Insane in 30 turns .... phew.
Could have been 2-3 turns less, but after literally zillions of attemps I kind of got catious when I noticed I had the upper hand. Plus the two abandons I used cut me off from large parts of the last remaining territories, I should have made those ones weaker.
There really seems to be a lot of luck involved, such as: Do the AIs block themselves from getting bonuses in the lower half? Do you encounter the same AI in northern North-America/Europe or not? Once you get 2-3 "expeditionary corps" of -in my case- ~15-20 armies each marauding the southern earth you have a good chance of winning.
Some Hints (writing this off my head, so I might be wrong about turn numbers here or there):
- if you don't have 16 income by turn 3 (india, west africa & central america) you might as well restart
- In turn 3: after the initial 3, bonuses go for Hong Kong, Iran, Somalia, Sudan (Tadschikistan).
- In turn 4: complete East Africa, else restart. You want East Africa more than North Africa because it will allow you to take the Middle East more quickly.
- In turn 5: complete East China, (plus ideally Caucasus too), else restart
- In turn 6: get into Southwest N or Florida N (Go into US early, if you wait too long the AI will beat you to Canada N).
- In turn 7: complete Middle East, West China
- In turn 8: complete West U.S.
- Think 2-3 turns ahead: which are the key territories you need now to take a bonus a turn or two later?
Like:
Mali -> North Africa
Southwest -> Great Basin -> West US
Hong Kong -> Jiangxi + Shanghai -> East China
Iran + Israel or Saudi Arabia -> Middle East
Georgia + Tadschikistan -> Caucasus
Omsk + Tomsk -> Jessej -> Central Russia
- You also have to beat the AI to Europe.
- The faster you beat the AI in Scandinavia N, the earlier you can deny him his bonuses in Africa South, so this is where you should concentrate on.
- East Russia N is nice to have, but not for any price. Chances are you get a lot of resistance here, so you might want to ignore Russia East from the start and just put your second abandon on Anadyr N (the first one being Svalbard S on 10-12th turn irrc).
- Ignore Australia early on; it always takes 4 turns to take and in the beginning you dont have the armies to spare. Just keep the AI out of Indonesia N the first 10 turns or so.
- If a territory is key to your strategy, always attack with 4. If it is not, attack with 3.
- Better have one complete bonus than 2 half complete next turn.
- Try judging how strong each individual AI is by counting the armies they place and guessing which bonus they might have.
- You should meet the AI by turn 9 or 10, with first real resistence showing up by turn 12. By then you should control 3/4 of the northern earth and have at least ~70-80 armies per turn income.
- Don't attack the AI, just block him from getting into your bonuses. Avoid attacking large stacks, instead always go for their bonuses first. If you anticipate the AI will move a huge army, try attacking that territory with a few armies in one of your last moves to "clean up" behing him immediately.
