Why is Sitting Bull so hard to use?

[OrsonM]

I have been trying over and over again and I just can't find a suitable strategy for Sitting Bull of the Native Americans. I know he's borderline indestructible because of his archers, but I really think his UB and UU are subpar when compared to others.

Has anyone been successful with Sitting Bull?

 

[Windsor]

Reliable starting techs, reliable anti-barb UU, a UB that allows for some gambits and at least one top notch trait.

I don't consider him hard to use at all.

 

[Little Faith]

Well, sometimes you shouldn't fuss too much about the UU/UB. Sitting Bull is Philosophical which is good in and by itself.

One strength about Sitting Bull's UU/UB combo is that you have very strong defense without any strategic resources. This makes early city placement much more relaxed as you don't have to worry too much about claiming strategic resources.

The UU is only good offensively at Noble or below where you can hit archer-less cities super-early with it. The UB have some more options to it though.
You could try the peculiar "Offensive Longbows" strat but it's really not that good. The only thing it has going for it is that you can war in the late-classical/early-medieval era without any strategic resources.

A better utilization would be to amass a lot of longbows (preferably running Vassalage/Theocracy) with the intent of upgrading them to gunpowder units later on. You need a lot of quick cash for that, but Philosophical can help with that by generating Great Merchants.


So there you have it. Sitting Bull is a Philosophical leader who can get by surprisingly well without access to any strategic resources (at least until the industrial/modern era).

 

[OrsonM]

The protective trait is sort of a plus trait, it works good in conjunction with another trait. But I feel it's too one sided to be used effectively.

One of the things about sitting bull is that I mind too much about his traits and try to exploit them, Ive always felt I should probably play normally and not mind them too much.

None of Sitting Bulls traits seem to complement each other, while it's UB complements its protective trait, it requires to get 3 technologies that SB must research on it's own. His UB and UU arrive at an odd time too, either they come too soon or too late (or are obsolete soon enough).

Just really have not found away to crack how to play with him well enough. The Dog Warriors illustrate Sitting Bull short commings well enough: a great skill encased within mediocre abilities.

 

[dirtyparrot]

SB is a bit of an overkill on defense, but having a resourceless unit allows you not to worry about building a city and hooking up a strat resource and being guaranteed a better unit right after BW is in. It lets you do things like better prioritize city placement and wonderspam.

Also, Dog Soldiers are difficult to dislodge if you decide to choke the AI.

 

[lymond]

Try a super-longbow/cat war

 

[Kid R]

If sitting bull seems hard to use maybe it's because he's different - you have to use archers to get the best out of him early on, and many people never do that otherwise. Also you have to use specialists to leverage philosophical, which more people do do, but if you're a cottage fan it really hurts to take 2 citizens off cottages off and put them in the library!

I quite like him anyway as he's the one leader who takes the protective trait and turns it into something more user friendly.

 

[Windsor]

Meh, Sitting Bulls über-archers and longbows are overrated. In most games it's better to simply skip archery with SB and use the totem pole as a regular monument.

And if you really want to war, horse archers or swordsmen will usually be a better option. Both are earlier than longbows, HAs move faster while swords are cheaper. If your waiting for LBs+cats your in great danger of running into longbows.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Meh, Sitting Bulls über-archers and longbows are overrated. In most games it's better to simply skip archery with SB and use the totem pole as a regular monument.

And if you really want to war, horse archers or swordsmen will usually be a better option. Both are earlier than longbows, HAs move faster while swords are cheaper. If your waiting for LBs+cats your in great danger of running into longbows.

They're overrated for OFFENSIVE wars.

Sitting bull has one of the safest plays in the game, because for the vast majority (or just about all) of it the AI has to get through massed CG III units. This allows the human to survive until better offensive units are teched or whatever other goal there might be.

PHI offers a reliable means to speed tech pace and offers some cute gambits by itself if the land is appropriate.

All in all, he's only hard to use if the player attempts to force things that don't work very well. Top notch defenders don't merit an otherwise bad time to war, and there's no reason to go dog rushing unless one is boxed in to like 1-2 cities. However, when genghis khan declares and runs into 4 city garrison 3 drill I archers on a hill, he's not getting through in the BCs. Usually .

 

[OrsonM]

Well, actually there's a lot of good points here, thanks, guess I'll focus differently in Sitting Bull next time, though I do feel he's clearly the odd man out from all Civs in Civ 4 (maybe I'm just not used to specialist economy).

 

[plasmacannon]

I do hear alot of negative comments about the N.A.s, but, it all depends on how they are used.
I just had an Emperor game, playing Roosevelt.
Sitting Bull declared war on me, 2 tiles away from my horse resourse. He pillaged it and sat on it with a chariot, a dog soldier, and a shock, combat 1, drill 1, CG1 archer.
Then came his reinforcements of more of the same.
As my copper was in the radius 2 of my 2nd city, and I hadn't cultured out to it yet, I was forced to build more archers to defend my city.

These kinds of pillaging raids can be devastating to empires (like Rome) that heavily rely on a resourse to become powerful.

Eventually, I cultured in the copper and parked 3 combat 1 archers on it, until I could build axemen and spearmen. His stack of 7 units attacked my walled hilled city and he lost, but, he had twice as many cities as I did, and was clearly in a better position, than I was, at the time.

 

[Agramon]

I think SB has a pretty decent combination. It might be a bit of overkill on defense. But u can use him quite easily. Turtle up and bulb to lib. Grab something on the way to steel. Research and build cannons. Mass draft and march. Philosophical should come in handy for cultural, too.

 

[Ataxerxes]

Well, actually there's a lot of good points here, thanks, guess I'll focus differently in Sitting Bull next time, though I do feel he's clearly the odd man out from all Civs in Civ 4 (maybe I'm just not used to specialist economy).

It isn't so much the specialist economy. You need to have one or two GP farms to get what he has to offer. I like the drill line, so I'm more inclined with SB to build archers and possibly upgrade to get the benefit of the totem pole. With Protective and a totem pole you can get Longbows that are close to Drill IV out of the box. Any that get to Drill IV get upgraded.

Remember, Philosophical only helps GP generation so only cities that would normally produce a GP benefit from it.

 

[mirthadir]

I'm not sure what is so bad about SB. You are essentially safe for the first half of the game. If you can pull off an oracle to feudalism gambit you can go rampage through a civ or two, DIV lbs vs anything pre-construction is laughable. Another shot is to fast bulb to lib - take nat and tech to early rifles. Running around a mass of DI/whatever draft rifles and enough trebs to bombard down the cities is pretty easy and classic. Or put a city on a hill near a crazy and then farm GGs. Or do the same thing at RR - declare war and laugh as 200+ units suicide against CGIII/DI MGs.

Even something simple like writing -> HBR -> HA war (preferably against whoever founds Confu) with a philo bulb to recover works well with SB.

The only problem I can really see with SB is losing the option to axe rush, otherwise he's pretty rock solid and can win lib from traits under most any circumstance out to deity. That's pretty good for "subpar".