Epic 14 - DaveV

[DaveV]

After retiring, I replayed this game a couple times, trying to find the winning strategy. This makes it hard to reconstruct a report. Here's the best I can do:

I started this game completely paranoid about the Apostolic Palace. Since I was so afraid of the AI winning an AP victory, I decided to build it myself. In 315BC, I scored Code of Laws for the triple play of Confucianism, and courthouses for cash and espionage points. Here's my empire at that time:



For a number of years, I felt like Bruce Lee. The AIs would move in one stack at a time, which I would kill, then they'd give me time to recover before moving in the next stack. I was still taking casualties, and war weariness didn't seem to be slowing down the AIs at all.

In AD 940, I finally finished the AP, but things were already unraveling. I was having a lot of trouble fighting off invading elephant stacks.



In AD 1140, the first stack with Hwachas appeared. My stacks of Gallics, axes, spears, and medic chariots were completely unable to deal with them, and I decided it was time to retire .

[Sullla]

Wow, rough game. If you read my report, I mention that I deliberately left the player without ivory, while giving it to most of the AI civs. So, in other words, you have me directly to blame for the misery that you suffered through. Uh, sorry about that! I guess I was a bad slavedriver in this game.

Thanks for reporting your game regardless. You were far from the only one who had trouble from those AIs.

[Zeviz]

I am surprised how long you've managed to survive and prosper with just six cities. The 1140AD screenshot looks particularly impressive.

As for winning strategy, it seems that in AW games there always comes a time when you get stuck trying to maintain economy and get to medieval units while AI keeps sending large stacks at you. The more land you can grab before this point, the easier the game will be once you go on the offensive again. So I'd recommend trying an early rush next time. Just make sure you can recover your economy afterwards.

[DaveV]

So I'd recommend trying an early rush next time. Just make sure you can recover your economy afterwards.

The problem with early rushing is getting cities with the wrong religion, and losing to the AP later. So far no one has reported having that happen, so I guess my worries were overblown.