r_rolo1
King of myself
Welcome to the 63rd 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 63rd game in BTS the chosen leader was again Wang Kon of the Koreans:
I guess that, first of all, I have a apology to make to all of those that have been waiting for a while for a new game of the LHC. First of all, there was not much of interest of people in the last 2 leaders I hosted in a LHC and, to be honest, I was needing a break of hosting this ( it has been 2 years non-stop ... ). Then there was the announcement of Civ V ....
Anyway, to the game
Wang Kon is arguably one of the Fin leaders people like less. First it has the pro trait, that most of the players have some issues to leverage as efectively as they can do with others, second, the korean UU can't kill in offense and that is a turnoff for some people. But the fact is that Wang has also a nice UB that makes a research multiplier even more effective and, obviously the champion of the lazy leverage trait award, Financial ... As long as the human player does not play as Wang AI uses to play ( by some reason Wang tends to shun early expansion in my experience... ), Wang has a strong scientific potential in almost all scenarios, including isolation
His UU
The Hwatcha is a catapult that has the bonus of extra 50% vs melee units. It also has one of the more showy unit animations of all the stock ones in BtS
That makes it quite a monster against players that rely heavily on melee armies, in spite of not being able to kill in offense in BtS. The issue is that in SP the AI has that boring tendency of relying in masses of fortified archers/longbowmans as defense, so the korean UU looks a lot less shiny in those conditions.
In isoaltion... well, i sincerily hope you have such a dominating game that you can even give yourself the luxury of making a intercontinental invasion against people that are still in pre-gunpowder days because that is pretty much the only situation where I can see a possible leverage usage of this UU in isolation :/
His UB
The Seowon is a university that gives +35% to city research instead of the stock +25%. That is surely not much by itself ( it is the equivalent of a extra monastery ), but given that you will surely need need universities unless you are playing a no research multipliers variant game ( before you ask, yes, I already did that in a SG ... and we had to win by space ) or if the game is won before getting to the Industrial age, a research multiplier continues to be a research multiplier and the Seowon will give you a extra beaker for every 10 coins you put in the research slider or for any 10 raw beakers you got from other sources compared with the regular universities....
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 ):
Seafood start, no river, a lake and a possible island to the east. besides that brown earth pretty much everywhere in the BFC ( and green pretty much everywhere outside of the BFC as far as we can see
). Some woods to chop too, in case you want to try for a wonder. Not the perfect start for a leader like Wang Kon, but there are far worse possibilities.
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 63rd game in BTS the chosen leader was again Wang Kon of the Koreans:
Spoiler :
I guess that, first of all, I have a apology to make to all of those that have been waiting for a while for a new game of the LHC. First of all, there was not much of interest of people in the last 2 leaders I hosted in a LHC and, to be honest, I was needing a break of hosting this ( it has been 2 years non-stop ... ). Then there was the announcement of Civ V ....
Anyway, to the game
Wang Kon is arguably one of the Fin leaders people like less. First it has the pro trait, that most of the players have some issues to leverage as efectively as they can do with others, second, the korean UU can't kill in offense and that is a turnoff for some people
. But the fact is that Wang has also a nice UB that makes a research multiplier even more effective and, obviously the champion of the lazy leverage trait award, Financial ... As long as the human player does not play as Wang AI uses to play ( by some reason Wang tends to shun early expansion in my experience... ), Wang has a strong scientific potential in almost all scenarios, including isolationHis UU
Spoiler :
The Hwatcha is a catapult that has the bonus of extra 50% vs melee units. It also has one of the more showy unit animations of all the stock ones in BtS
That makes it quite a monster against players that rely heavily on melee armies, in spite of not being able to kill in offense in BtS. The issue is that in SP the AI has that boring tendency of relying in masses of fortified archers/longbowmans as defense, so the korean UU looks a lot less shiny in those conditions.In isoaltion... well, i sincerily hope you have such a dominating game that you can even give yourself the luxury of making a intercontinental invasion against people that are still in pre-gunpowder days
because that is pretty much the only situation where I can see a possible leverage usage of this UU in isolation :/His UB
Spoiler :
The Seowon is a university that gives +35% to city research instead of the stock +25%. That is surely not much by itself ( it is the equivalent of a extra monastery ), but given that you will surely need need universities unless you are playing a no research multipliers variant game ( before you ask, yes, I already did that in a SG
... and we had to win by space ) or if the game is won before getting to the Industrial age, a research multiplier continues to be a research multiplier and the Seowon will give you a extra beaker for every 10 coins you put in the research slider or for any 10 raw beakers you got from other sources compared with the regular universities.... 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 :
Seafood start, no river, a lake and a possible island to the east. besides that brown earth pretty much everywhere in the BFC ( and green pretty much everywhere outside of the BFC as far as we can see
). Some woods to chop too, in case you want to try for a wonder. Not the perfect start for a leader like Wang Kon, but there are far worse possibilities.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
). I'm sure that other people probably do the same, so don't get discouraged if there aren't that many posts.
I don't have the usual feedback from neightbours for comparison and starting to get paranoid.
Helps make up for the lack of happies. 
. Seems like there aren't many builder civs out there. Since I nabbed Hinduism (which I didn't think was possible) I switched to Priesthood to try for oracle (and an early prophet) ---> Monarchy so I can overcome the lack of happy on the island and grow my cap and the floodplains location huge. I don't want to research CoL or Mono until the other civs get more religions, because I don't want a huge Buddhist block when I get around to optics. Huts continued to be kind and I popped IW, so I switched research to wheel --> pottery and I'm going to nab metal casting from oracle. GLH + Colussus + Shrine should be pretty sexy. I'm seriously thinking about beelining for a culture win at this point. My island (I'm bad at the dotmap tool):
- fine by me.
heavy tiles to build the normal LH, so some 
here.
