OCC Always War

[vanatteveldt]

@Kid R

Re +100%
Sorry I shoud have been more clear. Normally if you build a wonder (say oracle), you get 3GPP and if you look at it it says "100% great prophet". After building the GWall with Esp off, I got the GPP but it didn't say anything about what kind of GP I would get, so I am assuming that they are somehow "colourless" GPP...

Re forest / waste of hammers
It's not about hammers/workers, it's about tech (I think for the first hundred turns or so techs are the bottleneck). I think the best tech order is hunting -> mining -> bw, but then it takes a long time to get BW so you can work the gold mine. By removing the forest the gold mine is my second improvement (after the deer) so BW comes online a lot quicker (due to gold-mine boosted research). As outlined above, I work with 3 workers (which I think is enough), which I build before my first unit (worker - barracks (grow city) - worker - worker - warrior (finish build as spearman) - axeman*&infra&wonders).

With the forest on the gold mine, I ended up with the needed techs delayed, forcing me to build a number of warriors which I have to pay upkeep for, disband, or upgrade (and money ain't free in this game...)

About the garrison warrior: do you think you need it? I've only had happy problems for very short periods, which I solve with a axeman retreated to base. Periods are I think before forge (3 extra happy) and just before drama (inf happy due to slider -> globe)

 

[Killroyan]

If you play with no espionage and you build the great wall you will stack up on great person points. Should you have enough points for a great person then the first GP points will determine the outcome of that great person. So build a library and assign a scientist and you will get a scientist. Build stonehenge and you will get a great prophet etc.... In one of my no espionage games I build the great wall and later on pyramids, bam, instant great engineer.

 

[vanatteveldt]

So what happens if you get to 100 without having a "real" GPP? do you get a random GP? Or does it wait until you get your first GPP?

 

[UWHabs]

So what happens if you get to 100 without having a "real" GPP? do you get a random GP? Or does it wait until you get your first GPP?

I think it does random, although it might give you whatever is "first" in the list internally.

 

[bestbrian]

I loved this several years ago, but I have a couple of questions:

a) With the 3.19 patch, would the gold overflow from the chariot production for upgrades still work? If not, then where would the cash for upgrades come from? Building wealth?

b) Anyone know what the original map was that was worldbuildered? I'm thnking I might redo this on a Great Plains map for LoR.

 

[vanatteveldt]

@BestBrian It looks as if it is a plain old inner sea map with the northeast corner changed. A highlands map could be fun as you will be able to "compartmentalize" at the choke points, preventing resettling, maybe making it feasible to break out earlier

 

[bestbrian]

@BestBrian It looks as if it is a plain old inner sea map with the northeast corner changed. A highlands map could be fun as you will be able to "compartmentalize" at the choke points, preventing resettling, maybe making it feasible to break out earlier

I'm not too keen on the Highlands map; just a innate prejudice, and I don't want to make this too "gamey". Inland Sea is interesting, but I'm kinda intrigued by a Great Plains map, especially with a lot more land available to the AI and with Revolutions/BarbWorld/StartAsMinors enabled, it could add some neat wrinkles. Hmmmm....

 

[cripp7]

I loved this several years ago, but I have a couple of questions:

a) With the 3.19 patch, would the gold overflow from the chariot production for upgrades still work? If not, then where would the cash for upgrades come from? Building wealth?

b) Anyone know what the original map was that was worldbuildered? I'm thnking I might redo this on a Great Plains map for LoR.

a) Yes it does work with the overflow, I tried building and tried the chariot build and the overflow received more return.

b) I thought this was an inland sea map. Something I want to do is make this a true Always War where all the AIs are at war with each other.

 

[Kid R]

@vanattveldt

Cood call on the initial warrior - complete waste of hammers! Initial research comes from fur which is great because it has food and hammers too. Gems is next (also 2 food). Well I did gold and gems in parallel with 2 workers, and both chops finish the turn after masonry. So most of the great wall gets done instantly.

@bestbrian

A great plains version sounds interesting - presumably the human would start in the mountains ..... did you have an idea for a "unique twist" of some kind????

 

[Killroyan]

If you get to 100 GP points you are not getting a GP. The first moment though you invest some points in a GP you get it instantly. Again, this is how I remember it from my no espionage game.

 

[vanatteveldt]

@kidr I think I underestimate the beaver. Before deforesting the gold, I went deer - elephant - beaver - copper - gold. I think I should try deer - beaver - elephant - copper? - gems

@cripp probably if you start the game with everyone at war and with all diplo modifiers set to minus 20 or something they will stay at war quite a while. I don't think there is a setting to force war on the AI, right? Remember to turn vassals off. Some AIs will probably make peace at some point, eg with the mediator / mercy to the wounded events (you could also disable events, I guess).

 

[Kid R]

True always war might not be the cushy ride for the human it sounds. You'll get less AI units attacking the pass, which is free XP lost and jeopardizes the whole GG-based strategy, and inevitably some AIs will become more powerful and reduce the human tech lead over them at the end. If someone gets on a roll they might even win domination.

Unless you were thinking of ways to make it even harder!

 

[Calouste]

I tried this and things can get a tad problematic if one of the opponents draws Rome. Aggressive Prats do a bit too much damage to be able to hold the pass with 6-8 units until Samurai come around.

 

[Quaren]

I am a prince/monarch player (monarch normaly but just started playing again after a long break). Tried this on emperor and epic speed and it took a long time but was very easy.
I think it should be very doable for the better players on immortal and probably deity considering someone like me did it pretty easily on a harder difficulty then I am used to.
I have to admit that I had to reload a time or two since I lost the gap when I got impatient when they didn't attack and tried to make the target more juicy by moving some units in my stack.

Some tips for people who want to try it.
1. play on marathon: The time it takes to move around and raze cities was easily enough for the ai to catch up with the tech lvl of my stack and make it alot harder. On emp I also only got 18 GGs to make super units with so used 3 or 4 of them as stack defenders and filled up on other units. Only being able to build 1 unit per turn is a pain aswell when you can finish pretty much anything in less then a turn.
2. Try to break out early to raze important cities like shrines.
3. focus on the good cities and don't waste time on the new ones they will settle behind your army until the better ones are dead.
4. If you have time,(faster units waiting for slower ones in the stack) pillage to hinder new cities from growing to quickly.
5. Have lots and lots of free time cause this will take time. I played this for 11 and a half hours and most of that was just running around razing cities.

Some stats (too lazy to post screens)
Cities razed: 113
Great generals: 18
Other great people: 25
Total lost units: 33

Kills:
Cavalry:403
Infantry:343
Treb:214
Rifleman:196
Grenadiers:148
Curiassier:120
Catapults:119
Cannon: 82
Lots and lots of others

 

[vanatteveldt]

@Quaren congrats on the win.

Could you give some details on which (early) wonders you built and with what units you did the break outs?

 

[Quaren]

I built GW>Mids>HG>Partheon>oracle>Library>CI>UoS>Taj>SoL and pretty much every wonder/project after SoL.
With the amount of hammers you have you can easily build almost all the wonders below immortal (not sure about immortal and above).

I broke out the first time after rushing rifles and cannons and razed almost half the cities on the upper half of the map before the AI started catching up in techs And I had to send what was left back for upgrading. By that time I had another army with infantry/cannons and then a third with mech/mobile/modern.
Before I was done I think I had 4 different stacks with Mech/modern/mobile roaming around.
Not sure if its possible to break out earlier.

One thing I wonder about is if you can actually have time to build all the units you need on the higher difficulties with only 1 city. If the computer builds enough and attacks enough you might be able to break out with a stack of superunits but I only got 18 GGs total.

 

[cripp7]

Best thing to do with all the "lower class" wonders is to build them to 1t for failed for your upgrades.

 

[nishant1911]

decided to give this another try
no need to wait for mechs
took steam power from lib, for early morale infantries

Spoiler :

i will soon move out with 5 morale infantries, 1 will join later.
i played this a bit further, and i have razed about 40 cities by 1500 ad . beelined industrialism for tanks to clear the land behind.
conquest look doable now

 

[Kid R]

I decided commando was far superior to morale as it gives you 10 moves when the AI starts building railroads, which also obsoletes morale. I can see you've bypassed the Military Science techs quite brutally though

Surprising that a stack of 5 guys with just 2 moves and no March promo has been able to get through 40 cities. Good job if you can get it won from there

 

[nishant1911]

I decided commando was far superior to morale as it gives you 10 moves when the AI starts building railroads, which also obsoletes morale. I can see you've bypassed the Military Science techs quite brutally though

Surprising that a stack of 5 guys with just 2 moves and no March promo has been able to get through 40 cities. Good job if you can get it won from there

all the infantries had march promo when they got out.
and they were later joined by more general infantries.
also no ai has rifling yet, and these infantries were able to take out CG3 rifleman(when they got them) without bombarding defenses so you can say pretty much every 3 turn you can take down a city by careful movements.
and BTW what's the promotion path for commando?
i never considered it