Well, I just finished my ump-teenth attempt at this one and I'm not sure I will ever get the mojo up to try it again. Too much time to get going, too disappointing when I spend that much time and get squashed.

But in case I do get up the energy, anyone have a strategy suggestion? I've tried going various directions at the start, but every time I wind up face to face with the boss. So if he goes east ever, I've not had it happen to me. I've also tried breaking through east with a large stack to assassinate that fellow, but when I finally reach him, I've got an army of 800 chasing my army of 350, and I still get deflected and then squashed.

Thanks for any help.

If you still can't figure it out, this video will show you how it's done. Kinda spoils the fun, but gets you some progress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRqZ5L32elo

Thank you very much. I'll check it out. At this point, I'm just ready to move on and try a new challenge!

Another fail. I'm a bit confused. The video says, "In the unlucky event that the boss comes right for you." But that has happened to be literally every time. This makes me think that something has changed in the programming since this video. Or else I'm just doing it wrong.

Has anyone beaten this level "recently" that could offer some guidance on what worked for them?

Search Caesar's Challenge on the forum. The topic has been discussed literally dozens of times by now.

# looser did not play for trump

I actually did this recently (about 2 weeks ago). Lost about 15 times that the boss went for me, and won on my first try as soon as he went east. It /does/ happen, so my advice is to just keep trying.

As for what to do, always knock out the AI to your right (in Scandanavia area), and then head south and east and try to take Spain, France, Germany, and Italy. Once you have those 4, with some good playing, you have enough armies to beat the other AI's.

Also, this should go without saying, but when the Boss does come for you (he will eventually no matter what), just contain him and focus on the east AI.

I've attempted this many times myself. For me, the boss takes 2 different places. If I stay to the right with my commander, the boss will go left. I still haven't won, but that's something I did figure out.

Caesar's Challenge is actually not to win

If I early eleminate A2 then A1 is so big then he kill me

IF I go to spain, then A3 kills all

Can I skip this level?

I did it several times, and I always win now.

I'll try to give you my plan:
it is not enough to get the gold star.


1) kill AI3 quickly:

when you take england, do your best to have as much armies as you can
in Caledonia inferior :
When I first met AI3, I usually have 14 units on Inferior caledonia,
when AI3 has only 7 units on chebsonesus.
Take england and use all you unit to take chebsonesus
and kill AI3

2) go everywhere:
I use my commander only to take england and then to go to spain.
try to take france and spain and italy :
you never know where AI1 is going.
And I make a bigger and bigger stack on my way to Illyricum.

3) don't fight:
it seems strange, but AI1 will be killed at the end:
take as much of his territories as you can,
but never fight the commander

4) run to Magna asia:
make a big stack ( make it grow every turn in order to reach 80 units) and rush to Magna asia.
You will be able to break AI2 bonuses there.
Keep some armies in Illyricum and Magna macedonia during the rush
in order to break AI2 bonuses there.
If AI2 has big stacks, bypass them : you will kill them after breaking AI2 bonuses and taking spain

5) kill AI2
AI2 is not really defending its bonuses:
it is in fact quite easy to weaken it.

6) kill AI1
at this point, it will only have its coomander without any bonuses.
(during the kill of AI2, leave some big stack at some place to anticipate commander splits)


to sum up:
kill AI3,
take all AI1 bonuses, but never attack its commander,
rush to Magna asia to destroy AI2 bonuses,
kill AI2,
kill AI1

I hope it will help you

sorry this gane ist not to
with all your tipps

thanks

OK, I disagree with the folks here who say this map is a little tough. It's REALLY tough. :-) Took me at least a dozen tries to beat it. The strategy I came up with in the end is what I call: *puts on best Futurama comedy voice* CHANGE PLACES!!!

There are 3 AIs; I'll call them the Swedish AI, the Italian AI, and the Parthian AI.

The fundamental difficulty is that the Parthian AI has a huge advantage in its starting position. You'd like that starting position, wouldn't you? Then you could win easily. Well, let's change places with the Parthian AI; he can have the UK, we can have Partha. Then we'll see who wins...

First, take the UK as quickly as possible. Then hop along to Denmark with your commander and take out the Swedish AI (this should be easy - move your commander and no armies next to the commander, put 4 armies on and attack. The AI will always lose.)

Unfortunately, to win this map there are a couple of things that have to go your way based on pure luck.

Aggressively expand down into France and Spain. This is one part where you need to get lucky; the Italian AI boss needs to come up into France or Spain. If he comes up into Germany I'd just start over. Dealing with him, as others have said, involves surrounding him with 3-army stacks and taking his square at the end of each turn with several of them. The other part where you need to get lucky is that the Italian AI needs to not put up too much resistance when you expand into France and Spain. You need to capture them very quickly to get enough armies; if the AI throws a spanner in the works too often, give up and try again.

On your eastern expansion wing, be building up a mega-stack each turn. By the time you hit the Parthian AI it should have 80+ armies, and you should be getting about 100 armies per turn. Pierce through the Parthian AI front line tidal wave with this stack, and keep your commander in the stack. He needs to move into Turkey along with it.

Once your stack is in Turkey, fan out and start gobbling up the Parthian AI's territory, and ignore your territory to the west. Focus 100% on expanding to the east. The Parthian AI won't put up much resistance. What we're doing is changing places with the Parthian AI, because trying to deal with its several mega-stacks head-on is pretty much impossible. You're knocking out its bonuses such as Magna Asia, Partha, and Parthian Empire, and getting that nice eastern territory for yourself. The Parthian AI's mega-stacks will keep pushing west, allowing you to be free of them when taking its eastern territory.

By now you're expanding heavily into the Parthian AI's territory and your commander is in the east, so even if the AI manages to take all your territory in the west your commander is OK. As soon as possible, start pushing back to the west as well. To the south-east, build up two mega-stacks and once they're nice and big (like 100 each), send them to Persepolis in a pincer movement. The Parthian AI will try to place all its armies on the commander's tile but your stacks should be too big for it to defend against. With the Parthian AI killed, mopping up the remaining neutral territories to the west and finishing off the Italian AI boss might be slow, but it's straightforward.

This tactic aint the fastest but it's the only one that worked for me!

Here's a summary image of how I did it: https://i.sli.mg/VzjmTY.gif
I also made it into a YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp_yln2mQNY

Edited 12/6/2016 11:42:49

Thanks Jez. Hadn't checked this thread for a while. I need to see if there is a way to get notifications when someone responds to a thread in these forums. I'll give your strategy a try.

Tried, but wasn't able to make it happen. Looks like it's multiplayer games for me from here on out. It's just too annoying putting in that much time and effort only to lose and not understand why.

I had to try like 15 times. :-)

And I just completed World War Pixel in 28 turns. I actually think Caesar's Challenge is the hardest of the single player levels, closely followed by World War Pixel. Caesar's Challenge is a bit of an odd one out, half-way through, to be so difficult.

if I may say, this level is not that tough actually, it is the gold medal whch is hard as it is difficult to know in which directions the clones are going.
Otherwise like it has been said:

1 - take all England and then kill the A1 in the north
2 - spread south to Spain and west to asia - if the boss appears do as anyone says by putting 3/5 armies in every territories touching the boss and attack it at the end to get it so you will leave the boss with just 1 .

be careful when you arrive in Spain as you will need quite a lot to conquer it.
then it is all rush to kill the AI hiding south deep in Asia and then only when you are close th taht AI, attack the boss.

I win everytime I play now and i am not a good player though... there is no way you cant finish it so.

The hard part in the gold star as I cant making with less than 33 turns (+1 to get that medal..

But i will try again.

Finally knocked it out. Thanks for the replies folks.

I won this level :-)

Okay, Gold Star tips... my record is at Level 35, having trouble cleaning up after the AI's.

I did search the forum, and the only comments I saw relative to beating in 32 turns came with luck.

But a question about the start:

By turn 4, I can either 1) go 100% to break the 1st AI in Magna Germania, (about 10% of the time) or 2) I can get Britan. I can't ever do both. Is there a preferred tactic here? Is getting an extra move in the direction of Partha worth it at the expense of not getting the super bonus that turn?

My next strategy is to keep expanding everywhere I can, putting 3 armies against all Italy AI, cleaning up after Boss, and by turn 12ish, starting to deploy extras towards the Partha AI, with the primary goal to break the Partha AI, and not lose a turn going in that direction.

Now, I don't know when to break the first boss. Is it appropriate do do this after Magna Asia is broken? Big Partha? Little Partha?

Then, in end game, I can't seem to clean up after the AI Clones quick enough. They seem to dart away in a different direction or get moves before me.

So, some thoughts/inquiries:
-Should you prioritize killing a 90 boss over an 80 boss?
I'm thinking get rid of 90s as fast as possible so they don't displace stacks.

-Is it worth it hoping that a boss will run into your direction?
I'm thinking of maybe certain situations where he has only 2-3 ways to go, put enough to stop a charge, and worst case scenario, you only have to deploy a few more the next turn after cleaning up after him.

-One tactic I think may be useful would be to put a large stack next to a boss clone, and don't go for the clone, but hope that he either 1) runs into your stack, or 2) at the end, you attack a neighboring territory that the boss moved into. This removes the first move luck and gives you 2x opportunities to get rid of the boss.