Make War Not Love Challenge map

Thanks for this map :)

I decided to make a first review of the Humanoid Feast Campaign for Love and Peace on OUR Planet  (by greenish Necrophages). I'll suppress it if the moderators ask, but I hope it will interest someone while not taking too much space on the thread. For now, I've only played 50 "intense" turns. I'll add review of the next wars/phases of the campaign.

Ante Scriptum : if the review is accepted, it would be funny to compare the experiences.

I was expecting something abruptly difficult (having never tested a tiny map with 3 hard AIs), but I think I'm on a good way for an expansion victory.

I began in the Brama region, with 0 food but 15 industry and 8 science and dust as a starting.

First, I focused my intention on food, then industry, then science/dust while leaving the strategic resources, trying to obtain some interesting quests and searching as many ruins as possible before the roaming armies would begin to do their work. 

Then, I used influence to obtain the 20% unit production and settled Wervalyn (which has 3 villages... Mhh lot of food in perspective) while spamming foragers (cannon fodder is your friend ) to "pacify" some villages and so improve the food per worker ratio in the still little empire.

First war (against the yummy Ardent Mages, in blue... Attention, it's hot food  ) :

The Ardent Mages, already present in Erril, Undand and O'irenth, have brought two stacks of 4 units to bring me down at my capital. Playing slowly while benefiting from poison and the Necrophages' regeneration and militia were the solutions to the onslaught (the AMages having ridiculously powerful offensive capabilities). After this, I managed to take the little city of Erril and, exhausted, the EM leader negociated O'Irenth against one of my technologies (Mercenary market if I remember well... Who would have thought that an Era I tech would have the same value as a city...). Thanks to O'Irenth, I had access to three Urces villages I integrated in my empire in order to produce buildings more quickly and so be more flexible in my economy (by maintaining a good science and dust production to avoid being too outclassed by the AM and the Vaulters in the north while keeping the foragers and necrodrones flood ; I would have liked to obtain some range units, but nothing in sight, so I have to use what was at my disposition).

(My territory at the end of the First Fattening War)  =

Second war (against a delicious canned food named Broken Lords, in red) : 

Immediately after the declaration of truce, the most powerful empire on the map (at the beginning of the war), the Broken Lords, attacked me in Wervalyn from Garint with two stacks of six. Because I had upgraded my troops with lvl2 iron equipement during the first war and had a lvl6 hero who gave a lot of HP to my units, my experienced units fought well against the first armies (the BL dealing little damages and having a lot of HP, they were devastated by plague and necrodrones while being kept busy by my foragers). Using the corpses of my enemies, I transformed the little town in Wervalyn into a excellent unit production center ad submerged the first BL expedition. Just after that, I took Nyrinis and Garint, both with medium defenses (I imagine the BL didn't expect cockroaches to be that fierce).

(an easy battle with no loss thanks to unit rotation and poison)

In the last stages of the war, when the BL brought three more stacks of upgraded and advanced age III units, the use of proliferators helped me quite a lot, each battle finishing in heavy losses on both sides.

Two turns after Garint was taken, a white peace was signed and my weakened armies are now gathering in order to push the next AM attack which is, I'm sure, incoming.

(The Necrophages empire with six regions : the empty region of Masweyr is really poor, and one more region would destabilize already medium approval. As you can see on this picture, the BL are on the point of colonizing it, but things will turn ugly for them at the instant I'll be able to eat them)

So, at the end of turn 50, I'm quite happy of my situation : I am the first empire in points,  the second in points being the weakening BL, the other two other humanoid empires are at war with each other, I'm now in Era III and with Titan Bones and new equipement incoming. I hope nothing goes wrong in the near future...

Thank you for reading

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

I haven't tried it myself yet, but it is very specifically designed to be tough.

On that note, would anybody be interested in Monthly Challenges similar to this? Though probably a bit easier, and with a place where I track submitted high-scores.

Yes please it could be awesome :D and maybe create some Challenges with specific setting like vanilla game or without spy but with boat ect