Ultimate CiV challenge?

[Turska]

First time poster etc. Hello everyone

What is the greatest challenge one can face and still emerge victorious?

I ask because I completed an interesting game yesterday. It was hard, but not even close to impossible as I would have almost hoped.

I won't tell you the settings I used just yet, first I'd like to know what people would consider the ultimate civ V test of ability. Obviously it has to be something that is possible, but ideally it would be something that is only doable by the very best player ever to play the game. What I would like to know is how far do you think the difficulty can be increased until nobody can complete the challenge. After we reach a consensus we can take a tiny step back to barely, marginally, theoretically beatable settings and enjoy the result (like this: ).

</thinlyveiledbrag>

-Turska

 

[FeiLing]

Huge map, Marathon Speed. Deity. Max AIs. 
Max city states. Raging Barbarians. Combat animations on.

This is impossible to win while it is theoretically possible. However no one will live long enough to finish that game.
So your best bet to actually do it would be a succession game with your kids and their kids

 

[Turska]

Absolutely brilliant

But not hard enough

 

[snarzberry]

Welcome

I like the theme of your question but I don't think there are settings that make the game unbeatable, you'd have to go into arbitrary self imposed restrictions to get close to the kind of thing you're looking for. What sort of settings did you have in mind? If it's just difficulty level, map type, civ etc then no configuration is impossible.

Impossible ultimate challenge: shot of tequila after every enemy killed, no saving.

 

[Turska]

I do believe the standard settings can be used to make the game unbeatable. For instance, consider this:

Polynesia, huge, great plains, deity, quick.

22 civs, no city states, one city challenge, domination (or time?) victory.

Sounds impossible to me, but I could be wrong

 

[The_Quasar]

I do believe the standard settings can be used to make the game unbeatable. For instance, consider this:

Polynesia, huge, great plains, deity, quick.

22 civs, no city states, one city challenge, domination (or time?) victory.

Sounds impossible to me, but I could be wrong

Polynesia, huge, great plains, deity is definitely doable... but you might be a bit pushed for time on quick for a domination victory... a time victory, however, would be a lot easier..

Having less than the maximum is so often harder, as the AI has more room and space to build, and with the deity bonuses, often does very well.

Also, Polynesia, in the right place, can be a very powerful civ!

 

[snarzberry]

Why don't you tell us more about your interesting game so we can see what you're getting at. Polynesia is a cool civ to play on continents or water maps, but yeah on great plains they suck pretty badly.

 

[Turska]

What I did was a scientific victory one city challenge on huge deity marathon. I made it a bit easier by using the tiny islands map type and high sea level so the AIs wouldn't have too much land to build on. I'd like to know what you guys think about the effect the following settings had on the overall difficulty, because they can all be debated:

-18 civs (more opponents but also more RA buddies)
-raging barbarians (more trouble in the early game, but theoretically also more trouble for the opponents)
-no goody huts (because I don't want to gain unfair advantage over the AI who doesn't know how to hunt these down on all those tiny islands, but that also means the opponents don't sometimes get random large boosts when the luck is on their side)
-Play as babylonia
-Allow all victory conditions (At first glance it would seem that this is only fair, but I don't know enough about the AI to know if it actively knows to pursue only the victory conditions that are active. If that is the case it might actually make the game easier to allow them all, because some opponents will be stuck thinking they can win a domination victory, which will never happen. In my game I would most likely have lost to Egypt had they gone for the stars, because they were very close to me in tech in the end and obviously wouldn't have had to spend 94 turns building each part of the ship in the same city)
- quick combat (because... )

Oh, and I wasn't definitely saying that polynesia is a bad civ, but rather that we can choose to make the challenge more difficult by restricting the civ we play to something that doesn't really get to shine in the scenario.

 

[headcase]

Pathetic Diplomacy Mode: Don't start any conversations or trades with other leaders, and you must accept any proposal given to you. No DOWs optional.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

marathon, huge, deity, OCC, archipelago, sparse resources, arid, cold, high sea levels, complete kills, raging barbarians, no CS, 12 Random Civs, and domination vic with Inca. no other settings may be messed with.

 

[Glassmage]

Always Peace: If AI's declare war on you you lose! Good luck!

 

[Turska]

Pathetic Diplomacy Mode: Don't start any conversations or trades with other leaders, and you must accept any proposal given to you. No DOWs optional.

I like this idea. You'll always be going "Ok I'll just give you my stuff. Ok I'll declare war to my friends." Combined with some hefty deity game and scientific victory of course, because this way you can't abuse research agreements

Glassmage's Always peace mode is very difficult as well, but most likely possible to pull off. Easiest with diplomatic victory and one city state I think, but it would be interesting to test how far you could take it.

Hammer Rabbi's game is made easier by the harsh conditions. Just reroll until your start location is playable and everyone else suffers from the lack of good city locations whereas you only need one city to begin with. I'm not sure how necessary the other settings are, but complete kills might be the key difficulty in this game. I might give it a try, though it's bound to take a while.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

Hammer Rabbi's game is made easier by the harsh conditions. Just reroll until your start location is playable and everyone else suffers from the lack of good city locations whereas you only need one city to begin with. I'm not sure how necessary the other settings are, but complete kills might be the key difficulty in this game. I might give it a try, though it's bound to take a while.

OCC and complete kills were the main difficulty settings, imo. the rest were just added problems. cold/arid gives you lots of tundra tiles on every start. high sea levels (i think) prevents seeing lots of pearls. tiles with only 1 food AND sparse resources makes growth slower. and even though the AI starts with sparse resources, they start with 2 settlers so their expansion/production always comes faster.

short of self-imposed restrictions (no exploits, no cheese, etc) or using crazy mods, im not sure the AI can't be beaten purely using the game setting modifiers. most of that i think hinges on really unfortunate starts. i think a better challenge would be for people to upload the starts and say, "beat this start" and see if it can be done.

 

[headcase]

I think a better challenge would be for people to upload the starts and say, "beat this start" and see if it can be done.

Agreed. The difficulty can feel at least 1 step up or down from what you're playing depending on how much fresh water and how many resources you can grab. Tundra start in Deity must be brutal... not sure if the AI is less likely to go to war against civs with crappy land, but they should be so you'd at least have that consolation.

 

[KM]

I got one, set u a multiplayer game, put you on one side alone and a team of let s say Ardan, Universal Soldier and merle on the other side (Name dropped some of the top MP players in the world)

If you survive more then 50 turns by yourself against a team of the top MP players (heck even one of them) then you r good. Much harder then some bonus boosted AI that can t fight.

 

[Derpy Hooves]

Prison psychologist mode:
Deity, 8+ civs, not archipelago, you have to remain friendly with all AI's. Glhf

 

[Tabarnak]

Prison psychologist mode:
Deity, 8+ civs, not archipelago, you have to remain friendly with all AI's. Glhf

I will pick small continents and reroll until i'm alone.

 

[Derpy Hooves]

I've seen north American civs desire my lands when I'm in central Asia, pretty sure that ain't gonna fly.
Maybe if you keep giving the AI lux and gold so they get some extra modifiers but I suspect I might as well have gone for a "No hands or feet" challenge, ofcourse you can finish an entire game using just your nose and tongue for controls, but it will require incredible amounts of perseverance and be completely pointless.

 

[civplay]

Hardest game. Duel map 8, 10 or so civs no cityin the states. raging barbarians. Allow only domination victory. OCC. Have fun playing when everyone declares war on you around turn 4Only they're armies 3 times larger then yours. Screw Diety I don't think anyone could win this on emperor.

 

[Turska]

Hardest game. Duel map 8, 10 or so civs no cityin the states. raging barbarians. Allow only domination victory. OCC. Have fun playing when everyone declares war on you around turn 4Only they're armies 3 times larger then yours. Screw Diety I don't think anyone could win this on emperor.

The problem with emperor on such settings is that it's far too easy to stay at peace, build your economy and then crush everyone with a good army once you can support it. One city challenge is not a problem if nobody has room to build more than two or three cities.

Here's my straightforward solution for this, I picked Rome because I thought I'd be able to win the game early with legionnaires, but unfortunately the start doesn't have iron right away. Try the initial save, comment on the finish, or shave 600 turns off the victory date with a proper start

On deity this would be a whole new challenge, however. Anyone up for it?