Sponsor: Sirian
Opening Date: Monday, August 26
Duration: Three Weeks
Map Generation: Random

Difficulty: Deity
Civilization: Zulus
World Size: Small
Opponents: Five
Terrain: Continents, 70% water
Climate: Cold
Barbarians: Roaming
Rules: Standard
Victory: Any

Variant Rules: Our first Deity Variant, this one is going to be crushingly brutal. After the results for Epic Eight, a new round of discussions broke out about the Epics tactics. If all of the controversial subjects from that debate were removed entirely from the game, how would the game play? I wondered about this for the sake of argument, but we don't have to rely on theory and speculation. Let's find out.

* No purchasing workers. No workers through diplomacy by any means, including peace.
* No upgrading units. Ever. You build a unit, it remains that type of unit "for life".
* You may not pillage your own lands. (Includes no disconnecting your own resources).
* No trading away of your last unit of any given resource. You must keep one for yourself.
* No scrolling through cities during the production phase, "between turns".
* No prebuilding of any kind. No placeholders. Ever. You are NOT allowed to change projects. Or rather, if you change city projects from one to another, you MUST wipe out any shields stored in the box by first changing to Wealth, which will erase all but one shield, then (and only then) may you assign a city to a new item.

Clarifications: There is no restriction on changing projects when the shield storage box is empty (because a project has just completed, or if the city has been running wealth while "waiting" for a new option to come available). Note that forced labor or cash rushbuys are still allowed, as is disbanding units in cities (with the accompanying shield conversion); but you are not allowed to rush a cheap item from zero storage, change to wealth and retain one shield, then rush a large item on the same turn (to shortcut the double cost of rushing from zero). Only one rush per city per turn, for this game.

Scenario Goals: I'm laying down the gauntlet. This one is "beyond deity", an exercise in extremes. I've chosen the Zulus as the ones likely to be most disadvantaged under these restrictions, and I'll make sure they get a polar or subpolar start point. I'll also make sure there is at least some fertile land around, though. About the only thing they'll have going for them is cheap harbors to help out with the icy terrain (fishing villages), and a UU and access to scouts that will give them some help in the early phase (land grab, barbarians, etc).

Scoring: Victories (if any) ranked by fastest finish (regardless of type). Defeats ranked by game score.

Strategy: Without prebuilds, the player won't likely build any wonders without a great leader, including the UN. If you try for a wonder, you have to build THAT wonder -- and if you fail, all progress is wasted. Space ship parts have to be built from scratch, starting after the turn the tech for a given part comes in. There'll be no partial-progess whipping. State of the art military units have to be trained from scratch. Old units can be retained as-is or disbanded. Cultural progress will be slowed by these rules, too, although trying to win a cultural victory on Deity is a tall order anyway. A victory here may be possible, but it's going to be uphill to try even for the most experienced players. Anyone is welcome to play, but don't expect mercy from this scenario.

Closing Day: Monday, September 16. Reports due on Sept 16 or 17.

Download Epic Twelve!

Read Epic Twelve Results!