[Spoilers] SavageMoogle of the Celts

[SleepingMoogle]

It looks like the spoiler threads have started to pop up, so this will be mine. To ensure no one is accidentally spoiled by a misclick, this first post contains no information that will compromise you.

Here's a random bit of silliness to fill the rest of te browser.

[SleepingMoogle]

Reserved for random scribbles.

[SleepingMoogle]

When signing up for this game, with all it's wacky variant quirks, pretty much the first thing that came to mind was avoiding the established leaders and Civs. The usual suspects like India are very strong and especially on a hill-heavy map, their UU will give a definite edge. They are also present in so many games that those poor Workers are in dire need of some r&r. It's not the first time non-standard picks are made (PBEM2 also has some rarely used leaders), but it should fit nicely with all the variant rules already going on. And looking at the picks that others made, this should make for an interesting game to be sure!

So without further delay, let me introduce you to Brennus, whose Celts will lead me to victory:

(We still have to work a bit on his table manners)


Under normal rules Brennus and the Celts are generally scoffed at. No first-class leader traits, a weak UU and a weaker UB. Yet, under PBEM3's settings, they (hopefully!) turn out to be a surprisingly strong pick. With a Dun and Barracks, you can pump pump out Guerrilla II units. On Highlands. Oh yeah, I'll have some of that.

Unlike forests which tend to be chopped before long, hills are a permament map feature to impede movement. This slows down even mounted units and other 2-movers so any mobility advantages you can get are huge, and Guerrilla II does just that. The downside is only a select few unit types (Recon, Archers and Gunpowder) can get the promotions, but it's not something I'm overly worried about. Guerrilla Archers make for great early sentry/fog-busting units and early wars should be pretty rare when everyone is building tons of defense to keep their lands barb-free. The Gallic Warrior is also a pretty resilient unit that can both keep my lands safe from barbs and other players, and be a nightmare to clean up during wars. The real benefit is that when Gunpowder units come into play, mine will be 2-movers that are very tough to beat if they stick to hills. Let's see how the other players will deal with those.
As an added note, I'm not sure if Rifling will remove the free promotion that a Dun provides, but I suppose I could delay the tech a bit if need be and focus on other gunpowder units instead. Besides, by the time I thought about this, Brennus and his Celts had grown on me to the point they were my top choice regardless.

A Highlands map is lower on food and higher in production than most other map types. I had a look at which Civs might help correct this balance, but couldn't find any clear picks other than the Khmer whose Baray provides an extra food. Sury has some very nice traits as well but with Ivory removed from the map again, their UU cannot be built and so I passed on him. No other Civs really jumped out, so we'll all have to be easy on the whip this time around (or at least get those Granaries out quickly).

So instead of trying to compensate for the diminished growth, I looked for Civs that would be able to use a hill-heavy map to their benefit. Kublai Khan and the Mongols are a good choice here as the Keshik ignore terrain movement penalties, and they were my second pick after the Celts. As they require Horses to be built though, I was concerned that I might not be able to build them (fewer flatland tiles means fewer horse resources). That, and Keshik are a one-trick pony (insert pause for groaning here). They require a specific, out of the way tech and once surpassed in the later medieval era, mounted units are not nearly as mobile as usual all those hills around. So Brennus it was. The Celts fit in nicely with my aim of choosing a rarely used Civ anyway.

For leader traits, Expansive and Creative are probably be top-tier with Financial and Philosophical off the table. With food being less abundant than usual, whipping becomes less attractive, especially since production will be higher as well. Granaries become even more valuable because they help a lot with early growth. Creative is strong by itself for its fast border pops. The Celtic leaders have neither, and the choice came was between Aggressive Boudica, or the Spiritual Brennus. To be honest, I'm still not sure whether picking Brennus over Boudica was the right choice in the end. With Boudica, units would exit the barracks with so many promotions it was very tempting to pick her just to see that happen. As we start with Mysticism however, I figured I'd have a fairly good chance of snagging an early religion (and fortunately that gamble paid off). Spreading religions around alongside Monuments and cheap Temples should be enough to set a strong border even against a Creative Civ. But most of all, no Anarchy. I'm really starting to enjoy being able to swap Civics around to react to in-game developments without losing a turn in the process.

So strategy-wise, I'm planning on grabbing an early religion and making a bid for Stonehenge. Free Monuments for a Charismatic leader are quite nice after all. Depending on how fast others pick up the religious techs, I may also have a good shot at the Oracle (I'm guessing the Industrious civs will go for the Great Wall first anyway). It would be great if I could employ the strategy used by T-Hawk in Epic 23 (Use Stonehenge's prophet to bulb Monarchy and then Oracle Feudalism for Guerrilla Longbows), though I doubt that the wonder will be available for that long. I'm going to see if it's a possibility though! Other than that, my plan is to grow while keeping borders secure with Archers and Gallic Warriors. Depending on the geo-political situation, I may try to take advantage of my UU and the longbowmen and annex a weaker neighbour. If that doesn't prove feasible, I'll try to establish solid relations by leveraging my early religions instead. And if I surive until gunpowder units, I'll have access to an extremely mobile army that may prove to be the key to victory.

Early techs will probably be Meditation -> Archery -> Mining -> Bronze Working. Yes, there's no food tech in there. But who knows, maybe I'll have access to Deer? Early Archers are vital to defend against barbs and I need BW to chop out Stonehenge before the Industrious civs can steal it away. Once I get the Food resources hooked up, I'll go back to the bottom of the tree to pick up the remaining religious techs and Masonry. I'll also want to pick up Machinery fairly quickly for Windmills which can actually be pretty strong on this map script.

Buildwise, I'll be getting Warriors over Workers. Starting with Hunting means I'll have nothing to defend against barbs with, and my current tech path is fairly light on Worker techs as well. I think I'll want two Warriors and an Archer at the very least before I'd feel safe from barbs. So Warrior -> Warrior -> Stonehenge till Archery finishes -> Archer -> Worker will probably be what I'll be building for now. Once the Worker mines a hill or two, I can probably finish Stonehenge with 1 or 2 chops.

Now let's hope this isn't so full of holes that the strategy falls flat on its face after 20 turns.

[SleepingMoogle]

The starting save may need some last-second fine-tuning as Sandover still has a scout while Egypt doesn't start with Hunting. Rome and the Celts are the only other Civs in this PBEM that have multiple leaders, and since Rome doesn't start with Hunting, it looks like Sandover originally picked Boudica. Fortunately he offered to go with his secondary pick to avoid confusion in-game, and if you read this Sandover, thanks a lot for that!

Anyway, while we wait, let's have a look at the opposition:

Bobchillingworth: Augustus of Rome
Leader traits: Industrious/Imperialistic
Starting techs: Fishing and Mining
Unique unit: Praetorian - A Swordsman with 2 extra strength
Unique building: Forum - A Market which increases GPP by 25%

Praetorians should do just fine vs Barbs and hapless neighbours both and with the Industrious trait, it's possible Bob is planning to go for the Great Wall instead of Stonehenge. The Forum is also pretty strong in a game without Philosophical leaders, almost beng a mini-version of the trait. I'm fairly certain that the Praetorians are going to be used against more than just Barbs, so if I start next to Bob, I'll have to either become his friend, or have Brennus repeat history.


Twinkletoes89: Bismarck of Germany
Leader traits: Expansive/Industrious
Starting techs: Hunting and Mining
Unique unit: Panzer - A Tank with a +50% bonus vs armored units
Unique building: Assembly Plant - A Factory that allows for 4 instead of 2 Engineers

Expansive and Industrious will make for aggressive early growth. I hope that it was Twinkle's aim to go for the Great Wall as well (neither Germany or Rome starts with Mysticism), and have him and Bob fight over it while the Celts get Stonehenge as is right and proper. Cheap Granaries should also offset the reduced availability of food. Both his UU and UB will probably enter the game too late to affect its outcome.


scooter: Zara of Etheopia
Leader traits: Creative and Organized
Starting techs: Hunting and Mining
Unique unit: Oromo Warrior - A Musketman with a first strike, first strike immunity, and Drill 1&2 promotions
Unique building: Stele - A Monument that provides an extra 25% culture bonus

With the creative trait, scooter will probably be a Civ others struggle against to secure a solid border. I'm not quite sure why he went for the Organized trait as well though. The difficulty is set to Noble so Civic maintenance isn't quite as crippling as it is on higher settings. He does have a discount on 5 different buildings with the combination however.


timmy827: Suryavarman of the Khmer
Leader traits: Expansive/Creative
Starting techs: Hunting and Mining
Unique unit: Ballista Elephant - A War Elephant that seeks out mounted units in enemy stacks (not available in this game).
Unique building: Baray - An aquaduct that provides an additional food.

I'm guessing timmy picked Sury for the same reasons others considered him: Solid leader traits and the Baray helps with the food situation. It's a bit of a shame that the removal of Ivory means his UU will be unavailable, but he will probably grow quickly. The question is if he can hold on to that growth with Raging Barbs.


Sandover: Hatty of Egypt
Leader traits: Spiritual/Creative
Starting techs: Agriculture and The Wheel
Unique unit: War Chariot - A Chariot with more strength and immunity to first strikes.
Unique building: Obelisk - A monument that allows for two Priest specialists.

Egypt was Sandover's second choice for this game. Off all the opposing Civs, it's probably Egypt that is most likely to pick up early religious techs besides me. Fortunately Egypt doesn't start with Mysticism, so the first religion will be mine. Edypt's borders may be rough to maintain if I don't ensure my own cities pop borders quickly.

A rundown of traits and techs:

Financial: 0
Philosophical: 0
Expansive: 2
Creative: 3
Organized: 1
Spiritual: 2
Industrious: 2
Aggressive: 0
Imperialistic: 1
Charismatic: 1
Protective: 0

Fishing: 1
The Wheel: 1
Agriculture: 1
Hunting: 4
Mysticism: 1
Mining: 4

With the Celts being the only Civ to start with Mysticism, getting Buddhism is a garantuee. The added culture should help against all the creative Civs as it's all but garantueed I'll have at least one for a neighbour. Unsurprisingly on a highlands map with raging barbs, Hunting and Mining have proven to be popular as well.

My greatest fear for now is that one of the Industrious Civs will pick up mysticism quickly and chop out Stonehenge. I'm fairly sure both will try to get the Great Wall instead to keep the barbs out, but you never know. My current tech patch delays forest chops quite a bit, so I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed. I don't dare cutting out Archery and ride out the first wave of barbs with Warriors alone.

[SleepingMoogle]

Timmy827 sent me the save file this morning, and here is what I loaded up to:



It looks like I started in the northeast corner of the map. And there's deer close by! Given the tech path, that's great since I'll need to get BW quickly before other Food-related techs with all those forests around. Based on tile bleeding, it looks like there's plains and tundra 2N of the Settler and scout, and plains to the south. I moved the scout S to see if there might be any grassland tiles hiding in the fog, but only found more plains forests. At least I'll have tons of forests to chop.

Settling 1W of the starting position was an option as well, as it removed those two peak tiles from, and got those grassland tiles in the fog to the west into play. With the raging barb setting though, settling on the plains hill would give a nice defensive bonus against early incursions (not to mention a free hammer), and I don't really want to give up one of the flatland tiles. The area doesn't look very production heavy, so this would probably become a commerce or mixed city.

All other civs aside from Timmy827 settled on the first turn, so they may have been presented with similar starts. I decided to follow their example:



Oh yeah, I'm not regretting settling in place. The furs can be hooked up immediately, and look at that Marble! Can you say 'Oracle' Brennus?



I knew you would.

[darrelljs]

Thank goodness you settled in place. This came up in the map thread after I shipped it off, that the resources would not all be visible.

FWIW, Brennus was my pick for this map as well. The UU and UB should be easily leveraged, and his traits really rock with FIN/PHI off the table.

Darrell

[SleepingMoogle]

It seemed fairly obvious that the design was intended to have us settle in place, so no worries. The potential benefits just weren't worth the sacrifice of moving off of that hill. Doubly so with that Furs/Marble.

I'm looking forward to see what the Celts can do on this map script. So far I've drawn a very nice hand to complement them at least. The only thing that needs figuring out is the values on Quick speed, which I don't have any real experience with for planning ahead.

Something that has gotten me wondering is if you added in any bodies of water. Raging barbs on a map with oceans is bad enough; replace all those tiles with land and the amount of spawns could be pretty insane. We'll find out soon enough I guess.

[SleepingMoogle]

Alright, turn 1 was played and the save file has been forwarded to Twinkletoes. Not a lot to note, except that Timmy is the only civ not to have settled yet. Perhaps he moved his Settler back to the starting position?

The Scout moved SW from his position in the T0 screenshot, revealing move forests to the south. A lot of them are on plains tiles though and there's no resources in sight so far, so it may not be that great a place to expand to. The tiles to the west are looking more promising, so I'll probably move W next turn onto the hill to get more visibility.

[SleepingMoogle]

Turn 2:

I moved the scout West onto the hill:



This is a good vantage point for an early sentry. Anything coming my way from the west will be funneled through those mountain formations and visible with a decent advance notice.

The Corn resource is nice, but there's also more tundra to the south. Yikes! Any city site considerations are on hold until I know how far it reaches. The scout will probably move SW-S next turn.

[SleepingMoogle]

Turn 3:

Bibracte's borders expanded this turn, revealing more Fur resources to the north as well as Tundra and Ice tiles. It's interesting that the amount of culture needed to expand borders is cut by half on this speed, while building and unit costs are at 2/3 of their normal price. Does that make the Creative trait less powerful compared to games played at standard speed?

Sandover finished a tech this turn, which I'm fairly certain is Hunting. Egypt is one of the only two Civs that didn't start with the tech and it's a prerequisite for Archery. Plus Sandover already has Agriculture, so it adds a discount to Animal Husbandry.

My scout moved further southwest, revealing what looks to be a lake (I can only see the shores right now). There is a hill overlooking it that should defog a nice amount of tiles so I'll probably move there next turn.

The first Warrior will finish next turn, and I'm thinking of defogging a few tiles to the Northwest with him along the river without straying far from the capital. There seem to be a number of flatland tiles in that direction that may make it an appealing site to expand to.