Tips for winning on Toughest

[Out4Blood]

Anyone out there playing toughest level yet? I've been winning on Tougher pretty easily and planning to move up to Toughest. Just wondering if there are any special tips people might have. I've only been playing for 3 days and have only played Britain.

[Solver]

Wow, again Out4Blood is here .

Haven't had the time for Toughest yet... .

[Out4Blood]

Hehe - I come and go. I've been playing Kohan exclusively for almost 2 years, with a (very) small break for Civ3. AOM didn't interest me much. I would have been playing RON for longer, but I left the country right before it came out.

[Solver]

Yep, I saw that you took no activre part in AOM, a crying shame. I remember you all the way since you were originally together with Kevin Holme for his outsanding AoK SMUSH, I believe that was some 3,5 years ago... oustanding stuff.

Apolytoners - listen to this guy. He's one of the top RTS experts out there.

[DaRq_Vorfidus]

Greetings,

My msn is "mulfar@msn.com".

Perhaps I can offer you some replays, etc, that might be of use.

Signed,

kopunch, gandhi, smash, aworthlessally, newbieblood, ow*tagthief, vorfidus, criferg, avramgarrisson, redrighthand.......... and the list goes on.

[Solver]

Wow, a Darq member here, too!

Poly has some famous RTS guys now.

[Out4Blood]

Man, I just played a few games on toughest and the computer seemed even easier than on tough. I checked the replay and didn't see any "cheating." Has anyone noticed this? Or noticed what the computer is supposed to get in toughest mode? And yes, I RECHECKED the settings - definitely toughest.

[Out4Blood]

Vorfidus! Are you the same "redrighthand" that I used to play Kohan with?

[Solver]

Yeah, he is, based on what he told me .

Oh, and the AI does definitely cheat on Toughest - it gets extra resources and stuff.

[Drachen]

Well I'm definitely not an RTS guru and played my first two games on tougher yesterday. I quit #1 as too poor an effort while just barely ahead on land and Wonders but behind 3 min on tech. I got an Egyptian Wonder win in my second game but it was anything but easy. In fact I was getting my head handed to me by the AI. So...what are your tips for tougher/toughest? As for me, I noticed on replay that the AI seems to be vulnerable to feints, leaves its cities undefended, and is poor at city capture. I will definitely use a feint in my next game, I will build AA around key areas, and I hope I'll be able to bring my resource management up a level or two.

Cheers

[Drachen]

Here's the replay if anyone is interested.

[Madine]

I heard it's really easy to rush the ai. I can beat it on tougher rushing.

Mostly I play multiplayer now though.

[Out4Blood]

I'm winning about 50% on toughest. Multi doesn't seem to be an option for me given my 450 MHz turtle comp.

[Grond]

I was having pretty good luck on toughest. About the only time I've lost with my fav Civs is when there was a shortage of trees and one time when I had very little mountains. I've been playing the Germans, Egyptians, Russians and Incans. The one time I tried Spanish I got crushed. I'm 1-2 with the Bantu, the first time I screwed up the build and got stomped by the Turks. The second time I rushed and took the computers first expansion but he still overwhelmed me. The third time I rushed him and had a 2x1 kill advantage but he was still advancing faster than me so I pulled back and played defense and eventually won with air power. Hawk and Eagle fighters look pretty cool btw. The computer does get a major resource advantage on toughest and a pretty healthy resource advantage on Tougher. Rushing seems impossible on Toughest, the computer has too big an advantage. The strategy the works best on Toughest for me is to play defense to Gunpowder age and try and make sure I'm the one that gets Versailles in Enlightenment. Versailles makes it much easier to maintain an offensive otherwise I have to bring along a bunch of civilians to build castles and military builds so I can garrison and heal up. I've noticed I can almost always gets Versailles on Toughest but the computer usually gets the Staue of Liberty before I can. I may need to revaluate my Enlightenment research order, it truly sucks when all your opponents Enlightenment units instantly turn into Industrial units in the middle of a battle. I've gone back to Tough so I could practice being a little more offensive. The closest I've come to rushing successfully was with the Mongols on Tough and that was in Medieval. It wasn't really a rush the computer had plenty of units but I was able to dance them to death with my Horse archers with almost no casualties and after a while he was down to sending a few units at me at a time and I had a huge Golden Horde. Mongols would be scary in multplayer I think, a Golden Horde plus 2 Generals for forced march and ambush would be lethal.

[Aginor]

Originally posted by Grond

I've noticed I can almost always gets Versailles on Toughest but the computer usually gets the Staue of Liberty before I can. I may need to revaluate my Enlightenment research order, it truly sucks when all your opponents Enlightenment units instantly turn into Industrial units in the middle of a battle.

Quick and dirty way to get the Statue if both of you reach Industrial around the same time:
1. get needed food and wealth - I build it before Versailles because the penalty for the existing wonder is KILLER, and I rely VERY heavily on the Statue (and the AI rarely builds it in my experience)
2. Tell a citizen in Cap to build (best place for it, it's going to be your butt if you lose it)
3. Hit C to get to capital, slap a rally point on the statue, and hit VQ (would probably be good to have some pop limit left...I've been playing Bantu lately so that's a non-issue)
4. MAKE SURE you have maxed out engineering type techs at the lumber mill

You'll get it, trust me

BTW the horde of citizens you crank out is great for slamming up Versailles next (just draw a box around them and click the wrench button on Versailles).