Welcome to the Seventh edition of the Lonely Hearts Club for BTS. In the Lonely Hearts Club we explore strategies to cope with one of the most dreaded situations in Civ IV ( possibly the main reason for reloads after the military collapse one :p ): starting in isolation....

For the seventh game in BTS the choosed leader was Darius of the Persian :
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/Darius0000.jpg

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/Dariusstats0000.jpg
Well, after two Philo leaders in a row, a lot of people ( including myself ) wanted to make a CE game again, and certainly Darius is a good leader for that... Fin is a nobrainer and Org too.... Btoh very strong traits in any map, and Fin in isolation is a pretty strong asset
His UU.
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/Immortal0000.jpg
It is a pure and simple waste to put one of the best UU in the game in isolation..... the S man simply discarted that possibility when choosing maps for his Cyrus ALC. But they to good MP units.....
His UB.
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/Apothecary0000.jpgAs I said ( and a lot of others too.... ) a lot of times, :health: is one of the more limiting issues when playing in isolation ( :) we can get even with HR but we can't buy health.... ), so having a UB that gives it is always nice.....
So, here is the settings( from emperor save ). Game is Fractal :
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/Settingemperor0000.jpg
And the start:
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/Startingspot0000.jpg
3 FP in the starting BFC with a fin civ ..... :drool: , a nice chunck of trees, two rivers ( for extra money and levee power ) and a health resource nearby ( in spite of being sheep :gripe: ).... Looks a very decent start IMHO

About saves: As usual, pick the level you prefer in the end of the post. Deity save is in the next post.

Again a small request ( not mandatory :p ) :

We ask the participants to do, if possible, a write-up with the victory save and a description of your game ( strategies, techs researched, wars,...). All the info should be in spoiler tags ( to not disturb other people's games ). If you want ( we would like to :p ) post reports at this moments of the game:

Checkpoint 1 - when we have explored the island and are aware of what resources it has. Its not so important when this is, but this is a time to discuss city sites etc. Don't look into a checkpoint 1 spoiler until you have reached this point yourself.

Checkpoint 2 - first contact - when we have met all the other AIs. At this point we can discuss our strategy to get to this point and our plans for dealing with them.

Checkpoint 3 - when we are committed to a victory condition (or at least think we are).

Checkpoint 4 - Victory (or defeat).

The last words are to wish good luck to all :goodjob: . And let the games begin!

P.S We don't have any kind of problem with defeats and reruns. Just play and enjoy ;)

Deity save below

P.S Any kind of problem with the saves plese tell me ;)

Looks like a nice start. Definately settle in place and grab hut first turn - as an isolated financial civ, I'd say beeline for pottery and Cottagespam, cottagespam, COTTAGESPAM!

Hi this is the first event in wich i will be partisipating(do i write it like this?) looks like a fun game. i will try it on prince difficulty i just came from noble and this will be my second prince game. my first i won an pretty easy conquest victory(my highest score ever :)) u will see my report soon.

regards
Endymion aka Tim

Welcome, endymion ;) .... Hope you enjoy it

I see these series are attracting to the players. Maybe i'll give a shot too.

You're most welcomed, Giaur. A good player like you is always a good addiction to any open game ;)

Immortal, checkpoint 1/extra

Started off well. Founded in place, went work-warrior-warrior-warrior-settler IIRC, starting the settler at pop 4. Research started out w/ animal husbandry->mining->BW and also got mysticism and horseback riding from huts. I debated a long time about where to place my cities, but I think what I ended up with works great.

163837
At 1AD, the turn after I discovered Civil service. After getting BW I beelined pottery and then went for monarchy->writing->CoL->civil service or currency->(civil service). Founded confucianism and have an academy in my capital.

163838
Where I left off, after discovering Liberalism. I would have put it off, but running pacifism w/ hereditary rule was hurting me so I wanted to make the switch to free speech/free religion for free. I plan to make 1 more city with the stone and clam at the far end, but for now I am going to printing press then probably democracy. Great People wise, Susa got 2 more scientists, one who made an academy in parsagaede (sp.) and one who started the golden age. Gordium is working on another scientist, who might come to pop printing press or be saved for another golden age (maybe w/ economics).

In the future, I'd like to go for a spacerace but I don't have very many cities and not very high production. This means I'll probably end up having to wage an oversea war with another AI, hopefully one who is also Isolated (I don't know fractal maps). All I need is a few more semi-good cities for casings/thrusters and 1 or 2 production powerhouses (possibly enemy capital) for engines.

Immortal, checkpoint 1/extra

Looks a lot like my start, except at a higher level and faster. Damn....

Can you describe your reasons for the placement of Gordium? I dismissed that location in favor of an alternative placement, and wonder how our logic differed.

:bump:

Reporting for duty on Monarch!
Let the floodplains flowerish asap :)

Darius 1st of the Persia, Monarch, Checkpoint 1


Forty turns, and the whole "world" is known :lol:
And what a bunch of crappy land it has.
Well, not everything is that bad, there is some nice seafood, plus pig, wheat, cow & sheep - the health won't be an issue, we have bronze and horses, stone for Notre Dame :mischief:. Still happiness is low - only incense...
Immortals will be useless here, still it's nice to have them for future wars (not the Immortals, the horses).

So here we go, mr Darius is Financial and Organized, starting with Hunting and Agriculture. Agriculture opens the AH for the sheep, but I decide otherwise.

After settling in place, I start a worker.

Tech-path - POTTERY! Those floodplains call for cottaging.
Wheel and Pottery further, our worker is ready. I start a warrior for a small fog-busting duties.

Hut-popping could be better - some experiance, little gold and two maps (one of which reveals parts of, hmmm, what was supposed to stay unknown until very late ;)

On turn forty, we have two floodplain hamlets (+4 gold) and one cottage (hamlet in 5), all worked by Persepolis. The second worker is almost done, and I just revolted to slavery.

After Pottery I went for AH to connect the sheep and reveal horses. Then it was time to discover Mining and BW.

With two workers and some pre-chopping, it's time to get the Priesthood path for Oracle and CoL. We're organized aren't we ? And an extra happy from religion is never a bad idea while isolated.

Once Persepolis will pop 4, I will start a Settler for cow/horse or river/wheat spot south-east of the capital.

Some dotmapping of the known world ( note - there are some crappy cities too and the Paint isn't the best tool to work images :confused: ):


http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/5015/lhcdariuscheckpoint1ovedd7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


Impatient to get to Checkpoint 2!

Thanks for this challenge r_rolo1! Goddamn I love financial.

Immortal. 1st and 2nd checkpoint ...

1st ...

Worker -> Warrior -> Warrior -> Settler.
Moved settler 1N.

Research path: AH -> Wheel -> Pottery -> Mysticism -> Meditation -> Priesthood -> Mining -> BW -> Writing -> Fishing -> CoL (Oracle) -> Monarchy -> Sailing -> Masonry -> Poly -> Mono -> Math -> Metal Casting -> Civil Service -> Teology -> Machinery -> Currency -> IW -> Compass -> Calendar -> Optics -> Paper -> Astronomy
I wonder why machinery was researched before Currency. Nevermind.

Being isolated could mean that we should aim for religion quickly. Both for happiness and civics. So I constructed oracle in a horse city. I was wondering what to do with great prophet. I had even a choice what great person get first: scientist or prophet. I decided on the second one but he only was settled (in a capital to get forge quickly and help constructing Apostolic Palace). Around 400BC (maybe earlier) I managed to discover my continent..

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/70897/Civ4ScreenShot0086.JPG

2nd ...
Scientist was born in next 16 turns and found academy in a capital. Completed Apostolic Palace for production and Collosus for commerce. But traits were so strong that the last wonder became obsolete pretty quickly. Great people were appering slowly under OR. Missed Hanging Gardens and Mausoleum. I missed Philosophy, so I decided to go for Astronomy, not Liberalism. Now I am aiming for UoS, because many religious buildings are constructed. Some cities produce wealth, so maybe switching to pacifism is the next step. Maybe I will grab Physics form Liberalism if there is some luck.
Slow tech pace in my game. I guess due to wars on the other continents.

Overview:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/70897/Civ4ScreenShot0085.JPG

Techs:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/70897/Civ4ScreenShot0087.JPG

Diplo:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/70897/Civ4ScreenShot0088.JPG


http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/70897/Lonely_Darius_AD-1020.CivBeyondSwordSave

1st, monarch

Early checkpoint but wanted to remark that I like this continent. I see at least 8 or 9 great city spots. Funny that we draw a map with good health resources when we play with a UB that gives out two free :health:.

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/4653/looksgood0000xw2.jpg

Went worker, worker, warrior, chopped settler.

Went wheel-->pottery-->AH-->mining-->BW and from there will go to priesthood, then writing.

http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/6321/whpotahminbwpriest0000nj4.jpg

I'm trying out the BUG mod, we'll see if it's too much info for my little brain to handle...

@Voiceofunreason

Basically, I'm just using it to get another great person. Its about 6-7 turns off from a great scientist. I could have put it w/ the clam and incense, but where it is also snags acouple grasslands.

Im back in this one, playing just on emperor.

Checkpoint #1


Here's the map of my 2 cities, im sure you guys all know what the rest of the terrain looks like. About to get metal casting from the Oracle.
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d101/Shamshaw/Civ4ScreenShot0112.jpg

Here's a look at my capital:
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d101/Shamshaw/Civ4ScreenShot0111.jpg


more updates soon :)

Checkpoint 1
People like to say that is better to have luck than to be good.... This time I'm not sure if I had luck or if I'm good ( or both ;) ).

Settled in placed and queued worker- warrior until size 4 then settler and started the research with AH ( sheep in BFC and search for horses ). I had some good hut luck ( 1 map + 51 gold + Fishing + archery .... Fishing was most welcomed, with all the sushis we have in our island ). Then founded my 2nd city 1E of the northern horses ( 1W from river, but the only way of having horses + pig +sushi in BFC ) and started to build the Oracle. I had some terrible event luck with capitol mines ( IIRC 5-6 mine colapses before anno domini ) and the Oracle was getting delayed... self researched Maths and continued my way researching Col until I realized this (all in the same turn):
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/Civ4ScreenShot0008.jpg

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/Civ4ScreenShot0009.jpg
A genuine CS slingshot in Monarch in 675 BC post warlords 2.08 :eek: ( I even checked the settings just to make sure that I had done it on Monarch....).Changed civics to Beauro ASAP....

With all this fuzz I even forgot that I had discovered all the island ages ago:
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/Map6250000.jpgSome nice spots in a island that can hold 8-9 cities.... It reminds me the first of the LHC in warlords with HC. Let's just hope that the island has all the necessary resources ( it has a good amount of health ones, but a serious shortage of happy ones)
Checkpoint 2
Not much to say here.. got philo( with Taoism ) and some nice events:
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/Civ4ScreenShot0012.jpg

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/Civ4ScreenShot0013.jpg
Got the collosus as well and had time to roll back and to research the way to Optics and to starting to find new civs ( I normally let them find me, but this game is going very well ;) )
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/1stcontact0000.jpg

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/techtableofSurya0000.jpg
Surya is very backward and the lack of religion indicates that he's isolated or with 1 more civ. The second one was the truth:
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/2ndciv0000.jpg
Peter is even more backward than Surya and both share a small continent SW of us. They don't have any diplo - about war, so the GG that I saw came from elsewhere ( as well as the hindu AP )...

I continued my way to Lib, and then I find this nice chap:
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/3rdencounter0000.jpg
Shaka... why do I have to get him almost all the time ?. But this Shaka is backwards (at the same level of Surya ) and being budhish without the holy city indicates that there are more civs in this continent ( and BTW got the circumnavigation bonus.... )

Shortly after:
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/lib0000.jpg

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/Civ4ScreenShot0014.jpg
In retrospective I should had saved Lib for a better tech ( I discovered later that the no civ even had Paper when I got lib... ) but I'm so used to rush to Lib ( always trying to snag it from the hands of another civ ) that I decided to play safe....

One more civ:
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/4thciv0000.jpg
I'm worried about Hammurabi... he's got a good point count in spite of being some techs behind. The map I got after showed that he has a nicely sized empire and that looks to be the AI civ with strongest potential. But we still needed to meet the last two civs ( both in same turn ):
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/5thciv0000.jpg

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/6thciv0000.jpg
Another 2 fin civs... this is getting interesting. Gandhi is in war with Shaka ( how unusual.... ) nad I'm not sure who is winning.

After some backfilling, I managed to get this map:
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/world13500000.jpg
The game is getting real good, in spite of some errors that I made ( I postponed monarchy for a long time.... and Lib was premature )... hopefully this will be a nice SS launch ( the island looks too prod limited for a full dom/conquest win )

Nice r_rolo1. Haven't seen that in a while. I'd chalk that up to skill since you had the foresight to have mathematics done pre-oracle build.

Nice r_rolo1. Haven't seen that in a while. I'd chalk that up to skill since you had the foresight to have mathematics done pre-oracle build.

I'm flattered :blush: .... but it had his share of luck: normally in this date Oracle is normally alrealdy built in Monarch. But having a fin civ with 3 FP in the capitol BFC helps a lot as well .... ;)

My game is running along quite smoothly.

No contact with any outside civs yet. But I have built: The pyramids, AP, Usankore, Sminerat, and alot of other wonders and have and amazing economony running. I founded Hinduism, Islam, and Taoism, be interesting too see how other civs match up once I meet them.


Overall look at my cities:
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d101/Shamshaw/Civ4ScreenShot0118.jpg

My capital
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d101/Shamshaw/Civ4ScreenShot0117.jpg

And during my golden age from the free GA from discovering music first, I managed to change civics to Beauracracy at the last possible turn - some damn nice timing.
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d101/Shamshaw/Civ4ScreenShot0115-1.jpg

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d101/Shamshaw/Civ4ScreenShot0116.jpg


Heres my Maoi statues city:
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d101/Shamshaw/Civ4ScreenShot0119-1.jpg

city screen
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d101/Shamshaw/Civ4ScreenShot0120.jpg

and I attached my save at 1130AD.

not really sure what to pursue next, but atm my Civ is turning into Borg and getting ever more powerfull by the turn.

chkpoint2

Things are progressing. On a general note, cottage spammed everything with preference to river tiles, I don't think I have built a single farm. I beelined liberalism moreso than in previous games and got it in 1000AD, eschewing just about every non-necessary tech to get it early. I filled the western half on the continent and planned on founding three cities to the east for a total of 11.

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/2706/lib1000ad0000ef1.jpg

Early liberalism for earily nationalism and then early democracy for emancipation. I bulbed education with one scientists along the way, my only scientist so far. It also let me build the Taj and get a free GA, since I knew I'd be short on great people and thus GAs.

Got democracy in 1450 and finished the Taj the same turn.

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/1373/demo1450tajwaitforeman0nm1.jpg

I want to wait until some of my lesser production cities have whipped the buildings they need till I switch to emancipation, however. My GA let me speed up my research nicely and I was able to get to astronomy in about 11 turns, even though I hadn't even researched metal casting yet.

Fairly well rounded cities research wise:

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/9203/fairlywellrounded0000gi0.jpg

Once all my cottages become towns that will get much better. I figure that eventually I can safely get around 1500 beakers with libraries, universities, and observatories in every city and 60-70% slider.

I will also switch the FR and FS soon, as the University of Sankore wonder isn't really providing me the boost in research I thought it would. US seems to be a popular wonder but I never really get that much out of it and it is a pain to build temples and monasteries in every city when I can be building other stuff, although in isolation it's not as big a deal. Nonetheless the US is only giving me about 30 beakers a turn when FR could probably net me around 50 with more once my towns come online.

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/2016/usualtechpace0000yr0.jpg

The Khmer have dye and sugar, and aren't that advanced.

Peter is slightly ahead of the Khmer. Still no astronomy for either of them.

http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/9297/same0000yl3.jpg

And...my capital:

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/6645/capital0001ri6.jpg

I really want to try a domination win but I have a sneaking suspicion it will end up with a space race again... we shall see.

On an unrelated note, the BUG mod is definitely interesting and will probably only get better as I learn to use it more effectively. Right now it really offers more info than I can handle, particularly in the domestic adviser screen. One thing that is great is the whip reminders, it really lets me go crazy with the whip when before I was just too lazy to check all my cities every turn to see if they were ready to whip.

edit: wow, I just noticed Peter and the Khmer have no religion! Say hello to confucianism my heathen friends...



@r_rolo1

I've noticed the AI doesn't build the oracle as early post-patch. Pre-patch you had to build it before 1000BC at the latest, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Is the mighty CS slingshot back??? (On monarch?):crazyeye:

checkpoint 1 (immortal)

this map is significantly easier than the sitting bull one. Darius + lots of grassland river tiles = a little too easy... I've basically been building a settler in at least one of my cities at all times as I gradually spam across the island. It's a fairly large island but I don't think I'm going to settle the eastern edge of the isalnd until late. There aren't a lot of resources over there that I need at this point as I don't think I'll be building the pyramids. I won't need the stone until Oxford at the rate that I'm going.

I oracled for CoL (could have probably gotten metalcasting if I wanted but I don't see the rush for forges). I've also set up a GP farm on the west coast with the pigs and clams (or was it fish) off the coast. It won't grow very large until I get a lighthouse built but it'll still be a nice addition since I'll eventually get an academy. I am currently running caste system as I don't see myself whipping out lots of buildings this game. I'm running a pure CE and most of my cities have hills in their crosses to speed up building.

Here are my city positions:
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/lonely%20hearts/Civ4ScreenShot0014.jpg

checkpoint 2:


I continued teching along and noticed that a few GG were being born. Great - there are some warmongers out there. I got paper then went towards optics as I wanted somebody else to found Taoism before I went down the liberalism line. I finished optics and sent my caravels out. I first found Elizabeth, soon followed by Hammurabi. I can deal with these two. Then I find Gandhi and trade maps - and I find everybody's favorite shade of yellow. I soon make contact with Shaka.

One of my other caravels went out west as there was a big blank and I figured there was a mini-continent out there. I found Survy and the Russians over there. I later made contact with the Russians and found that it was Peter, who was INCREDIBLY backwards. He didn't even have monarchy at 1000 AD! I traded some techs with the poor guy (I picked up alphabet - go figure how you can learn literature and education without alphabet).

Here's the tech situation:
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/Civ4ScreenShot0015.jpg

Darius was very powerful in the immortal SG that I ran - I think this game illustrates just how broken he is. The map basically feels like a monarch-emperor game considering how badly the AI is being outteched. I'm going to manually finish astronomy (16 turns) then head down nationalism --> rifling off of liberalism. Seeing as how most civs don't even have civil service yet, I think this should be possible. I also have open borders with everybody so once astronomy comes in and I finish harbors, my economy will take off. I'm hoping a GS can be born so that I can bulb him for the rest of astronomy instead of finishing it myself. I'm thinking domination here. Just a thought. :mischief:

having a blast. After playing so many immortal/deity games, emperor seems like a cakewalk.

lol@privateers

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d101/Shamshaw/Civ4ScreenShot0127.jpg

@ shyuhe
If you try Dom I would suggest that you start with Peter + Surya island. They are very backward and it would be sound to finish them ( at least 1 ) before the other continent AI start to sniff around. After that I would start with Shaka: the guy seems to be the more backward of the other continent ( like in my game ) and because he's in one tip of the continent, you could simply mop up the big continent east -> west. I would suggest shut down research after Rifles ( or Cavs.... ) + cannons + airships and $ rushing as well: for a Fin leader with prod limitations it is by far the best option

i hope my spoiler will work i dont have screens cause i dont now how to put them in the post and im to lazy to find out atm maybe the next post i started the game by settling in place after i moved the scout up to a hill in the north. i immidialtly started to build a worker end set research to animal husbrandry. popped a few huts one of wich spawnd a barb warrior wich was deveated by my warrior alse founded a second city east of the capital wich will get the oasis once the border poppes it wil also get the fish and the cows. i also managed to build the greatwall(i love wonders i know it aint much use here) will settle my island fast i hope

@endymion

For putting images in here you have to upload them to your CFC space ( on the easy upload button ) or host them in a server like imageshack or photobucket. After getting a link of the image just put it between tags.

GW is not so hot in isolation anymore, because of the spy points ( GSpies are useless until you find somebody )..... and the barbs issue is not always big, especially if you have a small island

@rolo

I'm rifle drafting Elizabeth, followed by Hammurabi. Survy and Peter are so backwards that they don't really matter. If I take the center continent, that's game right there. I plan on working from the west because that's where the good wonders are. Hammurabi built the Mausoleum somewhere and if it's on the northern coast, I may go after him first. We'll see how it goes though.

hummanbari is the top dog in my game he vasselised ghandi and almost doubles my score i have 4 techs on him thoug and i think in teching faster then him. im taking on the other continent first prob whipe one out and vassalise the other after that ill take on hummanbari and i hope i can buy lizzy in the war with him im going for domination or conquest

Checkpoint 1 - Emperor

Well - with RRolo's success with a CS Slingshot I decided to give it a go on Emperor. And it worked. I have never rocketed towards Optics so fast before. Oracle to get CS around 800BC, Optics at 375 AD - my fastest ever I think.

I have six cities now. All are fairly good locations with all but one and my capital coastal. I built the Collosus to help my rocketing economy. Next plan is to REX the remainder of the island - build some courthouses and race towards liberalism. I will try and get Great Library along the way - not sure if I can or not.

My second city was to the NW to get the horse and a fish. Thats been my main production city so far building immortals for mobile happiness and defense.

City 3 was to the South to get the fish. Its mainly a costal fishing village but should be able to share a couple of cottages with the capital.

City 4 was to the East pulling a fish and next to an oasis. I will run some scientists in this city to try and pop a scientist for an academy.

City 5 will be my main production city. It is to the East pulling a cow and the horse and has a few hills. Its good cottage terrain too but a cow and horse help production without costing food and I need some good production cities for later.

City 6 is SE on the coast getting the rice.

After that I'll be settling the Eastern peninsular. Not sure what I will do for a GP farm yet. But I'm financial - cottages from sea to shining sea!

chkpoint3

Going for domination but I got a late start, I probably shouldn't have concentrated so much on infrastructure and gone all military as soon as I had rifles. My production was lacking due to the lack of happiness resources and thus my inability to switch to US. I also had a large stack headed for Shaka, who then vassaled to India, who was giving me my happiness resources so I didn't want to invade him. This slowed me down also as I had to redirect everything to the Khmer. Oh well. I invaded the Khmer/Russian island in 1860 with a stack of infantry and artillery, and it took me a little longer than expected to take the entire continent.

http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/4414/russiaandkhmer19390000dx9.jpg

I was paying thru the nose for happiness resources from Hammurabi and Gandhi, I think at one point I was dropping about 150gpt for 6 or 7 happiness resources. Hammurabi has all the hit movies/singles etc. This enabled me to keep my tech slider high so I am still doing fine tech wise, I will soon have modern armor and stealth.

Liz and Hammurabi have a defensive pact. Since Liz is really a non-factor I will take Hammurabi out first. I hate modern wars against an equal AI, they are a pain in the ass and take forever and the AI can really spam units this late in the game. Nukes are gone, they were my first vote when I was elected head of the UN. (Hammurabi would have them by now anyway.) We'll see if I can get this done before someone launches to space.

Immortal-ity

Or not. Lost to a ghandi cultural victory in 1936, and Hammurabi just launched his spaceship.

How did I get there? Well, I attribute my loss to my war which I said I needed.

I went for Survayaraman (Survivorman) with calvary and galleons and took his capital and 3 other cities. Then came my favorite part of the game, where the second he can he vassalized to Peter (peter had demanded tribute from me earlier and could not declare).

To be fair, I did see this coming as Peter started to stalk acouple cuirrasers around (not that impressive), but I decided to risk it thinking I could take the last Survivorman city before time was up instead of vassalizzing. Needless to say, I was acouple turns short and he was able to take all I had conquered.

Ironically IMO, I think I would have easily cruised to victory had I not
1. gone to war in the first place
2. just vassalized Survivorman

In the end, Hammurabbi beat me to a spaceship launch by about 9 turns (beating me by about 20 turns) and then out of left-field Ghandi got cultural. Still, my war w/ survivorman pre-Peter declare lasted ~9 turns, post last ~4 to finish survivorman (lowering the immense war weariness), then ~8 more turns before Peter made peace. In all, my war w/ suvivorman cost me ~20 turns of research (for payrushing stuff pre-war and culture slider to balance war weariness).

Those 20-25 turns would have let me beat Ghandi's culture and beat Hammurabbi had I not declared at all (plus I would have been first to fusion, etc) or having 4 extra cities w/ good production would have let me build parts/research faster and/or pick up another golden age

In retrospect of it all, I think the isolated start actually makes in easier in many ways for higher difficulties. I've been having some problems trying to start up immortal/Huge continents games (what I like the most) where my biggest to problems have been early wars against AI's and barbarians, so for a generally peaceful CE guy this was much easier.

163899 163900 163901

163902 163904

Too bad, SpockFederation :( It is a real pain in the @ss when that happens..... But it is good that you enjoyed the game ;)

It is interesting that you said that you find isolation easier than non isolation. A lot of people said to me a couple of times that they thinked that isolation was harder ( including people that play at the same level and settings as you ). IMHO isolation pulls for another set of game abilities than non isolated ( diplo, beelining, good tech trades ,late wars ) and some people are unconfortable with that ..... Personally I like a good headbashing ( not as good as that in execution, but.... ), but pulling a come-from-behind space race or a well planned AP win are good as well ;)

Checkpoint4

Diplo win, 1964. I chickened out with Hammurabi, I didn't like how many units he had compared to me. I spammed farms and Sushi to all my cities right after I took out the Khmer and Peter, and was able to more than double my population in about 25 turns. This is the food graph on the winning turn:

http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/3071/food0000tr6.jpg

I still pursued a possible invasion of Hammurabi while doing this in order to keep both avenues of victory open, but I saw this:

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/8325/nonavy0000fc8.jpg

Compared to me:

http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/8176/notthatmuchyet0000ow5.jpg

He had double the amount of mech infantry and a crapload of gunships, although I had a much better navy. If I could have held a beachhead it would have been stalled for a few turns and who knows how quickly he was going to build those few space parts he needed. (England was also his vassal but all she would do is suicide the occasional destroyer.) It might have been doable but I wasn't positive.

Gandhi was friendly with me and he had voted for me in the past so I knew I could count on him. Basically, I took the sure fire win. 25 turns and 60 million people later I had a diplo vote secured:

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/3936/lol0000zy4.jpg

http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/7810/yay0002bg2.jpg

This was an enjoyable one, for once I was actually powerful and could throw my weight around. All the other games I felt anemic and basically just sat on my little island teching to space or going for culture, this was a good change of pace. Darius is a very, very powerful leader.

@rolo-

Mainly with this game in particular, its the map size and the financial trait that made it seem easier. I do not have the time to play very many videogames (and less for civ), but I've been trying to bump my difficulty up since I've been playing a lot of Monarch GOTMs recently. Lately I've tryed some huge immortal games and don't fair as well. I'm a CE space-race guy, and I generally have very low production in the start since I cottage everywhere w/ Hereditary Rule ASAP. Being isolated means you can have that low production and just tech away. If you get a good start on continent then you'll probably do better, but a standard size map in isolation means no civs like the zulu or aztecs declaring war early on.

I think whether isolation is easier or harder depends a lot on your starting land. If you aren't isolated then you can always resort to war if the peaceful locations don't suit. And being isolated on a barren rock (anyone remember the Elizabeth game) is really hard. But given good terrain and the chance to play builder in peace you can do really well.

Checkpoint 2 - around 1000AD

Met all the other AIs and I am the tech leader - very unusual for me at this point in the game. But I got Optics much earlier.

I built the Great Library, got first to music and ran a golden age to rush through education. Now researching Philosophy - should easily be first to liberalism. Peter was first to found Taoism though - which means that I haven't been able to convert his island to confucianism.

The gameplan at the moment is to research most of liberalism and self research Astronomy getting a few turns more of the collosus. If I can take Democracy from Liberalism that would be truly awesome. But that might be too greedy!

checkpoint 4 (I changed my mind on victory conditions halfway through)
And whoever said that the 3.13 patch fixes backdoor domination.... needs to check my save.


I continued teching along, got liberalism for printing press, then bulbed astronomy and triggered a GA. I got the economics GM and used that to fund 100% research as I went towards rifling and steel. Once I had rifles, I started drafting like mad. I sent my first wave to Sury who was pretty backwards (he had maces/xbows). Unfortunately, he had Chichen Itza + castles so I didn't really start to roll until my cannons arrived at the scene. By the end of the war, I had teched up to assembly line and my infantry were cruising. Meanwhile, Liz and Hammurabi, the other two techers in my game, were goign down the physics line. Liz made it all the way down to electricity before rifling!

Once I had factories going up (half-price factories make organized one of the best traits at high levels), I continued pumping out units. My leftover units went after Peter now, who had been cramped in with only 4 cities. He went down pretty easily as he only had mustkets/knights. I also kept Gandhi busy with Shaka by having them war constantly. I fed Shaka military techs to make sure he could keep up in the war. Hammurabi didn't mind that and Liz had a -4 trading with worst enemy modifier anyways so I didn't care.

After I finished off the Russians, I looked at the victory screen and noticed that Liz had a lot of culture. It looked like she was going for culture since she didn't tech steam power and had culture flipped one of my minor cities on the small island. So I decided to take her out next.

I teched up to industrialism and built lots of transports + destroyers + marines. Then I did amphibious invasions on all of her coastal cities and took her down fairly easily as well. At this point, the only power left was Hammurabi, who had more power than me but I was teching way faster than him. I think he was wasting a lot of his GNP on espionage as he had over 10k points on me.

The ex-Russian/Khmer cities were starting to come online now since they had left a lot of workshops for me. That combined with my mainland's production power (the capital was amazing - it was producing modern armor 1/turn) eventually ground up Hammurabi as well, although it was a very long war. I had to adopt police state for most of the war as Hammurabi had mech infantry (and later modern armor as well). I basically won the war with air superiority, since I was kind enough to refrain from using nukes. Even though Hammurabi hit me with tactical nukes twice :mad:

So the funny thing is, I actually won by backdoor domination. I don't know how but I triggered the diplo victory before I could finish off Hammurabi... I think it's because I was conquering his cities while the voting was taking place and some of the votes shifted as a result but I'm not certain.

Some pics of my empire:
The main continent:
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/isolated%20darius/Civ4ScreenShot0018.jpg

Ex-Russian/Khmer territory:
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/isolated%20darius/Civ4ScreenShot0020.jpg

The warfront:
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/isolated%20darius/Civ4ScreenShot0021.jpg

Power:
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/isolated%20darius/Civ4ScreenShot0022.jpg

GNP:
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/shyuhe/isolated%20darius/Civ4ScreenShot0023.jpg

the massive dip in the GNP is from when I adopted US for one turn so that I could rushbuy an airport in the ex-British territory. You can see how much WW I had accumulated by that point...

I would like to see a Monty lonely hearts game, would be interesting to see how to best leverage traits of aggressive and spiritual on an isolated start.

I like this idea of the game, so I thought I should give it a try. Playing on emperor. Here is my checkpoint 1:


http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/42699/Checkpoint_1.JPG


And here some comments:

Wonderful game! Somehow crazy - well, on my part...

What I did:
Settled right in place. Started worker-warrior-worker. Popped a scout from a hut.
Teched: AH-Weel- (popped pottery from a hut)-mining-masonry-bw. Then beelined for literature (after writing made a detour to math). In between researched fishing for hooking up some clams.
Wanted the pyramids really badly, but didn't want to sacrifice too much forest. So I did my craziest move ever: I build a "highway" all the way to the other side of the continent to hook up the stone. Build my second city there. Was sure that would eventually crash my economy. But it didn't! Now, this city is a real powerhouse (as soon as I have a courthouse there - in a few turns - it will even be better). Got the pyramids in 850 BC - I wanted them earlier, but really wanted to keep my forests! Switched to representation and am running a hybrid economy right now which is doing rather well considering that I chose the worst possible spot for my second city (maintenance-wise). I also got the GL (well, now I had to sacrifice some forests, because I was to afraid of not getting it. Had I read the other spoilers, I would have saved more forests... ;)
Built two more cities and am rushing through the tech tree like crazy. Was almost the first to CoL - beaten only by two turns! Now researching Civil Service (for bureaucracy) and waiting for my second GS.

Right now I am in 400 AD and the Oracle has not yet been built! Now, I am seriously thinking about the oracle...:crazyeye: Well, I am sure, I won't make it now, but in this game everything seems possible!
In my fourth city (SE of the capital, close to the wheat), I am building the Parthenon - just for fun... And to improve the GP rate. Normally, I would have skipped it, but now...

Btw, there seem to be a lot of fighting going on on the other continents. Several GGs have already been anounced.

Too bad I don't have that much time to play. However, I hope to continue soon!

Thanks for this interesting game.
CellKu

I would like to see a Monty lonely hearts game, would be interesting to see how to best leverage traits of aggressive and spiritual on an isolated start.

Actually Tokogawa would be interesting. Two traits (aggresive/protective) that would be hard to leverage any advantage out of in an isolated start.

Mr Oz, Toku would be ideal for a drafting strat... the only problem would be getting the techs for rifles before everyone else has something better..... ( BTW I'm not seing your game :p ( p.s I know you are with your schedule book more than full ;) ) )

CellKu, nice idea... looks that with Darius we can do a lot of crazy stuff
:lol:

mutax2003, Monty ..... *scratchs head*.... crappy early UU, not so useful UB in isolation, a null trait and another not very useful..... That looks like a chalenge ;)

Mr Oz, Toku would be ideal for a drafting strat... the only problem would be getting the techs for rifles before everyone else has something better..... ( BTW I'm not seing your game :p ( p.s I know you are with your schedule book more than full ;) ) )


Agg/pro rifles are super but as you say, you've got to be able to get there (with Astronomy) to be of any use.

I do look at each of these games and say I'll play another when I get some time, that time just never arrives :lol:

I must say that the people that followed a military way to win this game where absolutely right... I thinked to myself : " Well, I have a Fin/Org civ, had a spetacular start, this is in the bag... lets see how early I can launch a SS". But things weren't that easy.....

It all started when Gandhi vassalized voluntarily to Hammuraby in the 1500ihs ( the guy was banging heads with shaka since the start of the game ( in the end, when looking at the replay, I counted 6 DoW of Shaka to Gandhi during the game, and 5 of them were before my checkpoint 2 .... ), so I think it was to make some fear to him ).... Hammurabi quickly started gaining mommentum and surpassed me in technological terms in the begginings of the Industrial age ( lost both SoL and Physics GS to him )... then he invited himself to the Surya/Peter island and vassalised Surya ( with a hand from peter... ). Things were starting to get dim, but got two lucky strikes: Gandhi left Hammurabi protection and I signed a DP with him ASAP ( both for my protection as for taking a new vassalization from Gandhi's head ) and hindu spread to my lands, allowing me to vote in the hindu AP ( runned by Elizabeth, the hindu founder and only hindu civ ), a thing that allowed me to get enough diplo brownies for voting on Elizabeth for AP resident to get her into Friendly status and allowing a DP with her. Join this to a Liz-Gandhi DP ( they were Friendly with each other as well ) and behold the power of Three ( fin civs in map ;) )
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/Civ4ScreenShot0004.jpg
This came just in time.... Hammurabi was with his hands full since the end of Surya war ( and remained with it until the end of the game ), and I'm quite sure that I was the target..... In spite of us 3 together didn't reach Hammurabi's power, it was enough to halt him.... ( and having 2 fin civs in friendly status ( i.e WFYABTA free ) helped a lot, in spite of that irritating tendency that Gandhi has to spread techs to our foes :gripe: ) but my probations didn't ended there.....

I continued my teching towards Superconductors ( and grabbed Eiffel and 2 of the Hits wonders, just to take some wierd :culture: ideas out of Gandhi's and Hammurabi's heads ( Hammy capitol in the end of the game had + 90k :eek: ) ), when I reached Industrialism and no sign of Al ..... Hammy had 2 [pissed] . Seeing this, I had to take some measures:
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/Civ4ScreenShot0001.jpg

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/Civ4ScreenShot0002.jpg Internet gave me 10 techs during the rest of the game ( mostly crap like Mono or DR but some gooddies like Flight, Satelites and Advanced flight ), so i consider that a very good investement... and the TGD to compensate the lack of Al ( Hammy would not trade it most surely.... ) by pure hammer power. Founded sushi and Mining corps ( I wanted to grab Al co , but my GP pools were heavilly contaminated with engineers from industrial parks and I couldn't get a GS in time ).... those 2 corps have a nice synergy with the Org trait and provided me a nice chunk of my working power ( and allowed me to be UN chairman for a while ( passing the single currency and the open borders resolutions..... nice compensation for the necessary passing to Enviromentalism ( CR helped with that as well ) ) until Gandhi changed his mind and started voting for Hammy ( WTF? He was friendly with me and Pleased with Hammy and votes for Hammy? :crazyeye: )).
Things started to look good again..... until Hammy beats me to the Space Elevator :gripe: ( I couldn't get Satelites and robotics in time without compromising my Fusion beeline .... even had 2 GE in store for rushing it )... with Al and the the Space Elevator, Hammy had a pretty decent advantage towards me... even with my slightly better tech baggage,( had Fusion and the engines online ), hammy could simply build the SS faster...

But it is said that fortune favours the bold ( or that the I in the Civ's AI is from Imbecile ):
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/WTF.jpg
Yeah, you saw it well.... Hammy sold me Al :band: :cheers: . I was just searching the resource screen looking for one more coal or sushi for my corps, when I realized that stupidity from Hammy ( like If I was in a tight SS race I would sell Al to my competitor... ). Oh well..... With this nice boost I managed to launch before Hammy ( in that regard the AI needs to be tweaked: they beeline the tech that gives SS casings and build them all and then they go to Fusion for engines. That disallows AI of trying a hasty launch with less casings, just letting them to decide between a slower SS now ( 1 engine ) or a faster one in a few turns ( 2 engines ), not between a slow but safe ship ( complete SS ) and a faster ( to get there earlier than a already launched SS ) but riskier SS ( with less than the max number of casings ) , like humans do in tight SS races ):
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/Civ4ScreenShot0007.jpg and
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/victory0000.jpg
BTW ,both Hammy and Peter ( I was somehow surprised by this... my eyes were focused in Hammy, the only one that appeard in the F8 screen ) had launching-able SS after my launch, but they never launched them... Do AI simply give up of their SS after realizing that they will not get there in time? In 3.03 it wasn't like that.... Somebody can give me a light here?

And finally the end screens:http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/power0000.jpg

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x257/r_rolo1/LHC%20BTS%20VII/Ac0000.jpg
As you can see, Hammy had a stupendous power... I simply don't understand why my two DP would deter him..... Me + Gandhi + Liz simply were not enough to stop him. But Hammy simply behaved stupidly in this game.... :lol:
Liz power line is intriguing.... It looks like she started disbanding units. Maybe a last effort to try to keep up with the two big tech dogs?
And this time I made a conscient and serious effort to not be the last of the power graph :lol:

Well looks like I have to thank Hammy for for a fun, elucidate and nerve wrecking game and to swear that I have to try something diferent than Space - AP wins in isolation ...

P.S Save below is from the turn before victory....

@ all

Ideas for next leader?.... The suggestions so far were for leaders hard to handle in isolation ( but I'm liking the Monty idea .... ). Be free to toss some more...

It's been a while since i've been here,i'll try this on immortal, here's the 1Ad save.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/101761/Lonely_Darius_AD-0001.CivBeyondSwordSave

Rolo - you should have considered using coal plants with the Persians. The +2 unhealthy is cancelled out by the apothecary (which your core cities should have late game anyways). It comes way earlier than TGD and TGD just takes too long to build. I rarely rely on hydro power these days... I just suck up the unhealthy since the boost in production is worth so much more than a city that's 1 size smaller.

@Dirk1302

Good to see you again in here... I hope you enjoy the new manager :p

@shyuhe

I agree , but I was trying to be #2 in pop as well, because of the UN .... I was expecting that Hammy would build it and I was afraid that Gandhi would be his contender.... And you know how the AI loves to UN wreck a game ;)

@ all

Ideas for next leader?.... The suggestions so far were for leaders hard to handle in isolation ( but I'm liking the Monty idea .... ). Be free to toss some more...[/QUOTE]

Exactly, take the crappiest leader for an isolated start (i.e. Monty), and see if the game can still be won with pure skillful plays (and maybe a bit of luck). Also, the situation is somewhat similar to Aztec's position in Earth 1000 AD, which is my favorite scenario.

Checkpoint 2:


It is 1540 AD and the tech situation doesn't look that bad. I am still surprised that my little idiocies did not break me.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/42699/Checkpoint_2_-_Tech_situation.JPG


And an update of my game so far:

I did get the Parthenon. Later I also built the USankore. Rushed to liberalism and won: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/42699/Liberalism.JPG

Took nationalism and built the Taj Mahal. Burned a GP for a Golden Age and managed to finish the Taj Mahal just in time to continue it. ;)

Then, I finally decided to look around for the other civs. While doing it, I proved that the world is round:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/42699/World_is_round.JPG

All in all, it doesn’t look that bad. Hammurabi is the top guy, as other players reported from their games. Shaka is right behind with Ghandi as his vassal. Between Hammurabi and Shaka/Ghandi there is a lot of fighting going on. Right now Cities are changing owners back and forth, several GGs appeared (again!). ;)
I am planning to race to rifling and then have a closer look at this “war continent”. It seems that Hammurabi doesn’t protect his cities too much (at least compared to the others). With all this fighting going on, I might be able to get onto this continent, as well… ;)


CellKu

Even though my game is far from finished, I join the discussion about leader for LHC VIII.

Financial is HUGE

Still, it feels a little bit cheating - like the CS slingshot :D

So for the next one I would join those asking for a really useless isolated leader.
Sitting Bull felt a little bit like it - add the land and you have a really tough game. :goodjob: to all who managed a score.
I don't feel Monty is the most useless. You can still leverage the Spiritual and aim for Culture, and Jags are as good fog-busters as any other units.

I would rather propose, drums please, Genghis Khan.
Try to make any worth out of Agg/Imp combo :lol:

HRE could be fun too - otherwise none of us will ever try it ;)

Took the immortal save and took a different route than the rest of the pack.My main concern was the lack of happy. Production was not great either. So I decided on pyramid gamble, which was successful. SH and GW had gone late so that helped my decision.
I found conf, set on lib beeline I miss phil (I don't need the religion but it means more lib competition). Uof S is BIDL so I just pop nat with lib.
I pop 2 gold and gems! (as well as compass from a late hut). So the RNG was really with me.
Research astro then rifling. 2 rounds of nat to draft up an army then I get railroad and mining inc. Free religion to keep the peace. I end up with 12 cities, including the SE island. Don't know if I bother to finish this, lead is commanding. With the traits of Darius, fishing villages are pretty good.
In retrospect I think the pyramids were a mistake. Too many hammers and not worth the risk. I think better just go quickly to monarchy and build a mess of warriors.

@ungy:


I did the monarchy + warrior spam. I didn't tech engineering for the longest time (don't need either castles or trebs) and I intentionally didn't hook up the copper. So I was spamming warriors well into the 1000 AD's :D Pyramids are powerful but there aren't enough :) to use the early representation (which is the real power). Although with popping gold and gems, it sounds like representation + forges would have worked too.

OK, time for some advice. I think I can reveal the basic dilemna without revealing spoilers.

After a strong start I am having trouble deciding the next step. I'm playing on Emperor which is a stretch for me, particularly on an isolated start. Its around 1000AD and I am researching Philosophy. I have Optics and Education already. None of the AIs have civil service yet, but Philosophy and Machinery are both in play.

I have the chance of military action against more backward AIs which I would like to take - I don't trust that I have enough land yet for a win and my experience is that once the AIs get going they start teching very quickly.

There are three strategies I am debating:

1) The fast and furious

Tech to Engineering next - should allow me to build Notre Dame which will give me happiness I need. Then Liberalism and take Astronomy. Possibly not as strong as getting a later tech but it will quickly get me extra trade income and hopefully some good resources.

Then tech through gunpowder, chemistry and military science. Build (whip) an army of trebs, grenadiers and frigates. While I launch the attack tech to steel, drop science to zero and upgrade trebs to cannon.

This gets me a major military tech lead in five techs and starts the war soonest. Chances are I will be facing longbows only and no muskets. War weariness will have to be controlled by the culture slider - but I will probably have low pop due to whipping. Possibly I will build the Globe Theatre in my capital - running bureaucracy it is still the lions share of my economy.

2) Devastating and Thorough

Tech to Nationalism first. Build Taj Mahal for the golden age (I should get it only if I tech there straight away). Then Liberalism for Astronomy. Then printing press, guilds, banking, gunpowder, replaceable parts and rifling. I should still easily be first to rifling and I might be able to trade for guilds and banking. So its a little longer than the first path.

But I can now draft - which means I can field a bigger army of rifles using the culture slider to allow me to draft twice in every city. But I won't have trebs (unless I can trade for engineering which is possible) or frigates to support the attack. And I might face musketmen by then.

3) Economy first

In this path I would tech to Nationalism, build Taj Mahal. Take Astronomy with Liberalism again - its not as big as democracy, but getting foreign trade will be a big boost. Tech to printing press, constitution and democracy. Build SOL. Guilds, Banking and possibly economics might be good for trade by then. Then head to rifles.

Its a lot more techs. I can probably still get to rifles first but I will face stronger opponents. Of course by then I should be able to rush buy and draft so my own strength will be a lot greater. And my economy will be stronger for whatever comes next.

So, what should I do? Is it worth getting an immediate military advantage and exploiting it or getting a very strong economy and then totally devoting it to war.

I would go for the "Fast and Furious" aproach.... Seems more feasible and more powerful ( because it is a earlier punch )

@InvisibleStalke
If you choose path 1, I would be very interested in seeing how that works out. I decided to go for path 2, actually.

However, that takes a while (especially since I raced to lib as quickly as possible, and had to fill in all the econ techs up to banking).

If you are already around 1000 AD, don't postpone lib for too long. I am also playing on emperor and had a strong competitor (Liz). She would have probably beaten me, if I hadn't put everything I had into research (got it 1220 AD). With my detours I was a bit late for lib and that let me sweat quite a bit... ;)

Btw, you don't want to take nationalism from lib? Because you said you have to tech to nationalism directly...

CellKu - my thought with path 2 is that Astronomy is a better tech than Nationalism from Liberalism - it is worth more beakers. Going Liberalism->Nationalism gets me Nationalism only a couple of turns earlier than I would have had it otherwise but delays Astronomy which is bigger for me.

RRolo - I think I'm leaning towards that one too - if only because I haven't done it before and I am curious to see what happens. The addition of frigates makes this more powerful for an isolated start where you will fight more coastal battles.

I took option 2 in my game. Get astronomy with liberalism if the AI aren't in mercantilism. The foreign trade routes can do wonders for your research. Also, rifles vs. mustkets is not a contest - it's only marginally harder than rifles vs. longbows. Considering the innate 25% bonus to LB for defending cities, it's about 14-7.5 vs. 14-9. If the city is on a hill, then LB's are just as hard as muskets by default. So I would tech up to rifling and draft while building boats and teching to steel. Cannons are WAY faster at tearing down castles than trebs (1 turn with 4 accuracy promoted cannons).

@InvisibleStalke

If you go option 2 and research Nationalism you might as well throw MT in there and do a quick Cav rush and see where that gets you. If you are confident you can get there while they still have longbows, you won't need trebs or cannons. If they get muskets, use spies to get the city defenses down. No siege weapons needed and you can trade for chemistry.

I'd also echo the comments from Shyuhe about cannons. Their ability to ignore walls and castles makes an invasion much quicker and cheaper, negating the earlier start you may have had with the grenadiers. If the AI is backwards enough, the extra turns of teching it would take wouldn't matter. The shorter the war the quicker you can recover your economy.

I took option 3 and it took too long for a domination win, but I also made some mistakes civics wise in my game and it certainly would have been possible for a more efficient player to pull one off with my opening play (lib in 1000AD). Normally I like option 3 because a quick and dirty ending war with Tanks/Cavalry will in many cases get you the win at the same time or sooner than a long, drawn out slog with siege weapons.

Shyuhe/Illram,

You are both arguing for option 2 - using Rifles - but adding cannon into the mix. To get to cannon and rifles I need three more techs - steel, chemistry and engineering. Thats 11 techs from where I am now. With option 1 I will get cannon in 6 techs. It seems to me that if I want to go with cannon I should use grenadiers as it is closer on the tech path.

The last game I played was actually similar to this - it became an "isolated start" when Darius fell to my cataphracts. I then beelined rifles and invaded Isabella who only had longbows for defense. It was very effective, but my leader Justinian was possibly one of the best suited to drafting in the entire game with massive happiness on call and a specialist economy running.

In this game I think I'll try the Chemistry/Steel/Military Science approach. My economy can generate a lot of cash which means that upgrades from trebs to cannon is definitely viable. But it can't sustain a lot of unhappiness easily. Getting there quick with a lot of cannon should help me keep the war brief.

Anyway thats the theory - lets see how it works out. Many thanks for the advice.

@InvisibleStalke

I guess I was arguing more for a variant of option 2, by getting cavalry and using cavalry/spies. Whip instead of draft, spend the money you would otherwise be putting into culture on espionage, and get happiness resources from someone such as Gandhi, who had a lot of them in my game. OR if you were really planning ahead build a whole bunch of immortals and then just mass upgrade them.

The reasoning is since you go nat'lism and rifling (with option 2), MT is only one more tech (if you have music). You also have Curassiers anyway and if the target civ only has longbows, you can get started with Curassiers/spies as that is still an effective combo. Research to rifling, spin off Printing Press and Rep. Parts to your trading buddy for frigates.

Cavs or Curassiers/spies will take out a backwards civ much quicker than trebs/anything else, even if they have muskets. No cannons needed.

I don't remember why I talked about cannons so sorry for the confusion. I hope I'm not being even more confusing than before!

hm. Good point on the # of techs you'll need. You'll want cannons for sure if they have castles. The choice of your bread and butter unit is for your picking I guess :) pick whatever you're comfortable teching up to and go with that. The only downside is that you can't draft grenadiers.

On a side note, I rarely use grenadiers now since they changed it to require military science. And I used to use them so much in warlords too...

Suggestions for leaders?
I can throw out a couple, dunno if you've tried em yet;
Hannibal, Suryavarman, Asoka, Charlemagne, Joao...

I'd rather see the challenge aspect, traits that don't help much in isolation, such as imperialistic. IIRC, their have been quite a few financial leaders, being

William
Joao
Darius

being atleast 3/7 of these LHC's so far.

It looks that people want a chalenge.... I understand: the last two LHC were with some of the most powerful leaders in game ( and the number of downloaded saves shows a lot more of people wanting to play Pericles or Darius in isolation than Sitting Bull ( I wonder why :rolleyes: ) ) and people want to see how long they can strech the rope....

P.S I'll post here soon the links for all the previous LHC ( not only the ones I hosted ), for people to know what leaders have been already played. Just wait a hour or so.....

P.S I'll post here soon the links for all the previous LHC ( not only the ones I hosted ), for people to know what leaders have been already played. Just wait a hour or so.....

You should play your SG instead of posting ;) :lol:

Great idea to gather all the links - maybe you should open a LHC planning and discussion thread where you will post all links, making sure I won't be waiting for a new LHC while it's already running (like last saturday... ).

^^Mr pawelo, I'm in work sneankely posting in my lunch hour in my boss computer... as you can presume, I'm not civ capable ATM :lol:

Good idea about the possible LHC planning and discussion thread ;) Will implement it ASAP

Shyuhe: Of course I didn't know I was going to pop gems and gold when I decided to go for the pyramids. I do agree that it was not the correct move.
While it brought in the Glib, the early hammers invested could have grown exponentially had I build settlers and workers instead. And maybe most significantly I could have missed it and that might have led to a loss.

Played a little more but it's a runaway so I'm not going to finish.

@Dirk1302
Good to see you again in here... I hope you enjoy the new manager :p


Thx, I'm fine with the new manager, i've seen that you've been very busy compiling lonely challenges :goodjob:.



4000 BC - 1 AD

Focused totally on combining early cottages with settler,worker spam to get the island settled as early as possible spurning all wonders. I believe it's very important to get as much land settled as early as possible when isolated, early research is not as important anymore also because the Ai's research very slow in BTS.

1AD - 1000 AD

In warlords i'd have beelined for Astronomy (even on emperor) because going for lib with caste system and specialists would be quite a gamble (caste system tends to slow you down, no slavery, no cottages worked in capital). So i was no mood to do caste system now but i did beeline lib self researching everything.

1000 - 1500 AD

Since no one founded Taoism i thought it save to go for machinery optics, then liberalism getting astro as free tech 1180 AD. Nothing special happened in this period, i went for all the economic techs like economics and democracy switching civis accordingly, now i think i should have included Drama somewhere so i could have started Global theater earlier.

1500-1775 AD

I churned out 900 beakers/turn at 80% with a small money profit. I had a big lead of some 10 techs on Hammurabi (the only real opponent).Idea was to get to Rifling asap while building globe. Next i'd decide on switching to nationhood for attack or continue with max research. I never really got to make that decision, though when Globe theater was done i almost had Assembly line finished. So i beelined to Industrialism keeping the attack option in mind.

1775 - 1840

1775 was the year i decided i'd definitely had to attack Hammurabi... At this moment i had Replaceable parts,Rifling, Steam power, Assembly line , Industrialisation, Steel, Railroad, Combustion,Biology, Medicine and fission on him while he had Communism and Radio on me. Seems impressive but by now i'd seen that he was researching techs like Democracy in 2 turns , i had good research myself with some 1400 beakers/turn but there was little room to improve on that so i reckoned he might be catching up fast helped by tech buddy Lizzy (@ungy all this is the reason i think you might play your game a bit further seeing if you can force a peaceful space race decision, i wasn't sure).

So in 1816 21 tanks, 4 infantry and some spies land near Anasazi. As i'd expected i'm only 6 techs up now so it seems i was right to take the opportunity. I'm also in a hurry because Ham can research Artillery by now,
facing Anti-tanks wouldn't make my Armors happy. I'd thought it'd be a breeze but i quickly find out that trying to incite revolts with spies is a losing affair by this time, very expensive and all my missions got thwarted (all in all i tried some 10 times also against the english later, all failure). I was planning to take him out in one go but with the spy failure this option was out.Instead i just hurt him by razing 5 big cities (including Babylon) suing for peace after, immediately filling the open space with settlers of my own, these cities were useless and culture pressed for the moment but they were useful as a later base and more important i did't want Ham to rebuild on the open spots..

1840 - 1956

Ham isn't teching fast anymore so i research flight and radio, Ham still hasn't got Industrialism so i take him out quickly with Bombers/tanks, i never got around to vassalize him. Next is Lizzy, i use mech infantry and mobile artillery
against her, after her main lands have gone she agrees to be a vassal. It's Stealth Bombers and Modern Armor against Ghandi and Shaka leading to a domination victory in 1956. Basically very easy only Domination wins are sooooo tedious to play out.

Conclusion:

I'haven't played too much BTS yet, the game has become much easier i feel, The AI's seem to have no research power at all till +/- 1500 AD, then they pick up (some) speed. Warlords emperor was way faster than immortal BTS.

I don't understand the general research route the Ai takes now,i felt that former AI beelines to Economics, Rifling,Artillery and Industrialisation made sense to have some defence against human opportunism. Now they prefer Democracy and radio at least Demo helps them with research and production but a beeline to radio then switching back to techs like Rifling is utterly pointless.I feel Blake has some work cut out for him.


@ungy
While i feel you're in a good position i don't think it's a runaway yet, look at the spoiler which is about my own game which is somewhat simliar to yours for why i don't think so.

The saves are 1000 Ad, 1500 Ad, 1775 Ad and 1956 Ad respectively.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/101761/Lonely_Darius_AD-1000.CivBeyondSwordSave
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/101761/Lonely_Darius_AD-1500.CivBeyondSwordSave
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/101761/Lonely_Darius_AD-1775.CivBeyondSwordSave
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/101761/Lonely_Darius_AD-1956.CivBeyondSwordSave

Well I went ahead with option 1 - partial success only so far...

Attacked Suri and took two of his cities. But then Peter declared on me and launched a ton of knights. I'm pulling through but war weariness is huge and I have lost a lot of units. I think I wasn't prepared to fight two AIs at the same time. The plan was to storm through Suri and then attack Peter - but that didn't work.

So far I have captured four cities and razed one. Capturing his capital first was great. Amongst other wonders I scored the Pyramids. So I am now running State Property and Police State. Plus Slavery and Theocracy. You would NOT want to live in my civilization.

Teching to rifling now and I am just going to have to keep marching on through the hordes. I'm glad I got cannon going - they have helped a lot.

CellKu - my thought with path 2 is that Astronomy is a better tech than Nationalism from Liberalism - it is worth more beakers. Going Liberalism->Nationalism gets me Nationalism only a couple of turns earlier than I would have had it otherwise but delays Astronomy which is bigger for me.

I do agree with your argument about the beaker value. I only thought it might be hazardous to postpone lib for too long. When did you get lib eventually? I assume you were the first.

Good idea about the possible LHC planning and discussion thread.
That is a great idea! If we have a schedule when you start which game (leader), it will facilitate timely beginnings and if you skip one you know what to expect next... ;) How much time will you give for each game? - right now it seems to be a week or so... ;)
You do know that you keep me from focusing on my work due to the time pressure... :D ;) (well, it is my fault since I would like to keep up with it)
Thanks for all your efforts!
CellKu

CellKu, I've been keeping my LHC in a strict 2 week interval, starting in a saturday... And the thread is already up ( follow the link in my sig ;) ).

CellKu, I've been keeping my LHC in a strict 2 week interval, starting in a saturday... And the thread is already up ( follow the link in my sig ;) ).
Thanks, I will take a look asap.
And I apologize for my erroneous statement regarding the time of intervals. I have propably focused too much on reading and rereading your threads that time seemed to fly by... ;)

I do agree with your argument about the beaker value. I only thought it might be hazardous to postpone lib for too long. When did you get lib eventually? I assume you were the first.

I went Engineering first and then took Astronomy from Liberalism. I was fairly safe as Education hadn't gone, but it went shortly afterwards so I don't think I could have stretched it out to Chemistry or Steel.

I'd rather see the challenge aspect, traits that don't help much in isolation, such as imperialistic. IIRC, their have been quite a few financial leaders, being

William
Joao
Darius


ONE: Imp is nice enoug in isolation

TWO: Joao is Imp/Exp. Not Fin.

Oh my bad :blush:

W/ imperialistic I was thinking about how you couldn't block off AI's as quick, but i guess it would just help get your empire up and running faster.

I'd like to see spiritual - have we even played a Spiritual leader? Spiritual Agressive would be fun - Monte is always fun to play. But I don't mind too much - anything other than financial and philosophical would be good with me.

A couple of other suggestions:

- Maybe some variation in the maps - different sea levels or terrain types would be good.
- Maybe tie maps more into the leader - eg an Arid map for Saladin or jungle for Suri or Monte.
- I'm OK with more of a constructed scenario - eg the person supplying the map decides what leaders would map it a fun combination. I'm thinking of playing the next map on a lower level but adding some roleplay constraints of my own.
- Maybe a spoiler could add some hints about the map and likely opposition - one of the problems I have is deciding which level to play at. If its a tough map then I'd probably prefer to pull the Monarch map. If its a really strong island I might prefer Immortal. Maybe just a rough indication of "this map is probably a difficulty level higher than normal".

At BTW thanks very much RRolo for all your work in preparing maps and organizing the club. Its much appreciated.

Spoiler 3

Very happy with my decision to go the chemistry / steel route. I took down Suri's final two cities which relieved a lot of WW. Took peace with Peter and my empire is truly rocking now. Switched to democracy, rushed the universities for oxford. Teched to railroad, rushed in machine gunners and just got combustion. Time for war again with Peter - but this time his nasty frigates will face off against my destroyers. And his grenadiers will have to throw themselves against machine guns and I'll have rifles and cannon for the counter attack. I'm hoping to vassalize him since I have enough land now to regain the tech lead and win. I'm right up there in the power stakes though, so Ghandi or Elizabeth might have to watch out.

I'm teching towards infantry, hoping to build the pentagon and be first to fascism and tanks. After which I will launch my next war - hopefully war with Peter will be quick. Domination is very much on the cards - I LOVE big late game cottage economies when they go to war. I think the goal will be to isolate Babylon - I can probably win domination taking out the other AIs.

What about isolated big and small maps? These tend to have a lot of islands that you can colonize around you... occasionally even with galleys. Puts an added bonus to being the first to astro and allows for a non-warfare based mid game expansion phase.

Hi guys. This is my first take on LHC. I finished this game with a space victory in 1926AD on Emperor. I was a smooth ride. Darius is one of the strongest leaders out there. Every trait is powerful and he's perfect for cottage addicts.

Details below:


Early game

I have used Snaaty excellent guide for this game. Key for fast expansion were fast Code of Law (via Oracle) for religion and courthouses and Monarchy for happiness.

Warrior was my main defense forse with few immortals for handling of barbs.

I got my first Great scientist in the city with the Oracle. I wanted GS instead of prophet.

Built Great library in my third city. Now, this is a funny story: After Great library it's National Epic ofc. NE came online 1 turn before my city was about to spawn its first great person. And it was Great Artist! :mad: Consider the odds of that happening! :crazyeye: I was a bit upset but he was later stored for an Golden age. I recruited 2 more scientists and 1 spy to speed up. Curiously next great person was a Great spy with a 15% ods. :lol: Damn.

Mid game

My initial tought was to race thorwards Lib but I saw that Taoism is undiscovered so I turned thorwards Optics and Astronomy. Then Liberalism (taking Nationalism) and then starts Persian GOLDEN AGE which is powered by:
3 great persons (2 artists and 1 great spy)
1 Taj Mahal
1 Mausoleum

36 turns of prosperity.

During that time I raced for Chemistry and pirates. Bulit bunch of them and molested most of the coastal cities. Income was tremendous. I had 90% science and positive income.

Late game

Rather boring turns. After I got Rocketry I have converted several cities for production centers with workshops replacing towns. Civic changes were in order too:

Women Suffrage, Free speech, Caste system, State property and Organized religion.


My saved game:
164169

Thx for the game, looking forward the next one.

@StuntedAzrael

Good game.... and BTW welcome ;) You're free to comeback :lol:

@InvisibleStalke

Good to see that your game is running smoothly. Earlier punch pwns late big punch most of the times.....

@illram

B&S looks good to me as well. But I like Fractal: it creates very interesting maps sometimes ( like this one .... ). Will see what pops ( it can be a very time consuming process creating a isolated start: for the Zara map I had to regen for 4 h..... )

@all

For those that still didn't noticed, I created a LHC bullpen with all the already played LHCs and the choosed leaders for the next two ones. Feel free to put suggestions, requests for leaders, strat suggestions,etc there.

Tried immortal, but gave up after lost the Internet. It was no more realistic to win, AIs had some 10 techs more that I had.


Sury killed russians. Hammurabi vassallized both Gandhi and Shaka. Probably Gandhi just teched and Hammurabi did some continuous warring. When I quit he had just gotten first city on Surys island. Probably would had steamrolled me next. English were Hammurabis best friend, so there was a nice tech-fest on the other continent.

I was stupid enough not to get optics before it was too late. After winning Liberalism race (got nationalism, TM was already built!) around 1300AD I waited some centuries until bored waiting and had to self-researh optics. Of course backfill using edu+lib+nat was not possible any more, and I knew I was in trouble. I beelined to internet while building my economy, but Gandhi built it before I was even able to start it. :(

Well, bad playing this time. :(

Back to the LHC, reporting a Monarch Cultured win in 1946 AD ;)

Checkpoint finish


Very pleasant eco/culture game.
I haven't fought a single war :D

At first, following a CS slingshot spotted in some brillant games :cool:, I went for Theology and Philosophy using my uber-Research.

My first idea was to win by space - this cottage-powered land was just crying for it, still I backed-up with culture. I never explored the seas, waiting until early 1700AD to cheer some foreign culture (I think it was the Khmer).

As usual, I got the Rifles and managed to get a strong coastal defense.
At first, I went :eek: seeing the power of Shaka. Luckily, he managed to stay far behind anyone else tech-wise, and was beating the hell out of Hammy, the main power aside Shaka.

I kept my strong tech lead, developping some nice production cities foreseeing the space.

In 1800 AD, estimating it would be a nice thing to have a backup plan, I spreaded all three religions to my nine cities (perfect study case - reviewing a little bit the mecanism for the MLG :lol:) and built all temples. Then I beelined for Electricity / Radio / Mass Media, grabbing the three culutre wonders plus Eiffel. By the way, earlier I grabbed the Sankore / AP wonders, losing Sistine by 3 turns :mad:, the Taj and the SoL too.

When Rocketry kicked in around 1860 AD, I was more than happy to have a backup plan - with no Aluminium, it was a lost cause. So I set up all cathedrals right and start pushing the culture, even though I managed to finish some parts of the SS (even in my monster prod cities it was taking ages).

I think the three legendaries were timed well :

http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/7389/lhcdariust373timingib0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Here is the world a turn before I won by culture :

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/2387/lhcdariust375overviewbd2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Score-wise, nothing great - 15K - still it was a pure fun managing the early ages abd seeing to all this island flowerish ;)

Looking forward for a LHC VIII Toku :bump: :lol:

Good one pawelo... two things:

1-I'm flattered that you said my ( and InvisibleStalke ) game was brilliant in start, but I/ve the feeling that I blew my good start with a wild goose chase of a SS win. IMHO I should had pursued a military path atleast until capturing the smaller outside continent ( like InvisibleStalke did )... oh well, live and learn ;)

2- You're not isolated in MLG4 :lol:

3- Check the bullpen. Next two leaders are chosen ( and VIII is not Toku )

Good one pawelo... two things:

1-I'm flattered that you said my ( and InvisibleStalke ) game was brilliant in start, but I/ve the feeling that I blew my good start with a wild goose chase of a SS win. IMHO I should had pursued a military path atleast until capturing the smaller outside continent ( like InvisibleStalke did )... oh well, live and learn ;)

2- You're not isolated in MLG4 :lol:

3- Check the bullpen. Next two leaders are chosen ( and VIII is not Toku )

1. It was, don't be too shy ;)

2. You can become :devil: :lol:

3. Well, it will be for the next time :D Lonely Toku petition!

^^Read the bullpen... :p Toku is already there for 8/12/07

@InvisibleStalke

Good to see that your game is running smoothly. Earlier punch pwns late big punch most of the times.....



I've ended up in a late game war to the death with the other military superpower.

In my game its Hannurabi who is strong - very much so as you will see below. I took out Peter fairly easily and vassalized him and then turned my attention to Elizabeth. My destroyers had to wipe out around 30 frigates but she capitulated after I took her capital.

I had flight and radio. He had plastics and artillery. Both had industrialism. My attack army was around 40 mixed infantry, paratroopers plus a handful of cannon, machine guns and tanks.

He had around 70 units in his attack stack - 26 cavalry, 20 odd marines with 4 promotions each, rest infantry and artillery. Plus 5-8 infantry stockpiled in every city.

I let him come for me - there was a nice choke point between my vassal and my enemy. After lots of bombing and heavy casualties on both sides I have destroyed his attack stacks and started advancing into his cities. Meanwhile I am building the Manhattan project and have built the UN. I am stockpiling cash. If resistance continues beyond another six turns, I am going to rushbuy 10-15 nukes and turn him and his vassal into a nice green radioactive glow.

Hopefully doing this should diminish his popularity sufficiently for me to be voted world leader. I'm pretty sure the war is won - I have captured only one city so far but his war weariness must be immense.

I'm pretty sure the war is won - I have captured only one city so far but his war weariness must be immense.

Haven't looked at the XML files but I'm fairly certain that AI war weariness at emperor is negligible. Definitely an order of magnitude below the human's calculations for war weariness.

(On a related note that's why I think the SoZ is so useless, other than to keep it from affecting you.)

^^I tend to agree.... I'm playing a SG in Monarch where I was attacked by waves of chinese Grens and cuirasseers ( the guy should be :smoke: : I had infantry and cannons ) and had the SoZ. I was needed to kill +40 chinese units to see the WW effects in the enemy pop.

Devastation win on Emperor in 1903 - 59k points.

What's a devastation win - well I can hardly call it diplomatic when I won by destroying one AI, vassalizing two and nuking the other three so far back into the stone age that their populations were at least halved.

After launching 20 nukes, razing coastal cities, running a police state economy (war weariness was unmanagable at the end - even on 60% culture) and past extreme use of slavery, Lonely Darius's war crimes will go down as my worst ever.

Illram/RRolo - You may be right on WW - despite my razing two cities, capturing two (including capital) and nuking around 10 cities of my main opponent he still refused to capitulate. I did get the sense that the AI population levels had dropped a little during the war, but I don't know if that was due to WW or other actions like drafting/whipping, or just the loss of trade resources from me. Probably the loss of trade resources.

The AI tech rate did seem to slow massively during the war - during the whole time I got rocketry, fission and built the Manhattan project the AI only got one tech. Possibly all the cash was put into rushing.

Late game

Rather boring turns. After I got Rocketry I have converted several cities for production centers with workshops replacing towns. Civic changes were in order too:

Women Suffrage, Free speech, Caste system, State property and Organized religion.
[/SPOILER]



StuntedAzrael - good win - I am curious about your late game choices though. Normally I am paranoid and overprotective about my towns until the very last minute. In a space race situation I probably would have gone with:

- Universal sufferage, Bureaucracy, Emancipation, Free Market and Free Religion.

Possible bureaucracy would swap with free speech if my capital wasn't strong in production. In this game I built both ironworks and oxford in the capital. It had a lot of towns, but with one hammer from US and one from the levee plus settled great people it was pretty strong production wise so I ran bureaucracy rather than free speech.

Workshops can give massive production - did you burn many towns for them though? And if you did where did you make up the research from?

1926 is a pretty healthy time for a spaceship win, esp as it seems you didn't take much land beyond your starting continent.

StuntedAzrael - good win - I am curious about your late game choices though. Normally I am paranoid and overprotective about my towns until the very last minute. In a space race situation I probably would have gone with:

- Universal sufferage, Bureaucracy, Emancipation, Free Market and Free Religion.

Possible bureaucracy would swap with free speech if my capital wasn't strong in production. In this game I built both ironworks and oxford in the capital. It had a lot of towns, but with one hammer from US and one from the levee plus settled great people it was pretty strong production wise so I ran bureaucracy rather than free speech.

Workshops can give massive production - did you burn many towns for them though? And if you did where did you make up the research from?

1926 is a pretty healthy time for a spaceship win, esp as it seems you didn't take much land beyond your starting continent.

You can check the save. I left 4 cities with towns standing. Two of them were mediocre and two of them were monsters (including capital). Capital had levee, National park, factory, hydroplant, industrial part & laboratory which made him a very powerful space ship factory. All other cities went thru transformation. I made transformations just before I was ready to build thrusters and casings. After that there is only few tech so research is not a priority.

Caste system is a pretty safe bet since all my cottages matured and I was floating in happiness so I could easily take +5 negatives on it. State religion is also a safe bet since I only sacrifice 1 trade route ( had no corporations ).

I'm actually not sure about organized religion. Does it give +25% for space ship parts?

WW will accumulate on monarch and emperor AI but you have to fight intelligently. You have to inflict losses on tiles that they do not have cultural dominance in for it to count as foreign losses. If they lose units in their own territory, WW is negligible (as it is for you in that situation). I've pushed WW against monarch AI with SoZ into the 30's. It shrank their cities to size 1-2 :lol: You just have to pick your battle locations well (I killed his attack stacks in my territory for about half the game).

WW will accumulate on monarch and emperor AI but you have to fight intelligently. You have to inflict losses on tiles that they do not have cultural dominance in for it to count as foreign losses. If they lose units in their own territory, WW is negligible (as it is for you in that situation). I've pushed WW against monarch AI with SoZ into the 30's. It shrank their cities to size 1-2 :lol: You just have to pick your battle locations well (I killed his attack stacks in my territory for about half the game).

In that game I killed around 70 of his units in my vassals territory. I'm not sure who had SOZ at that point. How do you tell what their war weariness level is?

In that game I killed around 70 of his units in my vassals territory. I'm not sure who had SOZ at that point. How do you tell what their war weariness level is?

Enough spy points to Investigate city, AFAIK.