Immortal University 83 - Brennus

[Kingjester1]

Got a chance to start this one. Played on Emperor/Epic to 1300 BC.

Spoiler :

I started by moving the scount 1 SW, as I originally intended to either settle 1S or on one of the nearby plains hills. This revealed the rice, so I moved the scout to the south again. The presence of a flood plains and fresh water rice was too tempting to pass, so I ultimately settled 3 S. Build order was Worker -> Warriors to size 3 -> Settler -> Warrior -> Settler (whipped) -> Worker
then alternating Settlers and Workers.

Teach path was Agriculture -> Animal Husbandry to start. Once AH was in, it revealed Horses to the west of the cap. At this point since I didn't have Wheel, it was going to take a while to get cottages started (thanks Brennus for all these great starting techs ), so I opted to go Mining -> BW, which was fortuitous, as it revealed the only nearby source of copper early.
After that I went Wheel (chariots and roads) -> Pottery (cottages) -> Masonry (stone and opening up the Dun) -> Writing (libraries).

There's a lot of room to expand in the early game, so I did just that using a pretty standard build. I settled my second city 1S, 2SW on the grassland river tile to pick up gold, stone, pigs, and flood plains. That city simply went back and forth on Warriors and Workers with a 1-pop whip at some point for a Monument. My second settler was whipped out as barb presence was starting to pick up on this map and I wanted horses ASAP (the copper was more valuable but way too far away when I didn't have any commerce going). I settled my third city 3W from the cap just below the Wine and got a fast Monument chop followed by Barracks -> Chariots.

At this point my economy was running low, so I hooked up the Gold at city #2 and started my cottage spam. The Gold was enough for me to go ahead and settle city #4 very quickly 1W of the plains cow tile to the east towards Shaka. This site is going to be a nice military pump and I can set up units (and forts if needed) on the hills with Guerrilla promotions from the Dun + Barracks to kill any Shaka stack.

At this point I plan to aggressively fill in the remaining city sites as cottages come online and getting out some chariots and axes to capture a nearby barb city to seal off my southern border. I'll also look to get the elephants site to the SW.

Spoiler :

The central empire:

The eastern border:

The south:

 

[Knightly_]

is this supposed to be funny?

Yes.

Im currently having a very interesting game with some weird moves which are worth of discussion. I`ll post some screens later today.

Knightly_

 

[Kingjester1]

Continued up to 185 BC (emperor/epic):

Spoiler :

I was still in REX mode this play set since there is no much land to take and cottage

Tech path went Alpha -> Currency -> Aesthetics. I picked up IW and the prereqs for Monarchy in backfill trades with Writing and Alpha. Luck has it that we have multiple iron sources all over the place, which is super good news with horses already secured.

My capitol and southwestern cottage city got Granaries and Libraries online while working purely cottages, giving me a very nice income even as I expanded this set. My city in the west got a Barracks and Dun online to start producing guerrilla I axemen with the copper I secured in the northeast near the Zulu border. I snuck in a Settler between axemen to help settle the southern border with Babylon more aggressively, as Hammurabi had just finished a missionary phase by spreading confucianism in all my cities was about to start another expand phase.

Meanwhile my eastern copper city was swimming in hammers, so I used it as a Worker pump while the western city got units out. I got a Barracks and Dun up first, and at size 4 started generating nothing but workers while some hills where chopped and mined. This worked really well as I got up to 11 workers by the end of this set on 7 cities. After workers were done, guerrilla units started pumping out.

I settled SE of the captial first this round, then captured the barb city to the further south east near the coast (I also burned another one to the south for some nice cash and promos). I wasn't able to seal the Zulu border as Shaka decided to plant a coastal city for corn and fish where I had planned to settle. Instead I took the elephants spot and simply made a reminder to take the Zulu empire at the first chance.

My tech has been near the top up until this point, but the Incan's financial trait is gonna make that short lived. I've just gotten Aesthetics and am looking at taking the Great Library to get my great scientist pump super charged as I haven't started generating points (too many cottages to work). When you have a lot of cottages like in this start, you can stretch the time where you don't produce great people, but I think I may have stretched that too far, so I will start generating points in the captiol for a first GS for an academy.

In terms of diplo, it's all over the place. 5 different religions are in play right now, with Babylon being the only confucian civ out there, so switching is a no-no with Shaka as hindu. Unfortunately, no other religions have spread to me, so I've had to stay without a state religion, putting Organized Religion on the back burner. In fact, civics swaps are pretty useless to me right now (no religions worth using and tons of happiness), so I've been able to keep my upkeep down a little, but I'm starting to push pop limits so Monarchy is looking appealing right now.

The core empire:

The Zulu border:

The Babylonian border (I have a scout about to pop out to scout this territory out):

The southeast coast, which oddly enough has a barb city captured by the Japanese:

 

[Knightly_]

1904 Diplomation

Spoiler :

The start was pretty standard, REX with focus on blocking some land which resulted in few overlap. 1AD land:

1010 AD Lib:

Lib date was late. Main reason is my bad GPP handling and that i got buddism VERY late (needed to switch out of hindu for obvious diplo reasons). The 1400 gold came from a good cashout on the sankore uni.

1010 AD techrace:

With 5 out of 8 players celebrating a buddism lovefest the techrate of the game was also surprisingly slow.

First war:

My curiassiers went for the hindu Hammurabi, who was isolated together with poor Tokugawa. After i capped him i immediately declared on Toku, begged gold from the already fighting Shaka and Sulei to avoid vassalation, and capped Toku myself.

During the war with Toku i recognized something strange, maybe someone can lighten me up:

Spoiler :

Two cuirassiers attacking from different angles, but both over river:

As you can see, one gets the crossing river penalty, the other doesn`t. What`s up with that?

I then wanted to go for Suleiman, whipped more cuirassiers (and later cavalry), prepared the attack and OF COURSE the red fist appeared next to Shaka. A quick diplocheck revealed that i am the most likely target (although pleased) and as you can see he had quite some units wandering around:

The inevitable happend:

Our main stacks met in my land:

And the result:

I was, however, not able to invade him because he got rifling a few turns later.

Then something weird happened. Shaka (as the Apo Palace leader) called a vote to stop the war he started himself... and in the very same turn bribed Suleiman into war against me. The vote passed and suddenly out of nowhere im at peace with Shaka and at war with Suleiman:

Btw Huyana was happiliy peace vassaling and breaking free to Shaka and Justinian several times during the game being just a little annoyance while Justinian and Giggles had a long lasting defensive pack and just watched the show. Suleimans stack was smashed some turns later:

The next Apo vote AGAIN asked to call off the war against my buddism bffs. I wanted to vote no, but missclicked on yes. Luckily my brave vassal made my day:

Yeah baby... THAT`S how i want my vassals to behave. Suleiman was capped soon afterwards and as i basically crushed my entire economy during the war it was catchup time:

Shaka was lurking, switching into and out of warmode several times. But of course you can count on him:

This time with some more losses:

But against that many cities he had no chance whatsoever:

I declared on Justinian+Huyana and wanted to finish with bomber+tanks, but that guy already had a bunch of fancy weapons:

Never seen an AI using nuke+paradrop in a game before... The war became very annoying when gobs of gunships swarmed the battlefield and my bombers were taken out by jetfighters. I then just made peace and waited for the UN to kick in:

Power Rating:

Stats:

Overall the game was more interesting than i thought and definately a lot of fun. Thanks for the map Habitus... oh btw what is a rocky climate?

Knightly_

 

[Habitus]

Generally more Hills, Mountains, and often more Plains than Temperate Climate which is the standard setting.

 

[krikav]

What`s better ? A cataphant rush or an elepult rush ?
Knightly_

I found this funny.

 

[pepe26]

i find it funny that you found it funny

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@Kingjester1:

Spoiler :

Sorry, minimalistic comment:
Settling Tolosa west, in the corner, doesn't look very good. You wanna claim as much land as possible, early.
Getting Chariots is nice and reassuring but the city doesn't help with further expansion: it needs a border pop to claim the horses and it needs to borrow the rice from Bibracte to get some food - or else it just works a floodplains (requires a farm, not cottage, in that case). Bibracte having a very high happy cap (gold, CHA, monument) doesn't make it desirable to share the rice.

Tolosa would be best settled on a plains hills to the south, bordering floodplains, or claiming the northern deer, or claiming the eastern gold+deer+cows+copper. That last one is a bit stretched but, apparently, Knightly made it work.
Ideally, I would think that Harapan, the barb city, would be the 3rd city (maybe 1N or 1S so it has at least a hill). Great commerce spot + claims land.

Can't say much more atm. Looks like a fine position overall.

 

[Kingjester1]

@BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

I've played more of this map since my last update (new one coming soon I promise), but you are right, that city site should be a later one, as I was able to get the copper spot to the NE to to get my military strength up (plus Chariots are useless against Impis).

I was glad that the barbs founded Harapan for me, as I spent a bunch of effort rushing the copper spot. It was much easier to just take the thing

As my next update will show, like others I was declared on by Shaka pretty early, but his subpar land and city placement made it a bit of joke.

 

[Kingjester1]

Continued to 430 AD:

Spoiler :

It's been a bit of a slog this round. I went Poly -> Lit to try get and the Great Library started. In hindsight this was a mistake, as I didn't really have a great place to that wonder. I decided to build in the capital, using some chops and the high population to whip it out. Ultimately I would lose the GL to Justinian due to constant interrupts from my neighbors. I traded around Aesthetics for backfill, esp. Monarchy and Monotheism for civics changes.

At the start of this round I put 2 scientist specialists to work in the capital with the aim of generating a great scientist for an academy. I eventually got this, providing a nice boost to my research rate for Code of Laws -> Civil Service.

The downside to this playset was that Shaka declared against me after a couple dozen turns. This was unavoidable, esp. since I switched to Confucianism to be best buddies with Babylon and reap the benefits of running organized religion. I had many guerrilla promoted archers, but I lost several of them by the end of this playset due to Shaka's aggression. Ultimately he attacked was repulsed and his units sent running. I don't have enough units to run an effective counter attack right now, so I will push for peace at first chance.

Toku delcared on Hammurabi not long after Shaka declared on me. This put be in a pickle as Hammy would be coming soon to make war demands. Sure enough, about 10 turns after Hammy went to war, he came and asked me to join. I had reviewed the diplo situation and Toku had made enemies with most everyone, and those that weren't his enemy were neutral. Taking the declare points would help my diplo score with Hammy as he makes a lot of demands, some of which I will have to reject. Toku's only city, a barb city captured to my southeast, was taken early in the war by Hammy. The plus side to this is that the culture of that city was wiped out, reclaiming an Iron tile for my territory.

Right now I'm not quite sure where to go. I've gotten Civil Service earlier than the other civs and have already switched to running Bureaucracy. Normally I would go for a lib race, but my specialist production is a bit low due to not having an overwhelming food source for a GP farm. I'm thinking that my best bet will be Trebs + Macemen to take over Shaka's territory, setting me up for a cannon push against Hammurabi later.

 

[Kingjester1]

Playing this map has changed my opinion on how to use Brennus effectively.

I feel that Brennus is a civ that thrives on fewer, more highly populated cities. Charismatic makes it easier to boost the happy cap early via Monuments/Stonehenge and gives units extra utility through easier to get promos. Spiritual is one of those traits that is useful for nimble, civ wide efforts like pushing for great people, unit pumping, or mass drafting. Also, the starting techs are the most removed from resource improving techs, so you spend more effort researching that other civs, so its important to minimize commerce sapping things like maintenance. In my play I ended up focusing too much on REX and not enough on making high powered, highly populated cities that produce well trained units.

The UB and UU are still perplexing to me though. The extra Guerilla promos for units in general doesn't seem to be all that helpful. You still have to spend 4 XP with Brennus to get to Guerrilla III for the 50% withdrawal chance bonus. In terms of unit composition, it seems like this is a minor boost for stack defenders and mounted units, but I'd rather spend that first 4 XP on other promotions most of the time. In this game, it comes in useful depending on where you settle, but I still feel like I put to much effort in trying to use Guerrilla promos without focusing on basic unit composition.

Overall, I like Brennus in terms of traits, not so much in terms of uniques.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

AHHHH the sucky Celts. With a mediocre start. How fun~!

 

[obsolete]

What a crappy leader. And what a crappy vassal (Japs). I stopped the war-stomp on my end for a few hundred years, and despite giving him everything, the guy can't even topple a weak opponent. Yet when he's fighting against me you see something different.

Think it's official, AI is dubbed down when vassaled with you.... but goes in super-mode when against you.

Finally I gave up and just finished the rest of the world on my own.

Spoiler :

 

[TheMeInTeam]

1755 Conquest win

Spoiler :

Not sure why the struggles here...maybe if shaka hits early and you don't have walls/archers? I cookie cutter'd this, cottaging capitol + FP tiles, making a few cities dedicated to hammers, and running some scientists where I actually had food for it.

AI tech pace on this map was pretty bad. Cottages aren't the best for production but I drafted up 50+ rifles very quickly. No oxford, no globe, just some theatre/coliseum + slider to afford mass drafts. I went clockwise since shaka is an ass. Smooth sailing (despite some grenadiers from inca/byzantine) until gilgamesh, but by then I had 3 vassals. After taking 2 cities from shaka for the cap I had given vassals cities back. Gilgamesh had rifling the turn I declared so I was able to take a few cities using massed rifles vs some of this not-yet upgraded material, but eventually we saw things like cities with 8 rifles and 10 cavalry in them. Tough situation. I bribed in sully though and used sully's and justinian's siege to bombard/soften cities for me, then I'd take them ^_^. Gilgamesh capped and I gave him all of his cities back, instantly turning on sully.

Sully had grens but not rifles...easy war. Toku only had cuirassers...also fast. Hammurabi was also near rifles when I declared, but he never made it. I 2-pronged him with massed rifles and was able to capture an impressive number of cities from him in under 10 turns. He capitulated and that was game.

At the end of this game, justinian and gilgamesh both had infantry lol. In fact, justinian got it very early in the war vs gilgamesh. Pretty good buffers to absorb AI troops and leave the city taking to me. AI siege + stack suicide really let me piggyback nicely too. Gotta love having a few vassals to abuse the game with.

Rifles FTW, even when they get rifles trololol.