Less towns challenge

[Taurean]

First, making it clear: I play Civ2 gold, and only on deity, with roving bands barbarian settings.

I wonder if anyone else has tried this; To make it a challenge, to only limit oneself to say, 10 cities? Or any other number that seems relevant.

Taking over enemy towns is allowed, but then only to produce settlers to either increase own cities' population or to disband and increase production in own cities. As well as obviously stemming growth.

 

[Giftless]

I usually like 25-30 cities in order to be competitive production-wise; enough to counteract the A.I.'s 40% discount but not enough to be cheesy.

You might want to check out a vintage playthru I did that had regional constraints and the transfer of conquered populations.

Setting Limits for Yourself to Recapture the Magic.

Here's a fun little game on deity that I thought I would share. It's not exactly up to the Australia-only or some of the one-city challenges I've seen on the forums, but here are the constraints I'm following: 1. Stay within the historical boundaries of the USSR as much as possible and try to...

forums.civfanatics.com

One more thing, here's a challenge idea that I deem "The Year without Summer":

Cities below size 8 can only run a 2 food surplus (if any extra is present, it can be used to support settlers, specialists, or food caravan routes). No growth by way of "We Love the King Day" is allowed.

With this handicap in place, conquered populations become more valuable since they provide a way to "thaw" the restricted growth rate. The difficulty can be shifted too with this challenge, for example a more expert player could lift the Winter Effect at size 10.