The Ultimate Evil Cooked Maps: Prepare to DIE!

No prob, in the meantime I have learned how to modify saves to WB savegames, but when I wrote that post, i was still clearly overwhelmed by the aggressive settling. I haven't spent much time on that map because I had watched Lain on video, not every single video but a big part.. I cannot really dedicate to a map that has already been spoilered for me.

So yes, I agree that another EVIL MAP would be very welcome. What about being a bad boy amongst bad asses? Why not becoming Shaka or Dschingis instead of whimpy Wang or Sitting Bull? "swimming with the sharks...."

 

I've got an ultimate evil uncooked map, if you want one . But yes, a winnable ultimate evil map would be interesting .

 

It depends.... unwinnable is in most of my cases a map where someone is ultimate tech leader and I can't do anything to stop him. An EVIL map on the other hand must be something like surrounded by warmongers, right? That is not necessarily difficult if you are one of them and not suffer from stupid "first impressions" and know how to handle them anyway. Can you post a screenshot and short introduction to your map?

 

Watcha got? I'm in a masochistic mood after I literally lost a game to barb archers last night.

 

That's actually a fair point on unwinnable vs. evil maps, though the First Impressions modifier doesn't work the same when it's player/AI compared to AI/AI. The former is based on difficulty and (on Deity) ranges from +0 to -2, even if you're Gandhi and every warmonger on the planet is...well, on the planet. The latter I've seen go as low as something like -7, when it was Gandhi and Monty, but of course it can also go much higher than +0. I'm not sure how extreme it gets, but I do know that First Impressions between AIs isn't static, there's some variance to it that's different on different maps. Sadly I don't know the range on that variance, either, but I doubt it's more than a +2 to -2 modifier to the base First Impressions value.

As for a link, can do, but going to have to dig out out of Lain's topic...here it is, starting screenshot included. More "unwinnable" than "EVIL" map, sadly, but if you're in a masochistic mood this map will not disappoint .

 

Ah yeah the Charlie map, was hoping you had something else :X
Was really no one able to beat it yet? It didn't seem unwinnable to me by any stretch, even if I lost on my attempt. Thought I figured out a plan and would just wind up redoing much of the same but this time with cheaty amounts of map knowledge.

 

Unfortunately nothing new, and none of my old ones are on the same level as that map either . There's a few maps that Lain never played on video which I thought looked pretty hard, they're in his topic somewhere, but...I've learned since then. I mean they're still Deity and look pretty awful, but that Charly map attached a rocket to the bar and shot it up into space. Nothing really compares.

I haven't heard of anyone beating it, no. As for whether it's winnable, it ought to be, but honestly I'll believe it when I see it and no sooner. A more concentrated concoction of distilled RNG spite in Civ IV map form I've never seen.

 

I think you need decent RNG to get a kinda late GLH, and then settler spam everywhere, starting with token city for Monty.
But I could also see someone just taking Monty head-on; Imp-Pro isn't a worthless combo here.
I posted Prepare to cringe - bad maps (deity) a while back cuz it sent chills up my spine. Wandering eskimos scare me more than Monty.

 

It's indeed a question of definition if a map is evil, "unwinnable" or cringeworthy. In my own definition, AW games are the ultimate evil experience as every single neighbour turns out more and more "nasty" but where on the other hand, I have good land to work and no-one is really in position to win. I like them a lot.
That Charlie map seems to be a combination of "cringe!" & hardly winnable including that evil neighbour. Don't know yet if that tempts me, too much challenge in one single game.

 

I actually wonder if there is a way to play w/o those first impressions by not giving up the Bat or Bug/bull mod. Most of the improvements in those mods are great, but the relations modifier make the game way too predictable. I remember playing a completely unmodded BtS steam version for 2 years, and on those maps, Shaka would also declare on Ghengis, or Boudica on Alex. When I started watching the first videos from Absolute Zero, I was always wondering why Gandhi or Elizabeth are universally hated and why the warmongers always declare on the "wrong" person.

 

Knowing you, any map that I throw at you will very likely be beaten. However, if you are still interested, I may go back to my old evil self and share some. ^_^ Most of my old friends aka victims don't seem to hang around here any longer, but I always welcome new victims... I mean... friends. ^_^

 

Sitting Bull is no slouch. Any promotion bonus with his archery units can carry over to his rifles, and his philosophical trait and his resorce-less UU is quite useful. I like him a lot.

I'd say Tokugawa is perhaps the one that fits the bill for being sort of a badass while being challenging to play. With no economic traits, bad starting tech, and UU/UB that are harder to leverage than others, I would favor making him the next choice.

Or... if we go by historical context, Charlie the Burger King could also fit the bill.

 

Oh.... let me add "Raging Barbarians" to the mix, just for your uberness. ^_^

 

Charlie was a real doozy

Played it a bunch of times, so full map knowledge. Lots of terrible RNG to contend with including:
- Finishing GLH t60, 50% success just to win the race, and of course it sets you so far behind on hammers.
- That barb city spawn on the island, ~90% odds if you're not going to bust it early, which of course comes with its own tradeoffs in early hammer cost and still not guaranteeing you bust it before it spawns, or a barb galley doesn't kill you, etc.
- Taking the fishing spot is like 95% DoW response from Monty. Can't do it til friendly.
- Rexing all available spots can be done, granted there's the hazard of unguarded settlers. But even not taking the fish and staying out of Monty's way, like 2/3 chance he attacks you early.
- Combining rexing with gift cities to bring Monty to pleased can work, but it's rare as your city grabbing is going to be delayed one early settler (to bring monty to pleased) and then you still have to pray that
- Monty spreads his religion to you ASAP and that you can get to friendly before he attacks / settles the fish spot if you want it. It's a pretty important spot, but you can ignore it to grab a bunch of more distant cities.

If going for GLH, best settle spot imo is 1W (on your only forest). Depressing as that is, it maximizes the tile hammer yield you can receive, which is important because we can't really whip GLH, and there's not a terrible amount of sense in whipping settlers when we have IMP mines and so many settlers to build. This obviously kills 1 of the clams, but who cares, clams suck. I was able to build GLH and some number of cities and not get attacked, but I figured this was like a 1/10 occurrence, and I still didn't get in a strong enough position to win.
Anyways, bear with me on this write-up, I played this game intermittently over like 2 months.

Then everything changed. SARS-CoV-2 hit and we had to work remotely. Naturally, so did the Holy Romans.....

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Obviously, since we can't build workers until the virus ends we got settler first. And since we can't build warriors we go ahead and settle on the cow, makes first settler faster. We tech fishing -> Sailing - Archery. Archery doesn't need to be this early, but we are a fearful people. And nothing says IMP, PRO like settler first and rushing archery. We use the scout to fogbust the first city location. The scout was closer to the entrance, but saw a Monty archer in the vicinity, meaning it's relatively safe for our settler to emerge.

Next thing to notice is in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. See anything MISSING? Turns out not only does it take luck to get monty's religion to spread to you quickly, it takes luck to get him to have a religion at all
FINE. I've ran and cowered and sucked up to Monty a dozen times now. It was time to try something new this game. THIS TIME WE WERE GONNA FIGHT

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I can't emphasize enough just how slow this start is. Naturally we build another settler in size 1 prague while Aachen works that 12 power tile to get a workboat.

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Good thing we didn't go for the GLH this round lol......

Warrior blocks barbs from targeting Aachen, which frees up the scout to advance further out and spawn bust. Hopefully we can avoid complications, but if run into barbs immediately this warrior will have to defend. And yeah we're going for the fish city. Prague's only size 1 but it's got 5 ready for the workboat cause. After the monument of course. Always build monuments out of your 2nd city 50 turns into the game

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We're about to have our first archer. Monty is toast! With this newfound safety I've pulled my scout back, built another warrior and a galley. That warrior's going to fogbust my next city while scout makes contact with the remaining AIs. Next tech will be HBR, which should give me solid trading opportunities and allow me to attack Monty. HAs get some synergy with PRO, since archery is a prereq and they can defend while your HAs attack.

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We found horses! Ok, ok, I knew they were there. Now we gotta get a settler over here fast before Freddy.

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IDK what WFYABTA is but I do know I want those techs. I mean I can't build roads or farms in the coronaconomy but I can build walls! Ah the rl parallels....

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Oh right. I need granaries if I'm going to and I'm definitely going to

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I had started teching Monarchy to enable this final trade. And what an important trade it was. With HR I can spam one-pop whip archers, which of course, is definitely sustainable long-term.

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We've dropped off a settler at the horse spot. *Now we'll be settling on the horses since, again, no workers*. Waited there for Freddy to show up to delay as long as possible. Freddy showed up like 2 turns later, which is fine it's about time to build HAs. Also I've relocated the warrior that was busting the horses to bust this island instead. The barb city was inevitable and I can't afford the resources to prevent it. Fortunately it does *not* interfere with trade routes, which is great because I need my horses and overseas trade routes are all my economy is.
Lastly my next tech is Compass, for trade bait with AIs (& monty) and harbors + overseas trade routes are going to kickstart my economy even without GLH. Also a stable was completed in Aachen as it was predominantly build horses, but didn't quite have horses yet. Questionable in hindsight.

 

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Always a bad sign when the game thinks your new city belongs to someone else. Also bad sign when you doom it at level 1 to build a settler.... but hey 11 with IMP? That's what I call a power tile.

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Looks like the barbarians are in cahoots with the barbarians!

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Time for a super reckless razor thin margin war! Took some naval damage, but reinforcing archer and incoming wall make me feel a little ok about Vienna.

Also pro tip: you can't get pillaged when you don't have any tile improvements!

Gandhi also gave me Alphabet. Which is nice of him. Not terribly helpful, but hey it was a very nice thought.

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The Viennese hold on bravely, and a new hero is born! IMP so nice. I am the sleeping giant you foolish foolish featherhead.
Despite the heavy losses in the first wave, Vienna was able to 1-pop whip archers regularly and was fine from here on out, buying time for the HAs to amass. I built 13 HAs, the ones from Aachen had stable for 5 xp, and the rest grouped to get this GG exp, so all are doubly promoted. A powerful striking force that is shuttled southward steering clear of the combat, and the jungle. They advanced straight towards Tenochtitlan with due haste to decapitate the head of the snake - or at least make the snake part with his gold mines. All of Monty's forces were on offense and he was caught with his pants down, the minimal 3 defenders.

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However, his attack was truly scary. I had shuffled every archer I had over to Prague, but he just had too many catapults. They took heavy losses and after the first attack their numbers had dwindled from 9 to 4, but heroes they were. Aachen was truly unhappy once its happy police joined the fray, and there were a couple troops near Vienna blocking me from reinforcing. Since all my ships were down here from the HA lift, there was nothing more to do for Prague. Go up to 5 promoted PRO archers on a hill and for them to hold out one more turn.

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PRO ARCHERS ON A HILL FTW!

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Double I had held onto Tenochtitlan as well.

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Meanwhile, those brave heroic archers had bought my strike force just enough time for one final attack. Monty did real well with his offensive stack, but his defense is chaotic..... By all means keep a jaguar and a catapult just roaming your lands...... I'll just ignore ty.

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He rejected 30g, this is the deal he accepts

I had traded Compass to Persia for Currency, which was just about my last tech trade of the game lol. The other AIs all had Compass by then, I was a bit too slow what with the war and all. But real grateful for currency so I could rebuild. Part of the plan with HBR/Compass was also that I could make peace with Monty. Granted he did apparently tech HBR (he does not have horses, he is not too bright), but I got options here with currency and with Gandhi's gift of Alpha. I decide I'd rather pay 35g just to not help featherhead with currency. And there we have it. Grab two cities and peace out right before Prague falls.

 

Don't get too excited about Tenochtitlan. Originally the dream was to take a city west of it, but the massive amount of catas moved up the timetable. The gold is buried under a lot of culture. Monty actually built a wonder in Tenochtitlan. Which is exciting. Except it's the ToA. Which is very not exciting. Literally would rather have nothing. Like dude it's not even a coastal city. Now I got nowhere to put my GMs, you know assuming I get any with that prophet spoiling the pool. Yuck.
But the war was still very beneficial. I quickly build some settlers to block off the rest of the southern part of the continent, allowing my empire to get to a reasonable size.

Spoiler :

Galley showed up, pillaged my fish but Hinduism spread in Aachen which is great fortune!
Also seen is a settler on the way to pay tribute to Monty. I can't fight another war, but hopefully we get him to be our Hindu buddy and he'll focus on hating all the other AI, who are his polar opposites.

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My horsies find some nasty barbs and we clear them out to make way for a better city and trade routes.

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I settle this garbage north in the middle of an inhospitable jungle. Monty should feel right at home.
Also Darius gave me Metal Casting this turn, which is great! Granted, I was 1.2 turns away from finishing it myself but at least they didn't try to give me polytheism again. Also I want to get a trireme out ASAP from Texcoco to clear the barb galleys lingering at the edge of the bottom of the continent.

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I don't think I've ever seen him so happy. BFFL and he's not even Hindu yet! True, he plots at pleased. I would have liked to gift him more cities than this but then he discovered the other AIs, so it would be diplodeath. He really hates them, naturally. Especially Gandhi. Now that he's got other targets to hurl insults at I feel a little safer. Given how far behind I am in this game, I don't build any more defenses. Proper defenses would eliminate my winning chances.

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Oh this is just beautiful

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Gandhi hands me over the circumnavigation bonus for a measly 70g. What a sucker

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Meanwhile I've got my settlers built and in position to settle this turn bringing me to 8 cities. I must say I'm happier about Texcoco than Tenochtitlan. In, we'll call them other universes, Monty built it on a hill, which would have been harder to take and much less useful for me. We are indeed blessed.

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Since I'm not going to war again, I'm putting this GG on some boats, so I can get 2 nav promos + circum, for a super speedy galley that can move this settler quickly to the bottom of the island. This is important given the lack of roads. Other galley can just hold his promos in case we need to fight. T126, size 3 capital with 0 improvements. It's glorious. Just wait til I preserve that forest. Noobs these days chop their trees. They are not one with nature.

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I had gifted him Augsburg to boost diplo and so I can resettle this barb city to grab the fish. I thought I was real clever. [narrator voice: he was not being clever] I only have two HAs up here, which is slower than I'd like. And I need to heal. There is a bit of a time crunch, wouldn't want the barbs to build another archer, or worse upgrade to longbows.

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Nothing to see here folks!

 

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Nuremberg finishes its second settler destined for the tiny island, and now it's growing! I find a good benchmark for success is to make sure your 4th city is growing by 500AD!

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MY FIRST WORKER!!!! Now I know what you're thinking.... what about the virus huh? But this guy is what you call an *essential* worker. Plus, our scientists believe he's already got antibodies since the barbs never socially distanced.

Also Monty's plotting, which is scary, but it's unlikely it's me. And if it was me, well there's nothing I could do, he'd be attacking me like the very next turn if that was the case, so after a couple turns of nerves I was confident that Monty was just hopelessly plotting some overseas AI, probably Gandhi.

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Speaking of our scientists! Time to talk grandplans. I always considered Liberalism a lost cause, I'm not shakabrade. So I want two GSes for the Astro bulb, hopefully get some trades from it on the way to economics and customs houses. In the meantime all cities are getting granary, forge, rathaus, harbor, library, and it's pretty much all coming from seafood whips. Anywhos, I built this GS out of Aachen at the last second before Tenochtitlan would have popped the first GP. I do not want to see whether Tenochtitlan pops a GM or a GP. Vienna has also been making progress on a GS, and we strive to get it to finish before Tenochtitlan too, with some assistance from Caste System and starvation.

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Also AP brought up the OB vote which includes Monty! So hopefully this eases tensions a little bit and I don't have to keep canceling OB.

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My trireme killed the last galley hiding out down here, so it's a good time to look at the other part of my empire. We're up to 11 cities! We're quickly catching up to the AI in score Vital areas of the map are properly labeled

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For a scientist he has some funny ideas on language. As the leader of the HRE, I think I'm a bit of an authority in this subject, and gotta say he only got German right, the other three should be swapped. But yeah the second GS from Vienna has arrived so we can go grab Astro.

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Nice, nice. Both of these on the way to Economics.

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Got four good techs outta this

Meanwhile I can finally start my COLONIAL EMPIRE! I use the GG ship for a free upgrade to a galleon with a whopping 7 move speed and reach the tiny island from my coast in only two turns.

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Oopsies. At least it's Gandhi who's a pushover. He claims it can no longer be tolerated....

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But as you can see, he totally takes this lightly . This was just a friendly reminder that I have to be more consistent in my abuse.

 

Spoiler :

Deep down we always knew Tenochtitlan was going to give us a prophet . I'll use this for a GA in a bit, to push for getting a merchant out of Tenochtitlan and Aachen. The plan is to push through Eco then Corporation to get another trade route. From there, click on Medicine and pray for the best. Need at least one GM for Sushi, but another would be nice to fund the dubious Medicine beeline. The AI on the other continent are crazy techers but also super nice guys. I've got rathauses, and a lot of seafood, even a couple rice. This map screams Diplo cheese and I will put aside my normal qualms with that and oblige.

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We are finally safe. A fitting German-HRE alliance. Not sure what Freddy gets out of this deal but we'll take it

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We're in the money! What a great turn this was

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has taken a turn for the worse Tenochtitlan is falling

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Since Tenochtitlan is starving I decide now's a good time for the GA, so I can spam specialists. Got a turn for Aachen to finish a scientist (which can go to bulb SM). Then I want Tenochtitlan and Aachen to do the best they can finishing one more merchant each. I need to go full throttle, this is not going to be a safe Sushi time given the AIs' tech pace.

Spoiler :

When it rains it pours. Maybe it's a friendly?
Also worker connected the rice and spices? by Vienna. There was an outbreak on the plantation though, and we quarantined him back over to Nuremberg, who was real happy to finally get some attention.

Spoiler :

Aachen finished his scientist now starves down into merchants. I will get to run another merchant once that warrior spawns, and I can truly starve the city 1 pop at the end, but I'll still be a little bit short of a new merchant because the incoming great person from Tenochtitlan raises the GP bar.

Spoiler :

He had good odds. Aachen does a real 1 pop starve on the 2nd to last turn of the GA to run all merchants and get me close.

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Been staring cautiously at the privateer, but now he's blockading our core. It cannot continue. I paid to upgrade my promoted galley to a galleon, and kept my GG galleon and spare galley nearby.

 

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My beefy galleon managed to knock the privateer to a more manageable strength. His sacrifice will be remembered.
Meanwhile you can see Aachen still has a little left to get a GM. While it's posting 90% now, I swapped out of caste and can't run any more merchants. Given the mechanics of gp production these odds will drop more than I might expect, so I actually whip a grocer here to keep the odds high. We're closing in on Sushi, there's no bulbs left so anything but a GM is worthless.

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NOOOOOOOOOO my GG galleon died with 2/3 odds. My final ship, a mere galley, has to clear this mess. Could be worse I guess. That GG ultimately did its job.

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Yeah Tenochtitlan is revolting on me. Meanwhile my last galley is escorting the GM to the other continent. I discover Iron this turn by Texcoco. But.... I don't want iron. And I don't have any workers down here, am I really going to just pillage the improvement!?

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Good ole Abe has my back though. Apparently America has been without iron this whole game

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Limping along to the last GM hopefully

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Gandhi builds the UN, which is not a surprise.

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Got the GM! and with that I'm free to lock the slider at 100% and race through Medicine.

 

You know you want to nuke them all Drew don't let the diplomatic ways corrupt your style