Nobles' Club 291: Boudica of the Celts

[Qactus]

Haven't read the updates very closely lately because the map rinsed me so thoroughly, but wasn't there a thread recently(ish) about Boudica? Where somebody used those hill3 promotions on grenadiers or something (upgraded) and used masses of super-tough units like that to beat down AIs?

You must be referring to @drewisfat 's awesome interpretation of the last deity cookbook:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/cookbook-b-boudi-discussions.664994/

 

[Pangaea]

Thank you, that was the one indeed Very impressive win, and fun to re-read it.

 

[chinemol]

nice map!

Spoiler :

1500 surprise diplo victory on emperor (was going for cannons + gre to take out the 2 guys left)

 

[Anysense]

Since Lain spoiled the Suleiman map for me I thought I'd try this one.

Spoiler :

Barbs are a huge problem here. Archers are swarming both in the south and north and then AI's grab everything you did not feel like safe enough to settle as 2nd city.

Ended up with almost the same settling pattern as Pangaea. Asoka decided that simply settling in my face was not enough and founded Judaism there. I got quick monument in Bibracte and Judaism spread. That ought to be enough to keep the cow for a while. Should still be playable with ivory and nice four cities setup but Ragnar shows up to steal the wheat a few turns before I could settle there. Now its getting tricky with so many beakers wasted on Mining and BW without any valid target for axerush and relatively low commerce for elepult.

 

[Anysense]

Spoiler :

I actually axerush Asoka because I had so many hammers just lying around. Its going alright, I lost only one axe and a warrior taking Vijayanagara, then on turn 97 Hatty is plotting. She cautious and her worst enemy is Ragnar, so its probably against him. Yeah, sure. Turn 99: Hatty declared war on me. Well, that was quick. Ought to have converted to Judaism perhaps, thought I could postpone it until I'm done building units.

 

[5tephen]

Well I gave up on this map for a month and came back and found I was in a better position than I remembered! I can't give a complete account of my decisions as I forgot some of them in the interval but:

Spoiler 1615 domination win :

From what I recall I finished off Asoka with medieval units, bulbed chemistry, teched steel and traded my way up to rifling which I also researched. Retrospectively it was a big mistake to go up to rifles - could have traded a lot less good tech away sticking with medieval units/muskets with cannons and would have attacked at a much better date.

Heroic epic went in a great production spot in one of Asoka's former cities with settled great generals - 1-2 turn cannons. Globe theatre went in Asoka's old capital for drafting every turn.

At this point Hatsheput was wiping the floor with my good buddy Ragnar. If she'd taken him she'd have been a monster so I attacked her. Her main stack was in one of Ragnar's former cities on my border allowing me to inflict some serious collateral damage but the issue was the size of the stack and the fact that I sent a second large stack into her heartlands at the same time. I took two of her cities but her main stack was undefeated for the loss of most of my ancilliary stack and my main stack in her territory had shrunk in size/was spread thinly. Had I had to accept peace at this point it would have been a disaster and this was the point I put the game down.

Coming back to the game I used a ceasefire to prevent my ancilliary stack being annhilitated and realised my main stack might just be able to push on. Turned out she had hardly any units left in her own cities - 4 cannons and 6 rifles was enough to take her capital and the rest of her cities fell in quick succession. With my ancilliary stack healed and her main stack still in Ragnar's former city the rest of the war went well.

Once Hatshepsut was down it was just a question of rolling over each remaining AI with cannons and rifles - Joao got infantry but too late to make any difference to the outcome.