King of the hill - open challange for all playlevels

[Crusher1]

I've actually replayed and substantially improved my date . I'll hold onto the screen shots for a few days at least and post it when the timing is right =D

 

[Iberian]

First off I don't know how you manage to keep both the German forum and English forum up to date. That is a lot of time. But that doesn't even come close to the time it must take to move the sheer volume of units in this game by the infantry stage.

When games get to this point and I know I am going to win it takes a lot to keep playing.
The question though is Stalin and his 20+ galleons going to ruin it?

Luckily the AI sucks at war over the oceans.

 

[mzprox]

OK, sorry, let me correct this
Scorelist updated, and we have a new scoreleader, who reached 1565 AD and posted a screen and/or save

Better now?

Fair enough

I wanted to upload my save but realized that i have forgot to save during the last rounds and my autosaves got overwrited. My last save was from 1100 Ad so i have decided to replay it again from there (actually it wasnt too much.. just building new untis an giving them promotions). But this time I did slightly differently which allowed me to live till 1800 AD

Spoiler :

I knew i cannot win this game, I'm not really good in warfare in civ games . I have built my favorite wonder the Pyramids, used the first engineer to build the great library so i had quite good research. I think i should have built more cities, i made only two in the whole game. My outpost city, which took the early attacking waves was founded south-east from my capitol on a hill. After i got feudalism my longbowmen could hold the enemy for long time, but eventually i have lost this city around 800 AD.
From this point i didnt do too much but builded units in my capitol untill the end. I have teched to gunpowder then military science and after this I stopped researching, revolted out from Representation and changed to HR (mostly because by this time i have lost my north fur/silver city and emancipation became a problem too so needed happyness) (it was strange that the AI hasn't pillaged everything around my city, they did destroy some but left many)
I got 14 GG in the game, i have settled 12 (under representation they provided good research), one builded a military acadamey and one was used to get a medic 3 unit which was killed quite soon.. :/. I have also settled almost all of the GP i got.

around the end of the game my newborn grenadiers had 27 xp which was enough to give them +75% city defense and +50% hill defense (lvl 6 units, but i had some lvl 10 units too)

screenshots from the end of the game:

two turns before defeat ( i still had a nice army):

my city ( i triggered GA with a great artist because i knew the end is near :

last turn...

 

[Snaaty]

1800 AD

Well, now all of us have a goal to best. Incredible well played. Congrats

 

[Snaaty]

Me, up to 500 AD:

Spoiler :

I go into superspy mode and steal math, construction, monarchy, HBR, sailing, meditation and finally feudalism from the mongols. I dont wait for stationary bonuses and such, I just try to get all the techs as fast as possible, after the successfull infiltration via my Great Spy. I need better units and I need them fast, so I prefere to waist some spypoints then delaying feudalism (I steal it the turn Khan researched it)

I build the mids around 300 BC, so I´m also doing fine researchwise, with more and more settled GGs mainly and some hired spies

My own research went currency, CoL, CS and I cottaged up my capital after I was able to keep the lands there clean from enemy troops, preparing for bureau...

After that, I raze the mongol city and plant my own city on the phants. With LBs, I can hold ONE city even not beeing on a hill, and I dont want to take any risk about the phants.

Then I go on my first offence and raze the Zulu cities on MY peninsula. I dont dare keeping them, because they are close to the actual front and none was on a hill

I want to end the turnset with a big bang, taking the Zulu capital:
View attachment 211063

But bad news already 2 turns later.
View attachment 211064

The mongols come with a bunch of catas and riders and take the city from me, with all my phants wounded or dead from the siege... ...and I couldnt get enough LBs there in time, because I still needed them to defend against the stacks still roaming my peninsula (I just passed them by to take Ulundi). Luckily I had at least a spy near Ulundi and could retreast most of my expert citycracker praets, so losses werent too bad. Should have really razed this damn city, but well, after my first mil. success in the offence, I apparently was a little overconfident. This weedy move prevented me from settling the chokepoint, so I had to defend it without a city

 

[Duckweed]

Due to the extreme powerful capital and the most important --barbarian initial setting without archer, the actual difficulty of this map is no more than immortal. However, deity always war is ~100% impossible to win under normal condition, I even doubt there is chances for immortal level. So this map is still a very tough challenge and fun to play. However, most of the strategies developed for this game are useless for normal play.

Here is an early stage guide to easily survive after 1500AD.

Spoiler :

1. Oracle: Even in normal deity game, with gold in BFC, there is very good chance to get this wonder and I would suggest you to grab Confu. No need to hurry, 1500BC is still pretty safe to grab it. You don't need to bother with diplomacy any more (the most important part for deity level), so having one religion is so important. Moreover, the early courthouse synchronize the Org trait, you need some EPs to steal techs. Focus all your EPs on Shaka from the beginning. I don't suggest you to go for Bud or Hindu first, since that slows down your early development and also it is a gamble but not a real play.

2. Don't fogbust, let the barb build cities for you, -- the most important reason why I said this map is just immortal level. Your axes eat the barb warriors soooooo easily. Your first 4-5 Axes should be promoted to Forest for quick movement among forest.

3. Early choke of Shaka. check how many turns you can choke Shaka with a single warrior (Retreat to jungle if Shaka's archer approaches). Send one Axe down to take over the warrior, this will save you the whole north part of the land.

4. Battle field. Right north of the choking site, there is a Hill site grabbing the Corn/Wine (The 3rd city I settled), you only need to build wall in this city. Before cats come in, 6-10 Axes/Spears should be enough to fend any stacks. If you lost this city, you are near the defeated position, Never let AI's units approach your capital. Remember to chop all the surrounding forests and jungles

Point 5 and 6 is not optimal, but sufficient for survival
5. Tech path:
Agri->BW->Wheel->Hunting->AH/Pottery->Mys->Med->Priest->Writing->IW(optional, good for taking barb cities with archers)->Monarch ??Math->Cons->Archery->HR

6. Battle
If all you need is to survive longer, then after 10-15 WEs, build cats non-stopping. Prats, cats, and WEs are all you need to survive over 1500AD. Rather than pure defense, please attack, suicide a few cats 1st, you can destroy a stack without other loss.

 

[huerfanista]

i'm surprised that nobody has tried to get a warrior on that hill outside Ulundi before it's chopped. A forested hill is an amazingly powerful defensive location. In the "Deity AW OCC" challenge game that I referenced earlier, getting a single W2 axe on a forested hill makes him virtually invulnerable. In that game I fought off early stacks of 6-8 archer/swords easily with a single axe, who quickly gets W3. Attach a great general and built a fort, and I got him to over 1000XP. 3 of those guys will hold out against anything the AI can throw at it, and they get free upgrades. I'd take a shot at this game, but I'm not reconfiguring my system so that BUG plays nice with LMA. What I'd try to do is get a warrior on that hill before it can be chopped (OFC, if it's not forested to begin with, this is all moot ), then get some guerilla archers on there to hold it until you can get some woodsman melee units online. Razing Ulundi and founding a city N of the hill (so you can build a fort there) would be the next obvious move. As Snaaty has shown, and IMP leader w/GW will generate tons of GGs. I'd attach these to make super defenders first, before settling the rest.

 

[Duckweed]

i'm surprised that nobody has tried to get a warrior on that hill outside Ulundi before it's chopped.

Strategy should be developed based on regular play without knowing the map first. That why players don't know there's forest before. I don't either.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

To 500 BC

Spoiler :

I settled in place / sent the starting warrior to steal me a worker / built a garrison warrior and 3 workers while teching BW and Agriculture. The idea was to take out one of the AIs early.

However, it took me a while to find the Zulu and a while more to take them out, at which point GK and Ragnar intervened with a lot of keshiks and axes, defending Zululand was impossible.

So I reloaded to 1120 BC and simply razed Ulundi and retreated to the jungles north. I had already invested much into Praets (i.e. no Oracle) so getting longbows for the hill was not feasible.

My aggressive opener meant I didn't get GW or Mids, or a religion for that matter, so I decided to beeline for GL and Parthenon.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

To 500 AD

Spoiler :

I got the GL and the Parthenon, but GK beat me to Taoism and I was left religion-less.

To 1000 AD

Spoiler :

Even without religion I easily outteched the AIs on the Liberalism path.

To Liberalism

Spoiler :

1000-1100 AD saw a lot of fighting after a multunational SoD of 55 units managed to penetrate my defense line. With Rome producing a level 4 xbow or mace each turn, I managed to turn the tide.

1120 AD, I can take Liberalism, but won't. Stalin is lacking Philo and Edu, GK - Paper and Edu. I might be able to squeeze Steel out of it.

PS. Holding the choke one way or another isn't particularly hard. Stalin is the real obstacle to winning the game.

 

[Sleepless]

- 500BC

Spoiler :

I had one little reload when I was about to lose a city I had captured from the barbs, Circa 725BC. I changed tech to Archery, put a couple of Archers in there and thought it would be safe. Obviously Ragnar thought so too as he changed direction and headed for Rome instead.

I should have named this screenshot barbarians at the gate.

Seems like a good time to stop and save.

I've made to many mistakes to mention in this game although I haven't given up just yet. (hint I played 1 more turn and I know Rome doesn't fall, although it might do the next turn).

If I had realised how slow the AI were to tech the religious techs I could have probably got a religion and built the Oracle. Saying that the AP has been built, perhaps they'll declare on me . I can expect the next lot of troops to include some cats, so I need to tech Hbr for some flanking HA's then lots of other things as well.

If and it is a very big if I can get a city on the hill near the wine/corn area that will enable me to develop Rome and get some Scientists to help me along. I will need a lot of troops for that but Rome and the ex barb city are very strong for production.

 

[Snaaty]

@ USun and Sleepless:

for joining in. maybe we will find now a way to best the AI here.

@USun, concerning Stalin:

Spoiler :

Stalin will get a really, really, and I mean really, really big problem around 1500 AD. I dont know how the designers of this map/game did it, but he´s pulling off an incredible naval invasion, from what I know from the players living long enough to face him already. Defending the coast against him AND defending against the other idiots has let to the downfall of all players so far, and there are some damn good ones too in the german forum.

I turned my game around 1400 AD in a SG in the geman forum, we are right now at 1560 AD, and Stalin just got Astro... ...I think we might be able to survive his innital invasion, but surviving AND staying competetiv in tech might be the main problem in the long run, so I´m really curious how this develops here. My ultimate goal would be to find a way to beat this map, cause the designers of the challange claim it´s not winnable, doesnt matter who does it in the end...

...

@ Sleepless:
Feel free to reload and/or to replay the beginning. The real challange is going to start around 1500 AD and I would love to find a way to pass this date and still be competitiv somehow for late-game

 

[Halt]

Ai Shizuka, did you find a solution? I get the same message you do.

 

[Snaaty]

1000 AD:

Spoiler :

Not beeing able to get a city on the mountain pass, I opted for building a city near it and to build a fort on top of it. I had some losses after the AI came with trebs and maces, but in general my defences stood firm. I have about 25-30 units there
View attachment 211122

To keep production and science as high as possible, I went down the religious path, building UoS and AppPalace. Next tech will be Divine Right and I even have high chances of getting the reli (never happened before), but the main goal is the SpiralM to complete the ReliWonders.

 

[Snaaty]

1500 AD:

Spoiler :

Most important:I get Islam

Besides that I manage to build SpiralM, reach Lib first, but not fast enough. My goal was to get steal (like USun also is planning), but Ragnar teched to fast and I was afraid to delay Lib, so I picked Nationalism as Freebe

Nationalism isn´t that bad after all, since I have a GI hanging around and get the Taj immediately for the GA, switching government to Nationalism for the extra 25% spypoints. I´m still running a sypeconomy after all.

Speaking of my spy economy:
I stole my way towards MilScince and teched in parallel towards Steel with some backfilling of smaller stuff

The roman empire
View attachment 211124

And the roman army at the 1500 AD checkpoint
View attachment 211123


...

Some additional info:
I turned my game into a SG at a certain point and next round was played recently. Obviously we invaded Zululand and conquered 3 cities. Stalin has Asto now. Big ouch is approaching, no idea if we can withstand it, front is Zululand is long, army is incredible far away from homelandcoast... ...when next round is played, we will know more I guess

 

[Unconquered Sun]

@Snaaty

Spoiler :

I have three ideas worth checking, far-fetched as they are


BW -> Wheel -> take out Shaka very very early

Mids -> full FE -> draft maces or better to 100% culture and roll south

HE in coastal city -> beeline for Combustion with a combination of GS and GM bulbs -> blitz Destroyers

 

[Snaaty]

USun:

Spoiler :

my idea and game was all built around the spy economy, based on the GWall. I also managed to get the Mids, but my research was never really strong and I had too many cottages for that (didnt expect to get the Mids)...

So an approach based on the GWall AND the Mids, meaning to combine spy economy for stealing common techs and heavy FE with bulbing (I bulbed nothing) might buy enough time to roll over the conti BEFORE Stalin shows up, when we get Nationalism (GA from Musik?) fast enough to do extremely heavy mass drafting. With enough siege, it doesnt really matter what units we draft, as long as we have many, many, many of them and engineering we should be able to steal for trebs in time I guess...

Dont think its possible to fight against the idiots on our conti and Stalin

 

[Unconquered Sun]

@Snaaty

Spoiler :

Combining Music and Caste to bulb the GA route for Nationalism is certainly an option. The HE city (capital or SE spot?) can hammer all the siege we need, or, under high culture slider, the NE 4-food spot can chop the HE and whip a lot of siege too.

Also, consider this WARNING very spoilerish info about the start

Spoiler :

Early score indicates Shaka starts with one Settler

 

[budweiser]

Could you win by culture before Stalin kills you?

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Ai Shizuka, did you find a solution? I get the same message you do.

No. Actually I didn't even try. Not after looking at some of the spoilers