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badams52
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near the magic kingdom
May 2002
time: 21:26
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Then I went into a quick peace mode before Rome dialed us up and said, give us literature or give us death. We said, "death." Since India was between us, we spent a tech and gold to have India enter an alliance with us to destroy...uh...get destroyed by the Romans while we sat on our haunches and watched. We kept a close watch and saw that China was settling the isle to the west and getting close to hooking up their closest iron.
Meanwhile, word got around that America grabbed the GL, France the Great Lighthouse (GL  ) and Russia nabbed the Oracle. We ponder for a moment wondering where these societies might be then forget about it and tell China, "okay, you've settled enough cities, time for me to take back the land I loaned ya."
We quickly take China's cities off their hands, veteran GS vs. regular spearmen = no contest and we now own the Pyramids  After releiving China from ruling our cities, we sue for peace and just look at the deal they give us leaving China with just one city on the island they settled for us 
And finally near the end of the war one of our 10+ elites finally breaks through and creates our first leader. Though feudalism = sun tzu's was just a few turn away from being known, and though our Palace and FP are very, very close together, I don't see a great new spot for the palace so it was GS Army time 
Meanwhile, Rome is still fighting India! We had hoped that India would have signed a peace deal with Rome after we nulled our alliance, but Rome just kept coming. I guess it's time to use our newly created Gallic army and take some territory from the Indians before it's all gone.
And if you look closely, you can see how close our suicide galley was to finding another continent!
And it's only 410 AD!
 Attachment: b 410 ad.jpg
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:26
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My plans for an Arrian Deception proved not to be necessary after all. Just as I was preparing to launch a war on Persia in violation of treaty, Persia decided to move into my lands and declare war rather than leave. Xerxes' brand-new pikemen proved to be insufficient defense against my thirty-eight Gallic swordsmen, and he is now living in exile on an island he shares with some Roman cities and some cities I acquired through peace negotiations with India and Persia. Unfortunately, I was unable to get a leader from that conflict.
By the time that war ended, my peace treaty with India was approaching expiration. India's three cities on the mainland fell in short order, getting me my third leader and my forbidden palace (rushed in an Indian city a little southeast of my capital). Eventually, I'm planning to move my palace to the other continent. Ghandi is now living in exile on another island, with Rome as his neighbor.
In the meantime, the Celtic Galley Corps was hard at work trying to find other lands. I lost about four galleys doing it, but I finally got through to France in 420 AD. The tech levels on the two continents were extremely similar, but with Rome in Monarchy and America and Russia in Republic (and me owning the Great Library), I now have a one-tech lead on Rome without having done any of my own research in centuries. That leaves me with over 1600 gold for future upgrades in spite of having rushed a small number of courthouses.
Here's a current map as of 460 AD. Unfortunately, as often seems to be the case in zoom mode, not all of the city names are showing.
Edit: Rome has one city on my side of the chokepoint connecting Roman lands with the rest of the continent. Everything north of that on the continent is mine.
Nathan
Attachment: india exiled.jpg
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Last edited by nbarclay on 02-03-2003 at 22:33
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Catt
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California - SF Bay Area
May 2002
time: 21:26
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quote:
Originally posted by badams52
Actually, now that I think of it, taking a rep hit for autoraze isn't that bad, though it's not very logical. Let me explain.
Usually you autoraze a city during the early expansion and early war phase of the game. It is quite notable that you will get a huge advantage later in the game if you conquer early. So having less than happy rival civs is fair retribution for your early conquering days. Besides, there's always the Arrian deception  |
Except that worrying about attitude (as opposed to rep) should be so very far down one's worry list, that I can't imagine foregoing early conquest where it makes sense out of fear for one's attitude standing. The implementation simply means attitude should be pushed still farther down the list of worries, making it darn near irrelevant (at least to those who haven't already concluded that it is irrelevant ).
quote:
Though my guess is, when the patch came out that made auroraze happen, they didn' t have a way in the code to distinguish between autoraze and raze, thus a rep hit. |
I'd go with that guess as well. When I wrote my post, I couldn't remember for certain whether or not "auto-raze" had been implemented in a patch -- I thought it had bt wasn't certain. I would have added to my rant against this implementation had I been certain that it only came into play somewhere along the line of patching.
First there was no auto-raze; then there was auto-raze if size 1 and no border expansion; now (PTW - can't remember about v1.29) there is auto-raze if size 1 and no culture at all (regardless of border expansion has occured). Either all these changes regarding auto-razing are coming about by accident ( ), or the Firaxis team mst be convinced that they are addressing game balance issues somehow.
Catt
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Artifex
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Kentucky USA
Apr 2002
time: 05:26
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I forgot ..does razing a city hurt your reputation in the world? If so do you all raze or not?
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Chemical Ollie
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Bored of this board
Jan 2002
time: 06:26
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Monarch level is more beatable.
Rome declared war. I made an alliance and RoP with India to keep the busy while finishing off the last of Persia. Persepolis held Pyramids and Lighthouse, which proved to be useful later.
I sent a SOD with 2 Gallic Swordsmen armies plus 20 more of them through Indian territory to attack Rome. I came just in time to see the Romans capture an Indian city, which of course became mine in the next turn, and stayed mine for the rest of the game.
After sending replacement troops, I mopped up and blocked Rome behind their chokepoint. Just to make sure, I built a city on each side of the chokepoint to secure my bridghead. They were now willing to make peace.
Time to install republic and start building some peaceful city improvements after ages of war. I also sent a galley over the ocean. With the Lighthouse captured from Persia, it sailed right into Paris. I was about half an age behind the others in tech and had nothing to trade (except contact with Rome, which I wanted to keep for myself). I choosed to set my own research pattern strait to military tradition. Chemistry was the nutcracker that made them want to give me other tech and nice GPT deals.
Instead of researching physics asap, I started to save gold to upgrade all my troops and rush improvents. India made a very ill-timed move and declared war right after my unit upgrades were complete. They were toast in perhaps 10 turns. Gallic Swordsmen were still useful aginst their war elephants, even if cavallery of course were better. Rome joined the Indian side, so now I have a chance to make the whole continent mine.
I hold everything down to the chokepoint connecting Rome, and I just pillaged Rome's only horse tile.
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Nor Me
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Not much to say really. I decided archer rushing was unnecessarily risky when I could REX . I should probably have archer rushed China but at that stage did not know that there was no land bridge connecting them to Persia. I researched pottery, did a bit of trading and waited for a 40-turn Iron Working. I was a bit worried about the vulnerability of the nearest source of iron.
Once I'd secured that, it was just a question of upgrading some warriors and attacking. Like almost everyone else I did not Ralph. Like badams52, I used a more pragmatic OCP+camp. I don't think I ever had more than half camps so I had the same density as most 3-tilers.
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Nor Me
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From that screenshot, I attacked China razed those cities, got a leader and made peace. That was a 4 turn war. I researched Mathematics, rushed the Pyramids and attacked India. I made peace with India , attacked Persia, made peace with the Persians and asked the Chinese to leave my teritory triggering war. From that war, I got 2 leaders, giving me the FP and a gallic swordsman army. Rome declared war on me and I paid Gandhi to defend me. the Persians also decided to join in. I left the Chinese on 2 cities for the usual tech.
This 150AD minimap hardly looks out of place:
Attachment: au6150ad.jpg
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Nor Me
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quote:
Originally posted by alexman
A Veteran Gallic Swordsman attacking a fortified regular spearman wins 66% of the time, and retreats 18% of the time. The expected loss of shields is 0.16*50=8.
A Veteran Swordsman attacking a fortified regular spearman wins 70% of the time. The expected loss of shields is 0.3*30=9
So on average, you lose more shields by attacking with regular swordsmen than you do with Gallic Swordsmen, even if the latter cost 50 shields compared to 30! |
But this results in Gallic Swordsmen doing less damage. So you need more of them. You would probably lose at least as many shields worth of Gallic Swordsmen taking the same city because of this.
It certainly means that you need a high shield/gold investment to do anything with the Gallic Swordsmen.
In this game, I was able to use overwhelming force most of the time. But given a worse start, ordinary swordsmen would be much better. This is why I disagree with Arrian and nbarclay about the Celts having good traits for the swordsmen. While the Iroquois might be improved by Militaristic, the celts would definately be better as Industrious or Expansionistic. As it is, they might be in trouble in harder games than this one. Of course, if either had the option of giving up Religious...
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alexman
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Hunt Valley, MD
Jan 1970
time: 00:26
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quote:
Originally posted by Nor Me
But this results in Gallic Swordsmen doing less damage. So you need more of them. You would probably lose at least as many shields worth of Gallic Swordsmen taking the same city because of this.
It certainly means that you need a high shield/gold investment to do anything with the Gallic Swordsmen.
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While it is certainly true that GS do less damage than swordsmen because they retreat before their job is done, I still think they are more cost-efficient than swordsmen.
Look at the ratio of the expected shields lost, to the expected HP damage caused to the defender. This gives you a number for shields lost per damage caused, and should be a better indicator of the cost-efficiency of units:
(All veteran, versus fortified spearman on plains.
Values are expected shields lost / HP damage caused)
Warrior: 6.17
Archer: 4.67
Swordsman: 3.62
Horseman: 4.05
Gallic Sword: 3.42
Immortal: 2.00
Mounted Warrior: 2.05
Jaguar Warrior: 3.35
Gallic Sword (40 cost): 2.73
Obviously, the lower the loss ratio, the more cost-effective the unit. Persia and the Iroquois have the most amazing UUs, but they are not militaristic. Militaristic civs with ancient-age offensive UU like the Aztecs and the Romans hava a loss ratio of around 3.5. Making the GS cheaper would put its loss ratio lower than those militaristic civs, and thus would probably be too good of a unit.
In any case, Nor Me, you are right that GS are best used in overwhelming forces, just as horsemen, or an even Jaguar Warriors. I just still think that the current cost is fine for the GS, given that it belongs to a militaristic civ. Even if it is not fine, it's along the lines of the rest of the ancient units in the game.
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Nor Me
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quote:
Originally posted by alexman
While it is certainly true that GS do less damage than swordsmen because they retreat before their job is done, I still think they are more cost-efficient than swordsmen.
Look at the ratio of the expected shields lost, to the expected HP damage caused to the defender. This gives you a number for shields lost per damage caused, and should be a better indicator of the cost-efficiency of units:
(All veteran, versus fortified spearman on plains.
Values are expected shields lost / HP damage caused)
Warrior: 6.17
Archer: 4.67
Swordsman: 3.62
Horseman: 4.05
Gallic Sword: 3.42
Immortal: 2.00
Mounted Warrior: 2.05
Jaguar Warrior: 3.35
Gallic Sword (40 cost): 2.73
Obviously, the lower the loss ratio, the more cost-effective the unit. Persia and the Iroquois have the most amazing UUs, but they are not militaristic. Militaristic civs with ancient-age offensive UU like the Aztecs and the Romans hava a loss ratio of around 3.5. Making the GS cheaper would put its loss ratio lower than those militaristic civs, and thus would probably be too good of a unit.
In any case, Nor Me, you are right that GS are best used in overwhelming forces, just as horsemen, or an even Jaguar Warriors. I just still think that the current cost is fine for the GS, given that it belongs to a militaristic civ. Even if it is not fine, it's along the lines of the rest of the ancient units in the game. |
I looked at your earlier results again. I love the way a 0.7 shield advantage is rounded to 1.
The trouble is that against a 2hp fortified spearman, the swordsman has an expected loss of 4.7 shields wile the Gallic Swordsman has one of 5.6 shields. That's a marginally bigger difference in the opposite direction. Gallic Swordmen retreating are likely to leave a few 2hp spearmen around.
All this is academic, the big difference in losses in practice is from counterattack by freshly built units on roads.
The Celts being militaristic gives them more leaders but this is normally only relevant if they have that overwhelming force. It doesn't really help them get more GSs out early.
I have never advocated a cost reduction for the GS. I voted for leaving it alone. But it is a bad UU for a bad start.
In this game I had higher losses with the GS than I would with swordsmen. But being able to get the gains from war much faster meant warmongering was a far better option than for most civs. I won't argue with 3 leaders and 3 crippled civs.
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:26
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quote:
Originally posted by Nor Me
[Edit: This crossposted with Nor Me's and Alex's next posts.]
But this results in Gallic Swordsmen doing less damage. So you need more of them. You would probably lose at least as many shields worth of Gallic Swordsmen taking the same city because of this.
It certainly means that you need a high shield/gold investment to do anything with the Gallic Swordsmen. |
In a limited campaign, Gallic Swordsmen require a larger investment. To take one city, you need at least as many GS's as you would regular swordsmen, maybe more because of the retreat ability (although the fact that retreat costs the enemy possible promotions at least partially offsets the reduction in damage caused). So if you just want to trim a single enemy back a little, you can definitely do the job a whole lot cheaper with conventional swordsmen.
But in a sustained campaign, either against one opponent or oscillating among multiple opponents, the Gallic Swordsman has several advantages.
1) Lower replacement costs due to higher survivability.
2) A higher percentage of elites and more leaders generated, since elites don't automatically die if they lose.
3) Shorter times to capture the same amount of territory.
4) Quicker transit times to go from one front to another when changing opponents.
5) Less war weariness under Republic to conquer a given amount of territory, due both to shorter wars and to lower casualty rates.
6) [Edit: I forgot this one] Less time for the enemy to build forces, upgrade forces, and gain technology for better forces during a war.
Also, the higher up-front cost of Gallic Swordsmen is made up for in higher back-end value. Left-over swordsmen, even if upgraded to medieval infantry, have a hard time playing a useful role in a knight campaign and an almost impossible time playing a useful role in a cavalry campaign. (At least that's certainly true with the kind of blitzes with overwhelming force that I tend to use.) In contrast, left-over Gallic Swordsmen are just as fast as knights and can play the same "clean-up" and "attack the counterattackers" roles that I often use left-over elite knights for in cavalry operations playing other civs.
I certainly don't regard the Gallic Swordsman at 50 shields as one of the greatest UUs in the game. But why should he be? What inherent right does he have to be better than average, or even to be as good as average, as UUs go? As it is, he's fairly middle-of-the-road, not nearly as good as the Chinese Rider (in my opinion) but still a big step up from the Man-of-War, the F-15, or the standard-rules version of the Musketeer. Which tells me Firaxis did a fairly good job of balancing him.
[/quote]In this game, I was able to use overwhelming force most of the time. But given a worse start, ordinary swordsmen would be much better. This is why I disagree with Arrian and nbarclay about the Celts having good traits for the swordsmen. While the Iroquois might be improved by Militaristic, the celts would definately be better as Industrious or Expansionistic. As it is, they might be in trouble in harder games than this one. Of course, if either had the option of giving up Religious... [/QUOTE]
With the kinds of starts where the Celts have trouble now, barring great luck with an early settler from a hut, they'd do a lot worse with Expansionistic instead of Militaristic. If the Celts have plenty of room to expand early, they'll do fine without the Expansionistic trait (at least as long as Iron is available; otherwise, the whole UU issue is irrelevant). If they don't have plenty of room, cheap barracks and early archers can often let them deal with the problem without waiting for Gallic Swordsmen and without having to blow their GA under Despotism if they don't want to. I'd gladly trade either of the civ's traits for Industrious, but given that Firaxis isn't going to make all the civs in the game Industrious, I think the Celts have a good synergy.
Last edited by nbarclay on 04-03-2003 at 07:21
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by nbarclay
I certainly don't regard the Gallic Swordsman at 50 shields as one of the greatest UUs in the game. But why should he be? What inherent right does he have to be better than average, or even to be as good as average, as UUs go?
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This was my point when this whole debate started. I'm just glad to see I'm not the only one on my side...! The Gallic Swordsmen promised to be before PTW came out, and on paper continues to promise to be, a dominant UU. That is no reason to turn it into one.
Dominae
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Arrian
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Kneel before Grog!
Jul 2001
time: 00:26
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quote:
Originally posted by Arrian
*snip* ...I'm vaguely concerned about America "over there" builing the Sistine - so I want Monotheism quickly too.
*snip*
-Arrian |
Ok, I fired my game up (400AD) and continued my methodical destruction of the Romans. I researched Feudalism first, and rush Sun Tzu immediately. I then researched Engineering & Invention and rushed Leo's immediately. I then traded Engineering to Persia for Monotheism and started on Theology.
One turn into that research, I was notified that "The Americans have completed the Sistine Chapel in Washington." Apparently, the Americans have a deathwish.
Anyway, that very turn I generated another leader, and I held him for Bach's. Just before rushing Bach, though, I traded Music Theory to the overseas civs for gunpowder & some cash (suicide galley run #3 was a success).
Rome has 3 cities (all offshore). Persia has 2. India has 1 or 2. Oh, yeah! China! Almost forgot about them. Over the course of several turns, I upgraded my vet horsemen to knights (approx 10-15 of them) and then unleashed them on Mao, along with my 3xGS army and other remnants. Happily, 2 turns prior to my attack, Mao's source of iron culture flipped to me. Not that it would have mattered much, since the iron supply was routed through the remnants of Persia, and I got the Persians to ally with me.
It is 900AD, and I'm still running a Monarchy, but as my southern empire gets built up a little more and my campaign vs. China winds down, I will switch to republic. I'm researching Astonomy (the Americans are the only civ that has it, otherwise I'm even in tech), after which the plan is to beeline for Smith's. I have a city (the one I built up on the river by the iron using the settler I got from the hut) that has been building a Palace for centuries and centuries. That city is now actually nearing completion (20 turns). Switching to a university (160 shields) would waste 495 shields, meaning he has built up 655  I figured I might not get all the leaders necessary to rush every medieval wonder, but have so far been wrong (though had I gotten the Sistine, perhaps that city would have built Bach). Considering the geography, however, I'm considering just allowing the Palace to complete. What do you think? Would that be better Palace/FP positioning?
-Arrian
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02-03-2003 09:12
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