r_rolo1
King of myself
Welcome to the 61st 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 61st game in BTS the chosen leader was again Montezuma of the Aztecs:
( sorry for using old images, but I am having some dificulties uploading images today )
Well, we all know Monty AI and it's belicocity without limits ( and the fact he prefers to get 2142153 knights than 30 rifles
). And I'm pretty sure that most of the readers of this forum already seen n threads discussing the merits and demerits of the Aztec UU and UB ( especially of the UU , that has probably the biggest dispersion of opinion about it of all the UU: some say that is the worst UU , others that say that is the best and most will say that it is in the middle. So, I'll keep it simple and as uncontroversial as possible
Monty has Agg/Spi as traits. Some will say that Spi alone is a good trait and that agg is not that good at all, and those who don't like Spi will say even worse.... For me, the combo is mostly good for one thing only : war, with all those swaps between OR and Theo and all those agg units. Given that neither of the traits will give a direct help to the research, this tends to make Monty a leader for early wars to leverage the UU and the traits, a thing that is not a option in here
His UU
And here we have the most controversial UU of the game, the Jaguar Warrior: 1 less str than a regular sword , but can be built without metals and has a free Woodsman I promotion. For some the worst UU of the game ( given the reduced str, it is remarkaly worse in direct city attacking than a regular sword ), for some the best or one of the best ( not needing resources and being a promo away of woodsman II makes them the ultimate harrass weapon and a strong option for blitz attacks in the ancient times ). Regardless of how we see them, the fact is that, being a ancient UU, the jaguar will be relegated to anti barb actions ... or to save for a future medic unit ( a Monty jag has combat I and woody I , so it needs far less XP to be a woody III medic III super medic )
His UB
Another somewhat controversial UB... the Sacrificial altar halves the time that you have unhappiness. For people that use slavery extensively , this is a gift from heaven ( in spite of being hard to leverage it extensively unless the cities have quite a food surplus ) . For the people that don't like slavery, it is as apealing as a regular courthouse... Anyway, as long as you use slavery, this is a very strong bonus.
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 ):
A nice forested site, with 4 seafood and marble. Has also a small river with grass all around and some hills. It is a good start for the use of the UB, most certainly or for some marble boosted early wonders
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 61st game in BTS the chosen leader was again Montezuma of the Aztecs:
Spoiler :
( sorry for using old images, but I am having some dificulties uploading images today )
Well, we all know Monty AI and it's belicocity without limits ( and the fact he prefers to get 2142153 knights than 30 rifles
). And I'm pretty sure that most of the readers of this forum already seen n threads discussing the merits and demerits of the Aztec UU and UB ( especially of the UU , that has probably the biggest dispersion of opinion about it of all the UU: some say that is the worst UU , others that say that is the best and most will say that it is in the middle. So, I'll keep it simple and as uncontroversial as possible Monty has Agg/Spi as traits. Some will say that Spi alone is a good trait and that agg is not that good at all, and those who don't like Spi will say even worse.... For me, the combo is mostly good for one thing only : war, with all those swaps between OR and Theo and all those agg units. Given that neither of the traits will give a direct help to the research, this tends to make Monty a leader for early wars to leverage the UU and the traits, a thing that is not a option in here
His UU
Spoiler :
And here we have the most controversial UU of the game, the Jaguar Warrior: 1 less str than a regular sword , but can be built without metals and has a free Woodsman I promotion. For some the worst UU of the game ( given the reduced str, it is remarkaly worse in direct city attacking than a regular sword ), for some the best or one of the best ( not needing resources and being a promo away of woodsman II makes them the ultimate harrass weapon and a strong option for blitz attacks in the ancient times ). Regardless of how we see them, the fact is that, being a ancient UU, the jaguar will be relegated to anti barb actions ... or to save for a future medic unit ( a Monty jag has combat I and woody I , so it needs far less XP to be a woody III medic III super medic )
His UB
Spoiler :
Another somewhat controversial UB... the Sacrificial altar halves the time that you have unhappiness. For people that use slavery extensively , this is a gift from heaven ( in spite of being hard to leverage it extensively unless the cities have quite a food surplus ) . For the people that don't like slavery, it is as apealing as a regular courthouse... Anyway, as long as you use slavery, this is a very strong bonus.
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 :
A nice forested site, with 4 seafood and marble. Has also a small river with grass all around and some hills. It is a good start for the use of the UB, most certainly
or for some marble boosted early wonders 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
! We do not get a lot and the resource distribution is terrible.
