The Quick and the Dead

[Drachen]

Since a number of us are beating Toughest regularly I thought it might be interesting to start a thread in which we post some of our fastest or most interesting games.

I'm attaching a 26 minute win using my latest wonder strategy. If Egypt builds 6 points worth of the first 10 wonder points early and then you get Angkor Wat and Versailles (3+3) in Enlightenment then the best the AI can do is 4 points before Industrial when SOL and Kremlin become available and by that time the wonder clock ticks to victory!

Just for fun I decided not to build any barracks, stables, or siege factories but managed to pull out the win with a handful of spies and generals. Gotta love that Terra Cotta...

[HeymlicH]

Wonder victory? puhh. Thirst thing I did was to set victory to conquest. In my eyes a wonder victory is a draw (like escaping to AC in civ2 before you are nuked by the russians )

[Drachen]

Originally posted by HeymlicH
Wonder victory? puhh. Thirst thing I did was to set victory to conquest. In my eyes a wonder victory is a draw (like escaping to AC in civ2 before you are nuked by the russians )

1. Wonder victory? puhh...

We'll have to disagree. First off, I didn't make the rules of the game...BHG did. So the point of the thread is to find out what is the "Quickest" way to win on toughest using the rules of the game and the Wonder Crunch strategy seems to yield the win in 25 to 28 minutes. So post a game and show me how to beat the AI quicker.

2. In my eyes a wonder victory is a draw...

A draw? In the game I posted I was leading the AI in most gather rates by a good deal and with my pop cap at 250 I could have built a huge army and pounded the poor confounded beast...but that victory would have been slower rather than quicker.

3. Thirst thing I did was to set victory to conquest...

So you like to be a General? I would argue that you have to be a better commander to beat the AI when its building armies and you're building wonders. Just because I chose not to build any barracks, stables, or siege factories didn't mean there were no battles! The AI came at me with unusually large armies since his battle losses were lower than usual and I had to deal with that without making any troops. Think about it...no barracks meant that I was facing large armies based on muskets, knights and Bombards with a handful of Terra Cotta slingers, a few partisans, a few generals and a few spies. Don't you think that would present some interesting challenges to your command?

[Drachen]

18 minutes 12 seconds on toughest.

[Out4Blood]

Originally posted by Drachen
18 minutes 12 seconds on toughest.

Okay, now that deserves a film posting.

[Drachen]

I was beginning to think this was a tough crowd. I'm away from the computer where I played this game so I can't get the replay for a few days but it's a simple strategy and if you've got 20 minutes then you can duplicate it.

"Son of Wonder Crunch"

Egypt, 1v1, Aztecs, standard settings, small Great Lakes map. I started with 7 woodie, mountain, and marble. Got diamonds, and silver. City two was battle city between two lakes in lower center. Used Diamond defense with city top, tower left, fort right, Terra Cotta bottom with cross covering. Defended with tower upgrades, garrisoned Terra Cotta slingers, and a spy. Built no military. Expanded economy as normal into medieval. Built Colossus and Colosseum in Capital as able. Built city three and gathered enough resourses to start Porcelain and Tikal simultaneously in mid medieval around minute 10 or 11. AI countered with pyramids but couldn't build any others so 4 minutes to build and 4 minutes of wonder timer.

Cheers and I'm off to Fleetwood Mac for a battle break.

[Out4Blood]

Interesting. I've had some capital wins under 12:00 against the toughest AI, but never considered wonder-ing that fast. I could probably win in around 7:00 if I went straight for the capital instead of capturing expansion cities first. But that's risky, and would never work vs. humans (worth playing against).

[Drachen]

Okay, now that deserves a film posting.

[Out4Blood]

Taking my own medicine: Here's an example film. (This is from the older version of RON)

[Out4Blood]

Oops, ya beat me to it.

[Drachen]

Thank you very kindly. I just downloaded and I can't wait to see this.

[Out4Blood]

Let me know if you can view it or if it won't run due to version conflict.

[Drachen]

I've never seen a rush quite so early...although I think I should mention that you might have attached the wrong game. It doesn't matter because the idea is clear. This is too cool. Thanks for the lesson.

Cheers

[Out4Blood]

Yes, basically, you research military level 1, drop a barracks and start pumping heavy infantry (+ 1 light infantry maybe). Only get enough villagers to make your 5 farms and fill your woodcamp.

When you have at least 4 heavy infantry, you should be able to drop his town, even if he has attrition, garrisons, and/or has a temple. If you hit the capital, you might be able to win more quickly, but it's riskier. Expos will go down faster and be less defended.

Humans will generally defend better and use better micro (e.g., garrison and ungarrison archers, dance ranged troops, etc.) so it's tougher. ONE archer comp can wreck this rush, which is why you send a light infantry also.

Civs that are good for this have either: 1) farm bonuses (for more food) or 2) heavy infantry bonuses (for better/faster infantry).

The computer sometimes tries this, but it's so easy to fight it off. Which is why I don't think it's viable versus humans, and hence not a good strategy overall.

[Drachen]

Yahoo...I just finished a ten minute win and my first Rush ever. This works like a charm O4B. I found it helpful to use my scout to find the AI capital barracks and I took those out while they were being built. Killed the Greek peon building it for failing to acknowledge the superiority of my benevolent rule.

I still think you should look over the game you posted as you didn't win it and thus it might not be the best reflection of your play.

In your stagnation post you make a strong argument for the primacy of defense and in the light of that I'd like to know if you think the Egyptian Wonder Crunch could be a viable strat for multi. There are several reasons for thinking it might work. They have powerful early stable units for raiding and anti-raiding response. They may give up some early advancement for wonders but wonders yield great benefit if you can survive and keep them which translates into resources and ability advantages when they're needed later. Then there is the crunch...if you can build the wonders early enough then your opponent can't counter with wonders of his own and is left with having to beat you in battle before the wonder timer clicks down. But if defense has primacy before Gunpowder then Egypt may well be able to survive the onslaught. I've never done any multi so I fully expect that there are strategic considerations I'm unaware of and I'd be interested to hear what you think.