Lonely Hearts Club, BTS Edition, Chapter XIII: Gandhi

Oh Jesus. The starting position is so misleading. This island sucks. Barely any rivers, resources, and covered in jungles in the northern half. Getting towns up and running is going to be a long process. Jungles everywhere. Ouch. They could have at leats given us a few gems! And aside from the capital, there's very few trees for chopping.

Capital will make a nice GP farm at least. I'd love to get Pyramids to suppliment this, but without stone and not that many trees around, and the fact that I'll need to build workers to get rid of that blasted jungle, will probably leave it. Will probably Oracle slingshot Code of Laws to found Confucianism and unlock Caste System, and grab Literature to get the Great Library and National Epic. Might as well try and get Pacifism running and just try and get as many Great Scientists as possible...

So this island kind of sucks. Only one mediocre happy resource (sugar), but at least there's oil and aluminium available for the late game.

Delhi was a monster of a city, but pretty much everywhere else on the island looked mediocre until civil service could unlock chain irrigation. With that in mind, I adopted an obsolete SSE economy. The capital built the pyramids, with a brief detour to snag the Oracle for CoL (religion for happy and culture; caste system and courthouses). First GP was a prophet who built the confucian shrine, followed by a GE who built the GLib. After that, caste system allowed mass production of GS which were settled in Delhi once an academy had been built there.

I expanded out to 7 cities to fill the island and get enough universities to build Oxford in the capital; won the Liberalism race, taking Nationalism for the Taj and a free GA, and met the other continent with tech parity thanks to the early representation-fuelled SE. However, throughout the centuries of isolation I'd been getting messages about one GG being born after another. The main continent (where all 6 AIs were camped out) had turned into a real slugfest. Qin was going nuts so I forged an alliance with Shaka and Hannibal, propping them up to try and contain him. Unfortunately he ended up capitulating both of them in turn, to bring the entire continent under Chinese rule. When Qin beat me to the internet by 1 turn, I gave up the game as lost.

Even with mass settled GS, India's little island can't compete with the rest of the world.

Well, I was started to get concerned once I explored the island, and was glad I chose Monarch, because I immediately noticed a sever lack of happiness resources. I am glad I went for Hinduism, though, and then took CoL from the Oracle, because that gave me 2 temples per city to help. Huts gave me gold, Hunting, gold, which was a nice boost, since my economy was already suffering, heh.

I really need to work on my teching in these types of games. I managed the Pyramids, GLH, and Oracle, one each in my first 3 cities. I didnt build the Marble city til after AH, and tried to keep my cities on the fringes of that massive patch of jungle so I didnt get too much "Jungle Fever", since that is an early-growth killer. I did manage to pop out workers and settlers during the Mid's building, using whip-overflow from that massively obese food producing capitol, though, because I intentionally built the Mids in my cap VERY early, planning to use that food to whip during its production. It worked very well on Monarch, but I am not sure I could have pulled it off on Emp. 2nd city was next to the sheep to the south, with the intention of turning that city into a secondary GP farm, and eventually build the Statues there. 3rd city was over by the sugar, but I wanted room for another city on that peninsula so I built it on the coast. In fact, all my cities but one is coastal which made the GLH even more valuable. I was able to keep my science slider around 30% while running tons of specialists all over. When I missed Taoism by 3 turns, I beelined Lib, but I think I am about 5 techs ahead of my opponents.

I was stupid with my happiness though, delaying spreading religion and researching important happiness techs like Drama, because of my personal wonder addiction. My cap has Pyramids, Hanging Gardens, Parth, GLibrary, and Nat Epic, and Hindu shrine, Bombay has GLH, Shwed Paya and Statues, and 3rd city has Oracle and Confu shrine.

I just build 2 caravels, so I am certain to meet some of the AIs very shortly. Production is going to be a problem, I can tell, but I have a spot saved for a decent production city once I whack some of that jungle away. Lots of grasslands should keep my economy floating, and offer spots to put workshops, but I am not sure I can pump out enough troops to actually invade anyone. I may go for a Cultural win though, Delhi is already pumping out a ton and I can easily run a massive pile of artists in 4 or 5 cities to pop GAs. We'll see once I get a better view of who else is on this map. Calender showed me my island is fairly small compared to the rest of the world, and if anyone else has a huge land-mass, I may be in trouble.

More later once I explore the world! Mad fun game, though, just enough cities that micromanaging the specialists and tiles isnt too tedious at all.

Doing alright. Met all the other civs in 1000AD. I've not uncovered the whole map, but I'm guessing they're all lumped on the same continent. On one side, we've got the Buddhist clan - Shaka (ugh, I hate him), Qin, Hannibal and De Gaulle. Although all is not well here - Shaka and Hannibal are currently at war. The other two are Jewish - Zara (who has the score lead), and Lincoln.

As for me on my crappy island - I've only founded 5 cities. Used Delhi as a GP Farm, and built the Oracle, Great Library and National Epic there (all without hooking up the marble). I'm producing a ridiculous amount of Great Scientists, and I'm just settling most of them in place, which I'm not sure was the right decision or not, but we'll see. I've also built The Parthenon in a city just north of Delhi - not for from the rice. This city is kinda my production city, what with it having 4 grassland hills and a coulple of plains for workshops.

I'll probably tech towards Liberalism and try and bulb Astronomy. If I can, I'd like to try and get Constitution from Liberalism, so I can get some use out of a Representation + Caste System combo for as long as possible before I have to switch to Emancipation. This might be a bit ambitious with Zara and Hannibal doing quite well at the moment, but I'll set it as my goal anyway.

Was going to run Pacifism, but it's not really compatible with Hereditary Rule, what with the extra military unit support costs and all that. I could always switch over once I get Representation, but to be honest I'd probably be better running Free Religion, rather than feeling the wrath of some of the others civs for being Hindu.

I've currently not got a good feeling about this game. But we'll see.

Do you notice something interesting? Yes Delhi is buddhist and hindu Holy City! It happens very rarely on monarch, but I was tempted to give it a try. Yes we dont have enough happiness resources, but what, if I can found all 7 religions? It is a huge advantage, if the AIs dont have religious benefits and when I meet them, I will not have any negative religious modifyers. I think to build The Oracle for CoL and right after that I will chop like a mad for Pyramids. The first prophet will come very soon and I will bulb Theology with him. Pyramids is huge, if I can build it. It gives me a shot for pure cultural victory. I can swithc anarchy free from Representation to US, when I need to rush temples/cathedrals. And Delhi will be a triple Holy City soon, 3 shrines+ grocer+ market+bank is huge!

Well, my caravels found the other civs, and got the bad news. Zara had already Vasselized France, and was in the process of doing the same to America and China. UGH! I dont think I can out-space race him, even though I am pumping out over 750 beakers a turn and 150 GPPs in my capitol, although my workshops seem to be doing a reasonable job prodction-wise. FOr now though, I am staying as friendly as possible, and building up some defenses, especially ironclads and such for naval defense.

I think I am going for Cultural. I have 3 cities I have split wonders in, for the most part. As soon as I hit Biology, I plan to run mass Artists, and build all the culture I can in the meantime. So far, Zara doesnt seem to be concerned about culture, he only has one thats even in range of my Big 3.

Not too up on the Culture winning strats, though. I hope I can pull it off. I might just try this one again, too, on Prince, and go for a fast Astronomy and hope to catch Zara with LBs vs my Rifles. It would be a blast to just roll through that continent, heh. He techs so fast though, holy cow. I cant imagine how strong he is on Emperor or Immortal. Looking forward to seeing how some of the other games go, thats for sure.

So glad I found this format, its such a cool thing, especially KNOWING your isolated, really allows for some creative building without worrying about rushing, getting run over, or Barbs even. Already anxious about next months, LOL.