Extra-Hard Nomads Challenge

[KhanMan]

This is for you experts out there (you know who you are, Ming, Xin, Makeo! :P ) who take special joy out of sadistic challenges.

I challenge each and all of you to successfully win a game with the following rules:

1. The game must abide by Cold Wizard's varient of the Nomads Challenge: you may never build a city, only capture them, or take them from the ai.

2. The game settings are as follows:

7 civs
large world
raging hordes
deity


Now, should two people pass this challenge, the winner will be the one who wins first.

(Personally, I think it's impossible, but go ahead... :P )

-KhanMan the LLSS

[Ming]

It sounds like something that would be interesting... But, I don't see it as being very difficult. Using the old goody hut strategy, you should be able to get enough military units to take a few AI cities that can be used as a base of operations to crank out military units. Unless you start on a small island, or get pinned in early before getting some non units, it would just be a matter of how long it took to hunt everybody down.
Heck, I can even see a scenario where you could capture enough cities to actually get into the lead for sciences... and maybe even be able to land on AC before the AI does

[rah]

Do you get to take a city from a hut or do you have to reset it?

I'm with ming, this doesn't sound that tough unless you get screwed at the start.

RAH

[Ming]

Heck, I would assume that you would just reset it like you do in OCC games (a rule I still disagree with)

[Ming]

OK... I've tried it three times... two times, I was on a large land mass with no other civs... those were quick.

The third time, I was on a decent size land mass with one other civ... but i didn't find them until 1400 bc, and they only had two cities... I kept trying to take one of their cities, but they would just spit out a settler when they got to size two. I tried baiting them to come out so I could take the city... no such luck. I finally quit. (I did destroy them first, because I was pissed)

Oh well, time to try again.

[DaveV]

Although my name wasn't mentioned among those challenged , I'm not a fan of "artificial" challenges like this. I hate having to play under some self-imposed limitation; I'd rather play the game all-out and still be challenged. I'm messing around now with using the cheat menu to give all the AIs several (well-sited, for a change) cities at the start of the game. I don't expect they'll put up much of a fight anyway.

The real answer, of course, is playing against humans...

[Ming]

The fourth time might be the charm. I found the Bab's around 2400 and was able to take their capital with some legions and chariots.
The timing worked out good because the city moved up to pop 3 just as I was moving my units into position. They even made it easier by attacking out of the city with one of the defensive units.

I then distroyed their other city... it was a size one that kept kicking out settlers.

There was a second civ nearby, so I was able to take it's capital, and then bribe the other city. But, there was one major problem, none of the cities were on the coast, so I was still land locked.
After many years, I did find the french far away from my starting position, and the Aztecs also share the same large land mass.

The French had lost a costal city to barbs, so after taking Paris, I built a diplo and bribed it, and their other city. Now I have access to the ocean. The Aztecs are next on my list.

It's about 200 bc, so I should be able to win this one. I'm ahead in science and population.

Most of the huts I got before taking a city were units (maybe 70 - 80%) However, the money I got from some was very useful once I had a city. I also got a bunch of sciences, but not as many as I would have liked... Plus, I didn't start with any sciences.
After taking a city, I did start getting barbs, but only one advanced tribe... I reset after getting the advanced tribe.

This one won't be a speed record, but I'm pretty sure that I will be able to win...
A good start would consist of starting near a civ that built a costal city...

[KhanMan]

RAH-Actually, the only way to get cities in this challenge is to:

a) conquer or bribe them

or
b) get them from goodie huts as advanced tribes.

Te restriction is that you can't ever build a city in ColdWizard's version.

Ming-Nice to see someone take it. I must say, I couldn't repeat your results at deity 7 civs raging, though...



Dave-Interesting to see you object, since some of my favorite fortnight and other challenges have come out of your hands...



-KhanMan the LLSS

[Ming]

Uhhhhhh....

I think Rah and I revised the rules to make it harder without realizing it. We are both playing that you can NOT get a city from a hut. Otherwise, it would be too easy

But it is still fun. I had stopped playing civ SP, playing only MP. This has been keeping amused almost as much as the OCC

[rah]

Yeah, we made it harder, but more fun.
I posted my update to the thread in the stategy forum.

Thanks for the Idea. It's been fun.

RAH
And it keeps reminding me why I dislike 1x1x games in MP.