AU 206: Gallic Glory - Stories and Strategy Tips

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Arrian
Ok, I fired my game up (400AD) and continued my methodical destruction of the Romans. I researched Feudalism first, and rush Sun Tzu immediately. I then researched Engineering & Invention and rushed Leo's immediately. I then traded Engineering to Persia for Monotheism and started on Theology.

One turn into that research, I was notified that "The Americans have completed the Sistine Chapel in Washington." Apparently, the Americans have a deathwish.

Seems to me like you're were being too greedy; if Sistine was your goal, maybe you should have beelined for that! But, I just know what your answer will be: "I wanted all the Medieval Wonders!".

Abe Lincoln says: "No UP for you!".

Nice game, though.


Dominae

[Arrian]

You summed that up rather well, Dominae. I did indeed get greedy. I could have instead researched feudalism only, traded THAT for monotheism, and then gone straight for Theology, and THEN going back for engineering & invention. Oh well.

It's all good, all Abe really did was select my first overseas target for me.

-Arrian

[jshelr]

The celts made the decision early to focus on warfare rather than rex and started with a barracks build. First Settler was sent north to claim wine. After that, good luck flowed thick and fast. Our northern warrior got a chance to bop a Chinese warrior / settler pair, giving us two workers and lots of space, along with an elite .

We remained at zero research after pottery and the war with china netted masonry.

The settler bop more or less led us by the nose to settle northward and allowed us to claim the iron up there by accident before we knew it was actually in that position.

This took the challenge out of the game as we just built warriors and hoarded gold for upgrading. On meeting Persia, we were introduced to Rome on the same turn and got iron working for 50 gold and an intro to the Chinese.

We upgraded four to GS status and ripped China to shreds, extorting more tech and one city.

More good luck followed as Rome declared war on India just as we were about to oscillate for the next conflict. India’s capital fell easily, yielding a leader, lol, and, on taking a second city, we extorted remaining techs and all their gold.

Persia is next and looks like a sitting duck at this point, especially if Rome agrees to an alliance. With the leader, we can take out China at our leisure and put the FP up there.

I agree that GS are expensive. But this is my second game with them and their mobility, the lack of need for covering troops, retreat, and their hitting power make them a yum yum UU in the ancient era. They survive so much better than swords I wonder if they really are more expensive in the long run.

I may not play this out unless reading the spoilers suggests there are hidden problems.

[Chemical Ollie]

Played a short and peaceful session tonight when this suddenly came from nowhere. The Americans unloaded 3 galleons full of cavallery on some of my outpost islands and actually captured a minor city in a surprise attack. I had plenty of cavallery there, so they were soon thrown back into the sea. On another Island they dumped a very strangely composed army with 2 cavallery and 1 longbow. 3 of my cavallery killed it without loss, only retreats.

I made an alliance with France to keep the Yanks busy and I have not seen them again.

The war also had some very positive effects for me (see next post).

[Chemical Ollie]

Perfect timing for a little war, wasn't it? Now the tech race and the Hoover Dam is as good as mine. I think this is a good time to call it a day and go sleep with a smile on my face.

[BigDork]

Hi everybody...

I only have gotten to play a little bit. Life keeps getting busier and busier.

With my last post so long ago I was at war with China, India and Rome. Well I managed to make peace with India for nothing. That was good. Rome finally made an appearance. They actually sent a pretty good sized stack up. I tried to make peace but they wanted one of my better cities so I had to say no. They threw their stack against my most southern city and almost took it twice. Luckily I managed to send in re-enforcements both times and managed to hold on. I was unable to send my GS down to the south to rout the Roman army due to pressure from China. I swear they were working together. Anyway, after Rome lost most of their attackers to my spearmen they took peace for 120 gold and 3gpt. That's me paying not them. But I did manage to free up my forces so I could concentrate on China.

Then China managed to drop off a archer behind my lines from a galley. Thanks to the Romans almost taking my southern city there was no defender. The city the Chinese took was 1 turn away from making a spearman...doh! Anyway I sent in a GS and took it back but that really ticked me off.

I'm pretty far back. More than likely last. I haven't checked. Too depressing. If this wasn't an AU game I would have either quit or restarted. But I keep trying. I managed to auto-raze one chinese city and am about knock out Bejing. Kinda thinking of razing it just for spite but maybe not. We'll see. This is gonna be a hard game for me and I'm not sure if I'm gonna win this one. I'm working 12 hour shifts the next two days so no civ for me. But this weekend I plan on a few 6 - 8 hour sessions while the wife is at work. Haven't had my civ fix for a while and I think I'm suffereing withdrall. I'll keep you all posted as I try to crawl back up the ranks.

BigD

[badams52]

Battling Rome, ugh

Well, as we were getting our troops into position to fight India, Rome and India sign a peace treaty giving us a chance to switch to Republic and begin researching and sending suicide galleys to find the other continent.

We break through finally and make contact with America and France quickly to find France a little ahead of America in the research department. We cautiously negotiate with them and sell them our territory maps to get their maps and contact with Russia. I usually let my galley get there, but Russia was far away and I wanted to know them. We watch their research to see when America or France might discover navigation allowing them the ability to sail and find our adversaries, Russia is behind in tech and falling farther and farther behind.

Then Rome calls us up and says, "hey man give us tech or we fight." So we fight. I resign an ROP with India and send my troops (already in position) to start destroying the Roman legionaries, bowmen and spearmen. Our GSs reign supreme on flatland fighting and we try hard to lure the enemy forces to positions that give us the advantage. With many, many elites, GLs come left and right netting us Leo's, Sistene's, (then America immediately got Copernicus), Bachs, Palace move (see below), Magellan's and Newton's Uni in that order. We built Sun Tzu's and Adam Smith's from scratch without any problems. So let's see, that's 1 army, 1 Palace move and 5 wonders makes 7 GLs so far.

Red dot - former palace
Yellow dot - FP
orange dot - new palace

[badams52]

The picture above shows our entire army when fighting the Romans. When I got to the Roman core, my GSs began to stall against legionaries in the mountains and fortified in cities, so we got our knights together after buying the tech from the french for luxuries and began to use GSs for attacking stray longbowmen and legionaries on plains. The march was slow at first...take city, rest all soldiers in the city till repaired, move to next city, rinse and repeat.

All the while America discovered navigation, and not seeing me being able to pull off the Arrian deception, I gave in and got what I could from America, France and Russia from selling the contacts and my map.

We kept coming at the Romans (in our peace talks, they would never give the tech I didn't have or any good cities) and had to switch to monarchy with the war taking a long time. We finally annexed all the previously Roman cities on the continent and with the peace deal, netted 3 of their 5 remaining cities, giving us strength on the nearby islands.

Upon the end of the war, we switched to Democracy with our eyes set on the Indian lands...manifest destiny and all...

[badams52]

UP

So now it's obvious that UP is at hand. We have a slight tech lead over America (number 2) who sends us over 100 gpt in deals that we spread out - i.e. selling only 1 luxury at a time for maximum profit when reselling. America is so maxed out on gpt, that they have none left for gunpowder.

Some thoughts on tech and UP

When going for UP, is it not better to leave other civs with 1 or 2 cities left after their "defeated?" This way, the tech rate or tech bonus for researching already discovered techs is much, much smaller. Had I destroyed Rome, China, and Persia, there would be only 5 civs left, and when I and America get the tech, that's 40% of remaining civs giving France a big discount (at this time France is a distant 3 in getting techs). But with all 8 still hanging around, that makes it only 25% when America and I have it. I checked using the tech calculator from CFC and it tends to make a sizeable difference in the price of the tech.

And since Rome, China, India, Russia, and Persia will always be far behind in the tech race, as we rise up the ladder, my distance will only grow larger and it will cost America and France too much money to try and climb back into the race.

Of course, you have to watch out cause America or France could declare war on Rome, China, Persia or India and take out their last cities, so now it's up to me to protect them and to protect my tech lead!

[BigDork]

Hi Everybody...

Here's a screen from my game. I've gotta head back to work and I'll explain it when I get there.

BigD

[BigDork]

Hi everybody...

So here's what happened. I went home for lunch and my wife wasn't home. Woo-hoo. So I hopped on for a little Civ3 action.

Well I started by trying to make peace with the Chinese. To my surprise they actually gave me stuff for peace. Considering I thought I was on the losing side of this war it worked for me. I got mathmatics from the Chinese and about 80 gold. Well India has monarchy and no math so I trade them for it. Persia didn't have monarchy so I got two techs and a little gold from them. Rome didn't have one of those techs so I got two techs from them. In one turn I was back up in the tech race. Unfortunatly since then I've fallen behind a little.

So I make peace with China but I still have all these GS just laying around. It'd be a shame to put them to waste. Well I don't wanna break any peace treaties before the 20 turns is up so it looks like it's gonna be Persia. But all the sudden China declares war on Persia. Mao is just a touch suicidal there. Then he makes an even bigger mistake. He starts marching his trooops through my territory. So I call him up and ask him to leave. Well he declares war on me. Schweet. Works for me.

So I turn my all my GS's that are headed for Persia around and head toward China. Well I manage to take Shanghai and Richborough(lost it a long time ago) the first turn. I was sending two GS down towards the iron below Richborough and there was a Persian city there that the Chinese managed to take just as I was marching by. Works for me. Took that too. And one less Persian city.

Well I sent a stack of GS to Bejing and got stomped. Is there some kind of special defensive bonus for capitols? Anyway the RNG screwed me. I only lost one GS and almost all my others retreated. Well I fled back Camolodunum to heal up and while I'm healing along comes a stack of Immortals. A big stack of Immortals. I am so glad I didn't declare war on Persia. It probably would have been my undoing. Anyway they take Bejing quickly. So I use my extra movement advantage and beat them up to the north and take Nanking.

I'm gonna try to get the rest of the Chinese cities before Persia can. After China is kicked off the continent I think I'm gonna punish India for declaring war on me earlier. Rome and Persia are currently beating on each other and I'm trying to use that to my advantage. Rome just got the GL and I could really use that. But I don't think it's gonna happen for a while. Anyway things are looking up slightly. We're all still in the ancient age so I still have a lot of time to make something happen. And if I have to wait for MA before I can win so be it. We'll see what happens.

BigD

[Arrian]

badams,

You may well be right about leaving civs with 1-2 cities alive to screw up the intact AI's research rates.

I don't deliberately do that, but if they're all confined to an island (such as the one of the west coast of Gaellia, or the one of the southeast coast, in this game), there is little harm in it if the Deception failed anyway.

Basically, if taking them out doesn't help you in any way (gaining a decent city, resource, luxury, taking a shot at generating a GL for a contested wonder, or pulling off the deception), why do it?

I haven't played any further yet. Hopefully I'll get going again tonight.

-Arrian

[nbarclay]

If you capture cities instead of razing, eliminating a civ completely has two advantages. (1) It eliminates all possibility of culture flips. (2) It eliminates the risk that the civ might sign a MPP with someone you want to fight later, thereby adding unhappiness to the conquered cities if you go to war with their MPP partner. Also, whether you capture or raze, a civ that hates you might be quite happy to sign a trade embargo against you, cutting into trade possibilities later in the game. (In particular, I've run into situations where someone I was at war with signed a trade embargo against me with a barely-surviving civ, leaving me unable to resume tade when the war was over.) So while there are advantages to leaving civs alive with a couple cities, there are also advantages to finishing them off.

For me, the big question is usually just how convenient it is to finish a civ off. If it's convenient, they're dead. If not, they get to live on their island posessions at least a while longer.

Nathan

[Chemical Ollie]

Hmmmm... I can't make up my mind... should I conquer America with tanks or should I go for the space launch. I'm quite sure to win either way. The invasion is quickest in number of turns but probably not in playing hours.

[BigDork]

Olaf

Mind if I borrow a couple of those tanks? I think it's about the only thing that would help me right about now. It's looking kinda bad. But I'll get to finish it up this weekend. We'll see what happens.

BigD