Problems on Marathon Deity with "normal" leaders

[Seraiel]

Haha.

I've played about 10 games with Romans till now, got Iron in all of them. It's as abundant as Copper, so not really, but it's ok, better than Elephants.

 

[civvver]

Iron is more plentiful? I highly doubt that. Food resources are more common, but iron and copper and horses are a crapshoot. Usually guaranteed to get at least one, but nothing beyond that unless you have tons of land.

 

[Keilah]

I don't see why you don't play Darius, he seems like an obvious choice.

Iron is more plentiful than copper IME.

Cho-Ko-Nus are way better than praets vs AIs, just remember to build a few defensive spears/elephants/pikes for knights. Too bad the Chinese leaders have crappy traits.

 

[cbucks]

I agree, Darius, Or Ramses seems Way better for your style of early warfare. A 2 city immortal rush taht transitions into a 3 city horse archer rush works on immortal normal.

 

[Seraiel]

Don't forget guys, I'm on vacations from Huayna Capac, would be no fun to play the mounted version of Huayna. And if I wouldn't have played rome, I woulnd't have experienced the following moment:

Played a sucky map. Didn't manage to Oracle Feudalism but only MC, and that costed me so many ressources that I got boxed in with only 7 cities, again, on a Huge map. My closest neighbour was "Brennus" whom I had chosen to be the "Hateguy and Meatshield" for this round. I needed his cities and rushed at a late time of 500 BC with 16 Praets and 4 Trebuchets. First City fell without any losses "great, he's a Wimp I thought" never having played against him before, but then: The Shock!

A mixed Stack out of 24 Gallic Warriors, War Elephants, Spears and Axes approaching me at the other side of my empire. The Praets were still wounded from the last City-Capture, some of them had even been promoted to CR, Brennus would have been willing to make peace, but Julius Caesar said: "There is no reatreating for Rome, everybody that has hands and feet run to Antium and full out attack!"

I couldn't believe it myself when I thought this, 16 partly wounded Praets killed half of the approaching Stack on the open Field, all Elephants, all Axes, some Gallic Warriors, but it were simply to much to decide this in one round, anyhow, only 1 Praet died but 15 of Brennus' units!

Then it was Brennus turn, he attacked the even further wounded Praets with his full health Gallic Warriors! I had gotten a GG from the attack on the stack, he was promoted to Combat 1, Withdrawel, Double-XP and Medic 1: This Praet alone beat 5 Catapults!!! Then it was the heavily wounded Praets against the Gallic Warriors, only 3 Praets fell, but the remaining 10+ GWs and Spears!!!

This is the glory of Rome, and this is why I sometimes hate to play Checker-Rushes or similar rushes with weak units. I tell you guys, Praets are a dimension of fighting, it's unbelievable! 16 Praets beat a mixed Stack of 24 Units of the same era with only 4 losses in 2 rounds of fight!

Tell me any other unit that can do that. Cho-Ku-Nu's would have had a hard time against the Elephants, and I don't believe that 24 War Chariots would have done better. Play them yourselves, you won't believe your eyes when you see them in fight and look at the chances before that, again, a Praet against a Shock-Axe that's fortified in a Walls-Hills-City is 12% chance, so 2.5 kill them, with CR2, 2 will do. Now compare that to this Habitus calculations for 5-6 War Chariots against a fortified Spear!

Sera

 

[vranasm]

cho-ko's would compete imo...they offer collateral and can have first strike, if you take the pro china leader even better - drill out the gate and you can take drill II with rax (forgot which one it is).

Right now not sure, but do have cho-ko's capped the number of units the collateral targets? I don't remember one, but you know how it goes with human memory.

edit:
AND they eat melee units for breakfast!

 

[Keilah]

try to simulate the encounter with cho-ko-nus, even with just 3exp each, they will probably perform just as well or better. 2-4 will die from attacking into elephants, and after that it's a slaughter (in your favor)

 

[Kaitzilla]

Don't forget guys, I'm on vacations from Huayna Capac, would be no fun to play the mounted version of Huayna. And if I wouldn't have played rome, I woulnd't have experienced the following moment:

Played a sucky map. Didn't manage to Oracle Feudalism but only MC, and that costed me so many ressources that I got boxed in with only 7 cities, again, on a Huge map. My closest neighbour was "Brennus" whom I had chosen to be the "Hateguy and Meatshield" for this round. I needed his cities and rushed at a late time of 500 BC with 16 Praets and 4 Trebuchets. First City fell without any losses "great, he's a Wimp I thought" never having played against him before, but then: The Shock!

A mixed Stack out of 24 Gallic Warriors, War Elephants, Spears and Axes approaching me at the other side of my empire. The Praets were still wounded from the last City-Capture, some of them had even been promoted to CR, Brennus would have been willing to make peace, but Julius Caesar said: "There is no reatreating for Rome, everybody that has hands and feet run to Antium and full out attack!"

I couldn't believe it myself when I thought this, 16 partly wounded Praets killed half of the approaching Stack on the open Field, all Elephants, all Axes, some Gallic Warriors, but it were simply to much to decide this in one round, anyhow, only 1 Praet died but 15 of Brennus' units!

Then it was Brennus turn, he attacked the even further wounded Praets with his full health Gallic Warriors! I had gotten a GG from the attack on the stack, he was promoted to Combat 1, Withdrawel, Double-XP and Medic 1: This Praet alone beat 5 Catapults!!! Then it was the heavily wounded Praets against the Gallic Warriors, only 3 Praets fell, but the remaining 10+ GWs and Spears!!!

This is the glory of Rome, and this is why I sometimes hate to play Checker-Rushes or similar rushes with weak units. I tell you guys, Praets are a dimension of fighting, it's unbelievable! 16 Praets beat a mixed Stack of 24 Units of the same era with only 4 losses in 2 rounds of fight!

Tell me any other unit that can do that. Cho-Ku-Nu's would have had a hard time against the Elephants, and I don't believe that 24 War Chariots would have done better. Play them yourselves, you won't believe your eyes when you see them in fight and look at the chances before that, again, a Praet against a Shock-Axe that's fortified in a Walls-Hills-City is 12% chance, so 2.5 kill them, with CR2, 2 will do. Now compare that to this Habitus calculations for 5-6 War Chariots against a fortified Spear!

Sera

Whoa , these kinds of stories are why I like Caesar so much. When praets get on a roll, watch out world!

I find that Julius only needs to Oracle a tech on Deity to get rolling. Mids and TGL are pretty sweet, but can be captured at a later date hopefully. Cheap settlers, lighthouses, and courthouses are rather nice during the city spamming phase too.

Augustus is better for getting the wonders, but seems to fall a bit flat later on in the mid game.

 

[Habitus]

Now compare that to this Habitus calculations for 5-6 War Chariots against a fortified Spear!

The main difference being that Flanking II (which they take instead of CR II) would mean that half your WC that 'lose' would still survive to fight another day. So higher investment in hammers initially to get up to the 5.5 WC compared to 2.5 Praets (330 vs 225) but probably even hammers lost, say 4.5 losses to 1.5 with 2.25 WC surviving thats 135 vs 135
Praets are much much better on defense thou, and probably have a longer window of use than WC. Phants or LB both stop WC dead, and spears while beatable come at a fairly high cost, while Maces are what finally stop Praets completely with LB being their high cost but beatable unit.

 

[Silverbow]

There's also the matter of speed. WCs and immortals are just so much faster at conquering than praets - both due to their two moves, and due to much earlier tech.

 

[Seraiel]

Who the funk is this Brennus .

I took 3 cities of him, destroyed his Stack, I even managed to capture his Capital with all my remaining forces (I whipped till the Happiness-Limit was reached) and he tells me when I ask him friendly if he would be so kind and capitulate "we're doing fine on our own" . On top: He even suicided a counter-attack-Stack to my Praets with me having not a single loss again!

Then I look in his last 2 remaining cities, and see 20+ LBs, XBs, Gallic Warriors and again Axes and Spears!!!

Of course, in good AI manor, these cities were founded on a hill and the troops in them are promoted to Guerrilla II .

I'm really starting to think about letting him be and just keep the cities I captured, though this sucks, because I need a Vassal who can research Railroads for me while I tech to Medicine. The Sushi-Date will already be late and I still have to conquer the world, so I need those Corps right now!

Think I can't let him be. Maybe I'll do something crazy and whip 1-2 Praets from every city ruining my enormous research of 300 / turn, I'm not willing to give up to this stupidity!

 

[vranasm]

now imagine Boobica is even worse (aka she expands well, techs well AND spams units and is pretty bloodthirsty usually)...

I would never handpick any of the Celts into my game if I were to handpick

 

[Silverbow]

I would never handpick any of the Celts into my game if I were to handpick

Really depends on what you're looking for, if you're going for something like culture or OCC space, they both make good picks, as they're easy to get to friendly, don't declare at pleased and capable of taking care of your war needs for you.

 

[Seraiel]

now imagine Boobica is even worse (aka she expands well, techs well AND spams units and is pretty bloodthirsty usually)...

I would never handpick any of the Celts into my game if I were to handpick

I must have one or two meatshields in my games as otherwise, AI will likely DoW me, and early, that's the end of the game because it's not competitive anymore. In my current game I have Ghandi (the good guy) and Brennus (the bad guy) and it works like a charm, both are totally isolated, and the first 4000y were a constant war against Brennus while Ghandi got no techs and was always Brennus' hate-target (although I was his neighbour) . It worked even better than in the games with Toku, because Brennus actually seems to be willing to make war, Toku only was underdevloped and sat in his corner but did no harm.

A Failpick was Suryarvarman, man. Always in war with somebody and always a pain in the neck, "come, join my war with your 3 warriors!" , and then always -2 for denying him, sometimes I had like -14 or -16 only for those reasons, atm. he's furious .

Really depends on what you're looking for, if you're going for something like culture or OCC space, they both make good picks, as they're easy to get to friendly, don't declare at pleased and capable of taking care of your war needs for you.

I have still to find a way to win that game. I have only 13 cities at 1 AD atm, I hope that there is still place left on the islands, but conquering the mainland seems to be extremely hard this time. Mansas, Darius' and Peters Power-Ratio are up in the sky. I think Cannons + Praets might beat them though, but the tech-race is extremely hard atm, Mansa only takes like 8 turns for a tech like Corps while I need 20+ turns for that, thx to my diplomacy I have found some friendly tradepartners in Lincoln, Frederick and Peter. Maybe Mining Inc and Sushi will turn the game into my favour.

 

[vranasm]

why not use Sitting Bull? he usually is hated by AI's, but not experienced with handpicking...
he can be annoying (he really like to demand random stuff, but if you don't say no, you're usually ok, but the AI's telling no otoh...)

 

[Seraiel]

Ghandi: BasePeaceWeight = 10 ; Sitting Bull: 9 (that's worse, one wants to have one leader that scores extremely high and one extremely low, Ghandi scores higher than Sitting Bull so he's a better hate-target)

Also:

iMaxWarRand: Ghandi 400, Sitting Bull 200, so Ghandi is more peaceful, which is also better.

Then:

BuildUnitProb: Ghandi 15, Sitting Bull 35, so Sitting Bull is basically a Unit-Spammer like Montezuma.

-------

You cannot take Sitting Bull for Brennus, because that doesn't work. Sitting Bull belongs to the "good-guy-faction" and Brennus to the "bad-guy-section" . One wants 1 of both extremes, then hate will be focused on those 2 solely, the good ones will always hate the badest badass, the bad-ones will always hate the most peaceful guy.

 

[Silverbow]

Wouldn't Toku be the ideal bad guy? Hated and backwards.

 

[Seraiel]

I played with Toku for quite some time, I also found him very good as a meatshield, because of the things you mentioned. But what I also recognized about him, is, that he almost never starts a war, maybe because he's so backwards and always in "get better units strategy" . Also: Tokugawa, +1 BasePeaceWeight, Brennus 0! Brennus gets hated even better than Toku, and because he's a decent opponent, he actually can survive the attack of 5 Civs like I saw in my game today. He poses no threat himself as long as Ghandi and other good guys are in the game, because he'll most likely go after them. And: Brennus has the overly good attribute that he likes OR, the Civic one will run in a Sushi game for nearly 100% of the time, and it's available early, therefor, one onesself will have diplo-bonuses with him preventing attacks.

Only other leaders in the Range of Brennus' Peaceweight are Alexander, De Gaulle, Genghis Khan, Montezuma, Napoleon and Ragnar, but I wouldn't wanna play against those ^^ They either go to war on sight and / or are huge pains in the Neck with demanding the out of one. I tried GK for some time as a Meatshield, he also works quite well, because one can actually befriend him quite well, he's always underdeveloped and by that can be bribed against anyone easily, but that's one thing one doesn't want in a Sushi-game, because it screws Diplomacy. One wants the wars to develop itself but controlled and planned, and one doesn't want to get stupid demands every few turns, especially not for -2 like with Toku, Suryar or Qin.

Btw.: 500 AD and still no Sushi, the AI tells me that they fear I'm becoming to advanced. What's that for a ? I'm in the middle of the score-table and Asoka has 6 techs I don't have, they all trade like crazy and because they tech different things, it's impossible to keep up against their combined tech-power, if they don't trade. Is there anything one can do against this?

 

[Habitus]

Get friendly with an ai as that removes trade cap for them, still get the 'we have our reason' from building wonders thou

 

[Seraiel]

I didn't mention it, but those AIs were on friendly of course. Even Mansa denies trading with me, although I'm not his worst Enemy. Never seen something like this before.