r_rolo1
King of myself
Welcome to the 54th 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 54th game in BTS the chosen leader was again D. João II of the Portuguese:
Well, i could definitely talk a lot of the RL history of the leader
He was not exactly the kind of person that had people shedding tears in his funeral ( in fact, the first thing that his sucessor did when he knew of his death was to order the built of a chapel to thank the heavens ... makes sense, given that D. João had killed his brother with his own hands 
), but he was a competent ruler ( probably a good reason to not being so much loved ... It is said that his father had given so much stuff to the nobles and the church than he said that he had had innherited the Kingdom of the roads of Portugal instead of Kingdom of Portugal, a thing that made him to shed quite a good quantity of Noble blood to "correct" :/ ) . But I digress....
Long, long time ago I said this about this leader:
His UU
The fact is that having the same carrying ability of a galley definitely nerfs this UU a lot. it normally also comes in a time where it is hard to get the prod ability to master a intercontinental invasion and the ability of settling new lands before anyone else is a weak bonus in the time we're talking ( and it is completely useless in maps like pangea or continents ), because both of the colonial fees and the fact you can't link the cities to your mainland until astro ( definitely this aspect was not well thought by Firaxis ). In fact, the biggest ability of this UU is the fact that it can enter other civs waters without OB ( a caractheristic that it shares with the Dutch UU ), that allows some tricks with marines in later times .....
His UB
The fact is that the base building of this UB is a bad one. Due to the way that trade routes work, Custom houses give a negligible bonus most of the times, and definitely a weak one for the 180 hammers it costs ( think on this: you can do 3 rifles with hammers of 2 custom houses ). and this obviously reflects on the Portuguese UB. Besides being a aberrant-looking building ( a hybrid between the builiding despicted in my avatar and a medieval round tower ), even the Collosus-like bonus does not make it a competitive option for a build most of the times you can actually make it....
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 ):
Well, welcome to the Taiga... close enough atleast The start isn't too bad, if you neglect the lack of visible food tiles: some hills, a lake, corn, a river + floodplains to the south. There is coast to north , as well as marble, but we're definitely close of the northern frigid wastes...
Regarding the saves ( if you're using DanF change to the WB files load, skip this ): 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 earlier ) and 3.17 ( and later ) 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 54th game in BTS the chosen leader was again D. João II of the Portuguese:
Spoiler :
Well, i could definitely talk a lot of the RL history of the leader
He was not exactly the kind of person that had people shedding tears in his funeral ( in fact, the first thing that his sucessor did when he knew of his death was to order the built of a chapel to thank the heavens ... makes sense, given that D. João had killed his brother with his own hands ), but he was a competent ruler ( probably a good reason to not being so much loved ... It is said that his father had given so much stuff to the nobles and the church than he said that he had had innherited the Kingdom of the roads of Portugal instead of Kingdom of Portugal, a thing that made him to shed quite a good quantity of Noble blood to "correct" :/ ) . But I digress....Long, long time ago I said this about this leader:
My opinion has not changed much. Imp/Exp is definitely a hard combination to use, but it is nothing that it can't be worked around. Obviously you don't have any of the "brainy" traits, but you have the possibility of having more cities with more pop and more improved tiles if you do things right....First of all, his traits: Imp is generally considered a low ranking trait, but it gives a nice boost to thepart of the settler production, and we are going to build more than in a non isolated game ( no enemies to conquer until middle game ) and Expansive ( in spite of the nerfed bonus on the worker ) has that 2
bonus which is a lifesaver in strongly health limited starts like the isolated ones normally are.
His UU
Spoiler :
True, but....
The fact is that having the same carrying ability of a galley definitely nerfs this UU a lot. it normally also comes in a time where it is hard to get the prod ability to master a intercontinental invasion and the ability of settling new lands before anyone else is a weak bonus in the time we're talking ( and it is completely useless in maps like pangea or continents ), because both of the colonial fees and the fact you can't link the cities to your mainland until astro ( definitely this aspect was not well thought by Firaxis ). In fact, the biggest ability of this UU is the fact that it can enter other civs waters without OB ( a caractheristic that it shares with the Dutch UU ), that allows some tricks with marines in later times .....
His UB
Spoiler :
Again true, but....
The fact is that the base building of this UB is a bad one. Due to the way that trade routes work, Custom houses give a negligible bonus most of the times, and definitely a weak one for the 180 hammers it costs ( think on this: you can do 3 rifles with hammers of 2 custom houses ). and this obviously reflects on the Portuguese UB. Besides being a aberrant-looking building ( a hybrid between the builiding despicted in my avatar and a medieval round tower ), even the Collosus-like bonus does not make it a competitive option for a build most of the times you can actually make it....
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 :
Well, welcome to the Taiga... close enough atleast
The start isn't too bad, if you neglect the lack of visible food tiles: some hills, a lake, corn, a river + floodplains to the south. There is coast to north , as well as marble, but we're definitely close of the northern frigid wastes...Regarding the saves ( if you're using DanF change to the WB files load, skip this ): 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 earlier ) and 3.17 ( and later ) 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
