Challenge-I-08

[playshogi]

Thanks, for the tips, guys. For my next game, I had gems, stone and 2 deer and wheat, and built GW, 'mids, and Oracle for the CS-sling about 1100BC, even got Stonehenge because I could after that. It helps to get Agriculture and BW for free, no copper, but iron in the 3rd ring. It's about 500AD now, I can build maces, and trebs, but no horses in sight. What size stack should I build to go on the attack?

 

[kcd_swede]

Thanks, for the tips, guys. For my next game, I had gems, stone and 2 deer and wheat, and built GW, 'mids, and Oracle for the CS-sling about 1100BC, even got Stonehenge because I could after that. It helps to get Agriculture and BW for free, no copper, but iron in the 3rd ring. It's about 500AD now, I can build maces, and trebs, but no horses in sight. What size stack should I build to go on the attack?

Well, that sort of depends on what you are up against. Are you planning to attack longbows or archers + pre-mace melee? There's a big difference in survival rate there.

Against the latter I would take about 8-12 maces and a spear or two including medic, with four or more trebs. Take down the cultural defenses first (while your stack heals, for example), then suicide a cat or treb, then attack.

But my advice on war is worth about what you paid me for it.

 

[playshogi]

Right now, it's just pre-longbow, the AI I've met don't even have cats yet. But by the time I build my stack, who knows. I've only got 1 city.

UPDATE: 1250AD and I killed 1 AI!! The rest have longbows and I still haven't met Wang. He must be stuck in a corner, because there was an info-graph that had an unknown civ smaller than me. Kept Beijing, for its horses, razed the rest including Great Lighthouse. About 25 turns from cuirassiers.

 

[neilmeister]

This game is killing me. Rolled for stone, got an awesome start with lots of food and gems, and then found myself as the closest civ to the middle of the map. I held on until 1300, but 4 civs sending stacks against you just sucks!

 

[AutomatedTeller]

oh yes - middle of the map is very bad. Not only do they find you fast, their stacks get to you fast. And they don't have to deal with lots of barbs, either.

 

[Ozbenno]

I the edge of the map is a must for this one and a corner even better.

 

[kcd_swede]

I the edge of the map is a must for this one and a corner even better.

Actually, I'm living proof that it isn't a "must". I was about as close to the middle of the map as is possible to be. However, what that corner or edge gives you (relative isolation, limits directions of attack, managable barb fogbusting, etc) IS a "must".

Raging Barbs + Great Wall will accomplish a lot of this for you. Mountain ranges and lakes/seas can also do it. Barb cities can also act as blockers, preventing both initial contact and delaying any stack (they won't settle or build roads in barb territory, and will be slow to attack barb cities while at war LOL!).

You can sometimes see if a generated map has you in the corner/edge, so that's the only one of these you can really control from the start. But If you see the corner in the start screen, it likely is not a really great start position, I think. I don't use mapfinder so there is a limit to how much regen one can do. Play a few turns on any map with good start resources, and start over if you later see its not defensible. Don't waste 1000 years... once they all start coming with big stacks at once you don't need to play the end to know how it will ends.

 

[bestje]

we should run a side game to see who can get the most great generals/ the highest promoted unit.

The AI stacks are just ridiculously big, how do they afford all those units? or the WW from them being killed?

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I had 7 settled, 2 super medics and an assaulter. My most promoted unit was a flanking II/Combat V curaisser - interestingly, he didn't have a general attached to him. First Cuirassier I built, apparently - 51 xp.

At the end of the day, i was producing 17 xp horse units from Moscow

I think if I were to play this again, I'd still do 2 super medics (it's good to have 2 stacks), but only settle 3 generals. 10 xp mounted units are just fine.

Funny - there was also a size 11 barb city (cherokee) that had a full town in it's cross.

 

[Ozbenno]

14 for my first go at this (I won in the 2000s and didn't submit but just played again and got a better date). Here is the body count...

 

[playshogi]

Finally done! A big thanks to those who revealed their strategies. The Great Spy from the Great Wall is not so bad because it enabled me to watch the AI research the whole game. I'm still too wishy-washy on attack, I had to re-take some territory 2 or 3 times. My game took longer, so I got 13 Great Generals. I settled 5 in Moscow and 3 in Barcelona where I used a Great Engineer to rush-build West Point. I had 2 cities producing 17-exp units, with barracks, stable and theocracy. I discovered Combat 3 + March is the way to really mow them down. That suggests (with only 10-exp)Combat 1 + Medic 1 + March. I put one GG on a mace with Woodsmen 3, whenever an AI stack came close and attacked my stack with siege units, the Woody 3 GG would always defend and rack up experience points fast--got him up to 83 exp (level 10)!

One blunder that almost cost me, was keeping a nice blocking city, with lots of food, an academy, good production and most buildings intact (forge, granary, courthouse). Doh, it was of the AP religion, so I could have lost to AP diplomatic victory. (Didn't raze the AP city until much later). I had to abandoned and the AI stupidly took the city back. I suppose building the AP might be a wise move, if you keep AI cities.

 

[neilmeister]

14 for my first go at this (I won in the 2000s and didn't submit but just played again and got a better date). Here is the body count...

Judging by the playing time, I guess you had stack attack turned on...

 

[Ozbenno]

Judging by the playing time, I guess you had stack attack turned on...

I never turn stack attack on, every kill was done by hand

 

[kcd_swede]

Judging by the playing time, I guess you had stack attack turned on...

Judging by the kinds of units killed (and the kind of game this was) I'd guess many were killed on defense, requiring little intervention by the player.

 

[neilmeister]

Judging by the kinds of units killed (and the kind of game this was) I'd guess many were killed on defense, requiring little intervention by the player.

Of course, obvious really.

 

[shulec]

I noted if playing this one OCC, the barb rush starts around 3100 to 3050 BC. When playing as a non OCC, they start to rush around 2600 BC.

This seems to make it easier to achieve tech parity on OCC. I believe the barbs coming earlier and maybe more intensely slows the AI's teching.

 

[7thGate]

Although this has been over for a while, I have been wanting to try this specific challenge for some time, so I sat down over the weekend and tried it out. I did it as a OCC, and came close to a space race victory--the spaceship arrived in January 2049, but I was only able to build one casing, so it failed.

I had 23 Great Generals built over the course of the game; 15 were settled, one went to a military academy, and the other 7 were attached to various defensive units. 5 warlord units survived to the end, including the very first great general I attached to an archer, Erwin Rommel. He came in at somewhere over 3300 xp by the end, but his promotion icons cover up his experience so I am not sure exactly how much he has.

Here is a screen shot of the surviving generals:


From left to right, they have ~3300, 1485, 876, 67 and 372 XP respectively. The 3300 and 1485 are both maxed, with all available promotions; Erwin has one more since he was able to pick up shock as an archer before being promoted into a gunpowder unit, and the other unit was a rifleman when the great general was attached.

 

[Ozbenno]

Nice, never gotten anywhere near that amount of XP before, even in Fall From Heaven!!

 

[7thGate]

The trick was to take the first great general (which popped pretty early because of the great wall) and attach it to the highest XP archer, giving it leadership, drill 1-4 and as many city garrison promotions as possible (I think one to start). He'll start killing the first few units in each stack before being wounded, so gets more XP than his fellows. More city garrison and combat strength promotions follow along with unit upgrades at tech permits, and once you have a combat 6 city garrison 3 drill 4 longbowman, the only ancient units which can hope to even damage it are the ones that are immune to first strikes. Once the unit gets upgraded to rifleman, it can get woodsman 1-3 too for the two extra first strikes.

I also added some more warlike AIs to try and maximize the stacks; montezuma and ghengis both sent a ton of units my way over the course of the game.

 

[kcd_swede]

The trick was to take the first great general (which popped pretty early because of the great wall) and attach it to the highest XP archer, giving it leadership, drill 1-4 and as many city garrison promotions as possible (I think one to start). He'll start killing the first few units in each stack before being wounded, so gets more XP than his fellows. More city garrison and combat strength promotions follow along with unit upgrades at tech permits, and once you have a combat 6 city garrison 3 drill 4 longbowman, the only ancient units which can hope to even damage it are the ones that are immune to first strikes. Once the unit gets upgraded to rifleman, it can get woodsman 1-3 too for the two extra first strikes.

I also added some more warlike AIs to try and maximize the stacks; montezuma and ghengis both sent a ton of units my way over the course of the game.

I've never seen anything like this before. That's pretty amazing!