AU 502 Teaser

[ducki]

Alright folks. By popular demand, here's a bit of information for AU502: Celtic Power - Swords and Ploughshares. The alternate title was "AU502: No 4-turn Pump for You!".

The Celts are, arguably, the best Civ in Conquests. The combination of a fast-mover swordsmen with their growth-friendly traits work extremely well together...
...but are they too strong?

Hopefully, that's what we're going to find out!
With carefully chosen foes and a few minor machinations, I haven't quite stacked the deck, but I may have leaned a bit here and there.

Are the Gallic Swordsmen at a cost of 40 shields, and by extension the Celts as an Agricultural tribe, too good? What sort of AI is capable of grappling with this beast?

---------

This is a Standard Sized map, middle-of-the-road settings in general. All normal victory conditions are enabled.

Tribe: Celts
Leader: Brennus(chicks dig tatoos, and he's really up front about his)
Traits: Agricultural and Religious
Starting Techs: Pottery and Ceremonial burial
Unique Unit: Gallic Swordsman

Agricultural: Agricultural city improvements(aqueducts for example) are easier to build and the center city square and irrigated deserts produce one extra food. If you found a town on fresh water(rivers and lakes), you get the bonus even under Despotism.

Religious: We all know about Religious.

Gallic Swordsman:
1. Replaces Swordsman, upgrades to Medieval Infantry(Would you want to?)
2. Stats: 3/2/2
3. Cost: 40 shields
4. Tech: Ironworking
5. Requires: Iron
6. Special: Checkerboard pants. Offsets the cool facial tatoo.

This is my first AU Course from behind the lectern. I never did like public speaking. If I'm unclear on something or seem to not makes sense, let me know.

[Rhothaerill]

Bring it on. I haven't played the Celts in quite a while and not in C3C at all yet.

BTW, where are the cattle?

[ducki]

Mad cow disease, don't ya' know?

[cracky]

Ok, I'm pretty sure this was covered in your teaser for the teaser thread. We *are* waiting for the latest AU mod votes to finish, but is the course going to use this new 1.20 patch or are we going to stick to the 1.15b (tried and tested) patch for now?


Where are my cows!

[ducki]

We are, indeed waiting for a new release of the mod - shouldn't take too long for the votes. Then once alexman releases the mod, I can import it into the map and create the modded save files.


Message from the cows: Eet mor chikin

[Aqualung71]

Ducks, you're a champion! I haven't played the Celts for ages, but I love them! Standard map - standard number of foes, or have you tweaked it up or down?

And by giving us a religious civ, it seems you're intentionally giving us the option to play various different goverments at different times during the game. Could provide some good yardsticks to help clarify some of the issues we've been debating lately - good move.

[Rellin]

Celts are the Civ that I play the most. They have my two favorite traits and I can say even before playing this game that I do indeed find them to be overpowered, in both single player and multi player.

[cracky]

Originally posted by ducki
We are, indeed waiting for a new release of the mod - shouldn't take too long for the votes. Then once alexman releases the mod, I can import it into the map and create the modded save files.


Message from the cows: Eet mor chikin

Chicken? Bah!

Sorry about not being clearer in my first post. From your previous thread on this AU (and this thread) I kind of assumed we'd be waiting for the new AU mod. What I was really after was info on the 1.20 patch from Atari which is talked about a bit in this thread in the Conquests forum. I'm *supposed* to be writing two papers this evening, so I haven't had a chance to compare the change list for the 1.2 and 1.15 Beta patch yet, but from the comments so far, it seems that the 1.20 patch doesn't include any huge changes...



...Must hide C3C CD for the night! Must write paper!

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by ducki


Message from the cows: Eet mor chikin

Sounds like you have been to Chick Fillet. Not sure how they spell it.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by ducki

This is a Standard Sized map, middle-of-the-road settings in general. All normal victory conditions are enabled.

I would appreciate a clarification regarding the barbarian setting, if you don't mind.

Agricultural: Agricultural city improvements(aqueducts for example) are easier to build and the center city square and irrigated deserts produce one extra food. If you found a town on a river, you get the bonus even under Despotism.

And it looks like you gave us a fair amount of river to work with. That should make for a decent REX even without food bonus tiles. By the way, in case anyone might not know, the bonus also applies for cities built adjacent to fresh-water lakes.

Incidentally, for those inclined to micromanage, there is a special trick that can be used with cities that produce three food per turn and have granaries (as is the case for Agricultural cities with fresh water but no food bonus). Growth can never be faster than every four turns, but you can get that rate with a food surplus of two on two of the four and three on the other two. That makes it possible to work a forest for two of the four turns for an extra shield. Further, at least under many circumstances, if you're running a food surplus of three when you grow, the new laborer will appear on a forest. Thus, having the turn you grow be a "3" turn instead of a "2" turn can provide an additional advantage. Those tricks can combine for a few extra shields in the critical early phases of the game.

I might also mention that for cities with a maximum food surplus of four, a 3/3/4 pattern can take similar advantage to provide extra production. I'm sure a lot of players are already aware of such tricks, but I thought I'd mention them for the benefit of those who might not be.

Nathan

[Krill]

When does this game get released, because of the AU mod?
Next friday?

[ducki]

Originally posted by nbarclay
I would appreciate a clarification regarding the barbarian setting, if you don't mind.

Not at all, though a)this is just the teaser thread and b)in keeping with the AU501 info threads, I was going to let there be a little mystery.

Barbarians: Yes

[ducki]

Oh, I crack myself up sometimes.
There are barbarians(and huts) but you won't be tripping over them.

[alexman]

Barbarians affect your opening strategy. If there are none, you might want to REX without military (although against the spirit of this particular course). If you are going to eventually disclose the barbarian levels, it would be nice to know in advance so we can discuss our opening strategy here.

Also, a mini-map with your position in the World would be nice to have in advance for the same reason.

The start looks interesting.
At first glance I am tempted to move the worker to the [edit: west] bonus grassland, and if he doesn't see anything good there, settle one tile south so that I can place another city right at the beginning of the river. Of course that depends on our position on the mini-map.

[Arrian]

Wow, there's an old thread of mine. Arguing against Vel and the power of Industriousness in CivIII/PTW. Silly me.

Anyway, the start looks good but not great, which is probably good considering how incredible the Celts can be.

My initial thoughts:

T1: found city, move worker east to bgrass. Build warrior. WF to sugar tile.
T2: 3f, 2s. Worker roads.
...
T5: 12f, 8s. Road complete, begin mine.
T6: 15f, warrior complete. Another.
T7: 18f, 2s.
T8: Size2, 6s. WF to sugar and forest.
T9: 2f, Warrior complete. One more. WF to sugar and roaded bgrass.
T10: 5f, 3s.
T11: 8f, 7s. Mine complete. Worker moves to bgrass across the river.
T12: 11f, warrior complete. Begin granary. Worker roads.
T13: 14f, 4s.
T14: 17f, 8s.
T15: Size 3, 14s. WF to sugar and 2x bgrass. Road complete, begin mine.
T16: 3f, 19s.
T17: 6f, 24s.
T18: 9f, 29s.
T19: 12f, 34s.
T20: 15f, 39s.
T21: 18f, 45s. Mine complete. Worker to plains.
T22: Size4, 53s. WF to Sugar, 2x bgrass, and some other tile that gets us 1 shield (of course, it may be that there are juicy 2 food/1 shield tiles available that we can't see from the screenshot above, but for now I'll assume that's not so).
Worker irrigates.
T23: 2f, granary complete.

Hmm... nah, not sure I like that. Let's back up a bit and change course...

T1: found city, move worker east to bgrass. Build warrior. WF to sugar tile.
T2: 3f, 2s. Worker roads.
...
T5: 12f, 8s. Road complete, begin mine.
T6: 15f, warrior complete. Another.
T7: 18f, 2s.
T8: Size2, 6s. WF to sugar and forest.
T9: 2f, Warrior complete. One more. WF to sugar and roaded bgrass.
T10: 5f, 3s.
T11: 8f, 7s. Mine complete. Worker moves to forest.
T12: 11f, warrior complete. Begin granary. Worker chops.
T13: 14f, 4s.
T14: 17f, 8s.
T15: Size 3, 14s. WF to sugar and 2x bgrass.
T16: 3f, 29s. Chop complete. Begin road.
T17: 6f, 34s.
T18: 9f, 39s.
T19: 12f, 44s. If chopped tile is bgrass, mine. Otherwise, move to plains tile.
T20: 15f, 49s.
T21: 18f, 54s.

Crap, that isn't working well either. May have to drop a warrior.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

T1: found city, move worker east to bgrass. Build warrior. WF to sugar tile.
T2: 3f, 2s. Worker roads.
...
T5: 12f, 8s. Road complete, begin mine.
T6: 15f, warrior complete. Another.
T7: 18f, 2s.
T8: Size2, 6s. WF to sugar and forest.
T9: 2f, Warrior complete. Begin granary. WF to sugar and roaded bgrass.
T10: 5f, 3s.
T11: 8f, 7s. Mine complete. Worker moves to bgrass across the river.
T12: 11f, 11s. Worker mines
T13: 14f, 15s.
T14: 17f, 19s.
T15: Size 3, 25s. WF to sugar & 2x bgrass.
T16: 3f, 30s.
T17: 6f, 35s.
T18: 9f, 41s. Mine complete, begin road.
T19: 12f, 47s.
T20: 15f, 53s. WF to 2xbgrass & forest.
T21: 17f, granary complete. WF to sugar & 2xbgrass. Road complete.

Bingo.

-Arrian

[Rellin]

Thats pretty sweet Arrian.

[ducki]

Originally posted by alexman
Also, a mini-map with your position in the World would be nice to have in advance for the same reason.

I'm at work, so I can't get a minimap, but I can give a guesstimate sort of approximation.

If the screenshot is your minimap, your general position in the world is fairly close to where the river Y's to your S-SW.
Approximately.
If spatial memory serves me.

I'll get a real minimap posted tonight, but that's a rough approximation, so don't hang me if I'm slightly off.

[Aeson]

With an Agricultural civ, available river locations, and no bonus food sources, I think you're usually better off skipping the Granary and going straight to a Settler. Each city center on the river will be a bonus food resource, so building those river cities early is a big deal.

[conmcb25]

I say post it and lets play.

If someone wants to wait for the new AU mod they can wait.

[alexman]

Patience is a virtue!

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Aeson
With an Agricultural civ, available river locations, and no bonus food sources, I think you're usually better off skipping the Granary and going straight to a Settler. Each city center on the river will be a bonus food resource, so building those river cities early is a big deal.

I was wondering if someone would speak up against building a granary, or at least against a granary right off the bat.

With +3fpt, the granary cuts growth time from 7 turns to 4. It also allows use of the forest tile for extra shields in two of the 4 turns (as Nathan pointed out earlier) for 2 extra shields per growth cycle.

At size 4, the city would use the 2 bonus grasslands (2f, 2s once mined), the sugar (also 2f, 2s once mined), and then a mix of the forest and an irrigated plains tile (1f, 2s or 2f, 1s). The two turns using the forest bring in 9spt, for 18 shields total, and the two using the irrigated plains bring in 8spt, for 16s total. Combined total of 34s. Then the city grows and nabs another +2 shields from autoallocation to the forest, for 10 shields on the growth turn. The city will be at 9/10 spt at size5.

10spt = 1-turn warriors or 2-turn spears. Since the city isn't a +5fpt pump, it can spare time to build a barracks. So this city can do a bit of everything.

So I definitely think the granary is worth it at some point. The question is when to build it. Straight off, or after it puts out a settler for the 2nd city?

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Speaking of that whole 9/10 spt at size 5 thing, this city is probably best suited for the following cycle:

1) First turn at size5: WF to 2x bgrass, sugar, irr plains, forest. This pulls in +2f, +10s. Build warrior.
2) 12f, warrior complete, build another.
3) 14f, warrior complete. Switch WF from forest to another irrigated plains tile. +3fpt/+9spt. Begin spearman.
4) 17f, 9s.
5) Size6, spearman complete. WF for +3fpt/+10spt. Begin settler.
6) 13f, 10s.
7) 16f, 20s.
8) 19f, settler complete, size4. WF to 2x bgrass, sugar, forest (9spt). Begin spearman.
9) Size 5, 11s. WF for +3fpt/+9spt.
10) 13f, spear complete. WF for +2fpt/+10spt. warrior.
11) 15f, warrior complete. Another.
12) 18f, warrior complete. WF for +3fpt/+9spt. Start spear.
13) Size6, 11s. WF for +3fpt/+10spt.
14) 13f, spear complete. Begin settler.

That's probably too many military units for the early economy to handle. But, if you have iron available, you can build Gallic Swords. My cycle has 2 warriors & a spear inbetween each settler. 40 shields worth of units... that's 1 GS. GS, settler, GS, settler...

MMM.

-Arrian

edit: obviously the vet warriors would be for upgrade, which assumes iron anyway. Given the upgrade cost, it's probably best to only pump a few vet warriors for upgrade, and build some GS's normally.

If no iron, fine, you can pump 2 archers inbetween each settler.

[conmcb25]

Originally posted by alexman

Patience is a virtue!

Not when you have a free weekend coming up and you dont use the AU mod anyway.



Hey when the wife is out of town, I HAVE to take advantage!

[ZargonX]

which assumes iron anyway

Never assume

[Arrian]

No doubt, hence the edit about the archers. I covered my bases.



-Arrian

[alexman]

By the way, someone should post something in the Conquests forum about this game. A week in advance should be plenty of time to get the word out.

[ducki]

If the mod isn't going to be ready for this weekend, I'd rather us not advertise the game and have even more people chomping at the bit.

No sense advertising something that's not available yet. At least, not on a Friday.

[alexman]

Oops, too late, sorry...

[ducki]

Well, that's just incentive for the Panel to get cracking on the votes. Disclaimer: I don't want to rush the panel. Take your time, deliberate the issues, then vote. Soon!