It's sharing time: What are your most fun(niest) option combo gameplay modes?

[Somebody613]

I'm currently playing Pit's Earth map with the combo of [One City Challenge] and [Don't Raze Cities].
For some fun(ny) reason this (finally) also affects AI, so they also don't build new cities.
But if you CAPTURE already existing cities, they actually stay!
And I'm playing as (duh, predictable) Israel.
If you've seen the latest (though also quite old now) version of Pit's Earth map, you'll realize that it basically means: "the dinner platter is served - enjoy your free meal", mwahahaha!!!
(For those of you who can't separate Real Life from Game Play, you can play as: Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Sumer, Persia, Arabia - all of them eventually conglomerate into one huge blob anyways.)
So, what are YOUR most fun(niest) Game Modes now?

 

[Somebody613]

Not sure why everyone ignores this, but I anyways want to complain about annoying Memory Overflows when playing Pit's Earth, even when everyone is limited to just one city. That's dumb.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Nobody likes memory overflows in any situation. I think some of the eggheadest programmers we have, including Alberts coming back into things on discord of late, are actually working on some things that may end up eliminating a LOT of the memory problems that have long plagued us, paving the way for major expansion. C2C may be on slow simmer and appearing to be dying down right now but that's usually when the best work is being done.

 

[Somebody613]

Nobody likes memory overflows in any situation. I think some of the eggheadest programmers we have, including Alberts coming back into things on discord of late, are actually working on some things that may end up eliminating a LOT of the memory problems that have long plagued us, paving the way for major expansion. C2C may be on slow simmer and appearing to be dying down right now but that's usually when the best work is being done.

Ah, sorry, bad wording.
I meant "why everyone ignores this thread" - and then I ALSO wanted to complain about MAFs.
Let's hope some real progress is gonna happen, lol.
It's really the worst part about this mod - for all that it's so enticing, MAFs literally make some of the best possible gameplays into boring chores of reloading over and over. Bah!

 

[Thunderbrd]

I understood the wording.

Personally, I've written a lot about what combos I enjoy. But I'll say again that I like to turn off tech trading of all kinds and vassalage and let it be that the tech race is entirely paced without the surging tech growth after trading becomes possible. I also like all combat mods on and a conquest game...

Oh, here's something one could try as a challenge - Once we hit the nuke stage of the game, my wife and I, some decade or two ago, played a game where we challenged ourselves to win a first strike nuclear war game (as considered in the 80s movie Wargames) all in one round (we were a team but not overgrown superpower nations by any means). We built enough nukes and had enough ways to deliver them and then planned out how to get units in range to take out every possible military target and resistance and speed-march our units in to take every city in the game in the one round we declared war on everyone else at once. It was quite a fireworks display and I think we did manage to get it done - thanks to commando promos largely. Nuke subs were also instrumental because the satellite nuke defenses against icbms were tough to be sure we could get around so the tactical nukes were prepped and ready to hit every city from hidden submarines. It was pretty epic. Here's to hoping some mad nation leader in the real world doesn't try this some day!

 

[Somebody613]

I understood the wording.

Personally, I've written a lot about what combos I enjoy. But I'll say again that I like to turn off tech trading of all kinds and vassalage and let it be that the tech race is entirely paced without the surging tech growth after trading becomes possible. I also like all combat mods on and a conquest game...

Oh, here's something one could try as a challenge - Once we hit the nuke stage of the game, my wife and I, some decade or two ago, played a game where we challenged ourselves to win a first strike nuclear war game (as considered in the 80s movie Wargames) all in one round (we were a team but not overgrown superpower nations by any means). We built enough nukes and had enough ways to deliver them and then planned out how to get units in range to take out every possible military target and resistance and speed-march our units in to take every city in the game in the one round we declared war on everyone else at once. It was quite a fireworks display and I think we did manage to get it done - thanks to commando promos largely. Nuke subs were also instrumental because the satellite nuke defenses against icbms were tough to be sure we could get around so the tactical nukes were prepped and ready to hit every city from hidden submarines. It was pretty epic. Here's to hoping some mad nation leader in the real world doesn't try this some day!

This reminds me of a technically similar "somewhat AI mechanic imposed not-really-challenge" that I occasionally used to play myself:
Buying entire NATIONS via Espionage in one single turn, hoping that my stealth agents survived each city capture (not sure what triggered their eviction) until it was all over for the victim.
With enough Espionage, this could go as high as 5, maybe 7 cities at once (it'd be Hell to accumulate enough Espionage for MORE, duh) - and it was FUN to do.
If anything, while I often still resort to "sticks and stones", I rather prefer "money and influence" - and I totally blame it on Civ 1's fun of DemoCRAZY's ability to do that with actual money.
Wait, I think this "whole nation at once" gig actually comes from there in the first place, loool.
Heh.

And as of MAFs.
My current Pit Earth game has me vassalizing (or eating) everyone besides England and Japan (no contact with others yet), but it MAFs now every 20 minutes at random, which SUCKKKZZZ.
And that's with Only One City Per Civ For EVERYONE (plus ZERO Barbs whatsoever) - and it STILL happens.
Just... DAAAMN!

 

[BlueTemplar]

I understood the wording.

Personally, I've written a lot about what combos I enjoy. But I'll say again that I like to turn off tech trading of all kinds and vassalage and let it be that the tech race is entirely paced without the surging tech growth after trading becomes possible. I also like all combat mods on and a conquest game...

Oh, here's something one could try as a challenge - Once we hit the nuke stage of the game, my wife and I, some decade or two ago, played a game where we challenged ourselves to win a first strike nuclear war game (as considered in the 80s movie Wargames) all in one round (we were a team but not overgrown superpower nations by any means). We built enough nukes and had enough ways to deliver them and then planned out how to get units in range to take out every possible military target and resistance and speed-march our units in to take every city in the game in the one round we declared war on everyone else at once. It was quite a fireworks display and I think we did manage to get it done - thanks to commando promos largely. Nuke subs were also instrumental because the satellite nuke defenses against icbms were tough to be sure we could get around so the tactical nukes were prepped and ready to hit every city from hidden submarines. It was pretty epic. Here's to hoping some mad nation leader in the real world doesn't try this some day!

Heh, that's pretty much what I did in this game of modded Alpha Centauri :

(Note my ridiculous power graph.)

----

I haven't really played C2C enough to get bored enough to start using specific exploits
(especially in Prehistoric - these days I want on the contrary to make the game balanced enough so that it's not over before early Ancient !)
you can see some my thoughts about game settings here,

one house rule that I now do is, once I'm ready to build a Culture, to remove the (sub)continental requirements from it
(and for the directly (sub)continentally available non-unique buildings like Vision Quest and Walkabout, I'm thinking of adding an alternative requirement of any Culture from that (sub)continent) (that I built)).

 

[Volgadar]

Pangea + max size map + several predefined agressive civs + barbarian civs + Revolution mod + "size matters" turned off + "more countries" submod. The game turns into total madness as soon as expansion starts.

 

[BlueTemplar]

By "more countries" you mean Civ Megapack ?

this one ?

Civ Megapack V3!!! Updated for SVN!!!

At long last, here it is again and working with the latest SVN of Caveman2Cosmos! The Sparth Civ Megapack, made by Sparth a long while back. I'm no longer separating the mod mod into a fictional and nonfictional file anymore, this is to make updating easier on my end. So if you don't like some...

forums.civfanatics.com

Any performance issues ?
I heard that there were limits on the number of civs that could spawn ??

 

[Volgadar]

By "more countries" you mean Civ Megapack ?

this one ?

Civ Megapack V3!!! Updated for SVN!!!

At long last, here it is again and working with the latest SVN of Caveman2Cosmos! The Sparth Civ Megapack, made by Sparth a long while back. I'm no longer separating the mod mod into a fictional and nonfictional file anymore, this is to make updating easier on my end. So if you don't like some...

forums.civfanatics.com

Any performance issues ?
I heard that there were limits on the number of civs that could spawn ??

Yep, Civ Megapack.
Perfomance... It was c2c ~v36, before global engine rework. CTDs emerged every few turns)

 

[Somebody613]

And has nothing to do with Civ Megapack.
The number of civs is still maxed at 40, and that means players, not Civ types.
In fact, the engine easily allows for "copies" of the same Civ type (say: Chinese) - but as different players (say: #12 and #21), lol.