AU 206: Gallic Glory - Stories and Strategy Tips

[BigDork]

So I finally went to war. I had gotten an RoP with Rome and decided to let it expire instead of abusing it first. Well things aren't going exactly as planned. I may have a stronger military but Gods do the Romans have a lot of units. I managed to take two cities but suffered heavier than expected losses. And their counter-attack took out many of the wounded. They may only have horsemen, archers and spearmen but they have enough of them to do some damage(Almost like Olaf and his GS vs. infantry but on a small scale).

I've managed to take out most of Rome's offensive units but they still have a lot of spearmen wandering around and all my units are pretty much beat up. I've been using hit and run tactics to reduce their numbers. I'll sortie out of a city. Take out some units and retreat back and heal up. It's working but the going is slow.

I had to switch back to Monarchy. I had neglected many of the happiness city improvements and was starting to see some war weariness. I didn't let it get too far though. Since we are religous I did the switch real quick. I rarely play as a religous civ and it's nice.

I got another leader from this war. I used it to move my palace to a more central location. The corruption was starting to really bother me. Again I'm not sure if it would have been smarter to build an army or not but I'm hoping for another leader before this war is over. And if not I have other targets and am sure I'll get a leader sometime.

I checked the diplomacy screen and noticed that America and France were trading with Rome. Fearing they may be sending iron and horses(I pillaged Rome's horses) I tried to stop it. I didn't have enough to get America to declare war but France jumped in. I'm not too worried about France doing much this war seeing as how we just got caravels. Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll send a whole bunch of units over to my continent and the boats will sink. Hey, one can hope.

Well, Rome managed to get a leader too. And they made an army. This may be a little bit of a pain in the butt. But I have enough knights that I'll just hit it. Unfortunatly I didn't notice it until it was already near the mountains. I really don't want to fight an army in the mountains. Maybe I'll just fortify some musketmen and let it wear itself out.

Well that's it for now. Gonna go take a nap. I played too late last night. I was shooting to finish before the weekend is over but I don't see that happening. Oh well, no biggie. It's not like we have a time limit or anything. More later.

BigD

[pedrojedi]

. Just take 4 or 5 cities including some spice and their only source of hores.

That's cool, this mod enables you to take advantage of the world's most ancient job!!! Takin' the ladies' help out of the romans was a really mean move of you! lol:

Now, seriously: I ask, can I play this mode with the 1.21 PTW patch?? Anyone???

[BigDork]

Err...yeah. I really wanted to get those Roman hores. Can't let the Romans have all the fun can I?

Well I'm have about 6 hours and nothing to do. The wife is asleep and everything is closed(it's 2am). Might as well play some Civ. I'll let you all know what happens.

BigD

[BigDork]

Hi everybody...

Well I just went at it for 5 hours straight and unless my computer spontaneously combusts I'm gonna win this one.

The war with Rome was a long one. Longest I've had yet. I misjudged just how many knights it would take to conquer the Romans. I ended up taking a few cities and holding while I produced and sent lots and lots of knights to the front. By the time my offensive was back on all my knights had become cavalry and it was all over for Rome.

My cavalry rolled over the Romans. Also I had recieved a leader in my fighting and turned him into an army of cavalry. It proved to not be a deciding factor however. Eventually Rome managed to get some musketmen but by the time they did it was all over for them. As soon as I noticed the first musket I went and pillaged their saltpeter. All they could attack with was longbowmen. Without iron Rome just isn't much of a threat. I took it a little slow and heavily garrisoned each city I took fearing a flip. I probably was a little over cautious but it worked.
And finally Rome was no longer a thorn in my side.

The only things that the Romans had me worried about was that army they managed to get. But luck was with me. A single knight on a mountain was all it took to kill the army.

Fearing that Rome may have gotten iron from either France or America I managed to bribe both of them into the war. America hasn't done crap but France managed to take several Roman cities on the islands surrounding the continent and actually was the ones to give Rome it's death blow. I was content with them off my continent but France kept going until it was over.

This screenshot just shows the southern part of the continent after I kicked Rome out. If you notice on the mini-map Rome has two cities left. The northern one used to be one of mine. Rome managed to land an archer and spearman and take it. France has it now. Someday it'll be mine. Someday...

[BigDork]

So with Rome gone I went into peace mode. I was content to let the Indians share my continent with me for a time. I purchased Democracy from the French and switched govts.

Since then I've been bringing in the cash. I'm making about 250gpt from America, France, and Russia. I've been researching my butt off and have pulled way ahead of the pack. About six techs thanks to ToE. I'm researching everything at 4 turns and still bringing in about 200gold a turn.

I finally got sick of the Indians being around after a while. I don't have anything against Ghandi personally and felt a little bad about ruining his game in the beginning so I made sure that he had a city on an island first. I was actually gonna give him one if not. He's sharing with the French and hopefully he doesn't go and tick off Joan. See, I'm a nice guy.

It was a quick war. I was done it 3 turns. 3 turns for 3 cities. I had about 30 cavalry and he had about 7 units. Mostly spearmen. So that's over. The whole continent is mine.

Here's something that made me laugh. Catherine wanting me to just give her something. She's lucky she offered me a world map. If she'd tried to threaten me there wouldn't be any more Russians. She's on a 3 tile island and not much a threat to me but it's the principle. I almost invaded anyway but didn't want to go through the hassle. I know, I know, but I'm just not down with the dark side fully.

[BigDork]

Well I think I'm done with war for a while. I might start a war against France to get the islands that are surrounding my continent and also to have them and America fight it out. But right now I'm not in the mood to a sea invasion. I'm gonna have tanks before long so maybe I'll do it then. But hopefully America and France will hurt each other enough that I'll be able to sneak in some settlers and get a good bridgehead. The only problem with going to war with France is that they are giving me a lot of money for my luxuries and I'm rather enjoying that. I'll figure something out.

I used the ToE to get up the techs for Hoover and I'm currently building that. I'm pretty much just gonna be a builder for a while. Build up nice and strong.

But I'm done. I've spent way too long in front of my computer. I'm working the next couple of days but should have this thing done by the weekend. Here's the score as of right now. I'm way ahead.

BigD

[nbarclay]

I'm going to try an experiment with a new AAR format, posting shots from the end-of-game replay. Let me know what you think. I'll go ahead and start from the beginning.

In the beginning, there was China, and China was too close for comfort. And Resourceful Ralph said, "Let there be barracks, and then let there be archers, and let the archers pour forth over the Chinese."

And there were barracks, and there were archers, and the archers razed a single city before casualties forced the Celts to make peace. But at least we got some techs out of the war.

[nbarclay]

And Resourceful Ralph looked at the results of the first war, and the results were not good. Tolerable, maybe, but certainly not what he had hoped for. And Resourceful Ralph said, "Let there be more cities, and more barracks, and more archers, so that we may resume our war with the Chinese and get them out of the way once and for all." And there were more barracks, and more archers, and more war with China. But once again, after auto-razing a single city, Resourceful Ralph's forces were in tatters and he was forced to make peace.

[nbarclay]

And Resourceful Ralph was vexed sorely, and he fired his generals and hired new ones, and he ordered new and larger forces of archers built to resume his campaign. And a Chinese city was autorazed, and Beijing fell, and China gave up two additional cities in exchange for peace. And Resourceful Ralph saw that for a change, the campaign was good.

[nbarclay]

And Resourceful Ralph said, "Let us now build cities, and let us build barracks, and warriors, and still more warriors. And let us upgrade those warriors to Gallic Swordsmen, and wipe the remnants of the hated Chinese from the face of the earth.

So the Celts built additional cities, and built barracks and many warriors, and Resourceful Ralph saw that it was good. And the Celts learned Polytheism and Monarchy at a snail's pace and traded them away, and Resourceful Ralph saw that that was okay although he didn't get as much for Monarchy as he had hoped for. And Resourceful Ralph saw that iron was hooked up, and that was very good indeed!

So it came to pass that in 230 BC, the Golden Age of the Celts began. And China fell. And two Persian cities fell. And the Celts got a great leader and persuaded Persia to give up Literature in exchange for peace so that a Great Library could be constructed. And Resourceful Ralph saw that that was good because it meant his people could focus on building Gallic Swordsmen and ignore research for a long time to come.

And Resourceful Ralph said, "Behold, we have many Gallic Swordsmen and peace with Persia. What preventeth us from conquering our Indian neighbors to the south?" And Ralph's advisors could see no good reason to refrain from such a battle. And Gallic Swordsmen rampaged across the Indian countryside, so that when the war was over, Ghandi had only three cities left. And Resourceful Ralph looked at his new maps and saw that they were good.

[nbarclay]

And Resourceful Ralph said, "Let us now rest and heal our forces and then attack Persia again. And let us wipe them from the face of the continet." And his advisors said, "But wait, sir, we have a peace treaty with them." And Resourceful Ralph said, "I know that, but have you not heard of the Arrian Deception? And Resourceful Ralph's staff thought it over and decided that the plan was good. Indeed, Resourceful Ralph and his planners had so much faith in their forces that they ordered the Celtic cities to switch over to peacetime production, catching up on infrastructure long delayed by the military build-up.

But in the meantime, Xerxes' planners had an idea of their own. "Resourceful Ralph and his Celtic people are becoming too powerful, my lord. Let us send immortals into his lands and claim some of that vast territory for ourselves." Xerxes thought it over and said, "Okay, but no more than one or two of them at first, until we see how Resourceful Ralph responds." So it came to pass that at the exact time Resourceful Ralph wanted to reopen the war with Persia, the Persians declared war on the Celts rather than obey an order to leave.

And Gallic Swordsmen streamed forth into the Persian lands. And immortals were no match for them. And pikemen were no match for their weight of numbers. And city after city fell until Xerxes gladly surrendered all but a single island city in exchange for peace.

Then, when the peace treaty with India expired, Resourceful Ralph cast his eyes to the southeast and said, "There are still three splotches of purple left on my continet. Now I like purple as much as the mext ruler, but not on my maps in places where green belongs." So Resourceful Ralph's generals ordered their troops to the southeast, and the purple turned green, and Ghandi escaped to a new capital on an island.

[nbarclay]

Then Resourceful Ralph said, "The days of the Gallic Swordsman are numbered. Let us keep what we have for defense, but let us build up a vast army of horsemen that we may someday upgrade to cavalry and sweep all opposition aside. And let us seek out a great leader who will build us Leonardo's Workshop, so that even the vast gold supplies we are accumulating when we are not too busy rushing city improvements will not prove insufficient."

And it came to pass that Caesar cast his eyes to the north and was unhappy at the great prosperity his resourcefulness had brought to Ralph's people. And Caesar spoke with his generals, and everyone agreed that Ralph's resources were spread too thin after his earlier conquests and that a successful war could be prosecuted.

But Resourceful Ralph had his own ideas. Gallic Swordsmen captured Rome's one city on the Celtic side of the isthmus separating Roman and Celtic lands, and when Caesar got sufficient forces together to retake the city, Ralph handed it over to Xerxes for safekeeping. Ralph also relieved Caesar of two island cities and handed one over to Xerxes when Roman forces threatened to take it back. In the meantime, one of the battles produced the leader Ralph had wanted so badly, and soon, Leonardo's Workshop went into operation. (Interestingly, the Celts researched Invention for a single turn between the time they got their leader and the time the Great Library brought the technology needed for Leonardo's to them.) By that time, Caesar was willing to negotiate peace.

Resourceful Ralph welcomed the peace since he had no desire to build new Gallic Swordsmen or send his poorly equipped horsemen into battle. But it did leave him with one problem: other nations had been working on the Sistine Chapel for a long time, and Ralph wanted it for himself. The only way to build such a wonder in a timely manner was to gain a great leader through warfare, and that required a target. Well, Ralph hadn't meant the cities he'd handed over to Persia to be anything more than a loan anyhow.

Most of Ralph's elite forces redeployed to the island the Celts shared with Persia, and the final conquest of Persia went smoothly. An ancient elite archer unit left over from the Chinese wars produced a leader, and the Celts finished their Sistine Chapel just a turn or two ahead of one of their rivals.

[nbarclay]

And it came to pass that Caesar's heart was hardened, and he forgot the lessons of Ralph's resourcefulness, and he once again launched an attack into Celtic territory. And Celtic losses were heavy, and their forces few (other than a vast supply of horsemen who were not considered combat-ready), and Ralph was forced to give away a city to India before Rome could take it. But Rome suffered setbacks in island fighting (having intruded on the Celts' island with a city of their own) so Caeser could be persuaded to make peace. Caesar then declared war on India, capturing the city Ralph had given to Ghandi and eventually eliminating the Indians entirely. But the gift had done its job: Indian cultural borders had proved sufficient to slow Rome's advance northward until peace could be negotiated. (They don't call him Resourceful Ralph for nothing. ) The top map in the set below shows the situation left after those skirmishes.

Then it was the Celts' turn. The moment the Great Library brought an understanding of Education to the Celtic people, Resourceful Ralph had ordered research toward Military Tradition at the fastest rate possible. Once that discovery was completed, the Celts began a massive upgrade of horsemen to cavalry. The situation was less then ideal since rival nations knew how to make muskets, but it was quite good nonetheless. And upgrades of more than seventy horsemen would ensure an ample military force for a long time to come.

Even cavalry found the proposition of battering through mountains into Roman territory a difficult and somewhat costly proposition. But it could have been far worse if Caesar had deployed his muskets there instead of reserving them for city defense. In any case, the Celts had enough cavalry that they could afford losses, and only a combination of war weariness and a Roman unit's threat to capture an undefended island city persuaded Ralph to call a halt to the fighting before the entire continent was claimed. As it was, only two Roman cities on the mainland escaped capture, although Rome had gotten another one back (toward the southeast) in a culture flip.

[nbarclay]

With Rome no longer a threat, Ralph cast his eyes overseas. He had already built up a fleet of a dozen caravels, and he had more than enough cavalry to fill them. Navigation had been discovered during the Roman war, so his ships would be able to make the trip safely in spite of its distance.

Better, America had offered a perfect opening. America and France were in an alliance against Russia, and American conquest left a perfect landing site outside of everyone's cultural borders. Cavalry could land unopposed and then do what cavalry do best: Charge! About half the caravels were used in the first wave, with more following as quickly as troops could finish crossing the continent to reach them.

Conquering America was almost child's play after the difficulty Rome had caused. Terrain was little more than a nuisance, and only a single American musket unit was ever seen. Before long, Abe was exiled to his island posessions.

Then it was France's turn. French musketeers were murderous, because the AU mod's boost in their movement rate rendered cavalry unable to retreat from them. Many cavalry died, but in the end, Joan was also exiled from her home continent.

(I'm curious as to how well that aspect of the musketeer's faster movement rate was thought out. AU Mod musketeers seem about as deadly to cavalry as riflemen are, or at least very close, and I hate to think what it would be like trying to fight them with nothing better than knights. At least going up against Impi, you have the option of using swordsmen instead of horsemen. But with musketeers, the only contemporary options available through much of the unit's useful life are knights and medieval infantry. It's a lot like fighting Impi with only horsemen and archers available - only worse because a much higher percentage of cities are over size six.)

[nbarclay]

I would tell the story of the conquest of Russia, but what's to tell? Three cities, two turns, and one less civ in the game. The Celts did get a leader, though, who eventually went on to rush Universal Suffrage.

Then came the conquest of the remaining Roman cities on the home continent and of one Roman island city. But the unmarred green didn't last long before Hispalis flipped back to Rome for the second time. Not long after, culcural borders expanded enough to secure a domination victory. Tech-wise, I finished four techs into the industrial age, while everyone else was still at least two techs away.

By the way, early in the game, I used a leader to to rush my forbidden palace in India near the center of my home continent. During the war with Fance, I used another leader to move my palace to northern France in a fairly central location on that continent. With police stations under Democracy, I suspect that few cities on either continent would be totally corrupt, not that I intend to keep playing to find out. For me, planning to move my palace to the other continent is almost a "must" when I'm planning a domination victory on a continents map; what sense does it make to conquer the world if you can't rule it reasonably efficiently?