ALC Game #25 Pre-Game Show: Playing as the Celts/Boudica

There is one other minor advantage to a dun over a wall other than the guerilla promotion, it gives 3000 soldiers instead of 2000.
 
This is my first post but i read alot of your previous games and found em very interesting and wanted to wish you good luck in this game!
 
this should be good...
 
I also vote for shuffle map. Playing as Boudica is much more straightforward than some of the other leaders, so it would be nice to leave a little up to chance. :lol:
 
Big fan of the ALC games!

Just wanted to make a case for trying out the Guerilla 2 and 3 promoted Gallics. They are indeed very unusual and I found them fun and powerful in a game i just started.

I just played the beginning of a monarch Boudica game. Aside for the 50% withdrawl chance and improved attack vs hill, I found the mobility of these guys amazing. For instance AI workers and reinforcements dont expect you to pop over hills and be able to attack so you have some easy kills. And although you are best to keep them on hills, they are strength 6 and start with combat so if you land in a forest or even in the open, they arent an easy kill.

In the game I started, I didn't really have a plan. It was Hesphut and I on an island. I got 2 expansion cities founded to block my end of the island, built stonehenge, barracks, librairies, cottages, duns, the pyramids, then got more 2 fill-in cities founded by the time i got ironworking. I built about 8 G2 gallic warriors and 2 axemen and attacked with reinforcement gallices in queue. I figured it was suicidal but she was about to get too powerful. She had about 6 cities with horses and iron hooked up recently. I had just researched construction but didnt think I could wait for the catapults.

Well the first city fell with one loss. Her capitol was 2 tiles away; a plain and a hill. So the uninjured stack just moved out immediately. The next turn they climbed the hill and attacked the same turn. She had no time to whip or get reinforcements so it was only 3 archers. To my surprise the capital/shrine city fell with one or two dead GW's; cant remember, but now i had several G3 GW's and CR1 G2 GW's. The next city was on a hill and my first G3 GW withdrew (and was promoted to CR1 G3) and the other defenders fell easy and I razed the city. Then this highly mobile stack raced to the other side of her empire and raised all her remaining cities but one, then received 3 techs for peace. :lol:

The mobility of this army was what impressed me the most. I did have a catapult during most of this short war but it couldnt keep up. The trade off of attacking an unprepared city with cultural defenses vs dragging your catapults and waiting for them to do their work...at least in this game the lightning attack made more sense. The other thing I noticed was as this unit is and early UU, there are lots of forests and jungle. So these guys are tough to kill because its fairly easy to keep them hopping from hill to forest, hill to forest, traveling the terrain even faster than mounted units.

Anyway look forward to seeing this game unfold. :goodjob:
 
Wow looks like I'm late to the party :p.

Well with the Celts, if you want to fully leverage their UB you haveto tech differently then normal... kinda like Spain delaying Economics, in the Celts case you should delay Rifling, I know that may sound kinda conflicting with a leader like Bodica on a level like Immortal.

The Reason why I would delay Rifling and Beeline Gunpowder and Military Science is because, this way you can build heaps of Grenadiers with Free GI Promotion, and Draft or build Free GI Musketmen which you can later Upgrade to Rifles that have free GI Promos.

GI is more useful then you expect it to be, because when Attacking you tend to travel the most Safe route through Froest and hills, and if the AI counter attacks you on a Hill that's an extra 45% Defensive bonus for your stack.

as for the UU, the only time I found it's UU bonus useful was when I forced the AI from travelling the Safe route when I was on the Defensive. I'd fortify on any nearby hill with GII Gallics, and force the SOD to either travel on flatland where they didn't receive any defensive bonus which put me at a advantage or they'd attack my GII Gallics on a Hill and usually suffered more loses then I would. I'd say on average they'd lose 2 -3 units for every defending Gallic. Since a Gallic with GII on a Hill received a defensive 75% Bonus which would even have better odds vs an attacking Shock Axemen.

As for Traits and Techs that's pretty obvious, except I reccommend beelining down the Mathamatics, Construction, Currency & COLs line then later beeline Gunpowder Chemistry and Military Science.

Btw the 50% withdrawal chance form GIII only applys when your unit attacks a hill. ( I think... can't remember I stopped playing Civ4 after my Graphics card broke and too poor to afford another one)

I also Reccommend Experimenting with GII Crossbowmen, they might make good pillagers... but i've never properly tried it.
 
The Reason why I would delay Rifling and Beeline Gunpowder and Military Science is because, this way you can build heaps of Grenadiers with Free GI Promotion, and Draft or build Free GI Musketmen which you can later Upgrade to Rifles that have free GI Promos.

The description I'm reading for the Dun says it gives Guerrilla I to all "land units." Are riflemen not a land unit? Is the description wrong? Is there some other limitation on who does and doesn't get the promotion?

I'm assuming it's really only available to all land units who would otherwise be eligible for the Guerrilla I promotion (i.e. not mounted units), but that still includes riflemen since it includes all gunpowder units.

Edit: Ah, I see ... walls are obsolete with Rifling, so Duns are as well. Oops.
 
Edit: Ah, I see ... walls are obsolete with Rifling, so Duns are as well. Oops.

Yeah I should've mention it but since the game has been out for a long time I thought Civ Fans like us would already know.

Yeah it stinks that Dun Obsolete, if they never obsoleted, they would make a pretty decent UB.
 
The description I'm reading for the Dun says it gives Guerrilla I to all "land units." Are riflemen not a land unit? Is the description wrong? Is there some other limitation on who does and doesn't get the promotion?

I'm assuming it's really only available to all land units who would otherwise be eligible for the Guerrilla I promotion (i.e. not mounted units), but that still includes riflemen since it includes all gunpowder units.

Melee units generally can't get guerilla. The Gallic Warrior is an exception. So the UB and UU aren't exactly redundant. The UU gets a promotion that the UB grants to other units. It'd be pretty cool if the UU automatically came out with Guerilla II when it was produced in a city with a Dun, but such is not the case.

I really like Guerilla III. It's not something I would do otherwise, but with the Celts they're fun. And once they get rolling and you can add City Raider in (along with the free Combat I), they're pretty devastating.

I'd also advocate getting a religion and Stonehenge, mostly for economic reasons, though the happiness ain't bad.

I'd pretty much ignore the Dun, except in cities that are built on hills and if you have stone.
 
Sis, I am a fan of yours and you are the main reason I joined.
One thing you can do is to show how to regrow your economy after warring. Not trash it A LOT but enough to get the message through.
Another is to us an early game war the REX late game. It is possible. By wiping out all/capturing all civs capitals within range you get vassals and land.
 
Btw the 50% withdrawal chance form GIII only applys when your unit attacks a hill. ( I think... can't remember I stopped playing Civ4 after my Graphics card broke and too poor to afford another one)

Can anyone confirm (or deny) this? It seems like a pretty critical point. If the withdrawal chance only works when you're attacking a hill tile, that kind of sucks, but I guess it makes sense that a hill-oriented promotion shouldn't add a universal withdrawal chance.

I took a very quick glance at the XML file that defines promotions, and I don't see anything obvious that would restrict it to hill attacks.
 
Can anyone confirm (or deny) this? It seems like a pretty critical point. If the withdrawal chance only works when you're attacking a hill tile, that kind of sucks, but I guess it makes sense that a hill-oriented promotion shouldn't add a universal withdrawal chance.

I took a very quick glance at the XML file that defines promotions, and I don't see anything obvious that would restrict it to hill attacks.

OK, Not being a firm believer in what the civopedia says, I opened world builder and placed a G3Gallic next to a maceman. The tool tip listed a 49.6% chance of withdrawal. Being an even bigger sceptic of the tool tips than I am of the Civopedia....I attacked. And withdrew. This was on flatlands attacking flatlands. Conclusion: G3 grants withdrawal to all attacks.
 
I had a great post all written with deeply insightful commentary and a touch of wit but it got dumped because I got logged out. You'll have to make do with a mediocre follow up.

I played a Monarch game with Boudica in preparation for this ALC. I had never played with her before so it was an interesting run through. Boudica is clearly built for war, as we all know. So this is what worked for me and my two bit advice.

Start with worker techs and get your capital and another couple of cities running. Stonehenge is nice, but it's hardly necessary and you won't get it. Just hope a neighbour gets it.

Tech through iron working, obviously, and get Gallic Warriors going. Lots of people say the Dun sucks, and it isn't the awesome, but it ain't bad at all. Duns will shoot your power rating up, which admittedly isn't that big of a deal since you're going to be building an army and warring, but it doesn't hurt if you have a Shaka on one side and a Monty on the other.

The Guerilla promotions are getting short shrift here. You do want to use them. Those GWs will start off with C1, G2 and another promotion just from your traits, barracks and Dun. GIII GWs fly across the land thanks to their double hill movement. The retreat ability will keep your attrition lower than normal and they remove the defensive bonus granted to your enemies on hills.

The key to Boudica is using those GGs that you will be accruing like mad. Settle them. Forget the über medic, you won't need him. XPs are king. Highly promoted armies are easy to achieve with this gal and it creates a snowball effect where each war becomes faster and leaves you set up for your next. Settled GGs and Duns mean you will have C1, GIII and CRII or CRIII Gallic Warriors rolling out as an unstoppable army. A lot will survive a great many battles for promotions to rifleman and infantry thanks to that retreat.

To help with the GGs I would try to get the GW. During wars with neighbours try to lure a stack to attack your Gallic Warriors and archers on a hill at the border. Your GG points positively shoot up.

In my game Genghis was a nearby civ with the GW and his imperialistic trait. He was almost constantly at war with his neighbour, Tokugawa, and amassed a ridiculous amount of GGs. When I took Karakorum from him in the Renaissance, he had settled 6 or 8 GGs there. My army was ridiculous after that.

Economically I didn't have any problems, although this was on Monarch so the curve will be different. Just raze any less than optimal cities and keep capitals. Boudica's economy is based on rape, pillage and plunder. Go forth and be a scourge to any and all civs that you encounter.
 
Henge before second city while researching worker tec's, first city to get metal online then spam mil. Watch the AI build all the cities for you, and just as you are taking them the very very early GP arrives to get you out of the hole. If someone has been kind enough to found a religion all th better, but otherwise early court's or even settled. A settled GP early enough can keep the economy afloat for the trek to CoL or Currency, and it's the gift that keeps on giving.
 
Seeing as how you need only 8 xp for a C3+march gunpowder unit it seems a waste not to have a supermedic, units healing on the move with a medic will be at full health when they reach the next target, which is great, even if it means they just protect the artillery ater attacking.
 
Seeing as how you need only 8 xp for a C3+march gunpowder unit it seems a waste not to have a supermedic, units healing on the move with a medic will be at full health when they reach the next target, which is great, even if it means they just protect the artillery ater attacking.

See, I'm a seat-of-my-pants kind of civver. I don't do a lot of math when I'm playing and it's probably why I'm a solid Monarch and ham and egg Emperor player. However, this seems to reinforce why I wouldn't go for a super medic. Go for a medic II, sure, but use those GGs for XPs that all of your forces will enjoy. A medic II and march soldiers will be doing quite well by the time they hit their next target.

I was cranking out units with 21 XP at the end of my game. I wasn't hampered by spent units. I really think settling those GGs is the way to go.
 
One of the reasons for merging your first Great General and making the super medic is to enable the Heroic Epic and West Point. It's not impossible to get that level 6 unit naturally , without using a Great General (and with Boudica it's easier than with many other leaders), but it's a lot easier with the general.
 
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