What "Challenge Modes" have you come up with for your playthroughs?

[Onikage]

This came up in another discussion recently and depending on engagement, maybe this is something Devs/Mods can pin. This thread is about self-imposed Rules for your game AND/OR Customization Settings you set up for your game. I think someone was mentioning "No buying from vendors" and another had "1000% Tax Rate" or something crazy lol. Someone else had "No building in the first year" which actually sounds really interesting.

My personal one is 768 Crops (3 16x16 Fields) in First Spring, Flax/Wheat/Oat. The only customization I do is Fast Build and Fast Craft. I've tried using Workers but they are really slow when it comes to farming because they physically need to go to the farmland to work so they can't even start helping till they walk all the way to your city.
The biggest hurdles for this is transporting Fertilizer/Manure and affording all the seeds, you don't have a lot of time to run around salvaging to sell stuff, usually a lot of stealing is involved. I haven't been able to do all 3 yet but I'm getting close.
What are some challenges you've set for yourself?

[Maehlice]

Sit this one out. No selling to vendors, no contributing to the storehouse except for quest rewards, and you're not allowed to do any "work" after doing only the bare minimum to get the village started. (It's solo self-found from the village's perspective. Basically, you're not allowed to use your super-powers for the village.)

Noah's ark. For the entirety of the dynasty, you may only purchase one male and one female of each animal.

Outside the box. All buildings must not align along the cardinal directions, they must have space around them at least equal to their own footprint, and they must not share similar orientation with any nearby building. (No box-grid cities is the intent.)

Form before function. You're not allowed to build another building until the current one has been decorated. It needs at least a fence, seating equal to its occupancy, one workstation, and one decoration of any type.

H2 oh no. Villagers may not drink water after the 2nd year.

[bmnoble981]

My current one I have just started just about to start winter of the first year standard 3 day season length, going to be a long term save since I don't have much time to play, going to see how long I can keep up my motivation up to continue the save.

Planning to do it as a small family farm in the Oxbow, at most planning to eventually recruit 2 households to help out with jobs, other than that the only growth of the village will be when one of the kids is ready for a spouse.

Double taxes/food/water/firewood plan to increase it if it feels too easy, no fast building/crafting. Also double enemy/animal hit points and damage.

50% XP rate for both me and my people, no skill perks that increase yields from farming/hunting/mining etc...

No hunting lodge, will do the hunting myself.

1000% tech points rate though, I can put up with lower quality tools just hate taking forever to unlock the buildings and decorations that I want to make use of. No mine building till year 10 mostly because that is when I would usually unlock it if playing at 100% tech points.

Make use of copper tools for the first 5 years, bronze for the second 5 years, only then will I switch to iron tools to offset the faster tech rate.

Started planting a 100 fruit tree orchard, 25 of each.

As for farmland 3, 5 by 5 fields of cabbage to create rot for fertilizer, one 5 by 5 field for each of the other crop types excluding poppies that I never really make use of. So it will work out to 10, 5 by 5 fields or 250 farm plots.

Currently selling copper knives to raise funds, once the farm/orchard is up and running plan to switch to making cash off the excess produce.

[L伯特]

1. No stealing.
2. Racimir/Main character eats fully (100%) twice a day.
3. Villagers needs: Food (999%) Water (999%) Firewood (333%)
4. Only using or buying tools/weapons/foods/clothes that can be crafted/cooked/sewed only. (Loots found to be sold)
5. Only hunt male deer and moose. (Buck for deer/Stag for moose)
6. No cutting of birch trees.
7. No use of any potions.
8. No buying of farm fields-related resources. (Seeds/Grains/Saplings/Manure/Fertilizer)(Loots found only)
9. Only allow to recruit one villager per year. (Before recruiting, the house must be fully insulated)
10. Villagers only eat foods served on bowls/plates or baked.
11. Sleep every night.
12. No wagon riding if overloaded.
13. Recruited villagers could only have one profession for life. (No switching professions before the season ends)
14. Recruited villager's all six stats must be more than two.
15. Villagers must have one of the stats at six before getting married.
16. Racimir marry when the Chapter's quest for marriage is unlocked. (Tenth year for Oxbow)
17. Only allow to buy one young male and one young female for each type of farm animal.
18. Villager management occurs in person, by building signs or through villagers, except for the first arrangement after recruitment.
19. Children must be over twenty-one before moving out from their parent's house.
20. Villagers must be paid annually and deposited manually in their houses' chests. (One thousand per year for the first ten years and increase another one thousand for the next ten years and so forth)
21. If villagers are recruited in mid-year, villagers must be paid for the remaining seasons too. (Two hundred and fifty per season if that village's year is under ten years and increase accordingly)
22. Before recruiting villagers, provide them with one set of the newest warm and winter clothes in their houses' chests.
23. Provide every occupied house with one set of the latest shields and weapons.
24. If Racimir/Main character is dead, dump five hundred into random loot spawn points. (Increase another five hundred for the next death and so forth)

These are my role-play self-imposed rules for my current game. As I recall tax was set at 300% and experience/technology gains were set at the lowest 10%. I give myself a 5-day season and durability loss for clothes and tools at 50% with fast craft fast build and double enemy/animal hit points/damage.

[Milinia]

The biggest rule in my current playthough, is other than a wife, Racimir is only aloud to recruit special NPCs for his village. So far he recruited the farmer and the fisherman who are happily living together.

My other big rule is no tree cutting, except for the 3 in the beginning for the chapter quest.

Other rules are
- Only sell stuff to the appropriate vendor. A cook is not interested in axes and hoods.
- Only aloud to buy one female and one male baby animal of each kind.
- Run from bandits and dangerous animals unless they need to be killed for story or chapter quests.
- No whistling for horse or donkey.

I am also thinking of not having a mine and smithy and just buying the tools I need if I cannot find them on the road.

[Morri]

Originally posted by KBT市井小民:

20. Villagers must be paid annually and deposited manually in their houses' chests. (One thousand per year for the first ten years and increase another one thousand for the next ten years and so forth)

O, I really like that idea!! I'm going to see how to incorporate that one in my playthrough. 1000 per villager might be a bit much for me due to the 1000% taxes and the other restrictions i play with already, but maybe i'll let it depend on village development level.

[kimlaone]

Playing in Oxbow, for a girl.

-- A complex game mode, i.e. taxes, peasants' needs, animal and bandit damage by 200 percent. But the dynasty reputation multiplier is the smallest - 10 percent. I have a season of 11 days.
-- In the first season, my character can't run (I think she's still recovering from an attack by bandits). I also gave her a scar on her face and then over the next 2 seasons, I gradually removed it through Sedovin's haircut (as if the wounds were healing).
-- No breaking the law, no stealing, paying taxes on time.
-- Every night the character must sleep (in his own home if he has one, by a fire if he is far away, or in Sedovin's hospital if he spends the night near Piastovia).
-- The character cannot cut down large trees (pines, maples, and large birches). Only thin birch trees for the first house and wood shed (then a woodcutter is hired and he delivers the logs to us). My character can no longer cut down trees from this point on.
-- One house or one field per season. Now it is the summer of my third year, so I have a total of 10 buildings - 5 houses (for me and 8 villagers), a woodshed, a hunting shed, a barn, one 8x8 field (I build all fields like this), and a well. Next season I will build a workshop for two villagers who are unemployed. And then I'll think what to build first - either a new house or another field (or maybe I'll finally build storage facilities so that I don't have to carry all the mats around...
-- All women should be either younger than men, or at least the same age, but not older. If I have the opportunity to find a guy for an old woman (she is 28, he is 29 or 30, for example) - then I will rather invite these old men to my place. Even if there are younger peasants with the same skills. I just want to give old men a chance to start a family. The age difference should be no more than 4 years (better within 1-3). That is, a 19-year-old girl can be married to a man 20-22 years old, for example, and 23-25 ​​is already old for her.
-- The groom for my character should also be no older than her by 3-4 years. In addition, he should be an inventor by nature, have the skills of a craftsman (I will make him a blacksmith), have a pretty face and a beautiful or at least a good name. Now I have 2 candidates who have all the parameters except age (28 and 26 years old, my character is 20)... So I either have to wait 2-3 years or find someone younger than them during this time.
-- My girlfriend will be able to marry her fiancé only if his work skill is 5 or higher. She will only get pregnant if the man has 7 or higher work skill.
-- One field (8x8) - one crop. Right now, while I have one field, I plant everything on it. But ideally, when I make all the fields, I will not change the crops planted on them every season, even if there is an opportunity.
-- All villagers initially receive a house made of sticks, and for good deeds for the village - improvements for the house (insulation, rebuilding to wood and stone, various decorations for the walls, and so on). Good deeds are - improving skills, getting married, getting pregnant, having a child, then maybe it will be at a certain age of the child - 2 years, 7, 14, 18)...
-- When I buy livestock or poultry, they must be babies (only 2 small chickens, or 2 piglets for breeding). Adults cannot be bought.
-- There must be only 1 working building in the village (you cannot build 2 forges or 3 kitchens there, and so on). You cannot even build a level 1 and 2 building - you can only replace one level higher.
-- When a woman goes on maternity leave, her workplace remains assigned to her (I even write the names of the workers on the workplaces to know who works where). You cannot hire another worker in her place, even temporarily. So I either have to do her work myself, or other villagers have to do it (for example, if there were 2 or more workplaces in the building).
-- Every child in the village should receive a gift every season.

[🎮AliveSince1961🎮]

Originally posted by Maehlice:

Noah's ark. For the entirety of the dynasty, you may only purchase one male and one female of each animal.

What's more, I decide to plant just one seed of each crop and replant the harvest until my fields are full.

[Foxglovez]

No stealing.
Trees and grains only from looting. No buying. (Reevaluate tree situation at yr 25)
New villagers can't have any 1s unless they have four 3s otherwise only three 3s, three 2s or better.
No new marriage till a baby is born.
Fields can only be max of 5x10, single crop per field. They slowly grow into the full field size from harvesting.
No pigs and Noah's ark as above for the rest of the critters.
All houses must be stone, insulated with the 10 decos for mood before lived in.
By yr 20 all beds n fireplaces must be upgraded and any houses built after that must be fully upgraded before can be lived in. This ain't no ghetto.
Only one storage building of each type because I'm a hoarder and need to get over it.

[issssk]

- be home and in bed by midnight
- wife and kid get a gift each season
- each house must have windows, lanterns, a fence, garden, washing barrel and an apple tree.

[Morri]

Originally posted by Foxglovez:

Only one storage building of each type because I'm a hoarder and need to get over it.

I felt that one! :-)