MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
If a Regicide option were added, Basium, Hyborem, and Auric (probably the mortal version instead of the god) would have to be their civ's "king unit."
Challenge Mode ideas
- Thread starter Kael
- Start date
Keeper_GFA
Prince
I like Regicide, though I thought it would be more appropriate for a scenario, which is why I didn't suggest it.
How about a religious one? Game starts with all religions founded and you can't switch. Number of civs would be limited, but the Agnostics could be included since they wouldn't need/get one of the religions.
How about a religious one? Game starts with all religions founded and you can't switch. Number of civs would be limited, but the Agnostics could be included since they wouldn't need/get one of the religions.
Ajidica
High Quality Person
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2006
- Messages
- 22,482
A fun mode would be 'Xenophobia' where you cant have any units that arent your default race (eg: Clan cant build lizardmen, Elohim/Decius cant build anything but human units) and you would either be unable to talk to the AI or have massive diplomacy penalties with them or be unable to stop a war with them. This might get sort of fun.
xienwolf
Deity
Well, unless I write something down I never remember it, so no idea what previous ideas I had that were so good. Here's what comes off the top of my head right now...
Small brain dump there. A few of them I managed to remember from the earlier conversation near the end there. Mostly just hoping to get other people to come up with ideas along the same idea.
EDIT: Nice, was only 3 posts when I started to write this up, but had class and company to attend so it is now a few hours later. Some good ideas already posted, fortunately only 1 of which was a duplicate of what I had written up (named total espionage by it-ogo, Altruism by me)
- The Few: All units set to National limit of 4 (well, unless already limited to less, but most lower limits are World Limits, so wouldn't need special adjustment)
- Green: no XP is ever granted to any units
- Decadent: 2
per population
- Bathing... Optional: 3
per Population
- Ashes to Ashes: 2% chance for any building to be destroyed each turn (checked for each building individually every turn)
- MindBreak: All units have permanent Enraged promotion (Loyalty disabled)
- Steamrollin': All units gain 1
every 50 turns after construction
- Idiocy: All tech costs multiplied by 10
- Chosen Ones: Religions are set randomly at start of gameplay and cannot be changed
- Blind Leading the Blind: Human Cannot control your own Tech progress
- War of Attrition: Game starts in 2nd Era, all players start with a base number of units and cannot build any more.
- Mad Cow Disease: All units that die are reborn as Barbarian Flying Mad Cows (str 10 Barbarian units with Flying) at Coordinates 0,0 (including other Barbarian Mad Cows). Your goal is to just not die
- Charity Case: All excess gold generated by the Human player is granted to a random AI at the start of each turn
- Altruism: All Technologies learned by the Human player are immediately granted to all AI players
- Sepuku: All units die at the end of any attack (successful defenders can stay alive though)
- Introversion: No Diplomacy allowed for any players
- Gracious Hosts: All players have permanent Open Borders agreements
- Wall Street: No commerce can be collected from any tiles, only from Traderoutes/Buildings
- Withering: All units lose 5% per turn (AI AutoDeletes units with less than 1 remaining)
- Absent-Minded: All units start with a negative Channeling Promotion (random chance per turn to LOSE XP, based on current XP value (so at 50 XP there is a 50/50 chance to lose 1 XP the next turn)
- Loki's Playpen: All game variables change every 50-100 turns (duration randomly selected when variables are set, variables include Gamespeed, Difficulty, Locked War.... Can't think of other variables, can't exactly change which AI are playing or the map size...)
- Hemah's Mind: New Feature needs to be designed for this one. Looks just like a forest, even claims to be a forest (ideally just pick some random tiles so the map is suitably covered and they are neither feature nor improvement and there is no indication of their true nature, but the property is disabled if a city is founded there). But acts like a Barbarian Hall of Mirrors (can create an illusion duplicate of any hostile unit (read - any non-Barbarian unit) within 1 tile of the feature). Illusionary constructs start with a duration of 5 and become permanent after winning any battle.
- Boneheaded: No Tech research down Bifurcating Paths. Once you choose which fork to follow you cannot take the other one.
- Hungry Hippo: No Improvements can be built except Farms
- City Slicker: No Improvements can be built except cottages
- Dwarven: No Improvements can be built except Mining (selecting more than 1 of these 3 Challenges will enable both/all 3 of the selected improvement types instead of disabling all improvements
- Hiking: Cannot build roads, only rivers can connect resources/cities
- Salt the Earth: Tile yields within cultural borders of a city are all reduced by 1 whenever the city is conquered in battle (ideally only by 1 total yield, starting with production, when production is 0, hitting commerce, then finally hitting food until the tile gives no yield)
- Cataclysm Now: Every 40 turns 1% of the tiles on the map convert to either Mountain or Water if they were not already one or the other.
- Great Minds (think alike): When the Human Player spawns a Great Person, each AI is also granted one (Adventurers possibly excluded)
- Full Disclosure: All cities are completely visible to all players (can zoom in on them like you had Loki parked there)
- Man of the Hour: Civilization Hero cannot be built (is not given to Doviello/Infernal/Mercurian for free) but is instead granted for free when the civilization has lost all but their last city (so on loss of a city, check for NumCities = 1)
- Tenacious: When a Civilization's last city is taken, they are granted control of the farthest away Barbarian City and all remaining units are relocated to that tile + Civilization Hero is granted if not currently alive
Small brain dump there. A few of them I managed to remember from the earlier conversation near the end there. Mostly just hoping to get other people to come up with ideas along the same idea.
EDIT: Nice, was only 3 posts when I started to write this up, but had class and company to attend so it is now a few hours later. Some good ideas already posted, fortunately only 1 of which was a duplicate of what I had written up (named total espionage by it-ogo, Altruism by me)
Kael
Deity
Great stuff here, keep it coming! 
How about:
1. no culture(all cities stuck working just their first cross)
2. no civic changes
3. Something along the lines of moo 2's research(where you researched a tech topic, and got one of the items listed, not all of them). Hit agriculture, choose between getting farms or herbalist or granary (would need to tie some together, like units and their required building if they come at the same tech, or just remove building requirements perhaps)
4. end days; ac gains additional points based on turns, perhaps 1 point every 2 turns?
5. double team; have to take two civs to victory(perhaps with some sort of perm peace between them, mabee allied, mabee not); you are forced to switch between the two civs every 10 turns.
6. Leaking money; you start losing 1 gold per turn, at turn 50 it goes up to 10 gold per turn, at turn 100 it goes up to 30, etc.
6b/c. Same idea as 6. but for gaining unhappy/unhealthy.
7. Hostile land; building any improvement consumes a worker,fishing boats are more expensive than normal to build(4x cost)
8. Gold plated buildings; to build a building, you must also spend as much gold as the listed hammer amount(on top of the hammers).
9. No wonder; wonders(including national) are not available to the player, if a city with a wonder is captured, the wonder is destroyed.
10. Expensive army(extra 1 gold per unit always in effect, as you would have with pacifism)
1. no culture(all cities stuck working just their first cross)
2. no civic changes
3. Something along the lines of moo 2's research(where you researched a tech topic, and got one of the items listed, not all of them). Hit agriculture, choose between getting farms or herbalist or granary (would need to tie some together, like units and their required building if they come at the same tech, or just remove building requirements perhaps)
4. end days; ac gains additional points based on turns, perhaps 1 point every 2 turns?
5. double team; have to take two civs to victory(perhaps with some sort of perm peace between them, mabee allied, mabee not); you are forced to switch between the two civs every 10 turns.
6. Leaking money; you start losing 1 gold per turn, at turn 50 it goes up to 10 gold per turn, at turn 100 it goes up to 30, etc.
6b/c. Same idea as 6. but for gaining unhappy/unhealthy.
7. Hostile land; building any improvement consumes a worker,fishing boats are more expensive than normal to build(4x cost)
8. Gold plated buildings; to build a building, you must also spend as much gold as the listed hammer amount(on top of the hammers).
9. No wonder; wonders(including national) are not available to the player, if a city with a wonder is captured, the wonder is destroyed.
10. Expensive army(extra 1 gold per unit always in effect, as you would have with pacifism)
stuff i'd like to see
1. militia - all units cost population in the city where they are built (either a flat amount of 1 per unit or depending on the strength/tier)
2. natural development - buildings and units cannot be built but are created when cities reach a certain size/production and the necessary tech is researched and the land around the city determines what kind of building/unit players get (e.g. lots of plains = mainly cavalry, forest = mainly recon/archery, hills = mainly infantry...cows/pigs/sheep = smokehouse, rice/corn/wheat = granary...other resources could lead to markets, theaters and so on...temples require a state religion...)
3. great crusade - all civilizations start teamed up and locked as either order/empyrean (good), av/oo (evil) or fol/rok (neutral) and these 3 huge alliances slug it out...infernals and mercurians could be around from the start...
1. militia - all units cost population in the city where they are built (either a flat amount of 1 per unit or depending on the strength/tier)
2. natural development - buildings and units cannot be built but are created when cities reach a certain size/production and the necessary tech is researched and the land around the city determines what kind of building/unit players get (e.g. lots of plains = mainly cavalry, forest = mainly recon/archery, hills = mainly infantry...cows/pigs/sheep = smokehouse, rice/corn/wheat = granary...other resources could lead to markets, theaters and so on...temples require a state religion...)
3. great crusade - all civilizations start teamed up and locked as either order/empyrean (good), av/oo (evil) or fol/rok (neutral) and these 3 huge alliances slug it out...infernals and mercurians could be around from the start...
Grand Crusade- All Players are locked in war against all other alignments unless they switch.
Call of the Wild- All units start with the Lunatic promotion
Sylvan Eternal- Forests can never be chopped, but all forests in the world have a 1% chance per turn to become ancient (adopting FoL greatly increases the chance)
Call of the Wild- All units start with the Lunatic promotion
Sylvan Eternal- Forests can never be chopped, but all forests in the world have a 1% chance per turn to become ancient (adopting FoL greatly increases the chance)
Jenaelha
fields of Elanor
1. Centers of the Universe - Each Civ begins alone on it's own sizable continent able to grow unchallenged until eventually discovering the other continents.
2. Battle of Megiddo - After calling Basium/Hyborem, player plays both thier civ and the Infernals/Mercurians at the same time. No more abandoning your civ, you are teamed with your demi-god to play both until you save/end the world.
2. Battle of Megiddo - After calling Basium/Hyborem, player plays both thier civ and the Infernals/Mercurians at the same time. No more abandoning your civ, you are teamed with your demi-god to play both until you save/end the world.
next idea...
lords of magic
- only one of the various schools of magic (divination, elemantalism, necromancy...etc) can be researched and used by each civilization
- spells are more powerful and/or additional spells are introduced
- the limit on archmages is removed
- other units can learn certain spells (probably only lvl 1 and 2)
- the chosen school of magic determines the alignment and influences the relations with other civilizations
lords of magic
- only one of the various schools of magic (divination, elemantalism, necromancy...etc) can be researched and used by each civilization
- spells are more powerful and/or additional spells are introduced
- the limit on archmages is removed
- other units can learn certain spells (probably only lvl 1 and 2)
- the chosen school of magic determines the alignment and influences the relations with other civilizations
Mailbox
King
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2007
- Messages
- 888
Instability: All magic cast has a flat chance to backfire and damage the caster/their stack. Node flares are more common and deadly.
Drain: All magic has its power reduced (or the chance to fail casting the spell rises) by the number of units with channeling1/2/3
Drain: All magic has its power reduced (or the chance to fail casting the spell rises) by the number of units with channeling1/2/3
another one...
capitalism
- all technologies, buildings and units have to be bought instead of researched/produced
- xp and/or promotions cost a certain amount of money
- any unit that other civilizations can normally build can also be purchased but for an additional fee once contact is made
- certain random events allow the purchase of units for a reduced price and/or special units that normally can't be built (heroes, animals/beasts, great personalities...)
capitalism
- all technologies, buildings and units have to be bought instead of researched/produced
- xp and/or promotions cost a certain amount of money
- any unit that other civilizations can normally build can also be purchased but for an additional fee once contact is made
- certain random events allow the purchase of units for a reduced price and/or special units that normally can't be built (heroes, animals/beasts, great personalities...)
Here's a few:
"Sometimes they come back": All captured cities auto-raze and will turn to city ruins. All city ruins are a unremovable feature (that you can't build a city on) and will spawn undead (barbarian) units for the rest of the game.
(This would probably require the barb-AI to be switched back to the 0.33 mode)
"Life is like a box of chocolate": Everyone can just build warriors throughout the game, but depending on tech, the newly build warrior will transform into another military unit, chosen randomly.
"If everyone is special, no one is": All units can aquire all spell promotions. No XP caps.
"Rising Tide": Every turn, each coastal tile will have a %chance of turning into a coastal tile (destroying cities and land-units in the process, should any be present), every coastal tile will have a %chance of turning into a ocean tile.
_____
rezaf
"Sometimes they come back": All captured cities auto-raze and will turn to city ruins. All city ruins are a unremovable feature (that you can't build a city on) and will spawn undead (barbarian) units for the rest of the game.
(This would probably require the barb-AI to be switched back to the 0.33 mode)
"Life is like a box of chocolate": Everyone can just build warriors throughout the game, but depending on tech, the newly build warrior will transform into another military unit, chosen randomly.
"If everyone is special, no one is": All units can aquire all spell promotions. No XP caps.
"Rising Tide": Every turn, each coastal tile will have a %chance of turning into a coastal tile (destroying cities and land-units in the process, should any be present), every coastal tile will have a %chance of turning into a ocean tile.
_____
rezaf
Blakmane
Prince
- Joined
- Feb 17, 2007
- Messages
- 447
would be great to have a 'barbarian attack' type mode, where the object is simply to be the last man standing under ferociously huge amounts of barbs =D. No need to change victory conditions or anything, just hugely jack up barb and city spawns, traits etc.
The Siege:
Increases the number of barbarians spawning, and increased barbarian research rate. Barbarian AI at war with everybody and tries to kill everybody. Win by being the last killed.
Assaulting Hell:
Player starts as Basium, with extra angels. Whole world is hell terrain. All civs evil and permalocked to ashen veil and at war with Basium. Mercurian gate spawns random units each turn.
Rise of the Deep Ones:
Instead of normal barbarians have drown spawn in water tiles. Units in coastal tiles have % chance of being damaged by tsunami. Any coastal flatland tile has a small chance of converting to water, creating new coastal tiles. Any coastal mountain tile has a chance of converting to hill, and any hill a chance to convert to flatland. Cities without adjacent land tiles are razed.
Gardening Forbidden by Law:
Player's cities have no city tile food yield.
The Land of Famine:
Grasslands have base food yield of 1. All other terrain base 0.
Personal Attention:
The player's settlers can found vassal civilizations - and the player's soldiers autoraze any captured city. The vassal civilizations may not build settlers (but may capture cities in war).
Not Quite Human:
The player gains no automatic population growth. The player must build city population (with hammers/food) to grow. The cost increases with current city size.
For extra points, play calabim.
As Green As They Come:
The player may never build any units besides basic warriors, scouts, horsemen, adepts and disciples. The only way to gain better units is to upgrade.
The True Tree Hippies:
The player can not see or trade for copper, iron, mithril, marble, sheut stones, gems or gold. Nor may he build mines, nor work captured mines.
Towers of Erebus
Every 100 turns one random AI capital starts to build tower of mastery, build time maximum of 99 turns. Only Conquest and Tower victories are attainable.
Increases the number of barbarians spawning, and increased barbarian research rate. Barbarian AI at war with everybody and tries to kill everybody. Win by being the last killed.
Assaulting Hell:
Player starts as Basium, with extra angels. Whole world is hell terrain. All civs evil and permalocked to ashen veil and at war with Basium. Mercurian gate spawns random units each turn.
Rise of the Deep Ones:
Instead of normal barbarians have drown spawn in water tiles. Units in coastal tiles have % chance of being damaged by tsunami. Any coastal flatland tile has a small chance of converting to water, creating new coastal tiles. Any coastal mountain tile has a chance of converting to hill, and any hill a chance to convert to flatland. Cities without adjacent land tiles are razed.
Gardening Forbidden by Law:
Player's cities have no city tile food yield.
The Land of Famine:
Grasslands have base food yield of 1. All other terrain base 0.
Personal Attention:
The player's settlers can found vassal civilizations - and the player's soldiers autoraze any captured city. The vassal civilizations may not build settlers (but may capture cities in war).
Not Quite Human:
The player gains no automatic population growth. The player must build city population (with hammers/food) to grow. The cost increases with current city size.
For extra points, play calabim.
As Green As They Come:
The player may never build any units besides basic warriors, scouts, horsemen, adepts and disciples. The only way to gain better units is to upgrade.
The True Tree Hippies:
The player can not see or trade for copper, iron, mithril, marble, sheut stones, gems or gold. Nor may he build mines, nor work captured mines.
Towers of Erebus
Every 100 turns one random AI capital starts to build tower of mastery, build time maximum of 99 turns. Only Conquest and Tower victories are attainable.
Dicotomic independence (single player)
Only two random civilizations start at the beginning. Every 50 turns, if the human player controls more than 1 city, its empire is split into two different empires with half the cities each: one with the highest populated cities (staying with the original leader and civilization, for the AI) and one with the lowest populated cities (with a new leader and civilization for the human player). This happens a fixed amount of times and then the games goes on normally.
Only two random civilizations start at the beginning. Every 50 turns, if the human player controls more than 1 city, its empire is split into two different empires with half the cities each: one with the highest populated cities (staying with the original leader and civilization, for the AI) and one with the lowest populated cities (with a new leader and civilization for the human player). This happens a fixed amount of times and then the games goes on normally.
![[to_xp]Gekko](https://civfanatics-data.community.forum/avatars/m/74/74677.jpg?1475248346){kind=avatar}
[to_xp]Gekko
QCT junkie
"insert cool name here" - the map starts with a LOT of lairs that can never be explored and spawn increasingly strong monsters. ouch!
I like this -- as a regular feature.
This is a good one too. To win militarily, you would have to eliminate all barbarian cities as well as players, since any barbarian city could become a player that is eliminated. Would need to tie this to barbarian world, so that there are cities to retreat to in the beginning of the game.
Cool ideas. I especially like the first. How about spicing this a bit up by making the king the leader your are playing (So for Balseraph the King is Perpentach, their queen is Keelyn) and each of these kings could have unique abilities (For example Perpentach could have some mind aligned ability and Keelyn the ability to summon an immobile guardian demon, Sabathiel -100% upkeep in the city where he is located and so on) You can simply avoid them to get assassinated: Each of them has strenght 0. But I don't know are strenght 0 units killed by exploding pyrozombies? This should also be avoided some way.
Edit: Ok I forgot Basium/ Hyborem. So give all leaders a higher strength (something like 4). Alone the possibility to die should avoid an early rush with your leader... Perhaps all Kings should get +100% vs. Assassins, because a king usually is usually guarded very well. Or a king can build a building in a city that gives all units in the city Guardsman, so if he walks around he can in fact be assassinated.
