Did anyone survived the Bronze Age on Ancient Warriors/ Plains of Conflict on hardcore setting?

[groki]

I tried three times, it is the late bronze age that usually nails me. My pop is beaten down to 40 and wave after wave of raiders keeps it there. At some point they manage to kill all adults and it is game over. If you managed to "beat the system" then please share your strategy. I tried both walls and no walls.

[martiño]

We did, but I have to tell you it took a few attempts :)
They key is to have a small wall perimiter covered with towers.

[Walincas]

group your towers 4x4 and place wall in front of them, and double gate. I hardly ever loose more than a couple o towers. This is on hardcore ofc. :)

[groki]

The thing with tower defense is that once you get reduced to 40 or so you just cannot man them back efficiently. I will try to have 3 gates and four towers each. I am glad that someone did it, means I might survive too at some point. Great game btw!

[Walincas]

dont start building the towers untill you have surrounded your settlement with walls, then add 8 towers in 4x4 pr. gate

[Aieonae]

2nd hardcore attempt here, at aiming for 150 pop for the moment, its a slow grow now.

Yup, the raiders are frisky but managable, as I build a fast track growing village. As long as you can outpace the raider it should not be a big issue.

My tribe in post iron age. Growing slowing.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1679030159

[Aieonae]

Originally posted by Walincas:

dont start building the towers untill you have surrounded your settlement with walls, then add 8 towers in 4x4 pr. gate

As my first attempt failed exactly because of this, the wall is just too taxing an ordeal for my folks. It fail in copper age just as they complete their walls.

Oddly, I need to dispose this idea, and promote making bows and straw towers asap, build up huts rinse repeat as much as your straw economy allow.

The 2nd attempt.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1676863310

[EvaLove]

watch this guy https://youtu.be/2DWdvVWiRpo . He makes it all they to the end with over 200+ pop. on the first try and the 2nd try . really good .

[philpearson25]

I know you posted it in march so probably my tips and tricks will be for other people who will read this post. Just got all the milestones on hardcore mode in Ancient warriors and thought this might help out someone else.
1. BLOOD LAKE - you don't have to choose that location but the reason why I strongly recommend it, is that it has loads of flint, copper and iron which are close to your base (only 1 tin mine but tin is something that traders are very good for). The downside is that you won't have flat large space but in this scenario I believe strategy is more important than beauty. Copper is the most important resource in this scenario, if its too far or too little you will find Bronze Age very hard. In blood lake you will have to have everything densly packed but that's actually good for you.
2. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TRANSITION - let me explain. Some years are more important than others and you will be the one who decides which are the key years. If you know the right timing and collect needed resources in advance you will be flying. If you don't know it, there is a big chance that you mess up the key point by accident and get yourself into death spiral.
The key moments are first 2 years and the transition time into the next age - especially the transition to bronze era. Here are my tips of how to make it easier rather than more difficult for yourself.
- DEFENCE SYSTEM. Since by the end of the game you will need double gate + 3 lines of towers, leave yourself enough space to just add new towers in a the future. Don't build towers all around - choose your strategic places and build heavily there. For example in blood lake scenario I build my village towards the mountains with all the copper deposits. Raiders comes mainly from two directions only (at least for quite long time)- they are drown to whatever gate you build so if you build two gates on each end of your future empire and put 6 towers next to each thats a good start. Don't waste of your resources on building it too close to then rebuild it somewhere else - its better to plan things first and build them there where you want them to be at the end of the game.
- TIMING. Raiders will take exactly 10 years to advance to copper age (or sooner if you enter the age sooner yourself as they at least match your era). If within first 10 years you are not able to build at least 4 mini forts (gates with 6 towers each, in strategic locations) and close off the rest of the area with fencing - then you playing on too high speed. The AI is not efficient, although the game seem to be design to run on a high speed in this scenario I recommend to take things into your own management for first 2 years to get the best out of them before your first attack - it will happen any time after you unlock ' survive 2 years' milestone. Now, if you can unlock copper age sooner - don't. Use 9 or 10 years to build as much defences as you can.
- MAIN KEY POINT. Tha's the time when you decide to enter the bronze age or shall I say - few years before that because that's when you going to stock up on all the stones, KP and flax 1 to 2 years before. You have now 15 years (on top of the previous 10) in copper age to add more towers, build stones stockpiles right in front of your gates and design your place tour liking. The most important part is that by the point you enter the bronze age you have large population (80+) you are stocked up on food and clothes, you have minimum 200+ stones right next to your gates, 50 flax and 3-4 workshops ready to produce cross bows because you have enough KP to unlock crossbows as soon as you unlock the bronze age. The best time to transition is when you have all of the above and after the autumn or winter attack. If you can't do it within 15 years then you need to play on slower speed. When you unlock it forget the housing - build the stone walls first. If you stocked up on grain (need double amount of grain than your population to survive a whole year so hopefully you have more than that) and have your bakers set up to 75%, flower to 50% they will be releasing food slowly so you don't have to plant anything this year. Use this time to build as many walls as you can making sure that you rather have wooden fence than a whole when the next attack happen. I aimed to have 12 towers next to each double gate that I had. If you done it right, you will have your defence ready for the next attack and you will have as much time as you want to enter the iron. Supposed to be 25 years but I was ready in 8 years and they already have a steel anyway.
- IRON AGE. Stock up on food, tools, mud, leather and mainly logs which can be tricky. You need to be ready to build all 5 deep iron mines next to you, right away. Don't build any iron tools - use all iron to upgrade your towers and gates - ONE BY ONE - not all at the same time. I built 12 bloomerries and 2 charcoal pits to keep the iron going as fast as I could. Last note - it is not true that raiders are limited to 20. In iron age the raider groups were 30+ in my case so get ready to have your defences up at all times. Can't imagine achieving all milestones with no walls strategy. And by the way - forget religion! Don't waste your time and resources - its totally useless in this scenario. Don't unlock religious techs at all.

Hope it helps - any questions, just ask.

[groki]

Wow thanks for such an elaborate guide. You should post this answer as a guide. Something I discovered recently is that it is fine to start with a super tiny square fort, and build a row of houses all around it on the outside. Raiders can only care about the walls, to which it is hard to get if you must also break a house. Sacrificing a house totally pays up, especially if you have much more houses than people, which you should anyway in order to attract people fast. Your idea of using fortified gates I never tried because it sounds like an exploit, but I agree that it is probably the best way not to waste resources. Houses outside the forts kind of makes sense, an overgrown triebe takes time to build defences. After an attack you can expand fortifications in one direction if you have the resources ready. I prefer to develop my towns slower and more realistically. But one thing that never worked for me is building separate forts in order to expand settlements over the whole map, so I am thinking to try it your way then square those gates into separate forts, and bring houses near. Did that ever worked for you? Well, I'm a try it anyway! Btw, with the new update hunting is easier, but I'd love some way to occasionally tame larger beasts that could help with defences, I am also thinking of setting a mod for that, if only i'd have the time.

[buds]

This one just work fine. Harder than the Ancient Warriors. This is a “Very Ancient Warriors” on Canyon of Slaughter Map. Starts in Paleolithic with the same number of initial villagers (11). Currently has 180 population and only 38 raiders. Not too much gulag but it’s fine. Raiders are still very low o any vanilla hardcore.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1811016695

[ЯeÐ ĄnimaŁ ШaЯ]

Originally posted by philpearson25:

- TIMING. Raiders will take exactly 10 years to advance to copper age (or sooner if you enter the age sooner yourself as they at least match your era). If within first 10 years you are not able to build at least 4 mini forts (gates with 6 towers each, in strategic locations) and close off the rest of the area with fencing - then you playing on too high speed. The AI is not efficient, although the game seem to be design to run on a high speed in this scenario I recommend to take things into your own management for first 2 years to get the best out of them before your first attack - it will happen any time after you unlock ' survive 2 years' milestone. Now, if you can unlock copper age sooner - don't. Use 9 or 10 years to build as much defences as you can.

This is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ retarded. I thought the entire point of Hardcore was that "they advance at their down pace".

I tried so many times and I thought I would rush to copper, last time I even set it up, so I produce only spears and axes with copper, so I have better weapons. Like one year after I enter copper or something, the raiders come with like 20 RAIDERS when my entire population is about 20. I did nothing really wrong, and I am getting better and better in efficiently handling the beginning.

So I just need to slowly build and update like I always did and advance the age when I have all other upgrades and grew my population I guess. I think it's impossible to win when you rush the age, and I think it's retarded that they are scripted,

[pdoan8]

In hardcore, raider tech advance like this:
- Copper age: 10 years.
- Bronze age: 15 years.
- Iron age: 25 years.
Their number will also grow with their tech.

It won't matter how fast you advance in tech, you will suffer if you don't have the population to deal with the growing number of tasks and raiders.