YES! BC Attila Deity Domination

[Cromagnus]

Finally! I've been trying to pull off a sub-t100 domination win, but I'll settle for a new personal best: t111. That's 100 BC!

My previous run was t117, so I'm getting close. I feel like t99 is in reach. I'll post details on my strategy later. I may not be as good as tommynt, but I do believe this is the fastest Deity victory ever posted in BNW for a standard size map... on these forums anyway. (Deity Pangaea, Standard Time, Standard Size)

Spoiler :

Deity proof:

Spoiler :

I submitted this to the HOF, so the savegames will be up there if anyone's curious.

EDIT: Link to HOF data ->

http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ5/game_info.php?dsply=&entryID=6791


I made a number of mis-click goof-ups, like moving a promoted Horse Archer into the water during siege, and allowing Assyria to capture a Brazilian city in between me and Rio, forcing me to re-DoW him with his troops between me and Brazil. This was not even close to an optimal run. I started on one side of the map, and middle starts go much faster... So, I'm pretty certain t99 is achievable!

Credit goes to Fallen_Kings for posting proof that a t75 Attila run had been done in G&K... motivating me to test whether it could still be done in BNW.

EDIT: Attila, not Attily. I was a little excited when I posted.

 

[pvtjava]

Wow! Great job Cromagnus! You are one amazing warmonger. Thanks, by the way. I play peaceful but I have learned a lot about defending myself from some of your posts.

 

[ravenmagus]

That's awesome.

I'd like to see how fast you can swing it with Egypt, too.

 

[Tabarnak]

Keep it up man! You will be the most "Attilaesque" player of all.

Eidt : I like the ''Attily'' word in your title. I sense some kind of tiredness in you...i bet that you worked hard on it...

 

[Cromagnus]

Keep it up man! You will be the most "Attilaesque" player of all.

Eidt : I like the ''Attily'' word in your title. I sense some kind of tiredness in you...i bet that you worked hard on it...

Hah, that was unintentional, but it may need to be his new nickname. Actually, oddly enough, I found winning so early with Attila easier than any domination victory I've attempted prior. I think it's a combination of it being so fast... it only takes a few hours to play through 120 turns... and because it's so much simpler than your typical Liberty domination! Seriously, normally it's like: Get good scouting done, rush for pyramids, rush out archers, do quests, get 4 cities out at ideal locations, get caravans up for good enough beakers for reasonably early Machinery or Dynamite, attack your neighbor early...

I mean, all of that is a lot to think about. Whereas, the strategy for clearing the map with Attila is:

1) Tech The Wheel
2) Pump out Horse Archers
3) Win

You don't need settlers, you don't need tech, quests are easy with 4-move units, you don't need scouting, you don't need caravans. You just attack your closest neighbor, and push as hard as you can until the map is clear. Ok, it's not quite that simple, but I find it much, much easier than CB rush.

 

[Gustavus Rex]

Very impressive!

I'll have to try this on emperor or something for personal speed-record. What about rams? Do you use them as well?

 

[Memoryjar]

Congratulations !

 

[bison21]

Very very impressive. Would love to see a video on that!

 

[Cromagnus]

Very impressive!

I'll have to try this on emperor or something for personal speed-record. What about rams? Do you use them as well?

Yes, I typically make one and hope one of my warriors converts into another from a ruin. I typically build 3-4 melee and 2-3 horsemen. Usually the melee are a mixture of ram and swordsmen. I try to really rely on rams while they're still relevant in order to eliminate as many civs as possible. My goal is to eliminate one civ every ten turns starting on turn 40. (So 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100)

My t117 finish I didn't find a ram through a ruin, but made friends with folks, sold resources, bought a ram, and eliminated my first opponent by t40, capital first. On this run I found two rams, and was isolated on a peninsula, so I had to take an expo first (Rabat) on t17, and didn't take Marrakesh until t39. I should have pushed harder to get Marrakesh by t30, which I think would have been possible. It wasn't a great start though, being isolated meant I had no chance to get DoFs before I DoW'd. But it did mean that I had a few unmet players when I eliminated my first opponent, so only 2 hated me.

 

[Cromagnus]

Congratulations !

Very very impressive. Would love to see a video on that!

Thanks!

I'll have to figure out how to record video and get a microphone. Once I achieve t99 I'll probably try recording a video, but later today I'll try to jot down a summary of the things I feel make this work. It seems to get easier every time I do it, so I must have picked up some tricks along the way. First attempt was 158 (with no reloads), then 117 (with 2 reloads), then 111. (no reloads)

One thing that *really* helps when you have to cover a whole continent is annexing early, so your troops don't have to walk all the way across. Until you get horsemen, you're limited by how quickly you can get a melee unit to a city. Annexing requires a fairly large happiness pool but, it pays for itself by allowing you to control growth. And for a map where I need to annex I prioritize Mathematics earlier. For a center start, I tend to blow off Mathematics until much later. Great Generals can be the key to staying afloat in happiness. Acquiring 4th or 5th tier luxuries is totally the way to go.

So, yeah, I need to summarize all the tricks I used in one doc, and I'm a verbose writer... it could take me a while to write up the cliff notes.

 

[cpm4001]

Wow...that's a really amazing job there, Cromagnus! Turn 111 on Deity and you've already won the game. Congratulations!

 

[Cromagnus]

That's awesome.

I'd like to see how fast you can swing it with Egypt, too.

We'll see. I may be burnt out on chariot rush by then. I'm also convinced that losing all movement points in rough terrain is a time-to-victory killer. Unless you get a lucky map, it's really a big deal that a Horse Archer with Logistics can enter a rough terrain tile and still fire twice that turn, etc. etc.

5 moves is nice though, in flat terrain you can penetrate the GW. Moving into range takes 2 moves, firing twice takes 2 moves, and moving back out takes 2 moves, so war chariots with Logistics can nuke down the GW without taking damage if they get really lucky and there's a clean approach. But, in my experience, GW is almost always in rough terrain.

 

[Jack Funk]

Wow man. Outstanding. I'm going to try this out on Emperor (I'm a king player).

 

[budweiser]

Its pretty cool that the game allows you to do this. I always figured that since it was diety, then you would have to advance pretty far in the tech tree to finally finish off the last AI or two.

Good job working on this Cromagnus.

I'm wondering about good ole Alex now and are the Companion cavs really as dead as we thought?

 

[Cromagnus]

Its pretty cool that the game allows you to do this. I always figured that since it was diety, then you would have to advance pretty far in the tech tree to finally finish off the last AI or two.

Good job working on this Cromagnus.

I'm wondering about good ole Alex now and are the Companion cavs really as dead as we thought?

Good question! Challenge assumptions!

 

[Justice1337]

Can you include a screen shot of your Capital? I played a few aggressive openings with Atilla on Continents maps, and on some starts, the production bonuses on those Pastures were just crazy. Great for the initial T30'ish wave, then even better with Horseback Riding and a Stable built.

I think this is a really great game. I've always ran into slow patches before while doing this due to heavily forested capitals, super-early CB's from the AI, and not bringing enough Battering Rams.

 

[Cromagnus]

Can you include a screen shot of your Capital? I played a few aggressive openings with Atilla on Continents maps, and on some starts, the production bonuses on those Pastures were just crazy. Great for the initial T30'ish wave, then even better with Horseback Riding and a Stable built.

I think this is a really great game. I've always ran into slow patches before while doing this due to heavily forested capitals, super-early CB's from the AI, and not bringing enough Battering Rams.

I can generate a screenshot tonight. My capital had 3 pastures I think?

I didn't bother to build a stable, because in this game, my capital was at one end of the map and I was conquering on the other end... If I had a central start I might have rush-bought a stable... but it's hard to say whether it's worth it.

Lets' see... 100 hammers for a stable would have bought me +3 production and +15% production. My capital had around 17 production, so that's 20 * 1.15 or 23 hammers, for a total of +6. The Stable costs 100 hammers to build. (Which is almost 2 Horse Archers)

So, you break even 16 turns *after* you finish building it. When you combine that with the time it takes to build it... it takes like 25-30 turns to break even. If you rush-buy it, that's 500 gold. (That's actually a better deal, because Horse Archers have a production discount)

But, that's 500 gold you could be using to rush-buy a horse archer immediately, or ally a city-state, or buy a coliseum...

Also, you can't build the stable until Horseback Riding, which, unless I have a Trapping-heavy start, I generally don't get until after turn 50. Even if you beeline Horseback Riding, you don't have the cash to rush-buy a Stable that early if you're rush-buying units... So basically, you're delaying formation of your first or second army by 10+ turns. Even if you make up for it on the back end, Horse Archers become less effective with every passing turn... so yeah, I dunno if it's worth it. Especially since if I'm targeting a t100 win, I'm only going to get 3-4 free Horse Archers out of it, all on the back-end.

However, if I had a 4 pasture start I might consider rush-buying one. I think at that point it's probably worth it, because you still get bonus production to happiness buildings/etc... but basically, the issue is balance. Production is *not* the bottleneck. Attila doesn't need more production. He needs happiness, gold and culture. IMHO. So, you aren't fixing the major bottlenecks to a faster victory, and a fast victory = an easy victory. As you point out, if you get bogged down, it gets much harder because you're facing more advanced units with every passing turn.

Your comment about Continents makes me curious to try a Wheel -> Astronomy beeline and see if I can conquer a Continents map with Horse Archers.

 

[Justice1337]

That makes sense with the Stables. I suppose my mistake was trying for a hybrid builder-conquerer game, where just an all-out conquest approach was possible.

 

[Cromagnus]

That makes sense with the Stables. I suppose my mistake was trying for a hybrid builder-conquerer game, where just an all-out conquest approach was possible.

It's not a mistake, really. Frankly, this is an all-or-nothing gambit. If it doesn't work, and you don't finish before Horse Archers become irrelevant, the hybrid approach is much safer in the long-term. But with this strategy, there is no "long-term".

 

[Sharples]

Attila is so easy it's boring! Their horse archers are like chariot on steroids that can move in hill terrian and only use two movement and not all of it. Also they get a promotion with it AND start with animal husbandry with 1+ extra product for all pastures, meaning they can get out horse archers quicker.

Not to mention the extreme overpoweredness of the Battering Ram, if you find a ruin with your warrior and see a neighbours capital thats not on a hill, it is toast.

After that I'd say either Ramm II or Ashurbial with its seige units, they're crazy.