HUI Game #2 - Boudica

Ok, here's the deal guys, since joining the forum i have quickly gone from Warlord to Monarch, now at Monarch, i am finding the going quite a bit tougher, So i started playing a series of games that will help me improve and move on from Monarch. I will probably be playing shorter turn sets than maybe the ALC's for example as i would want more advice, specially in the early game. Writing up the updates and posting the pictures etc might also make it a bit more interesting to keep playing the game.

I am not a very skilled player, in fact I don’t have too much experience playing Civ, so this is as much for my improvement as well as a learning platform for others, now we will be taking things slow to keep all the advice pouring in, as otherwise we maybe chalking up a heavy number of losses.

You can find links to all HUI series games here

Please follow the same protocol as the ALC series, in terms of shadowing etc.

Everyone is invited to offer opinions and advice, and to make your own attempt at playing the same game. But if you do play a "shadow game", I kindly request that you refrain from posting spoilers--i.e. any facts or even hints about the map, opponents, and so on--before I'm there myself. I'm trying to play the game as authentically as possible. Without further a due on to game,

Round 1 - "Definite Need for a Rush" - 4000 BC to 2725 BC
Round 2 - "The Double Rush" - 2725 BC to 380 BC
Round 3 - "The Defensive War" - 380 BC to 730 AD

Welcome to game number two of the HUI series and let’s get Started, our game settings this time around,



Standard / Fractal map, we changed the game speed to Epic to allow a little more war mongering , also I think most people play on epic so I thought why not though I definitely reserve the right to switch back to Normal speed in the next game if I feel like it.
Well on to our fairly decent looking leader ,



The reason I picked Boudica was that I was intrigued by the trait combo, Charismatic + Aggressive must surely allow for a highly promoted army right? It just looks to be one of the most synergistic combination of traits. She starts with Mysticism + Hunting, no worker techs! A bit of a negative but with Mysticism we can have a stab at the Henge (if we are not too busy killing someone), it definitely makes sense since we are Charismatic.
And let’s take a look at the Celtic UU & UB shall we …



The “Gallic Warrior” and the “Dun”. What’s with the whole hills defense thing anyways, I can’t say I’m a huge fan of either the UU or the UB. Maybe someone can convince me otherwise, (I learned to like Holkans in the last game) But then again a powerful attacking UU with Agg + Cha maybe over the top. By the way I never build walls so since our UB is a wall, is there any benefit in building one? I mean do we need that Guerilla I promotion for all units?
Now then, on to our starting location ….



Well, looks a very average start, nothing like our last game food capital. Too much brown around for my liking, should we move the scout on to the pigs to have a look at the terrain to the east? What should be our tech path here? I am thinking AH > Mining > BW.
Well let me know what you think?

A lot of forests for chopping is quite nice.

If you move the scout to the pigs, you'll get 3 tiles revealed: two hills and a forested plains. There might be resources on the hills (sheep?) but you won't know what's further. I would send the scout SW and then NE. This will reveal the most tiles and tell you if you want to go further west with the settler.

Alternatives for settling that I see are
-in place (trust the generator)
-on the wine (it's never a great tile in a capital plus you'll get 1 extra commerce but lose the Oasis
-1W if the scout finds something behind the trees

Techs... looks fine unless you get something that will have the worker be idle for a while.

I would go ahead and scout before posting the "turn 0" pictures. It makes the settling discussion easier. I would move the scout to the forested hill 1S of the pigs.

You could either settle in place or 1S; both have fresh water, but in place gets you riverside and there's the possibility that 1S hides a strategic resource. I will say that 1S looks a little stronger as there are more green tiles in that direction. But either way works.

Techwise, I would consider going for an early religion since you start with Mysticism. if you settle 1S, you could work the oasis and probably beat the AI to polytheism. Many of the posters here will disagree with me, but early religion is very handy, especially if you do build stonehenge and get a great prophet.

The standard play would be to take animal husbandry, mining, then bronze working -- see where the resources are, hook up, then rush someone. Nothing wrong with that.

I would build a scout first simply because you will waste a lot of worker turns waiting for techs if you build a worker.

Agg + Chm + heavily forested capital and the possibility of a strategic resource 1S. Everything about this capital screams RUSH. Proceed on that basis until scouting proves otherwise and especially NO EARLY RELIGION. Tech order looks good.

The “Gallic Warrior” and the “Dun”. What’s with the whole hills defense thing anyways, I can’t say I’m a huge fan of either the UU or the UB.

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G1 and G2 are defensive based, but with Chm and barracks and free G1, you are only 1xp away from G3 with its 25% hills attack and 50% WITHDRAWAL.

As far as the UU and UB are concerned:

- GW is a standard sword that starts with C1 and G1. What works really well is the counter-intuitive approach of promoting them up the guerrilla line, rather than the CR line. With a barracks they will all start with 3XP, but being CHA they get their next promo after the first battle (at 4XP). G2 gives them practical invulnerability to axes while on hills, but G3 is the real gem: 50% withdrawal chance while attacking (and a 25% hills attack bonus). The best approach I've found is to attack flatland cities first, since they'll only have G2 (plus C1 plus the innate sword city attack bonus). They survivors will all get G3 and will thus become gallic-pults. You'll find that you will very quickly have C1G3CR3 swords (only 20XP needed), which are quite deadly. In addition, they get double hills movement with G2, so they can attack at least as fast as chariots, which is key in facing fewer whipped defenders. Yes, you'll lose some at 50% withdrawal odds against the toughest defenders, but they're cheaper than catapults (and how many of them do you throw away in a game? ). All in all, a VERY solid UU - contrary to what most people say.

The dun is a wall that really doesn't shine until gunpowder. "What? I thought gunpowder units ignored walls!" Yes indeed, but I'm talking about the free G1 promotion that your muskets will get when you build them in a city with a dun. They then work the same way that GWs do - promote them to G3 and you have musket-pults, with 50% withdrawal chance. These work really well against fortified LBs with 60% cultural defense, and they get double movement over hills (and practical invulnerability while on hills). Is it a top-tier UB? Not hardly, but their has to be SOME handicap for an AGG/CHA leader. Pi-r8 started a thread on this which explains the basic strategy for musketmen in detail:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=340159
It'd be worthwhile reading before you get too deep into this game. I started a similar game myself, using GWs in the early game and G3muskets in the late game, and I found it very effective.

The tactical benefit of 2 moves on hills, even in enemy territory, is plenty offensive. That's a little better in MP than because the AI doesn't use tactics, but rather garrisons every city heavily...but it is still a significant advantage and when defending hill cities even maces will have a hard time with you, let alone anything earlier. It's not praetorian but it's good to have and can be built with copper.

Sawney Bean said:

G1 and G2 are defensive based, but with Chm and barracks and free G1, you are only 1xp away from G3 with its 25% hills attack and 50% WITHDRAWAL.

Click to expand...

huerfanista said:

As far as the UU and UB are concerned:

- GW is a standard sword that starts with C1 and G1. What works really well is the counter-intuitive approach of promoting them up the guerrilla line, rather than the CR line. With a barracks they will all start with 3XP, but being CHA they get their next promo after the first battle (at 4XP). G2 gives them practical invulnerability to axes while on hills, but G3 is the real gem: 50% withdrawal chance while attacking (and a 25% hills attack bonus).
The dun is a wall that really doesn't shine until gunpowder. "What? I thought gunpowder units ignored walls!" Yes indeed, but I'm talking about the free G1 promotion that your muskets will get when you build them in a city with a dun. They then work the same way that GWs do Pi-r8 started a thread on this which explains the basic strategy for musketmen in detail:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=340159

Click to expand...

TheMeInTeam said:

The tactical benefit of 2 moves on hills, even in enemy territory, is plenty offensive. It's not praetorian but it's good to have and can be built with copper.

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Thanks all for that input, yes i can definitely see the benefit of a copper based Swordsman with a 50% withdrawal chance ... , they may actually be awsome if we can get a sizable force of G3 units then eh ... ? Ok so we shall definitely look for every oppurtunity to put them to the test .

kossin said:

A lot of forests for chopping is quite nice.

If you move the scout to the pigs, you'll get 3 tiles revealed: two hills and a forested plains. There might be resources on the hills (sheep?) but you won't know what's further. I would send the scout SW and then NE. This will reveal the most tiles and tell you if you want to go further west with the settler.

Alternatives for settling that I see are
-in place (trust the generator)
-on the wine (it's never a great tile in a capital plus you'll get 1 extra commerce but lose the Oasis
-1W if the scout finds something behind the trees

Techs... looks fine unless you get something that will have the worker be idle for a while.

Click to expand...

I think i will select the settle in place hoping for a strategic resource in the BFC. I really am hoping for some early copper to put them GW to test ... . I like your thoughts on moving the scout and will do so.

slobberinbear said:

Techwise, I would consider going for an early religion since you start with Mysticism. if you settle 1S, you could work the oasis and probably beat the AI to polytheism. Many of the posters here will disagree with me, but early religion is very handy, especially if you do build stonehenge and get a great prophet.

I would build a scout first simply because you will waste a lot of worker turns waiting for techs if you build a worker.

Click to expand...

I am not going to go for the early religion for a couple of reasons,
1) I suck at it, the moment i gave up on religions my game became better.
2) As it is we dont have any worker techs, this would make it worse.
3) My thoughts here are "Rush"

But yes i guess it's a viable opening, but i think with the leader i have my thoughts are little bit more along the lines of .

First build Scout / warrior seems good to me for the exact reason you have mentioned, and unless someone can convince me otherwise.

Sawney Bean said:

Agg + Chm + heavily forested capital and the possibility of a strategic resource 1S. Everything about this capital screams RUSH. Proceed on that basis until scouting proves otherwise and especially NO EARLY RELIGION. Tech order looks good.

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Absolutely .

Obviously, everything depends on what the scout and settling reveal about the BFC, but, at the mo’ I’d suggest:

Re: settling. I’d lean towards in place.

Re: tech path. AH, mining, BW. Religion is tempting but I’d rather put those turns into TW if indeed there is another resource lurking. In any case, the UU requires IW, so BW will be handy early.

Re: build order. Spare worker turns are the key here. For that reason and, since AGG means Boudica can build a barracks at double speed, I toyed with the unusual idea of suggesting you build it first. However, a close zoom in when in the save suggests the hill 2E of the settler is unforested, so the worker (built after warrior) can always build a mine and avoid being unemployed. Moreover, early exploration suggests warrior first.

Shafi said:

Thanks all for that input, yes i can definitely see the benefit of a copper based Swordsman with a 50% withdrawal chance ... , they may actually be awsome if we can get a sizable force of G3 units then eh ... ? Ok so we shall definitely look for every oppurtunity to put them to the test .

Click to expand...

Just remember, you still need to research IW to be able to build them. You also need either copper or iron (they're not resourceless).

kossin said:

I would send the scout SW and then NE. This will reveal the most tiles and tell you if you want to go further west with the settler.

Click to expand...

Um, I could be wrong here but doesn't an oasis use up all your movement? I know it does for workers?

Gwyddelig said:

Um, I could be wrong here but doesn't an oasis use up all your movement? I know it does for workers?

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It does indeed.

Re: scout. kossin, you mention revealing more tiles to the W by moving the scout SW and NE, but doesn't that just put the scout back in the same square they're currently on? Perhaps you meant go SW and NW to reveal more tiles to the W? Alternatively, did you in fact mean go 2E and onto the pigs to reveal more to the tiles E?

learner gamer said:

Re: scout. kossin, you mention revealing more tiles to the W by moving the scout SW and NE, but doesn't that just put the scout back in the same square they're currently on? Perhaps you meant go SW and NW to reveal more tiles to the W? Alternatively, did you in fact mean go 2E and onto the pigs to reveal more to the tiles E?

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I think what was meant was SW and then NW.

Ok, so i'm going to play a short first round so that we will have more info for discussion. Hopefully i can have it posted in a few hours .

Shafi said:

I think what was meant was SW and then NW.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't do that because your scout will become stuck 1SW eating dates or some such at the oasis. Directly W to the pigs is probably your best bet in terms of reducing 'settlement uncertainty'*



*© Gwyddelig 2009 heh heh heh

Gwyddelig said:

I wouldn't do that because your scout will become stuck 1SW eating dates or some such at the oasis.

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The oasis is SE of the scout.

learner gamer said:

The oasis is SE of the scout.

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So it is. My compass is awful

Gwyddelig said:

Um, I could be wrong here but doesn't an oasis use up all your movement? I know it does for workers?

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It uses up 2 movement points. So a fast worker could still move.

Unless deer pop up, I'm not sure that there will be any other food resource in the BFC. All I could see are forests in the shadows. Move the scout first would have maybe made giving advice easier. The good news is that you probably have a strategic resource 1S of the settler.

Yes, I meant SW then NW, my bad.

Sending the Scout east is not much use since the base decision is to settle in place, it will almost only reveal tiles we'll get anyway except for a few.
There's 2 choices with the warrior/scout on turn 0:
-check your BFC to see what you'd lose by moving
-check outside the BFC to see what you'd gain by moving

Either way you can lose a riverside gems but in this case sending the scout west will reveal more tiles than sending him east to tiles we can mostly decipher through the fog.

Ended up playing the save for about 30mins before starting work: