BTS Challenge Idea -- needs development

[ButSam]

I am not familiar with the BTS challenges in detail, but here is an interesting idea for someone to develop further:

Person: ??? -- who would be a good match? There are no espionage or diplo traits.
Difficulty Level: Noble? (Probably don't want any higher; possibly Warlord)
Map: Pangaea, Standard, default # of rivals (6)

Restrictions: Must research Masonry first (to provide opportunity at Great Wall), then make a beeline to Alphabet, then set research to 0% once Alphabet is researched, and leave it there for the rest of the game.

All techs beyond Masonry/Alphabet must be discovered by trade, espionage, or (in late-game) the Internet.

Sam

 

[LiberiGlacialis]

For some of us, that's a horrendious challenge. How are we going to get trade material? This sounds like something to try a level lower to start (Warlord/Chieftain), due to the massive restriction. But it sounds like, with the right people trying it, this could be fun. I'm ruling out Space as a vic con for this......

*is now seriously tempted to attempt*

 

[cabert]

there is a SG at a higher level with tougher restrictions (no trade!), check the succession games subforum

 

[mystiqblackcat]

This sounds pretty interesting. I would try this out but Halo will most likely prevent me from doing so for at least a week.

Seems like building the great wall is a priority to jump start espionage points with great spies. Libraries/scientists in every city as well. You could also have lots of cities and a large armies given the fact that you will have alot of cash from not researching. Imperialistic and Philosophic both seem like good trait choices for this one, maybe even aggressive.

what do you guys think?

 

[madscientist]

Intersting challenge, here are some ideas.

1) You should reconsider when to adjust the science slider. All worker related techs and archery should be allowed. This includes Mining/Agriculture/Pottery/Hunting/Fishing/BW/Masonry/wheel/BW/writing/alphabet, plus archery and perhaps iron working. This at least allows self defense. It also allows you some basic building, library and graneries. You may want to toss in teching sailing also but it could go either way.

2) I disagree, there is an espionage trait, financial. Running 100% on the EP slider will get you an insane number of EPs due to the extra commerce.

3) Second trait, There are three I'm looking at. Organized (Darius) for the cheap courthouses, Charismatic (Hannibal) for the +1 happiness and workign extra commerce tiles, or Spiritual (Musa) to avoid anarchy and leverage civics real well including going in and out of NAtionalism.

4) How are you working great people? If you get a GS you gonna settle him or bulb techs?

5) Specialists? Are you allowing teching via a specialist economy?

6) If you are allowing teching via specialists and GPs, then maybe a PHIL leader such as Elizabeth would be the way to go.

I would rank the preferred leaders as Elizabeth/Darius/Hannibal/Musa

 

[xanadux]

Should not be too hard for a decent player on Prince level. I've tried something similar on Monarch, and had difficulty because it wasn't a Pangaea map. No problem subduing my continent, but since it is hard to get a tech advantage, an overseas invasion is rough because a tech advantage gives the greatest rewards for navy.

For Prince level, pangaea map, this shouldn't be too hard. First priority great wall to get a great spy which goes to scotland yard in capital/best commerce city (future capital). My preference would be a financial leader, probably Hannibal as charismatic will help a lot, and his UU is pretty awesome in combination with spies to take down cultural defenses.

 

[madscientist]

Should not be too hard for a decent player on Prince level. I've tried something similar on Monarch, and had difficulty because it wasn't a Pangaea map. No problem subduing my continent, but since it is hard to get a tech advantage, an overseas invasion is rough because a tech advantage gives the greatest rewards for navy.

For Prince level, pangaea map, this shouldn't be too hard. First priority great wall to get a great spy which goes to scotland yard in capital/best commerce city (future capital). My preference would be a financial leader, probably Hannibal as charismatic will help a lot, and his UU is pretty awesome in combination with spies to take down cultural defenses.

Hannibals UB is pretty awesome for this type of game. Beelining the Great lighthouse with the 2 extra free trade routes is pretty big too.

Also, you may need a really tight defense as you would likely be behind in tech or at least equal (you can't really get higher can you) so the Korean is also a possibility.

 

[ButSam]

I disagree that you would have nothing to trade. If you steal a tech that the AI is not yet willing to trade and hasn't spread to other AIs, you can now trade it.

I am unlikely to go higher than Noble, to keep it open to a larger audience. The restrictions are fairly stringent. I may dream up some alternate restrictions if you want a tougher game by choice, kind of like the different GotM classes (although not as solidly defined). I am also unlikely to go below Warlord, since the AI tech penalty below Warlord is so stringent and it would translate into a tech penalty for the player also.

Thoughts on game speed? I will rule out Marathon or Quick from the start, but should it be Normal or Epic?

For traits, agree Fin is best. Leaning toward the Korean, although the other thoughts are interesting.

I am going to compromise slightly on the tech researching.

Only the following techs may be researched using any form of scientific output (excluding GP's Research One Tech or Join City ability):

1st-Level Techs
----------------
Fishing, The Wheel, Agriculture, Hunting, Mysticism, Mining

2nd-Level Techs
----------------
Masonry, Archery, Animal Husbandry

Others
----------------
Writing, Alphabet

Basically, this means you have to do the following (in any order), then set your research slider to 0% for the rest of the game:
1. Research to Masonry
2. Research all 1st-level techs (The Wheel, Mysticism, etc), plus Archery (in any order desired)
3. Research Alphabet via Animal Husbandry->Writing->Alphabet (Yes, I'm going to be a jerk and force stealing/trading for Pottery to delay the cottages somewhat -- I am going to allow a Fin civ though).

I do not want to allow BW or IW, but in exchange the difficulty level will be no higher than Noble. I also do not want any possibility of founding a religion.

My primary reason for a Pangaea map is to ease the difficulty somewhat, and allow several targets for spying -- although you will likely only want to target a couple heavily (and the others at a low weight), this will all but guarantee you can always target the tech leader.

I am inclined to not allow "normal" specialists (e.g., scientists, etc), but having a GP join a city, even though they may provide beakers, or a GP researching a technology is fine.

I am thinking twice now about whether to allow Masonry early on. GW may be too powerful early, although I could help balance it somewhat by not allowing a Phi civ.

Further thoughts? (Can you tell I'm just gathering info until the patch comes out? lol)

Sam

 

[mystiqblackcat]

I'm not a great player by any means but I started a game last night to give this a shot. Big & Small, Epic Speed, Standard size, Noble difficulty.

I went with Suleiman of the Ottomans as my leader for imperialistic and philisophical. I figured that I wouldn't need to run the esp bar at anything above 70% to get good results so Imperialistic would let me ReX and the extra gold from not running a high research slider meant I could have more cities. I had good land, access to all early strategic resources, no happy ones though.

I grabbed Mining, Agri, Animal Husb, Writing, BW, IW, Alphabet in pretty much that order, writing might have been earlier. I spent my time making warriors to explore and fog bust as well as getting into position for the settlers I chopped out, coincidently my capital had 17 forests in its fat cross initially, those helped alot.

As per the challenge I dropped my research bar to zero once i finished Alphabet. I quickly had enough food online to run 2 scientists in all four cities. I quickly got 3 GS which I settled 2 in my capital and made an academy. a fourth one i used to lightbulb a tech, I belive it was Philosophy. In the mean time I was trading expensive techs to back fill.

Everything seemed fine til I noticed that I was on a continent with 5 other civs!!!! Alexander DoW'ed and sent a few phalanx to bother me but he was far away, I didn't understand the DoW until 20 turns later when Caesar who was righ tnext door also DoW'ed and came a runnin' in.

I quit at this point chalking the game up to my lack of forsight. I had a small army but not what I normally would have and not enough to defend from two aggresive civs. I did learn a few things however.

1. My initial strategy worked, ReXing then fast tracking to libraries and using SE was easily equivilent to my normal tech speed. (i normally use CE)

2. Tech stealing isn't hard but I should have weighted more points against my neighbors and conentrated on them instead of spreading them out to civs that were to far away logitically for a spy to get to without getting caught.

3. Suleiman has potential. The Ottoman UB (Hamann??) replaces aqueduct and adds 2 happy on top of its normal 2 health. With all those specialists running I was popping GS like crazy, that could be addictive.

Thoughts or Comments? Especially on leader choice seeing as no one else has mentioned him yet in the thread.

 

[madscientist]

I'm not a great player by any means but I started a game last night to give this a shot. Big & Small, Epic Speed, Standard size, Noble difficulty.

I went with Suleiman of the Ottomans as my leader for imperialistic and philisophical. I figured that I wouldn't need to run the esp bar at anything above 70% to get good results so Imperialistic would let me ReX and the extra gold from not running a high research slider meant I could have more cities. I had good land, access to all early strategic resources, no happy ones though.

I grabbed Mining, Agri, Animal Husb, Writing, BW, IW, Alphabet in pretty much that order, writing might have been earlier. I spent my time making warriors to explore and fog bust as well as getting into position for the settlers I chopped out, coincidently my capital had 17 forests in its fat cross initially, those helped alot.

As per the challenge I dropped my research bar to zero once i finished Alphabet. I quickly had enough food online to run 2 scientists in all four cities. I quickly got 3 GS which I settled 2 in my capital and made an academy. a fourth one i used to lightbulb a tech, I belive it was Philosophy. In the mean time I was trading expensive techs to back fill.

Everything seemed fine til I noticed that I was on a continent with 5 other civs!!!! Alexander DoW'ed and sent a few phalanx to bother me but he was far away, I didn't understand the DoW until 20 turns later when Caesar who was righ tnext door also DoW'ed and came a runnin' in.

I quit at this point chalking the game up to my lack of forsight. I had a small army but not what I normally would have and not enough to defend from two aggresive civs. I did learn a few things however.

1. My initial strategy worked, ReXing then fast tracking to libraries and using SE was easily equivilent to my normal tech speed. (i normally use CE)

2. Tech stealing isn't hard but I should have weighted more points against my neighbors and conentrated on them instead of spreading them out to civs that were to far away logitically for a spy to get to without getting caught.

3. Suleiman has potential. The Ottoman UB (Hamann??) replaces aqueduct and adds 2 happy on top of its normal 2 health. With all those specialists running I was popping GS like crazy, that could be addictive.

Thoughts or Comments? Especially on leader choice seeing as no one else has mentioned him yet in the thread.

Sorry about how the game turned out, never trust the greeks or romans!

Yes Suleiman has great potential with the PHIL trait, but I thought one of the limitations int he challenge was no regular specialists???

 

[mystiqblackcat]

yeah when I posted that reply I realized that. I had saw the thread yesterday at work before Butsam had stated no specialists and decided to give it a go last night when I got some time. I have never been big on SE but that game showed some promise, next few games I play I will definitely be using more of a hybrid economy to make full use of specialists.

That was the tightest start I have ever had. Ethiopia and Greece to the west, Pacal, Caesar, and Roosevelt to the east/south. I had plans for more cities early on but with so many civs present I rushed to get the 4 I had. Definitely should have gotten archery and made defenders earlier.