Playing as JC

[futurehermit]

I don't normally play Rome since I feel Praets are a bit lame.

But, recently I thought it might be interesting to play around with the trait combo Imperialistic + Organized and it happens to be Julius Caesar, so Rome it is.

What I thought is interesting about this combo is that Imperialistic gives you cheaper settlers and organized cuts down on your expenses, allowing you to comfortably support an additional city in the very early going. Plus, of course, Imperialistic gives you increased GGs and Organized gives you cheaper courthouses, which mean--especially when combined with Praets--a domination approach is generally in order.

So, I thought: "What would happen if the plan was to get to 4 total cities asap in the very early going? Then semi-beeline for alpha with the plan of trading for IW in the hopes of having iron in the early empire, which would lead to expansion being timed with the acquisition of CoL."

I tested it out on Monarch and was quite pleased with the results. I sprang into 1st in score quite early on and was able to churn out a lot of early production, which can only lead to good things in a domination-focused game.

Basically, if you have 4 cities early on capable of pumping units, especially of the caliber of Praets, you are in pretty nice shape for being able to dish out a beating. And then of course, transfering your econ to specialists once you have enough troops out, which is very nicely supported by the Roman UB in addition to the standard things, such as CasteSys + Pacificism.

Anyways, just want to see what people think of the idea of going settler first then settler again while 2nd city also builds a settler. Then 1 worker in each city followed by defenders (hopefully axes or chariots after researching bronze-ag-ah [with wheel once a strategic resource appears]). Barbs of course are a concern, so solid defenders and/or fog busters are important, but so is developing all of this territory, so priorities are a little tense in the early going.

But at least in my trial game things went quite well.

 

[scy12]

I will try the early expansion strategy with Catherine . She is not organized so it would be difficult.

 

[carl corey]

Settler-settler-worker-defense and settler-worker-defense in second city is something I've never considered... Could be interesting, but you'll have to be sure to connect at least one strategical resource (Horses or Copper) as you'll have a lot of territory to defend and moving troops between cities will be a pain that early in the game. Still worth a try I guess.

 

[mice]

I tried it on Prince just for a laugh. I got 4 cities down with a worker started in each except the capital which started to pump archers. All cities were settled before I saw my first barb warrior. The settlers were pushing the lions around.

I was on an island luckily and managed to fogbust it all with about 4 archers and the cities. The cities do a good job of fog busting.
If you tried this strat on a crowded map it would pay off.

I got iron within my 4 city empire 2 times, and horse.

 

[carl corey]

Hmm, Augustus loses the Imperialistic trait - important for that kind of early expansion - but gains Creative for even more fogbusting. Should also be an interesting choice for this. So would Catherine - Imp/Cre - as scy12 pointed out.

 

[FrenziedEye]

1/What happens if while you're building settler-settler you bump into a civ that just invades straight away while you have no defence? Once I did this to Ragnar but his barb warrior came out of nowhere! I was one tile from invasion, and his warrior was nowhere to be seen amongst the jungles when it popped out of the fog of war (HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? DOES THE AI CHEAT?)

2/I guess animals is okay because of culture like mice said.. Barbs only come later-ish so I guess it's not too bad..

The reason I build a warrior at the beginning is merely to fortify the current city while my other warrior does the wandering/ future escort for the next settler.

3/At the very beginning since barbs aren't present if you can make use of settler's 2 movement to avoid animals (EXCEPT THOSE ANNOYING PANTHERS/WOLVES WHICH COME OUT OF NOWHERE!). All the other animals are mostly easy to avoid unless youre unlucky esp in jungle or other 2-movement territory.

4/I think I would try this strat only if I see a majority of open land like plains or rivers...not mountains/forests/jungles where movement is impeded. That way if I see an animal coming my way I can avoid.

but then again the risk is the fun part of the game.

The beginning is always the hardest. That's what bugs me.

I hope anything i said makes sense. After all, I only 'boast' a credibility of 12 posts atm.

please be nice. =]

 

[scy12]

1/What happens if while you're building settler-settler you bump into a civ that just invades straight away while you have no defence? Once I did this to Ragnar but his barb warrior came out of nowhere! I was one tile from invasion, and his warrior was nowhere to be seen amongst the jungles when it popped out of the fog of war (HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? DOES THE AI CHEAT?)

2/I guess animals is okay because of culture like mice said.. Barbs only come later-ish so I guess it's not too bad..

The reason I build a warrior at the beginning is merely to fortify the current city while my other warrior does the wandering/ future escort for the next settler.

3/At the very beginning since barbs aren't present if you can make use of settler's 2 movement to avoid animals (EXCEPT THOSE ANNOYING PANTHERS/WOLVES WHICH COME OUT OF NOWHERE!). All the other animals are mostly easy to avoid unless youre unlucky esp in jungle or other 2-movement territory.

4/I think I would try this strat only if I see a majority of open land like plains or rivers...not mountains/forests/jungles where movement is impeded. That way if I see an animal coming my way I can avoid.

but then again the risk is the fun part of the game.

The beginning is always the hardest. That's what bugs me.

I hope anything i said makes sense. After all, I only 'boast' a credibility of 12 posts atm.

please be nice. =]

At 1) The Ai usually doesn't start any wars until Bronze age.


This strategy is feasible with Catherine but you will be killing your economy unless you somehow manage to have enough Copper resources that most neighbor Ai may not have access to copper. It is total war from there. You can extort the necessary techs then from the Ai.

 

[futurehermit]

I think that without the organized trait, it isn't worth it to go for 3-4 cities early. It's just too crippling to your economy. With JC I was able to run approx 70% sci with 4 cities and still get alpha ca 1000BC, which is great because I normally get that with only 3 cities. This means an additional city from which to pump troops.

The downside is getting borders to pop is basically a no-go, so you have to position your cities to get the most out of the small fat cross until you can afford to research mysticism and whip a monument. Hopefully you get your borders to pop before you trade for IW so that you can hook up iron if it shows up in your outer-ring.

Creative is nice for the border popping and in that way REXing is nice, but the lack of organized hurts the economy, probably too much imo.

I think overall JC has some really nice synergy here that could be maximized.

Basically, here is what he has:

-Cheap settlers
-Earlier GGs
-Cheap civic upkeep
-Cheap courthouses
-Praets (uber powerhouse classical unit)
-Forums (more GPP)

So, basically, combining imperialistic and organized, you get the idea of making an early run to 4 cities. Then with Praets, early GGs (1 medic and 1 settled in HE city), and cheap courthouses, you get the idea of expanding far and wide during the classical era. Finally, with Forums, you get the idea of running a FE/SE to get early GSs to make a run for liberalism.

Thoughts?

 

[Diamondeye]

A little note when starting such a thread is to mention you are talking of the warlords expansion pack. Cant quite join the discussion as I have no idea what Imperialistic is... And who has it...

 

[futurehermit]

Well, since warlords has been out for quite awhile, I think it's safe to assume most people know what imperialistic is, or else can assume it is from warlords, just as you have

 

[Binky123]

I think imperialistic is a bad trait, and that creative is much, much better.

Creative is a much stronger boost to the early game than faster settlers, and I value cheap libraries, etc over more great generals.

 

[oyzar]

i agree that creative is so much better for early rex than imperialistic it also means you dont have to worry as much about culture in captured cities and can whip couthouses instead of culture buildings. Great generals are so underpowered which is one of the main reason imperialistic is looked upon as a weak trait. cheap libraries also combo with early rex as it can let your cities run scientists easier to get to alpha or col.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Futurehermit? What game speed / size maps / lvl we talking here out of interest?

 

[carl corey]

I did a test run: Continents, Monarch, Standard Size, Normal Speed.

Results:
- no copper nearby; only copper threw jungle, no way to reach it safely
- second city got two golds & settled on a hill, which meant 2F2H (city tile) + 2H worked tile + 2H from Imperialistic bonus for settler
- third city got horses (& another gold!) because I got Hunting and Agriculture from huts and managed to get Animal Husbandry very cheap
- fourth city was hide and seek with barb archer & barb warrior (I had the original warrior) => crappy site
- the time to connect horses (with three workers for pasture and roading) I decided to also research Archery (remember, I got Hunting from hut)
- I got to defend Rome with Warrior against two barb Archers...and won => very very lucky
- had to found fifth (!!!) city to get Iron - crappy one too -, research is going down, defense is very good and I have neighbours to kill

All in all, I find there's too much luck involved, and unless you strike something really cool (see huts+gold) you're going to have a hard time. Makes me wonder if Archers after Settlers isn't a better choice. Also, four Settlers is a bit too much I think. Maybe if you can settle the two first cities on desert hills and work 1F2H or settle normally and work 3H tiles then you could get the Settlers out faster.

 

[futurehermit]

Well, in my test game (Continents, Normal, Monarch, Standard) it went well. Had 4 total cities quite early and had excellent production capabilities. Had to delay my conquering since I needed another border pop (1st one after BFC) in order to connect iron. But, once connected, I went on to wipe out 2 neighbours (Wang and Brennus) before the renaissance era. I only have Cyrus left on my continent and am poised to take him out with renaissance era troops.

I admit that as the game went on, I found the combo of organized + imperialistic to be pretty underwhelming, but hey JC is one of the leaders in this game and I figure this is a pretty decent way to play him.

Of course there are other better traits than imperialistic (pretty much all of them), but I just figured this was something different for a change...

 

[cabert]

you want a combo for JC?
go for IW as soon as possible, scouting the area and building 1 settler.
settle next to or on the iron (it's pretty common, more so than copper ).
If you see a good commerce city, settle it and build another settler else, workers and barracks + minimal defense.
Barracks in both cities, then praetorians all the way.
Target the pyramids.

Imperialistic will allow you to get fast GGs to be settled in your best production city. with representation, you'll even have beakers from this .
Of course you don't want to keep everything, and you don't want to play on monarch. Start with emperor, or it really feels like cheating.

 

[carl corey]

Second attempt, same conditions, went even worse, despite the fact that I had 4H+2H from Imp in each of the first two cities. There was no copper and no horses nearby, and in the end I lost a city. I'm really not sure whether it's the RNG gods that hate me, or it's really that risky of a strategy...

 

[futurehermit]

@cabert, well, that works for both Roman leaders and then, frankly, I'd rather take Augustus

@carl corey, hmm...that sucks. not having copper or horses does indeed make things difficult. what was your research pattern? if you don't have copper or horses, it would probably be a good idea to 1) build some warriors before your 3rd-4th city and/or 2) divert your research toward archery.

 

[Sisiutil]

It strikes me as a very risky strategy, not that that's necessarily a bad thing. But consider this: success when playing as Rome (either leader) rests on one thing--a source of iron so you can build the best UU in the game. This strategy leaves this key component of a Rome game entirely up to chance.

I prefer, when I'm Rome, to research BW -> The Wheel -> IW. I too follow the four city strategy, but like this: 2nd city for copper, 3rd city for commerce (gold, gems, or silver, hopefully; failing that, a good commerce city site--lots of rivers), 4th city (if needed) for iron. If I have iron within my existing territory, I just found the best 4th city site available. Then its barracks, Praets, and war.

Augustus has a huge advantage over Julius because he'll have claimed more territory by the time IW is finished, increasing the chances that it's somewhere within Rome's borders. I'm not a big fan of the Imperialistic trait, though I did have fun with it in one game where Julius had stone near the start and I built the Great Wall, increasing GG production even further.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Sorry that this is slightly off the topic, but reading this interesting thread, has reminded me how different Civ settings just aren't the same game.

For instance, I always play huge maps / marathon/ monarch / emp or so and this strategy just wouldn't work as a) The Barbs would murder you and b) The nearest "potential enemy" is generally so far away as to be pointless in attacking (unless its just to slow them down).

I too like playing both Romans (doesn't everyone) but generally don't go a rampaging till after building around 7 or 8 cities, and no I don't wait for COL, you can generally keep your economy going by constant conquest

I tried a normal speed / normal map size emp game the other day, and after quitting the first one (I forgot you had to expand quickly, not used to that ), my other reactions were :- huh ? where's the barbs, they basically don't exist in comparison, and wow where's all this science coming from so quickly, and (even better) cool, look at all these juicy cities that are actually close enough to make it practical to keep them....

Civ really is several games in one