Lonely Hearts Club, BtS Edition, Chapter LXXVI: Victoria

Welcome to the 76th 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....

Our next leader is Victoria of England.

Traits: Financial & Imperialistic
Financial is great for isolation. Lots of coast to work, with a Lighthouse of course.

Imperialistic, mehhhhh, I kind of like. It helps take the sting out of wonder whoring, if you catch my drift. Bottom line is it saves hammers and does so early on.

Techs: Fishing & Mining
Fishing is not so bad when starting coastal

Mining is always welcome in my book.

Unique Building
The Stock Exchange
A Bank with an additional 15% modifier to commerce, for a total of 65%. While not the best UB, it's definitely worth the build in high commerce cities. This also synergies a bit with Vicki's Financial trait.

Unique Unit
Redcoat
A Rifleman with a 25% bonus vs gunpowder units. I don't have much experience using this unit, but I hear it's great. I imagine it's much more powerful in the hands of Churchill with his Pro/Cha traits. Nevertheless, it's a UU that can be drafted, and that is awesome.

The Start


For those who are new to total isolation, you may want to take a peek at r_rolo1's guide, You, Yourself and your shadow : Some lessons on isolated starts. Also, the LHC Bullpen.

You will find the zipped saves below. Choose your level then choose your level (more precisely) then choose your speed and get underway. For Monarch+, don't forget to add requisite techs for the barbs -

Monarch: add Archery
Emperor: add Hunting & Archery
Immortal: add Agriculture, Hunting & Archery

No huts & no events are selected.

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 thank you to r_rolo1 and all those that came before him in this series' initial run and to TheMeInTeam for the map creation guides, and to everyone else who co-hosted this series. Enjoy!

I'd say SIP, there's bound to be more resources in the BFC, it gives you coastal but plenty of land tiles, including 2 grassland hills & plenty of forests to chop.

Checkpoint 1 - 1880BC Emperor, Normal

ecuwins said:

Imperialistic, mehhhhh, I kind of like. It helps take the sting out of wonder whoring, if you catch my drift. Bottom line is it saves hammers and does so early on.

Click to expand...

I don't catch your drift...

Looking forward to giving this one a try. Seems an appropriate leader for it I is gonna build an empire on which the sun never sets.

OK I'll do this all at once. Because I was too absorbed to breakaway before now This is Immortal/Normal.

First turns:



Checkpoint 1 (1880BC):



Checkpoint 1.5 (up to 150AD):



Checkpoint 2 (Meet the Neighbours - 1210AD):



Checkpoint 3 (1490AD):



Checkpoint 4 (1800s) - It ain't pretty:

Checkpoint 2 - 760AD (500AD Optics, 580AD Astro)


Re: Trade Missions
I like these a lot. Sending them to the ToA is usually the best bet, but sometimes a huge coastal capitol is better. ToA in a huge coastal capitol is the nuts.

Emperor - Normal

Checkpoint 2 1450AD

Immortal/Normal till 1390AD

Immortal till 1905:

Immortal/normal, Diplomation in 1892.



Question: When using both universal suffrage and slavery at the same time, is it generally better to whip big things like stock markets (no instant gold cost, but less commerce & hammers per turn for a while), or to rushbuy them?

cseanny said:

Immortal till 1905:

Spoiler :

Keepin' it short. So I have never won or even tried to win by cultural victory before.....so that was my plan. SIP.....then teched early writing then Monarchy>up literature>CS>towards Democracy while expanding up to 8 cities and moving my Capital to a spot that could work a lot more cottages. Built MoM>Path>Sis>TGL(mistake on my part) and around 1280-1300AD ish was brining in just about the same amount of that you see in my final screen shot.

Zara invades me with 5turns till victory with this:

I actually ended up getting the war stopped via UN resolutions but it wouldn't have mattered either way. Just like to add that IMO this is by far and away the most boring type of victory imaginable lol. I simply hit enter from around 1300 all the way through 1900. My fingers hurt

Click to expand...

Congrats on your first cultural victory

I'd usually be sitting on needles with such a late cultural date since AI can win culture on Immortal pre 1850AD and would also fear DoW. You should have built 9 cities or 6 cities for cultural because you can build cathedral for every 3 temples. It would have been better date that way. Did you build culture multipliers? This date is a bit too late considering you got Parthenon and Sistine, so you must have misplayed a bit somewhere. Did you build Great Artists, how many, did you settle them or culture bombed, where have you put your hermitage and cathedrals? Well there's norhing more than that for cultural. It is a bit boring. For me it is usually desperate win.

I noticed you are not in state religion, so no pacifism for you. Well, that's the reason you didn't win in 1700's. And also why you were not sitting on needles, cause diplo was no problem for you.

^also sistine doesn't do anything in FR.

@ Both

Yea, never did it before lol so everything was done whack on my part I'm sure. At one point in the game I even completely changed one city from cottages to WS and then switched civics to see if hammers was better, then rebuilt all the cottages and switched civics again But even if I played it perfectly and got a 1700 date I just don't see how anyone can have fun playing this way!

WHAT. THE. HELL.

@ TiglathPileser

Checkpoint 3 - 1510AD

on city placement:

^

^

immortal/normal to settling the island