How Challenging are these variants?

[commodified]

I'm looking to start my first SG with some crazy variant that will have people flocking to join

I beat Emperor consistently but haven't beaten Deity. What difficulty level do you think I should set the following variants to make the game a bit harder than normal Emperor?

1. No culture - No cultural buildings built, ever. This includes Wonders. The only culture generated is from the palace.

2. No workers/one worker - either you can never build a worker, and your first one must be joined to the capital, or you can never build a worker, but you can use your complimentary one. It seems to me like this would be significantly easier, as you could still connect up luxuries.

EDIT: There could also be different versions of this depending on whether you're allowed to use slave labor or not.

3. "The World's Policeman" - I thought of this one my self, although I'm sure it's been done before. Basically you never go to war of your own volition, but whenever a civ declares war on another, you attack the aggressor. Once there is worldwide peace (at least for a turn) and Nationalism's been discovered, you sign MPP's with everybody.

4. Ascetic - never hook up any luxuries.

5. "Pet Civ" - You only trade with one civ and are very kind to it. If it backstabs you, then you switch to a different civ. This negates the human advantage of being basically the only trader in the game. The larger the map, the harder.

6. Wonder Challenge - You must either build or conquer every Great Wonder.

I appreciate your thoughts.

 

[Mathias]

#1 is easy, it's just a conquest victory that may be slowed a bit by the lack of libraries.

#2 I would imagine is insanely difficult for obvious reasons.

#3 is a selective war variant, and probably adds a level at higher difficulties due to limited expansion without aggressive war.

#4 will slow down research due to the need for higher luxury taxes - unless you are allowed to buy luxuries?

#5 has probably been done before. Could be difficult if your friend is unable to research adequately.

#6 isn't much of a challenge for the better players.

 

[Gyathaar]

#2 would be very hard if you had no workers at all.. to get improvements in your lands you would have to sign RoP with your neighbours and hope they will improve your lands for you..
You could also gift away cities and then take them back once the lands around them are improved.

If slaves was allowed, then it would be easier once you get enough military to start razing enemy cities for slaves.. and also can settle their already improved lands.


You could also combine #2 and #4 by allowing every worker actions except roading... this way you could only connect resources by building coastal cities ontop of luxes/resources and building harbors (untill you get airports).. the lack of roads would make it really hard to do any science and lux tax..

 

[Luthor_Saxburg]

#1 is easy, it's just a conquest victory that may be slowed a bit by the lack of libraries.

Easy???
With cultural flipping turned on I'd reckon this would be hard. Or at least annoying!


Apart from #3 and #5, I think your options reduces gameplay enjoyment (IMHO) by artificially removing strategic options.

Anway, there are other alternatives for you to think about:
=> Pangea world could facilitate AI attacks by avoiding amphibious landings(but can facilitate also yours if you achieve a certain level)
=> No exploits
=> Use weaker Civ's
=> Don't build the Civ UU
=> Have a prefered government like Communism, where gold can't be used to rush units\improvements.
=> Don't use armies!
=> Don't use leaders

BTW,
What about Demi-God level? Did you try that?

If you don't like\want\can use the Demi-god level, my advice for you is to create a Mod where you make the Emperor Level harder, but less than Sid. I'd focus on the number of citizens automatically happy - this should make your life harder!

 

[commodified]

I don't have Conquests, so there's nothing between Emperor and Deity for me.

Anyhow, no culture has been done before. Although you're right, I might go for something more tame for my first SG.

 

[Gyathaar]

Easy???
With cultural flipping turned on I'd reckon this would be hard. Or at least annoying!

On higher levels this doesnt add much to difficulty.. you will usually be way behind the AIs in culture anyway, so a few culture buildings dont matter much in most cases..
only difference is in border cities where you cant expand the borders to reduce cultural overlap, so just raze the enemy border cities before they put too much cultural pressure on your cities

 

[bingen]

#2 No workers. Try finding the Finally Ready For Regent (FRFR) succession games, played on regent obiously. The first one of these was played by Charis and Sirian http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=41781&page=1&pp=20

I think this variant might be doable on Emperor with an archipelago map preferably with Vikings or Byzantine.

 

[bingen]

Some other succession games

#1 http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=17432&page=1&pp=20

#5 http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=43926 Emperor difficulty, easy "win".

 

[Tomoyo]

Number two is worth at least 5 difficulty levels...

 

[commodified]

@Bingen - I can't see any of the pictures in Charis and Sirian's game, so I can't tell what their variant was. Have the pics "expired" or something?

 

[vmxa]

commodified, just a thought, but you already have a reduced audience do to the lack of C3C, so I would wonder about making the pool even smaller.

Why not use a more normal variant to keep your options open. See who and how many are interested and then be prepared to adapt.

Remember variants tend to increase the difficulty. So if you are an emperor player and go with AW at emperor, you are in for a much harder game. How much harder depends on the rules and settings, but AW is close to 2 levels.

I agree that culture limits are not meaningful to players that play at the highest levels. The AI has so much more culture than you anyway that it is not going to hurt you. In fact it will save you maint cost.

 

[commodified]

True, maybe I'll just try AW Monarch.

Although I like the idea of having just one worker and giving him a name (like, um, Jimbo!) and protecting him at all costs.

 

[vmxa]

Propose severl options and see what gets the best reception. Once you have some players you can talk about adaptaions or do it in the next game.

 

[bingen]

@Bingen - I can't see any of the pictures in Charis and Sirian's game, so I can't tell what their variant was. Have the pics "expired" or something?

Probably, it is an old thread. It got ressurrected and almost finished, there are some pictures towards the end. The limitation was no workers.

 

[Mathias]

Here's a thought on worker limitation: All cities must build their own workers, and the workers may not leave their home city's radius. An exception may be made for the starting worker.

 

[Thunderpants]

UK version, or maybe the rest of the world can play it.

1) Pick the English

2) Destroy the French as quickly as possible

3) Worship my cat , Shouty , the lion of the city.

4) Destroy the French as quickly as possible

5) Destroy the French as quickly as possible

6) Destroy the French as quickly as possible

7) Destroy the French as quickly as possible

8) Destroy the French as quickly as possible

9) Destroy the French as quickly as possible

10) Fin

 

[Tomoyo]

Probably, it is an old thread. It got ressurrected and almost finished, there are some pictures towards the end. The limitation was no workers.

No, the limitation was no roads, mines, irrigation, forts, or colonies.

Here's a thought on worker limitation: All cities must build their own workers, and the workers may not leave their home city's radius. An exception may be made for the starting worker.

I think the RBC crew did that once - but the starting worker was considered the one for the capital city. Each city could only build one city, though.