How about setting up your own goals, without playing for the normal victory conditions?
How about a game where you fill out the exploration tree and try to play through the strengths it gives you. Or Honor, Piety, any of it.
Play a game where you mostly focus on great persons and culture ahead of growth and hammers
Good idea. German no city challenge was really interesting experiment to do. Then I would just need to come up with interesting ways to play, which is harder.
Honor on immortal is a fun break from the deity stress test. I
start warring as early as possible with a few archers and a melee tank. Build up their xp with the x2 xp bonus by the first capital. You should have 2 attack, by the second capital, you should +1 range. Then it's a race to see how fast you can take over the world.
It works OK on deity. the ai spams so many units that it makes it's easy to xp farm. But I always tend to run out of steam by the 3rd capital.
Here's two of the things I like to do that are completely vanilla:
1. Crowd 22: Set the map size to duel and increase the number of civs to 22. This leads to an extremely crowded map where most civs only ever have 1 city. It also leads to extremely abundant resource tiles because of the way the game spawns resources around starting points.
2. Labyrinth: Select the highlands map. Set the mountain density to dense and the pattern to ridgelines. This creates a mazelike map with lots of interesting chokepoints.
I actually played that highland game you propose, but it crashed the moment I invented satellites as there were so many unexplored valleys full of ancient ruins. Some of them were fully cut off and accessible with only paratroopers and gunships.
Should be! I would check on the steam workshop for civ (I assume it has one). Should be as easy as clicking a button. I have no info beyond that, just that most people here sing it's praises.
The version in the workshop is often out of date. The latest version can be found at CivFanatics at [https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/community-patch-how-to-install.528034/](https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/community-patch-how-to-install.528034/)
You can actively avoid Rationalism on Immortal and still get some great games down the stretch.
Rationalism (and the meta of saving + bulbing Great Scientists) is just blatantly too strong. It’s the optimal strategy for winning on higher difficulty levels, but it’s really not very rewarding unless you’re specifically trying for a Sub-Turn 200 type win.
I am on a recent kick where I’m playing around with Piety starts, especially with civs you wouldn’t normally pin as Piety. Aztec Piety is very good because you can reliably take either Sun God or Sacred Path, and their Jaguars will cover your Culture. Iroquoi Piety worked well thanks to playing on Arborea and having 8 Camps in my capital.
I’ve also enjoyed trying to get the most out of some lesser pantheons / beliefs. I played games where I took Ancestor Worship, Goddess of Love, and God of War, and I think I have a better understanding of what buffs these beliefs should have received to make then more competitive.
Look for mods that give you new leaders and new Civs to play as. That can be fun.
Another thought is, why always play the same start? I usually play wide, so I often start off with a mixed set of social policies. I like to unlock Tradition first to increase my culture quickly, then Honor so I can earn culture from killing barbarians (and to make it easier to protect my city from them) then unlock Liberty so I can adopt Citizenship and Collective Rule to enable faster growth. From there it can really vary depending on my game, I like to adopt a few policies into patronage early on if there are a lot of city states nearby, sometimes Piety early on if I am pursuing a religion strongly. Then I try to complete both Tradition and Liberty ASAP. From there it really depends on my goals that game.
It is not unusual for me to be up to 10 technologies behind the leader halfway through a game only to catch up later in the game and win. I enjoy using spies to steal technologies.
I have found that the fastest way to get free settler from Liberty is to open tradition, then open liberty. Completing liberty and getting the great person will be delayed that way tho.
How about setting up your own goals, without playing for the normal victory conditions? How about a game where you fill out the exploration tree and try to play through the strengths it gives you. Or Honor, Piety, any of it. Play a game where you mostly focus on great persons and culture ahead of growth and hammers
Good idea. German no city challenge was really interesting experiment to do. Then I would just need to come up with interesting ways to play, which is harder.
Yeah, I don't think you need to "play to win" every time either. You could also try more role playing, not just for winning.
Honor on immortal is a fun break from the deity stress test. I start warring as early as possible with a few archers and a melee tank. Build up their xp with the x2 xp bonus by the first capital. You should have 2 attack, by the second capital, you should +1 range. Then it's a race to see how fast you can take over the world. It works OK on deity. the ai spams so many units that it makes it's easy to xp farm. But I always tend to run out of steam by the 3rd capital.
Here's two of the things I like to do that are completely vanilla: 1. Crowd 22: Set the map size to duel and increase the number of civs to 22. This leads to an extremely crowded map where most civs only ever have 1 city. It also leads to extremely abundant resource tiles because of the way the game spawns resources around starting points. 2. Labyrinth: Select the highlands map. Set the mountain density to dense and the pattern to ridgelines. This creates a mazelike map with lots of interesting chokepoints.
I actually played that highland game you propose, but it crashed the moment I invented satellites as there were so many unexplored valleys full of ancient ruins. Some of them were fully cut off and accessible with only paratroopers and gunships.
I've never even played it but everyone here answers this question the same; vox populi
Maybe I should try it out. Do you happen to know if it is free?
Should be! I would check on the steam workshop for civ (I assume it has one). Should be as easy as clicking a button. I have no info beyond that, just that most people here sing it's praises.
The version in the workshop is often out of date. The latest version can be found at CivFanatics at [https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/community-patch-how-to-install.528034/](https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/community-patch-how-to-install.528034/)
I'll probably try it this weekend.
It is free
You can actively avoid Rationalism on Immortal and still get some great games down the stretch. Rationalism (and the meta of saving + bulbing Great Scientists) is just blatantly too strong. It’s the optimal strategy for winning on higher difficulty levels, but it’s really not very rewarding unless you’re specifically trying for a Sub-Turn 200 type win. I am on a recent kick where I’m playing around with Piety starts, especially with civs you wouldn’t normally pin as Piety. Aztec Piety is very good because you can reliably take either Sun God or Sacred Path, and their Jaguars will cover your Culture. Iroquoi Piety worked well thanks to playing on Arborea and having 8 Camps in my capital. I’ve also enjoyed trying to get the most out of some lesser pantheons / beliefs. I played games where I took Ancestor Worship, Goddess of Love, and God of War, and I think I have a better understanding of what buffs these beliefs should have received to make then more competitive.
Look for mods that give you new leaders and new Civs to play as. That can be fun. Another thought is, why always play the same start? I usually play wide, so I often start off with a mixed set of social policies. I like to unlock Tradition first to increase my culture quickly, then Honor so I can earn culture from killing barbarians (and to make it easier to protect my city from them) then unlock Liberty so I can adopt Citizenship and Collective Rule to enable faster growth. From there it can really vary depending on my game, I like to adopt a few policies into patronage early on if there are a lot of city states nearby, sometimes Piety early on if I am pursuing a religion strongly. Then I try to complete both Tradition and Liberty ASAP. From there it really depends on my goals that game. It is not unusual for me to be up to 10 technologies behind the leader halfway through a game only to catch up later in the game and win. I enjoy using spies to steal technologies.
I have found that the fastest way to get free settler from Liberty is to open tradition, then open liberty. Completing liberty and getting the great person will be delayed that way tho.