r_rolo1
King of myself
Welcome to the 58th 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 58th game in BTS the chosen leader was again Sitting Bull of the *gasp* Native Americans:
Well, I'm trying with all my strenghts to not say something about the civ in it self, but as it was already so
since BtS got out, I'll refrain from that, besides saying that Native America civ IMHO has the same degree of right of being in the stock game as America Inc 
Getting back to the main show .... Sitting Bull AI as obviously one that was clearly designed for roleplay issues, being a peacenik that has a high unit prob. In other words a guy that builds a lot of troops but does not declare wars That is normally a clear recipe for disaster ( think on him as a Monty that does not declare wars ) ... that is even put worse by the fact that when it actually decides to declare war, it doesn't take distance in account... that joined together makes him a guy that normally has a empire filled with ancient units ( most likely highly promoted archery units, given the Pro trait , UB bonus and the preference SB AI has for them ), a moribund economy because of that ( in spite of philo trait ) and a high propensity of when actually does a war, it is one that gives him little gain ... OTOH SB can become quite a menace if he grabs a lot of land early on ( his UU is excelent in grabbing warrior defended barb cities, that can even appear in high levels ( I've seen some in Immortal a couple of times ), given that he will have a empire that is pretty hard to conquer , a lot of highly promoted units and no qualms in going to the other side of the world to make war.
In the hands of a human... well, Phi/Pro is not exactly a sinergistic combination and most of people will most likely play him as he only had the Phi trait ( especially since the "solution" *gasp* Firaxis implemented for the hammer overflow issues in 3.19 ). His UU is bad for axe rushes ( in spite of being probably the only unit of the the time that can face eye on eye the feared roman UU ) due to being weaker than the standart axeman and the UB boosts a unitclass that humans ( except maybe troytheface ) tend to shun.... In isolation , well, most likely both the UU and UB will be obsolete ( or close of being ) in the part of the game where you face other civs, so atleast the UU will not be so much of a asset.... the trait combo is hard to use as a whole, like I said before.... atleast the starting techs ensure you have something for a WB or a worker to do since turn 0
His UU
The Dog Soldier is axeman with reduced strenght ( 5 to 4 ) and a 100% bonus vs melee units, besides not requiring metals to being built. This UU is consistently put by a lot of players in the lot of the worst UU, a thing that makes some sense with a AI that spams archers in defense and with the unfortunately famous axe rush, that this UU is clearly less capable of acheiving than a standart axeman ( atleast in terms of unit to unit comparison... when you add the time needed to link a metal mine, things might not be so linear as that, but I'll let that discussion for other threads ). This UU is clearly more a anti melee weapon, and because of that will only shine in enviroment where lots of melee units are used, and the current SP play is definitely not the place for the Dog warrior to show it's usefulness
In isolation.... well, like I said before, this UU is pretty good it capturing barb cities defended by warriors and eats enemy axes and spears as if was breakfast time ( obviously will not fare as well against archers ... ). Tied to UB-boosted archery units, both make a very solid anti-barb defense resource. Obviously, without other civs to attack or defend from until atleast Optics, the usefulness of it ends here .....
His UB
The Totem pole is a substitute for the regular monument, that gives extra 3 XP to archery unitclass units ( archer, longbow and crossbow , including UU based on this ones). This tied with the Pro trait allows for highly promoted archery units ( it means 4 promo archery units with barracks and the UB alone , up to CGIII Drill I or CGI Drill III, or medic I and II ,shock, cover or march promos ( or even pinch, if you get gunpowder before Astronomy ) ). A lot of human players are not exactly lovers of building archery units ( I am one of them and it is not uncommon for to get archery from the internet ), but this boost to them is not exactly something trivial... I already played some games where I used Totem pole boosted LB + catapults alone to make classic/medieval warfare and I have to reckon that this boost on XP makes a LB stack very versatile ( except , strangely, against mounted units due to the lack of possiblity of getting formation from the drill line .... in RL they are the ones that were always in bigger danger when facing people using bows due to to the bigger area that horse + human represent and the tendency that mounted units always had of having less effective armor to not add more weight on the horses back ).
In here... well, I hope you don't need to use UB boosted LB to defend yourself , and I am quite skeptical on the usage of LB in offensive intercontinental warfare This said, besides upgrading issues ( a properly routined LB upgraded into a rifle or a infantry unit might be a fearful unit and Drill IV infantry is quite powerful .... ) the UB bonus in isolation will be mostly used to fend barbs. A waste....
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 ):
Now this is a unusual sight... plains incense in BFC. This alone, lined out with having grassland to the south is a pretty good indicator of in what hemisphere and climate area we are . Besides that, the start does not look that stellar: corn ( irrigatable before CS, but not riverside ), the said plains incense, a lake and plains hill marble in the 1st ring, a collection of plains hills to the north and riverside grassland to the south ( with some forests to chop down ). This is definitely not the dream philo cap... in fact it is more close of being the Ind dream starting spot, with all the prod you can get from it and a marble in the first ring Well, GPP is GPP, and wonder given GPP is as good as the specialist given one in terms of the Philo trait 
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 58th game in BTS the chosen leader was again Sitting Bull of the *gasp* Native Americans:
Spoiler :
Well, I'm trying with all my strenghts to not say something about the civ in it self, but as it was already so
since BtS got out, I'll refrain from that, besides saying that Native America civ IMHO has the same degree of right of being in the stock game as America Inc Getting back to the main show .... Sitting Bull AI as obviously one that was clearly designed for roleplay issues, being a peacenik that has a high unit prob. In other words a guy that builds a lot of troops but does not declare wars
That is normally a clear recipe for disaster ( think on him as a Monty that does not declare wars ) ... that is even put worse by the fact that when it actually decides to declare war, it doesn't take distance in account... that joined together makes him a guy that normally has a empire filled with ancient units ( most likely highly promoted archery units, given the Pro trait , UB bonus and the preference SB AI has for them ), a moribund economy because of that ( in spite of philo trait ) and a high propensity of when actually does a war, it is one that gives him little gain ... OTOH SB can become quite a menace if he grabs a lot of land early on ( his UU is excelent in grabbing warrior defended barb cities, that can even appear in high levels ( I've seen some in Immortal a couple of times ), given that he will have a empire that is pretty hard to conquer , a lot of highly promoted units and no qualms in going to the other side of the world to make war.In the hands of a human... well, Phi/Pro is not exactly a sinergistic combination and most of people will most likely play him as he only had the Phi trait ( especially since the "solution" *gasp* Firaxis implemented for the hammer overflow issues in 3.19 ). His UU is bad for axe rushes ( in spite of being probably the only unit of the the time that can face eye on eye the feared roman UU ) due to being weaker than the standart axeman and the UB boosts a unitclass that humans ( except maybe troytheface
) tend to shun.... In isolation , well, most likely both the UU and UB will be obsolete ( or close of being ) in the part of the game where you face other civs, so atleast the UU will not be so much of a asset.... the trait combo is hard to use as a whole, like I said before.... atleast the starting techs ensure you have something for a WB or a worker to do since turn 0 His UU
Spoiler :
The Dog Soldier is axeman with reduced strenght ( 5 to 4 ) and a 100% bonus vs melee units, besides not requiring metals to being built. This UU is consistently put by a lot of players in the lot of the worst UU, a thing that makes some sense with a AI that spams archers in defense and with the unfortunately famous axe rush, that this UU is clearly less capable of acheiving than a standart axeman ( atleast in terms of unit to unit comparison... when you add the time needed to link a metal mine, things might not be so linear as that, but I'll let that discussion for other threads ). This UU is clearly more a anti melee weapon, and because of that will only shine in enviroment where lots of melee units are used, and the current SP play is definitely not the place for the Dog warrior to show it's usefulness
In isolation.... well, like I said before, this UU is pretty good it capturing barb cities defended by warriors and eats enemy axes and spears as if was breakfast time ( obviously will not fare as well against archers ... ). Tied to UB-boosted archery units, both make a very solid anti-barb defense resource. Obviously, without other civs to attack or defend from until atleast Optics, the usefulness of it ends here .....
His UB
Spoiler :
The Totem pole is a substitute for the regular monument, that gives extra 3 XP to archery unitclass units ( archer, longbow and crossbow , including UU based on this ones). This tied with the Pro trait allows for highly promoted archery units ( it means 4 promo archery units with barracks and the UB alone , up to CGIII Drill I or CGI Drill III, or medic I and II ,shock, cover or march promos ( or even pinch, if you get gunpowder before Astronomy ) ). A lot of human players are not exactly lovers of building archery units ( I am one of them and it is not uncommon for to get archery from the internet ), but this boost to them is not exactly something trivial... I already played some games where I used Totem pole boosted LB + catapults alone to make classic/medieval warfare and I have to reckon that this boost on XP makes a LB stack very versatile ( except , strangely, against mounted units due to the lack of possiblity of getting formation from the drill line .... in RL they are the ones that were always in bigger danger when facing people using bows due to to the bigger area that horse + human represent and the tendency that mounted units always had of having less effective armor to not add more weight on the horses back ).
In here... well, I hope you don't need to use UB boosted LB to defend yourself , and I am quite skeptical on the usage of LB in offensive intercontinental warfare
This said, besides upgrading issues ( a properly routined LB upgraded into a rifle or a infantry unit might be a fearful unit and Drill IV infantry is quite powerful .... ) the UB bonus in isolation will be mostly used to fend barbs. A waste....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 :
Now this is a unusual sight... plains incense in BFC. This alone, lined out with having grassland to the south is a pretty good indicator of in what hemisphere and climate area we are
. Besides that, the start does not look that stellar: corn ( irrigatable before CS, but not riverside ), the said plains incense, a lake and plains hill marble in the 1st ring, a collection of plains hills to the north and riverside grassland to the south ( with some forests to chop down ). This is definitely not the dream philo cap... in fact it is more close of being the Ind dream starting spot, with all the prod you can get from it and a marble in the first ring Well, GPP is GPP, and wonder given GPP is as good as the specialist given one in terms of the Philo trait 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
