LotR Series

[Methos]

You can puppet alot with simple military. In my game for beta 1, I had 10+ puppets and only ever had 4 horseman. Allied cultural CSs, policies and puppets will provide the bulk of the work.

Is that a sign up?

 

[Jaffa Tamarin]

I'll join. It sounds fun, and I should be able to cope with two SGs

 

[Corbeau]

I'll play if you'll have me. The variant sounds both fun and challenging, and the saved game insanity has finally been fixed.

 

[Methos]

We can build a monument but not a temple, monastery, opera house, museum, broadcast tower, etc. Wonders are OK but only those which have a purpose other than "just" culture (so no Stonehenge, for example). Details still coming.

If we're going the no- buildings, then I suggest we don't allow monuments either. I'm guessing your reasoning was for the cultural expansion, but I still disagree. We can always buy tiles, or get the civic (Representation) that grants +1 in each city. I agree on the wonders.

- Keep our non-puppet cities very very minimal

I was thinking this too. My thought was rather then puppet cities, we instead raze them and then sue for peace, that way the AIs keep building more cities and units. I'm thinking rather then destroy civs, we need to keep them small, since we're going to need plenty of units to kill for our .

Side effect -- I'd like to experiment with highly promoted units. March, in particular, is an awesome promotion. Barracks + Armory and maybe a few other things will provide lots of starting xps.

This sounds very interesting, especially considering the prereqs some of the promotions require.

I took a quick look at the policies and which ones would help us the most and this was what I came up with:

Liberty
- Representation: +1 culture/city

Piety
- Mandate of Heaven: 50% excess happiness added to culture
- Theocracy: -20% unhappiness in non-occupied cities

Freedom
- Constitution: culture doubled in cities with world wonder
- Free Speech: -25% policy culture costs

There was one other policy that helped remove unhappiness (thereby stacking with Mandate of Heaven), but it was in one of the trees that wouldn't agree with one, or more, of the above, so I left it out. Sorry, can't recall what it was, or which tree.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Thought on strategy, get the +1 culture per city, slight bonus but potentially useful.
Puppets will probably make up a lot of the culture (~5/turn each)
as will City States
so... Honor, Patronage, Piety, Freedom, Liberty?

That assumes a Puppet strategy.

If we are going a strict "harvesting" strategy... ie continual war... just weaken the enemies enough that they pose no serious threat.. then the Liberty Tree isn't as good.

In that case I Might go with Tradition... get a super capital, and Wonders, and the local defense.

Also "weakened enemies" means lots of empty space so you can fight barbs as well.

 

[Corbeau]

It's actually incredibly thematic given the historical Aztec tendency to wage war without actually conquering (see: flower wars).

 

[Arathorn]

Odd Aztecs started at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=9844297

Starting position posted. Further discussion can go there.

Arathorn