ALC Game 32: Holy Roman Empire / Charlemagne

Benginal

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All Leaders Challenge Game 32: Holy Roman Empire / Charlemagne
Played with the Beyond the Sword expansion pack


HolyRoman_Charlemagne.jpg


Pre-Game Thread
Round 1: 4000 BC to 2760 BC (turns 0-31)
Round 2: 2760 BC to 2000 BC (turns 31-50)
Round 3: 2000 BC to 425 BC (turns 50-98)
Round 4: 425 BC to 50 BC (turns 98-113)
Round 5: 50 BC to 680 AD (turns 113-144)
Round 6: 680 AD to 1210 AD (turns 144-181)
Round 7: 1210 AD to 1540 AD (turns 181-218)
Round 8: 1540 AD to 1804 AD (turns 218-272)
Round 9: 1804 AD to 1874 AD (turns 272-307)


Introduction

The idea of the All Leaders Challenge is that games are going to be played with each of the Civ IV leaders. With the help of all the posters who participate, an attempt will be made to make the most of the leader's unique characteristics: traits, starting techs, unit, and building. Aside from the leader, the other game settings are (mostly) kept constant for the sake of comparison. I will post the saved game files, screenshots, and status reports here as the game progresses.

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.

In this ALC game I’ll be playing as Charlemagne of the Holy Roman Empire. Before we start the game, a more detailed discussion of Charlemagne is in order.

Traits:

Protective: This trait, lovingly referred to as the worst trait in the game, gives free Drill I and City Garrison I promotions for archery and gunpowder units. It also lets us build walls and castles at double speed. The archer and gunpowder promotions are actually not bad. On defense their benefits are obvious but even when attacking it means that fewer city garrison troops need to be left to defend from counterattacks when the main force moves on. Walls I rarely build and castles I never do. So getting them at half price isn't particularly useful. However, when price goes down, demand goes up (note we're moving along the curve, the curve is not shifting). The question then is, does making castles half the price mean I will build them? The answer is still a pretty decisive nope.

Imperialistic: This trait is slightly better though still not one of my favorites. It makes great generals appear 100 percent faster and it gives us a 50% bonus on the raw hammers being used to build settlers. Be careful, this is not the same as a 50% production bonus to making settlers as might be suggested Firaxis. For example, a city with 6 :food: and 6 :hammers: would normally get 12 hammers to a settler. But an imperialistic civ gets 6 :food: and 6*1.5 = 9 :hammers: which means a total of 15 hammers to the settler. This is not the same result as 12*1.5 = 18 hammers to the settler. Also, Great Generals were fun at first but I've found them to be not that useful. Medics are nice but after one or two great medics their usefulness decreases. In other words, Imperialistic isn't quite as good as it sounds.

Starting Techs: Hunting and Mysticism

Well these are perhaps the two worst starting technologies. In his current teaching nobles to play thread, VoiceOfUnreason lists 27 different technologies that should be gotten before these two. Hunting let's us build camps on deer, fur, and elephants while Mysticism let's us build monuments, Stonehenge, and get a quick religion.

Unique Unit: Landsknecht

This is a replacement for the pikeman, which, maybe not surprisingly, is a unit I don't build very much. The Landsknecht is exactly the same as the Pikeman in that it requires Engineering and a source of iron and gets a 100% bonus against mounted units. But the Landsknecht also gets a 100% bonus against melee units. Unfortunately, they get nothing against archery units which is particularly troubling since the longbowman is the only unit of the era we have trouble attacking anyway.

Unique Building: Rathaus

Yay, something good to say about Charlemagne! To go along with his lame traits, starting techs, and unique unit, is what is lovingly referred to as the best unique building in the game. That's more debatable the protective being the worst trait, but the Rathaus is certainly terrific. It's a courthouse that decreases maintenance cost by 75% as opposed to 50%. That might not sound like a big deal, but it is! And it will allow for pretty much unlimited expansion once we get Code of Laws. I'll also admit that the Rathaus does make the Imperialistic trait more appealing since those settlers can be settled guilt-free.

Starting Position

In this ALC game, I'll be playing as Charlemagne, leader of the Holy Romans. I'm playing the game using the Beyond the Sword expansion pack and its latest patch, as well as the BUG mod. The difficulty level is Immortal, the map is Fractal, and the speed is Normal. I’m leaving all the boxes unchecked except for huts and events, both of which are off. All victory conditions are enabled. If you have any questions about why I picked what I did, feel free to ask.

Here is a more detailed look at the initial game settings:

Civ4ScreenShot0002.JPG


Here's a reminder as to Charlemagne's unique characteristics:

Civ4ScreenShot0001.JPG


And, finally, here is the starting position:

Civ4ScreenShot0003.JPG


I'll let you guys figure this one out, I'm going bowling. :).
 
Everytime I try to load a savegame from the forum my CIV forces me to unload BUG mod. Could someone help me with that?

I would move the scout 2W 1S and settle 1NW. This would make the city coastal and offer a riverside GH to work.
 
Everytime I try to load a savegame from the forum my CIV forces me to unload BUG mod. Could someone help me with that?

I would move the scout 2W 1S and settle 1NW. This would make the city coastal and offer a riverside GH to work.

reinstall the mod using the custom assets option
 
interesting start. My first thought is to settle 1NW of initial position. It gives us some coast and another hill but looses us 6ish tiles we can't see. If the map is ugly the current position may be best to capture unseen resources with the visible food.
 
Even *I* agree settling 1NW is best.

I love the landsknecht, btw. In that era, you'd rather stay peaceful (late Medieval wars to take cities? Blech. I'll pass). In that case, the landsknecht is very good defensively. You can use often use them instead of longbows, they're that good. Crossbows? Puh-lease. You might consider HAs for defending against seige, but that's about it. Also, when your city defenses are high enough, combat promotions trump further specialization. Especially if you can manage to get march from combat III.

Charlemagne is set-up to excel at turtling, and unlike the Native Americans, he does so at a time period where that makes the most sense. Thanks to IMP and rat-houses, you shouldn't struggle too hard getting the iron, either.

I still agree that those starting techs are bad and PRO is pathetic, though. I actually like castles in one or two cities, but it's not that big a deal. And PRO longbows are, unfortunately, competing against landsknecht. Again like the NAs, choose one or the other, y'know?
 
Another vote for SIP. Going coast when we know that we won't gain any seafood is not appealing to me since we're not financial.
 
Oversea Trade routes later probably make up for the 3 coastal tiles we gain moving. And if we happen to settle on a resource than we get an extra hammer in the city tile since its plains :)

Just noticed, its actually 4 Coastal as we get one 2N of the settle if we moved :)
 
Settle in place; there's no reason for Charlemagne to particularly favor a coastal starting capital.
 
Another vote for SIP.
Being coastal won't be much of a boost and trading grassland for coast is rarely going to be a strong choice.

Picture showing what I think the tiles filling out the BFC are. The info can be seen from the starting picture, I just zoomed in a little and turned tiles on to make a more clear pic. Might be considered a bit spoilery by some.
Spoiler :
CharlyALCStartreading.jpg

<- and -> arrows to point, South obviously means the tile below.
P = Plains, F= Forest, G=Grass.
Put together as P/F for forested plains, G/H for Grass Hill etc

Wish I knew how other people (Kossin?) overlayed the BFC with yellow tiles and text....
 
Settling in place will give us a better long term site. Significant hammers and decent food. It also provides a lot of bfc forests for chopping.

Coastal is better if it turns out we're on a water heavy map or one where we can plant a lot of coastal cities as this way our capital can build TGL.

I'm leaning towards in place at the moment. Any other things, short term or long term that suggest either city site to you guys?
 
From what I see in the Screen Shot I would settle in place for the same exact reasons graphically explained in the Ghpstage Spoiler ^_above_^. I would move the Scout NorthEast->East to explore a bit before settling.
Just my 2:commerce:, I might very well be wrong. :)
Greetings,
yatta.
 
1 NW sucks unless you want the GLH.

The only possible alternative to SIP is SW but it really depends on what lies over there... you'll be food starved until Civil Service/Machinery with this start with so many hills, consider an early BW and aggressive whipping to expand quickly.
 
I thought about 1SW, but it doesn't strike me as worth the turn moving and the turn getting the worker to the corn especially since it's probably no better than SIP. (EDIT: this is obviously wrong as we get the worker out 5 turns faster because of the extra hammer).

Also Kossin, since you seem to be waiting for the other Ducks to write back, :p, do you mind telling us how you put up the red what lies in the border tags. Did you do it in paint or is there some civ way to do it?
 
For what it's worth, I change my vote to settling in place, thanks to the screenshot Ghpstage provided. That's gonna be a really nice first city
 
My first thought was settle 1SW, the only problem being the unknown and certainly no river tiles. The river ends 1S.

Generally I hate to lose grassland hill for no reason, that's why I don't find SIP attractive, but could be the best what you can get.

If it were my offline game I would push the magic button with "regenerate map" over it.
 
certainly SIP, Wet Corn, a fair few hills, river, a good couple of forests ... not brilliant but certainly workable :)
 
Agree with Sian. Good chance that horses will pop up somewhere.
 
I thought about 1SW, but it doesn't strike me as worth the turn moving and the turn getting the worker to the corn especially since it's probably no better than SIP.

Also Kossin, since you seem to be waiting for the other Ducks to write back, :p, do you mind telling us how you put up the red what lies in the border tags. Did you do it in paint or is there some civ way to do it?

You still gain 3 turns on the corn and 1 of growth despite moving from the 5t faster worker so your argument isn't really good. Of course SIP is always the safe approach, it's a gamble to move here because the scout is poorly placed =\

I use Paint.NET for the text outside yes... basically the same thing as Paint.
 
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