r_rolo1
King of myself
Welcome to the 33th 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 33th game in BTS the choosed leader was Louis XIV of the French:
Oh, well, I must reckon that I really, really dislike Louis AI and his pompous, arrogant and sometimes utterly stupid actions in game ( off topic: I do remember one time when I was playing earth 1000 AD vanilla map in normal speed as Japan and Louis decides to dow me because of some denied begging/demand of his side .... the problem is that his up to date medieval stack took so long to get my ex-chinese possessions that it was received with agg rifles..... that tells a lot of the caracther of the beast ( and from vanilla bad algorithim of war decisions that almost didn't took distance in consideration ... ) ). About playing it... well, I find the French leaders a little dificult to fit in a coherent plan embracing traits and UU/UB ( IMHO the chinese suffer the same problem ).Louis is a good example of that: Ind/Cre + a UB that gives a free artist screams for cultural wins , but then the UU becomes somewhat redundant..... Oh well: Louis is definitely one of the leaders that can acheive cultural wins with less effort ( a good deal of my few cultural wins were with him ) and the nature of LHC will probably help with that, while making the UU a little unimpressive.
His UU
The Musketeer, as I already stated in the other French LHC, is a musket that has 2 movement points instead of 1. Rivers of internet blood had already runned because of the utility of this particular UU ( permeated with some easy jokes about french ppl and running fast (who says that definitely doesn't live in a country that has been invaded by them in the last millenium ) ), so I'll not elongate about that issue. My only point is that will be dificult to leverage this UU when you olny can invade using galleons.....
His UB
Well, the Salon is the french version of the Observatory, that comes with a free artist. Like I already said elsewhere, this screams for Representation, Sistine and cultural wins. It has certainly it's uses, but I'm really not a fan of this particular UU ( if you're not aiming for a cultural win, it is dificult to find a decent use for that artist.... )
The start (for reasons that I'll explain below, the warrior may not be exactly in that spot in your game ):
Can you say flood plain? Then say it 5 times too bad that it is FP and not much more. This is definite textbook Beaurocracy capital, but it can prove dificult to make a empire out of it idf there is not something in the dark
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...
And about the fact that the starting unit not being always on the same spot: the WB saves that I give only state startings spots for the settlers ( it is the only way of getting the number of AI units to scale correctly with the dificulty level ... otherwise the game will only put the units stated in the WB save , not putting the extra units given by dificulty ). After that the mechanisms are the same than in a normal game: the game will read the XML, decide how many defensive units and extra settlers the player ( Human or AI ) will receive by their handicap and if it is a human the game randomly picks a spot in the starting BFC to place the defensive units ( in case of the human , warrior or scout, depending of having hunting or not ).
This ( as the free techs because of the dificulty level issue ) unfortunately can only be solved with modding and that goes against the philosophy that I've been trying to maintain here, that is "a map for everyone and you choose the dificulty you want"
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 33th game in BTS the choosed leader was Louis XIV of the French:
Spoiler :
Oh, well, I must reckon that I really, really dislike Louis AI and his pompous, arrogant and sometimes utterly stupid actions in game ( off topic: I do remember one time when I was playing earth 1000 AD vanilla map in normal speed as Japan and Louis decides to dow me because of some denied begging/demand of his side .... the problem is that his up to date medieval stack took so long to get my ex-chinese possessions that it was received with agg rifles..... that tells a lot of the caracther of the beast ( and from vanilla bad algorithim of war decisions that almost didn't took distance in consideration ... ) ). About playing it... well, I find the French leaders a little dificult to fit in a coherent plan embracing traits and UU/UB ( IMHO the chinese suffer the same problem ).Louis is a good example of that: Ind/Cre + a UB that gives a free artist screams for cultural wins , but then the UU becomes somewhat redundant..... Oh well: Louis is definitely one of the leaders that can acheive cultural wins with less effort ( a good deal of my few cultural wins were with him ) and the nature of LHC will probably help with that, while making the UU a little unimpressive.
His UU
Spoiler :
The Musketeer, as I already stated in the other French LHC, is a musket that has 2 movement points instead of 1. Rivers of internet blood had already runned because of the utility of this particular UU ( permeated with some easy jokes about french ppl and running fast (who says that definitely doesn't live in a country that has been invaded by them in the last millenium ) ), so I'll not elongate about that issue. My only point is that will be dificult to leverage this UU when you olny can invade using galleons.....
His UB
Spoiler :
Well, the Salon is the french version of the Observatory, that comes with a free artist. Like I already said elsewhere, this screams for Representation, Sistine and cultural wins. It has certainly it's uses, but I'm really not a fan of this particular UU ( if you're not aiming for a cultural win, it is dificult to find a decent use for that artist.... )
The start (for reasons that I'll explain below, the warrior may not be exactly in that spot in your game ):
Spoiler :
Can you say flood plain? Then say it 5 times
too bad that it is FP and not much more. This is definite textbook Beaurocracy capital, but it can prove dificult to make a empire out of it idf there is not something in the darkRegarding 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...
And about the fact that the starting unit not being always on the same spot: the WB saves that I give only state startings spots for the settlers ( it is the only way of getting the number of AI units to scale correctly with the dificulty level ... otherwise the game will only put the units stated in the WB save , not putting the extra units given by dificulty ). After that the mechanisms are the same than in a normal game: the game will read the XML, decide how many defensive units and extra settlers the player ( Human or AI ) will receive by their handicap and if it is a human the game randomly picks a spot in the starting BFC to place the defensive units ( in case of the human , warrior or scout, depending of having hunting or not ).
This ( as the free techs because of the dificulty level issue ) unfortunately can only be solved with modding and that goes against the philosophy that I've been trying to maintain here, that is "a map for everyone and you choose the dificulty you want"
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
I wish I could find time to play, maybe during Thanksgiving. 
Will edit....
. Looks like a great GP farm, if nothing else. Horrible production, though.
runaway AI AGAIN), who I destroyed after he wonderspammed ALL the late game wonders...AGAIN!!!!!!!!, and got voted a diplomatic victory 
,
, seriously... even for a cultural run, they are not worth teching Astro... 
.Peter and Pacal (last) 2 Buddhist, Peter in free religion. 
.
I'll probably end up doing this. Setting a couple cities up in eastern russia->Kublailand->War to end all wars in Russia?
