Gaul...Random Thoughts

[newbie2]

So it says "speciality districts don't provide minor adjecency bonusses" (which as pointed out, makes things like harbours akward) but aparently the dam or aquaducts don't provide adjecency either? they are not speciality as far as I was aware?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

So it says "speciality districts don't provide minor adjecency bonusses" (which as pointed out, makes things like harbours akward) but aparently the dam or aquaducts don't provide adjecency either? they are not speciality as far as I was aware?

Specialty districts don't receive minor adjacency bonuses. The Dams and Aqueducts don't grant them because the specialty districts can't receive them.

 

[newbie2]

Specialty districts don't receive minor adjacency bonuses. The Dams and Aqueducts don't grant them because the specialty districts can't receive them.

ok thank you, that explains it. Im still at a loss on how to play them. The bonuses just feel so disjointed (like their districts) and even more terrain dependant than Ethiopia.
The oppidum and mine focus push you towards science (and the free culture allows you to stay up in the civic tree), but if you don't have sufficient mountains around, your campuses will be of mediocre quality as mines only give 0.5. And industrial hubs with aquaducts and dams are not an option for them apparently...

On the other hand, free culture and the production bonus can push you towards culture and the wonders, but there are no bonuses to earning GWAP, or faith to buy rockbands and naturalist. But your appeal will be down the drain with all those mines (and natural park placement will be even more akward with all those disjointed districts).

(those are the only two victories I usually go for, sometimes religion)

Even money is harder than usual because building decent commercial and harbor districts isnt easy either. And because you can't lock a district cost when founding new cities, you tend to buy those tiles if you can't culture bomb them (for which you need an on hand worker, whichyou probably bought)

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

ok thank you, that explains it. Im still at a loss on how to play them. The bonuses just feel so disjointed (like their districts) and even more terrain dependant than Ethiopia.
The oppidum and mine focus push you towards science (and the free culture allows you to stay up in the civic tree), but if you don't have sufficient mountains around, your campuses will be of mediocre quality as mines only give 0.5. And industrial hubs with aquaducts and dams are not an option for them apparently...

On the other hand, free culture and the production bonus can push you towards culture and the wonders, but there are no bonuses to earning GWAP, or faith to buy rockbands and naturalist. But your appeal will be down the drain with all those mines (and natural park placement will be even more akward with all those disjointed districts).

(those are the only two victories I usually go for, sometimes religion)

All civs can have the "no mountain/no science" conundrum except Maya and Korea. Gaul just gives their campuses minor adjacencies from mines instead of other districts. "Miner Adjacencies"

I wasn't overly impressed with Gaul's culture game. It's good for the Ancient Era, but you still have to build Theater Squares pretty soon thereafter.

Where they really excel is Wonders. I built Macchu Picchu, St. Basil's, Petra, Chicken Pizza, Mausoleum, and a whole bunch of others. You can basically have any wonder that still exists when your Oppidae come on line.

 

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

Considering how powerful Naturalists are right now (since they are so cheap), civs that can't easily found a National Park don't seem like a great cultural civ to me. Gauls feel like a jack of all trade rather than have something specific victory skew.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Considering how powerful Naturalists are right now (since they are so cheap), civs that can't easily found a National Park don't seem like a great cultural civ to me. Gauls feel like a jack of all trade rather than have something specific victory skew.

They really are a generalist. The mine culture isn't that great. Their virtue is that they can build anything fast without a great deal of infrastructure, unlike Germany. And without relying on production discounts, like various other civs.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I do think the harbor and diplomatic quarter should get exceptions to the no-city-adjacency rules but apart from that, my first gaul game was quite fun. I went for Science victory, as any civ with lots of production is good at that, but also my start position had a lot of geothermals and volcanoes. Lots of volcanic soil mines that had a bit of food + goddess of fire promotion is pretty great.

I, uhh, may have engineered this situation by playing on the primordial map type and rerolling...

 

[Siddharth Venkatesh]

ok thank you, that explains it. Im still at a loss on how to play them. The bonuses just feel so disjointed (like their districts) and even more terrain dependant than Ethiopia.
The oppidum and mine focus push you towards science (and the free culture allows you to stay up in the civic tree), but if you don't have sufficient mountains around, your campuses will be of mediocre quality as mines only give 0.5. And industrial hubs with aquaducts and dams are not an option for them apparently...

On the other hand, free culture and the production bonus can push you towards culture and the wonders, but there are no bonuses to earning GWAP, or faith to buy rockbands and naturalist. But your appeal will be down the drain with all those mines (and natural park placement will be even more akward with all those disjointed districts).

(those are the only two victories I usually go for, sometimes religion)

Even money is harder than usual because building decent commercial and harbor districts isnt easy either. And because you can't lock a district cost when founding new cities, you tend to buy those tiles if you can't culture bomb them (for which you need an on hand worker, whichyou probably bought)

Gaul are still very good at science. Their early culture means they unlock all the important policies quickly. They also don't have a huge difficulty getting to +3 on enough campuses and that's really all that matters. Minor adjacency from mines versus minor adjacency from districts is not a big difference and is often just better.

Gaul are also really good at early war. The Eburones ability is incredibly OP on ranged units. You can easily do an archer rush if you have a very close neighbor (you'll also probably unlock Agoge early thanks to your culture boosts). +8-12 archers will overwhelm an early neighbor. You can also beeline crossbowman and kill a neighbor with crossbows. As long as a city does not have walls, you should be able to take it.

After that, you have double the land and more productivity thanks to a a few good IZ locations and early apprenticeship, along with mines just being great value for you. You can easily take this to a science or domination. Their IZs aren't Hansas, but they come very early and also can have good adjacency at 0 cost if there are strategics next to them. The fact you can't build aqueducts to boost them further is a bit of a loss, but Aqueducts and Dams are terrible districts anyways so not a huge loss.

They aren't a focused civ, but have such strong general bonuses that you basically snowball to victory. Probably the strongest generalist civ in the game now along with Inca.

They really are a generalist. The mine culture isn't that great. Their virtue is that they can build anything fast without a great deal of infrastructure, unlike Germany. And without relying on production discounts, like various other civs.

I strongly disagree. The mine culture is huge. With Ancestral Hall, it's essentially having Trajan's bonus that scales better into the late game. It's so much early culture if you don't have a neighbor to kill (so are not able to profitably spam units for culture).

Considering how powerful Naturalists are right now (since they are so cheap), civs that can't easily found a National Park don't seem like a great cultural civ to me. Gauls feel like a jack of all trade rather than have something specific victory skew.

Rock Bands still outperform Naturalists for the most part as long as you can get to the Hallyu card quickly enough. But Gaul are not best suited for a culture victory I agree. It's not so much about National Parks for me (which I still don't build much) but that they have no real incentive or bonus towards faith.

 

[berlin88]

Gaul excels as an early game civ, so that is where you have to focus. The Gaesatae is a very useful unit to have, as just a single one of these can fend off an early barbarian rush or take out a barbarian camp in 2-3 turns.

In my current game, I am playing on king difficulty, and my nearest AI opponent was Cyrus. Cyrus declared war on my city state ally Buenos Aires, so I declared war on Cyrus in retaliation.

I sent 5 Gaesatae, 3 Archers and 1 battering ram to attack, and razed both expansion cities and captured the capital with no losses. I had one Gaesatae escort the battering ram, and then formed a battle line of 4 Gaesatae in front with the three archers behind them to take advantage of the combat bonus, and it worked well. After defeating Cyrus, I discovered Rome was right next door to Cyrus, so I declared war on Trajan as well, but ran into difficulties, since Trajan managed to get Crossbowmen and his cities were all bunched together with encampments by them. Ended up having to make peace with Tarajan and withdraw after only sacking one Roman city.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I was aiming for a CV, but ended up winning a Diplo Victory. There was just so many Aid Request emergencies and the projects are just so easy to build as Gaul.

 

[8housesofelixir]

I was aiming for a CV, but ended up winning a Diplo Victory. There was just so many Aid Request emergencies and the projects are just so easy to build as Gaul.

That's why some would say any civ with lots of production (emergencies) and culture (projects) is good at Diplo Victory (besides Mali who can simply money-pouring towards a DV).

 

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

Rock Bands still outperform Naturalists for the most part as long as you can get to the Hallyu card quickly enough. But Gaul are not best suited for a culture victory I agree. It's not so much about National Parks for me (which I still don't build much) but that they have no real incentive or bonus towards faith.

Hallyu card is literally on one of the last civics in the game, "as long as you can reach Hallyu fast enough" sounds like the worst condition ever to satisfy. It is like saying "You can win this game very fast if you go all the way to the very end", so not really sure where the tendency of Rock Bands to outperform Naturalists comes from. And by the way, are you saying +1 Culture on Mines is reliable enough for the Gauls to reach the end game so quickly that they don't even need good Appeal or Naturalists?

 

[Siddharth Venkatesh]

No, it means if you have good culture, Rock Bands will outperform National Parks. It's one of the best ways to turn high culture games into tourism. You can get to it and still have plenty of time left in the game, it's not like the game ends as soon as you finish the civic tree.

 

[newbie2]

All civs can have the "no mountain/no science" conundrum except Maya and Korea. Gaul just gives their campuses minor adjacencies from mines instead of other districts. "Miner Adjacencies"

But unlike mines, districts don't have a placement requirement (a hill in this case). So therefore "miner" adjecencies are inherently weaker than district adjecencies

To me, it looks like all the unique stuff you get is a weaker version of what it can be.

You get a culture bomb that can't steal land
You get an IZ that doesnt benefit from aquaducts and dams, which are 2 sure ways to boost adjecency (only benefit is that is earlier and cheaper)
You get an unique unit that isnt cheaper to build and doesnt upgrade for ages.

Compared to Byzantium synergies, it's kind of a joke

 

[Tech Osen]

I strongly disagree. The mine culture is huge. With Ancestral Hall, it's essentially having Trajan's bonus that scales better into the late game. It's so much early culture if you don't have a neighbor to kill (so are not able to profitably spam units for culture).

I was surprised the mines didn't give tourism on discovery of flight. It's an improvement that gives culture after all.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Ok, finally got a chance to play Gaul. Culture is definitely their other to victory. On Emperor, I’ve been able to build Jeb Bakal, 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.

That sounds like too many if's and but's for me.
I fully get that a +10 oppidum is going to be ridiculous early on, but how likely is that to get consistently?
Granted, I haven't tested them on Deity yet, but I suspect that they will have to compromise a lot on those wonders you listed.

If anything, I feel that the most consistent pick for high production won't be Gaul itself, but the ridiculous yields one gets from Work Ethic holy sites.
And knowing how important faith (eventually) becomes for a CV, I'd personally rather stick to that.

Gonna test Gaul eventually, but apart from the early archer rushes, early culture (and the occasional super-powered Oppidum if the map favours you) I feel that they are somewhat lackluster for a CV.

I was surprised the mines didn't give tourism on discovery of flight. It's an improvement that gives culture after all.

It should have been considered for sure.
Production and culture don't really mix too well, but it could have worked if each of those mines gave 1 tourism each.
With all those mines you'd sacrifice a lot of appeal anyway, so I don't think it would be as broken as it sounds.

 

[CrabHelmet]

My main thoughts on the Gauls are that they're not actually that generalist. They're not well-suited to Religious Victory, because going via Astronomy and then having to build Holy Sites and Shrines detracts from King of the Eburones, which rewards Archer spam, from Halstatt Culture, which wants you to go for early Mining to really push off Culture wise, and Oppidum, which push you for an Iron Working rush. These do not synch. Nor are the Gauls suited to Cultural Victories. Having Mines and Oppidums everywhere completely shreds your Appeal, and because the Gauls are pushed away from Religion because of their other game advantages, they don't have the Faith economy to support Rock Bands or Naturalists.

I think the Gauls are a Domination Civ and a Science Civ. But... I think they're merely 'good' at both, without excelling at either. For Domination, the Gauls have a really strong Archer push, basically as good as Nubia's. However... the Gauls then have a very weird lul for the Classical period. Why? Because Gaesatae are really just not that great. They can clear Barb Camps early on, and they're fine in Classical on the defense insofar as they're more economical than Swordsmen and hold up well against later units, but you'd rather have Swordsmen but you can't upgrade Gaesatae into Swordsmen, so you get quite badly slowed down because you can't just upgrade existing units, you have to build them. Once you hit Musketmen, the ball gets rolling again, but Domination is all about snow-balling, and on higher difficulties suddenly plateauing your conquest when Swordsmen and Crossbows start appearing is frustrating. I'd like to be able to just straight upgrade my meatshield melee units and carry on, but instead I end up having to call off hostilies for a bit because Gaesatae just don't cut it. Of course, once you can get to Musketmen as mentioned the Gauls come online again, but they have a very weird seesaw of being extremely powerful very early, dropping off hard, then coming back online again - I can't actually think of a Civ which has a similar playstyle.

As for Science, well... the removal of district adjacency bonuses hits the Gauls hard. Yes, you can basically ignore Theatre Squares and focus solely on Campuses and still keep up with Culture thanks to Halstatt Culture, but if you aren't near Mountains, the Gauls' Science still struggles because getting adjancies from Mines means you need well-placed hills around your districts, whereas other Civs can just build clumps of Districts to make up for it.

I think they're an okay-to-good Civ, and are very highly dependent on their starting terrain, which is unfortunate because they have no strong start biases. If you could reliably spawn in Grassland Hills with them, they'd be a lot better, they really excel on this terrain and can snowball fast and be extremely aggressive and scary. As it is, if you get them on flat Plains with no Mountains nearby, they're... really quite bad, basically worse than a vanilla Civ.

If I was going to tweak them, I'd give them a start bias for Hills, restore the Dam and Aqueduct adjacencies to the Oppidum, and prevent Halstatt Culture affecting Harbours and Diplomatic Quarters. I'd also reduce the Production cost of the Gaesatae slightly.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Not that it's strong or weak, but I've been having way more fun with the mine culture bomb than I should. Just something satisfying about it, moreso than you get from the civs that bomb building a district. Blam!

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I would say the Gauls are generalists on these criteria:

RV: C+
They don't have any advantages for founding a religion, but they can get any Classical or later religious wonder easily, and build Holy Sites after that point with ease.

Dom V: B
Production = units. And they excel at the carpet of doom. However, there's a hitch in the steamrolling in the Medieval era while you hard-build Swordsman.

Sci V: B+
Production = Space Race. And they will be nabbing those important GEs. But they have no other scientific advantage.

CV: C+
Production = Wonders. They can get any Wonder from the Classical era on. However, the mine Culture isn't really that beneficial beyond the Ancient Era and doesn't become Tourism.

Diplo V: B
While they have no inherent benefit to Favor gain, they can participate very well in most emergencies, particularly ones involving projects.

If we consider C to be an average capacity to pursue a specific victory, Gaul is above average to good at all victories, but not great at any. Therefore, it's a Jack-of-all-trades, master of none. A generalist.

 

[CrabHelmet]

If "C" is average capacity to pursue a specific victory condition, then the Gauls are not getting C+ in Religious Victory, that's for sure. To found a Religion on higher difficulties, you need to rush Astronomy, which means giving up Archer death balls, giving up early Mining tech for Culture, giving up an Oppidum rush - giving up basically all of Gaul's early advantages. You might get Oppidums slightly faster than other Civs reach Industrial Zones still, but you've delayed going Oppidums to do so enough it's not really a massive dealbreaker any more and I don't think is helping you lock down Wonders, especially if you got bad terrain.

I'm also pretty skeptical the Gauls are C+ for Cultural Victories, because Cultural Victories need a good Faith economy and for the reasons set out above, the Gauls are quite heavily discouraged from that.

I don't think they're generalists. They can do Religion, in the same sense that any Civ except Kongo can do Religion, but doing so means up giving more advantages than most other Civs have to give up.