.1.332 Patch and Challenge 1 troubles

The June 2011 patch (.1.332) is out! For those of you brave souls who have started Challenge 1 but have not finished it, please be warned that your happiness (and every other superpower's) will take a nose-dive to the earth core, especially at the late stage of the game when most civilizations own 10+ cities.

My sincere recommendation is to delay the new patch until you have finished the challenge.

But I know most of you own the legitimate copy of the game, just like me! And it is too late to do anything about it since you are lazy (just like me!) and left "automatic update" checked on Steam. Now you are stuck in the valley of unhappiness! The only solution I know that works is to install the game (you might have to download a *cough* copy to avoid Steam) in a separate folder. Update that game version to .275. And play from that copy.

Or you may as well continue to play in the valley of unhappiness. Your production is miserable and you can barely launch any military campaign. You have barbarians plaguing the empire and you can't fight them properly... On the bright side, since the Level 9 AIs have no happiness cheats, they are just as unhappy as you (even more, because they must have got more cities than you. HAHA!)

Additional ongoing walkthroughs of Challenge 1

Besides my own walkthrough, there are others attempting the challenge and sharing their progress at the same time! Eventually, a copy of all walkthroughs will be also featured on this blog (with English translation of highlights). For now, let me give you the link of them to better follow:

1. Darius' way of military farming by Tinytime
http://www.civclub.net/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=89433&extra=page%3D2

2. Prince of Persia: For the Peace of Tomorrow by crossgate2003
http://www.civclub.net/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=89511&extra=page%3D1

3. The Lion of Mesopotamia by thwsl
http://www.civclub.net/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=89272&extra=page%3D3

The above three are all written in Chinese. Welcome submissions in other languages, too!

Challenge 1 Walkthrough (5) The Pikeman rush

031. The Pikeman rush kicks off! After upgrading five teams of Immortal Pikeman, I actually have a little leftover. In addition, I still have one tile of easy Cotton not harvested yet. So theoretically I can afford a larger army, but I didn't... anyway. Here they go!

032. After selling Ramey the next Cotton, he wants to declare friend. Normally this is an automatic no-no since Egypt is usually weak and hates warmongers. However, I happen to notice that Egypt is building a strong army from InfoAddict (next picture).

Indeed, it turned out that if I don't declare friendship with Egypt, Ramey is going to declare war on me and send 7-8 units to my home several turns later. That's not very nice! So here my friendship goes to Ramey... and he gladly picked another target to invade (and as usual, failed to accomplish anything).

033. The reason that I included the InfoAddict MOD in the game is more of a personal preference in walkthrough making, so the readers know exactly what happened even if the story didn't mention. Indeed, this MOD provides very valuable information to players that can't be obtained by the game, such as the military strength for everyone. Personally I think this MOD makes the game so much more fun (as we have a lot more data to look at to figure out the best strategy).

I lost the initial data because I switched from InfoAddict V13 to V14 at Turn 15 or so. And afterwards when I resume a save while entering the game fresh, I have to load that save twice in order for V14 to load correctly.

The largest army at the time was Spain, while Egypt recently experienced some rapid growth in military. The mass upgarde of the Persian Immortal army didn't really make a big difference in terms of the game's military strength calculation. And indeed they is not that much different than Immortals... (Strength from 8 to 10).

034. Even though I have a Pikeman army, which is independent of Iron, I still need some Iron to make Catapults and preferrably some Swordsman for home defense. From what I have explored, I know that there are two rich (+6) deposits of Iron far southwest of Persia. I also know from my pervious run that Hanoi also has a rich deposit of Iron.

p.s. At the moment, I didn't know that there is actually the fourth rich deposit just west of Persia. Somehow I skipped that critical area! After realizing my negligence, I adapted a completely diferent approach later.

So, at the moment, my bet went to Hanoi. I will occupy it for its Ivory and Incense. In order to avoid declaring war on City States twice and make my relations with City States drop twice as fast, I did not make peace with Hanoi after robbing its worker 40 turns ago. It was all planned from the beginning.

035. What are AI friends good for? Nothing. And they come begging for money at their earliest convenience (when their cash goes lower than a certain degree). In order to keep Ramey's cash from dropping below that begging line, I rented his Iron for home defense.

036. The invasion of Hanoi begins! Since it is a military City State, I expect a stronger resistance. And indeed it already had 5 units. The two Spearman units came out and attempted to block me off. But I have Archers to weaken them to a certain degree before my Pikeman finish them off with flanking bonuses. And the Pikeman recovers quickly due to their double-healing trait carried from Immortals.

037. Hanoi soon send over more units, one Archer and one Pikeman. My tactics remain the same - wearing down them with ranged attack before the melee untis finish them up with minimal damage. I also need to stay outside of the city's densive fire.

038. The Spearmans are gone, and the Pikeman will be history, too. Time to close in to the city!

039. I have five groups of Pikeman, so it should be easy... but the ever-present barbarian warrior arrives! Another group of Pikeman had to focus on healing or it will be killed (I was reluctant to waste promotion on Instant Healing, although I can and it will make this fight very easy).

040. The barbarians are handled promptly, and Hanoi is now a candidate of liberation (hopefully it will never come true)! A shameless barbarian camp is established just south of Hanoi, with a poor CS worker captured in there.

041. Persia still ranked very low on the demograph. But of course, it is only the beginning of the military campaign. If I can deal some serious damage to Spain with this army... or can I?

First Inductee of Level 9 Hall of Fame!

Contratulations to thwsl from CivClub. Thwsl achieved a Cultural Victory in Challenge 1 - Persia, Mesopotamia! Link to Hall of Fame is here.

This is what thwsl had in mind at the end (translated to English by maltz):

This map is very special: very large, very poor.

There are great gaps between the AIs, and their true power are not closely related to their apparent strength. There is only one thing that determines the AI's true powers - their birth place. There are too few river regions on the map. Without rivers, the AIs are doomed to endless poverty. Every turn, they suffer from deficits in the hundreds, which seriously hurt their technology. They keep turning up military units, but then the soldiers get disbanded due to the lack of upkeep fee. Basically, the poor AIs are rendered useless. In this game, Greece, Spain, Russia and Turkey are very weak. The other four are not much better off - just barely surviving.

China was very powerful in this game, completing the Manhattan Project in turn 170+ and swiftly destroyed Russia. But then she ran out of opponents due to her cornered birth place, and strangely changed lane to pursue a Cultural Victory with 40+ cities! That's just briliant.

I can't help but to say that this map is actually bigger than a Large map. A very good machine is required for Conquest victory - probably too much for me. And one should have a mental readiness to engage in nuclear warfare with the AIs.

Original text:

这图的特点鲜明：又大又穷。
这个图里AI的差距太大，而且AI强弱基本和本身实力没太大关系，决定AI强弱的只有一点：出生在哪里？ 这个图河太少，没河就要穷到爆。每天负几百的金，科技自然快不了，一边造兵，一边因为维护费被解散，基本没钱的AI全傻眼。所以这局中希腊，西班牙，俄国和土耳其非常弱。剩下4家其实也好不到哪去，算是能勉强度日的那种。
但天朝异常强悍，170+回合就完成了曼哈顿并马上灭了俄罗斯，可惜后来因为地域问题，没有对手了，居然改走了文化胜利路线，拿着40多个城还想文化胜利，虧她想的出来 。
但不得不说，这个图应该比大图还要大，要征服胜利，需要很好的机器，小弟个估计是没戏。而且要有和AI进行核大战的觉悟。

Challenge 1 Walkthrough (4) - Difficult decision - where first?

019. Met a group of Greek archers, probably promoted from Scouts through ruins. I think Alex is one of the most, if not the most formidable AI leaders. (1) Alex spreads cities like flu virus. He is guaranteed to be powerful in mid-late game if given enough space to develop. (2) Alex produces a lot of soldiers early game, so he is usually able to rush down a neighbor to make him an instant condender of victory. (3) Alex puts a very high focus on City States and is never willing to be bribed to attack them. This makes Alex a lot less exploitable than other warmongers such as Napoleon, Genghis Khan, Montazuma, and Oda.

However, those conditions are only fulfilled on a resource rich, crowded map such as Pangaea or Earth. On Mesopotamia and Level 9, I am eager to see how well Alex does here. I guess Alex is too far away from his closest neighbor to do any damage early on. I also suspect Alex will spawn too many soldiers to slow down his economy and his City State purchases.

020. It turned out that it was Suleiman that was fortunate enough to be born along the Nile river, arguably the best spot on the map - populus, rich, resourceful, and relatively isolated. He paid a fair price for Persian Cotton.

021. This is what my exploration turns up, with known locations of antient ruins (knowledge through two runs) marked with its icon. Of course, it will be hard to visit them all before the AIs' explorers. I am sure there are a lot more Ruins out there.

Persia is located in the middle of the map, with Arabia to the north, Egypt to the west, Spain to the East, and more distantly, Ottoman to the southwest and England to the northwest. Greece is likely northeast. I have not met Russia or China. They are likely blocked off by England to the west.

Being born in the center could be blessings or curses. Blessings: I can quickly meet with all other civilizations, sell my resources early, and pick the easiest and most profitable targets to start my expansion. Curses: everyone will likewise consider me as a target. It will be very troublesome on a small, crowded map. But on Mesopotamia and standard speed, invaders need to mass a huge number of more advanced units to really threaten my existence. And I doubt the AI will ever be that good. Even if it does, it will probably accept peace deals just before dealing any serious damage.

022. I mentioned a few times that this is not my first run. In my first run, I visited 3 +Culture ruins, and was able to pop Stonehenge with the free Great Enginner from Meritocracy at Turn 30 (that's really early). However, I found that both I and the AIs are too poor to sign enough RAs to keep my technology on par with the AIs. This means that I will have great difficulty grabbing the key wonders (Sistine Chapels, Christo Redentor) later on. Moreover, the starting place is not particularly rich in resources. I won't be able to afford a good army. And if the AIs ever declare war on me, I will have a hard time to sign an equal peace treaty.

So I decided to take a completely different approach - no RAs. No culture. I am going to direct all of the limited resources to one single goal - to become powerful.

023. In my second run, I only received 2 +Culture bonuses, and as a result I had a little delayed Meritocracy (still very early compared to regular games). But I got one extra population +1.

024. As planned, I converted the Great Scientist into an Academy. +6 Science becomes +9 by the National College. I was slightly worried that it will delay my Steel too much, but it turned out that the bottleneck is not technology, but cash.

The next decision will be game changing - where to attack first? It also took me 2 runs to figure out what to do, and it wasn't very intuitive. In order to show you my learning process, here comes the first run:

025. The first plan that came to my mind was that I am going to make a good Immortal army, promoted them to Pikeman as soon as possible, and along with two Scout-promoted Archers, I can do some serious damage on a very close neighbor - Spain. Then, I don't have to worry about my back.

So here I started purchasing Immortals.

026. Arabia asked for a declaration of friendship. I am not really afraid of Arabia attacking me, since Arabia's army is always on the small side. The only occassion that I would consider a declaration of friendship is that the AI can do serious damage on me if they declare war on the next few turns. Otherwise there is no point of making any AI friend, who loves to follow the declaration of friendship with shameless beggings.

027. As planned I popped my second city Pasargadae (I looked up its meaning, it is "Persia-Garden") . Surrounded by water on almost all sides, the city does look like a Garden and has the potential to reach a huge population later.

028. From both purchasing and building, I can prepare 5 groups of Immortals when Civil Service is done. (And Civil Service makes Immortals obsolete. So this is my last chance.) And my Archers return from their exploration trips right on time.

I was surprised that Arab declared war on Egypt. Normally a peace lover does not attack another peace lover. Maybe Harun has his mind on conquest this game.

029. The rich and distant English Queen wants to declare friends, too. Since I can still sell resources at full price without the friendship, there is really no point for it.

030. Civil Servce on Turn 50. England is so happy, while Alexander probably over-spawned his cities before properly developing his happiness resources at home.

The 5 Pikeman + 2 Archers army is ready to rock!

Challenge 1 Walkthrough (3) - National College or the alternatives

012. Since there are lots of empty spaces on the map, early game is a hyper rush for Ancient Ruins. Here my worker (stolen from Hanoi) has to compete with an Egyptian Warrior. I suspect that the AIs also know where the ruins are, as it makes a beeline to Ruin A. And if I grab it first, it makes a beeline to Ruin B. Now Ruin B is also grabbed by me. No ruins for you! Haha!

And I know where the ruins are because this is not my first run of the map. I actually made a map of ruins and plan my routes to maximize my results.

013. That ancient ruin turned out to give culture bonus. The second Worker for Persia!

010. First, sorry about the jumping of picture numbers. The story flows better this way.

Recently I read debates on whether National College (NC) start is actually better than two alternatives: (1) Spawn a few cities first, then NC, (2) Rush down an opponent with Warrios and Archers, then NC.

Alternative (1) gives a lot of early income, and (2) also gives a lot of early income (probably more, from peace treaty). So I tend to go NC first if I know I will have enough income. Otherwise I want to secure my finance situations first. Why early income? They can be used to buy units, buy City States, sign Research Agreements... being rich is never a bad idea.

From early exploration, I realized that there is only ONE good city founding sites nearby, and I don't have any close neighbor to take down. That means NC start is pretty much the only (good) start. It turned out that I was a little short on cash to purchase the library. So I took a little loan from the friendly Harun.

011. Now I can purchase a Library in Persepolis. I heard that advanced players play this game with a sense of "rhythm". For example, as soon as Writing becomes available, they purchase Library and start building the National College without wasting a single turn. I failed that because I got my Writing free from ruins a few turns earlier. (Can't complain about that.)

In addition, to show the true rhythm and mastery of the game, at the start of the National College's construction, the capital should have just finished something so there is nothing left in the queue. I was able to achieve it here (19 turns for 2 Scounts and 1 Monument) because I was delaying the construction of the NC purposely.

Maybe I am not advanced enough to appreciate the advantage of absolutely not wasting anything. Personally, I think this "rhythm" is more about aesthetics than actual importance. It looks great on a walkthrough, but there is no harm to leave something in the queue. The saved progress only gets lost when there are multiple items saved in the queue.

Why Monument after Scouts? I want to get a free Great Scientist from Meritocracy as soon as possible, and open an Academy with it. Then I will head straight to Steel with boosted research rate, upgrade a bunch of Long Swordsman, and rush down my first target.

The standard Long Swordsman rush is to pop Steel with the Great Scientist, or, in a rarer opportunity, pop Steel with the free tech from the Great Library rushed by the free Great Engineer from Meritocracy. That way, the player usually has the time to rush down 2 opponents before the AIs get Musketman. However, since civilizations are spaced far apart on this map, my second opponent will be so far away anyway that there is no way I can reach there before they get Musketman. So I may as well go for the Academy for some long-term benefit.

014. After purchasing the Library with just enough cash, I got into trouble - my turn income goes negative while I was focusing everything in the production of the National College. Every gold of budget deficit hurts my Research output by one after my gold goes down to 0. Luckily, I soon met with another City State. That will kept me floating for another 15 turns or so. And I will certainly find someway to get back into shape in between.

Both the Level 9 MOD and the Mesopotamia map makes the civilizations very poor. The same kind of embarrassment will certainly happen to the AIs later.

015. Another signature feature of Mesopotamia is that there are just so many shadowed tiles and therefore so damn many barbarians. I have to move my workers to safety and therefore lose a few turns on tree cutting (to accelerate the NC) and other improvements.

016. Researched Mining so I can sell Gems immediately (it is right beneath the feet of Persians). The AIs are not rich enough to pay cash. But it doesn't really matter as I don't need the cash in a hurry.

017. The Spanish Queen became friendly to Persia, so the Open Border can be sold for full 50 gold. Her income is still negative, so I guess the gold comes from City States greetings and +gold Ancient Ruins.

018. The National College is completed on Turn 30! What's the next priority? I'd say it is still the economy. All those Cottons are waiting to be harvested and sold. And the profit will be converted into a powerful army that will generate even more profits. It is time to pack up some Settlers!

A recent patch (probably .1.217) introduced an interesting feature - during the training of Settlers, the city does not mind to get into a huge food shortage. So the player only has to worry about maximizing the hammer count to get the Settler out as soon as possible.

Challenge 1 Walkthrough (2) - the first step to power and richness

As the vanilla Deity players we are all used to one thing - the AIs are so damn rich, and they soon make us so damn rich. Since money buys everything except wonders, we rarely have to worry about production. That's not the case anymore! Most of my armies and probably every building will be made in Persian sweat shops (not to imply there are any in Iran, of course).

p.s. All of my screenshots are 960 x 600 (already shrunk from its original site). When they are posted on the blog, they become 640 x 480 due to the blog format. You can click on the pictures to see the larger (960 x 600) version.

001. So where should I settle the capital? If this is Vanilla Diety, I'd say go two tiles north for the riverside plain. River = Garden = faster Great People later. For Level 9, I say screw that river and I want to swim in hammers. Deers = 3/2 (Granary, camp). Cow = 3/1 (Pasture). Not bad!

002. I decided to found the Persian capital Persepolis (Perse-polis, Persia-city) on the Gem Hill. This way I don't waste any precious citizen on harvesting the Gem - I get a lot richer in early game while not sacrificing population growth at the same time. A tiny early-game advantage is equal to a medium mid-game advantage, and a huge late-game advantage, if it ever matters.

My initial Warrior got transformed into an Immortal from the very first Ruin. Normally I scream when they become spearman, which is utterly useless. Now I am actually quite happy because Immortals have a potential to become one of the best promoted melees with March promotion, only second to those motivated by a Mongolian Khan.

003. Early-game bonus is great. Even 1 extra food boosts population growth by 50% (since the surplus goes from 2 to 3). Early extra population = a few turns saved for early techs. A few turns could mean life or death all the way! So the first tile purchase goes to Cows.

004. Very soon the Immortal visited an Ancient Ruin that gives +30 Culture. What policies are good here? Liberty is still the best for rapid growth.

005. The Immortal explores east and I can see a good spot to open the first branch city of the Persian Empire. Citizens will be able to work on the deer camp, the Riverside wheat on Plain, the Cottons... nice. 

I started Persepolis' production queue with 2 Scouts in a row to maximize my Ancient Ruin bonuses and to meet with potential buyers of Cottons. One Scout goes northwest, the other southwest. Both directions contain river tiles and probably the richer civilizations to sell my resources to. (Persia is in southern Mesopotamia.) The initial Immortal explores east.

006. There is yet another group of Cows to the west! Nice stuff! The second tile purchase also goes to the Cow.

007. The Immortal explores further and met a Military City State Hanoi. Hanoi already has a worker... an unprotected Worker. Free Initial Worker = awesome. Steal!

Here goes my only chance to declare war on City States without penalty. I kinda regretted this worker steal later on, as I soon found that a City State close to me has multiple Sugar, which could be sold for great profits. Of course, if I later come back to finish off Hanoi, I can have its Ivory and Incense. That's indeed another possibility to seriously think about later.

008. Met the first neighbor, Harun al-Rashid of Arabia. Harun is located north of Persia with a good number of River tiles. So he should be able to afford high-quality Persian Cotton.

009. Met another neighbor, Queen Isabella of Spain. Spain is located east of Persia. While at first Isabella doesn't want to pay for Persian's Open Border, her attitude will improve later on.

Isabella is spawned in a very problematic location for both Spain and Persia. Problem for Spain - this location has no river and is therefore one of the many poor places on the map. Her land turns out to be quite resources-poor, so that's even more unfortunate. Problem for Persia - this location has no other place to expand into but INTO Persia! 

Originally, I was thinking about getting rid of Spain first to secure my back. But then I looked at her income state... Those cities are probably not worth taking. I will have to burn most of them down, and then waste army to guard distant cities from endless barbarians from the southern desert. I should direct my precious first rush on somebody who can actually contribute to the Persian empire's financial state.

But then Spain will be a pain in the ass. 

Challenge 1 Walkthrough (1) - Pre-game planning

In order to hopefully show that the Level 9 is winnable but requires careful thinking and unyielding persistence, I am going to attempt the challenges at the same time as everyone. My way may not be the most effective. I definitely wish to hear your story on this challenge, no matter the outcome. All stories will be permanently featured on this site. Please simply contact me or reply on this blog.

As mentioned in the tips posts, this map has very low happiness and gold, and it favors a defensive approach. So I am going to skip conquest and leave it to the greatest minds. I will pick one from Cultural, Technology, or Diplomatic victory. (Can't imagine the AIs will delay their space ship launch to the maximum turn.)

The first path to victory that comes to my mind is Cultural victory. From experience, I know Cultural Victory is the least dependent on Happiness - since the empire will be small, and the policies and occassional City State allies should handle unhappiness easily.

Gold could post a problem for Research Agreements. Without enough RAs, the player will drop hopelessly behind the AIs to reach those key techs that enable the completion of key wonders. Without enough gold, the player can't even purchase enough Cultural City States in early game.

While under ideal conditions, Cultural victory can be reached around Turn 220+. However, here I probably need 250 - 270 turns. That could be too late to beat Level 9 AI's Technology victory, which should happen earlier than Level 8 (Turn 270 or so).

Technology and Diplomatic victories are very similar in the first 3/4 of the game. I need to be powerfully rich to buy City States and make good use of their research contribution. That sounds hard on this map, but if I have a  powerfully militarily, it should be able to beat down at least one opponent at the beginning. Then, through subsequent victories either offensively or defensively, I may be able to profit more from AIs. Ideally, I will milk, one way or another, every penny from the other 8 civilizations.

Here we go!

More Tips for Challenge 1

Here comes some more thoughts from my preliminary attempts. This is by no means an easy challenge.

1. This map puts great strain on the two key basic game elements: Happiness and Gold.


2. Luxurious resources are hard to collect. It is extremely rare to find a city that has two different luxurious resources. Regions that host rich luxuries will be highly desired by everyone.


3. Luxurious resources are hard to keep. The barbarians of Mesopotamia, which outnumber any Civilization's army, follow the order of their mastermind. They will grab any oppurtunity to burn down under-defended territories.


4. Due to the low number of luxurious resources and riverside tiles, gold is very hard to come by. Most regions on the map are so poor that controlling them could do more harm than good.


5. The Level 9 MOD purposely removed AI's gold cheat to avoid human players' dramagic growth from exploitable diplomatic deals. That means the human can't get a lot of gold from the gullible AIs, either.


6. Those being said, the map also has one unusual potential advantage that are rarely seen in regular games: Distance.


7. An advanced army could have lost its technological or numerical edge by the time it finally arrives at its target of invasion. The human may suffer from it as the offender, or profit from it as the defender.


8. The success of this game depends on how well the player capitalize distance and modify traditional strategies that hugely depend on gold and happiness - we have taken them for granted until now.

Level 9 Hall of Fame

This Hall of Fame pays tribute to the courageous, diligent, cunning, and ever learning and evolving Civ 5 players' mind.

Challenge 1 - Persia, Mesopotamia

June 9 - July 9, 2011

Name - Victory Type - Turn - Date of Submission - Link to Story/Screenshots
Thwsl - Cultural - 289 - 2011-06-16, Here
Maltz - Diplomatic - 222 - 2011-07-03, Walkthrough available on the blog
Crossgate2003 - Conquest - 311 - 2011-07-15, Walkthrough available on the blog

Some (might not be useful) tips for Challenge 1.

Here comes some of my thoughts about Challenge 1. Hope they help your game.

1. Mesopotamia is a very special DLC map. It has standard-sized dimensions, but is actually a lot bigger than standard Pangaea, Earth, Continents, etc. that players have grown used to, because only a small portion of Mesopotamia is ocean. As a result, civilizations are spaced very far apart. It takes 40+ turns to march from one end to another. Conquest victory is much harder than usual.


2. Mesopotamia has two distinctive terrain: the rich terrain, and the poor terrain. About 70% of the map is poor terrain, which does not have enough luxurious resources to support city spawns. The good terrain are where the rivers are. Fortunately, Darius is born on one of the two river-rich regions. Unfortunately, Darius' good terrain is quite limited.


3. Darius' birth place is located at the center of the map. Expect frequent use of diplomacy and probably inevitable miliatry actions from the ever-warmongering AIs.


4. Since there are lots of empty spaces on the map, expect ruthless barbarian harassment throughout the game. Multiple garrison units are needed in most regions. Luckily, the AIs' barbarian fighting bonus have been removed in Level 9, so they get as much headache as you do.

Good luck!

Challenge 1 - Persia, Mesopotamia

Level 9 Challenge 1 - Persia, Mesopotamia


Map: Official Mesopotamia (Standard Size)
Speed: Standard
AIs: Mesopotamia locals (Arabia, Egypt, Greece, Ottoman) plus 4 lovely Empress and Queens (China, England, Russia, Spain - DLC required) - 9 Civs + 16 City States
Advanced Settings: all default
MODS: Level 9 Difficulty X ver 2 beta (currently NOT available through MOD Hub), InfoAddict V13 (also available through MOD Hub)
Game version: .1.275 or the most recent update
Challenge Period: From June 9th to July 9th, 2011

Note: As of June 10, 2011, InfoAddict V14 has become available on Steam. V14 claims to fix the long End Turn problem brought by V13. It is up to you whether to use V13 or V14, or switch to V14 as early as possible. All data recorded by V13 will be lost upon the switch to V14, unfortunately.

Click on the pictures to enlarge.

Starting Save: Download Here

Rules: No restrictions except that the game must not be altered in any way by external means (trainer, additional MODs, World Builder, etc.).

Victory Condition: No restriction.

Incentive: All participants, no matter successful or not, will be entered into the Level 9 Hall of Fame!

How to Participate: Simply post your progress and results on this blog! 

Instruction for MOD Installation

(A) Manual Installation

1. Download the MOD and decompress it.
2. Put the MOD folder into the game's My Document\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization V\MOD folder.
3. Start the game. Go to MODS.
4. Go to Browse Mods. Activate the MOD.
It should look something like this (the other mods are not required):

5. Start a new game, or Load a pre-saved modded game after entering main menu's MODS.
6. Go to Advanced Settings and manually pick "X, the 9th difficulty".

7. The correct difficulty "X" icon should display. You can then start the game!

IMPORTANT: One must enter MODS before loading a modded save, or the game crashes!!

(B) In-game (Steam) Installation

The MOD is also available on MOD Hub. Thanks to Pouakai for uploading it for me. (Shamefully I haven't figured out how to upload the MOD!)

1. Start the game. Go to MODS.
2. Go to Browse Mods and do an online search and you should be able to find it. The MOD is called the 9th level Difficulty X.
3. Download the MOD, Install it, and Activate it. See picture above.
4. The rest is identical to the section above.

Note: For challenge 1 you MUST manually install Ver 2 beta because it has not been updated on MOD Hub yet. Sorry for your inconvenience.

(C) Uninstall (of an older version)

Simply deactivate the MOD from Browse MOD and delete it.

Screenshots during MOD testing and running

Click to Enlarge Pictures

Challenges throughout the game - never boring after Renaissance.

Can the line of Mechanized Infantry penetrate the sea of Artillery?

Monty is ready to wipe the human player off the map!

A few turns of difference could mean live or death. This is death.