Geez, guys, this is hard!
I mean really hard. In several ways. Much harder than Deity Challenge 3.
I'm so lost, I literally don't know what to do, I'm forced to go against every civ instinct I have and that's driving me crazy.
I rolled a great map, Petra starting location, desert folklore and all the goodies. But sandwiched between Austria and China (
) and Hiawatha to the south. Austria DoWed first (I kinda settled right in her face
), almost stole my city (who could've thought defending with one sword and one spear is not very effective?
) but then at the last minute suggested peace.
Thank you, I'll take it. Few turns later Hiawatha attacks her, quickly snipes her third city and get her second, on my doorstep, in a peace deal. I left her alone for now and went after Wu, who was wonder spamming and nothing else. Well... my pikes, swords and cats got thrashed in no time by her pikes, swords and cats.
That campaign was a lost cause to begin with. The amount of hammers needed to match AI melee force is simply ridiculous. I had maybe 2/3 of her army, but with better GG and hills (no walls) she was unbeatable. And I rage quit. Which is very funny by itself, because I never rage quit. However, everything about the game was so frustrating, I couldn't bear it anymore. Two archer would've made all the difference. It's amazing how badly I missed them.
It is more about power difference. Civ is largely a game of opportunity cost, and strategy games in general about making interesting choices.
You have your shiny new empire, and the enemy horde will be soon approaching (Immortal/Deity). What do you do? Choose to gather up a small force of archers that can eliminate the horde with little to no losses, no large detours away from bee-lining science techs, good on offense and defense, and relatively cheap/resource-free? Or do you take a detour, focus on infantry techs which cannot attack without being attacked, expensive and may need iron, have difficulty in taking enemy cities, and generally don't contribute as much as archers?
That isn't an interesting choice. That is either play smart, or purposely play stupid (for challenge, role-play, boredom, but certainly never because optimal).
Bottom tree traditionally sucks, I can't argue with that. Mainly because of the detour. Which is another point, btw, that can use some balancing, since usually going there instead of upper tree makes very little sense. As for the rest, you can't have 10 optimal choices. There is always one or two (very rare occasions) optimal and all the others are sub-optimal.
Playing with this a little though, I'm more inclined to agree about infantry's tremendous suckiness. Melee and siege both suck. Big big time.
Seriously, two archers and this game would have been over before it started.
And I am by no means going to steal the thread. You called me out by name, so I felt obligated to clarify my position. Actually, Budweiser's idea of having a game and comparing CB starts vs. Iron-rush starts sounds interesting. Someone posting a map and having players try out different starts and comparing results would be fun.
And I'm glad you did. Although still can't say I completely understand what you mean, but that's even doesn't matter. I think we won't get wrong here either way. The purpose of this thread is discussion and trying different things. Non-archery approach is pretty unexplored territory, so every angle of view contributes and is more than welcome.
I tried iron rush in my game, btw. Just didn't have enough iron.
Only one patch of 2. By the time I've got 6 more, I was in bad position overall.
Here's a nice house rule: a player may only have 1 archer per city. Archers may not leave cultural borders unless stacked with a GG.
Here's the thing. One archer per city make all the difference. You don't even need dozen of them. Just a little bunch and you can kill all enemy troops safely, while doing the same with melee is suicidal.
sufficiency - I chose to try a game with germany as well.
Duh...
People are looking for shortcuts, I see. I should've called this an experiment, not a challenge.
The Huns, the Germans, 'only defending' archers, turtling and killing everybody with artillery/bombers etc - all defeat the purpose, imo. We're supposed to test brute force approach, no shortcuts, no workarounds.
