What are some challenges/alternate ways to play the game that you enjoy?

[iammaxhailme]

I'm feeling a bit burned out on civ at the moment, but I think I can fix that with some other ways to play.

There is the classic one-city-challenge, of course. Sometimes I restrict myself to not being allowed to declare war the entire game, or no chopping/harvesting even to put a district, etc. One of my favorites is "going for victory methods a civ only has minor bonuses for", like, say, going for culture victory as arabia (using their faith to back it) or going for science as greece (by using their envoys to steal all the science city states, and culture to unlock scientific civics faster).

Anything you like to do? Preferably not just a "no doing X", since that can be a bit annoying

 

[Browd]

Build no wonders. Not even national wonders.

It’s surprising what a crutch wonders can be, and it can be pretty invigorating to do without.

 

[SaboteurINT]

Always get religion. If failed, then restart.

Never reload turns even you clicked wrongly by mistake or too fast.

 

[Civ Chemist]

Here are some challanges I've done so far:

• OCC: all victory conditions except diplomacy. Domination was definitely the most difficult one. Did it with Shaka on a small pangea. The only rule was that I was not allowed to finish a turn with more than one city, so I allowed myself to use conquered cities to upgrade my units and transfer great generals before razing it
• Always war challange: Declare on everyone upon first meet and no peace is allowed. Did it with Alex back in R&F and with Shaka a few month ago.
• No-campus science victory. Used Gilgabro and it was actually easier (or at least faster) than an OCC. With other civs it would definitely be more challanging. Maybe Arabia would be another good candidate, by converting most of the world to your religion with cross cultural dialogue.
• Peaceful no-district culture victory: Once with Gilgabro, where I found La Venta eraly on and once with Egypt taking advantage of earth goddess

 

[iammaxhailme]

Always get religion. If failed, then restart.

That's my default tbh

 

[FedorWin]

May not be everyone's cup of tea, but I’ve always enjoyed playing hotseat by myself as several civs. Throw in several AIs for good measure.
Makes world congress and war tactics more spicy than single player, you can always save and continue whenever you want unlike multiplayer. But the games are naturally way longer

 

[iammaxhailme]

May not be everyone's cup of tea, but I’ve always enjoyed playing hotseat by myself as several civs. Throw in several AIs for good measure.
Makes world congress and war tactics more spicy than single player, you can always save and continue whenever you want unlike multiplayer. But the games are naturally way longer

Like a team of yourself, or are you fighting yourself?

I know you can make improvements in allied city states. I wonder if you can do that with teammate civs. Might make it interesting if you can play around with unique improvements on other civ's lands

 

[Mahi]

Don't use the 100% adjency bonus for campus sites is my usual restriction in the game. It's just too powerful.

 

[Leucarum]

All-Eleanor and all-Kupe games are quite amusing.

 

[tedhebert]

In another thread, @Lily_Lancer has suggested playing Norway on a Pangea map to take full advantage of the pillaging strength and almost none of the sea strengths... could be fun ;-)

 

[reddishrecue]

Playing random civilizations and adapting to different civilization/leader attributes.

 

[FedorWin]

I don’t mind fighting myself - since skill is the same for both civs, it allows to better evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of both civs. So, interesting if you like to play different civs with different playstyles, probably not so much if you’re maining one civ and play it sll the time.

Teams in general can be a refreshing experience, not just in hotseat. 2vs2vs2 or 3vs3 or maybe even 1vsMany.
Tried 1human+2AIs vs 1 human+2AIs in Civ V, had to change the way I approach research (which was shared with your allies). But you really gotta keep in mind - if a civ in team A gets defeated by team B, the whole team B will snowball even more than when a civ defeats another civ in a usual non-team game.
Don’t know about teams in VI, haven’t tried it there yet. But I’m sure somebody else here did!

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Here are some challanges I've done so far:

• OCC: all victory conditions except diplomacy. Domination was definitely the most difficult one. Did it with Shaka on a small pangea. The only rule was that I was not allowed to finish a turn with more than one city, so I allowed myself to use conquered cities to upgrade my units and transfer great generals before razing it
• Always war challange: Declare on everyone upon first meet and no peace is allowed. Did it with Alex back in R&F and with Shaka a few month ago.
• No-campus science victory. Used Gilgabro and it was actually easier (or at least faster) than an OCC. With other civs it would definitely be more challanging. Maybe Arabia would be another good candidate, by converting most of the world to your religion with cross cultural dialogue.
• Peaceful no-district culture victory: Once with Gilgabro, where I found La Venta eraly on and once with Egypt taking advantage of earth goddess

OCC+ always war+no campus SV together can be easily achieved, using Norway.

 

[topsecret]

Try later era starts. A whole different ball game.

 

[tiamats4esgares]

I pretty much never chop, get a religion most of the time and reset if I don't, and build few, if any, wonders. Do I win? XD

Playing as yourself teamed up against the AI sounds fun. 2v2v2, or even 2v3v3 or something. I kind of want to try that sometime. My brother and I did teams against AI teams before in Civ V (2v2v2v2, I believe) and that was pretty fun (he was Arabia, I was England). Not sure how it'd work in Civ VI as I've never done teams but it sounds like something to try.

I just yesterday decided to play on a crowded map to see what it's like. I played as Kupe on the inland sea map, duel size, with 4 civs total and 6 city-states. Tensions are heavy, let me tell you! It's pretty fun. I struggled at first but I'm still going to try to clutch out a win, domination or science. Might accidentally win diplomacy though.

 

[thecrazyscot]

I play scenarios when I get burned out, they provide some great variety and you can set some creative goals for yourself. In the Viking scenario I just played a game where I decided to conquer Spain and it was great fun.

 

[IvoryPavane]

Sometimes when I’m feeling burned out, I find a friend who likes the idea of Civ but is overwhelmed by it, and spend some time teaching them how to play. (There are more people like that around than you think!)

Not only does it give some refreshing back to basics thinking (and honestly, how many of us auto pilot our starts now?) but you get a fresh perspective on the game.

One my friends marvelled at how beautiful Reefs are, and now I notice them in every game

 

[Leucarum]

While it does make the game a lot easier, playing on a map with less than the default number of civs is a nice change of pace. Less of an early land grab, the chance to found a religion without racing to it. Its not something I go for if I want a challenging game, but I find it's a fun way to have a 'sunday morning, laid back' feel to a game.

 

[satchel]

Playing random civilizations and adapting to different civilization/leader attributes.

This is what I do. I let the game choose who I am going to be and then I try to play to the strengths of whoever I get. I enjoy this because there are SO many choices -- if I have to pick for myself I either get choice paralysis or fall into a rut of always playing the same three or four ones.

Lately I've started messing about with mods (using other people's mods, not making my own). I'm not looking for gigantic changes to gameplay but I'm excited to try the Steel & Thunder mods that add more units, and the Real Tech Tree mod that adds more dependencies to the tech and civic trees. I also added a couple of Sukritact's civs/leaders -- they are incredibly well polished and look just like official Firaxis DLC.

 

[tiamats4esgares]

[I'm playing] as Kupe on the inland sea map, duel size, with 4 civs total and 6 city-states. Tensions are heavy, let me tell you!...I struggled at first but I'm still going to try to clutch out a win, domination or science. Might accidentally win diplomacy though.

Update: I lost to Dido to a religious victory. XD I decided duel maps are too easy to win religious victory on because only 2 religions so I'm going to try next time on Standard.

Standard maps can have up to 14 civs and 18 city states I believe (correct me if I'm wrong). I'm also playing on Pangaea instead of Inland Sea because it seems to have less land. I'm playing this game as Nubia, though, and doing pretty decent so far.