Brennus is very hard to use - suggestions?

[shyuhe]

I'm looking for some general suggestions on how to use Brennus on emperor/immortal games. His traits are nice, but his starting techs just suck. You need to either a) gamble on AH for horses or b) gamble on mining +BW for copper to be able to do an early game rush. I don't know if it's possible to outexpand (or at least not get screwed 5 cities to 2) the AI without expansive/imperialistic for the cheaper workers/settlers on immortal. I'm basically at a loss as to how to use him.

I can set up an early rush to grab a city or two, but it earns me a very unfriendly neighbor who will crush me at the next opportunity... Any suggestions on how to overcome the gambling nature of finding strategic resources with some sort of consistent strategy? I'm really starting to think that with Brennus, you may be better off just going mining-BW-archery while building workers/warriors, then chopping out settlers and whipping archers to build cities, as opposed to the traditional pop a second/third city, then rush nearest AI strategy.

 

[Giaur]

Brennus is a perfect choice for a domination.

cha: additional happiness during wartime and easier unit promoting also less risk of being in situation where there is no gold, furs, ivory.
spi: easier changing civics during wartime, also cheap temples, for additional happiness.

None of these trait provides economical bonuses.

But those benefits are not enough. Cities must be large, lot of trading is required. It demands health resources and good city placement and city managment.

 

[Giaur]

I had once similar game on Immortal (Aztecs). I had to produce wealth from time to time. Aztecs have no economical bonuses too.

edit: Also I would not risk producing GP points in every city. One GP farm (with national epic). That's all. And cottage spamming. Working Grassland Hills for additional growth instead of engineers.

 

[UncleJJ]

I've only played once with Brennus and that was on Monarch level. I found him hard to figure out as well and never finished the game even though I was definitely winning. The traits are fairly good and best used as part of a domination as Giaur suggests (but all my games start out that way anyway )

His starting techs allow another scout to be built for rapidly finding out where stuff is and for popping more huts. Mysticism is great if you want to try for an early religion and you can build a monument (for an extra +1 happy) or even stonehenge for an early GP and shrine as well a free monument in all cities. I'm not sure if you think religions can be leveraged at emperor level as they can cause as much trouble as they benefit you, but as he's spiritual you can pick and chose religions to get diplomatic and trading going.

So I'd suggest he is best suited to a multi religious based domination game.

His UU is disappointing and only a slightly improved version of a standard swordsman. I did build 3 or 4 of them and eventually upgraded them all the way to grenadiers. But a free guerilla promotion is not much use to melee troops. Guerilla 2 does give faster movement over hills and wooded hills which is a small advantage in enemy territory but they can't do much on their own.

The Dun UB is hard to make effective use of. Only the archery units (archers, longbow and crossbow) and then muskets and grenadiers can get the free promotion as it goes obsolete with rifling. That is a pity as drafted riflemen with a free promotion would be useful. I did build a few archery and gunpowder units with Dun but the free promotion was not very useful unless defending a city on a hill, which is incredibly hard to take anyway.

 

[SkippyT]

Oollala, you should try playing Brennus on a Highlands map.
It's aaawesome!
Gallic Warriors have access to Guerilla I, II and III with Barracks and Theocracy and Vassalage (easy to change from and to those techs with Spiritual)
But I disagree on the starting techs. You can get Hinduism and Judaism quite easily (if not Hinduism, then Judaism) for money.

 

[axident]

I'm looking for some general suggestions on how to use Brennus on emperor/immortal games. His traits are nice, but his starting techs just suck. You need to either a) gamble on AH for horses or b) gamble on mining +BW for copper to be able to do an early game rush. I don't know if it's possible to outexpand (or at least not get screwed 5 cities to 2) the AI without expansive/imperialistic for the cheaper workers/settlers on immortal. I'm basically at a loss as to how to use him.

I can set up an early rush to grab a city or two, but it earns me a very unfriendly neighbor who will crush me at the next opportunity... Any suggestions on how to overcome the gambling nature of finding strategic resources with some sort of consistent strategy? I'm really starting to think that with Brennus, you may be better off just going mining-BW-archery while building workers/warriors, then chopping out settlers and whipping archers to build cities, as opposed to the traditional pop a second/third city, then rush nearest AI strategy.

His starting techs and the lame UU/UB were the reasons why I voted the Celts as the worst civ in that "worst civ" thread. Some guy claimed that hunting could make up for the shortfall but then never came back to elaborate on how a scout can consistently produce "2-5" techs and other stuff from scouting huts, without reloading, and on Monarch or higher. Then I randomly drew Celts on my next game after that exchange, and I won, but it wasn't that pretty. Discussion is at this thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=212973

Now, I'm fairly new to Civ IV and play on Monarch, not Emperor, but I also made a stupid error. If I had to do it again, I would do everything the same except the religion part. That would have given me a slightly earlier rush and I probably could have taken down the USA capital in my first go, then do everything else the same way except having a strike force knock out Alex's capital while my main force was in Zululand. I also lost the race to Stonehenge because I didn't even bother trying for it, which helped in the early production but also meant I had to found my 2nd city right next to copper and not 2 away. Basically I think Brennus is okay if you strike early and often and make use of that Charismatic trait to have slightly larger cities, shrug off more war weariness, and have better troops. Also, I never bother with archery. Axes and chariots are anti-barb enough, usually just axes is enough for a long time.

 

[Giaur]

I like Galic Warriors. Free Guerilla promo makes them good defenders for cities on hills. And no Iron is needed. You can have Iron, but improving it lasts some time, so I guess expansion with G.Warriors is faster (even as fast as with Jags). However I never made an early rush. I always wait for cats. Sometimes I declare war on some civ early, but only when rival's settler is going to grab my land. I do not even have to capture the city. I kill an archer an have free worker.

 

[futurehermit]

Brennus has excellent traits. His UU is fine just forget about his UB. So, basically he doesn't have a UB (for all intents and purposes) and his starting techs are mediocre.

However, he has a LOT of early game happiness which is usually a huge difficulty at higher levels. Simply:

1) Build a monument = 2 happiness from being charismatic
2) Found hinduism or buddhism + build a cheap temple = 2 happiness from being spiritual

That is 4 early happiness from his traits (albeit 1 of those happiness comes from having a religion, which is available to all traits, but...).

So, basically, you are going to have a bit of a slow start in terms of your worker having anything to do. So, instead, you could consider opening with scout-settler.

Going for priesthood for early temples means you should strongly consider oracle. This will give you a priest which gives good synergy with founding an early religion. Spread it for lots of $$$.

With all that happiness early on it may be beneficial to work the land instead of whipping a lot, but that depends on the circumstances.

You could consider going oracle-monarchy for even more happiness and having really large cities quite early.

I think Brennus is actually quite good in these respects.

 

[shyuhe]

I appreciate the comments but I think a lot of you missed my question (or maybe I wasn't clear enough)... It as a question of how do you manage the early land grab against high level AI? On immortal, I'll deal with a 6-3 city ratio (with a setup for a rush on a neighboring AI), but reaching even that ratio is hard with Brennus because of his starting techs. And poly/monotheism is just out of the question - there is NO way you can get those religions and survive the barbs on immortal. Oracle on immortal also seems like a risky proposition. I may try it with marble but even then, that requires masonry + techs up to preisthood and barbs start breaching borders around 2000BC.

Giaur - did you just hope for a start that has easy access to horses or bronze? I agree on the lack of economic traits = bad news. I think I'm going to try an archery fueled Brennus start to see how that goes, or maybe futurehermit's suggested scout/warrior-settler start instead of worker first.

 

[lilnev]

First, I agree that Brennus is one of the weakest leaders, and his starting techs contribute to that. Getting a productive worker out is so important to the exponential growth of your productivity, and neither of his techs gives your worker something to do. Worker first is still preferred if you have something to work with -- an Ag resource, plus an unforested hill, plus some forests, for example, could lead to Ag-Mining-BW and worker-warrior-settler (chopped). And maybe your worker sits idle for a few turns while BW is finishing, but at least you have a couple of strong tiles to drive growth. Sometimes, though, you're forced into warrior-settler, or warrior while researching Fishing, or something equally awkward. And it feels really slow.

I think his biggest advantage is the Charismatic happiness, and that can suggest not aiming for an early rush. Use your initial city placements to block off enough land for your third and fourth cities, and grow your cities to their happy-caps while teching to Construction. Then you've got the pop available to whip up a quick catapult army. In the meantime, think of the added happiness as an economic trait in that you can work two additional cottages with each city.

peace,
lilnev

 

[Giaur]

@shyuhe: That's correct. Settler first. Even without a warrior. There is a chance that initial scout survives. If not, build warrior and then finish settler. However I would not go for that, when center of the city has 1 hammer. 2 hammers is minimum for early settler. Otherwise you will be delayed pretty much. If there are no tiles with 2 hammers, skip an early religion.
And you can survive on immortal with going for Poly. I never went for Mono, so I can't tell. If there is no horses, there is copper. If there is no copper there is archery. Remember you are starting with hunting. Of course bad scenario somehow excludes going for Oracle. But no quite to the end, you can chop Oracle and grab Monarchy.

I have myself quite dreadful game on immortal. I had even worse. Chosen QuinShi ind/pro. And there was no Marble neither Stone. No happiness resources and Jungle. I managed to build 4 cities. Much later 2 more cities. And that was enough, grabbed Liberalism first. There is almost always some escape.

 

[shyuhe]

I guess the poly route is just poly-archery to prevent barb trouble? I haven't played for the oracle in a while now (I resign myself to just skipping it) but I will try some test games to see if I can pull off a religion+oracle shot.

I guess playing Brennus just calls for a strategy that is very different from what I am otherwise used to. I normally skip archery for ages (until I go into anarchy in the industrial age and research it with overflow beakers) but it may have more merit as a reliable barb buster.

I haven't done settler first since I first started playing civ4!

 

[jihe]

What map do you play? I found thatin general fractal maps civs start further apart than pangea, you have some space to expand into and can start war with cats. Unfortunately you get a fair share of isolated starts.

I appreciate the comments but I think a lot of you missed my question (or maybe I wasn't clear enough)... It as a question of how do you manage the early land grab against high level AI? On immortal, I'll deal with a 6-3 city ratio (with a setup for a rush on a neighboring AI), but reaching even that ratio is hard with Brennus because of his starting techs. And poly/monotheism is just out of the question - there is NO way you can get those religions and survive the barbs on immortal. Oracle on immortal also seems like a risky proposition. I may try it with marble but even then, that requires masonry + techs up to preisthood and barbs start breaching borders around 2000BC.

Giaur - did you just hope for a start that has easy access to horses or bronze? I agree on the lack of economic traits = bad news. I think I'm going to try an archery fueled Brennus start to see how that goes, or maybe futurehermit's suggested scout/warrior-settler start instead of worker first.

 

[Giaur]

I hate fractal maps. Resources are just one mess. Perhaps the tiles too. There are too many plains (and other tiles) in one region. Standard settings guarantee more balanced structure.

 

[shyuhe]

well it turns out that there were two reasons why I was having such an excessively hard time. One was that I was playing lakes, and having the misfortune of having 3 AIs start near me = cramped at 3 cities. I did have the joy of trying to flip Alex's capital, until he declared on me. The other reason was that I was playing epic for once (I have gone back to normal). Barbs on epic aren't very fun without the great wall I really need to reconsider my tech order for epic games...