r_rolo1
King of myself
Welcome to the 36th 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 36th game in BTS the choosed leader was Julius Caesar of the Romans:
Don't you love the Romans? In fact I kind of like their civ in Civ: the leaders are not shining but they aren't ******ed and, besides their anomalous UU, they are a balanced civ.
Today we have Julius as the leader of the romans. He's is org/imp , a combo that is very good for REXing and for continued expansion, a thing that most likely will not happen in here as it happens in non-isolated maps (
), but probably will be useful because not only the obvious effects of the traits, but also of the half priced buildings of Org. Their UB is a nice booster to the GPP generation, asking for a somewhat more specialist based economy, that would be a almost certain if you wanted to preatorianize the world......
His UU
His UB
The start (Thanks to DanF for the solution of the unit change of place
.... The warrior/scout should appear always in the same place from now on, really ):
Hum, fishing as a starting tech has no use here ( except that lake ) Corn and marble visible, but as this is a non all-forest start ( and I'm not using Solver/Dresden patch in the computer where I generated the map ), that implies that there is another food resource in the dark. There is also another river SW of the starting spot ( look closely ).... I really dunno what to do with this start :/... and I hate both starting in a forest and have a goody hut in the first ring: such a waste..... 
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 And as WB saves are no more than text files and Vanilla and Warlords WB are almost equal, you can play this if you exchange the non-Vanilla ( or non-warlords ) stuff ( in here it will be only leaders and civs eventually )
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 36th game in BTS the choosed leader was Julius Caesar of the Romans:
Spoiler :
Don't you love the Romans?
In fact I kind of like their civ in Civ: the leaders are not shining but they aren't ******ed and, besides their anomalous UU, they are a balanced civ. Today we have Julius as the leader of the romans. He's is org/imp , a combo that is very good for REXing and for continued expansion, a thing that most likely will not happen in here as it happens in non-isolated maps (
), but probably will be useful because not only the obvious effects of the traits, but also of the half priced buildings of Org. Their UB is a nice booster to the GPP generation, asking for a somewhat more specialist based economy, that would be a almost certain if you wanted to preatorianize the world......His UU
Spoiler :
Oh, well, why do I bother to introduce this UU? Like if there was one player of civ IV that does not know the preatorian ( awful name choice... ) and his well deserved fame as one of top UU in terms of military prowesses...
Well, pro formae wins... The preatorian is a boosted ( and more expensive ) swordsman that has a 33% bonus in the base strength ( 6 to 8 ... I wonder what would happen if any other UU had that diferential from their base strenght: Redcoats with 18/19 str, Cossacks with 20 ( ok, they already had 18... Rains of " OMG the ( insert name of UU ) is OP!" threads, I assume ). We all know the famous ( and quite effective ) " Preat rush" and even if you don't use them offensively they are more like a cheaper maceman than a boosted sword in terms of military effectiveness ( a CR3 preat can dislodge a unpromoted gren... I already done it a couple of times ). The problem with this guys in isolation is that they will not rush anyone ( as it happens with all early UU ) and most likely they will be outdated before the first contact
His UB
Spoiler :
The forum is a market that has a 25% GPP generation bonus. it is good for both of the mainstream economies and you can fit them easily in most of the strategies you can think on ( well, it is a cash and GPP multiplier, that givesand merchant slots .... hard to get to a situation where you don't have a use for that )
The start (Thanks to DanF for the solution of the unit change of place
.... The warrior/scout should appear always in the same place from now on, really ):Spoiler :
Hum, fishing as a starting tech has no use here ( except that lake )
Corn and marble visible, but as this is a non all-forest start ( and I'm not using Solver/Dresden patch in the computer where I generated the map ), that implies that there is another food resource in the dark. There is also another river SW of the starting spot ( look closely ).... I really dunno what to do with this start :/... and I hate both starting in a forest and have a goody hut in the first ring: such a waste..... 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
And as WB saves are no more than text files and Vanilla and Warlords WB are almost equal, you can play this if you exchange the non-Vanilla ( or non-warlords ) stuff ( in here it will be only leaders and civs eventually )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
save's me 1 settler.
![[party]](/images/smilies/partytime.gif "Party [party]")
This will allow me to rex to the 2 island groups that are to the NE of the main land mass, they'll suck as cities, but the overseas trade routes that they provide should more than make up for that.
I hope for some major religious discord overseas now, no more on the Great General front.
not what Wat...
, from Rome at low odds of 12% or so. No Engineer at 46% Oh no.....both have been settled in my Wall Street city, though the 2nd may go on a liberalism golden age rush, if Hammurabi not too far ahead in that. I'm currently have 100% espionage on him to see, if Hammurabi's behind me in research.
Still awaiting the meeting of the last 3. I just refused Isobel's demand of 90 gold, probably a mistake, but I'm -4 for a heathen religion anyway, what's another -1.
per civ not using mercantilism. I managed to get Willem, Bismarck and Hammy to friendly and saw a possible AP victory. HC, Izzy and Hannibal all got a missionary, while my friends got several. Hannibal threw a spanner in the works by spamming to all of his cities, always leaving me short. It took a total of 400 years of spamming missionaries to get enough votes to win. I was also resident lawmaker in the UN at time of victory, but diplo was out of the question there as I was up against my friend hammy. First game I have won without any war by or against me (mainly cos I didn't want to micromanage an intercontinental invasion). BTW, my vic was inspired by some shadow or the NC game of TMIT, cheers for the diplo tips there
