There's always space
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No, I haven't won this yet either (If I had, I'd have completed all 10 games by now). Do note, however, that people have won this as a ONE CITY CHALLENGE on the same map, speed, and difficulty. In other words, it's possible (they seemed to like trebs and maces, a rather unusual choice of war units, though as ottomans in that gauntlet they eventually threw in jans too which surely helped).
But even though I know it's possible, I haven't pulled it off yet. I am hell bent to do all 10 games in order before I go back to refine
. This is the bottle neck. I can win each of the remaining 2 easier than this which is saying a lot. Some things I tried that have failed:
1. Sword choke (no copper): No, they settle on copper/iron and then you can't pillage it. You can successfully choke 3-4 of the AI, but then you're exposed.
2. Tech and avoid war other than defensive units: No, there's problems with this when they 1) attack simultaneously and 2) do that awkward AI "choke" (park 5-6 units in a forest in your territory) which while crappy nevertheless slows you down. Later on it's collateral hell.
3. Horse archer charge: Actually, it might work, but this map doesn't spam horses. I've not managed to roll them close enough to make it serviceable yet.
Now, I suspect someone who has the patience to roll a triple gem start will have the commerce to oracle civil service before the AI gets it (esp with gwall harassment) and use that to fuel early medieval beatdowns, which is probably all one needs. However, I am not 100% convinced yet that one can't paint the map in blood using axes and then a last push using catapults on the remaining 1-2 AIs.
One might be tempted to crowd the map to minimize the size the AI gets individually, but I don't think it's a good idea and until I see someone do that successfully I won't change my mind. Also, it nerfs raging + gwall.
Horse archers do suffer the script somewhat though, since their movement advantage is somewhat reduced. If only we were aztec or mongolia! But we're not. We're not even AGG.
The one final possibility for a very early finish time I can envision is the sextuplet axe or chariot choke. Iron is far more common on this script, but copper/horse do exist and this can let us get in the AI face sooner. Gwall slows this down however, but w/o it we don't have barb pressing to help us.
I also haven't ruled out oracle ----> feudalism (should be very easy as the raging barbs really hamper the AI and oracle goes post 1000 BC a lot). One probably would not want to use longbows to choke (too many opponents), but I can picture feudalism buying a lot of time, not to mention the enhanced unit promos through vassalage. If one got a corner start and a lake bottle neck this could probably allow a lot of kills, GPP, and so forth on the cheap until better units become available.
While the general Hall of Fame is an ongoing competition, we are running a series of ten games called the Hall of Fame Challenge Series. Standard Hall of Fame rules (*) still apply, but any games meeting the settings of one of the games will be counted towards the Challenge.
-slider dropped to 20%. After I had Courthouses and Markets, I only got it up to 50% while being ~breakeven. This was also due to unit costs, around 25gpt from ~1000AD on.
