The World Cup of War - A Quick Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator Dynasty

[Critch]

Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator Dynasty is a strange sandbox-type game. There’s not much to it, you set up armies and they fight against each other under the guidance of very basic AI. It’s in EA (I think) and that’s about all there is to it, but with the promise it’ll be improved eventually, more armies, more maps, more game. Probably long after the novelty has worn off and I’ve uninstalled it though. It uses Unity so it’s nice looking and runs at a fair FPS for reasonable unit numbers.

There are about 20 “armies” in the base game and I’ll select 16 of them to run a World Cup type tournament. There will be 4 groups of 4, top two from each group qualify for the single elimination rounds. Like the soccer World Cup used to be before FIFA realized more countries meant more money.

Turns out there are 19 “armies” so three don’t make the cut. Catapults are out, they’re mainly a support unit, not much use on their own. Also out is Chuck Norris, he’s virtually indestructible and can kill multiple enemies with a single punch so he’s too good. At the risk of seeming un-American I’ve also dumped WWII US Infantry. They’ve been banned for testing positive for performance enhancing machine guns, nobody else has guns.

The Competitors
Medieval: Heavy Knights, Cavalry, Footmen, Spearmen, Archers
Evil: Zombies
Fantasy: Orcs, Giant Ogres
Ancient: Romans, Spartans, Persian, Wild Men
Animals: Penguins, Chickens, Tortoise
Super Hero: Golden Knights (?)

I’ve picked a section of one of the maps that’s green and flat-ish, the setup will be 2000 troops each (with a couple of tweaks for balance), both sides set to attack, they’ll charge at each other and whoever survives wins. The tweaks are that two armies are too good so 2000 would be too easy for them (Giant Ogres will have an army of 100, Golden Knights will have 200) and the animal armies are all useless so they’ll get 10000. Also Calvary’s 2000 will be 1000 riders + 1000 horses, seems fair.

Each battle should take about 5 minutes, and there will be no ties.

The Draw
I chose 4 seeds based on nothing more than my gut-feel for who should be seeded: Heavy Knights, Giant Ogres, Cavalry, Golden Knights. Everything else is free draw.

Group 1 – Heavy Knights, Wild Men (or Wild Mans as the game calls them), Zombies, Persians
Group 2 – Cavalry, Romans, Medieval Footmen, Tortoises
Group 3 – Giant Ogres, Spartans, Chickens, Medieval Spearmen
Group 4 – Golden Knights, Orcs, Penguins, Archers

Surprisingly I don’t have anything better to do on a Sunday afternoon than this.

[Critch]

Group 1
Heavy Knights – Full armor, big sword and shield, not very quick. One of the pre-tournament favorites
Wild Men – Leather armor, muscles and body paint, and an axe in each hand
Persians – Pointy helmets, curved blades and beards.
Zombies – Your traditional slow-moving zombie, they have the perk that if they kill an enemy it’ll rise as a zombie.

Bookies have Heavy Knights and Zombies as the favorites to go through, but it’s a tight group with no easy opponents. Literally a group of death.

Round 1
Heavy Knights v Wild Men – It’s obvious from the start that this isn’t going well for the favorites, the Wild Men are wider so their line is wider and flanks the Heavy Knights on both sides. The knights break through the middle of the line, but by then they’re so outnumbered it’s all over. Wild Men win the match with 712 of their 2000 surviving. The tournament is underway with an upset.

Persians v Zombies – One sided and the result is never in doubt. The Zombies start with 2000 and end the match with 3200. Pretty quickly too, hopefully they’re not overpowered.

Round 2
Heavy Knights v Zombies – The seeded team came in needing a win to keep their tournament alive, and they delivered. No worries about the Zombies being overpowered now, Heavy Knights brush them aside, ending with 1600+ survivors

Wild Men v Persians – It’s not that the Zombies are overpowered: it’s that the Persians are useless. Looks like they’d have trouble beating 10000 chickens on current form. Wild Men win with no problems.

Round 3
Heavy Knights v Persians – Heavy Knights steamroller the ineffectual Persians to get to two wins. The Persians would be in for a rough welcome from the fans at home if they weren’t all dead.

Wild Men v Zombies – A Wild Men win and its them and the Heavy Knights who qualify, lose and there’s three teams on two wins and I really should have thought of tiebreakers before starting. Fortunately that’s not a problem as Wild Men handle the Zombies easily.

Standings
Wild Men 3-0
Heavy Knights 2-1
Zombies 1-2
Persians 0-3

Wild Men will face the runner up from Group 2, and Heavy Knights the winner from Group 2 in the quarter-finals.

[Critch]

Group 2
Cavalry – 1000 medieval dudes on 1000 medieval horses. They seem to get a bonus from the charge, kill a number of the enemy on the first charge
Romans – Normal old Roman legion. I’d have them as a favorite but they were a bit crap in pre-tournament testing.
Medieval Footmen – Chainmail, sword and shield, the regular medieval soldier.
Tortoises – What are they doing here? Turns out they’re not squishy and useless like chickens and penguins, so they’ll be starting with 2000 instead of 10000.

Cavalry and one other. One other not including Tortoises.

Round 1
Cavalry v Romans – The initial charge makes all the difference, Cavalry take the win with only 300 survivors

Footmen v Tortoises – Looks like I misjudged the Tortoises. They’re big, they’ve got shells, and they’ve got mean snappy jaws. And they destroy the Footmen in a slogfest that lasts almost forever. I’m starting to doubt the simulation aspect of the Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator software.

Round 2
Tortoises v Romans – Another slogfest victory for the Tortoises. The game apparently sets them as heavily armored but low damage output, so the battle takes forever. Most of the battles so far have taken about 3 hours (game time), this one takes 22 hours.

Cavalry v Footmen – Cavalry win with not much trouble and the qualifiers are set with one round to go. It’ll be Cavalry and Tortoises moving on to the last eight.

Round 3
Romans v Footmen – A win for the Romans in a meaningless match

Tortoises v Cavalry – Tortoises win again, and it takes 20 minutes again. Tortoises are on the verge of being disqualified for being boring.

Standings
Tortoises 3-0
Cavalry 2-1
Romans 1-2
Footmen 0-3

It’ll be Wild Men v Cavalry and Heavy Knights fighting to hopefully destroy the friggin Tortoise scum in the final eight.

[Critch]

The Tortoise scourge chomp their way through the last line of medieval footmen.:

[tarcone]

Awesome. Im glad you pointed this game out. Looks right up my alley.

Looking forward to seeing this through.

[Critch]

If they open up the editor and use steam workshop it could work out well, but at the moment it's not got much long term appeal. The AI is pretty awful, and you have no real control yourself.

Group 3
Giant Ogres – Like Ogres only more Gianty. They’re huge and evil looking, so only 100 of them allowed in their team. In testing they squished everybody with anything approaching equal numbers.
Spartans – They should only have 300, but they get the regulation 2000.
Chickens – 10000 chickens, no chance really.
Medieval Spearmen – They would probably be happier with the “Hold Position” setting, but attack is for everybody so deal.

Giant Ogres seem odds on, with one of Spartans and Spearmen making up the numbers.

Round 1
Giant Ogres v Spartans – There was a patch for the game this morning and it may have messed with balance. The Giant Ogres got destroyed in no time at all, it wasn’t like that when I decided 100 was enough for them.

Spearmen v Chickens – Chickens are skewered, despite pecking 30 spearmen to death.

Round 2
Spearmen v Giant Ogres – Giant Ogres back on form, stomp all over the Spearmen and the result is never in doubt.

Spartans v Chickens – Surprisingly the Spartans won in a flurry of flying feathers.

Round 3
Giant Ogres v Chicken – Giant Ogres win, only two ogres lost, probably slipping on chicken entrails. It’s a massacre. Unfortunately I seem to have lost my screenshot, so you'll have to imagine what it looked like.

Spartans v Spearmen – Spearmen need a win to have a chance of going through. Never looks likely though as Spartans cut straight through them.

Standings
Spartans 3-0
Giant Ogres 2-1
Spearmen 1-2
Chicken 0-3

Spartans now bookmakers favorite for the World Cup title.

[Critch]

Group 4

Golden Knights – They look like the Medieval Heavy Knights, except their armor is gold and they’re in the “Superhero” section. No idea what they’re meant to be. They’ll be putting out an army of 200 for balance sake.
Orc – Big and mean, more Lord of the Rings than the green guys.
Penguins – 10000 penguins, probably pretty mean and pecky.
Medieval Archer – They’ll be ok until the enemy reaches them, then they’ll lose.

It’s going to be Golden Knights and Orcs, innit.

Round 1
Golden Knights v Orcs – I had the Orcs down as outsiders to win the whole tournament, but Golden Knights handled them without much trouble. An easy win for the 200.

Penguins v Archers – The archers thinned out the massed Penguin ranks as they slowly waddled towards them, and didn’t stop when the Penguins got there. Easy win for the Archers.

Round 2
Golden Knights v Penguins – Golden Knights slaughtered them. 10000 dead Penguins, 4 Golden Knights.

Orcs v Archers – For the first 30 seconds things went well for the Archers, then the Orcs reached them and killed them all. Win for the Orcs.

Round 3
Golden Knights v Archers – Archers killed almost half of the Golden Knights as they charged, Golden Knights killed all the Archers when they got there.

Orcs v Penguins – Orcs just needed a win to confirm their place in the second round. They got the win, and it didn’t take very long.

Standings
Golden Knights 3-0
Orcs 2-1
Archers 1-2
Penguins 0-3

The quarterfinal line up is complete:
Wild Men v Cavalry
Heavy Knights v Tortoises
Golden Knights v Giant Ogres
Orcs v Spartans

[SplitPersonality1]

Go Tortoises!

[tarcone]

Im a wild men fan. I feel like I would fit in with that crowd.

[PilotMan]

I saw this the other day. I'm going to get it, just a matter of time.

[Critch]

The Quarter Finals

Wild Men v Cavalry
The initial charge puts the Cavalry into an initial lead in kills, but it doesnt last long and the Wild Men massacre them, rider and horsey alike. It might have been close if there were 2000 Cavalry, but there wasnt so they lost.

Heavy Knights v Tortoise
The first quarter final was over in about 2 mins, this one gave me enough time to hang up my laundry and come back and it still wasnt over. The Heavy Knights finally prevailed though, 800 of them left to feast on bowls of victory Tortoise soup.

Golden Knights v Giant Ogres
The two teams limited in numbers for balance meet in the Quarters, 200 Golden Knights up against 100 Giant Ogres. Early on it seems like the Golden Knights have it sewn up, but the line splits into two and one side of the Golden Knight line is heavily outnumbered and loses quickly. That swings it, but it stays close to the end with only 7 Giant Ogres still standing for the win.

Orcs v Spartans
Total destruction. The Spartans have 1850 men left at the buzzer. They're going to win the whole thing, you know.

Semi final Line Up
Wild Men v Giant Ogres
Heavy Knights v Spartans

The Heavy Knights bravely rush towards the Chordate scum:

[Critch]

The Semi Finals


Spartans v Heavy Knights
The Heavy Knights put up a better showing that the Orcs did against the Spartans in the semifinals, but not by much. Spartans destroy them with nearly 1800 men left.

Wild Men v Giant Ogres
The Giant Ogres cant cope with the the Wild Men numbers, they're ok at the start but their thin line starts to break up and they're surrounded and massacres. Wild Men win with 800 men to spare.

Wild Men rush towards the Giant Ogres



So the final will be an all-Ancient Conference affair, Wild Men v Spartans.

[Critch]

The Final

Ancient Conference rivals Spartans and Wild Men meet to decide the Final.

The Lineups:

The Spartans:



The Wild Men:



And it's a walkover. The Spartans rip right through the Wild Men and it's over just about as soon as it's begun. The Spartans have killed 50+ before the Wild Men even register one. The final ends with 1700 Spartans standing, I guess they should have been reduced for balance too.

In a strange after-final exhibition match, 1 zombie defeats an army of 10000 chickens to send the fans home happy. Whenever the zombie killed a chicken it turned into a human zombie, it was a good zombie/chicken representation of the mechanics of a chain reaction.

And with the final over, this dynasty is also over.