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**ducki** · November 26, 2002, 20:33

You've hit upon the biggest snag in the Gallic Warrior arena - upgrade money.

I found, though, that because they are, essentially, extra strong horsemen, you don't need as many to start a war.

When I tried the Celts, I had about 20 warriors to upgrade, but could only afford to upgrade 2.
Switch production in one or two "underproductive" towns to Wealth
Use a Scientist instead of 10% Research
And switch production in any productive town to GallicSwordsmem - the 2 move means that even from the other side of your budding "empire", they'll make the front in no time.

In this case, once a town is done with settler-barracks production, you want the few citizens you can afford to keep content to be working the most productive tiles possible, even if that means locking down growth.
I'd rather have a few towns "stuck" at 3-4 pop than to spend even more of my upgrade money on the Luxury slider, so put your citizens on hills instead of wheat, unless the wheat allows 2 or more citizens to work mountains or hills with bonuses(bonusi?)

For these costly, but fast, units, an efficient road network is key, as well, as you'll be sending them from all over your empire to the front. Think "shortest path possible".

Another thing to consider - make your first "victim" your richest neighbor - hit him hard and fast and - here's the important part - make peace ASAP and clean out his treasury, to upgrade more Gauls, to hit your "real" target/victim.

You are right on here, with Celts, it's all about the money from Start to Ironworking. Once you kick-off your GA, then money can take a backseat to production, assuming you are big enough to crank out gobs of these guys.

P.S. These guys make short work of Hoplites, btw. You need 2-4 Gauls per town - spread em out and rest between injuries, even if it means postponing an attack on a town. Back up, heal up, try again. Don't let yourself think, oh surely I can finish them off, even injured. Don't do it. Give your guys a rest and they'll treat you right.

**GusSmed** · November 26, 2002, 21:04

Gallic Warriors really aren't that bad. I know they look different, but you should really think of them as being funny Horsemen. They're 150% of a Horseman for 160% of the cost.

I wouldn't focus so much on making money. Upgrading units isn't very efficient unless you have Leonardo's. You get 1 Shield for every 2 gold. A typical Despotic tile produces 1 or 2 shields and 1 trade. The real shield production is 2x - 4x the "virtual" shield production you get by converting gold to upgrades.

Hence, if you've got a huge backlog of units to upgrade when you get the tech you're waiting for (Iron Working or Horseback Riding), you've shifted the burden from you strength (shield production) to your weakness (gold production). You really should have focused on getting the tech earlier, so you could use the more efficient shield production.

The deciding point for any early rush - Archer, Horseman, Gallic Swordsman - is the point where you have 4+ towns, all of which have Barracks, and a large enough army to take and hold a single town. That's 6 Archers or Horsemen or 4 Gallic Swordsmen, and 1 or two Spearmen.

If it looks like you're going to get Iron Working well before you're ready to convert to a war economy, by all means reduce your Science slider to 10% and start stocking up gold for conversion. It's inefficient, but why research a bunch of extra tech before you start your war? You're just going to extort everything from then on from the AI.

Since it's harder to get Horseback Riding than Iron Working, and I usually end up retarding my science slider a bit because I'm not quite ready for war by the time I can get Horseback Riding, it makes sense to stockpile gold for upgrades.

However, it doesn't make sense to stockpile a horde of Warriors that you can't afford to upgrade. They cost 1g a turn each once you've hit your unit limit. I wouldn't stockpile more than 1 per 100 gold in your treasury (the upgrade cost), plus maybe 1 or 2 extra, tops.

- Gus

**Theseus** · November 26, 2002, 21:52

Originally posted by ducki
Another thing to consider - make your first "victim" your richest neighbor - hit him hard and fast and - here's the important part - make peace ASAP and clean out his treasury, to upgrade more Gauls, to hit your "real" target/victim.

Nice.

**Theseus** · November 26, 2002, 21:54

GusSmed: I'm talking about the need for SPEED.

The challenge... have at least 1000 gold upon the connection of your Iron.

**Catt** · November 27, 2002, 00:59

Originally posted by GusSmed
Upgrading units isn't very efficient unless you have Leonardo's. You get 1 Shield for every 2 gold. A typical Despotic tile produces 1 or 2 shields and 1 trade. The real shield production is 2x - 4x the "virtual" shield production you get by converting gold to upgrades.

Hence, if you've got a huge backlog of units to upgrade when you get the tech you're waiting for (Iron Working or Horseback Riding), you've shifted the burden from you strength (shield production) to your weakness (gold production). You really should have focused on getting the tech earlier, so you could use the more efficient shield production.

My experience is that you have it backward. Gold is both more easily acquired and a more flexible resource than shields in the very early game. Any river tile automatically produces one gold; a road does the same. Shields are available only with bonus grasslands or a mine. Multiple shields from one tile through mining again requires a bonus grassland or a bonus resource - a mined hill needs a 3-food tile to support the citizen working the hill (at least while in despotism). Mining takes 6 worker turns (3 for industrious), roading takes 4 worker turns (2 for non-industrious). More importantly, each city square produces at least 2 gold and only one shield -- every city defaults to producing more gold than shields.

All that is secondary though. The two most important factors are: (1) shields requires city population which in turn requires happiness -- either you have luxuries nearby or you spend gold on entertainment (this factor is accentuated as you move up the difficulty level); and (2) gold is a variable largely within your control -- set science and entertainment spending as needed (even set city production to wealth if you think that makes sense), but shield production is largely out of your control -- it depends on terrain, map features, and difficulty level.

In most cases, gold is less subject to random game variables. In all cases gold provides the player with more flexibility to dictate short term tactics.

Early shields are very valuable. Early gold less so. It is the rare game for me where a straight build makes more sense than taking advantage of the upgrade cost structure.

Catt

**Jawa Jocky** · November 27, 2002, 13:12

I've played the Celts twice now and Iron was never close by. The Map Generator has a very dry sense of Irony (no puny intended of course

)

**Charis** · November 27, 2002, 13:28

The Mongol Horde

Nice article and good thread, Theseus! One comment on the
Gallics and need for speed. You just do NOT have to be as
fast to the punch with Gallics compared to Swords. With
their speed and retreat ability, you can afford a slightly
slower build up (due to the extra shields) and take a route
where you upgrade a few warriors but build the majority of
Gallics. I've played Celts on Emperor, wiping Spain and
Carthage off the map with impunity, around the time the
Ancient era ended. I've also played them on Deity, taking
a longer time to build up because of the AI's bonus units
and speed advantage. It took me until almost the end of the
era to have a five city+barracks core and almost ten Gallics,
but oh my were they effective. I brought China to the verge
of extinction, extorting about six techs, then did a fast punch
to the Ottomans, taking and razing a few cities before they
reached Chivalry and got knights, at which point I extorted
peace. The setup now is very nice for the middle ages for me.
(Before this game I had NEVER tried to take it to the AI
on deity level, and was surprised how well the Gallics did!)
Still, I think I'll give your gold-priority approach a try

To look at other Civs, I thought I would chime in with comments
on a second civ....

-----------

The Mongols

Militaristic, Expanpansionist, with the Keshiks (4/2/2) as UU.
How does one manage their civ around this UU? It's no stronger
than a Knight, and in fact has weaker defense. But the Keshink
is cheaper than a Knight, 60 vs 70 shields. It also has the
special trait of fast movement across mountains. The Mongols
start with Warrior Code and Pottery.

The lower defense and the likely uselessness of fast mountain
travel (compared to 3 speed of Riders or Ansars) suggest these
guys are weak. So let's take good advantage of their lower
shield cost - specifically by treating this as a lower cost
to upgrade - 20 gold less per horseman.

There's a reason their army was referred to as the "Mongol horde"
their advantage is in numbers. Timing is also important, as you
want to see as many Keshiks in the field, vs as few strong
defenders and as few fast counter-attackers as possible. Again,
this BEGS for an instant upgrade horde rather than trying to
build them once you get the Chivalry tech.

Working backwards, what sets you up best for this, in Ancient
times? Two things - a large horseman army and a strong economy.
What better way to achieve both of these than to plan for an
aggressive horseman rush?!

- Starting tech Warrior Code is on the route to HBR. If Japan
is not nearby, research The Wheel. Once getting horseback riding,
cut research back to one scientist or 10%, both to save cash and
because you will use war to gain techs.

- Get those scouts out and about! You want to be a map seller,
not a buyer (for cash), you want a lot of civ contacts (for
cash and for reduced research costs, and trading for Currency
early), and... you want to know where you might get a sneak
attack over a set of mountains. (Not a major strategic advantage,
but if you've got a Keshik horse later, you will just enjoy
the game that much more if they race across mountains to
capture an enemy capital!) If there is a hut in view on the
first turn or so, choose a tech OTHER than the wheel before you
hit the hut (you won't get what you're researching from it).

- A larger number of cities is better than a small number, due
to the moderate cost of horses, and to generate more cash for
later upgrades. If you're an ICS fan, it's certainly well
suited for this type of game. If you're not, still try to build
a few more cities than you might be used to.

- A four city horsemen rush (capital plus three more, with
orders mostly warriors between settlers, then all make barracks)
is a solid option for the start, follow it up as soon as you can
with rapid expansion to build up the number of cities. Add in
those you capture and extort, and your start will be a good one.

- Forget the Iron Working branch! It's not critical that you
need it quickly, it's not needed for your Keshiks, and you
can extort the tech in your first war. The second quick war
will be to get some iron and more important, to deny it.

- As Theseus suggested for Gallic swordsmen, your workers focus
on roads first, both for gold and to really get those horses
to the front line quickly. I also like Txurce's plan of ignoring
most infrastructure that isn't related to military or wealth. The
Mongols are not religious and not scientific, and shouldn't pretend
to be. Let the "hooves of war" be your guide and your laboratory!

- Unlike Theseus' suggestion for Gallics, be sure to build
a lot of barracks and VET horsemen. With units that retreat
at 1hp the vet vs regular difference is HUGE.

* By the end of the Ancient era your goal should be iron and
horse denial to as many neighbor civs as possible!! No iron equals
no strong counterattack against your low defense Keshiks, and no
horses also mean weak counterattacks *which you can retreat from*.

- If you go hog wild with war and end up with three leaders, you'll
probably want a rushed forbidden palace, an army (and Heroic Epic)
and have one left for Leo's Workshop, which will slash the
upgrade cost even further. But if you plan to use Leo's,
the war will occur later (Invention not Chivalry) and you should
crank out that many MORE horsemen to compensate. If I didn't get
this lucky with leaders, I would not 'wait' for Invention and Leo's
before the first upgrade and Middle Age war.

- Your Golden Age is fairly well timed, putting you in a good
position to crank out UU's from most cities, and set aside one or
two for wonder prebuilds - Sun Tzu, Sistine, or Leo.

What makes the Mongols version of the horse/knight pathway different?
- Keshik's don't need Iron! Knights do, as do Ansar Warriors, Riders,
and Samurai. Your cheap cost beats the bonus defense point of the
War Elephant, who need neither Iron nor Horses.
- Japan starts with Wheel and has a defense *4* not a defense 2 UU,
which doesn't even need horses to make. Plus, they're religious.
- Chinese are industrious, better with road building, have a stronger
move 3 UU. Arabs also move 3 and need Iron, but they're not 'mil'.
- Indians and Egypts have mounted UU, but neither are militaristic.
- Iroquois Mounted Warriors beg for Ancient Era dominance, not a
short set of quick wars followed by the main wars in Middle Age.
Plus, they're not militaristic!
- Russia and Ottomans may go this route too, but with Cavalry-based
UU's, their "main push" and Golden Age come quite a bit later

The recommended Barracks-vets, fast scouting approach takes advantage
of the Mongol Mil and Exp traits, and the upgrade-focus takes
advantage of their cheaper UU's. This route also ignores things
that are weak for the Mongols - culture and research.

Charis

**Charis** · November 27, 2002, 14:29

The Fearsome Bowman

Having seen an iron-based and a horse-based UU covered, let's
look at one that needs neither, the Babylonians Bowman.

Babylonians
-----------
Scientific, Religious, with a Bowman UU that is a disgrace
to the traits of the civ and with a horribly mistimed Golden
Age? An offensive UU with a lousy bonus defense point, and
you can't even make them from the start! It's got to be one
of the worst UU around, right??

Maybe not! The Bowman's balance 2.2.1 lets them own barbarians,
hold towns (not jut take or raze them), at no extra cost
to produce. The focus of this thread is managing your civ
around your UU. 'Pure' builders will ignore this UU and
will know what they need to do, so let's assume if you're
reading this, you're not scared to mix it up a bit! Let's
also assume that with this civ you're not going for
ancient conquest. You want a UU-enhanced early push for
your civ that will give you a very strong start towards
a game with a balance of culture and research, building
and war. Babylon starts with Bronze Working and Burial.

Let's look at TWO very different paths, both UU-centric

I. EARLY BOWMEN RUSH

- Strategy is identical to an early archer rush, opening
with two to four cities with barracks, finding the enemy
targets early, and going after them as SOON as you possibly
can. It won't likely be an "Ultra early archer rush" simply
because you don't start with the needed tech.

- Starting research is Warrior Code, at MAX speed you can

- Either OCP or ICS is fine, a few very strong cities, or
more smaller ones. The choice depends on player preference,
whether they are shooting for a cultural or military win,
how much they like to build wonders, etc.

- When you have about five or more vet bowman you're ready to
attack. The benefit of Babylon is that you do NOT have
to be making spearman to come along on attack. If your target
still has warriors on defense and/or didn't start with Bronze
Working, do NOT trade it to him, and gogogo faster. Facing
spears you'll want at least four bowmen per city takeover.

- Terrain improvements slightly favor shields, then food, then
roads.

- Get a temple in your capital as *SOON* as possible, even
first. The 1000yr bonus and the fact most AI ignore this will
give you a critical culture advantage to prevent flips and
improve AI relations. Take advantage of being religious!

- Whip the barracks. You're NOT mil and these are expensive.
Let that temple I mentioned cover this unhappiness. Slide up
luxury if you need to, but with only an attack 2 unit, and a
slow start due to researching WC, you really do want vets.

- Exploration is important, using Warriors you make before
learning WC. You want to find which target to go after,
speed tech research and trading, and deny foes iron and horses.

- If starting positions are culturally linked, you start next
to the Zulu and the Persians (yikes!) Keep two things in mind:
Impis don't retreat if you're attacking them while in their
cities, and a Persian without Iron is a dead Persia.

- Bowmen make GREAT pillaging units (earlier than Legions anyway)
as they can take some punishment, and kill warriors or horses
that try to dislodge them. Early pillaging on the capital can
wreck an AI, and makes them want to pay for peace more than you
would think.

- An early Bowman assault has one big disadvantage - a Golden
Age that languishes in Despotism. It's not THAT bad as the more
typical Middle Age GA will see you making cheap cathedrals and
universities. Also, an early GA push will let you kick some
rear on your *second* foe. If you go to the effort of a Bowman
rush and kick off your GA, for goodness sake don't stop at
one civ, cripple two! (Oscillate, don't try to wipe them out)

II. Monarchy beeline

- Let's take out the main criticism of Bowmen, the ruined
Golden Age, by racing forward towards Monarchy. You already
know Ceremonial Burial, so research Mysticism, Polytheism,
and Monarchy - just 3 techs! Even on Deity level you have
a good chance of reaching polytheism first, giving a MUCH
needed chance to broker for techs and get tech parity.
Even greater benefits if you reach expensive Monarchy
first. As religious, you'll just take one turn to revolt.

- The focus here is to use your UU for an early but GOOD
Golden Age that will put you ahead in the early Middle Ages
where sci and rel get a good workout and where you can
prebuild and effectively snag several nice wonders,
especially Sistine. 'Sci' means free tech there too.

- So what you want to have in place is a budding empire
ready to reap the fruits of a Golden Age. That means
a solid core with a decent amount of cities (not a ton
of corrupt small cities), good tile improvements, and
the tech needed to have something worth building. Trade
for literature or currency.

- In the "Monarchy" path, your war is much later and much
more limited in scope than others. The goal is to cherry
pick a small undefended city, or even a roaming settler
pair in your territory. You may not have iron or horses,
so bowmen are your offense (and defense) in this plan.
Your target is probably ONE civ (rather than two, above)
and you want peace as soon as the other civ will pay
anything for it, so you can focus your GA on infrastructure
and culture/science rather than fighting.

- The difference between this approach and a more common
ignore-Bowman and get Middle Aga GA approach is that you
use your GA and free tech to slingshot yourself ahead
going into the Middle Age, rather than get there after
everyone else and use the GA to catch up and try to pull
ahead a little. You can choose to use this Middle Age
slingshot for peaceful building or to run to Chivalry
with a strong core in place ready to have a second round
of war with Knights while some others may not even have
Feudalism yet.

What makes the Babylon archer rush different from others?
- Almost all others would choose a Mil civ which starts with
Warrior Code. They'll be MUCH quicker than Babylon, especially
with cheap barracks. But you'll have some culture and have
no fear of flips, and get a GA from your archer rush.

If you've only cursed Bowmen up til now, give this a try!

Charis

**joncnunn** · November 27, 2002, 15:03

The easiest game I had was Babylon (Monarch level), it was after that game that I promoted myself to Emperor level a few months ago.

I used 2 beelines in early game. First I beelined to Literature (for Libary to take advantage of scientific aspect) and then beelined to Monotheism. I built a mixture of Warriors & BowMen (mostly Warriors) in early game, and upgraded the Warriors to Swordmen when I got Iron Working. The Bow Men was used in a light war shortly after I discovered Monarchy for my GA.

I had also successful Rexed about 60% of my starting contienant with 2 other AIs present.
The first war increased my percentage to about 65% (razing of AI city crowding my own and forming a new city a couple of tiles west)

After I had Moble Tradition and was one tech away from entering the Industrial Age, the Persians decided to attack me. The other AI (on a set of deserted islands) actually had the last tech, so I bought it to enter the Industrial Age and get Nationalism for free. I then mobilized the economy which allowed me to easily produce the additional Calvary needed to capture the entire island. (I wasn't worried about flips due to the high culture rating I'd accumulated.)

No additional wars were fought, the game ended in a Culutral Victory.

**joncnunn** · November 27, 2002, 15:20

The Knight replacements are more useful on Monarch level than Emperor level for the first war.

(It takes too long for an early war of expansion to get better terraign on the Emperor level for Knights and their replacements.)

What the Knight Replacements are good for on Emperor level is the second war of expansion if your first war of expansion was fought with HorseMen and you build more Horse Men following the war to upgrade.

Swordmen Replacements are only really good for the 1st war of expansion.

The German Panzer is idealy suited for trying for a conquest / domination victory in the late industrial era.
They can't be prebuilt, so you need Factories, Hospitals, and Baracks built well in advance. Consider Mobiliziing for war early as well. If you haven't had a GA yet then Mobilizing + triguring GA could result in a very high Panzer production rate.

Calvary replacement UUs need to be pre built as HorseMen / Knights and upgraded the same turn you get Military Traidition and used in a war right away to maximize their usefulness.

For the American F-15s, just don't build any bombers and instead only build F 15s. These can be prebuilt as fighters. You really want your GA much earlier than Rocketry, so build Copercusus & Hoover Dam.

**Theseus** · November 27, 2002, 18:49

Charis, great responses... just what I was looking for!

(ahem, and where are the Strat regulars??

)

On your Keshik strategy, I would think Chariot pre-building would also be very effective, thus making an argument for a very early focus on gold, even if that delays Horseback Riding a little bit.

It's interesting... as I thought about civ management and the mass upgrading strategies to take advantage of UUs (whether cheap and numerous or expensive and powerful), I realized that this whole concept is a very direct demonstration of my Seven Pillars concept.

Apolyton Civilization Site

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=67506

Starting from the bottom:

Infrastructure: Many towns for the inexpensive pre-builds. Production efficiency through a focus on tile working for gold.

Key Enabler: Gold and more gold.

Strategic Advantage: Overwhelming relative strength, at BOTH the unit and force level, in warfare.

Cool.

**Konquest02** · November 27, 2002, 22:17

The Vikings
---------------------

As the Bezerker has amphibious assault, we should build in order to take advantage of this ability. Therefore, one playing with the Vikings should concentrate to get as many town on coasts to maximize thier galleys production. Galleys are the only unit that should be built from scratch, as Bezerkers can be upgraded. So a good balance of gold and "costal" shields.

Food for thought!

--Kon--

**ducki** · November 27, 2002, 22:44

Originally posted by Konquest02
The Vikings
---------------------

As the Bezerker has amphibious assault, we should build in order to take advantage of this ability. Therefore, one playing with the Vikings should concentrate to get as many town on coasts to maximize thier galleys production.

Do you really need as many coastal towns "as possible" or do you really just need a few strategically located coastal towns?

I'd opt for strategically placed. As noted on Aeson's "Scouting" thread, you can often make an educated guess about where you can find a Sea Passage based on your landmass shape - drop coastal cities strategically, build as many galleys as you can afford/as you need and send out the first 4 to the points of the compass.
Once you find your enemies, mass your galleys in one harbor, mass your Archers in the same(build a barracks). Once you can, upgrade to Beserk and go, go, go.

The reason I think this works, instead of making as many coastal cities "as possible" is that it's a long enough trip from Mapmaking to Invention that 4 well-placed coastals should be able to crank out enough galleys to get you there.

Another thing to consider - build a buttload of Regular Galleys before you build a harbor - these are your transports - then build a Harbor and crank out a bunch of Vet Galleys - this is your Escort Force - since they are all Vets, they are both the first to Defend and easy to identify. This could be risky.

**Konquest02** · November 27, 2002, 22:57

I have remarked that empty galleys defend first. So you might consider gringing a few as an escort.

--Kon--

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Managing your civ for the benefit of your UUs

Managing your civ for the benefit of your UUs

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