tupaclives
Tupac Lives on!!
KING TUPAC'S INSANE VARIANT
Note: This variant is not for the faint hearted. It is rated extremely difficult and it is not suggested to be attempted above Monarch level...
This variant combines three of (what are generally regarded) as some of the hardest variants in the game.
Variant 1: The Supreme Nationalists
SimpleMonkey said:How about a variant I've been pondering for a while: Supreme Nationalists. This is for the ultimately arrogant, dominating, aggressive civ.
Pretty similar to defiant:
1. No foreigners are tolerated within your borders. They must be told to leave as soon as they're spotted. Repeat until the offenders go or declare.
2. Peace treaties are allowed, but only if the other side is giving more than you are.
3. No giving in to extortion. Ever. All such demands must be refused.
4. All conquered cities are razed. No exceptions. They are inferior.
And here's the kicker:
5. Your civ is too proud to let its own citizens work. No workers may be built after the first foreign slave is taken. As soon as you start taking foreign slaves, you must rejoin any existing native workers back into your cities on a 2:1 basis (i.e. for every two slaves you take, you return 1 native worker to being a citizen). Soon the only labor in your empire will be slave labor.
Added to original model
In addition to alliances being forbidden, you may never sign RoP's, MPP's or Trade Embargo's with any civ.
- Foreign cities may not be demanded as peace concessions.
- In addition to one native worker being merged for every two slave workers, foreign workers may never be merged to cities for any reason. They may however be disbanded (worked the slaves to death seems to fit the nationalistic theme)
- If the AI razes one of your cities you must eliminate that city (no time frame, but if the civ is still in existence at the conclusion of the game you lose regardless of other VC's).
- If a city is captured by the AI it MUST be reclaimed (no time frame).
- If the AI razes one of your cities while in the possesion of another civ it must be eliminated.
- Abandoning cities is permitted.
This challenge has been undertaken, and succesfully completed by Tupacatha. However King Tupac does not regard his success as highly notable, therefore he shall prove that this variant is doable.
Variant 2: No-Optional Tech (NOT)
vossibeer in Arathorn's Comprehensive Guide to Variants said:Definition: No Optional Tech (NOT) : You are not allowed to discover optional techs. Optional techs are those which are not needed to reach the next era, monarchy for example.
Well, doesn't sound like a challenge. But think over the complications. I list the most important features sorted by their importance:
a) The one and only one type of government will be despotism. With all the corruption and tile disadvantages included. Have fun.
b) You never can build a knight or cavalry. So this game is essential near an infantry game. Have fun. In other words, clean your own continent before the ai reaches military tradition, or you are possibly toasted. (Up from demi god, this can be a problem even for experienced players)
c) You can never build a library, since literature is prohibited. This means, you can never build a university, since libs are required to build them. In other words: Your own research capabilities will humble you, and still you must avoid a cultural victory of other civs.
d) You will never be able to get cities above size 12, since sanitation is an optional tech. More important, you are not able to build battlefield medicine. So have fun with it.
e) Stealing technology will be difficult, expensive and comes along with a high failure rate, because you cannot build the intelligency agency. And this means, you cannot plant spies.
f) You can never mobilize your economy, since nationalism is optional. This may really humble you up from demi-god level.
g) You can never build a marine to take out this damn last island city of your opponents. Ok, usually not that important, but it's like a course in my games. Nearly always there's one of these ugly one-tile cities, and combined with war weariness this can cause problems.
h) If you capture the great library, you must raze this city, because there's the danger that you receive optional techs from it, and your entire game is toast. So, you cannot use the GB to boost your research, which is annoying up from demi-god.
i) You have no access to some important wonders like Smith or JSB, except you capture them, of course.
Believe it or not, but all the feature together, the difficulty of a level moves up around 2, so a simple monarch game usually becomes humbling as demi-god.
Personally, i still had no success with it above emperor, and with normal settings and luck i'm meanwhile able to beat deity on huge continent maps, so i guess, i'm a experienced player.
So check it out, it's quite annoying and evil
with kind regards
a fanatic
If this unplaytested variant lives up to its billing it will indeed serve to prove King Tupac's rightful position as head of the council of Tupacs.
Variant 3: Naked
Taken from RBE6 - 'The Naked Vikings' said:(thanks to Sima Qian for agreeing to mod this particular variant)
The human civilization has no civ-specific traits (commercial, industrious, religious etc.) or Unique Units.
The human Golden Age will be triggered upon completion of their first wonder.
All AI civilizations have their regular Civ-specific traits and Unique Units.
This variant is included for a mild addition to the difficult and to demonstrate that King Tupac is not reliant on any specific trait or Unique Unit for success. Its one attempt also netted a place in the Archive of Legendary Games, confirming that this is not a variant to be considered lightly.
The combined added difficulty for these three variants amounts to 3.5 difficulty levels by Arathorn's reckoning. That would take a humble Monarch game to just shy of Sid level in Conquests, and a vanilla deity game into dangerous waters.
As such King Tupac will play this game on a Large World, against 11 opponents on Deity.
And so it was that the challenge had been issued, and as it was said, so it would be done.
King Tupac was out to prove to Montupac he deserved to be the head of the council, going where no Tupac had gone before. He had to admit he was feeling a little rusty, his grasp of Civilzations had slipped due to inactivity in recent months, would he be able to handle such a difficult return?
Sima Qian, the Grand Historian had completed the modifications King Tupac had requested for this game and had done so with style and finesse, even going beyond what King Tupac had requested.
King Tupac chose his world to be
Size: Large
Landmass: Continents
Water: 70%
Wet
Temperate
Random Barbarians

The start was a promising one.

King Tupac took a deep breath and stepped forward to lead the Zulu in place of Chief Shaktupac... took a deep breath and stepped forward toward the greatest challenge of his life...
Tupac Shakur said:The Only Thing That Comes to A Sleeping Man is Dreams