King of the hill - open challange for all playlevels

[Unconquered Sun]

@mzprox

Spoiler :

I knew it

 

[Frodus]

Deity always war? Wow...

 

[Snaaty]

@ ALL:

and the winner is

mzprox

winning space race in 1934

...

This challenge has officially ended now. I will do the final updates of the results later this week.

...

Thanks everybody for joining and playing. Those still playing can off course continue to play and post after the official challange has ended

...

I already have a new challenge in mind, after running some deity AW tests on normal pangea maps

 

[vanatteveldt]

congrats mzprox, excellent game and good demonstration of the power of SSE with limited but good land!

 

[mzprox]

Hey, thanks!

I don't think we should end it tho, some may get better result or just with much less reloads . In the end i was forced back to my capital and my extermination was inevitable, someone may launch an assault on Stalin and bring the war to them .

As i said before this was cheesy play and not just because the reloads, but the strategies i have used. Especially the spying from "those trap cities" (got inspired by seeing ABigCivFan's screenshot). This is actually my first game where i've used spies to steal techs, force the enemy to anarchy etc. and now i can see how powerfull this could be... a bit too powerfull i must say.. i dont think i will use this in "normal" games

As for future challenge: may i suggest a no-reload rule? it would be a better way to show the skills of the players. I like to try different strategies tho, so the best would be a no-reload, but unlimited restart.

 

[Duckweed]

Congratulations! mzprox. Having destroyers in early 1500AD is impressive.

 

[Duckweed]

To 1600AD

Spoiler :

After knowing of lack of coal from ABCF's comments, I made two major changes during this set.
1. Instead of pursuing navy advantage, I went for economic tech first and then land unit superiority.
2. I changes my IW to pig city

Tech:
Optics->Economy->Astro->Constitution->Corporation->SP->AL

To deal with Stalin's invasion, I have to draw most of forces in land to kill his 1st wave of attack. So I have to delayed the invasion south, But not too long.

The capture of Ulundi, I didn't raze it or keep it, instead I will leave it to GK. Ulundi will become the grinder of GK's forces, same as the trap cities built for Stalin.

1600AD Tech

 

[ABigCivFan]

quick update 1685AD:

Spoiler :

1665AD: Blockade Moscow, Stalin massing both land and naval forces, invasion imminent. I will not be able to stop his ships, will try to intercept as many Galleons as possible with my bliz SOLs.



1675AD: Russian huge fleet left dock(15 escorting frigates+19 gallons+57 land troops). My blockage force follows this fleet back and will join my home fleet and intercept.



1685AD: My 2 fleets join the Russian ships in the middle and caused heavy casulties. 6 Russian Frigates sunk and 12 Galleons sunk. The trick is to use C3 SOLs against stronger Frigates, then use Bliz SOLs against weaker galleons so they can sink 2 galleons per turn.




1685AD: HE city, just settled 6th GG. Now it can produce 4 promotion land and water troops every turn. Net 132 H for land and 156 H for water units per turn; This is without a factory yet.




The plan is to hit Combustion, then AL, and will try Amphi assult Russian home land and raze some large coastal cities to slow him down.

 

[Halt]

ABigCivFan-

Keep us updated... Your attempt is really interesting!

Spoiler :

Did you feel the blocking helped or hurt? By blocking did he come all at once in the end with more to deal with, if you had not blocked he would have been easier to deal with?

Did anyother city of his build and launch significant shipping?

I really want to see the battle on his turf!

Can you possibly post a current save as I would love to take a peak at your cities to better plan my economy for my next try.

 

[ABigCivFan]

ABigCivFan-

Keep us updated... Your attempt is really interesting!

Spoiler :

Did you feel the blocking helped or hurt? By blocking did he come all at once in the end with more to deal with, if you had not blocked he would have been easier to deal with?

Did anyother city of his build and launch significant shipping?

I really want to see the battle on his turf!

Can you possibly post a current save as I would love to take a peak at your cities to better plan my economy for my next try.

Spoiler :

The blockade definitly worked to my advantage, basically with the temporary naval superiority, I was able to severely damage Moscow's economy (fishing and trading), in the latest screen shot, you saw Moscow reduced to size 10 from 21.

I was dropping a single W3 grenadier into that forrest per turn, some managed to destroy 12 catapults single handedly. My SOLs destroyed Russian ships in the vicinity every turn. Basically this blockade/harassment strategy slowed down Stalin's plans by forcing him to replace losses and bought me more time to tech to Combustion and produce more ships.

I also get to watch any major troop deployment in Moscow, when I saw he upgraded ships to Frigates/Galleons with 100+ land troops, I know the invasion is approaching and was able to devise an interception strategy.

It would be extremely difficult to use a passive defensive strategy this game, without naval superiority and necessary military intelligence, it is very hard to predict where Stalin will land and the strength of his landing parties. Stalin can not be left untouched, he has to be harrassed or even invaded. So I believe an active naval superiority is necessary to win this game under normal circumstances.

Another huge benefit with naval battles is that our Imperial trait allows us gainning many more GG pts which helps our war effort even more.

Edit: I scouted Stalin's entire West coast and only found newly founded cities without navies currently, and there is not even a sea passage between his East/West coast!. So I could concentrate all my navy on his East coast near Moscow. After all, when AI sees a large enemy navy near his capital, it is only natural to rush many units to the Capital to deal with the threat. So my plan also worked to attract bulk of the Russian military to the location where I wanted.

I dont have the saves now, you can take a look at the 1605AD save since it has not changed much.

 

[Sian]

ABCF

Spoiler :

you got the production to keep harassing the east russian coast and build up a relatively small sneak attack on his westen flank?

 

[ABigCivFan]

Sian

Spoiler :

I have enough production (SOL + Amphi Rifles) to raze some of Stalin's West coast cities. But it will require a large force and maint. costs. So I dont think it would be really cost-effective to assult his under-developed West coast.

My prod is so high that I over built SOLs (34 at peak). I had to disband many with low xp when destroyers come on line.

I found that we dont really need that many ships to stop Stalin's invasions since once you sink each wave of his landing crafts (Galleons, transports) it will take him many many more turns to mass those ships and invade again. After physics, Build some airships and station them near the coasts + ~20 elite destroyers/battleships on each coast should be enough. Have the airships scan the ocean, 2 ships promote to Sentry and maybe 1 Medic 3 GG destroyer should aid the effort.

Also invading Stalin's East coast will be extremely costly, he constantly has 100+ land units in Moscow, it is almost impossible to kill all the units in one turn and raze it.

Setting up the trap city for Stalin near our capital is the key to win late game (grow it to size 2, and let 1 Russan Galleon through to take this city). As many have noticed, Stalin blaze through the late tech tree, but we can steal from the trap city easily (with -40% cost for state religion, and -50% cost for culture). So Given that we can maintain naval superiority + easily fending off the southern civs, we should be able to use spy swarms to delay Stalin's Space program indefinitely by destroying parts while we complete our own. That is prob the easiest and least time consuming way to win this.

 

[mzprox]

I have never destroyed spaceship parts. How can it be done? (where the spy should be, how much is the cost? )

 

[Halt]

Snaaty - This was truly a fun adventure, count me in for the next one you have planned!

Still trying to beat this one on a new try.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I have never destroyed spaceship parts. How can it be done? (where the spy should be, how much is the cost? )

Spy can be anywhere. However, the mission is pretty expensive at base ---> I think it tells you what "sabotage project" costs in the EP screen, but if not I'd say its over 10k before modifiers if you're trying to do it in a developed AI city.

Probably ridiculously less in a trap city.

 

[ABigCivFan]

I have never destroyed spaceship parts. How can it be done? (where the spy should be, how much is the cost? )

You can use spy in the trap city for this.

Here is an example, assume you want to destroy the most expensive part the Docking Bay.

The base cost is 12000, assume no distance penalty and similar amt of EP spent on both players the discount will be:

-40% for state religion present in city
-50% for culture
-50% for stationary spy

discount factor= 0.6*0.5*0.5=0.15

Final cost for sabo ~= 12000 * 0.15 = 1800 EP

That is pretty cheap for the late game.

 

[mzprox]

Bah... Why no one told me this before?? I have spent many hours replaying the last turns to be able launch the ship 1-2 turns earlier, when i could have just destroyed a few parts

btw Stalin had 100k+ unspent spying points on me, i wonder why didnt he use it..

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The AI is absolutely terrible with espionage, and moreso when going it overseas.

 

[royal62184]

In order to get the -40% from state religion you must be running that state religion (that is present in the city) and own the holy city otherwise it is only -20 or -25%.

 

[Duckweed]

To 1750AD

Spoiler :

Tech:
AL->Demo->Fascism->Railway->Combustion->SM

Without ocean control, I have to leave most of my forces in land, especially cannons. After AL is in, my super combat GG is almost invincible in the field, so I sent him out to pillage viking land. After Viking been weakened, Stalin's tech pace will be slowed down.

Viking land after pillage.

I also made another combat GG for defense at the passage

1750 Tech