White_Knight
Chieftain
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2004
- Messages
- 26
I got this idea for a variant a few days ago and figured I'd ask if anyone has tried it, so I can get a sense of what I'll be getting myself into.
I've tried 20K, and I've tried 100K. Why not 0K? That is, never build culture in any city, ever. (The Palace could be an exception, or it could be modded to produce zero culture.) I propose the name "uncouth" for such a variant, unless it's already been named by someone else.
Some thoughts about the variant and its implications:
- No Temples, Cathedrals, Collosseums. It will be hard to keep people happy, especially if the start is devoid of luxuries. MP and small towns may be the order of the day. At least we can build Markets and Banks, so we'll be able to recoup some of the cash lost to the luxury slider.
- No Libraries, Universities, Research Labs. Keeping up in the tech race may require some skillful trading and/or tech-stealing. Getting contacts early and keeping an eye on F4 will be critical.
- No building Wonders or Small Wonders. The latter will probably be more of an issue than the former, since we can always capture Wonders from our neighbors, but we'll never have an FP or Military Academy or any other small Wonder since they all produce culture.
- Warmongering should not be a problem, because without any cities building temples and libraries and Wonders, there will be more cities to build barracks and units. There will also be more gold to support them because we're not using it to pay upkeep on culture buildings.
- Culture in enemy cities should not be a problem, since captured Wonders don't produce culture and all other culture-producing improvements are razed upon capture of the city. If this were not the case we could still sell them.
- Since our cultural borders never expand, a tight build will be necessary to ensure good tile usage and (mainly) to keep from having holes in our territory which the AI will relentlessly try to settle on.
In terms of difficulty level, I'm usually a Monarch level player but I may drop back to Regent for my first attempt at this, just to test the waters. The tech pace may be slow but at least I won't have to worry as much about an AI cultural victory (which will still be enabled, of course, as will culture flips).
For opponents, having any Rel or Sci AI's will make them culturally stronger and increase flip risks, but Sci opponents will also quicken the tech pace and provide more trading opportunities upon entering new ages. I may try both options (all Sci or no Sci) and see what happens.
As for my own Civ, anybody should be playable, though picking a Sci or Rel civ would be rather stupid since the building discounts won't apply. For an archipelago I'd lean towards the Vikings or Carthage, and for continents or pangaea, China or the Iroquois would be good choices. The Mongols and Zulu would work too, though I'm not a huge fan of Exp civs.
So what do you guys think of this? Has anyone tried it before? For those who are used to playing wacky variants, how difficult does this sound?
I've tried 20K, and I've tried 100K. Why not 0K? That is, never build culture in any city, ever. (The Palace could be an exception, or it could be modded to produce zero culture.) I propose the name "uncouth" for such a variant, unless it's already been named by someone else.
Some thoughts about the variant and its implications:
- No Temples, Cathedrals, Collosseums. It will be hard to keep people happy, especially if the start is devoid of luxuries. MP and small towns may be the order of the day. At least we can build Markets and Banks, so we'll be able to recoup some of the cash lost to the luxury slider.
- No Libraries, Universities, Research Labs. Keeping up in the tech race may require some skillful trading and/or tech-stealing. Getting contacts early and keeping an eye on F4 will be critical.
- No building Wonders or Small Wonders. The latter will probably be more of an issue than the former, since we can always capture Wonders from our neighbors, but we'll never have an FP or Military Academy or any other small Wonder since they all produce culture.
- Warmongering should not be a problem, because without any cities building temples and libraries and Wonders, there will be more cities to build barracks and units. There will also be more gold to support them because we're not using it to pay upkeep on culture buildings.
- Culture in enemy cities should not be a problem, since captured Wonders don't produce culture and all other culture-producing improvements are razed upon capture of the city. If this were not the case we could still sell them.
- Since our cultural borders never expand, a tight build will be necessary to ensure good tile usage and (mainly) to keep from having holes in our territory which the AI will relentlessly try to settle on.
In terms of difficulty level, I'm usually a Monarch level player but I may drop back to Regent for my first attempt at this, just to test the waters. The tech pace may be slow but at least I won't have to worry as much about an AI cultural victory (which will still be enabled, of course, as will culture flips).
For opponents, having any Rel or Sci AI's will make them culturally stronger and increase flip risks, but Sci opponents will also quicken the tech pace and provide more trading opportunities upon entering new ages. I may try both options (all Sci or no Sci) and see what happens.
As for my own Civ, anybody should be playable, though picking a Sci or Rel civ would be rather stupid since the building discounts won't apply. For an archipelago I'd lean towards the Vikings or Carthage, and for continents or pangaea, China or the Iroquois would be good choices. The Mongols and Zulu would work too, though I'm not a huge fan of Exp civs.
So what do you guys think of this? Has anyone tried it before? For those who are used to playing wacky variants, how difficult does this sound?
