Asterix the Gaul -- Or: How to get the biggest bang out of the Gallic Swordsman

Lanzelot · Feb 28, 2012

splunge the 2nd said:
I always agonize over turning up the luxury slider, sacreficing money throughout my empire to avoid unrest in 1 or 2 high pop cities and often resort to scientists/taxmen to avoid it. Can you offer some genral advide on happiness management?

My general rule of thumb is: as long as only 2-3 cities are having a happiness problem, I tend to hire a scientist/taxman (or even an entertainer, if required) in those towns. With more cities affected, it is definitely worth to increase the lux slider and put those specialists back to work.
Of course there are exceptions to the rule. If all of these 2-3 cities would lose their magic number when hiring a specialist (e.g. dropping from 10spt to 9spt), then it is the lesser evil to increase the lux slider. Or if at the moment food and growth is the most important point.

splunge the 2nd said:
Simialrly, I wasn't thinking in terms of capturing the ToA when I took Washington. You're thinking in terms of the cultureal border expansion from the temples as a means to holding more land towards a conquest victory? You'd suggest I try to beseige Rome (and wherever they're building the GL), take the second line cities, demand the size 1 towns for peace and wait till they build the wonders for me?

Yes, except that the expansion from the free temples is "towards a domination victory", not conquest... For conquest the ToA doesn't matter that much. (Apart from the extra happiness, which may raise your empires production if you lack luxuries.)
The important point here is, that in order to achieve the 66% territory as quickly as possible, you need to cover one big continent completely within your borders. For this you need to cover it with towns in a CxxxC spacing without ToA and in a CxxxxxC spacing with ToA! So you need to build 40% less towns, if you have ToA!

For this it is certainly worth waiting until an AI city has finished ToA. Likewise it's worth waiting for other useful wonders like Pyramids, Hanging Gardens, SunTzu's or Leonardo's. (If it doesn't slow down your expansion too much.)
However, I would not necessarily wait for the Great Library in a game like this. We already have all the techs we need, and capturing the GLib even bears a certain risk, because you might learn Education before you got the cultural expansion from the Temple of Artemis! This would of course be a disaster...

So if you still didn't get the ToA-Boost by the time you capture the GLib city, and if you are uncertain about how advanced the other AIs are in the meanwhile, better raze it...

splunge the 2nd said:
Am I right in assuming I would lsoe out on peace deals after an early re-declare. Along those lines, I could have refused Rome's demand, made a good peace with America and then after beating Rome, finished off Lincoln.

Yes, I think I noticed that if you have once broken a peace deal before the end of the 20 turns, and other AIs know about it, then they won't give you anything (in terms of towns/techs) in a peace deal anymore. So even in a barbarian game like this, it is worth keeping your "peace deal reputation". Breaking gpt deals or resource deals, however, doesn't seem to have an influence on the "peace reputation". There seem to be three separate types of reputation: "peace deal reputation", "trade reputation" and "RoP reputation".

splunge the 2nd · Feb 28, 2012

Oops, meant domination.

Thanks Lanz.
Are we moving on or waiting for anyone?

templar_x · Feb 29, 2012

Lanzelot said:
Yes, I think I noticed that if you have once broken a peace deal before the end of the 20 turns, and other AIs know about it, then they won't give you anything (in terms of towns/techs) in a peace deal anymore. So even in a barbarian game like this, it is worth keeping your "peace deal reputation". Breaking gpt deals or resource deals, however, doesn't seem to have an influence on the "peace reputation". There seem to be three separate types of reputation: "peace deal reputation", "trade reputation" and "RoP reputation".

i am quite sure that this is not correct.

the AI will give you less and less in a peace deal, when you continuously break those. but they will never be as consequent as if you busted your trade reputation. from what i know, this is even seen as one of the major exploits in the game by many.

so by this definition you might call it a "peace deal reputation", but it would mean something different, i.e. what i said above (=you get less an less).

therefore, the recommendation in a truly barbarian game would have to be, break as many peace deals as possible to gain whatever you can.

t_x

Lanzelot · Mar 1, 2012

templar_x said:
i now remember that you stated you wanted to "test" the temporary town approach. a nice move to do make test in a competition (or maybe not, now that i think about it: it may also mean you do not see any chances on my side... you may have got a point there *g*).

No, not a point. The problem is simply: I had already settled that temporary town quite early in one of the first turnsets (turn 45). At that time there wasn't any "competition" yet, just an instructive training day game set up for students of the game who wanted to get better via "learning by doing" and getting some advice on their actions/decisions from an experienced instructor. (And of course I'm trying to learn something new myself...) Had I already known at that time, that a month later you would challenge me to our little private competition, I would certainly not have embarked on any "experiments" in this game...

templar_x said:
the AI will give you less and less in a peace deal, when you continuously break those. but they will never be as consequent as if you busted your trade reputation. from what i know, this is even seen as one of the major exploits in the game by many.

so by this definition you might call it a "peace deal reputation", but it would mean something different, i.e. what i said above (=you get less an less).

therefore, the recommendation in a truly barbarian game would have to be, break as many peace deals as possible to gain whatever you can.

This is quite interesting. I haven't seen any research about this yet, nor did I investigate it myself, but my memory from earlier games told me that I suddenly stopped getting towns in peace deals, once I had broken a peace deal before the 20 turns were up. Perhaps that "less and less" that you observed, depends on difficulty level, and in the games where I broke deals, it just happened to be the case that it already went down to "less = zero" on the first broken deal?! (Or I broke two in a row and didn't try to extort towns inbetween. Or the towns I tried to extort all happened to be next to an invisible oil/uranium/etc resource... :crazyeye:

)

But in any case, we can make the conclusion that breaking peace deals does have a significant negative influence on your chances of getting free towns. And since I noticed that, I'm trying to avoid it. And I think the tactic can be employed quite well without having to break peace deals: you just steamroll over one civ until they are completely finished and give everything for peace, then take all their size-1 towns and let them live as an OCC for 20 more turns. Meanwhile your troops conquer other civs, and once the 20 turns are up, the next units passing by on their way to the front, pick up the remaining town. Or if that town happens to be far off and sending troops there would mean a big loss of time, you just ignore it. The extra towns you can get from other peace deals because of your clean reputation should compensate for these 1-2 towns you missed out. (Big exception is of course on Deity and above, where you need to eliminate the civ asap in order to avoid nasty flips.)

Ok, let's play the next set! Turn 110, which is 350 BC.

splunge the 2nd · Mar 3, 2012

OK, not my best turn set but I captured ToA, Rome is all but beat and I found China's sole iron source. Somehow, I managed to muck up my turn log, but it came out OK in the end.

Spoiler :

My happiness monitorring left something to be desired. I built a few cats I didn't need. Exploration is still lagging but I'm pleased with the warring! The barracks I built in Veli I thought I'd need for healing, but turned out to be unnecessary. I've had poor luck with promotions. If I get a leader, I'm tempted to rsuh the Forbidden Palace somewhere in Roman territory rahter than go for an army. I hope I'll need to make that choice.

templar_x · Mar 6, 2012

@ splunge - i dl your save and had a look on the core towns only. i guessed what i will find there.

you need to have a close look on those towns, always. they are you main producers of shields and commerce. i will give you short notes on each town:

+ Entremont: size 7 with a mere 10spt is not what your capital should look like in 350bc. and even then a few tiles are not even optimized!
in my game, Ent makes 20spt, and every tile is optimized.
you are mining that core hill finally, that is good. but still you will not make it to 14spt, the next magic number. because there are no food tiles improved for that matter. make a comprehensive planning for your towns, and execute it. there are only a few really important core towns you need to do that for.

+ Camo: size 6 only? with 9spt? that is very very sad. you are wasting tons of potential here. you are working an unimproved plains tile. that must not happen. you better had improved the hill before the nearby mountain with 3 workers on it. hills are faster completed, then move on to tasks that last longer.

+ Alesia: sell those barracks, you will need workers from this towns forever. even your core has many too few. look at all those unimproved tiles! even the 2nd flood plain tile is totally unimproved.

+ Veru: should be one of your strongest towns, but looks like a pity. it needs that cow back from Lugdunum and to grow. it is on a river!

+ Lugdunum: works 2 unimproved tiles and wastes lots of food, while Veru starves and could grow.

+ Gerg: 2,5 unimproved tiles out of 5 worked. no magic number of shields reached.

+ Miami: already has excess food and now builds a harbour? what for? it won´t be able to grow much further.

+ Rich: wastes food and takes away good tiles from the much more important Camo.

+ Phila: will never bring you a return on that Court.

+ August: another outer town that takes away important tiles, here from Veru.

workers by Cumae should return to the core and work there.
workers from Washington area also. a sole slave builds a road on the gold hill??

after the initial builds, core towns need a plan how to get to their max use. outlying towns should then be abused for everything else, as good as possible.

and why did you not continue your exploration when you met Egypt? there are other tribes to be made contact with.

t_x

splunge the 2nd · Mar 16, 2012

Templar X, thanks for the advice. This is just what I need in terms of improving my game!

Here's my next 10. I don't know where we are in terms of who's playing along.

Spoiler :

I assume it's reasonable to let Beijing build the GL, so I'm working around it.
I think I masde a mistake in starting the barracks in Ratae Cor. I was thinking I'd build vet warrirors there and move them to upgrade to GS's, but it's corrupt. Does it gain me anything to cash rush warriors to then pay cash to promote them?
Next set, I hope to finish off China on our continent, leave Beijing to build the GL and try to get a city on the Russian continent in the peace deal to act as a staging area to finish them. I'll also need to finish Rome when it's been 20 turns.

Lanzelot · Mar 17, 2012

Ok, I was swamped at work for most of the week, and also the game now starts taking more time... I played the last turnset in 4 separate sessions of 1-2 hours each. So that's about 6h for 10 turns... Of course a big portion of the time goes into the write-up, but it also shows, that now are the decisive turns of the game, and they should be played with care.

Here's one comment I want to add to templar's critique:

make a comprehensive planning for your towns, and execute it. there are only a few really important core towns you need to do that for.

This is an important point. It is not necessary to make a perfect micro-management for your entire empire. That will only cost hours and hours, and make you frustrated, while not yielding too much in terms of outcome... And after all, the game should still be fun. It probably depends on everybody's personal taste, how much MM one can stand before losing the fun. And with the wrong notion about it, you can easily over-do it, waste lots of time, get frustrated and then fall back to no MM at all... But by doing the MM in the important core towns, you'll get a big "return on investment" and the game is fun again, because you're much more successful.
Basically it's an application of the "80-20 rule". 20% of MM investment in the important towns already gives you 80% of the benefits. And for the remaining 20% of the benefits, you would need to invest an unjustifiedly huge amount of MM work... (for which usually the time is lacking... I do it only in very important GOTMs.)

But back to the game. Here's now my turnset 100-110, and I hope I will be able to finish 110-120 also this weekend.

templar_x · Mar 17, 2012

where's the turnset? :scan:

t_x

Lanzelot · Mar 17, 2012

Spoiler :

Lanzelot · Mar 17, 2012

splunge, 101-110
Not much to be added to templar's advice. One more point, which may be useful: those four northern towns which are currently building wealth, could build galleys or settlers at 1spt. It may not seem much, but these units will come handy in 30 turns... (And if you have gold to spare, you could even rush the last 15 shields or so.) Especially settlers will be need en-masse in the last stage of the game.

Edit: I just took a look at the 150 BC save, and I want to repeat the above advice regarding Wealth for the 111-120 turnset: I see that now you are even building Wealth in towns like Burdigala and Philadelphia, which are currently making 3spt. This is definitely a waste, as you get only 1gpt in return! More galleys are always useful.

Lanzelot · Mar 21, 2012

Spoiler :

Ok, as the game is pretty much nearing it's end, I think I can now go and finally read templar's spoiler...

Has been pretty tough to have to wait so long!

Lanzelot · Mar 29, 2012

Ok, here is my final turn set:

Spoiler :

Lanzelot · Mar 29, 2012

The first thing to be noted: Camulodunum never settler-disbanded at size 1. Another thing learned: when agricultural, you need size 2 to settler-disband a town (as it can only be done at 0fpt or less)...

However, I did not care too much, as the town was not in the way too much for a quick and dirty game like this. In the beginning, this "temporary" town produced quite a bit of commerce and a big number of warriors, and that's all that matters. In a long running science game it is much more important to set up the core perfectly. But here my not too optimized core did not seem to matter too much compared to templar's perfect setup. I just took care that I was able to run Entremont at 20spt, a few more at 14spt and 10spt, and that was good enough for producing the army I needed.

So what factors did matter for this game?

First of all, the earlier Republic meant that I was ready for war (and consequently for the Golden Age) earlier. (The number of turns I saved because of the slingshot was approximately the number of turns I finished faster. Coincidence?!)
Towards the end of the game it is important to always have enough gold for cash-rushing settlers in far away areas of the world. The Gallics that get produced in the core, will never reach the front before the end of the game, but the distant settlers claimed a lot of territory. And in the middlegame the cash was useful for the disconnect/connect scheme.
So I think the markets, aqueducts and harbors I built were as useful as the GS you built in their place. (Assuming you would have finished around the same turn with a successful slingshot.) So it's basically only a different strategy, not better or worse?!
I had good luck with wonders: the Temple of Artemis, of course, and then I got the very useful Hanging Gardens (10% more cash...) and the quite nice (but not so important) Pyramids. And then of course the Oracle later on (another 10% more cash...)
On the other hand, for some strange reason nobody had even started the Great Lighthouse by the end of the game (which I think is unusual for Emperor level)! With a bit more luck in this regard, the game could have been faster still. But I don't think the investment of building it myself would have payed off?!
How did your game fare in terms of wonder luck?
Also important is to ignite wars on the other continent, some time before entering the frame yourself. This worked quite well in my game: France and Egypt had worn down Babylon quite a bit, and then I came and captured the Oracle with ease... It's important to give them the opportunity to annihilate each other's units, otherwise the full load will bear down on you...
Tech-wise everything went well as well: I stopped research after Philosophy (so I had lots of cash for the first upgrades) and then got the important techs (Map Making, Currency, Construction and the quite nice Engineering) via trades.
No Legionaries in Rome and no significant number of pikes by the time I was ready to invade the other continent. Due to this, my losses were very light and the military campaigns quite quick.
One point I'm still quite unsure about even after this game: did it pay off to build the Forbidden Palace?

templar_x · Mar 30, 2012

congratulations!

at least i could get some thrill back into the game with the competition.

t_x

splunge the 2nd · Apr 5, 2012

Hi folks, sorry for the delay, I broke a rib (long story) and was recuperating. Here's turns 121-130.
My exploration is advancing. I beat China and control the continent except for an arctic Roman city. My core is finally developed and I have the luxury to start clearing jungle.
I've built markets in my core and wonder whether people think it's advisable. I am massively behind in tech and have no real plan for catching up. I was hoping to snag the GL from Babylon, but by the time I can mount a cross ocean invasion, I may be facing muskets or worse.
On the plus side, I control 37% of the world, 55% of the population and have massive culture thanks to Artemis.

Spoiler :

Lanzelot · Apr 18, 2012

Sorry, during Easter vacation and then trying to finish the tough Deity COTM89 before the deadline (which I missed anyway), I didn't have much time for the appropriate end of this game here.

But anyway, I have updated my resume in post #294 now.
And splunge: I'll prepare some comments on your latest turnset for tomorrow. Of course, after you stayed with us all the way up to this point, we should now guide you to your successful finish as well. Wouldn't be nice to leave you, now that my game is finished...

splunge the 2nd · Apr 19, 2012

No prob Lanz. I've continued playing. Here's the next 10, and I'm another halfway through the next set

Spoiler :

In hindsite, I should have not bothered with temples on the Russian continent. Settlers would have given me unit support and more income vs upkeep and have been faster at spreading the cultureal borders.
In my current turn set, I'm looking at a tough fight with France, Egypt adn Babylon. Babylon, with the GL seems a good choice. I'll prob bribe the others to gang up on her before I try to get my GS's into tussles with muskets.
I assume, the point of the SG was a domination win with only GS's?

Lanzelot · Apr 21, 2012

First of all: a speedy recovery with your broken rib! Now let's finally comment on your game.

splunge the 2nd said:
I assume, the point of the SG was a domination win with only GS's?

Originally it was (in the process trying to highlight the necessary strategies for achieving this), but if it becomes too hard, there is no reason to be bullheaded and to try and go through the wall with your head. And it may turn out to be quite hard, if the other continent has indeed already built a good number of muskets. (Did your passing galley already notice any?)

In 50 AD you had 736 tiles, now in 250 AD Russia crumbled easily and you are at 864 tiles, which is 43%. So the estimate is that you need ~1300 tiles for domination. Roughly 100 tiles can still be gained in Russia and here and there, but the remaining 350 tiles will have to come from the other continent, and this means one of the three nations plus a good chunk out of a second one... The other continent had Feudalism for quite some time now, and all three of them have iron connected, that means we'll definitely meet pikes and lot's of them... And already against pikes, it is no longer fun with our Gallics...

(This is the big disadvantage of the Celts: either you get the job done with GS, or you need to build up a completely new Knight- or Cav-based army from scratch. In the recent COTM 89, where we played the Iroquois on a Deity Pangaea map, I used a very similar approach as in this game (the Mounted Warrior is quite similar to the GS, and both civs are agricultural), however with the big difference that once the AIs had pikes (which happens quite early on Deity Pangaea...) I simply upgraded my MWs to Knights, and towards the end of the game, when muskets started appearing, I upgraded the same units to Cavs. This allowed a smooth victory, even on Deity; a victory which would not have been so easy with the Celts. The Gallic Swordsman is basically a dead end: upgrading to Medieval Infantry is not really an option, they are too slow and have a similarly high loss rate because they don't retreat. And by the time you can upgrade the MI to Guerrillas, you will already be facing Infantry...

).

So anyway, if you want to continue pursuing a domination victory, the following plan is probably best:

The most important point: declare war on Babylon and sign the other two up to join that war. No more time to waste.
Optimize your GS output! For example, Entremont is working at 19spt. Join a worker and it can do 20spt and produce a GS every other turn. Most of the first-ring towns should be brought to 10spt soon, and then use disconnect/connect! You have a big pile of cash, so this is the best way to make many units quickly!
You need a very large galley capacity on the east coast, so rush a few galleys there asap! You need to ship a large force over to the other continent, before everyone has muskets. Sailing the western ships around to the east will take too long. Just ship the Russian units back to the main continent and let them cross on foot.
Pick Egypt or Babylon as your target. France has the Great Wall, that is going to be ugly... (Or if France is the only one without muskets, sign a RoP and take Paris in a surprise attack...)
Start building horsemen as well. Once your GS attacks start to stall, finish Engineering and buy Feudalism, Invention and Gunpowder, etc (should be available for cheap or via pointy stick...) and research the missing techs to Military Tradition, while putting the war on hold and producing horsemen. Cavalry should then push you over the domination limit. (Don't bother with Chivalry: Knights against Muskets isn't much fun either.)

If these possibly bloody wars don't appeal to you, I can also suggest a different strategy for an easy victory. You have a huge continent under control (43% territory), you have ToA, the Pyramids and you are religious! This can be combined for a fool-proof victory as follows:

Rush settlers everywhere and ICS your main continent in CxC style. Every new town gives you a free temple.
Then buy Feudalism (price is currently 480g) and choose it as new government. Also irrigate everything, so your towns grow quickly.
Now you can pop-rush half-priced Cathedrals (benefit of the religious trait!) everywhere. Just make sure that the towns stay big enough to always have 5fpt. Then they keep growing every two turns, thanks to the Pyramids, which means even the most corrupt far away town can "produce" 10spt and produce the Cathedral in only 8 turns. (Part-rush every 4 turns via MI -> Cathedral.)
In tundra towns, that don't grow, you can rush by joining workers.
Towns that already have a Cathedral can continue with Library and Colosseum.
Russia can also be ICSed, even though you first need to rush temples here and the towns don't grow as fast due to the missing Pyramids-effect.

I would expect that with that strategy you can sail home an easy 100K victory around 1500 -1600 AD. If you keep the other continent warring against each other, they won't do much useful during this time...

splunge the 2nd · Apr 23, 2012

Thanks for the input Lanzelot. My rib is sore, but manageable.
I did spot Muskets with my touring galley.
I tried to get an alliance against Babylon with no luck. Apparently declaring first is the critical step!
I'm trying my gallic swordsman assault. I was planning Babylon as the victim as I wanted to try the GL slingshot. I'm not sure how advanced France and Egypt are, though.
I may replay from here for a 100K, as I've never actually won that way yet.
Thanks for sticking with me. Here's my next 10. I hope my documentation is OK. Oddly, my war game, I thinks, is my strong suit while my worker management and micrromanagement, which goes undocumented, is my weaker.

Spoiler :

Asterix the Gaul -- Or: How to get the biggest bang out of the Gallic Swordsman

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