OCC Always War Halloween Special (vol. I)

[obsolete]

OCC Always-War Halloween Special (Volume Noble)




One City Challenge.... mixed on Always War. (Got it now?)

Today we are starting off at:

• Settler
• Chieftain
• Warlord
• Noble <---

AI is unrestrained in techs, etc. to make things a little more difficult. This may change once we hit Immortal (winks).

And of course, no speed cheats, or other tampering. While it may seem inevitable to lose to UN or AP cheese, we will play on if that happens. Except, there are SPECIAL bonus points for winning without losing (muahaha.....<evil laugh>).

I did leave on Slot Machines and Game-Breaking Events however.

(just kidding)

Current roster...

• Obsolete (he kicks ass)
• Tachywaxon (he's French)
• GrassHoppa [sic]
• Snaaty (in wait)

Turn lengths = 10 per set? Anyone who does more, will see the Devil before Oct. 31st.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Lol even worse than Prince, Noble! Now to see how I much I can abuse the Ai.

 

[Manco Capac]

Is there going to have PPP discussion?
And your test on EMO on IMM won't work if Modified Assets is on...

 

[obsolete]

Lol even worse than Prince, Noble! Now to see how I much I can abuse the Ai.

Well that was part of the point. Though there should be a limit. Starting with Shaka just to rush a UU over and cause all AI's on the continent to not get a worker out their doors until 1500 AD is breaking things a bit too much. Looking for some fun, but something still among the spirit of training for OCC-AW-Deity. Hah!

PPP = Pre... something.. something? Well yes, I'm not even sure who to go first, considering, we need to agree on what to tech first and build. Naturally, I'm voting to move settler 1 tile #7 then #6 this turn. Unless something special happens.

 

[Manco Capac]

So you meant winning whatever IMM OCC, not necessarily Asterix's one? Because that one is fixed to prince.
Wowowow. Ok, I get it. I caught the "any" in the PM. Time to sleep. It's clear I can't read decently now.

 

[Snaaty]

Some basic ideas in the concept:

1. the first game being prince, we need some restrictions. else winning would be along this lines:
-> research mining-bronze-whatever
-> we have bronze: unitspamm axes, choke and kill all ai
-> we dont have bronze: research archery, unitspamm archers, choke all ai
-> research ah-iron: we have horses/iron: kill all ai
-> we dont have horses/iron: research construction, kill all ai with catas+whatever, even archers will do

i dont see much sense in playing a game if the above mentioned is allowed, because not only will it be no fun, but also we wont profit in any way on the higher levels...
2. restrictions that come to my mind for the first game to make it fun and a learning experience:
-> deep down, we are peaceful buddies and dont really care for outside stuff. so we wont leave our cultural borders up to the point some ai is finding us (no scouting and such before first ai finds us with whatever unit)
-> like already mentioned, we good, peaceful buddies, so we wont go on the offence against any ai that doesnt attack us first (ai moves units inside our territory, we are allowed to send units to this and only this ai to retaliate. before this, no units except scouts leave our land)

problems i see on higher levels and strategies we should try out now on the lower levels:
-> how do we keep our bfc clear of enemy units without metal and horses? if we cant keep our bfc clean, we are dead, since beeing reduced to a pop 2 city not working anything simply wont work out well in the long run.
-> if we dont want to be luck dependent and dont want to restart looooooots of times untill we have metal in bfc, we need a strategy bringing us really fast to metal-free units.
-> the only metal free units that come to my mind that can cope and kill axes,spears and chars, later also ha´s, swords, catas and phants are lb´s (and you already need quite some promos + catas on your own to stand against swords + ha´s and phants)
-> we need a plan to reach feuda really fast i guess or we need to play with early UU civs that dont need metal

 

[ahcos]

Sorry to interupt, but what exactly is the purpose of this thread? With all these big names around here it must be something terrific, but i just can't figure it out. Especially as this is noble... i'm puzzled.

 

[TiglathPileser]

I guess the idea is to go up a level each time to see at what point it becomes unwinnable?

I'll be keen to join in once we get to monarch.

Also, if you're worried about UN/AP cheese why not just disable diplo victories...

 

[soundjata]

Pointless? Probably but still... The glorious return of Obsolete needs to be celebrated!

 

[Manco Capac]

I guess the idea is to go up a level each time to see at what point it becomes unwinnable?

And possibly playing the ultimate settings. AW certainly make the game harder, but OCC AW is possibly the highest form of challenge.
Deity AW OCC is possible only in creating very specific map.

 

[lymond]

Obs is back and more frightening than ever!

I was shocked to by the difficulty, since it always seems Snaaty plays Deity AW games. I guess expanding a bit on the intro and theme here, i.e., what are you trying to achieve.

(edit: Ok...it's finally dawning on me that this is OCC ....um...good luck)

 

[obsolete]

Also, if you're worried about UN/AP cheese why not just disable diplo victories...

We don't want to cook settings or make it TOO EASY. At least if losing to an AP, people can criticize it's our fault for not building the AP ourselves (and getting a religion). Haha.

Agreed with all of Snaaty's posts, however not sure about the scout rule. First of all, Snaaty used to always prohibit me from building a scout in our other AW games, and second of all, if we don't attack with our first warrior, doesn't it then technically count as a scout-warrior?

Come on... with charismatic we can get it to Woody II so early....

In any case, maybe we start tomorrow night (if lucky). But I want some more input on first tech plans... and builds. I know this sounds very unorthodox, but I'd actually like to get henge. Dilute the spy pool from TGW, so we can run a massive priest economy. That way, even if we lost control of the field later on(think higher levels), we'd still have massive hammer & tech output with even a 1 pop city.

But, I'm willing to experiment with other things here. Maybe we can try to focus and just flood settled scientists? I"ll leave it up to the team to decide.

Another thing, one element I loved in a previous game with Snaaty & friends was popping Monarchy from a hut, and then oracling feudalism. But I don't know if we can research monarchy in time on noble fully to do this. Would really suck losing the Oracle race this way.

Thoughts?

 

[obsolete]

Should mention one more thing. Maybe we should burn off a few turns to use both the settler and warrior to scout a bit? I'm indifferent here.

 

[obsolete]

Just realized... on a final note 10 turn sets is maybe a bit too short for a single city empire. We'll make it 15 or 20 turns. You guys decide. I don't like making them too long, or people get very sloppy (me included). The shorter, the more people tend to micro properly and try to make the most out of what little time-slots they have. Well, we probably don't have much micro to do here anyway...

 

[Strickl3r]

I'm kinda new to this Forum and never player AW and OCC before.
Very funny though i must say.

Also i learned that u can kill an AI with just 2 Warriors on noble, that was a surprise

 

[Manco Capac]

i dont see much sense in playing a game if the above mentioned is allowed, because not only will it be no fun, but also we wont profit in any way on the higher levels...
2. restrictions that come to my mind for the first game to make it fun and a learning experience:
-> deep down, we are peaceful buddies and dont really care for outside stuff. so we wont leave our cultural borders up to the point some ai is finding us (no scouting and such before first ai finds us with whatever unit)
-> like already mentioned, we good, peaceful buddies, so we wont go on the offence against any ai that doesnt attack us first (ai moves units inside our territory, we are allowed to send units to this and only this ai to retaliate. before this, no units except scouts leave our land)

I agree on those terms. On prince it is not difficulty to take out AI's or choke them.
We have to at least let them develop and do some wreck.

problems i see on higher levels and strategies we should try out now on the lower levels:
-> how do we keep our bfc clear of enemy units without metal and horses? if we cant keep our bfc clean, we are dead, since beeing reduced to a pop 2 city not working anything simply wont work out well in the long run.

You may laugh at this idea, but a cheesy method is popping in my head and should be theoritically workable given we are limited to one city.
When stacks are gunning towards the enemy, they are targeting anything else than cities from afar. They calculate paths from point A to point B (which one is the targeted city). I discovered both barbs and even AI's look pretty asinine when blocking only passages to the city. Experiences of being secluded from AI's and being on WHEOON mode for millenia because they can't reach you via waters or a chain of mountains is blockading. Units can do the same if the enemy units are not adjacent to the blockade units (where bloodlust rule overrides).
A nine units around the city may dissuade the AI's to do anything funny...

Of course, I'm not sure if it works because someone had played in the far past a deity AW OCC and blockaded the only passage to the city and still got attacked IIRC.

Anyways, pretty sure no one would want to use such cheese, but I am proposing an idea.


-> if we dont want to be luck dependent and dont want to restart looooooots of times untill we have metal in bfc, we need a strategy bringing us really fast to metal-free units.

Delayed BW + Mids for GEngineer to bulb Feudalism...

-> the only metal free units that come to my mind that can cope and kill axes,spears and chars, later also ha´s, swords, catas and phants are lb´s (and you already need quite some promos + catas on your own to stand against swords + ha´s and phants)
-> we need a plan to reach feuda really fast i guess or we need to play with early UU civs that dont need metal

Comments in lazy blue.

 

[Manco Capac]

I'm kinda new to this Forum and never player AW and OCC before.
Very funny though i must say.

Also i learned that u can kill an AI with just 2 Warriors on noble, that was a surprise

In fact, 2 warriors are insufficient. 3 warriors reduce well the chance to lose all warriors for a vain invasion. And still, bad luck still happens.
2 warriors invasions are HoF optimal rushes.

They do not intent at all to cripple the AI because on higher levels this is not doable and they need a benchmark.

 

[Manco Capac]

Come on... with charismatic we can get it to Woody II so early....

IIRC, noble level allows 2 free wins. Let's take these wins on bears!

In any case, maybe we start tomorrow night (if lucky). But I want some more input on first tech plans... and builds. I know this sounds very unorthodox, but I'd actually like to get henge. Dilute the spy pool from TGW, so we can run a massive priest economy. That way, even if we lost control of the field later on(think higher levels), we'd still have massive hammer & tech output with even a 1 pop city.

But, I'm willing to experiment with other things here. Maybe we can try to focus and just flood settled scientists? I"ll leave it up to the team to decide.

Another thing, one element I loved in a previous game with Snaaty & friends was popping Monarchy from a hut, and then oracling feudalism. But I don't know if we can research monarchy in time on noble fully to do this. Would really suck losing the Oracle race this way.

Relying on huts to monarchy. Hmmm...that's seem a bit hard.
I do think oracling feudalism is feasible on noble and even more on AW noble if the AI DoWs us. Notice the fact AI's have a sensibly different build order under war pressure even if faked by the human. (In AW, it's the human player who is intolerant and auto-DoW). Anyways, I've seen oracles go around 300 BC on noble.

 

[Revent]

I've once Oracled Education on Noble
It wasn't even a beeline I didn't even plan to, I got a GS, realised the Oracle STILL hadn't been built, researched priesthood whilst pre chopping my city, finish priesthood, bulb paper, one turn oracle, next turn education.

 

[obsolete]

Another reason I chose to start out on Noble, was I figured we also may try winning without any land improvements whatsoever in our cross. Considering it seems eventually you'll be bound to get over-run from the start when trying out on deity.

Again, I"ll leave that option to you guys.