[Anonymous Player]

I am interested in attempting an eco-friendly challenge, with the goal of achieving a great victory in a dark age start while using as few natural resources as possible (other than farms).

As I am not very good at interpreting percentages, I would like to ask for advice on which civilizations are the least resource-intensive and what other strategies or tips I should be aware of.

Is it possible to succeed with fewer resources or is a high amount of resources unavoidable?

[Nesqu]

Ah, you mean the modern capitalist approach.

Saracens, just mine gold and market up to imp.

Nevermind the ecological impact of the mines.

[Unbridledscum]

Mayans have longer lasting resources which technically makes them less ecologically destructive.

However, Khmer don’t need buildings to go up an age, so you won’t even need a mill for farms.

IF you just want to have a normal game but leave a smaller carbon footprint then I think Mayans have to be the way to go.

Otherwise, I’d suggest you look at the Khmer.

I know this is your own challenge, but I couldn’t help myself from trying to work out how I’d do it, so I’ve put that in spoilers below.

​

1. >!Don’t build any villagers.

Build two farms at the start for +350 food and -120 wood.

This takes you to feudal-age.!<
2. >!Chop one straggler tree for +100 wood and build a market.!<
3. >!Sell 200 stone for 179 gold and buy 100 wood for 130 gold.

Now you’ve got 50 food, 5 wood, 149 gold, 0 stone.!<
4. >!Chop one straggler tree for +100 and build a trade cart if you have an ally, and done!

Otherwise, chop three straggler trees for +300 wood instead.!<
5. >!Build 5 farms for +875 food for a total of 925 food.!<
6. >!Sell 100 food for 70 gold for a total of 825 food and 219 gold and 5 wood and click up.!<
7. >!Get 170 wood and 81 gold in the least ecologically destructive way possible.!<
8. >!Build a monastery, build a monk, find a relic.!<
9. >!Pretty much done!!<

[Blocklies]

This is pretty hard but my choices are either, Italians, Saracens, Turks, Poles or Gurjaras.

Saracens, Poles and Turks are awesome at abusing the market, poles also get healing vills so you can survive raids easier.

Gurjaras can just wall forever and wait for their mills to get enough for imp.

Italians have cheaper ships and age ups so you can just spam ships and need less food to reach imperial age.

Cheaper bombards can also destroy enemy trebs and cheaper uni techs gives you lots of value (treadmill crane, murder holes, chem, masonry, etc.)

[SCCH28]

I think that gurjaras is a must.

You can garrison sheep and other herdable animals and they will produce food over time.

Some megarandom generations have many many animals and you can also steal then from the enemy (saving them from sure death).

Each new animal produces less food per minute than the others, but anyway.

One could argue that chopping stragglers is not as bad as chopping a forest.

Similarly one could argue that you can take some berries and mine some gold and stone without depleting any single tile of resource.

Maybe not the same applies for fish as that kills animals?

Portuguese can build feutorias but only in imp.

If you can manage to sneak trade (walling the enemy market or something like that, if the enemy is for example an easiest AI) then that’s good for any civ, bit spanish produce extra gold and banegalis produce food with trade.

[viiksitimali]

Are fishing ships allowed?

[L0has]

so if you want to gather as few natural food and wood as possible, teutons with their cheap farms should be good.

Do mill upgrades as soon as possible to maximise the food per wood cost ratio.

if you care more about the time it takes instead of the wood needed, poles and slavs with their high farming speed would be better.

if you consider fish traps nature friendly, using malay and their cheap fish traps might also be an option.

[DukeCanada]

Khmer maybe?

or Saracens.

[1mdelightful]

How much would a Generic Civ actually need?

Starting resources:

|Wood|Food|Gold|Stone|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|200|200|100|200|

2 Dark Age buildings: 200 wood

500 Food: 3 Farms: 180 wood => 525 food

2 Feudal Age Buildings: 150 BlackSmith + 175 Market = 325w

5 no horse collar farms: 300w => 875f

4 horse collar farms: 240w =>1000f

21 gold for Monk assuming you sell Stone for 179 gold

Monastery: 175w

Minimum resources needed minus starting resources and selling stone.

|Wood|Gold|
|:-|:-|
|980|21|

Trees on ladder games have 125 wood.

Gold Piles 800 gold

So a Generic Civ would need to collect 980 wood and 21 gold which amounts to 8 trees and 1 gold pile.

Gurjaras: Need to collect 500 wood => 4 trees

Dravidians: Need to collect 580 wood and 21 gold. => 5 trees 1 gold

Sicilians: Need to collect 980 wood => 8 trees but no gold

Franks: Need to collect 920 wood => 8 trees 1 gold

Khmer: Need to collect 630 wood => 6 trees 1 gold

Mayans: Need to collect 980 wood => 7 trees 1 gold

I started a calculation for Portuguese taking berries but it came up really short.

Khmeer Still need to make Market and Monastery.

[insta_eugenocider]

mayan cheap chin expensive.

or trade cart eco teams.

[_genade]

– Portuguese can build Feitoria in Imperial Age, providing infinite resources while taking nothing from the environment
– Gurjaras can garrison their Sheep inside Mills, giving you infinite food over time
– Burgundian Relics provide food in addition to gold
– Teuton Farms cost less wood, so require you to chop down fewer trees
– Sicilian Farms provide more food after researching farm upgrades, so you need to replenish them less often
– Malay Fish Traps are cheap and last a very long time
– Mayan resources last longer, so e.g.

they can mine 960 gold from a gold mine that normally is exhausted after mining 800 gold

The best way to do your challenge specifically is with Gurjara sheep, Relics and a lot of Market usage.

You won’t need to mine anything and I think you only need to cut down two trees (for a Mill, a second Dark Age building to go up, and a Market to start selling your food).

[PhyrexianRogue]

Do you still need to beat an opponent, or is this only against the resource waste?

Because Gurjara’s have that ‘herdables generate food’ bonus that could theoretically give most of the resources you need if you have infinite time. (Would still need to chop a straggler or two to afford market to turn the food into everything else)

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