JTMacc99
That's a paddlin'
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2008
- Messages
- 900
Rather than jumping up a level, I've been tinkering with the custom game settings to create a challenge for myself.
I was wondering what custom game settings other people use regularly, and why?
As with most of us, I ran most of my first games on continents, then pangea, and then tried an island map or two (with an appropriate civ) and I also occasionally messed around with sea level. This generally calls for a certain strategy which allows a player to obtain land, resources, religions, and diplomatic relations in a somewhat predictable way. Obviously, even on continents, one might be lacking something like copper or a couple decent happieness resources, but there are usually enough of everything to trade for what one needs.
These settings also call for a fairly predictible military strategy, where one or two land based invasions will be required, and victory will normally be attainable without a large scale foreign continent war.
So, what I was looking for was a combination of settings that keeps the game as much like a standard continents game, BUT also presents new problems for me without actually taking the fun out of it. Right now, I'm playing all of my games with only a couple changes:
Custom Continents
Random # of Continents
Choose Religion
No Tech Brokering
The Choose Religion option does absolutely nothing other than change the little sound effects for religions spreading from the often heard early ones to whichever ones might be chosen.
The result of the continent settings is MUCH more interesting. It usually seems to drop four or five continents down on the map. This means that I usually have a pretty good chance of being somewhat or completely isolated. It also means the same thing for the AI. This is why I turn on No Tech Brokering. It seems to keep all of the AI civs in the race even if a couple of them are isolated.
Even worse than the isolation is the resource situation. What almost always happens is that each continent has a few of each type, but nowhere near enough to keep your population healthy and happy. It is a real challenge, especially since the continents usually have enough land to found 10-12 cities. However, I often find HUGE tracts of land with no resources on them (and none to be discovered either.) For example, I just started a game and on my continent is one other Civ (Rome.) (Crap.) We are long continent with our southern border being the pole. We've got lots of tundra and not a jungle to be seen. At this point, I see that we have all three seafoods, plus whales available to a poorly placed ice city. We've got once source of horses, two coppers (one good one in my capital's BFC, and one in the ice,) multiple Iron/Cows/Sheep/Gold/Silver, and a single source of Marble in the ice.) THAT'S IT! No grains. Not a single calendar resource. Nothing.
Not only that, but once I eliminate the Roman problem, I'll need to become Jewish because I'll almost certainly need the religion to stay happy until I obtain astronomy and can trade some Silver and Gold (and probably copper) for some happy stuff. The thing is, all of the other civs will be other religions (frequently unique religions, so I can't even try to convert to the popular one) and my trading options will be limited at best.
What does all of this mean? It usually calls for me to stage an early ground war, as well as a full scale intercontinental invasion. It calls for unconventional or extreme diplomacy to dig myself out of the religious hole I put myself in. It makes me focus on the type of victory much earlier in the game than usual. It also, in my opinion, makes the game seem a little bit more exciting while I gear up for war to take not just land and population, but absolutely critical resources.
This is, of course, just my opinion on what makes the game more interesting for me. I'd love to hear what other people do.
I was wondering what custom game settings other people use regularly, and why?
As with most of us, I ran most of my first games on continents, then pangea, and then tried an island map or two (with an appropriate civ) and I also occasionally messed around with sea level. This generally calls for a certain strategy which allows a player to obtain land, resources, religions, and diplomatic relations in a somewhat predictable way. Obviously, even on continents, one might be lacking something like copper or a couple decent happieness resources, but there are usually enough of everything to trade for what one needs.
These settings also call for a fairly predictible military strategy, where one or two land based invasions will be required, and victory will normally be attainable without a large scale foreign continent war.
So, what I was looking for was a combination of settings that keeps the game as much like a standard continents game, BUT also presents new problems for me without actually taking the fun out of it. Right now, I'm playing all of my games with only a couple changes:
Custom Continents
Random # of Continents
Choose Religion
No Tech Brokering
The Choose Religion option does absolutely nothing other than change the little sound effects for religions spreading from the often heard early ones to whichever ones might be chosen.
The result of the continent settings is MUCH more interesting. It usually seems to drop four or five continents down on the map. This means that I usually have a pretty good chance of being somewhat or completely isolated. It also means the same thing for the AI. This is why I turn on No Tech Brokering. It seems to keep all of the AI civs in the race even if a couple of them are isolated.
Even worse than the isolation is the resource situation. What almost always happens is that each continent has a few of each type, but nowhere near enough to keep your population healthy and happy. It is a real challenge, especially since the continents usually have enough land to found 10-12 cities. However, I often find HUGE tracts of land with no resources on them (and none to be discovered either.) For example, I just started a game and on my continent is one other Civ (Rome.) (Crap.) We are long continent with our southern border being the pole. We've got lots of tundra and not a jungle to be seen. At this point, I see that we have all three seafoods, plus whales available to a poorly placed ice city. We've got once source of horses, two coppers (one good one in my capital's BFC, and one in the ice,) multiple Iron/Cows/Sheep/Gold/Silver, and a single source of Marble in the ice.) THAT'S IT! No grains. Not a single calendar resource. Nothing.
Not only that, but once I eliminate the Roman problem, I'll need to become Jewish because I'll almost certainly need the religion to stay happy until I obtain astronomy and can trade some Silver and Gold (and probably copper) for some happy stuff. The thing is, all of the other civs will be other religions (frequently unique religions, so I can't even try to convert to the popular one) and my trading options will be limited at best.
What does all of this mean? It usually calls for me to stage an early ground war, as well as a full scale intercontinental invasion. It calls for unconventional or extreme diplomacy to dig myself out of the religious hole I put myself in. It makes me focus on the type of victory much earlier in the game than usual. It also, in my opinion, makes the game seem a little bit more exciting while I gear up for war to take not just land and population, but absolutely critical resources.
This is, of course, just my opinion on what makes the game more interesting for me. I'd love to hear what other people do.
