Comprehensive Guide to Variants

[Aggie]

One of the best variants I've played is this No treasury . You aren't allowed to have a treasury, so every deal has to be based on income. This makes your reputation extremely important and doesn't allow things like min science. We played it twice and it can be a very difficult variant. As can be shown in the first failed attempt, which is linked in the first post of my example.

Nad has had more brilliant ideas, like this one: Chamber of Secrets. I don't know how to call such a variant, but basically we had to stick to the rule '25 turns of peace / 25 turns of war, without restrictions.'

PS. Your sample game of an OCCC allowed cities during the turns. So this is the easier variant of an OCCC. You can demand cities for peace and abandon them, conquer cities and keep them until the end of the turn. The most obvious advantage is the opportunity of building armies.

 

[DJMGator13]

Here's a variant that I thought up one night:

U.N. Charter Variant:

Article I: Non-agression. You may never declare war, unless you are attacked. In addition, rouge states (any nation that starts a war with another) must be embargoed.
<snip>
Well, how's that sound for a game variant?

I actually just played a game that was exactly this way. I did not set up to do it intentionally, but I was boxed in, growthwise. I had 13 cities and never gained another and never DoW. I killed a total of 2 enemy units late in the game when my infantry was attacked by Cavalry. I won a 1505AD Diplo victory, against 7 opponets. I have the initial save and several saves during the game if you would like a sample game.

 

[t3h_m013]

would be quite useful to have 2 difficulty guides, one for warmongers and one for builders as obviously no military is harder for warmongers than builders, and aw is harder for builders...

 

[TedJackson]

Arathorn,

I've just realised that Atheism is missing from your list of variants.

The rukes are simple:
No religious buildings or wonders may be built or owned.
Religious Civs are anathema. War must be declared immediately on any religious civ encountered (not trading before declaring)

For an example, see: OFW2: The Roman Capital Killing Atheists (where we also were restricted to attacking only Capitals).


Ted

 

[M37]

Here's a cool one.

Cold war.
1. Player must chose either Democrocy or communisim.
2. player must stay in goverment
3. player must be in state of war or ceace-fire with nations of other govermnt.
3. democies must play a clean game - see peacekeeping varient -however a scret service is allowed in the democrocy
4. both sides can do whatever they need to weeken the other -gain/steal allies ect...
5 both sides must avoid a nuculer exchange.
6 either side wins if thier is no longer communisim or democracy.

 

[Dogmeat]

I usually play my own variant;
* Must never declare war on another civ (Booting to provoke is allowed).
* Must not build armies.

I like playing with these rules because you can have everyone be polite towards you by signing right of passage treaties. Usually, without these rules, everyone's annoyed or furious towards me because I've attacked somebody early on to get some territory and thereby removing my ability to sign ROP treaties (well, ROP's are always possible but expensive).

In early game you have to rely on another civ to declare war on you. This can be done by having a large stash of gold and a bunch of obsolete units ready to be upgraded as soon as somebody notices you're weak.

I think armies spoil alot of the fun in C3C. I mean, they get bonus offence and defense values, lot's of hitpoints, the ability to heal in one turn in cities with barracks, bonus move, pillage without loss of movement point and the AI doesn't attack them.. Oh and they don't build them either.. Good enough reason to not allow yourself to build them.
It's nothing short of cheating and therefore I shall never build an army ever again (unless they are fixed in a patch but I doubt it)!

 

[Tarkeel]

Another Mostly War variant: You must at all times be at war with 50% of the civs you know. Less restrictive then AW, but harder then NOW. Could be played with or without the possibility of signing peace treaties, but it's not much of a variant if you can sign peace. Best combined with other variants such as xenophobic

 

[mad-bax]

Restrictive government variants seem to have been overlooked. So, playing the entire game in despotism, or allowing a change to one other specified government (usually communism) for instance.

Multi-win games have also been overlooked, where you can win by all means in one turn from the same save.

Finally the 5CC 100K culture variant is not included.

 

[Tomoyo]

I realized that you don't have Sirian's Big Brother Variant there.

This is my version. I role played an anime show.

You play as Tomoyo (Big Brother) and the first civ you meet is Sakura (Little Sister), the second civ you meet is Syaoran (Some random guy)

1) Embassy ASAP
2) Spy ASAP
3) Investigate capital very 20 turns
4) All techs go to her
5) Tomoyo is nonviolent, so only use force to support Sakura when the attacker is the second civ I meet, Syaoran, because the only time Tomoyo actually did anything to protect Sakura was against him.
6) Sakura dies, You lose
7) Sakura must win Diplomatic Victory, and if necessary, you can eliminate civs that don't like Sakura.

I'm too lazy to look up the original Big Brother game.

 

[socralynnek]

I have "invented" a new variant, when I read one of the threads, you were discussing in, Arathorn ("My whip broke").

I call the variant "AI style".

You have to play with the rules an AI does and avoid things, the AI doesn't use, e.g
- No prebuilds
- No armies
- No suicide galleys & curraghs
- King units never move
- Artillery only in cities and only defending
- no palace jump/move
- no researching with negative cash flow
- no exploits (rushing in two steps for example or reloading)
- and everything else I forgot


And another variant would be "Barbarian", that means no attacking in NW-SE direction ;-)

 

[Offa]

Another sort of variant is not founding the first city for a long time, say 1000bc or 0 bc. I seem to recall Qitai trying this on a deity gotm, but I don't think he submitted so it must be tough.

Edit: of course just playing the start really badly simulates this variant, as I have recently been finding .

 

[Marvin77]

I tried recently playing an own-built variant which I found challenging and at the same time somehow reasonable. So I decided to share it:

Religious Hegemony

Rules:

1. You must play a religious nation.

2. Your people need to build a great wonder to express their devotion to the god(s). Hence failure to _build_ at least one of the following wonders means *sudden* death (i.e., the game is lost if all of these wonders are build by other nations):
a) The Oracle
b) Michelangelo's Chapel
c) Johan Sebastian Bach's Cathedral

4. The idea that the mankind descends from the apes is unacceptable in your nation. Hence you are forbidden to build the Theory of Evolution great wonder. Upon capturing the city which built it, it must be raised without mercy, so that any traces of this blasphemy disappear once and for all.

3. The religion is the main driving force in your society. Therefore the first improvement build in a city must be a temple. Once a city grows over the size of 6, your next city improvement must be a cathedral (if you have the required tech). Note: You are allowed to finish your current project, started when the city was smaller than 7. Also in a case of war/mobilization you might choose to ignore this restriction in order to build first barracks or city walls. You might build any units at will.

4. You must convince the world in the superiority of your beliefs. Hence the only allowed victory conditions for you are: culture, domination and conquest. However the other players might win by any possible means.

5. The ideas of Communism are incompatible with the religion. Therefore Communism is a forbidden government form for your nation.

6. Religious freedom is not allowed. The people of your nation should all be united under the same beliefs. Therefore Democracy is a forbidden government form for your nation.

------------------
Note: I'm not a religious person. Neither am I anti-religious. I just though the idea of such a variant is interesting and reasonable and I do not want to offend anyone by this post.

I play comfortably standard games on Deity level, however winning this variant on Deity is near to impossible for me. However on Emperor I won a few games playing it. On easer levels it does not probably make a lot of difference. For optimal challenge the map size should be at least standard, with several large continents.

The main difficulties come from the fact that on the harder levels a non-standard tech/expansion route must be followed in order to avoid losing by the sudden death rule. Hence you might have a much slower start which in turn makes the game more challenging.

 

[plarq]

you can look at LK92--Religious Fanatics in Succession Forum.it's a relaxed version of your set.

 

[mastertyguy]

Think about this : AW-OCC. better have a good starting position.

 

[Tomoyo]

Think about this : AW-OCC. better have a good starting position.

Some people have done (are doing) that on levels as high as Emperor with success.

 

[TimBentley]

Some people have done (are doing) that on levels as high as Emperor with success.

Or on Sid.

 

[mastertyguy]

I'm actually playing this variant. But I'm not good enough to do it higher than regent. I'm lucky, I got a montain chokepoint just next to my capital.

 

[Tomoyo]

Or on Sid.

Is that the Mark game? Do you have a link handy?

 

[TimBentley]

Yes. Berserk Byzantines AWS-OCC

 

[Tomoyo]

Thanks. Wow. OMG.

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