Ancient Greece is great and all, but how does it stack up against the Candy Kingdom or the Nightosphere? For you Adventure Time fans, the time has come to find out. The Adventure Time collection of mods (by modder “The Man With The Eyebrows”) lets you play Civilization V as Finn the Human, Princess Bubblegum, Marceline, Ice King, Fire Princess, and even that guy who really smells like dog buns, the Earl of Lemongrab. Come on, grab your friends, and go to very hostile lands.
First off, these mods require Gods and Kings or Brave New World, or both. You can check the requirements on the collection page here . Also, don't expect a major graphic or audio overhaul of the game, because there isn't one. For instance, there's no 3D representation of Finn's Tree Fort or Ice King's mountain, you won't see Princess Bubblegum's famous Banana Guard sacking enemy cities, and you won't hear Lemongrab shriek “UNACCEPTABLE” as he's invaded by the Ghandi's war elephants. The changes are largely limited to the text panes, and the attributes of unique units, abilities, and buildings. So, it requires a little imagination (ironically, the one thing Finn himself is completely devoid of).
I decided to start as Ice King, sending my settlers (who, in my mind, are comprised of a bunch of penguins) to look for a nice frosty mountaintop to found the Ice Kingdom. I find a likely looking spot, surrounded by snow, cold ocean water, and imposing glaciers, and get to work.
Once I've founded the kingdom, I send my warriors out to clear out a few nearby barbaric hordes and explore a bit, and I send my workers out to build farms. As Ice King, in possession of Ice Magic, you can treat frozen tundra like other civilizations treat grasslands, so I have my workers go out and build snow farms on every inch of available land.
What the hell is a snow farm? I have no idea. But a massive collection of snow farms seems like something Ice King would want on his land, right? I can almost hear him in my head, trying to explain the logic of snow farms. “Ya know... snow fawwms! There's little fawwmers made outta snow... they plant snow seeds, they grow into... snow vegetables. There's little snow pigs and snow cows and the fawwmer's wife, ohh, she's an icy little numbah, heh heh. Oh, look, ovah there! Someone's gettin' hit in the boingaloings!”
I research animal husbandry, what with all the penguin weddings I'll probably be presiding over. I also study writing (something I should probably do in real life at some point) so Ice King can unlock his unique building, the Fan Fiction Workshop, which replaces Civ V's coliseum. What with all the Fionna and Cake stories Ice King is going to be writing, he'll need a place to write them, read them, and reenact them for all the penguin couples and captive princesses.
Another perk of being Ice King is that you can treat ice the way other civilizations treat the ocean. So, when I invent boats and head out onto the sea, if I happen to run into glaciers (and there are tons of glaciers in the waters near my kingdom) I can just sail right through them. That's some good Ice Magic! I also adopt the Goddess of Love, because I'm sure Ice King would be bonkers over her.
Everything is going pretty swimmingly for a good long while. I've got snow farms all over the damn place, churning out snow crops, and and I've even founded a second city, Snow Fields, and (mentally) put Gunter in charge of it. Then, Attila the Hun, that big bully, suddenly decides he doesn't like me and invades. What's his problem? It's not like I abducted Hun Princess or anything. Though I probably would have if she existed and it was an option.
Anyway, the Huns invade and pretty quickly destroy my armies and sack my cities. I do my best to hold them off, but while I've been dorking around sailing boats through glaciers and farming snow, Attila has been apparently churning out an algebraic amount of warriors. The Ice Kingdom is eventually taken and Gunter, over in Snow Fields, can do nothing but make a peace deal. Poor Ice King flaps his beard and floats away, misunderstood as ever.
I also played as Finn for a bit, because how can you not? Finn's Adventurer unit, which replaces the Warrior, gets a combat bonus in enemy territory and earns gold after killing an enemy, because the Tree Fort needs to be constantly stocked with riches that Finn, as far as I can tell, doesn't really care about. Finn also gets a bonus to City-State relationships, which degrade slower, because Finn is such a friendly, helpful guy. Finn's Tree Fort also gives a happiness bonus, and requires no maintenance.
You can also create the Fire Kingdom and play as the volatile Flame Princess, which will let you raze cities in considerably less time (fire does tend to do that). Marceline, meanwhile, can build vampire armies who do extra damage against wounded enemies and partially heal themselves automatically upon making a kill. Princess Bubblegum's unique ability gives her a healthy 20% boost to science, any pikemen she produces are replaced by the Banana Guard, who are cheaper and fight better close to home, and she can build a candy factory instead of a granary, which adds to the yield of sugar, bananas, and citrus.
Speaking of citrus, it wouldn't be Adventure Time without the Earl of Lemongrab. Due to his insane shrieking, Lemongrab does not do well in relationships with City-States; in fact, he cannot form relationships with them at all. He does get some production bonuses, however, possibly because he can just create new citizens in his Lemon Lab. That's acceptable!
Installation : These mods are all on the Steam Workshop, so you can find them here , and subscribe to any/all you want to play with. Totally math!
