[BNW] scenario - harder difficulty levels

[dwcole78]

So trying to play some of the scenarios on harder difficulty levels and boy I should have done this before they upped the bonuses to AI. Is it possible now to beat say the Ancient Wonders world scenario on Emperor or above? If so how? I attempted doing it using Egypt on the historical map which seemed like the best play but Persia (surprisingly to me) built the most wonders I was only able to get one up before the game ended...

Is it using Persia and winning late game with military and using the special building (even though it comes so late in tech) to deal with happiness issues the way to go?

 

[Equilin]

for Wonder scenario on Deity I've heard you'll need Egypt with Marble start. Dunno if it's possible to conquer everyone first.

 

[claudiupb]

I don't think the updates affected that scenario since it is under the vanilla rules. But anyway it is entirely beatable, although it may need a few attempts; you can finds some guides on this forum which are still relevant. From what I remember the easiest way is to roll an Egypt map with marble, settle the red sea (for lighthouse and mayb collusus), and you may be able to snag the oracle and maybe a cultural or commercial wonder + the military ones (just keep fighting someone to gather the XP). You can make things easier if you trade all your luxuries for gold and immediately declare war on the AI, since you already know everyone and don't need a declaration of friendship. This way you may get a setter and a worker going, while you focus on other stuff.
Either way you still need some degree of luck because you need the other wonders spread out between AI's.

There is also the possibility to just conquer the world (still Egypt is the best here with the war chariots), but for this I would suggest the random inland sea map.

 

[dwcole78]

How do you deal with the happiness issues if you are conquering the world? Also original post was more on scenarios in general - the Kahn scenario for example seems much harder now as does the Viking one since they upped the AI bonuses in some of the patches I think. (never played the others so can't comment on them)

 

[Equilin]

For Wonder scenario, if you are conquering the world the policies will help you on happiness, just controlling your growth shouldn't be too hard.
Never played Vikings.
The Mongol scenario have several step-by-step guides on Steam and some other places because on Deity everything needs to fall in place to win.

For guides to most scenarios try looking here
http://www.kalle-online.net/blog/games/civilization-5-scenarios/

 

[claudiupb]

I have never played them before BNW but they are not that hard. The Vikings scenario can be won in less than 40 turns with every civ (with Norway it's a little harder as you need to rush for London). Unfortunately both the mongols and the vikings scenarios are based on the vanilla game and have the 10hp system which sometimes feels quite random. There is a deluxe version for the Vikings scenario on the steam workshop but it is somewhat imbalanced making England overpowered.

The Mongols scenario it is basically a race against time since no AI will pose any threat. But with the Keshisks you will soon have range and logistics and conquering will become quite easy. In the end you will be way above 20 unhappiness so it really does not matter. Just keep attacking, and razing cities.

For me the hardest scenario on deity was the Fall of Rome (as the western Roman Empire I think it is the hardest to win). Also scramble for Africa scenario as the Ottoman is quite hard.

 

[BlackWizard]

Fall of Rome is incredibly hard as west because you ally eastern rome is "stupid" and building thinks like monument which gives culture and you dont especially want culture in that scenario.

 

[claudiupb]

This also happens if you play with the eastern rome, because the AI is stupid and will do stuff like that. The real problem in difficulty is one of geography. The western roman empire is just a lot better protected while eastern is exposed on all sides. Since the AI is very weak at troop maneuvering the eastern roman empire will suffer a lot of damage as an AI while the western will suffer a bit less. Another big difference is the dromon. As the eastern roman empire once you have a fleet of these you can easily help the western empire reconquer it's lost cities greatly adding to the final score. Plus as the eastern empire you end up conquering Sassanid cities which will also increase your score while decreasing theirs (in most cases the Sassanids are the main contender for winning this scenario).

 

[Equilin]

Also, the Eastern Romans faces only a (rather big) fleet of Vandals. Once they are gone (which is not too difficult for a human, even on deity) the sea is totally clear and your ships can go anywhere you want. Another one is a 3-way fight. West Rome got this with Celts vs. Franks, however, by the time they fight each other seriously Rome will lost most of Gaul and the Franks might also come through the Alps. For the East Rome this happens with Huns vs. Sassanids, but the Huns have nowhere to go after grabbing first 1-2 cities from Rome before running into the Sassanids, basically have more "safe" cities.