Gaul...Random Thoughts

[Roblord]

So I decided to try Gaul before moving on to the bit more complicated Byzantines. Started up a huge Continents map on King level at Marathon speed. I shared a continent with Nubia, Russia, France, and Mongolia. Some random thoughts...

1) France and Russia were both VERY close to me so early war was inevitable. I barely had my second city out when I made the decision to attack. Now...while I don't think a rush with just the Gaul warriors would succeed, I had no trouble at all with my Archer/Warrior combo. Wiped Russia and France out and then more or less continued the offensive steamroller to take care of Mongolia and then finally Nubia to have the entire continent to myself.

2) I really wasn't able to take advantage of their early Industrial district as I probably should have as I was too busy conquering and I reached Apprenticeship before I even built one...DOH!

3) The big thing I noticed was that I ended up having to wait to build districts until I could afford to buy tiles..as you can't build in the first ring. You can use mines to culture bomb open some land, but if the terrain isn't suitable...you're just plain out of luck.

4) I had zero issues keeping up in culture just building monuments and units.

Ended up winning a Diplomatic Victory, but by the end I had snowballed enough to win just about any victory condition besides Religious (which I ignored this game)

 

[bengalryan9]

2) I really wasn't able to take advantage of their early Industrial district as I probably should have as I was too busy conquering and I reached Apprenticeship before I even built one...DOH!

This has been my favorite thing about them so far... it's so easy to snag the first few Great Engineers, which for me went free walls in three cities, an extra district in my capital, and an easy wonder of your choice.

 

[AriochIV]

Using hills and mines to expand borders and set up good locations for districts is important and takes some getting used to. And it's very dependent on having the right kind of terrain available.

It's like a Minesweeper minigame.

edit: and let me add -- the lack of graphical clarity as to which tiles are Hills and which aren't (especially if there is another feature on the tile like Woods) really stands out playing Gauls. Having to repeatedly mouse hover over each tile to check whether it's a Hill gets pretty annoying after a while.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

My thoughts are that you don't want solid hills and you obviously don't want open grasslands. The ideal terrain is a mix of the two.

When you have too much hills, you don't have enough food early on and you're stuck with only one or two, albeit magnificent, districts per city.

In the plains, your mine adjacencies don't come into play and your districts are lackluster. Not to mention that you don't get the delightful culture bomb, so you have to buy tiles to place districts.

 

[8housesofelixir]

My thoughts are that you don't want solid hills and you obviously don't want open grasslands. The ideal terrain is a mix of the two.

Similar to Ethiopia with their cities and Rock Churches.

Interestingly, both Gaul and Ethiopia can benefit a lot from volcanic soil, which they can build their infrastructure on while having a good food output.

 

[Siddharth Venkatesh]

I think you just want mines with food based bonus resources to chop or work. It's better to Magnus chop some wheat/sheep/marsh and push pop that way than to work farms on grassland tiles. You can always sustain yourself via trade routes. It's not too hard to hit pop 10 even in super hilly terrain and that's all you need. It gets you the Rationalism bonus plus an IZ/Campus/Commercial and a district of your choice.

 

[8housesofelixir]

You can always sustain yourself via trade routes.

That can be a better choice for sustain cities than farm triangles, but Gaul won't prioritize CHs that much, not to say Harbors.

 

[Siddharth Venkatesh]

I prioritized them pretty highly actually. Trade routes are broken in civ 6, and campus science doesn't matter as much till you have either envoys for scientific city states or rationalism. My priority was usually IZ at 4+ as first district if doable or Campus if a 3+ campus was doable, and the second district was almost always a commercial hub or harbor. I think it works pretty well for them.

 

[topsecret]

edit: and let me add -- the lack of graphical clarity as to which tiles are Hills and which aren't (especially if there is another feature on the tile like Woods) really stands out playing Gauls. Having to repeatedly mouse hover over each tile to check whether it's a Hill gets pretty annoying after a while.

That's why I play with Tile Yields on the map. Not as pretty, but nice and functional. I miss Civ4 where the tile yields were clear as to worked and unworked at a glance. I can always tell immediately there.

 

[kaspergm]

Using hills and mines to expand borders and set up good locations for districts is important and takes some getting used to. And it's very dependent on having the right kind of terrain available.

On a sidenote. Doesn't culture bombs normally imply taking tiles owned by other civs if within 3 hexes?

However:

Spoiler :

<Row>
<ModifierId>GAUL_MINE_CULTURE_BOMB</ModifierId>
<Name>CaptureOwnedTerritory</Name>
<Value>False</Value>
</Row>

And indeed from testing ingame, their culture bombs don't claim tiles already owned by other civs.

 

[Tech Osen]

On a sidenote. Doesn't culture bombs normally imply taking tiles owned by other civs if within 3 hexes?

However:

Spoiler :

<Row>
<ModifierId>GAUL_MINE_CULTURE_BOMB</ModifierId>
<Name>CaptureOwnedTerritory</Name>
<Value>False</Value>
</Row>

And indeed from testing ingame, their culture bombs don't claim tiles already owned by other civs.

It specifically says so in the discription.

 

[AriochIV]

Gallic mines only take hexes that aren't already claimed, and only out to the 3 hex city radius, no further.

 

[Victoria]

Gauls culture gets them to the Statue of Zeuss first which is nice.
Working on - if building a unit helps the city with border expansion?
These guys can seriously slow down your culture victory.
I have 0 issue beating people up with these guys as long as you get Iron and a gneral and neither seems particulalry hard
Gonna also try a CV with them
EDIT: I can confirm that culture from a unit does not help city border growth (not that the Gauls necessarily need it)

 

[Xyuta]

2 things I have noticed with mine’s culture bomb.

first they don’t claim water tiles.

and second when you claim tiles with a mine culture bomb they are owned by the city the mine is on.

i experienced a strange situation where a tile 3 hex from one of my city and 2 hex away from another one was locked for the more distant city with no possibility of exchange, because I had claim this tile from a culture bomb I think.

 

[Victoria]

no possibility of exchange,

Works fine for me
Another random thought,
Because getting a builder mine first is key you get that extra culture bump getting you to code of laws and the +1 faith card a turn or 2 earlier meaning possible better pantheon picks.

EDIT: also as a small finer point, Laying a mine in ring3 does not expand another cities border

Spoiler :

 

[kryat]

first they don’t claim water tiles.

I’ve had it claim lake tiles; does it not work on ocean? I’ve also found it won’t claim past 3 away from city center, even if it would be within 3 of another city.

 

[FinalDoomsday]

They were fun but once I'd conquerd myself a bit of an empire I found the district puzzle just too exhausting for every city. I'm not a micromanger at the best of times to be fair. Maybe Byzantium will be more my speed.

 

[Victoria]

There seems to be so many negatives for them. I went to place a Harbor....So my city is on the coast but my Harbor is way over there on those cliffs?
Edit: Maybe Unhygenix lives there

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I've had mine culture bombs claim ocean tiles. There might be reasons why that didn't work for others. Already claimed or too far away.

I haven't had too much trouble with coastal Gaul cities. You just have to be cognizant that you have to put the Harbor away from the city.

In fact, in a couple of instances, I preferentially built a Harbor in a decent spot over a similar Commercial Hub because the Commercial Hub would sit on some primo farm land and Gaul really needs Food.

My main problem with the Harbor is that some of my neighbors didn't do a good job of policing their nearby coasts for barb camps and their barb ships could raid my Harbors too readily.

 

[kryat]

Ok, finally got a chance to play Gaul. Culture is definitely their path to victory. On Emperor, I’ve been able to build Jebel Barkal, Pyramids, Petra, Terracotta Army, SoZ, ToA, Machu Pichu!, Coliseum, and Oracle before the end of Medieval. All in 2 cities. This lends itself nicely to very high theater squares. Getting a large number of mines help, but the secret sauce is the Oppidum. +10 production for an unworked tile (2 quarries and lucky enough for 2 horses and iron) is a little insane to get in classical. My pantheon was god of the forge, which just pushed things over the top.