AU 206: Gallic Glory

[alexman]

Your name is Resourceful Ralph, and you have been chosen to lead the Celts to Glory. (If you succeed, you will be knighted, and will thus be named Sir Ralph). You vow to show the world how to run an efficient militaristic empire. Your power lies within your people, and your people lie within your cities. So you shall place your cities wisely and prosper! But if you think that this Apolyton University class is all about peaceful building, guess again. Land is at a premium, and you will have to find a way to take some of it away from your neighbors. Will you use your powerful, yet expensive, Gallic Swordsmen effectively, or will you resort to Archers and Horsemen to defeat your enemies?

As usual, there are three versions of this scenario. AU mod 1.16, PTW 1.14f, and Civ3 1.29f. To avoid being exposed to spoiler information, make sure you cover the mini-map as you load the scenario in PTW.

Tell your stories, explain your city placement, and demonstrate the usefulness or uselessness of the Gallic Swordsman in the spoiler thread.

May Teutates, the Celtic God of Tribe and War, be with you!

[Jawa Jocky]

Emperor with the AU mod

[nbarclay]

In case anyone missed it, I'm reposting something I wrote yesterday on the strengths of the Gallic Swordsman in another thread. Read between the lines and you should get some ideas regarding how to take advantage of the unit.

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I've just been thinking, and there may be some reasons to leave the GS as he is in the stock game after all. (When I debate, I always have part of my mind thinking about how the other side ought to be arguing, and sometimes I'm better at convincing myself than my opponents are at convincing me. ) When comparing the GS and the MW, consider the following:

1) The Iroqouis traits do not mesh well to improve the potency of their UU. They don't get the cheap barracks of a militaristic civ, nor do they have the improved overall productivity of an industrious civ. Further, while MWs are certainly potent in battle, the lack of the Militaristic trait limits the Iroquois' ability to parley that advantage into lots of elites and, eventually, leaders. It is this lack of synergy that prevents the Iroquois from being the hands-down favorite as a warmongering civ. In contrast, the Celts' militaristic nature gives them cheap barracks, quicker promotions, and indirectly a much better chance of great leaders. Cost for cost and stat for stat, the same offensive UU is worth much more in Celtic hands than in Iroquois hands.

2) The prebuild for the MW is less practical. It comes later. It's more expensive in shields (which is especially problematical for a civ without cheap barracks). And worst of all, the prebuild requires the same resource as the main unit, so you can never use a prebuild after you research or acquire Horseback Riding.

3) MWs are vulnerable while getting ready to attack. Even a warrior has a reasonable chance to beat one on open terrain. Enemy horsemen can pick off MWs with ease. And archers or especially swordsmen can usually either kill them or drive them off. Worse, the elite MWs are the first to be hit in such strikes, undercutting the opportunity for leaders (since odds of a defensive victory are so small). The fact that Gallic Swordsmen provide both mobile defense and mobile offense is worth more than the stats alone might imply.

In summary, the Gallic Swordsman, especially when coupled with the Militaristic trait, provides a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Now, comparing Gallic Swordsmen to conventional swordsmen:

1) Gallic Swordsmen cost 5/3 as much, but they probably have at least close to a 40% chance of surviving losing a battle. (Keep in mind that units fighting a 1-HP enemy never retreat, which reduces the retreat chance a bit from its nominal value.) So as long as you have enough of them to do the job, even at a cost of 50, the cost of replacing lost units isn't necessarily higher for Gallic Swordsmen than for their conventional counterparts.

2) When an elite swordsman loses a battle, he dies. That tends to limit opportunities for leaders even for militaristic civs. In contrast, a losing Gallic Swordsman is likely to retreat, so any given elite GS is likely to have about twice as many chances to generate a leader before he dies. Since the number of elite units generated is limited by the number of battles fought rather than by the total number of units produced, that makes the Gallic Swordsman exceptionally potent as a leader factory - especially when coupled with the Celts' militaristic trait. And the fact that elites survive better also gives a little extra combat value that isn't reflected in the stats.

So the question is, is the Gallic Swordsman in the stock game a bad UU, or just a horribly underrated one?

Nathan

[Jawa Jocky]

Almost forgot. I noticed a lot of posts regarding UU changes for the GS in the AU mod. What are the finalized traits we are dealing with?

[nbarclay]

We're going with the standard version this game to see whether it really needs changed or whether it's good enough already.

[badams52]

Hmmm, since 1.29f is without the Celts, did you make any modifications?

[badams52]

Monarch...though I could probably beat emperor if I wanted a challenge

[badams52]

I can build archers but not warriors? Is it supposed to be like that in 1.29f

[Dominae]

I'm not sure about the problems you're having badams52, but I'm interested in seeing how alexman managed to get the Celts into stock Civ3...



Edit: If alexman went through all the work to create a new civ in the editor, including Brennus' picture, I'm impressed.


Dominae

[badams52]

He made the Aztecs the "Celts" and I guess he changed a unit to make GSs but I find it harder to REX with archers and not warriors.

[Dominae]

No Warriors!? Bummer...Glad I got my copy of PTW!

(Not trying to give you a rough time, alexman, honestly!)

[Nor Me]

Emperor, AU MOD, PTW1.14 etc.
badams52: restart. Without the upgrade, you're missing part of the point of the game. It's so easy to edit the scenario without seeing the map that I won't explain it:

[alexman]

Thanks Nor Me.
I updated the initial post with a fixed version for 1.29f.

Sorry about that guys.

[badams52]

Thanks Nor Me.

Had I known how to edit w/out looking at (at least part) of the map, I would have done so. I did try for a while without warriors, and I'll put a little write up in the spoiler thread about why the defeat was so quick it later.

[badams52]

Alexman, don't worry about it. I enjoyed having no warriors