Challenge-I-01

[TheMeInTeam]

Decided to try this one. So far, one conclusion... Dog Soldiers sort of suck .

They are quite good for choking (moreso against humans though) or holding off melee rushes...Neither of which one should be doing in this one.

 

[Fluroscent]

I found use for them in two ways in this game, first as reliable barb control (needing no metal) and second as pillage commandos. They are unstoppable pillagers if the enemy does not have horses. And the ones I built could be used as stack defenders for my mostly mounted/siege stack, but of course regular axes would do this well enough.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

man. I keep trying to get an Oracle Fuedalism sling. I got it in an early game no problem, around 1100 BC or so. that game didn't go very well for other reasons (I've never really done a specialist/bulbing economy and screwed up a bunch of stuff), but every game I've played since has had Oracle going much earlier - including my latest (PH, corn, oasis, 3 gold) where it went in 1760 BC!!! Which is pretty damn early...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Offensive longbows suck anyway without siege. Nobody will post a winning time with that.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

finally got one. I learned a lot - I'm not a natural war monger and I'm not used to running with research at 40% most of the game

1500 AD doesn't come close to winning, but it's a nice date for now.

I had to throw away a bunch of starts cause it was me and one other pr two other civs on the island. Finally found one with me and Elizabeth, Vicky, Huyana all south of me and lincoln up in the frozen north.

Went Mining->BW->AH->Wheel->HBR->writing->alpha. Then beat on liz and lincoln for techs and some cities, razing a bunch on the way. Took out Liz and then attacked Vicky, who capitulated after losing 1 city.

Attacked Huyana and had to take peace cause I didn't pay attention. 10 turns later, took two more cities and razed a couple more and he capitulated. I let them finish off lincoln while I built my galleon's and the army for gandhi and asoka. Took 2 and razed 2 of gandhi's to capitulate him (he was way ahead in GDP and was ahead of me in tech, but it had no military significance), razed 2 of asoka's to get him to capitulate for the win.

Got a question:

If you capitulate the last civ and doing so puts you over the dom limit, do you win by domination or conquest? I was close, so I gave up a bunch of cities I'd taken to be sure.

This was fun and difficult.

 

[Ozbenno]

If you capitulate the last civ and doing so puts you over the dom limit, do you win by domination or conquest? I was close, so I gave up a bunch of cities I'd taken to be sure.

I think you win by domination but not sure (from a couple people's posts in Challenge 9). Best not to risk it I think.

 

[bestje]

Well my attempt was kind of slow, hhhawk had already won before I even got around to attacking anyone. Went on the rifling beeline but there was a fast techpace, despite my attempts to get the AI to fight by including Izzy and Monty (who was vassalised to Liz by the time I met him).

I suspect having played this through that the choice of sitting bull was to stop everyone axerushing as dogsoldiers are worse than the regular axeman at that.

the best 'rush' option I can think off seems to be the war elephant rush, swords are a bit too easy to counter, or has anyone had any luck with the longbow rush?

 

[Ozbenno]

I think that most people have been going with a horse archer rush on the starting Continent.

 

[bestje]

I completely forgot about HAs, they just never occur to me as a rushing unit. may give it another go and try HAs, do they count as archery units to get xp from totem poles?

 

[Ozbenno]

do they count as archery units to get xp from totem poles?

Must admit I don't know about that, I would think they count as a mounted unit only though.

 

[bestje]

I think you're probably right it would imbalance them a bit as you could get stable, barracks and totem pole for +10XP which is a lot early game. Its a shame though, it sounds quite fun!

 

[AutomatedTeller]

the HA rush was my choice.

Archers were useful for holding cities, dogsoldiers to defend against spear attacks against the HA...

 

[kcd_swede]

the HA rush was my choice.

Archers were useful for holding cities, dogsoldiers to defend against spear attacks against the HA...

Hmmm... I guess my Tactical Nuke rush was somewhat sub-optimal, then.

Actually, I totally waited until the medeival units were around, preferring to trade with the known AI. I always seemed to get the small continent. Once I successfully and rapidly dog-rushed my two AI opponents (Rome and Vikings) to clear the continent, only to end up as a backwards civ in isolation by the time I met the others who were in a religious love-fest. Quit in disgust.

But in my submitted game, I traded up to medieval, and backstabbed (err... back-maced) to vassalize my continent. I was not first to grens and so never had good opportunity to attack... the AI had many units due to many undecided wars between them and almost constant WHEOOHRN. I went for fission/rocketry and nuked/razed Madrid to slow Izzy down (every city had to be triple nuked, because after two nukes would still have 20+units which was more than my wooden fleet could carry), then vassalized the two weakest there before taking on Izzy in earnest and vassalizing her. Roosi was last and as in game #10, I underestimated his obstinance in refusing to capitulate, and had not enough land units to take all the cities I could nuke. Very slow end game (I had nukes in 1860's, and finished in 1970's or thereabouts). Had to break off a colony and liberate a LOT of cities to avoid domination. Had about -50 "we hate you" for nuking our friends by the end. Never used seige off continent... unless you count nukes as seige.

This is definitely one I should be able to improve upon if I ever get motivated to do so. But it took so long with the late game that I'm not really excited about trying it again, honestly. Tanks against Mech Inf is somewhat annoying, actually.

 

[shulec]

Decided to try this one. So far, one conclusion... Dog Soldiers sort of suck .

Is there any chance that hhhawk is your alter-ego?

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I generally abandoned games until I got a continent with 3 or 4 AI on it - I think my final game I had 4 AI on my continent, 2 on the other (both the indian ones, actually).

btw - when I say HA rush, I meant that I started with HA. I ended with Cuirassiers and may have had Cavs at the end. You need to keep research through galleons, anyway. Making a nice GP farm is really useful

 

[kcd_swede]

Just curious about game mechanics in getting Roosi to capitulate...

Was he obstinate about capitulating in my games just because he is the last alive? Is the last AI always more difficult? Does razing his cities help or hurt (mind you his power probably doubles when razing produces like 6 mech infs renegade units for him)?

Very annoying... if I just keep the worthless nuked city, my tanks would survive a lot better.

 

[bestje]

the last AI doesn't always take ages to capitulate, my last few folded up with barely a fight at all.

I think capitulation is related to relative power so if they kill few of your units whilst losing a lot of theirs that tends to do the trick.
Usually capturing their capital and killing their SoD is enough from my experience

 

[kcd_swede]

the last AI doesn't always take ages to capitulate, my last few folded up with barely a fight at all.

I think capitulation is related to relative power so if they kill few of your units whilst losing a lot of theirs that tends to do the trick.
Usually capturing their capital and killing their SoD is enough from my experience

<shrug>
Roosi's stacks were long ago vaporized. Got to the point I was nuking cities to soften up one or two mech infs before razing (which then spawned 4 mech infs!).

Roosi didn't capitulate until I had units in place to capture/raze his fourth or fifth capitol city. I guess he figured he would soon run out of places to move the capitol (he had 3 cities; the capitol Seattle and two other 3 pop cities left against the combined might of the entire world), and still he doesn't capitulate until the tanks/nukes are actually in position to take Seattle.

In this game it doesn't affect my placing, though. But in Game 10 he did not capitulate until his very last city was to be captured on the next turn, and there (a 40-turn game!) a difference of 5 or 6 turns is a big difference.

I'm beginning to think that Roosi should not be saved for last if you want capitulation.

 

[bestje]

I think there is an AI specific element to how much damage they will take before they capitulate and probably the RNG gets involved as well?

Is it possible to damage an AI too much so they choose to die rather than capitulate?

 

[playshogi]

It seems tough to get 4 AI on one continent. I usually have 2 and one attempt had 0! (I had galley contact with 2.) In my current game, it's 1000BC and I've already killed off 1 AI with a chariot rush, but I've only met 1 other AI.