Finished my first game

[frenzyfol]

I just finished my first BTS game without unofficial patch.

Playing as Pericles on Monarch, I got a great start location on a big and small map. I could instantly recognize several key city sites. Military pump, 2 great science cities, GP pump and even a perfect choke point to stop Justinian who spawned south of me.

After blocking off Justinian I had to "share" with Tokogawa. Pumped Phallanx until construction, one round of catapults and Toky was begging for peace.

Consolidated, improved, specialized, maintained a significant tech lead ftw.

Conclusion: Never won a monarch game on warlords.
I could win about 75% of my prince games but that extra worker was just too powerful on monarch.
Now Monarch is a much more interesting and realistic difficulty setting.

[PrinceBimz]

Re: Finished my first game

Originally posted by One_more_turn
Settings: Augustus Caesar, Standard Continent, Noble Level, Epic Speed.

Conclusion: too easy. Using Cuirassiers on Archers was no fun; ready to move to Prince level.

BTS or not, Romans are still butt-kicking on large land masses. Getting 4 Praetorians by 1500BC should be allow you to clean out 2-3 AI Civs by 0AD. Then the game is over. Nothing can stop them in ancient era. I'm wondering how AI handles the Romans because an early Praetorian rush seems unstoppable.

After reading this, I wanted to give the Romans a try to see what I can do with Praetorians. I used the same settings as you have but unfortunately I had no luck. The AI's axemen kept beating my praetorians and phalanxes were beating them too. It was taking far too long to get to the AI's cities. This was when the AI would attack my praetorians, while enroute to the cities. I tried keeping them in good defensive terrain but the minute I jump out, the AI hits them. I would lose most of my praetorians before I could even attack a city. I was able to nearly take out one AI civ but now they are starting to come back. I am losing this one, may try again but I am not sold on the praetorians yet.

[One_more_turn]

The one true counter to Praetorians is the Dog Soldier, and with his protective archers, Sitting Bull is better left untouched until cats arrive.

On Standard Pangea, you only need to build two cities before starting the Praetorian rush. The best time to complete the first settler is the same turn you researched Iron Working. With chops and pops, 5-6 Praetorians could be fielded as early as 1500BC.

I always pick my targets based on following priorities:
1. Whoever is the closest;
2. Whoever is the most dangerous (Alex, Khan, Monty, Shaka);
3. Whoever is financial (Incas first).

Place your first 5 Praetorians near AI's capitals, you should complete a few more Praetorians while the first ones are on their way. The second group will target secondary cities with good resources. By this time, AI can usually build 3 cities. If you take out its capital, it will be hopelessly crippled.

[One_more_turn]

Originally posted by One_more_turn
Started a new Prince game on a large 4 continents map, now the AI's focus on development pays off. I'm in year 1856, although a domination victory is still in reach, it will be a difficult grind. I don't think I will be able to achieve domination victories on this kind of maps at Monarch level, at least not with my current skill.

I think to fully 'enjoy' the BTS AI improvements, one has to play on maps in which early rushes are not possible.

What a grind! The year is now 1925AD, and I finally defeated the strongest AI civ, the Mongols. I have never seen this kind of carnage (enemy units killed in one war) before:

Musketmen 22
Riflemen 95
Grenadiers 73
Cavalry 121
Catapult 32
Trebuchet 31
Galleon 74
Frigate 87
Ship of the Line 20
Airship 16

Bombers + Paratroopers + Cavalry is a great winning combo.

[PrinceBimz]

Thats alot of units! Nearly 200 ships and close to 400 ground units. I know I have not had wars that large involving so many casualties before. Mainly because I go for cultural vics mostly. Anyway, good job on that one! Have not had a chance to play with paratroopers yet.

I am thinking part of my struggle in that last game was due to terrain advantages in the AI's favor then promotions. Most of the AI units had C1 and C2 promos and even C3 too. I had up to CR3 on some of my units but none of them had a combat promo. So perhaps the reason the Axemen were taking out my Praetorians were because those promos and terrain defenses. I had the worst terrain to get through and many of the AI cities never had a good attack point. Most I was forced to attack from open ground which the AI would attack me and take out a few of my units before I could even attack the city. Plus it took me several turns to reach an AI city. It seems maybe the AI is better in BtS at understanding terrain bonuses. It would not usually attack me in heavy cover, the moment I step out, bang. Plus many of its units were kept in cover too if possible.

Overall, I don't think I attacked early enough. I built about 10 Praetorians before I attacked. What you are mentioning involves attacking alot earlier. One of the AIs had LBs defending their cities and I could not touch those. I will try again, no doubt

[One_more_turn]

If you saw LBs, then you attacked way too late.

I usually don't see LBs until after 500AD. I'm aiming for Praetorian rushes as early as 1500BC.

[One_more_turn]

Started a new game as Lincoln on a Standard Archipelago at Monarch level. It's year 1250AD and things have been going well. I'm way ahead in everything and have made good progress eliminating my rivals. Incas (the dangerous Ind/Fin combo) are already gone and Sumerians have been crippled. I've yet to decide whether to finish them off with what I have or wait for Grenadiers (15 turns away).

I think the Monarch level is easier than before because AI lost some major advantages (extra worker for example). It will be interesting to see how the late progresses.

[Palpster]

It's easier than before for warmongers since the AI focuses less on unit spam. As some previous posters mentioned, try switching on Aggressive AI.

[PrinceBimz]

No luck with the Praetorian rush here. I tried 6 games and it failed for me. What I was doing... went straight for Iron Working in the beginning. Would start construction on a barracks in the first city right at start until my city reached 3 pop. Sometimes I would build a warrior first, then the barracks so I could find the AI civs quickly. Then I would build 1 worker most of the time, sometimes a settler instead. Then once my worker (or settler) is complete, Iron Working is finished or will be finished in under 5 turns. Problem is, once iron working is complete, alot of times a source of iron is not nearby. Sometimes its on the outskirts of my city or even further. Then if this happens, I have to chop rush a settler asap and get that second city planted near that source of iron quickly.

I tried building 3 or more Praetorians and then attacking. The problem I had here was if I waited too long the AI would end up getting axemen. A few times, the AI had cities on hills with fortified archers and even those were taking down my Praetorians without too much trouble. It would build several archers, usually 3 or more and they were hard to beat. So I tried a few games attacking as soon as I get only 1 Praetorian, this was a gamble. Sometimes I could hit the closest city and burn it down.

Another thing, I have noticed sometimes the AI civs are not close enough. For example, my last game, the closest civ (which was the only other one on my continent afaik) was 22 turns away. In other words, it took my Praetorian 22 turns to walk to an adjacent spot to a target city.

A couple of games it was just bad luck, I lost my first settler because it was attacked by wolves, or another time a barbarian unit. This caused my Praetorian rush to fail since that settler needed to found a city near an iron source.

So to sum it up, it has not worked for me. It seems like it will work, just not all the time and there are some difficulties involved. Some games when it failed, I ended up in terrible trouble when the AI counter attacked, especially if there was 2 or 3 AI civs on my continent. One_more_turn, I am not sure if you have a different build order but if so I would like to see it so I can try again. I will say that game where the AI was 22 turns away, I don't think it ever would have worked on that one but I tried.

[One_more_turn]

You know, this aggressive AI cuts both ways. On larger or watery maps, the more development focused AI is actually more challenging, because it's better at keeping up in tech and building monster armies in the later era. I think the large continent maps will turn out to be the most difficult map setting.

[One_more_turn]

Ok, the Monarch level is not much different from Prince level. The year is 1850AD and I'm using Infantry to go after Longbowmen. It's a no brainer, but is a very tedious process jumping from one Island to the other.

Next time I'm going to start a Monarch game on Pangea, with aggressive AI turned on. Let's see how things go.

[Brizey]

I wish the AI would go all out to take out Rome's iron source. That is the tactic human players often use. If I am anywhere near Rome I try to take out an early iron city ASAP. (I even will research IW to be able to see where it is.) Praets are kind of overpowered, but they can be beat indirectly.

They are overpowered in the sense that they have BY FAR the best bonus over the normal unit. +33% against every other unit type is way better than any of the other bonuses for unique units.