Playing Charlemagne

[vormuir]

Finally got BtS, started a new game, drew Charley.

Ugh -- Imperialistic and Protective, my two absolute least favorite traits ever. And a weakish start, too, up north by the tundra line. Well...

What's good about Charlemagne? People seem to love the Rathaus. I can see that -- 75% instead of 50% is pretty awesome. It's almost like being Organized, yeah? So that's good.

But his traits seem pretty eh. And the UU... um, a Pikeman with +100% vs. melee? What exactly is that good for? Pillaging?

New to BtS, Prince/Monarch player, so any suggestions welcome.

cheers,


Waldo

[Negator_UK]

Charlemange is good for medievel warfare as the UU can be supported by trebs, and later on cannon.

Basically you can build the UU instead of maces so your whole stack is knight proof This makes it easier to defend newly captured cities with whatever you have available.

When grenadiers and rifles do show up, yours have first strike and city defender, so keep on warrin'

So after liberalism, beeline steel, for cannons, but meanwhile you can still go to war with trebs.

As for his other traits, can't say I ever figured them out

[potatoe]

Expand aggressively and fight defensively in the early game. The rathaus will let you build more cities without ruining your economy as fast as the average civ, while the protective archers/longbowman and unique unit (coupled with the imperialistic trait and great wall for +200% great general emergence within your territory) repel any invading force and let you fight the ultimate defensive wars. Once you've settled enough great generals in your heroic epic city you can build an unstoppable industrial era army.

[Ghpstage]

While Imp isn't very good it does have synergy with the great wall and (in my opinion) with the UU.

The Landshrekt can beat a maceman in an open field comfortably, combined with roads they make for very effective stack destroyers as crossbows will be the only effective counter in most cases.
They also are effective stack protectors able to protect your macemen from enemy maces in a few situations. and then the obvious defence against horses. I wouldn't replace my maces with them though, they suck at city raiding due to lower base strength and the AI using almost all longbows for defending. All things considered, a pretty decent UU really .

The UB is in short, awesome. The -75% starts great just gets better as the game goes on with cities growing and becomes insane when you get some corporations on the go. UB also links nicely with Imperialistic as you can abuse the hammer boost from chopping more as Rauthuas can dig you out of some pretty deep holes.

Protective is a bit sucky in most instances though, but if you can get some stone the Wall Whip Overflow Trick can be really powerful.

[mystyfly]

Charly is one of the leaders with the most (but not-so obvious) synergies. That means, he can be very strong, if leveraged properly.

Protective allows high-level REXing without the fear of being eaten by barbs. On those higher levels you need IMP to manage to seal off a decent chunk of land. To get the cash to reach CoL and those uber-courts, you can use the money gained from the wall-overflow "semi-exploit" (make sure you get stone).

Large civs (and weak, in the case of the human player) often get attacked in the medieval - renaissance era. Since the AI relys heavily (probabely too much for their own sake) on mounted units, the landknecht is one of the best units to defend your cities at that time.

After the renaissance era you should have rejoined the techrace at the top and can do after liberalism whatever you like


I see though why charly is unpopular and not easy to play, especially on the lower levels... Not to mention his weak starting techs.