4 ms·

I used to play the 8-player version of this game a lot. Here's an analysis of the strategy. I put it in rot13 in case you prefer to discover for yourself. Gu

I used to play the 8-player version of this game a lot. Here's an analysis of the strategy. I put it in rot13 in case you prefer to discover for yourself. Gurer ner 3 onfvp fgengrtvrf va gur rneyl tnzr: 1. Encvq nffnhyg. Jnvg sbe n qrprag-fvmrq nezl ba lbhe pncvgny, gura fgneg punetvat nebhaq gur znc naq ubcr gung lbh ner noyr gb pncgher nabgure cynlre'f pncvgny juvyr vg'f cbbeyl qrsraqrq. 2. Encvq tebjgu. Sbphf ba pncghevat greevgbel naq arhgeny pvgvrf. Ihyarenoyr gb encvq nffnhyg, fvapr pncghevat pvgvrf jvyy qrcyrgr lbhe sbeprf va gur fubeg grez naq yrnir lbhe pncvgny ihyarenoyr. 3. Qrsrafvir tebjgu. Fybjre naq fgrnyguvre pncgher bs greevgbel naq arhgeny pvgvrf, jurer lbh tebj pnhgvbhfyl naq sbphf ba fheivivat encvq nffnhygf. Vg graqf gb ybfr gb encvq tebjgu, ohg jva ntnvafg encvq nffnhyg. Fb gur guerr fgengrtvrf unir n ebpx/cncre/fpvffbef eryngvbafuvc. Vs lbh abgvpr gung n cnegvphyne fgengrtl vf cbchyne va gur pheerag zrgntnzr, lbh pna nqwhfg lbhe bja fgengrtl nppbeqvatyl. Va rvtug-cynlre, lbh xabj gurer jvyy or frira ybfref. Vs lbh jnag gb or gur bar jvaare, lbh unir gb trg yhpxl. Fb vg znxrf frafr gb yrna gbjneqf n uvtu-inevnapr fgengrtl yvxr encvq tebjgu be encvq nffnhyg. Va gur zvq naq yngr tnzr, cynlref graq gb or birezngpurq ntnvafg rnpu bgure. Lbh'yy unir whfg 2 be 3 rzcverf erznvavat. Hfhnyyl bar rzcver jvyy or fvtavsvpnagyl fgebatre. Vs lbh ner gur jrnxre rzcver, lbhe orfg fubg gb jva vf trarenyyl gb sbez n znffvir nezl jvgu nyy bs lbhe sbeprf, punetr vagb lbhe bccbarag'f greevgbel, naq frr vs lbh pna gnxr gurve pncvgny qhevat n zbzrag jura vg'f cbbeyl qrsraqrq. Vs lbh ner gur fgebatre rzcver, lbh xabj lbh'er tbvat gb jva ol qrsnhyg qhr gb gur fabjonyy angher bs gur tnzr. Fb gur vzcbegnag guvat vf gb qrsraq ntnvafg gur fbeg bs fhecevfr nggnpx V whfg qrfpevorq. Gurer unir bayl orra n srj gvzrf jura V ybfg sebz n cbfvgvba bs fgeratgu, jura zl jrnxre bccbarag znantrq gb bhgcynl zr ba gur onfvp zrpunavpf bs greevgbel naq pvgl pncgher. Nernf jvgu n uvtu qrafvgl bs pvgvrf ner rfcrpvnyyl inyhnoyr gb gnxr pbageby bs, vs lbh pna znantr gb qb vg, juvpu graqf gb or qvssvphyg.

Jabrov 3y ago
Deciphered if you don't feel like doing it and want to read it here: There are 3 basic strategies in the early game: 1. Rapid assault. Wait for a decent-sized army on your capital, then start charging around the map and hope that you are able to capture another player's capital while it's poorly defended. 2. Rapid growth. Focus on capturing territory and neutral cities. Vulnerable to rapid assault, since capturing cities will deplete your forces in the short term and leave your capital vulnerable. 3. Defensive growth. Slower and stealthier capture of territory and neutral cities, where you grow cautiously and focus on surviving rapid assaults. It tends to lose to rapid growth, but win against rapid assault. So the three strategies have a rock/paper/scissors relationship. If you notice that a particular strategy is popular in the current metagame, you can adjust your own strategy accordingly. In eight-player, you know there will be seven losers. If you want to be the one winner, you have to get lucky. So it makes sense to lean towards a high-variance strategy like rapid growth or rapid assault. In the mid and late game, players tend to be overmatched against each other. You'll have just 2 or 3 empires remaining. Usually one empire will be significantly stronger. If you are the weaker empire, your best shot to win is generally to form a massive army with all of your forces, charge into your opponent's territory, and see if you can take their capital during a moment when it's poorly defended. If you are the stronger empire, you know you're going to win by default due to the snowball nature of the game. So the important thing is to defend against the sort of surprise attack I just described. There have only been a few times when I lost from a position of strength, when my weaker opponent managed to outplay me on the basic mechanics of territory and city capture. Areas with a high density of cities are especially valuable to take control of, if you can manage to do it, which tends to be difficult.
- mat_epice 3y ago
  If the GP wanted to hide it, it’s a pretty strange thing to explicitly unhide it.
  - jimmywetnips 3y ago
    I appreciate it
    - chrisweekly 3y ago
      I appreciate it too. The deciphered version is clearly noted as such, which even respects the OP intent in giving readers the choice to skip reading it.
  - chaps 3y ago
    To be honest it's a strange thing to rot13. I get why OP did it, but I'm really not sure the benefit outweighs the negatives or that it accomplished what it was supposed to. Those aren't exactly spoilers in the same way as visual media, where a fraction of a second can reveal the whole story. Brb painting a shed.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 3y ago
    It's just one person's perspective on strategy not some sort of spoilers or cheat codes.
- veqq 3y ago
  There are many problems here. Taking a neutral city costs 40 troops, taking a long time to recuperate. You're better off looking for the enemy and attacking immediately, only taking neutral cities in the late game when it takes 20+ moves to deploy men against the enemy. Attacking the enemy is better than taking neutral territory, n.b. you want to do this towards the end of the turn so your conquered territory will respawn.
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    Was going to reply to say the same thing. It's tempting to take neutral cities at the start and sometimes I do it, but it's almost always a mistake, and I can usually tell when other players do it and they make easy pickings. It takes a long time to recover from taking a city, and the payoff isn't worth it until you have a lot of them. It's better to cover a large swathe of territory. This can hide where your general is, and every 25 turns you can collect armies from the squares. Build up that way and then you wait for someone next to you to get into a fight with someone else, or take a neutral city, and then bomb in on them in force when they can't defend, and take advantage of all of their hard work. There's also a bit of a "dark forest" aspect to the game, where you can benefit from being hidden for a long time at the beginning of the game, but you have to trade this off with the disadvantage of not being able to build adequate forces in that time. I'm "bubbles" in the game.
cced 3y ago
Seriously just post the strategy with a spoiler alert.

Jabrov 3y ago

Deciphered if you don't feel like doing it and want to read it here: There are 3 basic strategies in the early game: 1. Rapid assault. Wait for a decent-sized army on your capital, then start charging around the map and hope that you are able to capture another player's capital while it's poorly defended. 2. Rapid growth. Focus on capturing territory and neutral cities. Vulnerable to rapid assault, since capturing cities will deplete your forces in the short term and leave your capital vulnerable. 3. Defensive growth. Slower and stealthier capture of territory and neutral cities, where you grow cautiously and focus on surviving rapid assaults. It tends to lose to rapid growth, but win against rapid assault. So the three strategies have a rock/paper/scissors relationship. If you notice that a particular strategy is popular in the current metagame, you can adjust your own strategy accordingly. In eight-player, you know there will be seven losers. If you want to be the one winner, you have to get lucky. So it makes sense to lean towards a high-variance strategy like rapid growth or rapid assault. In the mid and late game, players tend to be overmatched against each other. You'll have just 2 or 3 empires remaining. Usually one empire will be significantly stronger. If you are the weaker empire, your best shot to win is generally to form a massive army with all of your forces, charge into your opponent's territory, and see if you can take their capital during a moment when it's poorly defended. If you are the stronger empire, you know you're going to win by default due to the snowball nature of the game. So the important thing is to defend against the sort of surprise attack I just described. There have only been a few times when I lost from a position of strength, when my weaker opponent managed to outplay me on the basic mechanics of territory and city capture. Areas with a high density of cities are especially valuable to take control of, if you can manage to do it, which tends to be difficult.

mat_epice 3y ago
If the GP wanted to hide it, it’s a pretty strange thing to explicitly unhide it.
- jimmywetnips 3y ago
  I appreciate it
  - chrisweekly 3y ago
    I appreciate it too. The deciphered version is clearly noted as such, which even respects the OP intent in giving readers the choice to skip reading it.
- chaps 3y ago
  To be honest it's a strange thing to rot13. I get why OP did it, but I'm really not sure the benefit outweighs the negatives or that it accomplished what it was supposed to. Those aren't exactly spoilers in the same way as visual media, where a fraction of a second can reveal the whole story. Brb painting a shed.
- jasonwatkinspdx 3y ago
  It's just one person's perspective on strategy not some sort of spoilers or cheat codes.
veqq 3y ago
There are many problems here. Taking a neutral city costs 40 troops, taking a long time to recuperate. You're better off looking for the enemy and attacking immediately, only taking neutral cities in the late game when it takes 20+ moves to deploy men against the enemy. Attacking the enemy is better than taking neutral territory, n.b. you want to do this towards the end of the turn so your conquered territory will respawn.
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  Was going to reply to say the same thing. It's tempting to take neutral cities at the start and sometimes I do it, but it's almost always a mistake, and I can usually tell when other players do it and they make easy pickings. It takes a long time to recover from taking a city, and the payoff isn't worth it until you have a lot of them. It's better to cover a large swathe of territory. This can hide where your general is, and every 25 turns you can collect armies from the squares. Build up that way and then you wait for someone next to you to get into a fight with someone else, or take a neutral city, and then bomb in on them in force when they can't defend, and take advantage of all of their hard work. There's also a bit of a "dark forest" aspect to the game, where you can benefit from being hidden for a long time at the beginning of the game, but you have to trade this off with the disadvantage of not being able to build adequate forces in that time. I'm "bubbles" in the game.

cced 3y ago

Seriously just post the strategy with a spoiler alert.