The Always War Challenge #3 - Ethiopia Deity

Totally true.

Spoiler :

Maybe with grassland/floodplain luxuries it would be more manageable, or with barbarians not turned off so you can take some camps (preferably with Songhai) but lack of gold slowed down my research a lot and prevents me from upgrading units (i've been between -2 and -4 very fast).
Also barbarians could help finish Honor faster and that would help with gold. Pacal has launched a nasty CB/Swords attack a dozen turns before i would finish Honor. With Honor finisher i could have upgraded my archers to CBs as i still managed to kill a good amount of units with my God protected cities and probably survived (and lost later but that's another story ) but not with basic archers.
Also, i think a warmonger civ would be better for such an attempt

 

Yeah, you're probably right, guys. The civ I chose wasn't the best. However, I was hedging my bets. I wasn't sure if this would be easy, do-able, or nigh-on impossible, so I chose a civ that is generically OK, plus they are good at defence. But in all honesty if Acken is struggling, and no one has gotten to the Industrial, then it's just plain suck, isn't it? Even with Horse Archers, what are you gonna do against Golden Age Pikes?

 

FYI we're on page 2 so I'm no longer using spoilers

I don't think it's just the civ(although that is a factor), it's a combination of the civ, the horrible start(1 lux, 1 gold tile without Mausoleum, 3 quarry resources but Plains start so you have to settle on the flat Grassland to build Stone Works), the enemy terrain and the brutal AIs, namely Darius who is an utter nightmare as an AI with his constant Golden Ages. I played to about t120 and threw in the towel because I was going nowhere and it was just getting tedious with the turns taking so long to accomplish nothing. I knew 100% I would not beat this on the first attempt but I don't really even want to give it a second one. Maybe the El Dorado 500g IS needed for this particular map

Also, seriously, I'm really fed up with the AI's religion whoring in BNW. It seems like whenever I play a religious civ there's still 2-3 AIs that get a religion by turn 50. Venice actually beat the Maya to one with Stonehenge but they didn't build SH until turn 45 and founded on turn 50. That's messed up. It's not as bad as the other day where all 5 religions were gone on turn 54 but geez...can the AI actually pick something besides Piety 80% of the time? It gimps them in other things while making playing culture miserable.

Don't take this personally, by the way, it's not your fault. This map was just a charlie foxtrot.

 

Spoiler :

Acken definitely had the right idea. You need to somehow block the AI from being able to launch a coordinated attack on your capital. Even with Ethiopian strong defenses it's just too hard to survive such an onslaught. Settling the capital a bit further east is step one. trying to whittle down Persia early is step two. Step 3 would be to try to take Venice or at least set up a good defensive position to the west to counter Venice and Polynesia. But there just isn't enough ways to get gold for a big enough early army to do all this IMO. Acken came very close and could probably turtle it out for a while longer (and likely lose to an AI science victory later). I don't think anyone else will do better, but I have had to eat my words before.

Maybe an interesting alternative to the Always War rule set would be a game where you are required to declare war on the first AI that you meet, but not any others (unless you want to). You would not be allowed to make peace with that AI until you take their capital, after which the game would proceed as normal. It would just force a slightly more interesting start to the game.

 

Perhaps you finally have an answer for Ironfighter? Nearly impossible to beat on the 1st attempt? Sure after several replays and reloads this can be done one way or another but on the 1st attempt it should be very hard

 

Hey I got to industrial

 

You guys are nuts

 

No... we are just ummmm... fanatics of Civ... however, I guess, some people would classify us under the term insane !!

 

Sorry bud

 

I have no problem with the civ choice, any civ you take is going to have some serious problems in this game. Ethiopia should have been one of the best one's to turtle up with.

The challenge is just really hard! Which is a good thing.

 

The problem isn't necessarily with Ethiopia although there are easier options. The difficulty is increased by the shape of the map, we're surrounded and having Darius + Rome just next door.

I think without Darius I could have gone further in my game, he was the only one being a real threat.

I may give it a second try.

 

Alright Fellas...

I updated the Leaderboards for the AWC series. You can find them under the AWC Leaderboard section under Deity & Immortal Leaderboards. It is kinda funny since if you get Defeated you get to be ahead of someone who Resigns and the higher your turn time number the better. However, if you achieve Victory you are obviously on top with the lowest turn time number in front and Domination trumps all other Victories.

This is my next game in my line up and I have very slight info on civs and sorta know that El Dorado is North. This leaderboard is different in that you can improve on defeated or resigned turn times but of course if you do achieve Victory you will not be able to improve on that turn time for that Deity AWC.

This is a bit of an experiment since we do not even know how long this series will stay alive but it is the most interesting of the Leaderboards to me and sorta just plain out funny.

I felt sick to my stomach when I typed my name on the first spot on the AWC Immortal LB but someone should be able to crush that time very soon. I know most of you can't load the China AWC game but I think that another Immortal AWC game/map is in order since I seen a good amount of interest. Also Immortal is a lot easier for this set up. I think that Deity could be easily won on the right map with the right neighbors. If your interested this is what the LBs look like.

AWC Deity Leaderboard

Spoiler :

AWC Immortal Leaderboard

Spoiler :

 

Any Deity game can be won 'on the right map'. But if you're at the end of the Pangaea, and have to go through one civ to get to the next, it would defeat the point, really. Being surrounded is essential to this challenge, I think. Otherwise, it's just like most of my games where I am at war with the whole world after T120 or so, just a bit earlier.

 

Perhaps. Would still be different for most people who are used to trading or bribing other civs to war. And can't go to peace after taking the capital or most of their cities.

 

If you use Honor, you don't need trades any more because you earn so much. And bribes are unreliable, IMO.

You know the saying "...if you want something done..."

 

Trades for luxes more than gold. And I actually had severe gold issues during that Immortal game, though I was often rush buying (with Big Ben/Merchantilism/Mobilization) a new unit every turn (mainly Battleships/Rocket Artillery in my Heroic Epic coastal city). Had like -200 GPT for a large portion of the game, simply killed enough units to stay positive.

Bribe still usually wipes out part of their army and/or distracts their army so you can swoop in more easily.

 

Corrected for you
But until you can finish Honor you still need to get gold in some way, cause if you can't upgrade your archers to CBs when you finish honor, you won't kill much and so won't get gold to upgrade and in the end even Pacal can kill you

 

Well, obviously this game is not a good example of how to earn gold. I'm not saying gold wasn't a problem for me in this game. It was one of several problems. I built MoH and still had terrible problems. But the biggest problem wasn't gold. Even once I had scraped together enough for upgrades, the problem was that Rome had settled a city directly to the south of my capital and one to the East of my Eastern expo, near to which was also Palenque. Netherlands had settled a city where ED was, Persia's first expo was in spitting distance of my expo near the CS, and although I had zero problems from Captain Underpants or The Nipple-Headed One, it's still rough to be swarmed by 3 armies simultaneously. In the end, it was when the CSs, which I had worked hard to ally, joined the fray against me, that I conceded. No way that my army could withstand that. I think that if I had pressed hard enough rather than waiting for XBs, that I could maybe have taken out Venice or the Maya, but even then, that just opens more fronts. I have no idea who was to the East of the Maya, but for all I know they could have been more vicious

I for sure wasn't saying that gold wasn't a problem. Ordinarily it's not a problem even without trades because I can build markets and run caravans to CS without fear of being disrupted, while my units quietly train.

 

Long time lurker of these series games...while I have the desire, I have little the time due to a newborn to play these. Enjoy reading your guys write ups...

anyhow, Interesting lands if you scout more...maybe someone better than me can use this info to beat this thing.

Spoiler :

In addition to El Dorado up north, to the east is some gorgeous Petra lands. If you settle on the Silver or next to it, there is somewhere around 12 desert hills, a river by some of them, and some sheep. After walking my warrior up north for El Dorado, soon as I got the settler I marched a little north and then east with the intention of founding some blocking cities against Roman expansion. I think a good location to block, with a city state a few tiles away preventing Rome settle spots. Also, so many hills it would be like having Great Wall. I think settle on the Silver for happiness, and send a food caravan. With a hard to take Petra City, it can deal with Rome by itself and your other cities production and placement can be used against the rest of the world. Also, when I settled it about turn 14, Rome was no where in sight yet.

 

Let us know how your Petra game progresses, Thunda. I've completely given up on this game. That's not to say I will never go back to it. I hated my experience of DCL #7, but I replayed more than 6 months later and aced it (perhaps unsurprisingly).