Sponsor: Sirian
Opening Date: Monday, April 4
Duration: Five Weeks

Civilization: Hittites
Difficulty: Monarch
Map Size: Standard
Opponents: Six
Barbarians: Raging
Victory: Player must win by Space
Version: C3C v1.22

Scenario Concept: You are the Professor. You love to sit in your alchemist's laboratory and work on new ideas. You're so wrapped up in your research that you really can't be bothered to do much else.

Variant Rules:

* You are too busy to contact any of the civs via diplomacy. Ever, for any reason. Don't even open the F4 screen.

* When contacted by others, you need to get rid of them quickly, so you can get back to the lab. (You can accept deals that they offer, but only "as is", no changes.)

* You can defend yourself if attacked, and you can do what is necessary to obtain key natural resources (aluminum, uranium) but otherwise you are too busy to engage in warfare. You are even too busy to ask for peace. Whoever it is and whatever they want, they'll send someone to tell you, eventually. (Now where did you put that beaker of copper dust?)

* You are too busy to plan ahead for great wonders (or much of anything else). NO PREBUILDS. NO PROJECT SWITCHING. The only time you start a city project is when something else has been completed. If you were trying to build a great wonder and someone else finished it first, switch to wealth to erase the shields, then you can pick a new project. (If that sounds painful, don't worry. You're too busy with your research to care.)

* Partial whipping is allowed, so long as you change your project back to what you were originally working on. (I've never been a fan of the "must complete the project when you whip" rule. I think it's arbitrary, and besides, we're the Absent-Minded Professor, not the Endlessly-Patient Professor. Corruption is bad; whip those lazy students in to shape!)

* No tech stealing. (You're too busy even to know what others are researching, much less care about their findings. Your own experiments are the true research.)

Scoring: You are too busy to worry about score. Even if you weren't, score doesn't sound like a very promising line of research, so you probably wouldn't care about it anyway.

Strategy: This is a Monarch-level variant and a low key game. In the wake of the pressure cooker that was Epic Forty-Seven, I hope you enjoy the change of pace. Also, this is a perfect time for lurkers to de-cloak and try a friendly, fun and agreeable little scenario. Come on, it's spring time. The birds are singing. The flowers are blooming. Your work in the lab is calling you...

Mapstat: You really ought to be too busy to need to check mapstat, but if you absolutely insist that it is essential to your research, I'm sure nobody (in this case) would mind if you assign one of your lab monkeys to work on it for you -- AS LONG AS the use doesn't break any of the above variant rules. (Checking what techs your rivals have would be a no-no.)

Closing Day: Monday, May 9. Reports due by Tuesday May 10.

Download Epic Forty-eight!