from my CIA arm the rebels fund

 

[Ragneur]

Yes. Yes you are.

 

[Zanarkin]

How much RAM does it need to play this way and does the game play out differently each time you start again? 1-2min turn times is fine if you remember back to previous civ series.
Cheers

I use a older quad core pc with 8 gigs of ram. The game does play out differently each time as the AI players are different each time. Last game Washington was alone on the north american continent and ran rampant and was a bully to the world but this game I'm in right now the game threw the Iroquois Indians in the mid west and if that wasn't bad enough the Aztecs and Incas were moving up through Mexico into Texas. All those native indians have kept Washington in check and he never grew west of the Mississippi.

TLDR; the 'super powers' and the 'third world nations' tend to be different each game as which countries will be included are different each time.

 

[Flaviusx]

All of us Civ gamers are weird by definition. You are just weird in a very particular way.

 

[HiroProtagonist]

I use the 'Yet Not Another Earth' Game map mod I believe it's called. The giant earth is so massive it takes maybe 6 turns just to cross the Pacific Ocean with a modern war ship. The AI has plenty of room to grow out while I can be left alone in the early game on my own secluded island of Australia.

Once you find the spawn coordinates of Australia (forgot off the top of my head) you can just edit the XML of the civ you want to play to spawn there...all the others will spawn in their true to life locations.

Since I just use a rough guesstimate to make my civ spawn in Australia it is not a prime location so to save myself 10 turns of exploring the island before founding my first city I use a game trainer to turn on unlimited movement. That way I can browse the island all I want and then when I'm happy with my spot I plop down my first city and then turn off the movement cheat. If I'm going to play this game for a few months, I'm more than willing to cheat to get a good spot for my capital.

The trainer I use can be found here. The only other time I really use it is when I want to help out a struggling civ nation with money. I hit shift+F1 a few times and then donate 15,000 gold to them and consider it AID from my CIA arm the rebels fund

I probably won't go the trainer route. I get your reasoning for doing so, but I love the 'risk' of not knowing if your city's in the best spot. I'll give the map a try once steam stops acting up, won't let me subscribe for some reason

 

[Smokeybear]

All of us Civ gamers are weird by definition. You are just weird in a very particular way.

This. Also, how many turns are you up to now, in your mega-game?

 

[Scarpa]

I like your style. I don't go to your extremes but I often will intentionally slow down my progress in order to pick a fight with an AI, continue meddling, play out certain scenarios (nuke that smug Hiawatha to the stone age before winning), etc.

Almost never do I race to a victory unless there's a runaway AI I can't slow down threatening to win first.

 

[Motrok]

This... I actually will have to try this. Sounds like an awesome idea.

 

[glider1]

The opening poster is very smart because they have realized that the AI is a tool that can be used to allow us to be creative with civ even if the AI is somewhat incompetent.

Cheers

 

[PibbZ]

No you're not! I enjoy roleplaying my games in a somewhat similar way.

I love playing the role as a "world police", stepping in to defend the weaker civs from annihilation. Civ to me has always been about having fun, and fun for me is not necessarily winning as fast as possible. Every era has its charm, and a perfect game for me takes full advantage of every single one

 

[compwiz1202]

P.S. I turned nukes off to keep the AI players from ganging up on me or getting off a cheap shot or otherwise irradiating the world 10 times over as they lob nukes at each other.

Gandhi fumes, "Why isn't Atomic Bomb on my production list?!?!"