AU 206: Gallic Glory

alexman · February 27, 2003, 13:20

Your name is Resourceful Ralph, and you have been chosen to lead the Celts to Glory. (If you succeed, you will be knighted, and will thus be named Sir Ralph). You vow to show the world how to run an efficient militaristic empire. Your power lies within your people, and your people lie within your cities. So you shall place your cities wisely and prosper! But if you think that this Apolyton University class is all about peaceful building, guess again. Land is at a premium, and you will have to find a way to take some of it away from your neighbors. Will you use your powerful, yet expensive, Gallic Swordsmen effectively, or will you resort to Archers and Horsemen to defeat your enemies?

As usual, there are three versions of this scenario. AU mod 1.16, PTW 1.14f, and Civ3 1.29f. To avoid being exposed to spoiler information, make sure you cover the mini-map as you load the scenario in PTW.

Tell your stories, explain your city placement, and demonstrate the usefulness or uselessness of the Gallic Swordsman in the spoiler thread.

May Teutates, the Celtic God of Tribe and War, be with you!

Jawa Jocky · February 27, 2003, 14:35

Emperor with the AU mod

nbarclay · February 27, 2003, 14:36

In case anyone missed it, I'm reposting something I wrote yesterday on the strengths of the Gallic Swordsman in another thread. Read between the lines and you should get some ideas regarding how to take advantage of the unit.

---

I've just been thinking, and there may be some reasons to leave the GS as he is in the stock game after all. (When I debate, I always have part of my mind thinking about how the other side ought to be arguing, and sometimes I'm better at convincing myself than my opponents are at convincing me. ) When comparing the GS and the MW, consider the following:

1) The Iroqouis traits do not mesh well to improve the potency of their UU. They don't get the cheap barracks of a militaristic civ, nor do they have the improved overall productivity of an industrious civ. Further, while MWs are certainly potent in battle, the lack of the Militaristic trait limits the Iroquois' ability to parley that advantage into lots of elites and, eventually, leaders. It is this lack of synergy that prevents the Iroquois from being the hands-down favorite as a warmongering civ. In contrast, the Celts' militaristic nature gives them cheap barracks, quicker promotions, and indirectly a much better chance of great leaders. Cost for cost and stat for stat, the same offensive UU is worth much more in Celtic hands than in Iroquois hands.

2) The prebuild for the MW is less practical. It comes later. It's more expensive in shields (which is especially problematical for a civ without cheap barracks). And worst of all, the prebuild requires the same resource as the main unit, so you can never use a prebuild after you research or acquire Horseback Riding.

3) MWs are vulnerable while getting ready to attack. Even a warrior has a reasonable chance to beat one on open terrain. Enemy horsemen can pick off MWs with ease. And archers or especially swordsmen can usually either kill them or drive them off. Worse, the elite MWs are the first to be hit in such strikes, undercutting the opportunity for leaders (since odds of a defensive victory are so small). The fact that Gallic Swordsmen provide both mobile defense and mobile offense is worth more than the stats alone might imply.

In summary, the Gallic Swordsman, especially when coupled with the Militaristic trait, provides a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Now, comparing Gallic Swordsmen to conventional swordsmen:

1) Gallic Swordsmen cost 5/3 as much, but they probably have at least close to a 40% chance of surviving losing a battle. (Keep in mind that units fighting a 1-HP enemy never retreat, which reduces the retreat chance a bit from its nominal value.) So as long as you have enough of them to do the job, even at a cost of 50, the cost of replacing lost units isn't necessarily higher for Gallic Swordsmen than for their conventional counterparts.

2) When an elite swordsman loses a battle, he dies. That tends to limit opportunities for leaders even for militaristic civs. In contrast, a losing Gallic Swordsman is likely to retreat, so any given elite GS is likely to have about twice as many chances to generate a leader before he dies. Since the number of elite units generated is limited by the number of battles fought rather than by the total number of units produced, that makes the Gallic Swordsman exceptionally potent as a leader factory - especially when coupled with the Celts' militaristic trait. And the fact that elites survive better also gives a little extra combat value that isn't reflected in the stats.

So the question is, is the Gallic Swordsman in the stock game a bad UU, or just a horribly underrated one?

Nathan

Jawa Jocky · February 27, 2003, 14:38

Almost forgot. I noticed a lot of posts regarding UU changes for the GS in the AU mod. What are the finalized traits we are dealing with?

nbarclay · February 27, 2003, 14:48

We're going with the standard version this game to see whether it really needs changed or whether it's good enough already.

badams52 · February 27, 2003, 14:58

Hmmm, since 1.29f is without the Celts, did you make any modifications?

badams52 · February 27, 2003, 14:59

Monarch...though I could probably beat emperor if I wanted a challenge

badams52 · February 27, 2003, 15:06

I can build archers but not warriors?

Is it supposed to be like that in 1.29f

Dominae · February 27, 2003, 15:25

I'm not sure about the problems you're having badams52, but I'm interested in seeing how alexman managed to get the Celts into stock Civ3...

Edit: If alexman went through all the work to create a new civ in the editor, including Brennus' picture, I'm impressed.

Dominae

badams52 · February 27, 2003, 15:27

He made the Aztecs the "Celts" and I guess he changed a unit to make GSs but I find it harder to REX with archers and not warriors.

Dominae · February 27, 2003, 15:30

No Warriors!? Bummer...Glad I got my copy of PTW!

(Not trying to give you a rough time, alexman, honestly!)

Nor Me · February 27, 2003, 16:21

Emperor, AU MOD, PTW1.14 etc.
badams52: restart. Without the upgrade, you're missing part of the point of the game. It's so easy to edit the scenario without seeing the map that I won't explain it:

alexman · February 27, 2003, 16:50

Thanks Nor Me.
I updated the initial post with a fixed version for 1.29f.

Sorry about that guys.

badams52 · February 27, 2003, 17:09

Thanks Nor Me.

Had I known how to edit w/out looking at (at least part) of the map, I would have done so. I did try for a while without warriors, and I'll put a little write up in the spoiler thread about why the defeat was so quick it later.

badams52 · February 27, 2003, 17:10

Alexman, don't worry about it. I enjoyed having no warriors

Fosse · February 27, 2003, 17:50

Great... I'll be able to start very soon.

BigDork · February 27, 2003, 17:57

Hi everybody...

Another AU already?

I don't know if I'm gonna have a lot of time for this one but I'm gonna give it a go. We're working 12 hour shifts now so my CivIII time has been cut back some. Oh well, I'll try to finish it before the next AU comes along.

I'll be playing this on Regent. After the last AU(my first try on regent) where I barely won with 9 turns go I think it's worth another go and see if I can improve. I'm really looking forward to this.

BigD

Harovan · February 27, 2003, 18:54

A contest who's the best Ralph, huh?

We have a weekend ahead, may be I find the time to play a couple of turns aside of my RL, PBEM and Demogame duties. I can't allow this trophy to go to somebody else!

Konquest02 · February 27, 2003, 19:46

I wanna be Ralph!!!

(At least, I'll do my best!)

I'll play on Monarch. We have our spring break coming up next week so I should be able to get through it during that time....although I need to finish AU 204, in which i am slowly buildding my spaceship after two inconclusive UN votes...

--Kon--

Artifex · February 28, 2003, 07:11

One thing I have noticed about the gallic swordsmen and ancient units in general is that they are rendered much less useful on high levels like emperor. I play emperor and this units window of oppurtunity is miniscule before the AI reaches feudalism and fortifies its cities with tons of pikemen.

On high levels the AI will reach feaudalism lightning quick. Once feudalism is reached any AI with any sort of decent power or land will render this unit useless, pretty much.

The point is the window to use the GS on emperor level for me at least is always so small I am lucky to conquer one little civ and secure maybe 1/3rd of the continent with it (standard map large landmass).

Then I am basically looking at a couple of real powerful neighbors and I have a useless army I might as well disband. Sorry but Swordsmen going up against 2-3 fortified pikemen in cities get slaughtered.

By the time oen civ gets feaudalism (usually frighteningly quick) then trades it to every other civ the same turn..your army goes from being powerful to a joke.

So this unit would be powerful on lower levels when your oponents don't gain techs lightning quick and reach feudalism in no time at all.

On emperor it is weak, by the time you get a good force of them (they aren't cheap) and are ready to go on a spree..opps the ai gets feaudalism. Game over.

Never forget how quickly the AI gains and trades techs on emperor....they get feudalism very fast.

Chemical Ollie · February 28, 2003, 08:03

Wow! Did you actually think of us poor Vikings, who still can't play PTW because Infogrames forgot to ship it to the most computer-dense part of Europe? And actually bothered to modify the tribe in 1.29 to emulate the PTW version? I suppose the 1.29 swordsman is modified to emulate the properties of the Gallic Swordsman?

If that is so, I'm grateful, impressed, and really look forward to enter this game as soon as my kids are sleeping tonight!

aaglo · February 28, 2003, 08:11

Modded Aztecs... Yeah!

Much better than the original

Okay, the next announced shipping date of PTW here is the 7th of March... we'll see about that

nbarclay · February 28, 2003, 13:17

The window of opportunity for ancient UUs if you want to avoid a despotic GA can be small, but it isn't always. One thing that helps is if you don't push the tech pace hard yourself, because if you try to keep up (and maybe even get ahead) in the tech race doing a lot of research and trading, you get the AIs to Feudalism that much faster. Also, sometimes you get lucky and an AI doesn't get iron hooked up in a timely manner.

Nathan

badams52 · March 1, 2003, 13:51

Quote:

Originally posted by Olaf Hårfagre
Wow! Did you actually think of us poor Vikings, who still can't play PTW because Infogrames forgot to ship it to the most computer-dense part of Europe? And actually bothered to modify the tribe in 1.29 to emulate the PTW version? I suppose the 1.29 swordsman is modified to emulate the properties of the Gallic Swordsman?

If that is so, I'm grateful, impressed, and really look forward to enter this game as soon as my kids are sleeping tonight!

The CFC site's GOTM actually created a modified version of 1.29f to emulate PTW like add an Internet wonder, stock exchanges, etc. But they always work with .sav instead of .bic or .bix which forces me to use their level setting and their map size, which changes from game to game (and I hate large/huge maps). So though I think it's interesting to have a "PTW" style 1.29f without the AI mods, I don't end up playing the games.

At the same time, I am overjoyed that Alexman would think of us poor PTW deprived individuals.

Chemical Ollie · March 1, 2003, 19:01

Quote:

Originally posted by badams52

The CFC site's GOTM actually created a modified version of 1.29f to emulate PTW

...

I am overjoyed that Alexman would think of us poor PTW deprived individuals.

After playing the game, I discovered thay my expectations were fulfilled and I could learn about the overwhelming power of the faboulus Gallic Swordsman without yet owning a copy of PTW.

However, I discovered the hard way that the 1.29 BIC was played by standard rules rather than AU rules. I built plenty of archers as city defenders, only to discover that they had no auto-bombard capability against attackers.

badams52 · March 1, 2003, 22:23

Maybe next time, we could incorporate the last AU for vanilla civ. What was it AU 1.06? I forget.

Chemical Ollie · March 1, 2003, 23:23

Quote:

Originally posted by badams52
Maybe next time, we could incorporate the last AU for vanilla civ. What was it AU 1.06? I forget.

Yes 1.06

Dominae · March 1, 2003, 23:32

Let me just say (again) that the fact that some players here do not have PTW means that we can never create a scenario with the new civs as opponents. That's annoying! Get the expansion!

...please?

Dominae

badams52 · March 1, 2003, 23:39

Quote:

Originally posted by Dominae
Let me just say (again) that the fact that some players here do not have PTW means that we can never create a scenario with the new civs as opponents. That's annoying! Get the expansion!

Nah, you can create it, just means that some won't be able to participate. Or you could just substitute a similar civ for the 1.29f version. I wouldn't mind

Chemical Ollie · March 2, 2003, 05:56

Quote:

Originally posted by Dominae
Let me just say (again) that the fact that some players here do not have PTW means that we can never create a scenario with the new civs as opponents. That's annoying! Get the expansion!

...please?

Dominae

I'm still waiting for Infogrames to ship it to the Nordic countries (the most computer dense area in Europe).