My Leader Choice

[Silentradar]

I have been playing with Boudica and I want to explain why and see if my logic makes sense to the vets.

Starting Tech: The Celts start with Hunting and Mysticism. Basically this sets my up with a Scout right away and being able to produce 2-3 more scouts right away in the capital, and a quick path to religions.

Religions: I am pretty much guaranteed a religion - lately I have been snagging both Buddhism and Hinduism and because this is all happening in the first 15 or so turns they are both being founded in my Capital - making it a shoe in as a Great Prophet/Person factory (Considering I still don't know how to make single purpose cities - this is a plus)

Traits: She is Aggressive and Charismatic - Considering my weakest point is still fighting, both of these traits help me greatly in this regard. the Happiness bonus from Charismatic is also great.

I'm pretty sure as of right now she is playing to my strengths and making up for all the skills I still lack in the game at higher levels.

Does this all make sense? Feedback is appreciated.

[Metaliturtle]

If you want to build skill fighting try this basic rush strategy:

Found City 1 on the place you start
Set tech to beeline for bronze working
Build Warriors until you have mining researched, then build a worker.
Locate the nearest source of copper, work on barracks and warriors until found.
Once found, switch to a settler, found second city next to copper, hook up copper with worker. Excess warriors now explore to find nearest civilization.
Nearest civilization is now your *****.
Use the power of slavery to crank out axemen in both cities, collect them in a stack of doom on your border closest to the enemy.
Send a warrior with your worker to build a road towards the enemy while you build your stack of doom.
When you have 1 axeman for every square between yourself and the enemy (city to city) send your stack over to attack. Add an axeman for a hill city and add one more for a religious city. This should be sufficient on the level you play at.
Keep making axemen in your cities until the enemy civilization is destroyed.

[Sarco]

I believe you could make more progress by trying to play to the civ leaders strengths instead of picking a leader that plays to your strengths.

I would suggest exploring a trait at a time (or two, rather ). Every trait has advantages to push and some require more attention than others (SPI and PHI come to mind as they require a bit more attention).

Starting techs: I don't deny the early game is important and mysticism does indeed almost grant you a religion, but every start setup has its advantages and disadvantages.

I learned a bit from trying random leaders and trying to make the best out of the situation, instead of learning a strategy based upon a given set of circumstances (my early days had made me a financial civ addict, a habit i broke this way).

[Theben]

Starting Tech: The Celts start with Hunting and Mysticism. Basically this sets my up with a Scout right away and being able to produce 2-3 more scouts right away in the capital, and a quick path to religions.

Having a starting scout can be nice, but you'll find that they don't last very long once animals start showing up. Warriors last longer and once they get woodsman II they are almost as fast as scouts on most maps. With Boudicea's dun your warriors can also get guerrilla II, which will let you scout even better. Of course a warrior might trip barbs from a hut.

Religions: I am pretty much guaranteed a religion - lately I have been snagging both Buddhism and Hinduism and because this is all happening in the first 15 or so turns they are both being founded in my Capital - making it a shoe in as a Great Prophet/Person factory (Considering I still don't know how to make single purpose cities - this is a plus)

I used to want to snag as many religions as possible- and I still do, but I never worry about the 1st 2 available anymore. Religion doesn't help you much until you start getting civics for them, and that means monotheism with its Organized Religion.

I find it's better to set your 2nd city up to be your financial powerhouse as it will likely be the recipient of a religion if you're expanding properly and aiming for mono after bronze working. My general rule is: capital= GP farm, holy city= financial center, 3rd city= industrial powerhouse/military pump. And go from there.

Traits: She is Aggressive and Charismatic - Considering my weakest point is still fighting, both of these traits help me greatly in this regard. the Happiness bonus from Charismatic is also great.

I'm pretty sure as of right now she is playing to my strengths and making up for all the skills I still lack in the game at higher levels.

She is a good choice for a novice rusher. Her traits make Boudicea the most militant leader with the possible exception of Tokugawa, but her charismatic trait helps you in war or peace. Unfortunately her UU is not impressive. One tact you might want to try is "Unrestricted Leaders" and be Boudicea of the Roman Empire. Her traits + Praetorians has been tested before and found to be very devastating to enemies.

Eventually you'll want to do what Sarco suggests and play random leaders. It's the best way to learn different strategies.

[Silentradar]

I find it's better to set your 2nd city up to be your financial powerhouse as it will likely be the recipient of a religion if you're expanding properly and aiming for mono after bronze working. My general rule is: capital= GP farm, holy city= financial center, 3rd city= industrial powerhouse/military pump. And go from there.

Is there a guide or something on how to set up specialist cities? I don't even know where to start to get myself setup like that

but her charismatic trait helps you in war or peace. Unfortunately her UU is not impressive

Sorry what does UU mean?

[ybrevo]

Unique Unit.

[joncnunn]

With Hunting: I normally only produce one more scout right away, then a worker, then a warrior, and then if I hadn't gotten any free scouts from the goody huts discovered and the land mass looks large enough to make an additional scout worthwhile, another scout.

But I don't know what types of maps you normally play on.

With Mysticism: Except for when I played the Incas and Q rushed I always make a tech that would discover a religion my first choice. If the map supports it, I'll do a double religion but when I do so it's always Polytheism + Monotheism. Otherwise I settle for Meditation.

I'm not sure how your managing to frequently simulatiously be the first to both Meditation & Polytheism since the last time I was able to reliably do that was in vanilla. How many civs do you normally play against? Are you hand picking your opposing civs?

Personally, I'd pick the other Celtic leader, but that's because I wouldn't make much use of the Aggressive traight.

The extra happiness in Charismatic is also nice.

Basically what I've been doing is one by one playing all the civs that start with Mystism (except for the Aztecs). I'm just about done with my Indian game (Asoka). It's the Real World Ice Age Scenario. Next is Spain and I think I'll do that one on the European map.
Last on my list is the Celts and it's Brennis I have in mind. Spain & Celts ended up on the bottom of my list for weak UB and India was just ahead in priority for weak UU.

I have been playing with Boudica and I want to explain why and see if my logic makes sense to the vets.

Starting Tech: The Celts start with Hunting and Mysticism. Basically this sets my up with a Scout right away and being able to produce 2-3 more scouts right away in the capital, and a quick path to religions.

Religions: I am pretty much guaranteed a religion - lately I have been snagging both Buddhism and Hinduism and because this is all happening in the first 15 or so turns they are both being founded in my Capital - making it a shoe in as a Great Prophet/Person factory (Considering I still don't know how to make single purpose cities - this is a plus)

Traits: She is Aggressive and Charismatic - Considering my weakest point is still fighting, both of these traits help me greatly in this regard. the Happiness bonus from Charismatic is also great.

I'm pretty sure as of right now she is playing to my strengths and making up for all the skills I still lack in the game at higher levels.

Does this all make sense? Feedback is appreciated.

[joncnunn]

The Celts UU & UB would seem to be designed for a highland type map to me.

[Silentradar]

I'm not sure how your managing to frequently simulatiously be the first to both Meditation & Polytheism since the last time I was able to reliably do that was in vanilla. How many civs do you normally play against? Are you hand picking your opposing civs?

I've been doing it pretty consistently. I have been playing with 4 UI's and I am not hand picking.

[duke o' york]

It's easy to get both Hinduism and Buddhism if you handpick your opponents, have few of them and play on a low level, but other than that you should be beaten to one of them.

I love the Indian fast worker, and it gets even better with the Hagia Sofia/Steam Power.

[Silentradar]

It's easy to get both Hinduism and Buddhism if you handpick your opponents, have few of them and play on a low level, but other than that you should be beaten to one of them.

I love the Indian fast worker, and it gets even better with the Hagia Sofia/Steam Power.

Maybe its just luck then, like I said, I am not hand picking, and they are all playing on the same level as me.

[joncnunn]

I think it's the your only playing with 4 AIs. Chances are only one of them started with Mystism.

With 6 or 7 AIs (random), it becomes much more difficult as the probability increases that 2 (or more) of them have Mystism to start and one picks Poly for it's first tech and the other Mediation for it's first tech.

[Silentradar]

I think it's the your only playing with 4 AIs. Chances are only one of them started with Mystism.

With 6 or 7 AIs (random), it becomes much more difficult as the probability increases that 2 (or more) of them have Mystism to start and one picks Poly for it's first tech and the other Mediation for it's first tech.

yeah i think you're right.