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I created another map 80x80, mostly land, 9 AI+, map loop, shroud, seasons, and what not all ... this is going to be the last attempt for the moment. If I fail again, I'll be back in three to nine months.

Twilight Territory was the only really "bad" country created for this game, so I took them. I'm 7th in the rundown of a round, and I'm starting ... in the middle of nowhere. No other VP location around my capitol Minsstaff for several hexes, and it took me to round 7 until I finally spotted another VP location (two actually). There's another city up north, but I won't be able to link them to Minsstaff with roads until round 9. No enemies yet, thank god.

I already researched SMGs (as I always do), but nothing else.

Round 8; contact. Up north is the Trinity Federation, and I think there's yet another AI in the west. The extra border won't line up with that of the TF, I think. I will take a defensive line against the TF at one of the rivers and try to expand elsewhere.

I also researched Armoured Car and Machinegun I.

Round 9; fall comes exactly the moment where I get the chance to attack to grab another town. [:@] Just three hexes from my city Sandbeach Fir is Finwallgate, which is held by the Trinity Federation at the moment. They had an armoured formation there, but I threw my infantry at them.

The AI in the west is of a different breed indeed, called Democratic Movement.

Round 10; attacking at Sandbeach Fir failed miserably. I spotted two other AIs already, so right now I have bad feeling that this will be like the last game all over again, just with more enemies and less production power on my side.

But I found a very remote town in the southwest, which I will try to link up with my road network.

Round 12; the battle for Finwallgate is becoming really interesting - while the Trinity Federation is bravely holding on to the town, both me and the Democratic Movement are trying to take it, and everybody's battling everybody.

My borders auto-expanded to win me a village on the eastern shore of the lake in my northeast, but it's far out of supply ...

Round 14; I conquered Finwallgate in round 13, and now have to hold on to it. The Democratic Movement keeps pouring in armoured cars in huge numbers. This is the last round of winter, and spring will slow them down. By the time summer comes around, I need light tanks.

Quiet everywhere else. I have only occasionally seen a unit of another AI, although some have taken a few hexes away from me in the southeast.

Round 16; Finwallgate was lost again. This is going horribly wrong now. Democratic Movement and Trinity Federation are pushing me back with ever increasing strength. There are just so many armoured cars around there ...!

Start of round 17;

I suck ...

You have to give your troops a chance for victory. Slugging it out attrition like with a more numerous foe will always lose. First Make some Engineers that way you can create defensive forts to guard your flanks. Second while SMG s are good for cities and forests and close in areas they are not as good in plains so build predominantly rifle. Third this is kind of a rock paper scissors game to some extent so you need counters to his ACs I would suggest researching anti-tank guns right off since you are mostly on the defensive anyhow. Bazooka can work as well but prepare for higher losses. Fourth at some point you are dging to need to start attacking. For those times build units with mortors in them (large amounts like 1 per 5 rifle). Fifth build Artillery it causes losses of readiness which really helps with attacking. If you are interested in a team game against the AI I would be willing. Let me know.

You're advice may be right for a later stadium in the game, but not in the early stages. There is no way you can win it when you already face huge amounts of amoured cars early on. If you then dig in, the only thing that will happen next is facing even more units, bigger, and with more heavy tanks and Art. You have to be fast to be able to outproduce the AI. If you have bad luck and run into a AI that already outproduces you the only chance you have is go into another direction ... hoping to find some unoccupied cities there, and if you don't find these *soon* .... you're history.
 
You're a brave man Westheim.

Well you could always play with factories then you can make your own economy. I agree turn 17 is a bit to early to be hit with such heavy forces not sure there is anything that could be done.

Not sure there is anything that could be done... I agree. Westheim is in the early stage of the game, no way he can have more then some engineers, some Inf units with a HQ and some light armour. So I doubt if he'll be able to build fortresses or factories. Facing such an avalanche of enemy units takes some courage. Now the AI is pretty agressive and will throw anything and everything at you. If you can defeat them then you'll face less units with decreasing experience... but when one is already struggling to keep some kind of force intact.
Ah well, at least this is one more showcase that the AI is more then capable of defeating a human player... despite the fact that it does sometimes... uhm, many times, odd things.

Kudos to Vic for improving the AI between 1.02 and 1.20 quite an awful much bit. Too much for me to keep up.

Then play with normal AI´s and make them allies.
 
Who says btw, that you can´t have a strong army in turn 17 of a random game ?
You can even with normal research costs.
 
One tip i can give you: If you face a way too strong opponent don´t fight for the cities you´ll definitely lose,
fall back, collect some strength and then if you´re ready do a counterattack.
Try to have some mobile forces which can move thru broken lines and cut off his spearheads.
Then eliminate the seperated troops as fast as you can in concentric attacks.
Give your units a strong infantry back with some mortar support. Later tanks and artillery.
 
If you still have a problem try to egalize the problem by setting a additional bigger location close to your starting point
to boost your own production a bit. Taking the worst starting position seems to be not a good idea.
Hopefully you´ll kick the AI next time.

I think you try to handicap youself too much and you end up on the edge of losing every time.

Giving yourself the worst placement and AI on + is simply going to make things very difficult for anyone.

You end up in struggles of attrition too early and you have no multipliers on your side, (dive bombers, artillery, tech advances), so you end up getting squashed by AI which is outproducing you and has other advantages.

Change a few things and see if you can get a good game going.

Just to make one thing clear, which seems to be a misunderstatement now since several people pointed out that I'm giving myself deliberately a bad starting position. This is not correct. I check the map to ensure there are no anomalies on it, while not pointing the cursor over any starting position. Then I leave the map again, shroud it, and select my country out of the list after what country name I like most. It is just my rotten luck that I ended up with disadvantaged starting positions three times in a row now. But if I think back to my Golden Congress game, which was just as bad start-wise, in the middle of the map, and with few initial settlements to grab. Either the AI's gotten better, or I un-learned how to deal with it ...