Skifree, this thread is about the Insane challenge. It used to be called Challenge 2. The current Challenge 2(Crazy) doesn't have abandon cards, that may be what you're looking at.

Finally finished it last night. This was my strategy, but I think a lot of luck was involved...

1) expand to central america, west africa, and india in 2 turns or restart.
2) Then expand to rest of africa, and east US
3) Then west US, and Canada, and China
4) It's important to get to the choke points at this point at both Anadyr's, both Svalbard's and drop the abandon at Svalbard S.
5) From here the most important strategy (in my opinion) is to run interference within enemy territory to prevent them getting bonuses. Expand rapidly in enemy territories without trying to hold anything.
6) step 5 allows you to move up your own boundries steadily, making progress into enemy Africa and consolidate your asia.
7) From there you're basically just wearing him down, running interference, placing abandons carefully if needed, and moving up your borders.

A pretty new player here. From what I read, challenge 3 used to be challenge 2. That nice.

Anyway, I need help on the current challenge 2. There are times when I have all of North and South America, and then one team gangs up on me with huge forces and I can't win. Any tips? This is hard since everyone's position is randomized.

I currently get stuck on Challenge Crazy (1 vs 3AI+3AI).

I hate the Foggy level in this stage. If Challenge Insane is Foggy too, I will give up now.

As mentioned by Doushibag early in this thread, there are too much luck involved to win. Yes, it is possible to win but I do not think it is funny to win a lottery.

With Foggy level, you can plan nothing at all. This does not make sense. Quite often after ten minutes of play you found you have no chance to win (a waste of ten minutes). Games with uncertainty involved such as a card game take many rounds to get the "luck" evenly distributed. Worse, in Single Player game, it makes no difference whether you lose at the 10th turn or the 100th.

With Moderate or Light Fog, a smart player could take one of the few best paths out of thousands to beat even more than 6 AIs. And if the player finds out he is surrounded by AIs at the beginning, he could reload it to save an hour.

Thanks Randy for this free game.

Well, I beat the crazy challenge. It does seem that luck is involved. My winning game had me start in eastern china. Allowing me high bonuses early on. Though I did meet an AI a bit early in the phillipes and Austrailia, he must have been busy with another AI from Antarctica for a met little resistance with him.

And yes, Insane challenge is fogged, but you starting posistion is not randomized. You play on the double earth map. The top half has you thinly distributed along with nothing, while the bottom half has 6 enemy AI out for your blood. All on the same team.

I think the Crazy Challenge was easier, but requires much more luck, meaning more restarts. It really depends on where you start, and how many AIs are near you. And then how much they fight each other.

The Insane Challenge seems impossible the first few times you try, but is beatable with less luck involved.

Yeah, I know it took me less tries to beat the Insane challenge than it did to beat the Crazy Challenge. Even now, I've considered going for breaking the record in the Crazy Challenge, but it just doesn't appeal to me because it would require infinite restarts to get that perfect mixture of starting spot luck that is needed to not only beat it, but do so in the less than 20 turns or whatever is needed.

Also, if you ever decide you want to make any more changes to the challenges, Randy, I would suggest lowering the luck to like 20% from 50%. I think that would save a lot of headache, and make for more consistent attempts.

Crazy Challenge: just be prepared to re-start a few times to get decent starting position- it is not always bad to meet an enemy early- if you can kill off one AI fast then slowly expand/ expend most of your resources fighting the team with 3 AIs remaining that often works out very well.
Sometimes you can war with an AI early and later discover you've been warring with an AI from the team that is generally losing to the other AI across the map, in which case you've been helping to dig your own grave.

Insane: there seem to be some strategies posted, I'll post my experiences and hope people can learn something. I have beaten it a handful of times but it still seems to be hugely luck based.
The best thing to do is expand as usual, get to a situation where you've obviously lost then surrender and review the history and see where the AI moved to.

Generally speaking I'll take the first 3 bonuses, get East Africa next, send an invasion force of 4 armies en route to Australia every single turn while work towards capturing Caucus, East China, Middle East.

Once those are achieved/ once I hit the south of Australia I aim to push my way to Andyr S and hold it all game long, expand south through south africa with a view to placing a ~30-40 abandon while baiting an attack at Svalbard S.

If you can achieve these two things then rather than 1v5 you'll be fixed into a 3 front encounter for a long time: you holding Andyr S will mean that either the East Russian starting AI gets landlocked there or the central american AI gets landlocked- one of those two will take Canada S and tend to landlock the other. (The Central american one can expand south and attack your north america but it seems to get cut off in south america by the african ai instead)
The West Asian AI will just build up his armies behind your Abandon at Svalbard S.

The three AI you fight are the African AI coming through your Europe/ North America, the South Asian AI coming through your East Russia and whichever enemy ai takes Canada and comes through your South America.

While this is happening you can choose where to expand up north in your world: I advocate minimising your commitment to North america and focusing on taking afroeurasia, holding your own Andyr and Svalbard and wresting control of your south america back, disrupt both North americas while pushing the enemy back through your Europe into his Africa.
The clock is ticking at this stage- you need to take his Africa and hit the Egypt/ Algeria borders before the west asian AI breaks your abandon.
If you can hit the west asian AI's southern borders at Egypt/ Algeria S then he'll stop massing his army behind your abandon, maroon whatever troops he has there and just start reinforcing his middle east/ spain borders.

If you can get to a situation where you control all of your world except disputed north america and take his africa and disrupt a few areas (australia, his south america, his canada) then you're 90% finished and can't really lose.

@Impaller

>>>Yeah, I know it took me less tries to beat the Insane challenge than it did to beat the Crazy Challenge. Even now, I've considered going for breaking the record in the Crazy Challenge, but it just doesn't appeal to me

I beat Crazy in 20 turns, which I think ties Mor's record, but I couldn't guarantee I could ever do it again. It is kind of like you need the perfect storm of luck, unlike the Insane challenge. Not that you don't need some luck for Insane too:)

I just beat the crazy challange twice more to increase my horrible speed was 56, lowered it to 39, then to the current 31
then decided to try the Insane again.. since i have grown more accustomed to warlight in the months since i started, and think of myself as a decent player...

first game, i spread out my attacks as i thought possible and lost 2 attacks that were kind of important, so i restarted.. 2nd time 1st turn turned out better, but my luck was still down.. abotu turn 5 i was getting upset, and checked my cumulative luck to notice a -8.89... i continued, out of curiousity, until turn 10, when i first met the AI's, i didn't have nearly as much as i would of hoped, and had failed getting bonuses several times, even when i had put extra armies.. a cumulative luck of -24.19 on turn 10...
I know this has nothing to do with strategies, just the complete fail of my luck this game inspired me to write about it, and wish the single player games were saved so i could post it

and now, it's time for me to go back for try 3...

Finished the Insane level a week or two ago. It took me 47 turns, so I'm obviously not the one to give advice about it. I restarted multiple times. I didn't bother to continue if I didn't capture Central America and India in 2 turns and Central Africa in 3rd turn. Does anyone keep the record of how many people have beaten it ?

Pretty sure Randy does. I'd guess 15-20 players now, but it could be more.

I won in 53 turns, time for Insane:)

38 turns and I won Insane. Give Challange 4!

Grats Snake. I still think it's quite an accomplishment to beat the Insane challenge at all, that's why most haven't:)

what about the abandon cards? Do you use them? How and where?

Finally beat challenge 3 in 37 turns. My luck ended up being neutral by the end, and nearly every single game Ive played on the challenge my luck was massively negative, so I think a good string of luck at the right times would go an awful long ways towards improving speed. My win was not fast by any means (partially out of caution at the end, but that made maybe a 3 or 4 turn difference at best), but is enough where I feel I can give a few tips that may not be clear.

First off, I agree completely that you should attack vital neutrals with 4 armies and neutrals that immediate capture is not essential with 3. Also, if you dont capture central america, the india bonus and Central Africa bonus by turn 2, you might as well restart.

In my opinion, a very major determining factor in success is whether or not the AI ends up causing each other to lose bonuses by expanding into one another, and if you have sufficient time to get into some of their bonuses to deny them income before the border build up begins (ideally you can avoid this buildup in a border or two by forcing them to chase you around their territories). Also of significance is if your attacks against neutrals are lucky or unlucky. Get 4 or 5 unlucky attacks in the early going and it is game over.

Personally, I go for N. America, most of Africa and Asia while heading for Europe. When I enter into their world, I usually do it through N. America (making a b-line there from Africa after I capture a few African bonuses), S. America, and Africa after I clean up Europe a little of invading Comp. I also like to let the comp that comes through Europe to head east and capture leftover neutral Asian territories. I just mop up behind the comp so they spend resources taking neutrals and losing territories to my follow up advance. I've been able to pull that trick off pretty consistently so it seems that AI Africa is easily trapped in that way.

I use abandons depending upon where the buildup is impossible for me to maintain, or if I have an extra abandon to throw around and can anticipate the attack of a comp. Once you get behind AI lines, it is important to spread as quickly as possible to deny as many bonuses as possible, while spending enough to keep them from retaking their bonuses until such a time as you can manage to actually capture and hold their bonuses.

by far THE MOST REWARDING WIN EVER!!!! 57 turns, nothing heroic, but my first win against insane... may come back to it for a speed challenge if I'm every feeling like John McClane in the future.

ahem

I hadn't tried the insane challenge for well over 2 weeks... the mind numbingness of receiving your ass from past losses just kept me away from ever wanting to brave stepping foot into double earth ever again.

very odd start, all initial income straight into west Africa, and somehow got really lucky in still capturing everything with 3's the the other two bonuses. With the added forces in Africa I was then able to quickly control all of Africa and move into Svalbard S by turn 7, whilst meanwhile moving quickly acquiring first east then west china.

by turn ten east Russia was mine, and I had made progress toward Svalbard N, with a turn away from capturing the Europe bonus. Here was when I decided to be very aggressive, as I had beaten AI to Australia S, I rushed 29 armies desperately toward China S. Meanwhile I kept anticipating AI in Svalbard N, quickly overpowering it before it had moved into much of West Russia. I then dropped an abandon in Svalbard S on turn 12.

Turn 15 saw a small strike force of 30 enter Africa S, whilst my remaining attack squad in China S got as far as messing up all of Australia, Indonesia, and India before quietly dying.

Ah! I dropped my second abandon in Brazil on turn 16, and to my horror my abandon in Svalbard S was broken through in the same turn! This ate up a lot of my forces for basically the entire game, as i furiously defended the south of my African Bonuses!

For some strange reason, I was left very much alone in Africa and I was able to quickly take control of all the bonuses whilst the AI was fighting over Greenland with my defensive forces. By turn 21 I had control of Africa S, and all of Greenland.

By turn 24 I had taken South America S, and was making my way in capturing Canada N. Also somewhere along here I had to drop an abandon in Japan (which I think is a very good investment btw) as there was far too much pressure from AI attack my East China N chokes.

Things turned for the worse at turn 31 when AI had broken into East Russia N with well over 120 armies and me losing all of south America S and my progress in Canada N.

I thought screw this and accepted my fate, and decided I would force my way into Svalbard S, dropping my entire income for two turns straight into south Africa. Then luck shined on me and AI fell straight into an abandon cleverly placed on the edge of east Russia N. (more desperate than clever tbh)

From then on I muscled my way into Europe S and West Russia S... dropping an abandon on the edge of central Russia S, when AI let all hell rain loose on my forces.

I still had no idea I was on the path to victory, however as I was able to continually hold off their attacks throughout the Middle east S and Caucasus S, whilst slowly conquering both Americas N & S... My final abandon was to wipe their huge defensive line in the Middle East S, playing upon the AI's "attack the weaker territory" mindset.

And then victory came to me like a gentle summer breeze, as I shouted Yippie-ki-yay mother****s!

Nice work, Botch! Fun read :)