ALC Game 32 Pre-Game Thread: Playing as Charlemagne

[madscientist]

Charlemagne allows for some interesting plays.

Going after an early religion while forcing out a settler on turn 1 is a great gambit that can be followed up with early priesthood to try and use the oracle to slingshot Code of LAws for an early Rathus (yes it is a very good UB). Given he has hunting to start, early archery should be enough defense to get the gambits done.

I would also like to see a late game corporation run to exploit the rathus even more.

Regarding the UU, it has one very interesting talent. It will target an approaching stack of dooms cats and trebs rather than melee and mounted units although it is succeptible to crossbows. Look at the UU as a defensive unit.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Regarding the UU, it has one very interesting talent. It will target an approaching stack of dooms cats and trebs rather than melee and mounted units although it is succeptible to crossbows. Look at the UU as a defensive unit.

Never thought of that; that is indeed an interesting ability.

 

[Optical]

Indeed. I never thought of it that way - that kind of gives it a Ballista Elephant-like ability in a way. I may use that sometime.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

@TMIT, Why are dikes overrated? Agree with the rest of your analysis here.

HRE is not a tremendous civ to start your game with. However each trait has it's uses. Imperialistic can be very good and is seldom 100% useless. It's main use comes in the early game which is good. Same goes for protective, it not only gives some safety early game. You can stack strong gun powder troops in your cities, MG's upgraded from grens with CGIII to defend against collateral i'm thinking of, then just declare on a stronger neighbor and let him sac his units on your cities. Take him out after. It's the typical underdog trait.

Rathouse is a very good UB, Landsknecht is truly worthless.

Forum polls routinely pick the dike as the best UB in the game by a landslide margin...in fact by a larger margin than any of the UUs in their poll.

I'm not saying the dike is bad per se', but a UB that doesn't come until the mid game and rarely boosts your highest priority tiles more than the base building is hardly a game breaker; I can conceive the steady bonuses of something like the ikhanda or terrace or even the sacrificial altar beating it in terms of "value of UB adjusted against base value of building and time available in game".

While the dike can certainly be a good UB, rating it THAT highly is overrating it . IMO the average perception of the Rathaus is at least a little closer to reality.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

What I like about Dikes is that you no longer need to settle riverside to get the Levee bonus. As long as your city touches some kind of water (lake, river, coast) (oasis doesn't count), your riverside tiles can get that +1H. And while coast tiles are mostly junk, it synergises well with Willem's FIN, as FIN coast can be decent.

 

[Dirk1302]

@TMIT, not really sure if it's the best UB. But it is really good. On deity SP comes around mid game. Tech rate is so fast there that you usually get it between 1000 and 1100 AD. And i think dikes give the biggest output. Also the game usually isn't won by this time on deity. On most maps at least half of your cities are coastal (conservative estimate i feel). Now even with a non financial civ i would work some of these tiles dividing between specs and these tiles when at happy/health cap as every coin counts.

Now this is more attractive with a financial civ of course. And with dikes you'll get 1H+3C, not as good as a riverside cottage of course but a very good supplement to your empire considering that most of the time you wouldn't really count seatiles as extra land. Actually that's what it feels like for me, Dutch have more land than other civs after dikes.

I usually like my statues city and work most seatiles there. Now i can do this in every coastal city, cities that tend to be a bit lack lustre. The statues city can be a monster production city with a dike but also a commerce city that gets it's infra in time. With dikes you don't need slavery so much as well. Just work some coastal tiles and you can at least get the most important infra up (if slowly). So i think dikes give you flexibility in your government choices as well. I haven't played Willem that often but writing this down i realize that dikes are very strong.

 

[Bandobras Took]

I found the last time TMIT posted about the Dike vs. the Shale Plant.

Here, when people were saying Willem is the best creative leader.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Willem is the best creative leader, simply because Financial is the best trait in the game. Creative is up there as well, cheap border pops really helps getting a snowball going. East Indiamen and Dikes are a mere afterthought.

 

[Dirk1302]

I found the last time TMIT posted about the Dike vs. the Shale Plant.

Here, when people were saying Willem is the best creative leader.

Health is a problem for dikes absolutely as we now have to choose between the good sea tiles and the specs earlier. And this problem comes up soon as you will often go AL after SP. Still from experience i know that moai city keeps on working lots of coastal tiles. Coastal cities have harbors so they're not as unhealthy as inland cities are after factory/coal plant.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Willem is the best creative leader, simply because Financial is the best trait in the game. Creative is up there as well, cheap border pops really helps getting a snowball going. East Indiamen and Dikes are a mere afterthought.

And if the game were only about traits . . . a Naval UU and UB limit his flexibility; his starting techs aren't lousy, but aren't particularly stellar . . . you could actually put up a good argument for Gilgamesh being a better all-around choice.