The Always War Challenge #3 - Ethiopia Deity

Acken said:

Currently giving it a try. Biggest problem is gold.

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Totally true.

Yeah, you're probably right, guys. The civ I chose wasn't the best. However, I was hedging my bets. I wasn't sure if this would be easy, do-able, or nigh-on impossible, so I chose a civ that is generically OK, plus they are good at defence. But in all honesty if Acken is struggling, and no one has gotten to the Industrial, then it's just plain suck, isn't it? Even with Horse Archers, what are you gonna do against Golden Age Pikes?

FYI we're on page 2 so I'm no longer using spoilers

I don't think it's just the civ(although that is a factor), it's a combination of the civ, the horrible start(1 lux, 1 gold tile without Mausoleum, 3 quarry resources but Plains start so you have to settle on the flat Grassland to build Stone Works), the enemy terrain and the brutal AIs, namely Darius who is an utter nightmare as an AI with his constant Golden Ages. I played to about t120 and threw in the towel because I was going nowhere and it was just getting tedious with the turns taking so long to accomplish nothing. I knew 100% I would not beat this on the first attempt but I don't really even want to give it a second one. Maybe the El Dorado 500g IS needed for this particular map

Also, seriously, I'm really fed up with the AI's religion whoring in BNW. It seems like whenever I play a religious civ there's still 2-3 AIs that get a religion by turn 50. Venice actually beat the Maya to one with Stonehenge but they didn't build SH until turn 45 and founded on turn 50. That's messed up. It's not as bad as the other day where all 5 religions were gone on turn 54 but geez...can the AI actually pick something besides Piety 80% of the time? It gimps them in other things while making playing culture miserable.

Don't take this personally, by the way, it's not your fault. This map was just a charlie foxtrot.

consentient said:

Yeah, you're probably right, guys. The civ I chose wasn't the best. However, I was hedging my bets. I wasn't sure if this would be easy, do-able, or nigh-on impossible, so I chose a civ that is generically OK, plus they are good at defence. But in all honesty if Acken is struggling, and no one has gotten to the Industrial, then it's just plain suck, isn't it? Even with Horse Archers, what are you gonna do against Golden Age Pikes?

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Perhaps you finally have an answer for Ironfighter? Nearly impossible to beat on the 1st attempt? Sure after several replays and reloads this can be done one way or another but on the 1st attempt it should be very hard

consentient said:

Yeah, you're probably right, guys. The civ I chose wasn't the best. However, I was hedging my bets. I wasn't sure if this would be easy, do-able, or nigh-on impossible, so I chose a civ that is generically OK, plus they are good at defence. But in all honesty if Acken is struggling, and no one has gotten to the Industrial, then it's just plain suck, isn't it? Even with Horse Archers, what are you gonna do against Golden Age Pikes?

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Hey I got to industrial

You guys are nuts

stormtrooper412 said:

You guys are nuts

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No... we are just ummmm... fanatics of Civ... however, I guess, some people would classify us under the term insane !!

Acken said:

Hey I got to industrial

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Sorry bud

consentient said:

Yeah, you're probably right, guys. The civ I chose wasn't the best. However, I was hedging my bets. I wasn't sure if this would be easy, do-able, or nigh-on impossible, so I chose a civ that is generically OK, plus they are good at defence. But in all honesty if Acken is struggling, and no one has gotten to the Industrial, then it's just plain suck, isn't it? Even with Horse Archers, what are you gonna do against Golden Age Pikes?

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I have no problem with the civ choice, any civ you take is going to have some serious problems in this game. Ethiopia should have been one of the best one's to turtle up with.

The challenge is just really hard! Which is a good thing.

The problem isn't necessarily with Ethiopia although there are easier options. The difficulty is increased by the shape of the map, we're surrounded and having Darius + Rome just next door.

I think without Darius I could have gone further in my game, he was the only one being a real threat.

I may give it a second try.

Alright Fellas...

I updated the Leaderboards for the AWC series. You can find them under the AWC Leaderboard section under Deity & Immortal Leaderboards. It is kinda funny since if you get Defeated you get to be ahead of someone who Resigns and the higher your turn time number the better. However, if you achieve Victory you are obviously on top with the lowest turn time number in front and Domination trumps all other Victories.

This is my next game in my line up and I have very slight info on civs and sorta know that El Dorado is North. This leaderboard is different in that you can improve on defeated or resigned turn times but of course if you do achieve Victory you will not be able to improve on that turn time for that Deity AWC.

This is a bit of an experiment since we do not even know how long this series will stay alive but it is the most interesting of the Leaderboards to me and sorta just plain out funny.

I felt sick to my stomach when I typed my name on the first spot on the AWC Immortal LB but someone should be able to crush that time very soon. I know most of you can't load the China AWC game but I think that another Immortal AWC game/map is in order since I seen a good amount of interest. Also Immortal is a lot easier for this set up. I think that Deity could be easily won on the right map with the right neighbors. If your interested this is what the LBs look like.

AWC Deity Leaderboard



AWC Immortal Leaderboard

Any Deity game can be won 'on the right map'. But if you're at the end of the Pangaea, and have to go through one civ to get to the next, it would defeat the point, really. Being surrounded is essential to this challenge, I think. Otherwise, it's just like most of my games where I am at war with the whole world after T120 or so, just a bit earlier.

Perhaps. Would still be different for most people who are used to trading or bribing other civs to war. And can't go to peace after taking the capital or most of their cities.

If you use Honor, you don't need trades any more because you earn so much. And bribes are unreliable, IMO.

You know the saying "...if you want something done..."

Trades for luxes more than gold. And I actually had severe gold issues during that Immortal game, though I was often rush buying (with Big Ben/Merchantilism/Mobilization) a new unit every turn (mainly Battleships/Rocket Artillery in my Heroic Epic coastal city). Had like -200 GPT for a large portion of the game, simply killed enough units to stay positive.

Bribe still usually wipes out part of their army and/or distracts their army so you can swoop in more easily.

consentient said:

If you use finish Honor, you don't need trades any more because you earn so much.

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Corrected for you
But until you can finish Honor you still need to get gold in some way, cause if you can't upgrade your archers to CBs when you finish honor, you won't kill much and so won't get gold to upgrade and in the end even Pacal can kill you

Well, obviously this game is not a good example of how to earn gold. I'm not saying gold wasn't a problem for me in this game. It was one of several problems. I built MoH and still had terrible problems. But the biggest problem wasn't gold. Even once I had scraped together enough for upgrades, the problem was that Rome had settled a city directly to the south of my capital and one to the East of my Eastern expo, near to which was also Palenque. Netherlands had settled a city where ED was, Persia's first expo was in spitting distance of my expo near the CS, and although I had zero problems from Captain Underpants or The Nipple-Headed One, it's still rough to be swarmed by 3 armies simultaneously. In the end, it was when the CSs, which I had worked hard to ally, joined the fray against me, that I conceded. No way that my army could withstand that. I think that if I had pressed hard enough rather than waiting for XBs, that I could maybe have taken out Venice or the Maya, but even then, that just opens more fronts. I have no idea who was to the East of the Maya, but for all I know they could have been more vicious

I for sure wasn't saying that gold wasn't a problem. Ordinarily it's not a problem even without trades because I can build markets and run caravans to CS without fear of being disrupted, while my units quietly train.

Long time lurker of these series games...while I have the desire, I have little the time due to a newborn to play these. Enjoy reading your guys write ups...

anyhow, Interesting lands if you scout more...maybe someone better than me can use this info to beat this thing.

Let us know how your Petra game progresses, Thunda. I've completely given up on this game. That's not to say I will never go back to it. I hated my experience of DCL #7, but I replayed more than 6 months later and aced it (perhaps unsurprisingly).