28 turn insane challenge walkthrough on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9usAAYy9CDY

Key points:
* I tried to take all 3 starting areas on turn 2. Failed in CA, but decided to keep going rather than restart.
* I tried to conquer the most efficient areas (most reward/provinces ratio), such as India, Caucasus, West Africa, East Africa, West China, early. I left the least efficient areas (S America, Australia) for last.
* I got lucky, fighting the same opponent (teal) in both Europe N/Africa S, and N America N/S America S. As long as I could just concentrate on one AI opponent, I could coast. Even when I got a second opponent (purple, in Australia), I was OK. It was only when red came in Asia and brown came in S America N that I thought I was in trouble, as they each put 30+ strength armies in one province, that took me quite a few turns to deal with.
* Invaded S America S on turn 11, but got kicked out. Came back later.
* Abandoned Svalbard S with 22 units (becoming 110) at turn 13.
* Invaded Africa S on turn 11, and stayed, fighting tooth and nail until turn 17, when I got a full area (West Africa), and knew I was there to stay.
* Abandoned Anadyr S turn 18. This was debatable, since I was actually winning against purple there, but I was having a much harder time against red and brown, whom I couldn't wall off, so I walled off the opponent that I could.

I can't seem to beat insane. I consistently have a better start than the youtube video posted but when I start running into the AI they are posting up 20-30 unit armies on round 11-12 and I just can't keep up when I'm facing 2 or 3 of these at the same time. It seems like the AI was much less aggressive on the replay than it is when I face it.

Last time I had an income of 48 on turn 9. Saw the AI on turn ten with an income of 51 and they already had an army of 9 waiting for me in Argentina. After holding off an attack of 20, they have another 20 waiting on turn 11 and I'm also dealing with a group of 15 in Sweden at that point. By turn 13 I'm looking at over 70 AI armies pushing into the North map. How is it possible to compete with that?

Is it just about getting lucky and having a poorly playing AI and I just haven't seen it yet? I've gotten to this point at least a dozen times and always hold the AI for turn 11 and 12 and then get swamped at turn 13 or 14.

> Is it just about getting lucky and having a poorly playing AI and I just haven't seen it yet?

Basically, yes. And well-timed abandons.

Well, got my lucky break. Wasted a bunch of turns though, i don't think i appreciated the statistics on losses when playing with really large stacks until this game.

Wow, nice vid! Thanks for sharing that. I'm sure that is going to help others out tremendously

Well, first, sometimes they will win. My YouTube postings aren't all the ones I play, I also lose some. :-)

Argentina on turn 10 seems early. Is this Argentina North or South? Either case seems early. Early on, before you meet the enemy, you want to take the areas in the order of most efficiency as much as possible. Those that provide the most income for fewest provinces. This means (most optimal to least):
* India, Caucasus (4/4 and 6/6)
* W China (6/7)
* E China, E Africa, W Africa (5/4)
* C Russia, E US, W US (7/5)
* C America, Scandinavia (4/3)
Those are the ones you should try for first. South America and Australia are absolutely the worst of them, at 8/4. Those are the ones you want the enemy to spend their forces on taking, don't try to take them yourself.

When the enemy drops a huge stack of armies, think twice before meeting it head on. Consider instead "guerrilla warfare": advancing in several other places, and just making sure the big stack doesn't take an entire area so the enemy doesn't get extra builds. You can generally keep a huge stack to taking only one province a turn, and retake the one it leaves.

After much struggle, finally won Insane (in 36). The win sort of snuck up on me. I didn't have Central America by turn 2 (like George--an awesome player btw), and my luck was terrible throughout the game--always lower than all AI's (defensively I got lucky at the end for some reason). Two elements helped me win, I think. First, I got the central purple (6 pt) continent in about two turns after getting my initial 3. Second, I was able to carry off some skirmishes in S World to divert AI's troops. Usually, they seem to come through Africa early, but this time I was able to get down and lay a barricade around Sweden S, hemming them in and denying them those bonuses. If I have to lay a barricade in my own territory, (like S. Africa North) forget it, might as well quit there. Once I had them hemmed in they didn't try to move. Then I had some skirmishes in N. America North, but fended them off, and they were quite late coming through Asia North. Once I laid my barricade down in the cape, North, it was basically over for the AIs. That was fun, after so many defeats! On with the rest of life now. Thanks for the great challenge, but never again.

Congrats Major Joe. The reason you probably had good defensive luck the last few turns was because you had an overwhelming numbers advantage against the AI and they were no doubt throwing attacks into much bigger stacks and losing the full amount of attackers. I don't think it's possible to have negative luck result from attacks like that and it may cause you to have positive luck. At least that would be my theory.

any1 beaten challenge two in 18 turns?? i have... epic :D

shayne, you haven't even beaten challenge two.. and you took 19 turns to beat level two..

and it took you 13 turns to beat level 1...

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.

Finally completed the challenge..46 Turns. Think i can bring that down!

I think once your income is in the 90s you have a very good chance. Please fizzer dont add another challenge, Mrs Mike may divorce me!

I also beat challenge two(crazy) in thirty moves. I think what helped is luck at the beginning. I was waiting for a huge army to come and wipe me out each turn. Once I had all of North America the rest was pretty easy. But HOLY CRAP, thought it was impossible at first. I think that was about my 30th try. Its a nice feeling to beat it. To the creator of this site and that board, bravo, well done sir.

finally got insane down ! (in 45 but could ve been 5 or 10 less easily)

Finally made it...
36 turns, could probably have shaved a few off...
Only had to use one abandon though :)

Woo. I finally made it too. In 33 turns for my first time. wooooooooooohoo.

Insane challenge is frustrating :)

Having no trouble beating AI to Svalbard S and Anadyr N. Svalbard N is easier to hold when there first, but after Abandoning Svalbard S (with 30) and holding Anadyr N until second Abandon card, I'm wiped out in southern asia.

What can I change up. At a loss for ideas. I use Diabolicus basic strategy, but I race to both Nothern spots with 5 constant armies through US and Europe.

I'm locking this since the thread is almost two years old, it uses the old name which confuses new players to no end, and the information in the first pages doesn't even apply. Please use new threads!