ALC Game #25: Celts/Boudica, Take 2

[CivCorpse]

I would tech IW next. C1CR1Cover Gallics would be better for dealing with Mansa. IW would also allow you to work that gem mine for more research. If it isn't too late, chop out Stonehenge and let the GP that will pop up in 75 turns build your shrine. Mansa might not get a GP since he seems to like GS (don't we all). If you go the IW route, let some of them get G@ and then whack some barbs for the 1 xp needed for G3. With the free cover promotion they will do nicely for taking a whack at top defenders. The 50% retreat chance works on nonhills as well. And if he has any hill cities then the 25% attack coupled with free cover should be enough.

Next city could be 1NE of the lone mountain peak. First borderpop seals your borders. Then another city 1SW of the gems to claim the 2nd spice and you can use the fishies there to whip GW's.

Waiting for vassalage could mean he vassalizes to someone else for protection.

 

[Munch]

Sis: farm the silk!

Also, in my current game I've taken Ghengis' capital and razed two of his smaller cities. Unfortunately my stack is now almost wiped out. All he has left is one viable city and two small crappy ones. Should I go for peace while I rebuild my army or would you recommend keeping the war going while my production cities pump out units? My only worry with getting peace is that I would not be able to pillage his iron/horses. Any advice would be welcome. We're the only two on our continent if that matters at all.

In general I would say go for peace. Ghengis is no longer a real threat to you (with so few cities you can probably out-produce and out-tech him easily), and getting peace now will allow you to restart the war at your own convenience later on. However, if you have the units for it I would suggest pillaging his tile improvements before signing for peace: this will get you more gold and also slow down his recovery. Emphasise pillaging the iron and horses of course, cottages too because they are worth a lot of gold and re-grow slowly, but even pillaging his farms will be worth it. Hope that helps.

 

[oynaz]

CivCorpse's suggestion seems valid. Netting access to the UU, and being able to settle the potentially very lucrative jungle seems like a good move.

 

[madscientist]

Land is power. I say an all out assault on Mansa ASAP to get at least the holy city and some elbow room.

Some more specific suggestions

1) Axes with free combat I, Cover for a charismatic leader well out weighs Skirmishers. As of now he does not have copper, go after him fast. I suggest keeping both his cities and eliminmating him from the game, he will only trade away techs to your rivals later.

2) Forget Wonders.

3) You do not need a third city right now. Save the next to assure you get iron which may mean settling more to the north.

4) Do not wait for Mansa to build the shrine (he may not). Just run a priest specialist (get priesthood) with a pair of scientists and odds are you will get one in the first three.

5) Techwise, I say writing pronto to finish out the early economical techs. I would say alphabet next to try and pry Iron Working and perhaps an early religion tech away from the other leaders in a trade.

One final suggestion, something to consider as I have not seen it mentioned yet. Espionage.

If you get alphabet, start on spies and direct all eps towards the Americans. Then run the espionage slider up to steal what you need while building a military force and produucing the needed prophet for gold. At Immortal you will essentially always be behind someone in tech and thus you can actually steal techs more efficiently than researching them. At the same time you can use Boudica's lovely "Assets" to build quite an army without much concern about the science rate being low. AFter stealing techs from Lincoln to parity (if that ever happens) your vast military edge should allow you to simply absorb him. I know you do not follow the RPCs but the latest Peter game showed a powerful espionage game, granted that was at monarch but as I understand the espionage economy game only improves as you go up in difficulty.

So my finals suggestions

Kill Mansa completely ASAP

Tech towards alphabet and adopt an espionage economy.

 

[Joshua368]

Skirmishers are a little concerning, but Combat I City Raider I Cover should be able to take care of them. If they don't work on their own, 50% withdrawl Guerilla III gallic warriors should make a fine substitute to seige.

Wipe Mansa out, he'll help you out much more dead than alive.

 

[Bandobras Took]

I've got to agree that leaving Mansa alive won't do much to help you.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

At Madscientist: unless you mean to get for forture use to get medievel units like crossbows and knights or something, Celts dont really need iron early if they got copper.

Kaytie

 

[madscientist]

Hi

At Madscientist: unless you mean to get for forture use to get medievel units like crossbows and knights or something, Celts dont really need iron early if they got copper.

Kaytie

They need the technology for the UU, but not the resource. He still needs Iron Working for Gallics. But I get your point about settling a third city, not needed now. All the more for killing off Mansa ASAP.

 

[JammerUno]

Timbuktu alone would make an excellent catch, giving you an early shrine city, and the two city locations to the N and NW of it. C1+G3+Cover celts will make for excellent softening up of the defence, but they'll need walls and to kill some barbs to get the xp required, so those are most important. After a couple of those, regular CR celts after the first wave. I'm not sure how many you'll need to overwhelm Timbuktu. Like I mentioned, taking only Timbuktu at this point would give you some more good city sites and a shirnable religion, so you could just call off the dogs after taking that first city.

 

[sveusb]

Whipping away one population generates 44 hammers at epic speed, the same as a mathematics enhanced chop.

 

[Daedal]

I agree with IW next for killing off MM with Gallic Warriors. Then the EE focused on Lincoln. I don't know that the pig/gem city is good for your next city site. On the one hand it's a good site with IW and it brings your front closer to MM. On the other hand it won't be able to contribute anything to that war. A good third city site should be able to crank out some Gallic Warriors, otherwise proceed with 2 cities.

 

[Rodwell]

Iron Working and a blocking city...

 

[Munch]

madscientist lays out a pretty good argument for the use of the espionage slider in this game.

C1+G3+Cover celts will make for excellent softening up of the defence, but they'll need walls and to kill some barbs to get the xp required, so those are most important.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think Gallics need walls to get the free hills promotion.

 

[Joshua368]

madscientist lays out a pretty good argument for the use of the espionage slider in this game.



Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think Gallics need walls to get the free hills promotion.

No but they need the Dun to get the second Geurilla promotion... so they can instantly be the worthwhile Geurilla III.

 

[Artichoker]

It's a very contradictory situation here. Mansa Musa is great for trading techs, but he's occupying a key area of land.

Iron Working is critical for expanding into the jungle, but it's not very good for tech trading or research.

However, because Gallic Warriors require only Copper or Iron, and you already have Copper, there's no need to actually unlock Iron. You already have access to Axemen, which are quite strong with free Combat I. If you really needed Iron Working, it would be primarily for clearing jungle.

How fast you can tech toward the 1st tech trade without settling into the jungle will be the real deciding factor. Mansa Musa will very likely get Iron Working. If you can gain it from him in an early trade, you can save yourself some beakers by eliminating redundant research.

 

[rupertmonkey]

No but they need the Dun to get the second Geurilla promotion... so they can instantly be the worthwhile Geurilla III.

No, the Dun does not give an extra promotion to melee units, just to archery and gunpowder types.

 

[CivCorpse]

No but they need the Dun to get the second Geurilla promotion... so they can instantly be the worthwhile Geurilla III.

The Dun has no effect on Gallic Warriors because they start with G1. G2-G3 are available to all melee units that have G1. Only G1 is blocked as a normal promotion. Duns do not add G2 to Gallic Warriors. Boudica can get Gallics to Guerrilla 3 rather quickly with a single barb victory each.

I think a 3rd city is definately needed. Both for the commerce from the gems and for the whipping from the fish. I actually like the idea of a 4th city as well that claims the pigs and the rice. Trying to must an army from two cities before the window of opportunity closes is kind of tough. Four cities can whip twice as many units. Though Gallics with free cover are very good vs skirmishers, there will be losses incurred. Going at it with the bare bones army you get from 2 cities leaves a lot to chance. Just a couple bad RNG and the invasion could be stopped short.

 

[rupertmonkey]

The Dun has no effect on Gallic Warriors because they start with G1.

With all due respect to my pal CivCorpse, I would just like to reiterate that the reason the Dun does not help Gallic warriors is NOT because they start with G1. It is because the Dun does not help any melee units at all. The fact that the UU starts with G1 and the UB grants G1 to some other unit types is just a weird kind of redundancy that makes the Celts not as neato as they could be.

 

[CivCorpse]

It's a very contradictory situation here. Mansa Musa is great for trading techs, but he's occupying a key area of land.

The other AI will suffer without Mansa doing their research for them. He must die.

Iron Working is critical for expanding into the jungle, but it's not very good for tech trading or research.

The Gems alone will quickly make up for the beakers invested in IW. As will any cottages built in that area. By the time Sis has any techs to trade to Mansa for IW the window for Gallics will be closed.

However, because Gallic Warriors require only Copper or Iron, and you already have Copper, there's no need to actually unlock Iron. You already have access to Axemen, which are quite strong with free Combat I. If you really needed Iron Working, it would be primarily for clearing jungle.

It takes 25 turns for Sis to research IW. That time can be spent building a settler, infrastructure and stack defenders/garrison troops.

How fast you can tech toward the 1st tech trade without settling into the jungle will be the real deciding factor. Mansa Musa will very likely get Iron Working. If you can gain it from him in an early trade, you can save yourself some beakers by eliminating redundant research.

Settling into the jungle is a priority with or without IW. Because the land to the North just plain sucks. If Sis doesn't grab that blocking city site to the south then Mansa will.

 

[Gliese 581]

I think the best course here is to tech IW next, Writing is not going to help you at this stage when you'll still be expanding and you lack the food surplus in Bibracte anyhow to take advantage of it by running specialists. Sure the research bonus to palace with gold is fine enough but you're not creative either and it simply is not worth the cost at the moment.
You're definitely going to want Gallic Warriors if you attack Mansa in any case, skirmishers are tough and he will have that copper hooked up before you can hit him even on epic speed since this is immortal, pillage the copper then sacrifice a big chunk of your units to take Timbuktu, after that you will have an easier time of mopping up other cities with the gallics.
I would forego the pig as you suggested and instead get the gems up and running asap. Also send out a WB first chance you get to find SB's land and begin trading with him for the intercontinental bonus. With this strategy the best case scenario goes:

a) Gems asap for good commerce boost. Establish trade with SB for best trade routes.
b) Mansa spreads islam to Lincoln and/or builds shrine (even if he doesn't you can simply run a priest).
c) You conquer Mansa and spread islam to SB, then you lead the muslim block against the confu block with lots of cash from the shrine.

Be aware though that SB likes to found religions and will try to get one so it's not certain that he could be converted to islam.