r_rolo1
King of myself
Welcome to the 37th 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 37th game in BTS the choosed leader was Shaka of the Zulu:
Yes , it is a rerun from warlords days ( but as I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one of the Warlords LHC still here, that will surely not make a diference ). But shaka is the kind of leader that is underestimated if you are forced to not make a early war ( maybe someday I'll put to write a long and detailed rant about how I feel about the acepted gameplay norm "kill early and kill hard" and it's relationship with a certain thing that says in the Civ IV box about building a civilization that stands the test of time... but not now ) and still yesterday I heard someone say that shaka UB was useless in isolated starts.....
Well, shaka is Agg/Exp, meaning that he doesn't have any of the pet brainy traits that people love. Agg is normally a all war trait, but in here it also cheapens the UB ( and boosts the UU
) and Exp.... well, some ppl love and some people hate it, but the cheapened buidings make it quite useful IMHO.
His UU
The Impi is a spearmen with the mobility promo right out of the bat. I've some very spectacular Impi rushes and the naked fact is that the AI does not know how to deal with speeded up units. And unlike other speeded up units, the Impi unit retains the ability when upgraded. It also has the advantage of making the HE easier to acheive ( Shaka Impi's start with 2 promos and probably 2 XP from the UB..... )
OFC this is not enough to sweeten the fact that the Impi will not see more action than against barbs......
His UB
Now here is what IMHO the star of the shaka pack. The Ikhanda is a barracks ( meaning that you don't need a tech to build one and that it will never obsolete, making it unique regarding the UB ) that also cuts maintenance ( -20% , to be exact ) and that, unlike it happened in Warlords, because of a bug, it also gives
under Nationhood. The fact that the only thing that kees humans of ReXing is the maintanace ( that forces the player to wait until the economy can hold the extra maintenace when you found a new city ) makes any building that cuts it ( and the sooner the better ) a very useful asset, and even more in isolation, where you need to overcome the fact that you don't have trading partners and foreign trade routes
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
):
Cows and corn...... well, we start with hunting, so AH is a possibility and agri will aloow to improve that corn as soon as we have a worker ( BTW, that forested plains hill for a early worker is tempting, but it would force to seelte not in place ).... but this is not exactly the best start of them all. It will be even complicated to work all of those plains hill .... :/
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

For the 37th game in BTS the choosed leader was Shaka of the Zulu:
Spoiler :


Yes , it is a rerun from warlords days ( but as I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one of the Warlords LHC still here, that will surely not make a diference ). But shaka is the kind of leader that is underestimated if you are forced to not make a early war ( maybe someday I'll put to write a long and detailed rant about how I feel about the acepted gameplay norm "kill early and kill hard" and it's relationship with a certain thing that says in the Civ IV box about building a civilization that stands the test of time... but not now ) and still yesterday I heard someone say that shaka UB was useless in isolated starts.....
Well, shaka is Agg/Exp, meaning that he doesn't have any of the pet brainy traits that people love. Agg is normally a all war trait, but in here it also cheapens the UB ( and boosts the UU

His UU
Spoiler :

The Impi is a spearmen with the mobility promo right out of the bat. I've some very spectacular Impi rushes and the naked fact is that the AI does not know how to deal with speeded up units. And unlike other speeded up units, the Impi unit retains the ability when upgraded. It also has the advantage of making the HE easier to acheive ( Shaka Impi's start with 2 promos and probably 2 XP from the UB..... )
OFC this is not enough to sweeten the fact that the Impi will not see more action than against barbs......
His UB
Spoiler :

Now here is what IMHO the star of the shaka pack. The Ikhanda is a barracks ( meaning that you don't need a tech to build one and that it will never obsolete, making it unique regarding the UB ) that also cuts maintenance ( -20% , to be exact ) and that, unlike it happened in Warlords, because of a bug, it also gives

The start (Thanks to DanF for the solution of the unit change of place


Spoiler :

Cows and corn...... well, we start with hunting, so AH is a possibility and agri will aloow to improve that corn as soon as we have a worker ( BTW, that forested plains hill for a early worker is tempting, but it would force to seelte not in place ).... but this is not exactly the best start of them all. It will be even complicated to work all of those plains hill .... :/
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

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

P.S We don't have any kind of problem with defeats and reruns. Just play and enjoy
