AU 206: Gallic Glory - Stories and Strategy Tips

[alexman]

Did you bring Glory to the Celts, and honor to their Gallic Swordsman? Did you outRalph your opponents? Post your stories for Gallic Glory in this thread.

[Dominae]

Figured I should get a head start on this one, since I've got a pretty busy week next week.

First off, thanks alexman for setting this thing up. Those little touches that you add to the scenarios are always welcome.

Hm, a game as Ralph, eh? I decided right away that I would not be "ralphing" this time. Although I really should try this strategy out, I think I'll be one of the few that will not do so in this scenario, making my experience good for comparison.

I originally thought I should research Mysticism first, seeing as 1) there is only one other Religious civ and 2) Monarchy is a good government to be in as the Celts. Then I come to my senses and realise this is (yet again) a perfect start location for Granary-REX. I click Pottery and queue up a Warrior.

Micro-management sidenote: I assume most people settled the start location, and sent the Worker to improve a Bonus Grassland. But did you all switch the Laborer from the Game Forest to the Bonus Grassland when there were 6 Shields accumulated? Doing so completes the Warrior at the same time, but results in two extra Commerce. Not a big difference, but something I thought I should point out.

The first Warrior done, I remember that the Celts are Militaristic by noting I can build Archers immediately. Whenever I think of Sir Ralph, I think "Archer Rush", so I queue up an Archer. I figure I can get in Warrior-Archer-Warrior before I start the pre-building the Granary. My Archer rush implementation is a bit different from Sir Ralph's however: I'll usually build 2-4 Regular Archers and harass my nearest opponent, something I'll dub "Super-Duper Archer Rush", although I'm not in any way expecting the name to stick.

My first Warrrior meets the Indians just as my first Archer is done. The Indians apparently already have Warrior Code, so I have absolutely no trading material other than 10 gold. In addition, Ghandi's got Bronze Working, Alphabet (Commercial) and Pottery! Did he start with a ring of Goody Huts around his capital?! Sigh.

But I quickly come up with a plan to turn this lemon into lemonade. I move my Warrior in next to an unprotected Worker while my Archer begins a beeline for Delhi. I nab the Worker the next turn. My Warrior is left facing two Indian Warriors, and manages to kill one and take the other down to 2 HPs. The bopped Worker begins a slow trek through the Mountains and Jungle, luring the remaining Indian forces away from the real action. My Archer arrives a few turns later, in time to see I've missed my chance to Settler bop as well. Darn.

Then I bite the bullet. I attack Delhi, which is defended with a Spearmen at this point, with my lone Archer. Yup, Delhi is on a Hill and those are not very good odds. But, knowing the AI, I figure I'll be able to sue for peace before Ghandi's Warriors reach my capital (I also have some insurance: by the time they get there, I'll have completed my Granary, and have some extra time to build up a 2-Warrior defensive force). The gamble essentially comes down to the fact that I have an ~25% chance of putting myself way ahead of the game early on, and a 75% chance of losing an Archer and ruining my relationship with India, but with (probably) no other real drawbacks.

And it works!

My Archer defeats the Spearmen without a single HP lost, and bops India's recently-completed Settler at this same time, plus another Worker! So now I'm up four (foreign) Workers, plus Delhi and down a Warrior. Quite lucky, I admit, but not blind luck.

[Dominae]

But the fun is not over yet! India is now crippled, and quite ready to listen to my terms. I contact Ghandi, who gives me everything he's got (other than his only city), just so that my lone Archer will not unleash its fury upon him once again. Although you cannot see it in the screenshot, I get another 2 Workers from India, so that's a total of 5 extra (foreign) Workers by 2900BC!

Well, I'm off to a great start, with the help of a little luck. I'll post a full AAR in a few days, when I get the time to play some more.

[Dominae]

alexman the evil one...

I was trying to figure out if this is funny...then I realised it's hilarious. alexman, you're really trying to prove the Celts suck, eh?

[badams52]

Losing quickly without warriors...

When I first downloaded the AU206 1.29f version, I found I could not build warriors, only archers, workers and settlers, so I started a game without warriors. I built my archers and started exploring and looky what I found...

[alexman]

And for what do you need iron? I thought you had the game wrapped up before Gallic Swordsmen!

Seriously though, impressive opening, Dominae. I rarely fight that early, and I really should do it more often. Even so, I would have settled for peace after I got the worker. I'm not big on early risks.

I was debating whether it was better to move the worker to chop the forest first, or mine the grassland first, as you did. It turns out what you did was the better choice.

Keep us posted!

[badams52]

This was too good for me to pass up. A chance to eliminate Beijing before they get a chance to get too big! Huge Mistake #1: Mao sees my archer heading for Beijing and calls me up to say get off my land. Then forgetting it's Mao's turn I negotiate asking for peace for his masonry. When he doesn't give it I declare war. Immediately Mao moves in an extra warrior.

Oh well, I've come this far, so I attack and kill his warrior in Beijing taking a little damage. Unfortunately, the God's didn't smile on my quick attack and Mao's other warrior attacked and killed my archer.

I quickly recall my other archer back to the homeland for defense (my only other archer at the time) and build others like mad.

Mao's 2 archers approached Alesia. I move one archer into Alesia just in time while my other 2 attack his archers, but once again, God didn't look favorably on my quick attack and both archers fall.

Mao lost no time in taking Alesia and Entremont quickly. Next time, I play with warriors. I was just too tempted to use my archer scout to attack when Mao wouldn't be expecting it. Had I won the attack...would have been a great start for me!!!

[Dominae]

alexman, re: chopping or mining, I've found it better to Mine a couple of Bonus Grassland tiles before chopping any Forest, if the goal is an early Granary. An early chop does get you 10 Shields ahead, but the extra Food does not actually let you grow fast enough to make up for the lost Shields from the absence of mines. In this game, I went Mine-Road-Mine-Road-Chop-Irrigate-Road, allowing 2 Warriors and a Archer before the Granary. I think that's pretty close to an ideal opening, barring any 3-Cattle crazyness. Thanks for giving it to us!

badams52, your game was too weird to continue, IMO. Things are pretty difficult without Warriors without even considering the fact that you could not upgrade to Gallics. What you did with the Archer was essentially what I did, though, only you got lucked out. You certainly had better chances taking the city, but my backup was better: I knew India had no Archers, and counted how many Warriors they should have. I was pretty confident in my chances with the counter-attack.

By the way, does anyone know when a respawned civ respawns? I'm thinking that I wiped India out before they founded their second city, and when I contacted them the turn of their demise, they had already respawned. This would explain their large number of Workers (4 by 2900BC, plus 2 Settlers). If so, I smell something close to an exploit: whenever you destroy a civ and it respawns, you can contact it immediately and get their bonus Workers (I'm playing Emperor). That's pretty abusive in the early-game...


Dominae

[Arrian]

Dominae beat me to the punch: I'm not Ralphing either, and I opened almost as aggressively as he did.

Stock PtW, Monarch. 4 to 5 tile city spacing.

The first border I saw was to my north (China). I had two warriors moving in that direction anyway, so I ordered a third to follow. As 2 of my warriors were moving into position to bop a Chinese settler team, the other northern warrior popped a hut and received... a settler! So building 5 warriors, barracks, archer in Entremont prior to my first settler didn't hurt expansion much.

I mined/roaded 2 bonus grass before chopping the game forest, btw. Never did build a granary.

I used my free settler to build my 2nd city on the river just south of Beijing: next to a hill that I later discovered had iron. Meanwhile, my quick war vs. China ended. I didn't get much from them (besides, of course, two slaves and the fact they were now hurt). I built some more cities, and meanwhile met the Persians and Indians. I popped Bronzeworking from a hut, which was nice, as I researched Mysticism to start. I then did IW as fast as I could, then dropped back to minimum research toward Monarchy.

I wandered up to Persia with a reg warrior and vet archer, and decided to mess with them too. I broke a bunch of terrain developments near Persopolis (thus delaying their hooking up iron by a bunch of turns) and made a favorable peace, though I lost my 2 units. Then the Indians beat my settler to a spot (well, 1 tile over) I wanted, so I took the 3 archers I had in that area and broke their new city, and killed a bunch of their units. Peace provided me with some tech and contact with Rome.

All this time, my cities were buildling temples, barracks, warriors. Occasional spears and archers.

Next, I archer attacked India again, but... FAILED! I lost a goodly number of archers and didn't manage to take a single city. *shrug*

At this point, my empire was straining under my military expenditure. I had built up 1200+ gold, but was now starting to lose gpt. Though I was still ~10 turns from Monarchy, I decided it was time. 15 Gallic Swordsmen marched into Persia. Persia was my target because not only had Persopolis built the Colossus, but also the Pyramids! I saw 1 immortal. He died, on defense. I also generated my 1st Great Leader, who made an army (I know, I know, I advocate 1st leader = FP, but this was different).

I left them with 1 city and wheeled on India, switching to Monarchy in the process. I knocked them down to 1 city. I also generated leader #2. My forces continued southward, and invaded Rome. The Leader marched with them. I broke through the mountainous chokepoint with little resistance (1 spear on a mountain, who died to my 2xGallic army) and captured several cities. I decided I wanted my FP on the River north of Rome (you know how there is 1 plains tile on that river, next to the cow? That's where I moved a badly placed Roman city and rushed the FP).

It is now 400AD. My forces are preparing to march on Rome itself. The FP is down. The Pyramids, Colossus and Great Lighthouse (heh, I actually built that and have yet to build a galley, silly me) are mine. I'm a Monarchy, and am just finishing research on Construction, which will kick me into the Middle Ages. I have all but destroyed 2 of my 4 neighbors, am actively butchering a 3rd, and the 4th was rendered toothless ~2500bc.

The Americans, somewhere overseas, have made their presence felt by building the Great Library and Great Wall.

In any case, I do not feel the unit needs "fixing." As both Nathan and I have said, Militaristic + dominant unit = more than the sum of the parts. The extra cost just helps balance things out.

-Arrian

[alexman]

Originally posted by Dominae
alexman, re: chopping or mining, I've found it better to Mine a couple of Bonus Grassland tiles before chopping any Forest, if the goal is an early Granary. An early chop does get you 10 Shields ahead, but the extra Food does not actually let you grow fast enough to make up for the lost Shields from the absence of mines.

Of course this all might change when you have an industrious civ, where having a worker chop a forest gives an average of two extra shields per turn instead of one from that chop, and finishes in time to improve another tile even before the gity grows.

[Arrian]

Dominae,

Yeah, the respawn immediately - the same turn you "destroy" them. They get 100 gold, several techs, workers, etc. My friend Tom loves nailing civs with warrior rushes and then getting that 100 gold & the workers for peace. He does it often.

Exploit? Maybe, maybe not.

I typically don't open quite as aggressively as he does... but my later aggression makes up for it.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Originally posted by alexman
Of course this all might change when you have an industrious civ, where having a worker chop a forest gives an average of two extra shields per turn instead of one from that chop, and finishes in time to improve another tile even before the gity grows.

Yes, I was only considering the non-Industrious case.

Do you know the answer to my respawn question? Anyone else?

Arrian: nice opening. You really are bloodthirsty! I'm about at the same position now you were at before you got your Gallics: 800 gold, 12 Vet. Warriors ready for upgrade, nowhere to expand to but into China or the jungle.


Dominae

[alexman]

Great game, Arrian!
I like your decision to go for an Army instead of a FP in this case. I get shivers just thinking of a GS Army.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Arrian
Yeah, the respawn immediately - the same turn you "destroy" them. They get 100 gold, several techs, workers, etc. My friend Tom loves nailing civs with warrior rushes and then getting that 100 gold & the workers for peace. He does it often.

Thanks for the response, Arrian.

Surely this is not an exploit, since you still have to succeed in an very early rush. But the rewards are too high, IMO: 100 gold, 2 Workers, techs, all guaranteed because the AI is in its submissive mode. An easy fix would be to reset the AI's behaviour towards you when it respawns. Or, better, you lose contact with a civ when you destroy it and it respawns.


Dominae

[Arrian]

Dominae,

After city #2 up by China, I built 2 cities inbetween there and Entremont, while also expanding eastward to cut off the Persians. Persia beat me to the horse on the southern end of their pennisula, but I built a city on a hill 2 tiles south of that horse. I had it build a temple, a barracks, walls, and lots of spearmen - just in case.

I also built into the jungle a bit - the Indian city I razed was ESE of me... down by the grassland wheat. I built right near there. I also built a city in the middle of the jungle on the river south of Entremont and just had him use the gold mountain for a few hundred years.

I actually didn't get around to building a city SW of Entremont for a long time - Persia beat me to the spot, which was the final "go, no-go" decision maker for my first GS war.

I had actually built more than 15 vet warriors. I could afford to upgrade 15, but I then upgraded perhaps 8 more piecemeal as the money came in. Still, even with that and manually built reinforcements and some horsemen to soften casualties... I don't have all that many left. Rome's still going down, though. They never did hook up iron so I'm facing archers & spears.

Alexman,

Just wait until I get another leader from a GS... he too will join my army, giving me 14hp of GS (2 elite* + one vet) to throw around. Muwahahaha!

-Arrian