Lonely Hearts Club, Chapter LXIV: Ramesses

Here it is! The long delayed 64th edition of the Lonely Hearts Club where we will explore isolated strategy with... Ramesses of Egypt

Spiritual is a nice trait whenever and Industrious is especially useful in an isolated starts with all those lovely wonders up for grabs.

The UU:

Ah, the war chariot. How many glorious rushes have you undertaken? Well it won't be seeing anything but barb action with this game (provided you have horse, of course).

The UB:

I, personally, have never found much use from the obelisk but then again I've only played 2 games on immortal. Hopefully you people can make good use of it and show me how its done.

The start:

Stone, industrious and Egypt now what could anyone possibly do with that?

The map is a standard size fractal with no huts and no events. You will find the zipped saves below. Choose your level then choose your level (more precisely) then choose your speed and get underway. Suggestions for updates are:

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).

Finally, a thankyou to r_rolo1 and all those that came before him in this series' initial run and to TheMeInTeam for the map creation guides. Enjoy!

Totally sucks to lose the pig if you don't move. Guess the settler probably has to move inland a bit - maybe 1SW?

I might give this a crack at Noble level.

I'm tempted to move the warrior 1 NW to the GH to see what's behind.

Newbie Question: Would settling the stone be an option? You could move the Palace later when you find a nice site, and with at least 2 grass hills and the Maori Statue you'd still have some decent production I think. You'd also get the Pyramids out faster for the +3 happy civic (can't remember what that one's called. Sorry).

Move warrior east to see if there is fish there, if there is not great, if there is damn.

Assuming there is no seafood to the east.

The only real place to work the pigs would if you settle SW of it, I guess you could settle on the stone with a second city if you put your capitol far enough away, but i rather do that with the first city.Sure you lose fresh water but with pig,corn and clam (dang couldnt it have been fish) you should have no real health problems.

Second city possibly 1S2W as it looks like that is still on the coast.Probably somewhere else when the rest of the map is revealed.

I'll go with GW and Mids, GW so the others dont get it and have little more trouble with barbs and for easy expansion for myself and Mids for obvious reasons.The dilemma is that it will slow down expansion. hopefully there is another and better spot to build the Mids or if not a good food site, but im hoping on a different Mids site, so I dont have those 2 wonders in the same place.

Agg means easy access to AH and wheel means the other cities will be able to get connected early (for the stone bonus if another site is found for Mids)But might not be needed, as there is a good chance the other cities will be coastal and in borders.

Tech im thinking AH>mining>masonry>fishing>BW although I might choose to get
AH>mining>masonry>BW>fishing instead and skip the fish for a while.
If that is instead decided then ill just farm a couple of those cleared grassland.

I'll play along with this in a while, will be my first forum game, so my choices might be way of whats expected from LHC, dunno if ill keep it going or even finish it, but don't see why I shouldn't try.

@Anomander Rake , thats what I plan to do, settle on the stone and move cap later, but not sure if I want Maoi in this city, although if i go and get GW and find a better place for Mids, putting Maoi in the same place that GW is in might not be a bad idea, since for me getting a spy and getting a phrophet are in the same level of what I care to get, so might be good use of the two wonders.The problem is the city will only have 2 viable water tiles to work to get the hammer bonus, if there is no seafood 2E of the warrior.So it might be a waste.The civic is called Representation.

Emperor normal - Update to 1000 AD - pretty obvious what I wanted to do with Ram...

Looks intersting, isolated starts always give me troubles. I will lurk this and see what you guys can do with it, maybe i will be able to play it but not before this weekend.

Anyway, as for standard start, i would defenetly settle on stone. It is not a great capital, but it's very good short term for pumping out settlers/worker/warriors, with 3 food tiles ans 2 hills. You can move capital later and use this to run specialists.

Following the strategy of moving capital later, site 1S of west corn already looks winning the contest with more than half fat cross yet to be revealed, it looks it will be coastal with only 2-3 coast tiles, wet corn in first ring, riverside grassland to work, lots of forest to chop, a lake farm, and 2 hills. Really whatever you get in the rest of land is fine.

Tech wise, i would go fishing->AH->mining->BW, then see the land and decide what to do. Production order in capital worker, warrior, workboat, settler, warrior. Maybe insert a warrior before workboat if thr land is big and require extra fog busting.

As for wonders, pyramids and GW both are viable and easy to get early with industrious and stone... but i'd wait to see more land before deciding as it might be a choiche between them and GLH/oracle+colossus.

You could actually settle ON the stone also - 2h city tile with instant access to the resource, and you actually don't lose a workable hill it seems because you're moving off of one...however IMO 1 SW is the stronger play for retaining fresh water, future levee, and better long-term hammers.

Emperor normal - culture win in 1915 - about 26k score

@michmbk

I might give this a try on Monarch later.

As pretty much a cIV playing newbie, (albeit one who lurked these forums as a spectator for ages, and who has a long history of being crap at civ3), I am still not very good at pacing my games, so I shall try to give myself time to think about stuff.

Case in point: I would probably have settled straight away on top the stone and been happy to have lots of food, and never even considered moving in opposite direction.

So the point of settling SW would be to place a second city between the pigs and the stone? And to use that second city as a settler pump/GP farm perhaps, as it seems to have plenty of food, whilst having more land tiles in the BFC of the capital, for building other, potentially shiny stuff?

Also, for isolated starts in general, I guess I can expand comfortably rather than having to rush out my settlers... I should maybe hunt down rolo's guide for a quick read before I begin.

Its great to see the intrest that is still in the lonely hearts club!
Im working on the new LHC bullpen now (Hrun and myself will be co-hosting the LHC) and then i'll give this a shot. Siging in, Emperor/Normal.

Hrun said:

@michmbk

Spoiler :

Looks like a nice easy win. Was it too easy? Looking at the map in WB I didn't expect quite such a slow tech pace, maybe there wasn't enough land or something.

Click to expand...

Hrun:

Interesting start position. My first thought was settling the stone but you'll only have two hills in the BFC which kind of sucks. I guess the other alternatives are 1S or 1SW.

shyuhe said:

Interesting start position. My first thought was settling the stone but you'll only have two hills in the BFC which kind of sucks. I guess the other alternatives are 1S or 1SW.

Click to expand...

On the stone can lead to a quick great lighthouse + Moai combo (prolly done with whip overflows) ... which can be interesting... (more with academy and bureaucracy)

edit: mids can be chopped elsewhere (I would scout that river with irrigated corn and forests nearby asap)

@michmbk

Tried it on monarch and quarter-assed a 1750 AD culture win.

Emperor/Normal to 900BC.

I've played to ~1600 AD, no summary yet but some map comments for Hrun:

Checkpoint 1 (Help?):

@TMIT