Bugs2.0 - The Gauntlet Revisited

[Sir Bugsy]

Time for Bugs2.

This is not an original idea. (I don’t get too many of those.) This is coming directly out of Sirian’s idea for RBCiv Epic 12. I think this variant is a huge challenge. The original Epic was played as the Zulu at Diety and of the eight players who completed the game, only one, Urugharakh, recorded a victory of any type. There were some pretty impressive players on that list: Sulla, Sirian, and Cyrene to a few names.

• No purchasing workers. No workers through diplomacy by any means, including peace.
• No upgrading units. Ever. You build a unit, it remains that type of unit "for life".
• You may not pillage your own lands. (Includes no disconnecting your own resources).
• No trading away of your last unit of any given resource. You must keep one for yourself.
• No scrolling ahead through cities during the production phase, "between turns".
• No prebuilding of any kind. No placeholders. Ever. There is only way you are allowed to change projects. If you change city projects, you MUST wipe out any shields stored in the box by first changing to Wealth, which will erase all but one shield, then (and only then) may you assign a city to a new item.

Additionally, we will adhere to standard RBCiv rules. The rule of thumb is: if it feels like an exploit, than it is an exploit and we are better than that. The list is here: http://www.realmsbeyond.net/civ/etactics.html

Civilization: Ottomans (this was TBD)
Difficulty: Demi-God
World Size: Small
Opponents: Five Random
Climate: Normal
Temperature: Cold
Age: 4 Billion
Land Mass: 30%
Land Shape: Continents
Barbarians: Restless
Version: 1.22
AI Aggression: Normal
Scientific Leaders are off.
Preserve random seed in on.
Culturally linked is off.
All victory conditions except wonder are enabled
Respawn is off.

Roster:

Team 2.0
Denyd
Scoutsout
DJMGator
Bugs
Yom

Team 2.0
grahamiam
Microbe
Gozpel
Bede
<Open>

The teams are not competing.

BTW - I'm going last because I'll do a reality check on the start, and will have a few turns worth of spoiler information.

I’m thinking that the Ottomans would be a very good civ for this game for the Industrious and Scientific traits, plus the Sipahi is a dominant but expensive UU. However, I think I will leave that decision up to the team.

 

[grahamiam]

i'll play, looks tough. what do you do if you buy a tech that leads to the next type of unit (ie, building a spear and then buy fuedalism). can you switch (not sure if "city projects" = units as well)?

can you disband units in cities to gain thier shields or are you saddled with them the whole game?

 

[Sir Bugsy]

The G-man is in. Thanks G-man.

I'm looking through the write ups for the original game. It appears that disbanding units is OK. I think the game will automatically switch the build if it is a unit, i.e. spear is switched to a pike on researching feudalism. The spirit will be start fresh.

 

[scoutsout]

This looks interesting...

@Bugsy: Let me see how full my plate is... I'm interested, but I don't want to bite off more than I can chew. (And this variant at this level might be over-reaching for me...)

 

[Sir Bugsy]

For those interested in reading about Sirian's attempt: http://sirian.warpcore.org/civ3/epic12.html

Here's Sullla's attempt: http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/sullla/Epic12.html

Here are the rest of the reports: http://www.network54.com/Forum/message?forumid=189557&messageid=1032149511

One should note that the start on this game was really bad. I'm hoping to at least have a reasonable start.

 

[scoutsout]

To heck with it. I'll learn somethin' if I play this game. Count me in.

 

[Yom]

Count me in too (though just earlier today my conquests cd wasn't working, so you may have to skip me a few times if it happens again).

Why don't we play at deity? The difference between Deity and Demi-god isn't much at all.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Scout and Yom are on the team. Yom, I'll put you last so you can get your CD working.

@Yom - So you don't think this variant is hard enough at Demi-god?

 

[grahamiam]

either difficulty is fine by me. wonders will have to be captured either way and we'll probably have to win via domination or conquest.

as for civ's, i'd like to try one of the new ones though ottomans are pretty fun.

 

[Yom]

It'll be plenty hard at demigod, I just suggested Deity since it was the original level played. Besides, this is supposed to be an extremely challenging game anyway .

 

[microbe]

Not a sign-up, but I don't see much variant in this game either except "no upgrading" and "no prebuilding". The former is a nuisance, and the latter just means probably no wonders until Industrial Ages, but that's normally the case for DG/deity anyway.

Not saying this would be an easy game, but just not much a variant perhaps?

 

[Yom]

@Microbe: The variant part may seem small, but you'd be surprised by how much of a difference being able to prebuild makes. Plus, you forgot a major part of the variant: no switching cities' builds unless you switch to wealth first to 'shed' the shields.

 

[microbe]

You may be right. It might be hard to speculate until you try it in the game.

Can I sign up then?

 

[Yom]

@Bugsy: We may also want to consider the Germans with their Late UU. The fact that nothing upgrades to it makes the upgrading part less restrictive, but then again, we're not looking for an easy game, are we .

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Microbe completes the team. What does everyone think about the civ?

 

[microbe]

I had the same thought as Yom that we'll probably win with tanks. So Germany sounds great to me.

The advantage of a late UU is that we would have caught up at that time and dedicate our production to it, especially with a GA. An early UU probably would not bring much benefit anyway if we are not in a position to attack.

 

[gozpel]

Sucks to miss out on Bugs2

 

[grahamiam]

panzers are always fun but I would like to take the cossacks for a ride again so my vote goes for russians (how's that for a curve ball )

 

[Yom]

Actually, austria has good traits and a pretty good UU too (would be fun to play with them, but Germany's probably the best civ for the variant, unless we want to go with the Zulus ).

 

[denyd]

Any chance of starting a Bugs 2.1 for those of us who missed signing up in time for this?