Lonely Hearts Club, BtS Edition, Chapter LI: Victoria

Continued as I was before, Teching toward liberalism, hoping someone would contact me soon so I could trade the tech I needed to take astrology from it. Got the circumnavigation massage around 900 A.D. without being contacted at that point. Some turns later Darius finally showed up and I traded education for optics and calendar. Not the best deal ever, but it gave me the chance for astro and the economic boost the TR would give me, so I was prety happy about it. I took astro from Lib, then started a GA with a GP to get Oxford up fast and to chance civics.

I joined a war against Monty when he got dogpiled, he vassalised to Fred some turn later. The germans seem to be the biggest threat here.

The techpace isn't all that, for an immortal game the AI seem to be falling behind early. Darius is doing OK, seems to be persuing a cultural victory, and I'm happy to let him. He won't be a threat. Considering that I already have RP and rifling there's plenty of targets to choose from. Zara and Fred are both 3 techs away from riflemen and Peter needs 4 techs for it. Giggles has fallen holelessly behind and everyone hates him. His lands are awkwardly situated: a narrow strip between cultural Zara and culturehappy Darius. Conquering them won't provide me with a worthwile asset without taking out one of his neighbours.





Considering the tech/diplo situation a war against Peter seems the best choice. Redcoats will be devastating and all but two of his cities are coastal which cuts down on the number of turns the war will take. With only 2 landlocked cities, 6 trebs should be enough, the rest I'll bombarb with some frigates. Might even split my forces from the start if he doesn't have chemistry when I get there. He has a big piece of land, with excellent health synergy with mine.



I put the HE/Moai in Hastings, it doesn't have the best production, but I needed a coastal city for the HE, and a galleon every other turn is good enough.



Average population is still fairly low, although bpt output is quite high. After Peters' lands have been assimilated, I'll gain an additional 4 health resources. I'll probably trade his iron/marble/stone for some additional resources so I can grow my cities. Sushi will be great on this map, so I'm beelineing medicine after chemistry.



And then there's London, it turned into quite the powerhouse bureau capital, accounting for over half my bpt and gpt. I haven't produced many GP yet, only 5 up til now, so getting the GM for Sushi won't be difficult.



It looks like a pretty straightforward game from here, I expected more trouble, techwise, but perhaps the AI had alot of wars. Building up slowly helped a great deal as well. I chose high early bpt at the cost of lesser developed cities now, but that will pay of when I use this tech advantage to take out Peter.

You say that pop is low, then you show a screeny of a city that is working 6 less food that it can do... Though i guess more health is needed if you want to grow the city further... Grass workshops are much better than plains workshops, yet you got two unworked grassland... Similary in london you are actually working 2 0 food tiles when you got plenty of coast left to work. Even 3 commerce a pop is worth something when channeled through oxford(though here you can't build an aquaduct even)

You're right, I just ferried over some workers to put some another couple of WS on those tiles. Once the city grows I'll work two grassland WS and a plains WS in stead of the two plains WS I'm working now.

1. Bulbing late game techs like RP usually isn't worth it. Golden ages often give better beaker returns on the GP, and if you're not spiritual, you'll save time on changing civics as well. If you save 2 turns on civic chances that's 600 beakers, if the GP only bulbs 1500 beakers, you only need a net increase of 90 bpt for the golden age to outperform a bulb.
2. The BUG-mod will show bulb preference for GP, the top icon below the GP is the one it will bulb now, the bottom one is the tech it will bulb after that, once you select the top one for regular research, it will update the bulb preference, and you'll be able to plan further ahead. You can select multiple techs to research by holding down shift in the techscreen and clicking the techs, and in that way plan your bulbs to perfection.
3. On the macemen/recoats issue I would say: build trebs, draft redcoats, with theo and barracks they will start with2xp. You'll be able to field an army far more quickly that way.
4. Astro will give you overseas TR, which will help your economy a great deal, it gives a far greater benefit that the colossus.

I would take astro from lib,use the GS to start a GA, tech nationalism. Build the Taj for a second consecutive GA. Tech economics, switch civics to nationalism/free market, and start pounding the AI with redcoats and frigate/trebs where needed for bombardments, while teching steel.

The London and York locations were strategic-driven decisions.

London. By maximizing the capital's number of hammers, secure in the knowledge I could even farm a floodplain(s), I sought to achieve "flexibility" which has become my imperfect Prince play-style watchword.

York. Happiness had become the strategic priority so risking a fair bit on the most rapid completion of The Pyramids didn't seem nuts as there could be an industrious opponent with stone. This dovetailed with the plan to use London as a Wonder-based GPF as I lacked a good specialist alternative. Additionally, I pencilled-in York for the Moai Statues although the marginal marble city was probably a more natural choice. (London did get The Pyramids in 1200 BC).

All that said, I usually end-up with fewer home cities and more wasted land than our LHC colleagues.

Because I've been playing above my level, and on normal maps, I haven't built a wonder in a long time. So I decided to try and go for a cultural/wonder type victory - or at least have that humming along so I can decide whether or not to cause trouble with redcoats later on.

So I quickly worked out that we are indeed on an island by ourselves with room for at least 7 decent cities, plus a barb city on the little island up north. No other AI's in play until optics. That and we've got stone, marble and copper for early wonders. Because of the isolation and the fact I haven't seen a wonder movie in months I go Myst/Poly/Masonry/Monotheism to found Judaism. (only missed Hinduism by one turn) I would never have done this on a normal map! Settle in place and spit out a few warriors for scouting and fogbusting. Then back to a more typical BW/Hunting (for ivory)/Wheel/Pottery/Agr/AH/IW tech path. 2 settlers and Stonehenge chopped for the GProphet and culture. Writing/Monarch (cause London's starting to hit cap and York and Nottingham are not much further behind. Aest/Math (for chopping) and now Metal casting for forges/triremes/Colossus... Founded 4th city for marble and built GLH in London along with Solomon's temple with GProphet. SoZ and Parthenon went in Nottingham. So all 3 cities are pumping 20+ culture a turn.

Moai statues going up in London followed by forge/Colossus. York pumping settlers for the remaining few sites. Nottingham will do Great Library next... My goal is to get these 3 cities all the culture I can get while pretty much beelining liberalism now for astronomy. I want to have cultural victory looking good while I get galleons/redcoats as quickly as I can to see who needs to be taken out!

Think I've seen one barb. No make that two cause a galleon floated in from the north and wrecked my fishing boats. One problem is with so many wonders is that my GP points are all over the show now. I'll have to try and get them centred so that I can start popping GSci's pretty reliably when I need to get through paper/edu/liberalism.

Kinda wish I'd played Emperor level now - but this is soothing my ego anyway.

Empire:

Notes from a small island...




Moved to plains hill. Not sure whether that was wise given the indifferent quality of the belt around London, but too late now. Plan is to chop Oracle in city 2 (by the pigs) and take MC. Colossus in London after settling the rest of the island. Hope to land Confu on the way to CS for extra happy. Pyramids unlikely given the location of the stone, but maybe I'll have a go if they're available once the stone is connected.

Given the lack of land, it'll be a Sid's Sushi CV for me. Maybe I'll try to land Democracy with Liberalism given I'm running a CE.

I think moving 1S to the plains hill can be a good move -- maybe better than settling in place like I did. GGS did the same.

First is it JUST me or is this land SUCKY??? Not much food or happy stuff at ALL and what little there is there is ONLY one of it. So unless someone REALLY needing fish there is not going to be much resource trading for awhile.

Which means it looks like it gonna have to be war which is gonna be kinda hard since it seems like cities gonna be small and low hammers :/.

Anyways I settled out the landmasses including that USESLESS island up north no EVEN a river to make some farms on it :/ and here is what it looks like:



I moved my first city 1s for hammers from hill and to get the ellies and I figured that would let me use fish for one of the cities up north.

I managed to get GLH, Oracle (picked MC) and Collosus in my cap and then got Mids chopped in Nottingham. And thst been it for wonders. AFter optics I upgraded 3 triemes to cravals and sent em out and started meeting the AI's

First one I meet is monty so its like Oh Joy THIS will be fun. He is already at war with freddie who asked me to join in and I said sure why not. Then I met the rest as my ships won the map race. Tech sitch looks like this:



Seems like I am either too far ahead or waaay too far behind for trading to be anygood and the ONE civ, Petey, who I could do some trading with is being a dillhole about his techs atm. I SWEAR if he starts begging for free techs when he has TONS he could offer for swaps then he WONT be lasting long in this game grrr.

Not sure what to do at this point. lib seems like waaay lost cause with Zara so far ahead and it seems like he has darius as trade partner so between the two of them I am gonna be outteched BIGTIME. Only hope is Freddy and Monty both kinda backwars so hopefully I can make a move on them and get better land and then somehow find a way to deal with the techwhores. Which wont be easy. Here are demos:



Not much to say about it. I just sit in a corner and sob whenever I look at it .

Well thats my game at this point. Hope everybody else is managing to do better.

Besides soldiers, you are somewhere in the middle, that is pretty much where you should be with a island like this

Oh, and I would say, based in the tech screen that both Freddy and Monty wopuld be easy pickings and that peter is pretty isolated as well. I would make a army and grab better land

The caravels introduced England to the opposition between 820 and 940 while circumnavigating in 960. Tech-wise only Zara Yaqob presents a serious challenge. In terms of cities, only Darius I and Frederick are as weak as England's six -York SW of stone, Nottingham SE of marble, Hastings N of island iron, Canterbury S of pigs, Coventry WWN of eastern fish.

With The Pyramids, The Great Library, The Colossus, The Statue of Zeus and the National Epic London is an okay GPF/science centre. When three courthouses are completed, within seven turns, a western and central build will finish the mainland; two can later follow on the island. Civil service is two turns away. The direct path to Liberalism for Astronomy is the clear intent as this England desperately needs health resouces and the prep for a science-driven redcoat war.

London has a GE with the next great person due in thirteen turns; representation is the only advanced civic in use. The current thinking in London is the GE for The Shwedagon Paya and in 13 a golden age to switch to bureaucracy, caste system, free religion.

P.S. England narrowly avoided a disaster when four barbarian swordsmen showed-up south of London in 410 BC.

I played this game in a very different way from what I'm used to. For starters, I only whipped Monuments and Granaries. (Apart from some Galleys to protect seafood in emergencies) The rest of the buildings and units were manually built. The techpath was weird too. It was: The Wheel, Pottery, BW, Hunting (Ivory), AH, Agriculture, Sailing, Writing, Mysticism, Meditation, Priesthood, Monarchy, Archery (MP), Code of Laws, Mathematics, Currency, Masonry, Civil Service, Iron Working, Paper and now I'm working on Education. I'll see if I can get either Astronomy or Printing Press from Liberalism.

A bad point is that I don't have a GP Farm. In fact, I've never had a Great Person. I'm currently farming a scientist in Hastings and I think I'll switch to Caste when I've whipped the Monument and the Granary in the city I'm about to build on the northern island. I was thinking of doing something similar to what MadScientist is doing in his Lenin RPC: use all scientists for academies. No bulbs or settling. But I don't know, I may change my mind.

A good point is I have a nice 162 per turn. With Universities, that will get better. When we add the Trade Routes, it will get great. I just hope we don't have psychos like Montezuma and Shaka out there. I want to be the aggressor here. Another good thing is my cities are moderately big. Well, not really big, but big enough to work all the cottages. The map is good for commerce, although it is bad for health and happiness. Hereditary Rule fixed one of the problems and I had the herbalists event that helped the other.

My land:

I was met by Darius (who won the circumnavigation bonus) and his master Gilgamesh. I traded with them to get the pre-requisites for Astronomy. I later found out that I could put off Liberalism until maybe Democracy, but who cares?






Trading with Gilgamesh earned me worst enemy trading points with Montezuma and Darius. Darius has warmed up since I switched to Free Religion (he build the Schwedagon Paya) and Montezuma is this games' Kim Jong Il. I already rebuffed one of his demands. I know he will come knocking when he gets Astronomy, but I'll kick his sorry a*s when he does so.

Won Liberalism and picked Astronomy. Tech situation when I met the rest of the world:





After some careful trading:



Most of the AIs are running Mercantilism. I'm researching Economics for Free Market and the merchant. When I get it (even if I'm not first), I'll sell it around so that they will start having TRs with me. After Economics, it will be Printing Press. Then I don't know if I'll head to Rifling and attack Petey, Chemistry to terrorize the seas with the Queen's Pirates or head to Democracy for fast cottage development and rushbuy.

Meet the AIs:

Bit further on than full contact, but here's the tech situation around 1400:




I would go on o snag Astro, Lib, Constitution, and Economics in trade.

Snagging GLight as well as Colossus gave me a handy Merchant from London...





...and a low odds GE saved from mid C12 rushed Wall St for super Shrine/Sushi synergy. Artist Farm will be 3rd Legend, and is having its lovely FP towns farmed over. Zara & Darius are teching well, but I should have a CV in the bag, unless Gilga does something rash: he's in WHEOOH and has Astro, but he's a long way away...

Lib seemd a loss cause witht he way dari and zara where teching so I pretty much belined gunpowder then rifling trading gunpowder and prep aprts for astronomy and some other techs and as soon as I got a stack going:



Monty still seemed backward so he gets picked first.



Thanks to playing with barbies on the northern Island I had a few cr3 swords and maces that got promoted to redcoats which made taking cities pretty easy.



Bless his heart, monty tried a counter attack but it was usual monty style hehe.

AFter taking his best cities and I use that term loosely since NONE of them had ANY buildings in at ALL I cap him. I refresh my stacks a lil and then:



It's freddy's turn.

ANd although I pick on monty I do have to give him snaps for this. When I moved my stack to attack Freddy freddy counters in by dropping off a stack next to one of my recently captured cities from monty. I only had one redcoat garrisoning it so I figured even a recoat cant handle all that seige and Knights so I fgured its lost and I will have to retake it later but:



Yeah monty moved in some pikes into the citiy and between them and the redcoat they held off the stack. Monty being useful--who knew? hehe.

Anyways thats where I am at now. trying to take freddy out and then see where things are at that point.

My empire:

My main Island:



Monty's old lands:



::sigh:: TWO holy cities and NO shrines. NOOO idea WHAT Monty was doing but prettying up his cities was NOT it.

Freddy's lands:



The warfront with freddy.

The tech sitch:



It's still sad and whats worse is LOTS of civs running emancipation now which is making my citizens whine but NOBODY willing to trading so Im probably gonna have to tech it out myself and get FURTHER behind

Vic conditions:



Capping Monty didnt help much but hopefully taking more of freddy'scities will help me get closer.

Demos:



Demos still sad but not as sad as earlier.

So thats it at this point. Plan now is to take out freddy and see how close I am to a dom win and then hopefully I can take out Peter if he hasnt gotten too advanced by then. Wish me luck

I carried out a variant on my plan to aim for writing, but decided that I was far enough ahead in tech that I could afford to self-research most of them and use the two GEs for buildings. I plan to be tough enough not to have worry about the diplomatic hit from keeping my state religion, so I rushed Notre Dame for the happiness (needed in my 3 top cities once I switched out of Representation) and the Apostolic Palace (to deny it to the AIs). I goofed in what city to rush the AP, and would up polluting York's GE pool with some Great Prophet points, and would up with a low-odds GP that I used to start a golden age -- which was useful when I wanted to switch most of the civics just before starting my military buildup.

So the tech path was

• Bulb Astronomy with a GS; this gave a noticeable boost to the economy, since none of the AIs were running Mercantilism yet.
• 1340 AD: Bulb most of Astronomy with the GS (finished in 1360).
• Research Gunpowder (1385) and Chemistry (unrecorded; around 1420).
• Finish Liberalism and take Steel (1440).
• Research Guilds (1470) and Economy (1500), getting it first for the GM.
• Use the GM to partly bulb Replaceable Parts (finished 1515); start building lumbermills in my remaining forests. I had a second GM saved for Sid's Sushi if the game lasts that long.
• Research Rifling (1555).

York popped its low-odds GP in 1490; in 1500 I realized I should have immediately started a Golden Age and switched into my "war civics", which were:


I plan on a domination win, so need to figure out how far to build up my military before invading.

I have some CR II axes (and one CR III) from the days of killing off barbarians, and have been building CR II macemen. I am running 100% gold to pay for upgrading them all to riflemen, so I should shortly have 20 CR I riflemen, 11 CR II, and 1 CR III; I suspect that's enough! I plan to ship the better 12 out with the first wave and the rest later as replacements/reinforcements/city garrison. Now I can switch to building City Garrison riflemen and more cannons, but I don't think I need any garrison troops for a while given that I can use the CR I's for that for a while.

I have 7 cannons with Accuracy and need to decide whether I need more or just switch to CR II. If I read the numbers correctly, a cannon reduces defences by 12% per turn and Accuracy adds "8%". I hope that means 20% total, rather than 12%*(1.08)! If so I have enough Accuracy cannons and can start the collateral damage/suicide cannons. Any opinions on whether 7 bombards are enough?

Military analysis: Three civilizations might now be researching Gunpowder: Fred, Zara, and Darius.

I don't have enough EP to see what they are researching, so I expect to run a few turns at 100% espionage to make sure. Zara likes both Gilgamesh and Darius, and they both like him even though they hate each other:

Zara and Gilgamesh are nearly equal in power; Darius seems to be losing the war with Gilgamesh.

I think Zara is the biggest threat; he's as powerful as Frederick and is ahead in tech. If I attack him, I think Darius won't help because he has his hands full, but Gilgamesh might dogpile me. On the other hand, Fred and Monty are much closer.

I see four options:

1. Attack Fred (he's closest) as soon as possible, following up with Monty.
2. Attack Zara (closest of that lot) as soon as I've got a big enough army, accepting the risk of Gilgamesh coming in.
3. Attack Gilgamesh (he has the biggest territory) at the point nearest Darius, expecting Zara might join.
4. Attack Darius to get a beachhead, running the risk he'll capitulate to Gilgamesh and thus all of them will come after me.

At the moment I dislike #2 most and am not sure how to choose between the other three, though I incline slightly towards Fred/Monty. Advice welcome!

England has annexed Russia. As I'm getting more and more used to warring with the air force, I think the war took too long. Huge war weariness (Peter had built the Statue of Zeus) and too few Redcoats made me fall a little in tech. Know how many Redcoats I lost to conquer the whole Russia? Zero. Now I'm reaching the AIs again. Gilgamesh is decadent and I don't know what to expect from him. He's pleased with me and Zara and cautious with Fred. Monte is Fred's vassal and Darius is Gilgamesh's. Fred and I have a defensive pact.

I'm currently researching Radio because I want to build Rock n' Roll and Hollywood to feed my corps. I've built Sid's and Mining Inc. I almost lost Mining Inc when Darius got an engineer, but he fortunately built Creative Constructions. Zara's built Cereal Mills.



This is my land. There is a picture missing. I'll edit in a bit. Fixed.












The techs:




I want to win Space on this. I'm still feeling bad because of my defeat with Genghis.

Why not Peter? I invaded him in my game and he was soft. Besides, you don't risk getting dogpiled and he has a lot of rivers.

I settled 1S since I would gain production and free up that fish for a city on the northern island (which I have yet to explore). Our mainland has been fogbusted using the 2-tile square rule, and cities have been built. The lack of food resources has been killer. I've planned out 7 cities incl. London (Stone/Fish, Marble/Fish, Pigs/Silver, Fish/Floods, Fish/Desert Hills (NE of London), and one inner city). Hopefully the land up north is much better...

After taking Peter out things got easy. The only dangerous moment happened when Zara declared on Gilgamesh and took two of his cities in 3 turns. After I bribed him out of the war I could focus on the space race. There was once that Zara asked me to switch to Theocracy and I agreed. From that moment on Zara and Fred were permanently friendly with me. Gilgamesh kept going in and out of WHEOOHRN mode, I don't know why. I could build all the wonders from Radio and Mass Media. I also built the Space Elevator and the Internet. Those were all the English wonders of the game.

Tell you what, focusing from the first moment on cottages has paid off. By the time I met the AIs, I already had a couple of towns and villages working for me. The only moment I fell a bit behind was during the war against Peter and before the Forbidden Palace was completed in Russia. Fred gave me a close race but, for some reason, he avoided Composites until I had already launched. Zara was also building his ship, but slower.

The score was meh, but I'll take it. Especially after the loss with Genghis.