#civilization 6

Hello everyone! I'm here with a "new" challenge for all of you to try and enjoy... but first, I need play testers and feedback!

This challenge began as an amalgamation of BaCC (Build a City), ToT (Test of Time) and the most basic Legacy challenges because I tend to mash them up in my gameplay anyway. Then, while playing CIV VI, I began noticing things that I could make my sims do as well, and the idea snowballed from there. So, here we are:

THE SIMS 4 CIVILIZATIONS CHALLENGE

Your goal is to advance through the ages of human civilization and build a flourishing kingdom or several. That's basically it. If you want to treat it as a legacy challenge as well, you can have one main family and have them become the rulers of your world. This challenge is still very much a WIP and I've tried keeping the rules as flexible and accessible as possible, so that everyone can enjoy it in their own preferred way without it being too easy nor too difficult. Prepare for it to be LONG, though.

Here's a link to the spreadsheet (WIP) with rules!

...and here's a link to the (very messy) graphic that I use to help organize my thoughts and combine tech/civic trees from different iterations of CIV because I've fallen into a bottomless rabbithole (in case you care about stuff like this).

A HUGE THANK YOU to ts4-bacc (Purzel and DaisyDezem) for their original BaCC rules which I heavily relied on. I hope they don't mind me borrowing their challenge template and tweaking it. HannahCanada also deserves big thanks for their TS3 BaCC ruleset which I also used as inspiration. Go give these wonderful, creative people some love. Really, without their ruleset, this challenge would not exist.

But now, I need all of you's help.

I tried my best to make the challenge as versatile and fun as I could, but I keep hitting creative blocks with the requirements. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to hear your opinions and suggestions, as I know the community is nothing if not inventive with stuff to make the game more fun (thanks, EA, for forcing us to be resourceful). Please send whatever thoughts, ideas and criticisms about the challenge my way, and I shall try to incorporate them into the challenge.

But what's really funny is that each new installment leans harder into this idea then the last. With Civ 7 making it so that leaders aren't even tied down to their 'historic' civilizations (meaning you can't even argue the 'national personification' thing anymore) and since Civs can change while leaders can't, that means that leaders are also the only constant across an entire campaign.

This means, for example, in the universe of Civilization, the likes of Gaius Octavius, Hatshepsut, Napoleon, and even Gandhi are constantly reborn, take up leadership of a small singular village, live for uncountable eons (unless slain by another Leader or dethroned), rebuild the same nation, people, empire over and over and over again with only slight variations, until one achieves victory over the others (be it by sending their people into the stars, building a society that culturally subsumes all others, conquering the world, or otherwise somehow 'winning history' by the metrics they held dear in their mortal lives) and gains...nothing as far as we know.

We don't know if they wither to dust instantly Gothel style, or reign until the heat death of the universe, or begin aging and live out a mortal life for however long remains to them. All we know for certain is that they are right back there again at the stone age as soon as the next game starts, becoming chiefs of a tribe of thatched roved houses on some unrecognizable landmass, with nothing to do but start all over again from scratch. Build the same walls and monuments and wonders, fight the same endlessly shifting battles against the same rivals. Maybe this time Rome is stamped out in antiquity, and maybe this time is launches the first space colony. Maybe Egypt raises up the pyramids once more, and maybe they raise up the Colossus, or the Hanging Gardens, or Statue of Liberty, or the Sydney Opera House. Maybe Napoleon's France finally achieves perfect ideal democracy, or maybe his warring ways lead a coalition of Japan, China, the Gauls, and Sumerians facing off against him all over again. Maybe Gandhi decides mutually assured destruction is the only way to protect world peace. The names change, the lands and continents change, the ages change, eventually even the civilizations themselves change- Gaius finds himself the Emperor of Egypt and Hatsheput the Queen of the United States of America- but the only thing that doesn't change is the leaders. Their configurations vary and sometimes they face off against a newcomer they haven't before, but always it ultimately comes back to a group of immortal rulers- the great and the good, the wicked and the genius, the mad and the unlikely, and the just plain lucky that one and all ended up in the history books- who keep trying to take one more swing, one more run, one more turn at fulling the ambitions of their mortal life, and leading their people to glory.

Because the only way to break the cycle, to the end the game (both in universe and out) is to stop playing. Give up. Stop pushing that glowing little arrow button. Stop following the ambitions, the ideals, the dreams, the hopes that lead them here in the first place.