howlingwolfpaws Civ overview for Free for All FFA

[howlingwolfpaw]

HowlingWolfPaws Civ guide for FFA.

This is meant to be a overview of how different civs fare in FFA. I have been playing FFA since I first started playing in 2008, it became my favorite game mode because every game is very different, there is no contention about making fair teams so people will readily green up. For me it is the funnest way to play the game because of the interaction with other players and the dynamic meta of balancing early aggression, defensive positions and booming. It is unlike TR or supremacy. Most people will find it very random, but with practice becoming a FFA pro is attainable once one masters the art of war, knowing who and when to fight and how to fight each civ. So here is my FFA lineup and civ overview from 3-5 thousand games played over the years. My highest rank ever achieved was in TR as a major. My Supremacy rank is a MS but is hardly tested. I am the clan leader of +FFA+ we have over 200 members and welcoming more. Its for those that love FFA and are noobs who want to learn, and are casual gamers.

Edit: note there is a cheater that uses a similar name (howiingwolfpaw-- looks like howIingwolfpaw) he tries to discredit and frame me for cheating because he is a long time cheater of the game and I have warned many other players about the many names he uses. His clan looks like (swastica FFA swastica) and has dozens of accounts.


OP Top Tier---- Just ban this civ unless it is a legit noob trying to level up.

France

Top Tier 1---- play to win

China, Ports, Spain, Russia

Top Tier 2---- still good civs to play to win

Germany, British, Ottoman, India

Middle Tier 3--- Fun civs with a chance to win

Aztec, Japan

Low Tier 4--- still fun but hard to win with.

Dutch, Sioux, Iroquois



Civilization attributes for FFA



EURO CIVS

British--- Brits are like the multi-tool of a civ. They are decent at everything but not super great at anything. A very easy and fun civ to play for the beginner or pro to master. They can easily take the economic lead with a manor boom for rushing or racing to Imperial. Some key cards to consider using are of course infinite 2 rockets, but there is another card rarely seen in Sup or TR games, that is the card that allows you to train vils from manors coupled with the fast build card for houses. Normally you want to leave British houses intact, but with this combo you have to destroy them, allowing a stubborn British player to relocate on the map and rebuild very quickly, making them the coach roach of civs that can be very hard to stomp out.

Portugal--- Even though I have France banned sometimes ports annoy me even more. The long range mortar card is just broken. After a 13 game win streak with no end I decided to stop playing them. They are highly versatile with very few weaknesses to exploit. The free Town centers and lack of wood needed early game allows them to age quick and once they get to age 4 and send long range jinete cards an army of them can kite and kill most invading forces. Best advise is to rush them in age 3 once you can also continue to pump out villagers from your TC's

Spain--- Was the first civ I really started to win FFAs with. The first several hundred games or so I never really won. I had trouble with Japan and learned about Unction, which not many understood or knew about so Spain was a under rated civ (still is). Do not let their slower economy fool you. If you can get 2:1 kill ratio that is like doubling your eco and halving your enemies. They are very versatile with one of the strongest melee games and powerful ranged units. Carefully micro your missionaries so that it runs enemy units into your high attack units. They do lack good unit siege so using mortars or cannons is highly recommended. I no longer upgrade pikemen to imperial as it just drains the wood, but I have seen a few players use infinite pike and cannon pretty well. Their main weakness is being split with battles on multiple fronts and to civs that can drop down vils for larger pushes. Which still comes at a risk to being drained by Spain. My advise is to not try to go after missionaries directly unless they get sloppy in the way. It becomes a bad trade, use lots of cannon and win the culv war.

France--- France has it all and then some.... 120 military pop, top tier eco that bounces back quickly, top rank units (other than muskets) fast train artillery, and super fast settlers, and a fur trade. With all that they would still be a good civ but on top they have instant gendarmes that trade well even vs most counter units. They have so much siege and HP they can ignore armies and box better than Oprichniks. I have seen them enter a base take out the factories and then turn on the army attacking them and winning over them to do more damage. So people either play in a lame way that rewards lazyness and if a good player uses them they will go with skirms and mortars too for the best combination in the game. To make games FUN I have banned them from play.

Germany--- A real power house early on. Free uhlans mean scouting, treasure collecting and raiding. Late game they can have an awkward unit combination but are still very strong, especially once the infinite heavy cannons come out. Their weakness is that their economy is slow to get up and to fight late game they want a big store of resources to delete down vils. So it is advisable to attack them in early age 5, once they have gotten their eco up, but have to choose to fight with a small army or drop down negating their big economic advantage they will have later.

Dutch--- Are hard to win with simply because their economy does not last for multiple players. They are very strong age 3-4 but require a lot of wood once in imperial. If you want to be a good dutch player you have to play the cannon war and use culvs, which makes for slow advances. Players who only make ryuter and skirms suffer. When I play dutch I play for fun and use more halbs with are really a fun unit for dutch, but they die faster than ryuters so drain them quickly.

Ottomans--- Are another top winning and favorite civ of mine. Ottos free vils can really help in a fight, and for power spike pushes late game, can delete some vils and they will come back automatically so it doesn't really hurt the economy if you maintain fighting population. If you use that for an extra 10-15 abus it will pay dividends in resource reduction to the enemy. Tips, build big FB and prepare for side attacks and changing the battle location using field construction in other locations. Once they start to over come and take out that position attack from somewhere else to split their attention.

Russia--- Almost France level lame and OP for their oprichnik raids and fort jumping. You basically have to drain them to win, and they will be controlling the battle and where it takes place all the time. Their weakness is that they are not that great in a heads up fight but must split to create confusion. It is best to always begin and bring the fight to them before they attack you. Pros will use artillery with them for a stronger composition while many lazy players just rely on spam of infantry and cavalry from forts. Use mortars for forts and protect your FB at all cost. you have to fight them methodically.

NATIVE CIVS

Aztec--- One of the funnest civs to play, and the best defenders (Ports maybe close tie) Aztec can rush hard or boom pretty quick with fast vil production. You must have the 1000 coin card, with it and some access to wood you can fight pretty much forever. ERK are the best single pop infantry in the game and are the backbone of your army. Their weakness is large numbers of infantry that require lots of spam to get through, the coyote runner is just a little too weak to do its job. Another tip is to save your big button upgrades for an emergency..... say you are attacking someone and they decide to try a base trade.... you can continue your attack and then use the buttons to defend.... you may be rewarded to win on both fronts.

Sioux--- Do not let Sioux low placement fool you, they are a very strong civ and fast... if you rush and attack the high scores and run around the map being super aggressive can overcome great odds. ATP is very good for them (well for all civs really) They can then catch up with fast training vils and use teepee fighting to drain players who boomed up. Their weakness is that they can not make walls so some players make bases out of corals and markets. These bases can be very tricky to over take as they can pump out an army at a time and fight with teepees. They also lack ranged siege so getting stopped by units at walls can be a problem and have the WORST sea fighting capabilities. Be methodical with mortars and out cavalry them with lots of dragoons and hussar sacrifices.

Iroquois--- Are kind of a 2 trick pony. They are either really good to rush with, or boom with for 40-50 minutes. They have outstanding native fighting potential and strong cannons, but some units like tomahawks are underwhelming. They require a lot of wood so once I am in imperial and have my 119 vils I have at least 50 on wood. Cowing does not really work in FFA setting so do not add it to your decks, Iros have a multitude of good cards that won't fit in decks so choose something that will pay off. They are weak Vs cavalry and train a little slow, they are also weaker to high pop armies like the Germans. Sometimes before I start a battle I will warm them up with a ram spam. Using nearly 100 rams attack from 2 fronts. 1 or both will likely get in, and cause lots of damage and confusion quickly. Then I follow up with battlefield construction for the weakest opening and try to over whelm. Its a costly method but if the battle is won quickly more than pays for itself. Some players simply rage quit.

ASIAN CIVS

China--- Super OP once old hans reformers comes into play. It is also a fun civ. The unit batches make for balanced army compositions and so many units they have can make countering them trickier. Flame throwers are very good. They are weak vs heavy cavalry, you have options to use dopples from the consulate (use the card that trains and techs everything almost instantly) or you can use your own heavy cav which attack in lines of 2, or check your temple mercenaries. I once beat a gendarme spammer this way but that is not typical. France will run over china. as will Spain. Good luck with all other civs. They are beatable but you got to out play them or deny them wood. Tips would be to raid their wood cutters after they get 119 from imperial upgrades.

Japan--- Often labeled OP and very strong indeed but they are actually difficult to win FFA's with. Maybe its me feeling awkward using dymos and having trouble getting back into gear once losing some, They are really great on small maps with the use of Tori gates for XP and massing big armies and controlling the map aggressively. Japan is also the most wonder/ building dependent civ. If they lose them they are a weak version that can easily be fought from then on. So I advise to hold any battles you can and be diligent to repair damaged walls so dymos do not run in. But in and when you can, attack on their base front and sacrifice whatever you can spare to take out the wonders. Fighting heal on takes a lot of artillery and culvs. Japan also has a great export trade card and using that to make 30-40k worth of hatamos samurai is super fun. Not the best to use alone but in conjunction with an army just a few of them in defensive mode will make you cav proof.

India--- My favorite and most played civ. I do not see as many other win with them so they get a lower rating, they were the last civ I really tried as a noob I thought they were terrible. Now they are one of my top winning civs as they are versatile and have high strength to pop value. Their weakness is mahout pathing, train time, and can lose to a good cannon/ culv war. To make up for this they are the fastest building civ and have sepoys and urumi (my favorite unit). I started out with decks using chakrams and war elephants but found these depleted my coin more than anything but can be useful vs some match ups. Urumi however are a necessary component to the synergy of India. Remember to subsidize poor mahouts with OP tigers from your monks, they can be the difference from pushing and being set back. India is another civ after booming a bit can delete down for a big push. Save your peace time wonder for side swiping attacks at your base or if you get so hammered you can't maintain fighting pop and need a reset. Trying to use it go raid a base is a bad idea, you will likely loose an army doing so and have a hard time building enough to get your population back up. Use the extra castle card for very strong FB, they wont know where your siege elephants or urumi shipments will be coming from. Ports and China late game are hard counters to India.


COMMON OP CARDS

ATP--- You want to get as many as possible as quick as you can. ATP attack and HP boost is worth it alone to discourage people stealing them. This card can win you the game, save you from rushes. For Asian civs just chop the wood you need, their version of ATP isn't worth it.

FURTRADE--- and other TRADE CARDS? I have it in my decks but rarely even use it anymore. Its basically free spies

TRICKLES--- Use them if you got them nothing like un-raidable eco.

FACTORIES--- well of course! I have only seen one player not use them and it can throw people off who are scouting the base looking for them, but really they are worth it and getting to age 4 quick enough while being able to defend them is a big deal.

VIL shipments--- Really great to boost your economic score to lead the pack. Pushing that curve upwards in a boom can make it a whole lot quicker especially since you will need more wood for turtle defenses.

Economic vs Military cards?... If you have to choose in your deck a important unit upgrade or a mill or plantation card I find the military cards more useful. They are essentially solutions to the same problem of maximizing your effectiveness. But military card will get your kill ratio better thus saving you resources and giving you a better position rather than being able to spam out more units from having weaker ones.


Any questions or things to add? thank you for your interest.




Other FFA guides by Howlingwolfpaw:

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=20995 Walling guide

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=21010 FFA map review

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=21035 General strategy tips

Thats it for now, maybe will think of things to add later, have a GG!

[lemmings121]

can you can write a bit more about the meta and viable strategies since you play this mode a lot?

I have the vast experience of around 5 ffa games since 2007, so I know nothing about the game mode. How is it "supposed" to be played? is there a meta for it? it always feels to me that the only valid way of playing is wall up with 20 layers and wait for people to kill each other, and only fight the last one, thats a wrong impression? is it super turtly? is being aggressive somewhat viable, or you are just making sure you wont get far into the game?

[howlingwolfpaw]

Gotcha covered I'm working on it! Unfortunately this was my 2nd write of the civ overview, I accidentally deleted my first one and had to re-write it after getting to Japan.

[howlingwolfpaw]

can you can write a bit more about the meta and viable strategies since you play this mode a lot?

I have the vast experience of around 5 ffa games since 2007, so I know nothing about the game mode. How is it "supposed" to be played? is there a meta for it? it always feels to me that the only valid way of playing is wall up with 20 layers and wait for people to kill each other, and only fight the last one, thats a wrong impression? is it super turtly? is being aggressive somewhat viable, or you are just making sure you wont get far into the game?

Walls are a part of FFA and certainly some players overdo it but keep in mind TR games end up with more densely packed walls and large maps FFA can still move around, and in a 1v1 or team SUP game even 1 layer can offer the same amount of protection as several layers of walls in FFA


also check out this thread about walls and how to deal with them

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=20995

[dansil92]

I love India in FFA. The secret to their power is the tiger spam, no questions. I don't like the war elephants but i really like the chakram shipment, simply because the 50rr gives them huge tanking ability (on ep especially, due to no longer being mislabeled as heavy infantry). The consulate army of cuirs + horse artillery is a personal favourite and a game changer against certain civs. India does struggle into insta-spam units, but its also noteable that india gets instant elephants on great plains (terror charge tame elephants etc.). Melee howdah can change battle tides sometimes, the splash damage shreds skirms in a pinch, especially with gurkha and tiger support. Taking down artillery behind walls is the worst nightmare so (confession here) sometimes I'll back door with a flailephant box

[howlingwolfpaw]

I love India in FFA. The secret to their power is the tiger spam, no questions. I don't like the war elephants but i really like the chakram shipment, simply because the 50rr gives them huge tanking ability (on ep especially, due to no longer being mislabeled as heavy infantry). The consulate army of cuirs + horse artillery is a personal favourite and a game changer against certain civs. India does struggle into insta-spam units, but its also noteable that india gets instant elephants on great plains (terror charge tame elephants etc.). Melee howdah can change battle tides sometimes, the splash damage shreds skirms in a pinch, especially with gurkha and tiger support. Taking down artillery behind walls is the worst nightmare so (confession here) sometimes I'll back door with a flailephant box

Did they change the range on EP too? Chakrams are good on certain maps with 14 range and can get all disciplined and honored upgrades, but on most maps only 10 range I found they died a lot trying to get to the front lines of a battle. VS brits they are excellent, and any civ that does not use a lot of melee. I may have to try using them again, I just found urumi to be way more versatile, and cheaper, I do not play on EP because few if any in the community do (never see a game hosted). Spammy infantry is where urumi come into play, they synergize with mahouts to wipe clean melee anti cav so mahouts can get their usefulness, with tigers in the mix on an open battlefield will either push the enemy back or shred it all. It really helps to delete 20 vils to get past the slow train time. I was going to mention but forgot to that on G plains instant elephants makes India really OP. I tend to try not to put howda in melee, they die really fast that way, I try not to make them much unless vs lots of cav or artillery and need more than just siege elephants. If they get overwhelmed by cav melee can be ok. Its a valid tactic though.

[TNT333]

Port explorer spam is op too dont forget

[howlingwolfpaw]

Port explorer spam is op too dont forget

Yes, but very few players use that card in FFA. I'm sure some do but I rarely see it happen. And I am happy for that for they are already the top civ tier.

I could be more thorough and add some screen shots of decks I like to use for each civ.... give me some time and I will try to do that.

[dansil92]

I mentiom chakram over urumi simply because urumi do take a lot of pop space whereas chakram dont. They die very quick on re but on ep they're much more durable. Ep9 should feature a range buff so thats a significant feature to look forward to

[howlingwolfpaw]

I mentiom chakram over urumi simply because urumi do take a lot of pop space whereas chakram dont. They die very quick on re but on ep they're much more durable. Ep9 should feature a range buff so thats a significant feature to look forward to

I get that problem but I've learned to overcome that limitation. There never seems to be a complaint for British to send in 2 rockets or Germany a heavy cannon with Uhlans because once you have them you are much better off. And a wave of urumi can do as much damage as those other things and cause havoc in some unit compositions. I find India to fight a little different than other civs. Most civs you want to maintain a constant battle line and feed in units, but with India you want to think of it as fighting in waves. Advancing 2 inches, to retreat an inch, to then advance 2 more inches again. So when you see you have a bunch of units in que, fall back a little, so that your next wave comes to meet them. And build your FB constantly on top of where you are fighting so that when you fall back a little, the enemy is drawn into them. Using multiple Castles you can choose where to pop the urumi should the castle start to be under siege.

They can be so helpful to stop boxes of Dopples, grenadiers, or halbs.
They are almost uncounterable by Aztec that need cannon from other civs to counter effectively (jaguar knight spam)
In an open battle cause enemy dragoons to withdraw so you can push for more inches and shred dutch ryuters. They are the reason India can beat dutch (and better eco)
The perfect counter to any melee anti cav unit. and ranged cav
One of the best coutners to War wagons from Germany, to kill expensive units with cheap ones.
And work well in ranks of musket wars with a wave of urumi to eat away at them, they even fare pretty well vs skirms in a locked battle.
Get them around a Russian fort and pretty much instantly kill what ever they spam out of it. Spammers will just try to spam their way out of it not realizing they just dropped 100+ points.

I feel urumi are under appreciated for FFA and TR. In supremacy they can be game changing but in those battles players are more accustomed to kiting away, In heated battles feeding from field bases where that is not really an option they get their full potential realized.
If you catch a break and can stack 2 shipments together they become exponentially better.

Chakrams are good but really only for musket type units. Their range and multipliers do not make them great at siege or vs other units, so they have a niche but urumi are far more versatile.

What I like to do is set myself up by building 1 sepoy out of 5+ barracks, and maybe 1 cav. Send the card at 199 pop, once your army starts to fail a bit, retreat it, and then as the urumi pop, fill in the barracks with more sepoy/ mahout to get to 199 pop, and then send the card again if you have one. It should buy you enough time. if the enemy is using those likely situations.

[ǝɯɐuɹǝsn]

yep on the paper FFA are really funny, as you describe it, but in the fact what is it ? it's probably the game mode who got the most of cheater ratio, but ok when you know the name you can avoid that (but all news player can't), most of the map are even less fair than on a normal game because of water or something else because most of the map are not thinking for ffa

and you describe yourslef as a "pro" of ffa, what is a pro of ffa ? before i stop playing ffa i was winning 9/10 ffa I was playing, and people at the end before i stop were always like "yoU aRe a CheAteR wE kNoW iT" and then cry and do some 4 or 5v1 all the time, so if you're a "pro" you may know that, and full time gang up is shit

+ FFA with more that 5 player are boring, laggy and useless, and people who host ffa always do it on large map, you know, like large siberia with 8 player, mmmh what a pleasure to see the noob running when they are dead, to rebuild and attack you when you are somewhere else,

no for real, on the paper this is the best kind of game on aoe, but in reality this is the shittiest (a bit like king of the hill who can be so cool with some rules)

[Goodspeed]

can you can write a bit more about the meta and viable strategies since you play this mode a lot?

I have the vast experience of around 5 ffa games since 2007, so I know nothing about the game mode. How is it "supposed" to be played? is there a meta for it? it always feels to me that the only valid way of playing is wall up with 20 layers and wait for people to kill each other, and only fight the last one, thats a wrong impression? is it super turtly? is being aggressive somewhat viable, or you are just making sure you wont get far into the game?

If FFA was competitive (of course it isn't, so what follows doesn't really apply in practice), the best AoE3 players wouldn't win. They would get teamed up against early on. Basically the best way to play FFA then is to convince everyone that you are worse at treaty-style fighting than you actually are, and then talk others into teaming with you against the best players. The best FFA player isn't particularly good at late game fighting, or at least does a good job pretending he isn't. Where he excells is in diplomacy.

The same is true for civ picking. Banning civs is kind of pointless in a competitive FFA, because it balances itself out; everyone who tries to play French, China, Port etc would just get 2v1d early. The right strat in civ picking would be to pick the most underrated civ. If you're known as a good late game fighter, you might even be best served picking a straight up bad civ and using that as leverage not to get teamed against.

@howlingwolfpaw is making a rookie mistake by writing a guide, thereby implying that he is good at the game mode and making himself a prime target. If FFA players were worth a damn, his win rate would go down for posting this thread alone.

I for one am really bad at FFAs. I always pick bad civs like Dutch and suck at late game fighting.

[TNT333]

I love politics in ffa, somehow I'm the one who always convinces others to turn on each other

[howlingwolfpaw]

can you can write a bit more about the meta and viable strategies since you play this mode a lot?

I have the vast experience of around 5 ffa games since 2007, so I know nothing about the game mode. How is it "supposed" to be played? is there a meta for it? it always feels to me that the only valid way of playing is wall up with 20 layers and wait for people to kill each other, and only fight the last one, thats a wrong impression? is it super turtly? is being aggressive somewhat viable, or you are just making sure you wont get far into the game?

If FFA was competitive (of course it isn't, so what follows doesn't really apply in practice), the best AoE3 players wouldn't win. They would get teamed up against early on. Basically the best way to play FFA then is to convince everyone that you are worse at treaty-style fighting than you actually are, and then talk others into teaming with you against the best players. The best FFA player isn't particularly good at late game fighting, or at least does a good job pretending he isn't. Where he excells is in diplomacy.

The same is true for civ picking. Banning civs is kind of pointless in a competitive FFA, because it balances itself out; everyone who tries to play French, China, Port etc would just get 2v1d early. The right strat in civ picking would be to pick the most underrated civ. If you're known as a good late game fighter, you might even be best served picking a straight up bad civ and using that as leverage not to get teamed against.

@howlingwolfpaw is making a rookie mistake by writing a guide, thereby implying that he is good at the game mode and making himself a prime target. If FFA players were worth a damn, his win rate would go down for posting this thread alone.

I for one am really bad at FFAs. I always pick bad civs like Dutch and suck at late game fighting.

I am just sharing my experience. I usually already am a target in FFA, and well known among FFA players. I play for FUN, and France makes the game not fun, not just for me but from countless games people complain. So banning a civ makes sense as it makes players of all skill levels feel more comfortable and people do not lose simply to lack of strategy and 1 unit.

You are right though, that picking under rated civs can save you from rushes. Many Times people are chosen to battle simply due to their civs, or are shown no mercy as Russia.
Sometimes playing bad and lowering your score can get you under peoples radar as not a threat.
Other times the best score can intimidate people and they want to avoid a battle they think they will lose.
For me if possible I go for the biggest scores to keep them from booming any bigger while I would be fighting someone else.
2v1 is not fun for me, Its only acceptable in a few circumstances. Such as being attacked and the attacker goes and attacks multiple people asking for it. or at the very end of a game with 1 supreme vs 2 weaker players.
Diplomacy and manners do go a long way, and is part of the appeal to it.

I write a guide because I am qualified and I do not care about winning (sure its a good feeling, but the ways I lose do not bother me) and would rather have more fun. If be doing so I can draw more people into the game mode then I have accomplished my goal.

Its the same for this site and all of the pros that play here and share their builds and try to improve other players. Its lonely at the top and more better players enhance the game experience. A big shout out to cometk/ blackthought who made youtube videos of booms for each civ that greatly enhanced my skill level once I adapted them to FFA

[dansil92]

^ hes completely right

In the samuraiRevolution ffa tourneys, the first year i played dutch with a treaty deck in the qualifier roind and was completely ignored by everyone, then with good diplomacy and 150 military pop (and saloon elmeti against china) with my prolonged boom and superior lategame deck i was able to come out on top after 3 and a half hours of battle. Going into the finals i artificially kept my score low as spain, and was thus ignored again and was able to take 2nd place, losing largely to getting my factories nuked by monitors around the 50 minute mark.

This year i went india and did an insane boom, actually exceeding an extremely competent port player in score as i charged up to imperial age... where i promptly got absolutely destroyed because my score was so threatening and i didn't take part in any diplomacy.

Tl;dr play crappy civs be nice dont overboom

[ǝɯɐuɹǝsn]

ah and i forgot, you only put france on civ to ban, but russia is even more cancer than france in ffa

[howlingwolfpaw]

yep on the paper FFA are really funny, as you describe it, but in the fact what is it ? it's probably the game mode who got the most of cheater ratio, but ok when you know the name you can avoid that (but all news player can't), most of the map are even less fair than on a normal game because of water or something else because most of the map are not thinking for ffa

and you describe yourslef as a "pro" of ffa, what is a pro of ffa ? before i stop playing ffa i was winning 9/10 ffa I was playing, and people at the end before i stop were always like "yoU aRe a CheAteR wE kNoW iT" and then cry and do some 4 or 5v1 all the time, so if you're a "pro" you may know that, and full time gang up is shit

+ FFA with more that 5 player are boring, laggy and useless, and people who host ffa always do it on large map, you know, like large siberia with 8 player, mmmh what a pleasure to see the noob running when they are dead, to rebuild and attack you when you are somewhere else,

no for real, on the paper this is the best kind of game on aoe, but in reality this is the shittiest (a bit like king of the hill who can be so cool with some rules)

I think the game itself has a cheating problem but certainly the types that do will cheat in FFA. Most of the communities problems are coming from just a couple individuals. The main person, having 30+ accounts. Thankfully I know how to spot this person and know most of his accounts so does not get in my games anymore. He has tried infiltrating the clan many times and maybe still even has an account in it. It got so bad he even made a ghost account like mine (howiingwolfpaw) to try to discredit and frame me as a cheater. I think it has only gotten me more notoriety.... You will find that cheating clan with the tag (swasticaFFAswastica)

It is one of the reasons I record every game now to be able to prove if possible suspected cheaters. We use a Clan discord to provide screen shots and once proven we blast it to the FFA clan so people can ban these players. It is of course not perfect but its something.

Well that is your opinion and your welcome to share it. I get many lag free games with more players. I find on paper and real life even with its drawbacks is still the best/ funnest game mode.

[ǝɯɐuɹǝsn]

lol you talk about jab, yes all his account are easy to spot because he is retard, and it's easy to see when he host a game, but he's not the only one sadly, and people (maybe even you) already kicked me out of ffa because i quote "i'm sure you're jab on an other account" lol so i think your way to check a cheater is not perfect

[howlingwolfpaw]

ah and i forgot, you only put france on civ to ban, but russia is even more cancer than france in ffa

Its not about the civ being a cancer is about it being lame, Russia is pretty close to it.. Every civ is a little OP in its own way but Oprichniks and instant infantry is counterable, however France Gendarmes are too good vs. their counters. It still takes some effort for Russia to win, but way less so with France.

[howlingwolfpaw]

lol you talk about jab, yes all his account are easy to spot because he is retard, and it's easy to see when he host a game, but he's not the only one sadly, and people (maybe even you) already kicked me out of ffa because i quote "i'm sure you're jab on an other account" lol so i think your way to check a cheater is not perfect

what is your ESO name? your kind of accusing me of something, but also being ambiguous if it even happened...

[ǝɯɐuɹǝsn]

i've many eso account, that's not the subject, the subject is about being accused of being a cheater just based on the username, and yes you and many people did this, and it's why I doubt about how you search and find cheaters account

[howlingwolfpaw]

If you wont share the account then means nothing to me. That is cowardly and may have been entirely different reasons to ban you.

having many accounts is suspect in of itself.

[ǝɯɐuɹǝsn]

lol nop, it was a very new account level 10 with an "original" name, i just joined and u said something like "I know it's one of jabs account again" and then pested, so you make me laught when u say that you pest only for real reason when you only pest for suspicion based on how old the account is and if the name talk to you or not

[howlingwolfpaw]

no need to even talk about it if you want to hide with accounts. It may have been a day when he was trying to enter a game with 20 accounts. who knows because you are making baseless accusations!

[lemmings121]

^ hes completely right

In the samuraiRevolution ffa tourneys, the first year i played dutch with a treaty deck in the qualifier roind and was completely ignored by everyone, then with good diplomacy and 150 military pop (and saloon elmeti against china) with my prolonged boom and superior lategame deck i was able to come out on top after 3 and a half hours of battle. Going into the finals i artificially kept my score low as spain, and was thus ignored again and was able to take 2nd place, losing largely to getting my factories nuked by monitors around the 50 minute mark.

This year i went india and did an insane boom, actually exceeding an extremely competent port player in score as i charged up to imperial age... where i promptly got absolutely destroyed because my score was so threatening and i didn't take part in any diplomacy.

Tl;dr play crappy civs be nice dont overboom

haha, thats so funny. by the way, how do you "artificially keep a low score"?