Strange or crazy challenges?
- Thread starter valergrad
- Start date
Yes... One potential problem that I see is that AI probably would avoid to settle close to huge groups of peaks. So, it would be hard to get an AI city in 3rd ring. And culturally conquering city even from 4rd ring ( especially if it is the capital ) could take so much time, that this city after flipping will be totally surrounded by other cities of that particular AI. Not a good starting point for a winning against deity)
But I am sure that if this will try guys like @Kaitzilla or @Henrik75 they will find a way to win)
UPD. Nope. Forget what I've said. Tried and from the first attempt Roosevelt founded New York right in my 3rd ring. Let's see how swiftly I'll be able to flip it.
Last edited:
Facepalm. Why is my favorite leader's AI such a potato? (Seriously, look at his track record in AI Survivor). Did I do something to piss off Sid?
I have a good one for you: the Leeroy Jenkins challenge!
It's simple:
- BtS, 1st standard map, standard size, standard everything, no mods or tweaks;
- Victory: conquest only;
- the one and only rule: you can't have more than one land combat unit outside of your cities' tile every time you press "end turn" button. This unit - is Leeroy Jenkins.
And of course, Gunships count as "land combat unit". Would be too easy otherwise. This challenge may seem impossible to win, but it very much is.
Implications
Spoiler are quite fun :
Last edited:
I have a good one for you: the Leeroy Jenkins challenge!
It's simple:
- BtS, 1st standard map, standard size, standard everything, no mods or tweaks;
- Victory: conquest only;
- the one and only rule: you can't have more than one land combat unit outside of your cities' tile every time you press "end turn" button. This unit - is Leeroy Jenkins.
And of course, Gunships count as "land combat unit". Would be too easy otherwise. This challenge may seem impossible to win, but it very much is.
ImplicationsDifficulty per your preference; I doubt this is anyhow doable on Deity, that is... %) Good luck!Spoiler are quite fun :
What about units inside your boats/galleons/etc.? Can they end the turn outside of your borders?
Depends on what unit. Like i said - simple: is it land combat unit? Then only 1 can be outside my cities at any given end-turn moment. Does not matter if it's 2+ land combat units in boats or not: if those boats outside cities - nope, can't do!
But if it's non-combat units in a boat - Settlers, Workers, etc, - then sure, they can be anywhere in any number you like.It's a simple rule, but it has tons of peculiar consequences, yep - way more than ones i mentioned under the spoiler above. Like, Airports become hella nice; can still move "slow" land combat units between cities more than 3 tiles away from each other via regular roads one-by-one if to "park" Leeroy in some city for a few turns; Railroads become a life-saver; some pillaged road / railroad because you just forgot to put a 2-move unit in a nearby city - at times spell a local disaster if enemies are still present; etc.
Oh, there's also "soft Leeroy" version of this challenge: the only difference is that on top of cities being "the only place for other-than-Leeroy land combat units to end their turns in" - Forts are also included. Soft Leeroy is nothing too crazy to win, though.
Depends on what unit. Like i said - simple: is it land combat unit? Then only 1 can be outside my cities at any given end-turn moment. Does not matter if it's 2+ land combat units in boats or not: if those boats outside cities - nope, can't do!
It's a simple rule, but it has tons of peculiar consequences, yep - way more than ones i mentioned under the spoiler above. Like, Airports become hella nice; can still move "slow" land combat units between cities more than 3 tiles away from each other via regular roads one-by-one if to "park" Leeroy in some city for a few turns; Railroads become a life-saver; some pillaged road / railroad because you just forgot to put a 2-move unit in a nearby city - at times spell a local disaster if enemies are still present; etc.
Oh, there's also "soft Leeroy" version of this challenge: the only difference is that on top of cities being "the only place for other-than-Leeroy land combat units to end their turns in" - Forts are also included. Soft Leeroy is nothing too crazy to win, though.
I like this challenge, interesting idea!
Except for, if we are speaking about deity/immortal - than having Leeroy or not having it doesn't matter, one unit can't take a city no matter how much exp it have.
But if 'conquest' is the only enabled win condition, then you probably can build Sushi and Creative Constructions at your cities and just wait until your culture move borders close enough to enemy's cities.
One unit can not do it on Deity indeed, but we ain't talking about "one unit" here - it's "one _land_ unit". Ships, fighters, bombers and nukes are all not restricted in any way. Also, what i said above about Leeroy best being a Melee > Mech Infantry unit - for Deity specifically, this is most likely suboptimal; if i'd ever try this on Deity, i'd try with Mounted > Gunship, instead. 5 moves per turn (with a GG) = up to 5 attacks with Blitz per turn in an offensive. 1st damaging the garrison up with bombers and, where possible, ships. Gunship would end up without City Raider upgrades, of course - but higher mobility and number of attacks per turn would probably be better.
As for defending your own cities - that's not such a problem: if you'd doing Deity, you know where and why you may be attacked, at any point, and you either prevent that entirely (there are some tricks), or, if preferable - set up sufficient defense force, by moving your defending units in such a way that they all end up in one of your cities by the end of each turn. Usual methods of softing attacking AI stacks all work; even 1-move artillery units can and will help, once main enemy stack arrives to any tile touching the city tile which AIs tries to attack: as long as artilleries don't kill last unit in the attacking stack, they remain on your city's tile after hitting the AI's stack, hence not violating "only 1 unit outside cities by the end of each turn" rule.
And then - Nukes, of course. Obviously, getting those in any good number requires reaching late game, which on Deity with its piling up -5% cost of everything per era for all AIs on top of -40% cost of everything right from the start (iirc) - is a challenge in itself. But Deity is named so for a reason, right? So, yeah. Like i said above: personally, i don't think Leeroy challenge is doable on Deity, myself, but then, some amazing folks do all kinds of amazing stuff, you know.
Okay, single-tile deity huge map challenge also is possible ( using strategy from @ariosto ). Though this time it should be called 'single-tile start', as later we had more, of course.
This time it was huge pangea, 17 opponents, quick and Huayna Capac.
To get Hinduism ( for +5 additional culture) I've chosen 17 opponents that are not cultural and doesn't have mysticism.
I've placed my single-tile peaks near chinese tribes.
But despite of Mao placed Bejing in my 3rd ring, apparently it seems impossible to early flip the capital. Capital pushing borders, and that's why it get +20 culture for every level, so early flipping for it just not possible.
Hinduism + Stonehenge + ToA + Oracle ( for Alphabet ) didn't help.
But luckily Alexander founded Sparta in my 4st ring, and when Sparta had just 1% own culture he gifted it to me.
This happened quite swiftly - T49.
After that this game became pretty similar to a 'normal' deity game except that you have even slower and rougher start than usual ( Only one actual city at T49 on quick... )
By the moment I was ready to settle, there was not much space for a new cities left, so I had to stay with just 4 cities.
I am not a professional deity player, so I thought it is a lose.
Especially after I've lost race to The Great Library.
And then I've lost race to the Music.
But after managing to build Sistine Chapel in Sparta I've got some hope for a cultural victory.
Of course, you can't win cultural victory with 4 cities and two religions. So, I had to find a window to conquer some neighbors - Mao and Alexander were the obvious targets, as because of my cultural pressure they become weaker than other AIs.
In the meantime I've lost race to Liberalism to Mansa... Charles De Gaulle had 5 vassals at T120, so the whole game didn't look good to me.
But after upgrading all riflemen to infantry and eliminating first Mao ( +4 cities ) then Alexander ( +3 cities ) I've got 11 cities and 4 religions. This happened around T165.
Now I could concentrate on Cathedrals and cultural victory.
It was a tough race - Sparta and Tiwanaku became legendary exactly at the same turn that Hammurabi launched his spaceship. This means I've won just by 6 turns advantage. But I've made a lot of mistakes, obviously better player would win faster.
This time it was huge pangea, 17 opponents, quick and Huayna Capac.
To get Hinduism ( for +5 additional culture) I've chosen 17 opponents that are not cultural and doesn't have mysticism.
I've placed my single-tile peaks near chinese tribes.
But despite of Mao placed Bejing in my 3rd ring, apparently it seems impossible to early flip the capital. Capital pushing borders, and that's why it get +20 culture for every level, so early flipping for it just not possible.
Hinduism + Stonehenge + ToA + Oracle ( for Alphabet ) didn't help.
But luckily Alexander founded Sparta in my 4st ring, and when Sparta had just 1% own culture he gifted it to me.
This happened quite swiftly - T49.
After that this game became pretty similar to a 'normal' deity game except that you have even slower and rougher start than usual ( Only one actual city at T49 on quick... )
By the moment I was ready to settle, there was not much space for a new cities left, so I had to stay with just 4 cities.
I am not a professional deity player, so I thought it is a lose.
Especially after I've lost race to The Great Library.
And then I've lost race to the Music.
But after managing to build Sistine Chapel in Sparta I've got some hope for a cultural victory.
Of course, you can't win cultural victory with 4 cities and two religions. So, I had to find a window to conquer some neighbors - Mao and Alexander were the obvious targets, as because of my cultural pressure they become weaker than other AIs.
In the meantime I've lost race to Liberalism to Mansa... Charles De Gaulle had 5 vassals at T120, so the whole game didn't look good to me.
But after upgrading all riflemen to infantry and eliminating first Mao ( +4 cities ) then Alexander ( +3 cities ) I've got 11 cities and 4 religions. This happened around T165.
Now I could concentrate on Cathedrals and cultural victory.
It was a tough race - Sparta and Tiwanaku became legendary exactly at the same turn that Hammurabi launched his spaceship. This means I've won just by 6 turns advantage. But I've made a lot of mistakes, obviously better player would win faster.
Last edited:
Great! Actually, I didn't think it is possible, given that you have to abandon OCC this time. How did you avoid possible AI's attacks?
I think, flipping capitals is just impossible regardless how many culture you have, but I'm not sure on that.
I was quite lucky. As I have got early Hinduism - then all my neighbors were converted to Hinduism too. It is quite easy to keep peace if you share religion.
Of course I've used some usual methods like fulfilling all their demands, profitable (for them) tech trade and resource trade.
No, there is no such a rule. I flipped capitals many times, but yes, this requires really enormous amount of culture, it can't be done early. After AI's capital pushed borders three times - you need culture advantage as +60 per turn just to reach parity. And to flip you probably will need as much as +100-200 culture per turn.
A couple of things I've tried before to spice things up.
1. "Unified New World". I wanted to do a Terra map with everyone else in the Old World but me as the only one in the New World. Had to edit in World Builder, but to keep myself from knowing about the new continent before I got there, all I did was add a Galleon to the map. Then I took my starting Settler and Scout/Warrior, loaded it up, and moved it until I found the other shore, then unloaded and deleted the Galleon. So now I have an isolated start with a huge amount of space (good for practicing build orders and handling Barbarians) compared to everyone else, but I'm starting several turns behind and have nobody to tech trade with. Typically I found no religions and am slightly behind in tech and it's an interesting experience getting found by the opposing sides 1 at a time before I can explore the ocean, and trying to figure out who the established powers are and how the alliances, religious blocs, etc, are working. However, if I can manage all the barbarians and spread out enough to have a larger number of big cities that have cottaged up, I get found about the time my tech rate is accelerating and that plus finally getting trade gets me parity, and then I have enough options for production cities to win the space race, but it's typically pretty close.
2. "3.6 City Challenge". I love OCC but you can't get a culture victory. So at first I decided to just play normal but voluntarily only have 3 cities. This is arguably harder (and was less fun) than OCC because OCC changes the National Wonder limit and prereqs. So I needed 3 other cities to be able to build stuff like Oxford and Wall Street, and 6 others to be able to up enough Temples to put a Cathedral-equivalent into each of my big 3. But going up to 9 cities would be too much like a regular game, so I decided that the only buildings those cities could build would be prereqs (thus making them decimal point cities, thus the name of the challenge).
So:
3 of them can build libraries and universities for Oxford.
3 of them can build courthouses for Forbidden Palace.
3 of them can build theaters for Globe Theater.
3 of them can build banks for Wall Street
3 of them can build forges for Ironworks
3 of them can build hospitals for Red Cross
all 6 of them can build temples
I also found this useful in general for teaching me to not overbuild buildings since I'm one of those people who tends to try and just build everything I can think of everywhere. For those who already don't have that problem this challenge would be easier (since you can still pump out units) but keep in mind this includes no granary and no barracks, and no monasteries either, so spreading those religions has to be done by the big 3 cities unless in Organized Religion.
1. "Unified New World". I wanted to do a Terra map with everyone else in the Old World but me as the only one in the New World. Had to edit in World Builder, but to keep myself from knowing about the new continent before I got there, all I did was add a Galleon to the map. Then I took my starting Settler and Scout/Warrior, loaded it up, and moved it until I found the other shore, then unloaded and deleted the Galleon. So now I have an isolated start with a huge amount of space (good for practicing build orders and handling Barbarians) compared to everyone else, but I'm starting several turns behind and have nobody to tech trade with. Typically I found no religions and am slightly behind in tech and it's an interesting experience getting found by the opposing sides 1 at a time before I can explore the ocean, and trying to figure out who the established powers are and how the alliances, religious blocs, etc, are working. However, if I can manage all the barbarians and spread out enough to have a larger number of big cities that have cottaged up, I get found about the time my tech rate is accelerating and that plus finally getting trade gets me parity, and then I have enough options for production cities to win the space race, but it's typically pretty close.
2. "3.6 City Challenge". I love OCC but you can't get a culture victory. So at first I decided to just play normal but voluntarily only have 3 cities. This is arguably harder (and was less fun) than OCC because OCC changes the National Wonder limit and prereqs. So I needed 3 other cities to be able to build stuff like Oxford and Wall Street, and 6 others to be able to up enough Temples to put a Cathedral-equivalent into each of my big 3. But going up to 9 cities would be too much like a regular game, so I decided that the only buildings those cities could build would be prereqs (thus making them decimal point cities, thus the name of the challenge).
So:
3 of them can build libraries and universities for Oxford.
3 of them can build courthouses for Forbidden Palace.
3 of them can build theaters for Globe Theater.
3 of them can build banks for Wall Street
3 of them can build forges for Ironworks
3 of them can build hospitals for Red Cross
all 6 of them can build temples
I also found this useful in general for teaching me to not overbuild buildings since I'm one of those people who tends to try and just build everything I can think of everywhere. For those who already don't have that problem this challenge would be easier (since you can still pump out units) but keep in mind this includes no granary and no barracks, and no monasteries either, so spreading those religions has to be done by the big 3 cities unless in Organized Religion.
Darth Tribble
Friendly Neighborhood Conqueror
Probably not super original, but I have had games where I deleted my starting settler and other non-combat units, so that I could only gain my first city through capture.
I was trying to RP a tribe of nomadic warriors that capture a city and settle down to become its ruling elite.
I was trying to RP a tribe of nomadic warriors that capture a city and settle down to become its ruling elite.
Plains-Cow
Best Resource; Always Wins
This one's probably ridiculous, but how about trying to play CIV IV blindfolded? Any difficulty and map size.
6K Man
Bureaucrat
LOL, I would not attempt. Playing with the sound off, though, will sometimes cause me to not notice when someone declares war on me...
6K Man
Bureaucrat
OK, got one.
You may not settle any city that has a visible resource in its BFC. And no nonstandard map scripts (with few/no resources) allowed. Any city you capture that breaks this rule, must be razed.
You may not settle any city that has a visible resource in its BFC. And no nonstandard map scripts (with few/no resources) allowed. Any city you capture that breaks this rule, must be razed.
Plains-Cow
Best Resource; Always Wins
You can use audio clues to see what borders you are in and if there's war. The unique CIV themes, war music, city noises, etc. Hotkeys to go to different places. Automate workers with them too. You'll need to do a lot of map sweeping each turn though to create a mental picture of where everyone is and after a DOW noise who's declared war on you (if anyone).LOL, I would not attempt. Playing with the sound off, though, will sometimes cause me to not notice when someone declares war on me...
