King of the hill - open challange for all playlevels

[Gooblah]

Death 275 AD. It was painfully awesome. Thanks for a great game, Snaaty!

Spoiler :

I think my main problem was micro. I accidentally del'd a Worker, so I couldn't chop forests as fast. Once Ragnar nabbed Construction, it was all over. He started bringing in War Elephants and Catapults, and there is nothing except Praets (which couldn't be built after an Axe pillaged my iron) that can withstand their fury. I should have placed a garrison atop the Iron (Guerrilla Archers and a few Axes). The Great Prophet from the 'Henge let me ramp up my tech rate whilst being able to afford units, which kept me going for a while..... oh well.

End turn save.

 

[michmbk]

Um, yeah, this is hard. I'm still alive at 450 BC - I went 1 turn too far. One reload when I lost a worker because I wasn't paying attention to a chariot lurking.

Spoiler :

My first attempt at deity, so NO IDEA what to expect. I opted for 2 workers off the bat – figured I needed to chop like mad.

Then warriors to size 3, settler, another worker via chops, warrior to size 5, then a second settler and axes.

Tech path: AG, BW, Wheel, Pottery, Writing, Myst, AH, Sailing, IW

After my third city settled, I figured it was time to get axes and praets and really start getting defenses up. I then went for hunting for the camps and tried to beeline monarchy for some happiness. I figure 3 cities is all I can hope for, and there’s pretty good production from these overall. Barb cities are tempting, but I figure not smart with all the AIs looming. Stack 1:

They came at Cumae…they all died against my 7 axes. A good start. Stack 2 arrives from Genghis.

I have those same 7 axes, 2 praets and a spear defending – no casualties. Then more and more obscene waves, from Shaka, Genghis, Shaka again, and Ragnar. And Shaka again. I’m still alive somehow. No idea how to continue to survive, but I know I need serious help just to get to feudalism at this point. There’s a barb city I just diverted some units to up north so I can take it. That’ll be next round, if I’m successful.

As I said, one reload, when I accidentally moved a worker to a space I thought he was safe, but a zulu chariot came out of nowhere. I figured I could reload for that.

[lack of an] Empire:

 

[michmbk]

To 560 AD (I keep forgetting the checkpoints). If I can get to feudalism, I may be able to hold out a bit longer. EDIT - to 1000 AD

Spoiler :

Ok, so I diverted 5 praets to take the barb city.

It ain’t much, but I need some cities and gold. Send my workers up to chop it like crazy. And in 200 BC, this starts to become obscene. Genghis:

Shaka:

Seriously. I have to pull everyone back into Rome. They have 6 more units behind those stacks too. Genghis’ stack doesn’t do much, and Rags decides to join the fun:

Insane. I have a buttload of praets, but waves keep coming, now elephants join the fun. Still, all my praets make worthy defenders, and I have several settled generals in Rome too. Here’s the empire at 560 AD.

In hindsight, I probably could have snuck 7-8 praets out to try to take a Shaka city or two, but I just had no idea how good they’d be as defenders – they’re pretty solid overall, especially once a lot of them get melee.

Also, I keep losing the stupid gold mine - that really sucks. I also should have stuck a bunch of defenders there right from the get go, because that gold is essential to tech.

I am turtling reasonably well though. If I can get to feudalism, going to try to get another city site filled in.

EDIT - to 1000 AD - made it to feudalism and now building LBs with 3 promotions. Trying to get to civil service next, which might allow me to actually survive even longer. Got a settler build to get to 5 cities. I see no way to win here, but am just building units while running scientists to survive. I bulbed math with a scientist, so my chops would be more effective, and am eyeing an opportunity to send my dozen remaining praets after a shaka city or two - we'll see. My cities:

 

[Phil725]

Tried 1 more time (3rd try overall,) and got to 100AD. Not great, but at least more respectable than 800BC.

Spoiler :

I opted for the OCC method this time. Less hammers spent on workers and settlers, and no concern of defending multiple fronts. I built the Great Wall again, really more for the double GG points than the barbs. And then just started cranking out prats.

Shaka had a stack of mostly archers that moved next to my city ~1500BC. He then just moved it back and forth from the hill next to the city and the gold mine for a very long time. Ragnar was the first one to attack me:

Some more successful defense:

Shaka finally attacked me. Defense is still going well.

Unfortunately, by now I've lost all of my improvements except for the deer and wheat. Deity unit maintenance has me down to 20% slider. I never got my bpt above 10 after my gold was pillaged, so reaching monarchy and feudalism was a pipe dream really. After cats started showing up, I knew my days were numbered. Things like this don't help:

Gotta love 99.7% chances...

The AI got pretty organized after that. Ragnar, Shaka and GK parked stacks next to my cities and waited to bombard my defenses down. All I can build now are archers, which don't do much. They didn't have many cats, but 5 or 6 was enough.

If I play this again I would settle directly on the iron. Using pre knowledge of the map yeah, but we need some kind of edge here. I'm not sure that would even help though. Would 4 or 5 more prats saved me? I doubt it. If only we had horses in the BFC. I think HAs are necessary for flanking damage. Then again, making more than 10 bpt would also help to get to feudalism before 2000AD. I'm defintely looking forward to see some deity level players try this. It's well above my skill level.

 

[budweiser]

Second attempt 175AD.

Extreme Spoiler Dont read

Spoiler :

The losing replay reveals what looks like a single tile choke point at Shaka's capotil if any one is good enough to fight their way down there.

 

[michmbk]

Just when I started to feel a slight bit of confidence, death in 1190. It got ugly. I forgot to save it right before, but I'm an emperor level player, and you can see from the last screen I got to 1190.

Spoiler :

Fun while it lasted – the death waves came just a few turns after 1000 AD. I had to whip my pop down to the bitter end. Let’s all hum taps. …first, Rome fell:

Then Cumae:

Then Neapolis:

Antium:\

And I have been defeated:

Stats:

And a resounding score of 0. No idea how anyone could win this game. I guess if you got aggressive early, lucky with the RNG, you could maybe take 1-2 of Shaka's cities and put up a bit better fight.

 

[Bleys]

When this project is over, will it be possible to get a copy of the WB file? I would like to tinker with it a little. Very fun idea. It would be cool if you could do an edit and stick Churchill in as the leader instead of JC. I might be able to survive til 1500 AD with that combo. Churchill of Rome, heh, has a nice ring to it.

I have played until 1 AD, but I am off to bed, so I will write up my 2 reports tomorrow. I had a few minor reloads, mostly due to lack of BUG, I am kind of dependent on it, I think, but I did have one major re-load, which I will explain in my 1 AD report.

 

[Snaaty]

@ ALL:

I will update the scorelist later that day.

If people do several tries and I dont put in the best result, feel free to post here and remind me of changing it

You need at least 1 sceen or the save to be included in the scorelist

...

Something interesting to note:
Barbs have actually been toned down for this game, to prevent players not used to deity from instant death at around turn 40... ...unsually barbs on deity start with archery right away, here they only come with warriors in the beginning

 

[Snaaty]

Here´s another teaser for you, from my 1500 AD save:
View attachment 210830
I´m laying siege to Ulundi with the host of my army. I took Ulundi already some time ago, but then lost it again to Mongolia (that´s why the city is under Mongolian control right now). Not sure right now if I will attack or not, because I´m not sure about the outcome of the fight, because Mongolia has about 50 units in Ulundi, lots of them beeing grenadiers

...

Hopefully I can motivate some of the top players here around, because I´m curious how they would do in this game and which path they would choose. The results here should be better then in the original german game of the month I guess, because we are allowed to replay here...

 

[Snaaty]

@ budweiser:

you need either a save or a screen to be included in the scorelist

...

@ ALL:

So far we have 1 emperor player and 2 prince players fullfilling their tasks. Concrats

Best player from all playlevels so far has made it up to 1190 AD

After the first day of this challange, the immortal goal (get somehow to 1500 AD) hasnt been cracked

 

[tycoonist]

i have the same error as al shizuka... anyone know how to fix it?

 

[dirtyparrot]

When I load I get this:

And then Civ4 is insta-closed.

EDIT: I have BUG and BlueMarble. Not playing this thing if I have to disinstall any mod I'm using.

Ai Shizuka, I have Blue Marble and BUG as well and have managed to play it, although it seems that you can't use BUG (the save automatically loads in a BUG-less mode). IIRC, the BUG installer has several options on how to install BUG, so that might be causing you problems although that purely a shot in the dark on my part. I would ask someone like EmperorFool in the BUG mod section of the forum to see if he can't help you out.

 

[budweiser]

@ budweiser:

you need either a save or a screen to be included in the scorelist

...

@ ALL:

So far we have 1 emperor player and 2 prince players fullfilling their tasks. Concrats

Best player from all playlevels so far has made it up to 1190 AD

After the first day of this challange, the immortal goal (get somehow to 1500 AD) hasnt been cracked

Thanks, maybe I will give it one more go. I play at Emperor.

 

[michmbk]

Here´s another teaser for you, from my 1500 AD save:
View attachment 210830
I´m laying siege to Ulundi with the host of my army. I took Ulundi already some time ago, but then lost it again to Mongolia (that´s why the city is under Mongolian control right now). Not sure right now if I will attack or not, because I´m not sure about the outcome of the fight, because Mongolia has about 50 units in Ulundi, lots of them beeing grenadiers

...

Hopefully I can motivate some of the top players here around, because I´m curious how they would do in this game and which path they would choose. The results here should be better then in the original german game of the month I guess, because we are allowed to replay here...

Snaaty - that's absolutely amazing. I found it impossible to even consider teching, as maintenance crippled my economy, and was forced to turtle. You need to give a spoiler as to how you got there, in detail. No doubt in my mind it'll help people understand how to improve and play at such a high level. I can't fathom how anyone could tech all the way to chemistry in this game, so I'd love a debrief on how you did it. Maybe you should post your events log at some point.

If I'm feeling masochistic, I might give this another go tonight. Some thoughts I have the second time around:

Spoiler :

1. The gold is so critical - it has to be protected at all costs. When I lost the gold to invading stacks, my tech rate plummeted. I think settling a city on a hill south of the gold would be key to drive the AIs to attack there.

2. I totally forgot about walls and never built them - obviously that feels dumb in hindsight. I might have had a better chance to go on the offensive with walls.

3. I think you need to aggressively get out early settlers and forget about optimal city placement. I tried to place my cities in the best spots I could - and was left with 3 cities for a long time. I might try getting several cities right around Rome, tightly packed so I can move units between them as needed. I'll have to look at the initial land to try to find the best protected sites around Rome. Plus, knowing that stacks

Spoiler :

can only come from the south is even more useful knowledge. I would definitely try to get some land south to protect Rome even more, because it's a great capital that could have thrived under HR.

4. I wanted to claim the

Spoiler :

elephant

to the south, but never got there. Getting that would have helped a bit, as I was relegated to building only longbows and praets all game.

5. There is definitely a window of attack in the BCs. I didn't realize how easy it would be to defend the first few stacks with just a couple praets/axes. I had about 20 of them combined when a stack of 12-13 units came, and could have easily gotten by with less than half. It would have allowed me to send a dozen or so praetorians out to attack, get some important gold, and maybe cripple the AI a bit.

6. Now knowing where the iron is, right in the capital's BFC, I would prioritize IW even more than I did, probably starting AG/BW/IW to get praets fast.

 

[Kazile]

Thanks for the cool map!

First try, 1020 AD (Prince):

Spoiler :

500 BC - Prince level checkpoint.

880 AD - Rome falls!

960 AD: The Settlers will insure that I live past the 1000 AD checkpoint. I dont know if this is considered cheating though.

Spoiler :

I really cant imagine how anyone can win this..

 

[Dirk1302]

Hopefully I can motivate some of the top players here around, because I´m curious how they would do in this game and which path they would choose. The results here should be better then in the original german game of the month I guess, because we are allowed to replay here...

I'll give it a try some time but to be honest i get tired already by the idea of constantly fighting against these ais. Did you have to replay yourself btw? I think i'd research to IW first, Rome probably wasn't chosen random so i guess there's iron around. Praets have a decent lifespan.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Ai Shizuka, I have Blue Marble and BUG as well and have managed to play it, although it seems that you can't use BUG (the save automatically loads in a BUG-less mode). IIRC, the BUG installer has several options on how to install BUG, so that might be causing you problems although that purely a shot in the dark on my part. I would ask someone like EmperorFool in the BUG mod section of the forum to see if he can't help you out.

Thanks for the input, that's probably the reason.
But I can't really be arsed to go and reinstall BUG just to play this. Fun concept, but not my cup of tea.

 

[Snaaty]

I'll give it a try some time but to be honest i get tired already by the idea of constantly fighting against these ais. Did you have to replay yourself btw? I think i'd research to IW first, Rome probably wasn't chosen random so i guess there's iron around. Praets have a decent lifespan.

The game playes pretty quick up to around 1200 AD... ...so with a little luck, you wont have to invest much time

I did some reloads, that´s why I didnt participate in the official challange. I think 4 or 5 in total. Most were just stupid missclick, like sending a settler to the front, but 1 or 2 times I went back in history to try something different

I have documented my game a little, and I will include the big replays in my report (dont want to state them here and now)

 

[Duckweed]

Interesting, I'll give it a try sometime. Aggressive leader would be better to fit in this situation. Prat is no better than CISI Axe.

 

[huerfanista]

About a year ago I played the "Deity always-war OCC" game that was posted, and one of the things I got out of it was just how powerful woodman units are on a forested hill with a fort. If you can find a forsted hill chokepoint (looks like there's a possibility to the SE near Shaka) and get a fort up, it's absolutely amazing what a couple of W3 units can hold out against, and you will get an insane amount of promos (hint:W3 get 2 first strikes and have incredible healing, so start w/a couple of axes, promote to maces, then muskets for CR and drill). I'll try this if I have time.