This is a kind of challenge I've imposed on myself in my latest DoC game based on the High to Low option in Rise from Erebus. Here's how you play it:
1: Go into the ini file and enter 'chipotle' under Cheat Code.
2: Start a normal 3000 BC game as Egypt or China* at the speed and difficulty of your preference.
3: Play normally, not for UHV but just to build a powerful empire.
4: As soon as you reach the highest score of all living civs (check by pressing Ctrl+Z) switch yourself to the civ with the lowest score by pressing Alt+Z until you're switched to them.
5: Repeat with your new civ: get to the highest score, then switch to the lowest score.
6: Repeat as often as you like/are able to.
7: No gaming the system (putting undefended cities next to the weakest civ as you are about to switch over/ killing, damaging, or helping civs just to influence what civ you'll get when you switch, etc)
Playing like this helps prevent boredom if you're not going for UHV: I often find that once my civ is the strongest in the world, but not strong enough to go for Domination with my poor skills, the games just go kind of stale. If you play like this, however, at the moment you reach this boring state, instead you will switch to a weak underdog, while one of the AIs will have a mighty superempire.
I tried this gametype out on Marathon speed, starting with China (unfortunately I forgot to take screenshots and the newest SVN broke the save). Reaching high score was pretty easy of course, mainly a matter of beating Babylon's head start, which I did between the Indian and Phoenician spawns.
At this point, the pretty new Greece had the lowest score, so I switched to them. Fortunately the AI had been moderately intelligent with its city placement, settling Athens and Byzantium. From here, I began building an empire that expanded along the Mediterranean coast, milking the Great Lighthouse out for a circus of value as I took Carthage, Rome, Egypt, and their Spanish holdings one by one. Interestingly this is also the only game where I've seen Babylon defeat Persia. My score rose rapidly, and eventually I beat even a very strong India to reach second place in the late classical era with a Greek Empire that rivalled the real life Roman Empire.
Second place? Yes, because my old empire, China, just took off immensely and reached the Renaissance at this time with Education. It didn't grow in physical size too much, but teched amazingly fast and made its way through the Renaissance as I had to fight off Arabians, Moors, Spanish, and respawned Egyptians throughout the middle ages. They got to Steam Power by 1350 and the Mongols didn't even scratch the paint on China and were killed with Grenadiers in twenty turns or so. Their score was incredible, but around 1500 I finally managed to beat them by vassalising France (which had taken Mexico and half of the Incan empire), boosting my score enough to get beyond them.
So I switched again, this time to the Incas. They had lost their northern two cities to the French, but fortunately had made peace without vassalising. This was a rather huge switch, going from a very powerful Greece to classical era incas who could barely manage 18 beakers a turn without losing money. So I slowly built up my empire, expanding into Brazil in the hopes I would be strong enough to beat the Brazilians by the time they spawned, while using espionage to nick techs from the French. And meanwhile, of course, watching the AI go nuts with China and Greece. China got in a scrap with the Mughals for some reason and took Iran (their vassal) and the Indus valley with a single stack of Cavalry doom, while taking over Indochina with another stack and even invading Russia. Greece meanwhile lorded over Europe, taking German lands when they got in a fight with the Germans, until they collapsed. Eventually even China collapsed from its overexpansion, but by then I had more important things to worry about than watching the old world, as Brazilian rifles were upon my Muskets.
Anyway, after that war I updated the SVN and lost my save. What I'm saying is basically that this is quite a fun way to play and you should probably give it a try.
*: If you start as Babylon, their technological headstart will give you the highest score rightaway.
1: Go into the ini file and enter 'chipotle' under Cheat Code.
2: Start a normal 3000 BC game as Egypt or China* at the speed and difficulty of your preference.
3: Play normally, not for UHV but just to build a powerful empire.
4: As soon as you reach the highest score of all living civs (check by pressing Ctrl+Z) switch yourself to the civ with the lowest score by pressing Alt+Z until you're switched to them.
5: Repeat with your new civ: get to the highest score, then switch to the lowest score.
6: Repeat as often as you like/are able to.
7: No gaming the system (putting undefended cities next to the weakest civ as you are about to switch over/ killing, damaging, or helping civs just to influence what civ you'll get when you switch, etc)
Playing like this helps prevent boredom if you're not going for UHV: I often find that once my civ is the strongest in the world, but not strong enough to go for Domination with my poor skills, the games just go kind of stale. If you play like this, however, at the moment you reach this boring state, instead you will switch to a weak underdog, while one of the AIs will have a mighty superempire.
I tried this gametype out on Marathon speed, starting with China (unfortunately I forgot to take screenshots and the newest SVN broke the save). Reaching high score was pretty easy of course, mainly a matter of beating Babylon's head start, which I did between the Indian and Phoenician spawns.
At this point, the pretty new Greece had the lowest score, so I switched to them. Fortunately the AI had been moderately intelligent with its city placement, settling Athens and Byzantium. From here, I began building an empire that expanded along the Mediterranean coast, milking the Great Lighthouse out for a circus of value as I took Carthage, Rome, Egypt, and their Spanish holdings one by one. Interestingly this is also the only game where I've seen Babylon defeat Persia. My score rose rapidly, and eventually I beat even a very strong India to reach second place in the late classical era with a Greek Empire that rivalled the real life Roman Empire.
Second place? Yes, because my old empire, China, just took off immensely and reached the Renaissance at this time with Education. It didn't grow in physical size too much, but teched amazingly fast and made its way through the Renaissance as I had to fight off Arabians, Moors, Spanish, and respawned Egyptians throughout the middle ages. They got to Steam Power by 1350 and the Mongols didn't even scratch the paint on China and were killed with Grenadiers in twenty turns or so. Their score was incredible, but around 1500 I finally managed to beat them by vassalising France (which had taken Mexico and half of the Incan empire), boosting my score enough to get beyond them.
So I switched again, this time to the Incas. They had lost their northern two cities to the French, but fortunately had made peace without vassalising. This was a rather huge switch, going from a very powerful Greece to classical era incas who could barely manage 18 beakers a turn without losing money. So I slowly built up my empire, expanding into Brazil in the hopes I would be strong enough to beat the Brazilians by the time they spawned, while using espionage to nick techs from the French. And meanwhile, of course, watching the AI go nuts with China and Greece. China got in a scrap with the Mughals for some reason and took Iran (their vassal) and the Indus valley with a single stack of Cavalry doom, while taking over Indochina with another stack and even invading Russia. Greece meanwhile lorded over Europe, taking German lands when they got in a fight with the Germans, until they collapsed. Eventually even China collapsed from its overexpansion, but by then I had more important things to worry about than watching the old world, as Brazilian rifles were upon my Muskets.
Anyway, after that war I updated the SVN and lost my save. What I'm saying is basically that this is quite a fun way to play and you should probably give it a try.
*: If you start as Babylon, their technological headstart will give you the highest score rightaway.
