Lonely Hearts 3: Elizabeth

I wasn't planning to play today, but my sunday afternoon walkout was cancelled and I decided to take a try.
Before all I wish to thank willpax for this map ( quite challenging indeed ).

The game itself:
I decided to start with agriculture -> BW -> Wheel -> Pottery. Cooper has found in a very inconvenient place, so I researched AH. Horses in a very inconvenient place too. Tried a warrior fogbust that somehow worked (some casualties but no harm to cities; should had researched archery) Gone for Poly for the wonders ( Partenon ) and founded Hinduism ( shouldn't had done that ( it wasn't my intention, got distracted), the other continents became religious blocks ). Built partenon and Oracle, got MC. Forges, Collosus ( that helped a lot... with so little grassland and floodplains, cottaging early was not a option). Slowly filled the island ( hard dotmapping ). Beelined Astro (partly lightbulbed with a GS ( thank pigswill for the reference to the beeline ) and built some galleons.

Now comes the tricky part: the 2 continents were religious blocks: one (Cyrus, Wash and Saladin ) was budhist and the other ( Mao, stalin and Shaka ) was confucian. I quickly realised that this game wasn't meant to be like the Shaka one, so beelined Liberalism for FR ( didn't won the race but I wasn't counting on that). The big dog of the game was Saladin ( big army and enourmous tech rate ( having almost a entire continent pouring a coin per city in his treasury helped a little, methinks ), seconded by Shaka ( big army)... exactly the kind of civs I don't like ( Shaka is a nuthead and Saladin is a religious backstaber). Fearing the inevitable invasion by shaka ( since he met me he was " with our hands full" and somehow I was ( since the beginning) his worst enemy) beelined chemistry and backfilled with education and liberalism trades( hoping for some non state religions. Didn't happen until I UN forced it). Got a DP with cyrus and thinked I was safe from invasion ( AI normally fear DP ), but shaka got nerfs of steel and decided to attack me ( and Cyrus) as soon has he got two galleons ( thank God he had no oil!) . I managed to kill his fleet and cyrus dropped some forces in shaka territory ( some pillaging, nothing serious). Made peace with Shaka ( prize : Medicine ) and Stalin (that passed the game in and out of vassalization to Shaka). Meanwhile researched Demo, Biology and Medicine ( adopted enviromentalism ASAP. Made wonders to my cities). Started the beeline to computers while the AI beelined rocketry ( as usual ). Beelined Fiber Optics ( internet )after Rocketry. Was hoping for a quiet space victory, but...

Saladin attacked me ! I wasn't really expecting it ( he was pleased with me and had a DP with me (like cyrus) ( first time it happens to me ). But looking back it is understandable: Saladin realized he was loosing ground ( I already finished SS Engine and won the UN secretary election ( why do AI go to Mass Media and UN when in space races? ) and decided to wipe out that mansa style guy. The only error of him was not to check the diplo screen and see if I had a DP . He managed to land a transport with tanks,marines and a gunship ( wiped out with the sacrifice of some Mechs ( I had negleted Flight until that point)) and Cyrus launched a full scale attack on Saladin ( 2 GG appeard in 1 turn one for each side ). My task was somehow simple: attach the GG to a battleship ( first time I've tried it; liked the results), use the air power to pinpoint naval units and attack them with battleships/destroyers ( had some highly promoted). Saladin asked for peace to Cyrus ( both had a big drop in the power graph) and I decided to do that as well. Shaka in the meantime dragged Stalin again to another war ( this time with Wash) and the last turns were somehow quiet ( as a backup plan I was constructing Manhattan and storing cash for $-rush some ICBM... You may never know...)

The save ( victory turn )


Lessons learned:

Lightbulb Astro is good move, not only because of the trade routes, but because of defense. It's quite possible that your power graph is the lowest is the moment of contact and some civs will try to eat a piece of you when they are capable of it. Having a dozen of frigates or even galleons may be the difference between a hard land war and a minor sea skirmish.

Gunships are useful in late wars, especially as a rapid response units.

Avoid at all costs founding a early religion ( if you want a religion, go for some of the later ones). The last thing that you want is to be the "ugly duck" of the game.

P.S : Willpax, this time you were mean! A not so big island, half desert and tundra, few grassland and flood plain tiles, cooper and horses in really bad positions, crazy AIs... This is still Lonely Hearts Club or became Lonely Heart Chalenge ? . Talking seriously, nice game: it was interesting to cope things up ( those nervous turns waiting for the inevitable invasion by shaka... made me skip dinner ). Well, who is the 4th leader to try to grab a win? There are some traits and leaders already mentioned. I would like to try Frederick or Peter...

We now know copper was in a bad location and horses were hooked up soon after Animal hus. Barbs werent a problem for me with a lil fogbusting. Built Stonehenge, Oracle...took COL. Prophet from those 2bulbed Theology and 2nd scientist bulbed Philosophy. I founded 3 religions and built all 3 shrines. I flooded the world with missionaries. I was running 100% research mid game on. I was first to Lib and took Nationalism. Astro had been researched by others and i needed trading fodder.

I was beat to Taj by 2 turns by a slimy engineer from Washington. Built the SOL after a beeline to it. Beelined for Pentagon and missed it by 1 turn......that sucked, I could have rushed it.

Made a detour to Biology and Medicine, then a straight beeline to fiber optics and built the Internet. Had a few civs that had built some space parts, but my spies told me, I neednt worry.

I never built a single cottage till midgame. I farmed everything and ran specialist. Pottery wasnt an early priority, so I made the decision on the fly to run specialist. Built 9 cities total. Lost out on the rice above the copper by 2 turns to Saladin. And because of my tech, resource, and monetary gifts, i never fought a war.

Copper was a long way away. I decided not to go for it but teched hunting (which I wanted sometime anyway) and archery. That let me keep my early cities close which made defense easier. Maybe archery is a really good option for an isolated start. My archers easily defended against barbarians.

As it turned out early animal husbandry would have gained me the horses to build chariots, but I could get archers running more quickly and the early cottages paid for the extra techs I needed.

Our land is horrible. There is a major lack of green and a lot less food than we want. No great GP farm - best we can do is two food sources. No great production sites. No great cottage sites. It looks like the capital is going to have to do a lot of heavy lifting in this game.

I gave up on culture immediately. There are really only two other sites for cottage cities and neither can cottage more than half their tiles. Nor is there great production for a military win and the barbs refuse to build me a city or send enough troops for me to get HE.

So its either Diplomacy or Space.

Did fairly well with my opening. Well cottaged capital, fast teching. Went for economy 1st - to Civil Service. Built Stonehenge, Great Library and Oracle in capital. Founded Christianity and Taoism. Self teched then to Oracle - around 500BC - while lightbulbing to Liberalism. Took Astronomy as free tech. I am ahead of the AI in tech and researching democracy.

So far this has been the strongest opening - the combination of financial, concentrating on the economy first and cheap GP for lightbulbing is pretty powerful. I am not really maximising the philosophical trait though - the GPP pool in my capital is polluted and I am running few specialists. Hopefully I can build SOL to help.

I am worried about the late game in that my land isn't that good. I am still hoping to pull a diplomatic win - but it will require some luck and careful management of the AIs to do so. If not I should win by space, but I doubt it will compare to the times for Shaka - the lack of good land is a big hurdle.

For an added twist I played the game without ever researching Agriculture. Farms didn't seem a priority in my early cities and once I reached the AD years still without agriculture I figured "why not" play a game without them. I've never built so many windmills in a game but still suffered small city sizes without farms.

Research started something like Bronze Working -> Wheel -> Hunting -> Pottery. Chopped a worker and a Settler then began cottaging London.

After exploring the miserable rock that we were started on it was obvious that the Capital was going to be very important in this game. With Marble in reach I decided to attempt a Civil Service Sling with the Oracle. I settled only 1 city while cottaging both flood plains then river grasslands in London and grabbed CS in 825 BC. I remained in Bureaucracy for the remainder of the game.

Research continued with a bee-line to Optics to send out 2 Caravels along with a rapid expansion to fill the continent. I met the neighbors and made friendly with the Hindu bloc eventually receiving Defensive Pacts with both Cyrus and Saladin. A Diplomatic win might have been doable here but I never attempted the UN (there's an idea: Diplo Victory without any Farms ). I think my entire military consisted of building about 5 warriors and 4 archers for fogbusting and garrison along with 2 cats and 1 Mace to take a barb city.

I missed the Great Library but I was first to Liberalism to grab Astronomy. I didn't lightbulb at all this game, I built 1 academy in London and settled 4 GS there to reach approximately 700 per turn. Built the Confucian Shrine in York and started 1 late Golden Age with an Artist + Scientist.

A cultural victory would probably be doable as well but it is unfortunate that the Capital is really the ONLY city with actual Legendary potential.

Like Invisible Stalker said: our land is horrible. I've built seven cities, only the capital is a decent site, the rest are essentially glorified fishing villages.

I built parthenon for additonal gp points. I also left some fog to get a lvl 4 unit for heroic epic (something I didn't do in previous game). Used my first GS for academy in capital then lightbulbed towards optics (660ad), got circumnavigation bonus. Now I'm debating whether to lightbulb for astronomy or go for liberalism and pick up astronomy that way. No-one's picked up philosophy yet which kind of surprised me a lot; I've got a GS and meditation is two turns away.

The sooner I get astronomy the sooner I start oceanic trade; however getting liberalism would give me more techs to trade with.

I'm also wondering about a military solution to the victory problem.

Here's how to achieve the sloppiest culture win ever:

I started off by building a worker, then researched meditation so he wouldn't have anything to do except mine the marble and idle. Off to a good start, though I did found Buddhism.

Wait, I thought you weren't supposed to found religions in isolated starts? Diplomacy isn't a problem when you switch to Free Religion soon after contact. You can't be invaded until they have galleons. Also, since everyone else is already trading their resources and you can't find anything to do with yours, you can give them away to get +4s with anyone who's still a . .. .. .. .. ..

I built the Oracle and founded Confucianism with it, then used the prophet to found Christianity.

I made my capital into my great people farm, and since I don't know how to play a cultural strategy, I also built the Temple of Artemis and later the 100% great person epic in an attempt to muddle my GP pool as much as possible. I got several great people I didn't have any use for, so if you check the save you can see them settled in my capital being useless. It wasn't until after I had reached Democracy and turned off the slider that I started producing artists. And at least two of the six I settled too late to recoup their great work loss. I put cottages in my capital for some time before realizing I needed to farm them over. That stint without running specialists contributed to the crappy great people results.

I never knew that Christianity allowed you to research paper. Since it has the University of Sankore wonder in Warlords, and I'd never built it, I got that up early. Built it in my capital thinking it produced all the beakers in the city and not across your whole empire. How useless. I also got beaten to the Spiritual Minaret by a single turn, due to being in Caste System way more early than I needed to be. I would later switch to Emancipation when I switched to Universal Suffrage and Free Market, only to switch back again.

My capital reached legendary culture about 50 turns before my other two. That's good design. The win would have come much sooner if I had realized how much culture comes from cranking up the slider. I figured one of my three cities would be York since it could build the cathedrals fast, but that’s of course stupid since its faster to cash rush them anyway.

I suffered from unhealthiness the entire game. I think I managed to trade only for Spices, which went with my crabs, fish, and cow. However, unhealthiness isn't a problem with your land is so horsehockey it's not worth working anyway.

The English unique building could barely be more useless for a cultural victory, at least one that ends with democracy anyway. I turned off my sliders for several turns after reaching Universal Sufferage to cash rush my cathedrals, but by the time I had a single stock exchange anywhere I was finished. I suppose they may have helped me run the culture slider higher, from 70% eventually to 100%, but I also didn't realize I should be running wealth in my cities until the last five turns.

Interestingly I also had defensive pacts with Saladin and Cyrus. Never done that before.

Oh, and the only barbarian I ever fought was an archer who killed three of my warriors on forests while rampaging to the capital. If you play my save you get the chance to unload on a warrior that protected the rice for the entire game, while also making the marching sound at the start of the last 200 turns.

My motto for now is "what Shaka wants Skaka gets". Saladin is the diplomatic rival, but noone except Washington his vassal will vote for him due to religion. Everyone else is pleased with me. If they don't fight then I should be able to get them to friendly with favorite civics. But I think thats a big if - Shaka hasn't fought a war yet and Saladin is bound to attack someone sooner or later. I think a win depends on me getting everyone to fight Saladin.

The other danger is that Shaka might invade Stalin who is really backward. I am torn between letting this happen - which takes pressure off me to push for a space race - and keeping Stalin strong which helps for a diplo win but makes me an inviting target.