r_rolo1
King of myself
Welcome to the 29th 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 
): starting in isolation....
For the 29th game in BTS the choosed leader was Isabella of the Spanish:
Well, who doesn't like the mother of all zealots of the game? As a AI Izzy is a complete jerk and to say the truth I don't recall of seeing her winning a single game ( she tends to get very backward because of the religious investement ). As a human the story is other: Fishing/Myst is not the best techs you can get in a start but Spi/Exp is a decent trait combo, especially if you go to the religious side. And the UU/UB are quite ... controversial: not evryone likes the UU , especially since it got from Guilds to MT and the UB was always shunned ( in spite of allowing high grade siege until MG and Artilery if you play it right ). A medium grade civ for most of the people: mot bad , but definitely not the worst....
.... unless you want to play the "Spain on a lake" game and grab most of the religions for your comodity. For that Spain is definitely a top competidor
Her UU
To say the truth, I was never a big fan of the spanish UU ( I would had seriously prefered the tercios, but being this a American game made prioritarily by americans and for americans......... ) and the placing of it in the tech tree was always somewhat not optimal: probably too strong for being a knight ( not that anyone seems to have a problem with Bizantine UU in that regard ) and stupidly late as a cuiraseer.....
Well, Conquistadores are a beefed cuiraseer that has a anti-melee bonus and the ability of fortify and of getting defensive bonus. Like I said, they are definitely mispaced in spite of being a very useful UU: they trounce pretty much everything until rifles ( including pikes ) and as they can get defensive bonus, they can live without a escort far better than a normal cuirasseer....
In here: I bet that some people will try a Conquistador based conquer war if we have horses. It seems a very valid option if the target has no rifles yet.
Her UB
The very, very controversial Citatel.... It is one of the 2 UB on this game that deserved a two digit pages thread dedicated to discuss if it was worthless or not ( the other being the Dun )
Well, I already gave my opinion on that thread, but I can give a resume in here: The worst problem with the Citatel ( that in it self is a very solid UB: c'mon, free XP? For units that will take a lifetime and a half to get a good ammount of XP if they don't die before ( siege ) ?
) is that it obsoletes with a tech that most of people like to get early, and that forces them to decide between that tech and leveraging the UB, a thing that most people don't like to do. But if you forget economics for a while, you can even get Citatel boosted Artileries and machine guns ( at the expense of delaying Assembly line, Corporation and Economics , that's true )... and to say the truth, Conquistadores and Citatel boosted cannons work very well in team
In here: Well, I bet that some people will add some citatel boosted cannons to their conquistadores wars .But there are other implications: In spite of delaying economics is a indirect help for a Great lighthouse based economy, it also cuts the way to Costum Houses...... in the end ,as most things in Civ IV, it depends a lot of the way the things are in game: if everyone in your game is in mercantilism, there's no need no need to hurry for Costum Houses
The start (for reasons that I'll explain below, the warrior may not be exactly in that spot in your game ):
Well, well, well.... Spain on a lake and with seafood too .I guess that this start fits pretty decently in Spain starting techs. My only doubt is that if I waste a turn to get a river or not......
And it is good to have a non all-forested start once in a while......
Regarding the saves: given some complaints about the efects of the AI starting without archery in high levels ( giving a unfair advantage to AI that have early UU and/or have early warmongering tendencies ), I decided to make 3 WB saves ( all in the same zip file ). The WB saves are equal except for the fact that one of them ( labeled Monarch ) has all of the AI with archery as starting tech ( corresponding to a game started in Monarch ), one ( labeled Immortal ) has all of the AI with archery,hunting and agriculture as starting tech ( corresponding to a game started in Immortal ) while the last is the corresponding to a game starting in Noble ( labeled Noble ). All WB saves are playable in all levels, but ( for a example ) if you use the Monarch one the AI will start with archery ( and archers ) in any level. This has only a slight effect in the human directly ( mainly via the garrisons of barb cities ), but has a huge effect on the AI gaming in the outer lands ( avoiding scenarios like Pacal, Shaka or Sitting Bull to take all the barb cities and becoming moguls ). I strongly recommend the usage of the Monarch save if you want to play in Monarch+ and the Immortal at Immortal/Deity.... All the speeds are working well ( no more games ending in 1900 ) The saves are zipped... you only have to unzip this to the worldbuilder saves or for the PublicMaps folder ( either one will do ) and load it from the scenarios.
Any problem PM me...
P.S WB saves are crosscompatible between 3.13 and 3.17 if they don't have No Espionage ticked. No problem with the patches here
Again a small request ( not mandatory ) :
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 ) 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
. And let the games begin!
P.S We don't have any kind of problem with defeats and reruns. Just play and enjoy
): starting in isolation....For the 29th game in BTS the choosed leader was Isabella of the Spanish:
Spoiler :
Well, who doesn't like the mother of all zealots of the game?
As a AI Izzy is a complete jerk and to say the truth I don't recall of seeing her winning a single game ( she tends to get very backward because of the religious investement ). As a human the story is other: Fishing/Myst is not the best techs you can get in a start but Spi/Exp is a decent trait combo, especially if you go to the religious side. And the UU/UB are quite ... controversial: not evryone likes the UU , especially since it got from Guilds to MT and the UB was always shunned ( in spite of allowing high grade siege until MG and Artilery if you play it right ). A medium grade civ for most of the people: mot bad , but definitely not the worst........ unless you want to play the "Spain on a lake" game and grab most of the religions for your comodity. For that Spain is definitely a top competidor
Her UU
Spoiler :
To say the truth, I was never a big fan of the spanish UU ( I would had seriously prefered the tercios, but being this a American game made prioritarily by americans and for americans......... ) and the placing of it in the tech tree was always somewhat not optimal: probably too strong for being a knight ( not that anyone seems to have a problem with Bizantine UU in that regard
) and stupidly late as a cuiraseer.....Well, Conquistadores
are a beefed cuiraseer that has a anti-melee bonus and the ability of fortify and of getting defensive bonus. Like I said, they are definitely mispaced in spite of being a very useful UU: they trounce pretty much everything until rifles ( including pikes ) and as they can get defensive bonus, they can live without a escort far better than a normal cuirasseer....In here: I bet that some people will try a Conquistador based conquer war if we have horses. It seems a very valid option if the target has no rifles yet.
Her UB
Spoiler :
The very, very controversial Citatel.... It is one of the 2 UB on this game that deserved a two digit pages thread dedicated to discuss if it was worthless or not ( the other being the Dun
) Well, I already gave my opinion on that thread, but I can give a resume in here: The worst problem with the Citatel ( that in it self is a very solid UB: c'mon, free XP? For units that will take a lifetime and a half to get a good ammount of XP if they don't die before ( siege ) ?
) is that it obsoletes with a tech that most of people like to get early, and that forces them to decide between that tech and leveraging the UB, a thing that most people don't like to do. But if you forget economics for a while, you can even get Citatel boosted Artileries and machine guns ( at the expense of delaying Assembly line, Corporation and Economics , that's true )... and to say the truth, Conquistadores and Citatel boosted cannons work very well in team In here: Well, I bet that some people will add some citatel boosted cannons to their conquistadores wars
.But there are other implications: In spite of delaying economics is a indirect help for a Great lighthouse based economy, it also cuts the way to Costum Houses...... in the end ,as most things in Civ IV, it depends a lot of the way the things are in game: if everyone in your game is in mercantilism, there's no need no need to hurry for Costum Houses The start (for reasons that I'll explain below, the warrior may not be exactly in that spot in your game ):
Spoiler :
Well, well, well.... Spain on a lake
and with seafood too .I guess that this start fits pretty decently in Spain starting techs. My only doubt is that if I waste a turn to get a river or not...... And it is good to have a non all-forested start once in a while......
Regarding the saves: given some complaints about the efects of the AI starting without archery in high levels ( giving a unfair advantage to AI that have early UU and/or have early warmongering tendencies ), I decided to make 3 WB saves ( all in the same zip file ). The WB saves are equal except for the fact that one of them ( labeled Monarch ) has all of the AI with archery as starting tech ( corresponding to a game started in Monarch ), one ( labeled Immortal ) has all of the AI with archery,hunting and agriculture as starting tech ( corresponding to a game started in Immortal ) while the last is the corresponding to a game starting in Noble ( labeled Noble ). All WB saves are playable in all levels, but ( for a example ) if you use the Monarch one the AI will start with archery ( and archers ) in any level. This has only a slight effect in the human directly ( mainly via the garrisons of barb cities ), but has a huge effect on the AI gaming in the outer lands ( avoiding scenarios like Pacal, Shaka or Sitting Bull to take all the barb cities and becoming moguls ). I strongly recommend the usage of the Monarch save if you want to play in Monarch+ and the Immortal at Immortal/Deity.... All the speeds are working well ( no more games ending in 1900 ) The saves are zipped... you only have to unzip this to the worldbuilder saves or for the PublicMaps folder ( either one will do ) and load it from the scenarios.
Any problem PM me...
P.S WB saves are crosscompatible between 3.13 and 3.17 if they don't have No Espionage ticked. No problem with the patches here
Again a small request ( not mandatory
) :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
) 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
. And let the games begin!P.S We don't have any kind of problem with defeats and reruns. Just play and enjoy
. Once the cottages matured however it picked up a lot. GP farm was city #1 to the SE which took the capitol's seafood.
pressure would be rough and without marble the cost/benefit is questionable to begin with.
, and then decided no cannons or anything else necessary this time - I could wipe GK with low casualties with just frigate/galleon/rifles. I put together the requisite force to do so:
to 
ratio for missionaries is insanely good and I can literally get 9 base gold per turn once I set up a galleon shuttle run, up to a limit of 7 gold per city in the world. Once I start founding corps, I can safely send Aluminium and CM to a lesser extent abroad and most likely the AI will self spread. Even if they don't I will be nerfing their economy to drastically help mine. Given that type of utterly stable gold income I could conceivably WS/farm/mine everything and build a new unit every turn in every city (assuming I can suicide them fast enough) and just extort techs to not fall too far behind. With enough not completely obsolescent units you can do pretty much anything; just pillage, pillage, and pillage some more. Until the AI gets robotics, losing his oil means he can't build anything seriously worse than infantry. Once you get guided missiles/nukes even mech inf only slow you down.
.
really useful on lonley starts! and then promptly runs into a bear and a barb warrior and dies! 
