Do you ever play with special "rules" and " restrictions" to change things up and make things difficult/fun in unique ways?

In another thread I posted a comment about how I like to play with my own rules and restrictions to change things up.

There were some great responses and it made me wonder who else does this and what your special rules you have tried are!

Please let me know, I would love to try them out!

Below are some I have done and enjoyed.

World Police:

  • To win you must get any victory conditions with the rules below. If the game ends with another Civ owning a city they did not build you lose.
  • You are only allowed your Capital. (You can add more cities if you want to make things easier for military support size).
  • You must come to the aid of any Civ or City-state that gets attacked.
  • You must liberate any captured cities on the map and return them to the original owner. (Capture and then selling the city back to them is also allowed.)
  • City-states taken peacefully by Venice or Austria chose their fate and don't need to be saved. (Unless you want to.)

Barbarian Civ:

  • To win get a domination victory with the rules below.
  • You have to be at war with all civs and city-states at all times.
  • You cannot build cities.
  • You cannot build workers, they can only be captured.
  • Any non-capital city you take you can raze or keep, but a kept city must be annexed, and can only build military units. You must sell any promotion buildings like barracks.
  • Captured capitals must be annexed and they can only build military units. You must sell any promotion buildings like barracks.
  • You can build whatever you want in your capital expect for Barracks.

The city restrictions are ment to make them "super barb camps". It is also tough with no trade routes, so you have to be creative getting cash through combat etc.

City-state alliance:

  • To win you must be allied with all city-states with the maximum amount of City-states on a Huge map for 1 full turn.
  • You are only allowed your capital city making you a city state.
  • You cannot capture any Civ cities.
  • You must revive and/or protect any city-states that are Attacked or captured
  • You can only have trade routes with City-states.

City-state domination:

  • To win you must capture all city-states with the maximum amount of city-states on a huge map.
  • You must be at war with all city-states at all times.
  • You cannot build any cities.
  • You cannot capture or own any Civ cities.
  • You can annex City-states you capture, but you must have at least 3 other captured City-states as puppets for every annexed city.

Isolated Nation:

  • Win any victory condition with the rules below.
  • You cannot make any diplomatic deals or agreements with other Civs. (Peace agreements are allowed, but no trading allowed in the deal.)
  • You cannot capture any cities.
  • You cannot have trade routes with any Civs.
  • No City-States on map.
  • You cannot declare war on civs.
  • Spies can only be used for defence.

A couple other quick ones I've tried are:

  1. Melee unit only domination victory.
  2. No military units. (You must delete your starting units.)
  3. The only buildings you can build are Wonders.

Let me know what you think, and if you have any suggestions for rules changes or add-ons. I am always tweaking these rules for myself.