Playing the game on insane

from Elemental Forums

So I've been playing for some time on insane/insane difficulty level and thought I'd share my experiences, and see if others also play at this level.

I lose most games so I've obviously got a masochistic streak ;P . The AI's production and tech advantages are enormous, such that by the time you come into contact they will have a power rating 4 to 8 times your own - meaning they quickly declare war and you are soon warding off stacks of 7 man units with 200+ attack and HP with your just sovereign, a champion and some guys with spears and leather. Only the well-documented relative incompetence of the AI gives you a chance.

The trick is being able to survive long enough that you are able to catch up with the AI players from a tech/champion development point of view, so you can build a single death stack that is capable of defeating AI stacks without taking too many losses. Not easy to do, and a lot of it comes down to luck, but here's a few observations.

You need to get off to a flying start - meaning a good starting tile yield, good nearby resources and suitable locations nearby for early city spamming. I design my soveriegns with the Wealthy trait so that I can spam out pioneers to take advantage of city sites as soon as I find them. The advantages of city spamming have been covered well elsewhere but playing on this level means all of your focus in the early game is on getting to 5+ cities as soon as possible, everything else takes a back seat.

You need a ruthlessly efficient faction/sovereign build. I have won once using the Paragon exploit (yes that's cheating in my book), once using a dodge based sovereign (wraith, assasin, evade, etc to get dodge > 100) and once using a death build (convert every shard to death shards, cast dirge of ceresa to poison every unit for 50+ damage a round). I don't claim to be the master of designing these things but unless you've got a very specific strategy for dealing with the AI player's stacks of advanced units when you're only in the early-mid game, you're going to get smashed. Your trained units will be hopelessly outgunned so I think only strategies based around your soveriegn will really work - but I'd be happy to hear if others have successfully tried a different tack.

Cloud Walk becomes one of the most useful spells. You'll likely be only able to field one stack that has a chance of taking on the AI stacks. Cloud Walk lets you zip around and defend your borders from multiple incursions. Because the AI tends to send in no more than one or two stacks at a time rather than in concerted waves, you can bounce from border to border picking off the stacks as they wander in. Tireless March also helps with this, particualry if you've got a few champions in your stack and can cast Cloud Walk multiple times - you can teleport around the place almost at will.

Curgen's Maul is a very useful item. Being able to do Overpower damage when you are fighting a steady stream of 7 man units is a godsend. A decent combat champion will be able to take down a stack with a single blow - combine that with sweep and you have a mechanism for clearing out enemy stacks with comparative ease.

Sometimes winning can come down to sheer dumb luck. In one game against three AI players, the largest AI player fought the other two simultaneously. In a protracted affair it ground down the other two empires, by which time I had prgressed far enough to take it on. Nothing clever about that, but it does suggest that say starting in a corner and staying a bit small might encourage the other empires to beat each other up rather than focus on you.

Anyway, just my experiences to date. Anyone else play on insane?

12,684 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Ooo sounds like fun. I'll be sure to try insane some time. Thanks for the tips!

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I love Cloud Walk, but am beginning to think it may need a 1 turn cooldown for balance

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

What speed do you play on? I've relied on Paragon to beat Insane AI since I never get to build any units capable of fighting them in time. Also it seems Empire is OP? Sacrifice for mana, blind, infection etc. What does the poor Kingdoms have going for them? ;)

 

 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I like playing on insane, the trick I have found is to max out your champions. The AI can research much faster, but if you focus on getting lvl 9 champions, you can usually have the tech by around turn 30-40. I usually do my research in the order of Civics, Knowledge, then go straight for Breon's letters. I do civics so I can rush out pioneers and scouts (I modify the scouts to have the stealth trait, which doesn't work as well as the faction stealth trait but I think it's better than nothing). The Faction that I built Is Kingdom with Wraith blood and has Betrayers, Lucky, and Master Scouts, with -10% research for the extra point. My Sov is class Adventurer, with only Life magic as a casting skill, everything else dedicated to skills that can't be easily gotten with levels (like wealthy & hardy). So basically I can hire every hero I come across once I have the tech without it costing anything. My stack of doom is comprised completely of my Sov and the max number of champs I can fit in my army. A lot of people whine about the XP loss of having multiple champs in an army, but my stack of doom usually finishes the game around lvl 15, and at that level they can crush every encounter on the map. Plus, if I can get my tech up enough to get a full army of 9, that stack will have 13 movement points. I can run them about halfway across a large size map in a single turn if I have enough roads to follow.

 

Oh, and the reason to only take one skill in life magic is that you can use steal spirit (since you'll have plenty of extra champs sitting in towns anyway) and get a LOT of magic skills. There was one time where I had all my magic skills at level 3 at least, including both life and death.

 

I choose Kingdom over Empire because healing spells get more powerful the more shards you have, whereas Shadow Bolt, Blind and Curse do not. I usually finish the game by turn 120 or so, although I did win once around turn 80 with the master quest (my sov was only lvl 9 or 10 at the time, but the group full of champs makes all the difference).

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Phidrae, reply 5
I usually finish the game by turn 120 or so, although I did win once around turn 80 with the master quest (my sov was only lvl 9 or 10 at the time, but the group full of champs makes all the difference).

MQ is too easy. You need to beat Insane AI's to beat the game really ^^

But your strat is interesting, I never pick adventurer, maybe I should reconsider it, and while healing spells are nice, they don't beat mass blind :D. And Krax Insane AI is a fucking nightmare when they recruit every champion in sight.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting sjaminei, reply 3
What speed do you play on? I've relied on Paragon to beat Insane AI since I never get to build any units capable of fighting them in time. Also it seems Empire is OP? Sacrifice for mana, blind, infection etc. What does the poor Kingdoms have going for them? 
 

I play on normal speed. I haven't played any games on Epic, not sure what difference that would make. It might help, as it would slow down the AIs tech development and give you more time to strengthen your heroes through experience.

I agree with your statement that you can't build units to fight them - you have to rely on building your heroes. I've used the Paragon strategy to win, but I think it's really cheating as after a point it beomces virtually free. I understand this has been fixed in 1.20 but I haven't seen what they have done to fix it.

The Empire does get some great spells, and you've missed one of the best: Wither. It can be cast in tactical or strategic mode, it affects all units in a tile or combat, can be cast outside your territory, and best of all (with a sufficient number of Death Shards) you can reduce an enemy's attack to zero. In effect, a 24 mana spell can take out an entire stack of 7 man units with no losses for your army. It is a great spell for taking out the large stacks of trained units the AI sends your way.

If you're custom building a faction, the Death Worship (I think that's the trait) ability that allows you to convert any shard to a death shard becomes incredibly powerful with Wither. It's easyish to get 20+ death shards which means you can take down most stacks. Combine that with a decent mage casting dirge of ceresa or contagion and you can do 50+ points a round to every unit ina stack for 10 rounds. It's an insane amount of damage compared to other spells like fireball. The Death Worship build is a bit overpowered in my opinion (which is why it's good for playing on Insane...).