Boudica the builder...

[wertyu70]

I'm a Prince level player, planning to move up to Monarch,
I'm just having some games with Leaders I don't play often and one of them is Boudica.
My previous games with her turned out to be rellay bad,
I was tempted by Boudica's fighting attitude in too many early wars,
I always overexpanded after knocking down 2 AIs and it took too much time to recover.
In my current game I played a different style, after defeating Peter who started near me,
I decided to delay my attack to Pacal and Alexander (he was cornered by Pacal).
So I played a builder game, till I have Macemen and catapult, just to discover that Pacal cities were full of longbows and his army was bigger than mine...
But he was friendly with me, we did a lot of trade so I was able to beeline to rifles
and backfill with his help.
Then I attacked him and after a few turns the war was over.
Now I'm conquering the second continent, but they are really backward,
so it is rifles+cavalry vs longbow.

So now this is my question for the experts:
Is this the right tactic with Boudica?
A single rush, a long recover and then rifle war?
It seems a waste of time for such a combat oriented leader...

[Theben]

Even combat oriented leaders need money and science to win in the long run.

And what you described is pretty much what you'd do with anyone if you intend to fight eventually. It's just that combat leaders will need an edge to compete over the long haul, and taking territory early is one of the best ways. Note that this becomes less effective at higher levels (early rushes) UNLESS you have an aggressive leader.

[Blaupanzer]

Boudica is good for one early rush and one war post the major econ tech banking, once the money making buildings are in place in the appropriate cities. The advantage of an extra promotion at birth AND quicker promotions is only of use if you kill people. My conquering, to the extent required, is generally begun with infantry. With Boudica, I can start with Kuirassiers.

[rah]

While I like to eliminate someone early, all serious and game ending wars start with Cannons.
If you beeline Steel the AI's don't usually have any counter for it. Hit a stack with 10 cannons and it doesn't matter what your offensive units are. They win big. Even if they're axeman and spearmen.

[Blaupanzer]

1st to tanks with a time margin does it again. Each tank can attack twice. With non-infantry, et al, defenders (riflemen, cavalry) the tanks will survive 2 attacks, and your support troops will be fresh for any counter attack. With 2 fighters, 2 bombers, 10 cannons, and 20 tanks I clobbered 40 rifles in a hill city in one turn and moved 10 fresh infantry into the city to meet his 30 cavalry counterattack. 70 units alarmed me prior to this just by numbers. Not post.

[wertyu70]

Thanks for your answers.
What puzzle me a little is that with different leaders usually I fight 3 wars:
one for early expansion (a rush with axemen or chariots or swordmen),
a medieval war (Maceman+catapults or Elephant+Catapults)
and the final war (sometimes with rifles and cavalry,sometimes tanks and bombers).
With Boudica I need to skip the medieval war because economy hasn't recovery yet.
It sounds strange to me that peaceful leaders (like Gandhi or incas leader) can fight more wars than Boudica.
And I haven't the same problems with other combat oriented leaders, such as Roman Leaders, Ragnar or Shaka.

[rah]

You always have to have a strat for funding the empire.

[One_more_turn]

On standard pangea maps, you can eliminate everyone as early as Mace.

With Boudica, it's perfectly ok to eliminate 2 AIs by 0AD. Raze cities you can't afford to hold.

[rah]

At what difficulty level?

[slnz]

More like, what speed. On Marathon that's not too hard, on Normal it's very very hard.

[rah]

Yes, that too. Having played 0 games at epic or marathon, I don't consider the speed difference in my discussions. I'll try to remember that.