How to play Churchill?

[CornPlanter]

Most of the other leaders have some more or less "clear" paths to victory. E.g. Darius can rush early, expand enormously because of his early awesome UU and trait combo. Tokugawa is "clearly" Middle Ages - Gunpowder era warmonger, and so on. But I have trouble understanding what is "optimal" Churchill's strategy.

He is Charismatic. To abuse it to the full you must go to war.
He is Protective. You must wage war with archers/longbowmans?
His UU is Redcoat. Obvious synergy with Protective but then what?

How do you play him? What Wonders do you aim to have? Probably Great Wall since he's going to wage some deffensive wars anyway? And Great Generals are great (OK that's tautology) because he is Charismatic? And since you aim for Great Wall anyway, probably you can run espionage economy? I'm just thinking aloud

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Oracle->feudalism slingshot is good with Churchill, PRO longbows make good attackers vs archers and they defend captured cities well.

 

[Bleys]

Make lots of big cities.

Beeline Rifling once its logical to do so.

Draft abusively powerful UU til your cities are massively unhappy.

Run over the whole world with them.

 

[CornPlanter]

OK, Charismatic + Drafting + Protective is another really nice synergy I haven't thought of. It's not only that you can draft a bit longer, but drafted units gains promotions quicker. Makes sense.

So basically Churchill is warmonger. Does it make sense to run esp. since he is neither financial nor philosophical? I mean you have to keep that "whole world" somehow.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

OK, Charismatic + Drafting + Protective is another really nice synergy I haven't thought of. It's not only that you can draft a bit longer, but drafted units gains promotions quicker. Makes sense.

So basically Churchill is warmonger. Does it make sense to run esp. since he is neither financial nor philosophical? I mean you have to keep that "whole world" somehow.

Courthouses and improvements?

 

[Artichoker]

The extra happiness from Charismatic gives you a little extra breathing room to grow your cities. This is a step up from Tokugawa, who doesn't even have that benefit.

With the +2 happiness bonus, I wouldn't be in such a hurry to whip out units, but rather utilize the higher happy cap towards accelerating commerce. I'm basing this statement on my experience using Tokugawa, where I would tend to whip units more because of the lower happy cap (since whipping keeps city sizes low, therefore controlling unhappiness).

With Charismatic, it's more like you are fine with either peace or war, but it doesn't help a great deal in either case. It's more like a versatility trait where you can do fine in either war or peace situations. So, if I were you, I wouldn't try to find an optimal strat, but rather study the situation at hand carefully, and then make an educated guess as to when you might want to fight a war.

Of course, with two military traits, Churchill will tend to favor war more than other leaders, but still you need to weigh the factors at hand. Once you unlock Redcoats, the decision becomes a lot easier, but before then there is usually a lot of game to cover first...that's where the thinking comes in.

 

[Bleys]

Personally, when I play Church, I try to stay at peace until Redcoats. Thats me. Lots play him more aggressively, and cash in the CHA bonus early so they can mass-upgrade a pile of CR III Maces to Redcoats, which is also a strong unit. Combine some CR Redcoats with some PRO-Drafted ones, and you can do some serious damage.

His UU is very strong, even vs tech parity. You can use them a while and delay Assembly Line a bit, which is nice because they are still a 1-pop Draft. I personally think all 3 England leaders are solid Upper-Middle, with Liz being top 5. Churchill is deceptively strong though, especially if you have good land and can focus on building cities in the high teens, to draft right to the nub when the time comes. On Epic speed, I will often go 4 deep, into the 50s in unhappiness.

Hes actually one of the leaders I like to trade Gunpowder away with. Give em Muskets, and even Cuirassiers, Redcoats mop em up, especially PRO ones. Whip em, Draft em, whatever, and get em out there earning those cheap promos on stacks of lower level enemy units. Its crazy fun.

 

[azzaman333]

Churchill is a beast once the gunpowder era rolls around.

 

[PieceOfMind]

IMO if playing Churchill it is almost a necessity that you abuse the drafting (with globe theatre) when you get to redcoats. At any speed, you only need a city with 2 or so food tiles, and about 3 grass farms, and you can set up a draft city with globe theatre that drafts at least every two turns at Epic speed (faster on faster speeds).

Moreoever, the footprint of the city is so low, you can put the draft city in those spots that are useless apart from the nearby food resources, or let other cities heavily overlap to use up the other tiles. Drafting a city between 5-6 pop is a very efficient way to pull hammers from tiles (I calculated around about 16 per tile for one city (including the city tile itself) - for details see the last few posts in the thread linked in my sig.

In this city Brighton, you'll notice it is using very few tiles, the National Park city is just above it and can use the forests that draft city doesn't use. Take a look at how much draft anger there is already.

Spoiler :

I haven't been counting but this city must have drafted nearly 50 units already over only about 100 years - not bad for such a small, basic city.

All you need is a granary, barracks, theatre and then Globe Theatre. Getting a courthouse I like to prioritise as well but this can be built after the drafting cycle has started.

 

[futurehermit]

Drill 4 redcoats ftw. Build 'em and promote drafted ones up the drill line.

Play the map until that point, then pursue domination in the renaissance era.

 

[madscientist]

Churchill need not be a war-Monger, his UB is pretty powerful and can pay for a strong tech game for a SpaceShip win even with a smallish and compact empire.

My approach with him

1) Get a decent sized empire, maybe 8 cities on a standard map.
2) Beeline liberalism. Take Nationalism.
3) Aim for the Taj while finishing teh techpath to rifling which includes banking for the UB.
4) Spam Stock Exchanges once you get banking.
5) Once you get rifles, adopt nationhood and draft enough redcoats to expand.
6) Usually once I do this I am either faced with intercontinental invasion or a SpaceShip race, both of which are possibilites.

 

[CornPlanter]

I just finished playing him. Funny thing, I headed towards domination but I have won diplomatic. Somebody else has built UN, proposed diplomatic victory and by that time half of the non-English world was my vassals. So they voted for me. Year 1949 I believe. Large Custom Continents map, Epic speed, Prince difficulty.

Oracle -> Feudalism worked out really good (it was Mayans who recieved that longbowmen invasion. In the end they had exactly two tiles (including city tile) left. Pretty nice vassal, more like a pet.

 

[mirthadir]

1. The strongest play I get out of him is the peaceful bulb run up to lib, take nationalism, get rifling and the abuse everyone with drafted red coats and trebs/spies. Likely skip the infantry era war (veteran redcoats can hold off infantry with minimal siege support) and then use my settled GGs (from the Pro/Cha redcoat draftee abuse as well as captured AI GGs) and civics to churn out mass CRIII tanks. Gun for flight after that and maybe laser/advanced flight.
2. Phantapult. With civics Churchill can run CII/Shock jumbos out the door with stable and rax which is utter ownage pre-Lbs and works quite well until pike and of course double promo pults. Leave the jumbos unpromoted so you can optimize attacks; you can go for formation/CII, FII/CI, CIII as well.
3. Commandos + rushbuy nukes/bombers. UB makes Kremlin abuse even stronger and you can often get some highly promoted mounted units to go commando (most of the redcoats get pinch or cover for me). Alternatively rushed Paratroop/nukes work fairly well.

 

[Daedal]

In the end they had exactly two tiles (including city tile) left. Pretty nice vassal, more like a pet.

Be careful taking useless vassals. You'll get motherland unhappiness in their former cities and diplomatic demerits for having a vassal. Just something to keep in mind.

 

[CornPlanter]

What exactly are jumbos?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Wellies (war elephants).