Revisit how to start with Churchhill

[madscientist]

I know it was covered in another thread within the past month but I wanted to restart this in hopes of winning with Churchhill after some far along loses (once in an isolated continent I loss to massive AI outdated junk amphibiously landing, and second trying to fight the entire world at once since noone liked me and Justinian was going to tech himself into space).

So a few Comments

1) Why am I Obsessed with this fat balding Brit? My style of play and they way I enjoy the game is to have a certain competitve level with same conditions all the time. Meaining, Monarch level, Marathon speed, huge big/little maps, random everything else. I plan to win with every leader in BTS under these conditions (I did this in Warlords but at Prince level). My goal to to win once with each civilization that has three leaders (Americans, English, Russians, French) and try to spread out the traits, I have already won with Roosevelt (1 down, 51 more to go). I dislike Vicky, and do not want to play another industrious (my favorite trait so I do not want to use up all the ind leaders early in this marathon) or organized leader yet which leaves me Churchhill/Elizabeth/CAtherine/Peter. I want to see how other AIs play before I start trying to leverage imperialists, so Cathy is out, Liz is build for space which I just won with Roosevelt so I wanted to shake things up a bit more. Boy, have shaken things up. So here I am, determined to win a Monarch game with Churchhill before I try another AI (most likely Peter next).

2) What are the best ways to play Chruchhill to start? Obviously start on a workboat (all other Chruch starts for me) unless London is landlocked (which it currently is) and always start teching bronze working. Any other tech make ssense. After that, I go after archery, I know I know noone like archers and it's a dead path, but it plays the the protective trait and I try to leverage my advantage with a leader. I will generally go with teh next worker tech (wheel or agr) then mysticism which leads me to point...

3) Chruchhill is sort of made for early stonehenge. Yes, this Bald Brit has druid and celtic blood in him. Free monuments which is +1 happiness and culture in all cities, a baby cultural leader (and what a fat baby). Early BW assures you can chop it out. I have also been able to successfully get oracle, even over indiustrial leaders such as Hyuna. Chopping and high populated London helps, which I have been slingshotting for....

4) COL. Yes Churchhill is a born religious leader, just look at the name!!!! Spread it arround, the free missionary goes to London, built population even more, build a temple and get that very early great prophet. Build the Confucious shrine and the English have a very reliable early cash flow at the cost of one GP. You do not not even need to adopt it as a state religion as the happiness is not needed (current game I founded Conf but adopted Buddhism for diplomacy). This leverages very well with the Stock exchange and it's extra 15% gold. The brits love the money religion provide but really do not need the religious guidance which leads me to ...

5) WAR. OK, Churchhill is made for war, the charismatic trait leads to fast promotions of swords/axes once blood is spilt while the protective trait allows inpregnable city defense. Just send a barracks promoted archer out to kill one warrior and you have a CGIII Drill I defender. Fuedalism beeline is important for vassalage and dynamite longbows. Machinery and crosswbows make great stack defenders with drill II and III promotions plus can defende conquered cities very well.

6) OK, how does one leverage those Recoats? My guess (and how I have done it) is to get alot of heavily promoted swords/maces with city raider promotions and just upgrade to redcoats. Also build new redcoats with CG III to defend all my cities replacing longbows (rather than upgrading). My thinking is it is expensive enough to upgrade the swords/maces, that's alot of cash to upgrade Longbows since redcoats can be built with the same promotions.

So that's my very long winded dirge about Chruchhill. Any suggestions and advice on what I can do better with him. Some thing I am missing?

I currently have 5 cities, conf + shrine, teching Fuedalism, even in tech, 5 buddhist neighbors. I need to go to war for land (and horses) or stagnate. Sorry no screenshots as of now.

 

[carl corey]

First of all, why archery?! I know you said you want to leverage the Protective trait, but early on teching Archery and building archers is a major drag. You have more important techs to research so Archery slows you down, and also slows down any wonder race. And if you have Copper Axemen are much better than Archers. Ok, if you don't have Copper nearby you might want to go for Archery. On the other hand Hunting also opens Animal Husbandry for Horses. If you feel risky enough, or can fogbust a lot, it might be worth it as you'll certainly use it for other pastures. You will research/trade Archery later, for Longbows and Crossbows.

I don't think that Feudalism is so important though. Most AIs will tech to it, meaning it's easy to trade for it. Do you want to vassalize your neighbours really early? I wouldn't do that with everyone being Buddhist, some my get bribed to fight against you if you go to war. I'd rather wait for a good tech advantage while keeping everyone peaceful. It seems easily achievable in your case, the shared religion being a very powerful uniter.

You could wait to get Printing Press from Liberalism, then go for Rifling. I agree that 5 cities is a bit too few though. Are you sure there's no more place for you to expand? I'd really have wanted to attack someone before the Buddhist block got formed.

About Redcoats, you can upgrade if you have the money, but once your empire gets bigger Drafting is probably the best option. They're powerful enough even if they don't get a lot of promotions early on. They will gain them in wars. I don't like CG promotions by the way except in special cases. Your defending Redcoats are better getting Drill or even Combat, making them useful outside cities. Some of the stack defenders can thus become city defenders and vice-versa.

 

[madscientist]

I don't think that Feudalism is so important though. Most AIs will tech to it, meaning it's easy to trade for it. Do you want to vassalize your neighbours really early? I wouldn't do that with everyone being Buddhist, some my get bribed to fight against you if you go to war. I'd rather wait for a good tech advantage while keeping everyone peaceful. It seems easily achievable in your case, the shared religion being a very powerful uniter.

You could wait to get Printing Press from Liberalism, then go for Rifling. I agree that 5 cities is a bit too few though. Are you sure there's no more place for you to expand? I'd really have wanted to attack someone before the Buddhist block got formed.

Nowhere to go, no nearby islands, nothing. Muhmed in jungles to the north. Gilgamesh is to my west and has some really prime real estate as well as the needed horses. I am not to keen on having a cultural/protective neighbor for that long so I think the earlier I neutralize him the better.

About Redcoats, you can upgrade if you have the money, but once your empire gets bigger Drafting is probably the best option. They're powerful enough even if they don't get a lot of promotions early on. They will gain them in wars. I don't like CG promotions by the way except in special cases. Your defending Redcoats are better getting Drill or even Combat, making them useful outside cities. Some of the stack defenders can thus become city defenders and vice-versa.

Now that is something I didn't think of. I have automatically promoted redcoats to CG II and III but perhaps Drill II and III will give them an edge. They already have the +25% to gunpowder units so they are OK against cav and other rifles (and even granders to an extent) but the Drill promotions work best against weeker units, correct? I guess the ideal defensive stack in a city would be 1 CG III redcoat to take the initial siege engine attacks adn then several drill promoted units to minimize collateral damage. Something for me to think about, thanks.

 

[carl corey]

Where are you and everybody with the teching right now? If you're first to Feudalism it might be worth aiming for it. Not for the Longbows but for vassalizing. In that case I would really consider going after Gilgamesh from what you're saying. There's no reason not to double the size of your empire.

Drill will help you against weaker units by not taking much damage (or at all). That means the same unit can defend time after time without much trouble, meaning you'll need fewer units. As the Redcoats are really powerful, every extra strike they give is bound to cause lots of damage, so battles should be over really fast.

By the way, don't forget about the Pinch (+25% vs Gunpowder units) promotion. Since you're Protective and start with Drill I the promotion is already available! That means a total of +50% vs Grenadiers, while already enjoying a higher base strength. The Grens get +50% vs Rifles (Redcoats) on the attack, so the bonuses cancel each other, Redcoats thus winning easily. When Redcoats attack it's not even a close contest. Although you probably won't need Pinch at first since the AI is slow to get Grens.

 

[madscientist]

Where are you and everybody with the teching right now? If you're first to Feudalism it might be worth aiming for it. Not for the Longbows but for vassalizing. In that case I would really consider going after Gilgamesh from what you're saying. There's no reason not to double the size of your empire.

Drill will help you against weaker units by not taking much damage (or at all). That means the same unit can defend time after time without much trouble, meaning you'll need fewer units. As the Redcoats are really powerful, every extra strike they give is bound to cause lots of damage, so battles should be over really fast.

By the way, don't forget about the Pinch (+25% vs Gunpowder units) promotion. Since you're Protective and start with Drill I the promotion is already available! That means a total of +50% vs Grenadiers, while already enjoying a higher base strength. The Grens get +50% vs Rifles (Redcoats) on the attack, so the bonuses cancel each other, Redcoats thus winning easily. When Redcoats attack it's not even a close contest. Although you probably won't need Pinch at first since the AI is slow to get Grens.

Noone else is at Fuedalism yet, so I am after that followed by construction. My goal is to get it first and take out Gilgamesh. His borders cities are protected with 1 or 2 archers right now. Hyuna is crowding him on the other side (and me to the south) so I may just contiue through those two AIs. Muhmed and Cyrus I plan to befriend by running their favorite civic vassalage for quite awhile, and perhaps I can bribe them. Tokugawa is the wild card but he's on the other side of the continent right now. But for now I have to get fuedalsim and build a big enough army.

Regarding Pinch, yes I am aware of the ease of the promotion. However in all my games with Church in BTS I have had to fight tons of outdated melee and horse units so pinch is no help. By the time the AIs got to rifling/cavalry I had the assembly line.

 

[carl corey]

Oh, that's good that you're getting Feudalism that early. I thought everyone was a bit more advanced. Just make sure to go to war taking only good cities, not razing the rest, and try to vassalize the AIs as soon as you can. It's all gonna snowball from there, and unfortunately you might take over your continent before Redcoats. The 'not raze' part is so that the vassals will still be on good terms with you, especially since you'll share the religion. If you do it well you can get only the one time '-3 you declared war on us' demerit, while enjoying same religion, shared wars, defensive pacts from vassalizing, open borders, fair trade, etc. The biggest problems will come in the early war if someone else gets Feudalism, as you don't want your enemy to vassalize to someone else. If you're high enough on power you can be pretty sure that won't happen.

I know about Pinch, I wrote about it just because you mentioned Grenadiers. Before Rifles/Grens/Cavs the Combat or Drill promotions will most probably be best. Combat to make some hard-hitters against the best AI defenders, Drill to mop up the rest, heal fast and continue the attack.

 

[madscientist]

Oh, that's good that you're getting Feudalism that early. I thought everyone was a bit more advanced. Just make sure to go to war taking only good cities, not razing the rest, and try to vassalize the AIs as soon as you can. It's all gonna snowball from there, and unfortunately you might take over your continent before Redcoats. The 'not raze' part is so that the vassals will still be on good terms with you, especially since you'll share the religion. If you do it well you can get only the one time '-3 you declared war on us' demerit, while enjoying same religion, shared wars, defensive pacts from vassalizing, open borders, fair trade, etc. The biggest problems will come in the early war if someone else gets Feudalism, as you don't want your enemy to vassalize to someone else. If you're high enough on power you can be pretty sure that won't happen.

I know about Pinch, I wrote about it just because you mentioned Grenadiers. Before Rifles/Grens/Cavs the Combat or Drill promotions will most probably be best. Combat to make some hard-hitters against the best AI defenders, Drill to mop up the rest, heal fast and continue the attack.

I was thinking about keeping the vassals happy also. Running heritary rule also will help keep Hyuna/Gilg happy after I hopefully vassal them.

Muhmed i generally avoid fighting unless I can overwhelm him, he is always tough. Cyrus is a future problem. In BTS he goes out of his favorite civic fequestly and almost always takes free religion as soon as he gets liberalism. He has also turned into a late game war monger, numerous times I have seen him go for a domination win. So somehow I need to get either Toku or Muhmed to go against Cyrus, then backstab Cyrus. Any suggestions??? Soory about no screeshots.

 

[carl corey]

Toku is easy to please. Adopt Mercantilism. That and shared wars, which unfortunately aren't your goal here (it would add a '-1 you brought a war ally against us'). But if you feel like Cyrus gets problematic enlist Toku's help. That will make him a potential ally for a further war against Mehmed. Also, I don't trust Mehmed. If possible I'd keep an eye on him and some troops to defend at his borders. Attack him when you get Redcoats perhaps?

 

[madscientist]

Toku is easy to please. Adopt Mercantilism. That and shared wars, which unfortunately aren't your goal here (it would add a '-1 you brought a war ally against us'). But if you feel like Cyrus gets problematic enlist Toku's help. That will make him a potential ally for a further war against Mehmed. Also, I don't trust Mehmed. If possible I'd keep an eye on him and some troops to defend at his borders. Attack him when you get Redcoats perhaps?

Really, I always thought Muhmed could be trusted? Well, let me take care of Gilg/Hyuna first, if I can't take them out the others are non-issues (which means yet another churchhill restart). I'll try and post some screenshots tonight before I resume the game.

 

[madscientist]

Ok, here is a screenshot of my game. A few additional items. I am builfing the AP in London. I am running 6 gold profit with 100% science. 38 turns until Fuedalism, with construction next if I can trade for it. I forgot Hammarabi is in the mix, anyone have any experience with him??

My goal is finish my infrastructure while teching Fuedalism, switch to vassalage and start builiind swords/axes, built/whip cats once I get construction and take out as much of Gilg as I can, minimally to take the hroses.

Futue plans are to takout Hyuna eventually and possible Hammarabi (once his bowmen become obsolete.

Any additional comments/help are appreciated