Lonely Hearts Club, BtS Edition, Chapter LXXI: Augustus Caesar

[ecuwins]

Welcome to the 71st 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 Augustus of the Roman Empire.

Spoiler :

Traits: Imperialistic & Industrious
Since wonder spam is typical by the human in total isolation, the Industrious trait is sure to come in handy. While hard REXing is not a priority in isolation, cheap settlers are always welcome. Imperialistic will help to slip out a settler here and there during any potential wonder spam.

Techs: Fishing & Mining
Fishing is nice when starting on an island, but it doesn't help your start in this case(as you will see). Mining is good, get those hammers and put your trait bonuses to work


Unique Building

Spoiler :

A Market that adds 25% to GPP generation. Not a horrible boost but it comes on a Market. An expensive building only warranted few and far between, add to that, not until the mid game. Far from a game changer.



Unique Unit

Spoiler :

The Swordsman we all love and hate - The Praetorian. He will make for great barb defense...wait, you didn't spawn bust?



The Start

Spoiler :

It's a long way to Animal Husbandry, but that's how the RNG rolls. Other than that, it looks like there is a little bit of everything. Riverside grass, grass hills, flood plains, an oasis. Not too shabby.

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


Disclaimer: This is my first time hosting a series on CivFanatics. I have read TMIT's guide while cross referencing with WB saves contained within previous LHC games. Then I tested them. All looks good on my end. Let me know if there are any issues.

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 Archery to the barbs. 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!

 

[krikav]

Right in time for the weekend.
I have not played a LHC game yet, and I have only played one isolation game where I paniced.
I might give this game a try!

What are the difficulty/size/speed settings btw?

 

[strijder20]

I'll try this on Monarch during the weekend.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

What are the difficulty/size/speed settings btw?

Whatever you want them to be. It's a scenario file. As for me...

Immortal/Normal

Check 1 / 1 AD

Spoiler :

Settled in place. Went an odd grow to 3 opening then for AH. Grabbed 2nd city then stonehenge. Also managed to snag mids and oddly, hanging gardens. Got beaten to great library but there's still national epic. Settling rep specs in capitol, cottages there for bur, farms everywhere else.





My techs at this point are worker techs, but also math ----> currency. Civil service and calendar are the next priorities, then probably astro.

Barbs very easy here. I'd get pillaged 1 time by a barb galley before sealing them out too. Only fought a few battles on land and with BFC horse no special effort was needed. I could have gone out of my way to farm heroic epic possibly, but that's really annoying to do with chariots/no barb city.

Checkpoint 2/3

Spoiler :

Mostly just to play unorthodox, but also because I was going bio for farms anyway, I went environmentalism:



This means windmills + rep parts are priorities, and to a lesser extent electricity. I deliberated on VC heavily:

1. Military: Doable. Nobody was running away, I had 13 cities and due to farm nonsense #1 pop but also decent production for a windmill empire (and I could just have swapped in some workshops). With uranium nukes are a strong possibility and with my pop I could probably induce a chain cap with surprise nukes very easily. Almost went this route.

2. Culture: Odd for a no-religions-founded opening, but I wound up with 5 of them or so pretty quickly after contact Too much tedium though and without sistine and being all farms I felt it slow in addition to tedious.

3. Diplo: I'd like to do so, and with UN giving me guaranteed chance at chair (due to bio farm spam I have most pop by a lot despite like 3rd in land or so). Top pick if its possible but the other continent has a lot of hate...so:

4. Space: Fallback plan for diplo. If diplo breaks down, current tech rate can get me to internet. Somewhat of a minus not to have copper for internet, but mao is willing to trade.

1937 Space

Spoiler :

Internet race was a little tight against Joao but with copper from mao and a 4-5 turn head start on internet due to reaching computers first I got it. That was game over, since nobody was going culture and with the internet my slightly inferior tech rate would be more than enough after getting 10000's of beakers from the internet...including arty/rocketry/satellites/fission/ecology which are all relevant space techs for me.

I screwed up though. I didn't switch off farm/windmill soon enough so my initial space production was AWFUL. This forced me to build lots of extra parts Rome + Ravenna (IW city, and not a good one), probably cost me 15 turns or so. It didn't matter though. Joao DID complete a full ship to my missing an engine...but by the time he did so my ship was 2 turns from landing.



I was actually pretty close to the UN. I was a hidden modifier away in fact. AI votes for win at +8 diplo, which was what I had SHOWING with sully, but there's a hidden modifier against the human of -1 with a lot of AI. I guess he had it. Didn't matter though. At the end of the game thanks to internet I was undisputed tech leader (nobody else had stealth, I had all techs ) and I got there first!

Note: Alumco found a rare use here, as we have no aluminum...

A lot of coasting for me. I even used production automation a lot lol.

 

[ecuwins]

What are the difficulty/size/speed settings btw?

It is a normal size map. Saves for Noble, Monarch, Emperor, and Immortal are attached. You load as a scenario(save must be in world builder folder) and follow the prompts. You can select the speed as well.

 

[i_imperator]

Heh, i might'nt have the time to host the series, but i might have the time to play this, we'll see how trying emperor/normal after a 3 month hiatus works out .

 

[strijder20]

It's a nice island you have there. Not superb, but acceptable.
I'm trying to get the three temple-boosting buildings: the Spiral Minaret, the UoS and the Apostolic Palace.

 

[ecuwins]

It's a nice island you have there. Not superb, but acceptable.

Well, I couldn't make it too easy. I also tried to make sure no AI had too much land. Lastly, I tried to make sure there was a curve ball or two thrown at the player.

 

[strijder20]

Done. Diplo after a slogging Industrial-Modern era war. Will post screenshots tomorrow.
Was fairly easy, actually. I should move a level up

 

[krikav]

Checkpoint 1

Spoiler :

Nice little Island. I think I did abit to little wonderspamming, and focused to heavily on settling all spots on the island to quick.
Alot of my city poses are identical to TMIT, however two towns in his screenshot share food, my doesn't. I have to explore the wonders of food-sharing more.

Checkpoint 2/3

Spoiler :

After I had rexed my island, I cruised on and grabbed optics first (or at least one of the first) and I even won the "round world" bonus.
However, in most other aspects my tech rate was far behind the other AIs.
I tried to focus on the closest neightbour with espionage, but it seems he had alot of spies as well, and the distance made tech-theft almost equal in cost-efficency to selfteching, so I abandoned this aproach.

I tried to grab some tech that few others had, namely astronomy. I did get alot of good trades out of that one, but once I had traded it to everyone, I was still behind.
I did not find any tech that I could get monopoly on after that.

Checkpoint 4

Spoiler :

I deceded to resign when I was unable to pick up the slack in tech-progress. Getting further and further behind was depressing.

 

[strijder20]

Krikav, what difficulty did you play on?

My Monarch Diplo win:

Spoiler :

660 AD, island completely settled; I only built Stonehenge and the oracle, and hence got too few out of Industrious. Oh well.

Liberalism by 1220 AD. I think I took DR, for a change, because I wanted the Spiral Minaret, with the AP and the UoS already in place. After that, I went for nationalism for the TM.

Hammy's caraval says hello in 1400 AD. I do some backfilling trades with him and the other AIs I meet on the subsequent turns.

I win circumnavigation race before researching Optics... hurr durr.

TM, civic switch to US , FS and emancipation. No FR, though. Don't want to give up the +2+2 for every religion building.

I get to the Industrial era and build an army of frigates, galleons, rifles and cavs.

After capping ZJ and Joao with relative easy, I decide to go for Sully man, who has only 6 cities. Should be easy, right? Not at all. His grenadiers cost me +-10 soldiers, and after I brought him down to 1 city, he caps to Mao. So I kill him off and attack Mao. Who vassalizes to Kublai Khan So I kill Mao and go after the Khan, who has modern era warships but only one oil, which get bombarded by my fighters. He still got some destroyers out, though.

One of the easter egg diplo texts


Joao is actually being a help instead of a maintenance drain, as vassals usually are.



So I win in 1908 AD. That's not an impressive score, but I assume isolation has something to do with it.

Playing isolation is great fun! I hope we'll get a financial leader soon, as those obviously make things easier

 

[ecuwins]

I hope we'll get a financial leader soon, as those obviously make things easier

Peter(Phi/Exp) is up next with Wang Kon(Pro/Fin) to follow. Since the Nobles club is currently doing Peter, it might be a good idea to flip those two around. I'll ask in the bullpen. You can see a list of the upcoming leaders here.

 

[krikav]

strijder20, I played on Emperor.
This is the difficulty I am usually playing on in normal games. But I think that I need more experience when it comes to isolated starts.
I'll consider jumping down to monarchs for our next game.

 

[Wulf38]

This game, I'm trying to see how fast I can conquer someone with grenadiers from an isolated start. The game plan:
1. Oracle CoL for a religion and caste system
2. Build pyramids, great library
3. Bulb Philosophy, run pacifism
4. Avoid Paper prereqs (Civil Service, Theology). This allows a GS to bulb many of the techs along the path: Machinery, Optics, Engineering, Astronomy, Gunpowder, Chemistry, Military Science.

So far I've played up to 1150AD, on my usual settings (Immortal, normal speed, no huts/events, no diplo victory).

Spoiler :

Initial tech path was Agriculture, AH, Mysticism, Meditation, Priesthood, Writing. I settled in place and opened with worker, 3 warriors, settler, another warior, then oracle. The settler goes south to found Antium between the sheep and corn, and this city takes over worker/settler production duties, since I want to grow Rome continuously from this point on.

Exploration reveals that we have a reasonable island to work with. Lots of happy resources, three of which get +1 from markets and one that benefits from forges. Plenty of healthy resources, too. With representation, Rome will be able to feed 6 specialists with minimal infrastructure. Unfortunately, the rest of the city sites on the island are food limited. We have lots of plains, not many rivers, and no irrigation spreading for a long time since I'm avoiding CS.

In 1880BC I finish the Oracle and take CoL, founding Confucianism in Antium . Rome builds a library, while I research BW then Masonry so Rome can start on the pyramids. Around this time I get lucky silver in one of Rome's mines, which helps greatly.

From this point on, I'll just give a timeline of my tech path and major events:

Spoiler :

1240BC: Wheel
1120BC: Pottery
1120BC: Great Scientist #1 is born. Rome gets an academy.
750BC: Math. Also, the pyramids complete, and I revolt to rep and caste.
675BC: Hunting
600BC: City #3 finally settled by the cows and wheat.

The downside to building so many wonders is slow expansion. It shouldn't hurt me too much, though, because the strategy I'm using is very light on infrastructure. Rome is going to run specialists, while all other cities focus on hammers. They'll build granary, lighthouse if needed, forge, courthouse, then wealth. I don't even build libraries outside of Rome, because my slider is going to be very low and I'm not going for Oxford any time soon.

600BC: Polytheism
375BC: Aesthetics. I decide to chop out Parthenon in Antium, since it has plenty of forests to spare.
350BC: Great Scientist #2, saved for bulbing Philosophy.
225BC: Literature. Start chopping G.Lib in Rome.
125BC: Sailing
25BC: Parthenon and G.Lib both finish. Rome starts on the N.Epic.

100AD: Alphabet, then bulb Philosophy and get Taoism. A great prophet is also born this turn. I golden age him right away and switch to pacifism. Rome is up to running 5 scientists now.
200AD: Great Scientist #3
225AD: Currency
300AD: Calendar, and Great Scientist #4
375AD: Iron Working
450AD: Great Scientist #5
520AD: Compass.
600AD: Great Scientist #6
640AD: Metal casting. On the same turn I use my 4 saved GS to bulb Machinery, Optics, and double bulb Astronomy. I start building 2 caravels right away for circumnavigation.
740AD: Construction
760AD: Great Scientist #7. Also, first contact!

My west-bound caravel finds Babylon very close to our island, only 2 turns away for a galleon if I circumnavigate. He only has 6 cities and is not particularly advanced. He's almost certainly my first target.

800AD: Monarchy
8200AD: Engineering (bulbed), and Feudalism from Hammy in exchange for Philosophy.
920AD: Great Prophet #2. Saved for a golden age.
960AD: Guilds
980AD: Win circumnavigation
1010AD: Great Scientist #8 from Antium (all the others have been born in Rome)
1050AD: Gunpowder
1070AD: Great Scientist #9
1090AD: Chemistry (partial bulbed). I also put a partial bulb into Military Science. This completes my bulbing path, so I no longer need to avoid the Paper line.

By this time I've met the remaining AIs. They've split the land quite evenly, all having 8-9 cities, with the exception of Hammy. Zara, Joao, and Mao are Jewish. Suleiman and Kublai are Hindu. Hammy is the lone Buddhist. That confirms him as target number one.

1100-1150AD: Backfill trading, pick up CS, Drama, Horseback, Paper, Banking, Music, and a world map.
1140AD: Military Science, at last!

I could start building grenadiers, galleons, and frigates right now. That would be enough to kill Hammy, but I'd lose a lot of grenadiers taking his inland cities without a way to strip culture. I think instead I'm going to spend 13 turns researching Steel and bring some cannons. With cannons for bombardment, I won't need to build so many frigates. That will also enable drydocks, which combined with vassalage will allow me to build level 2 ships.

The empire:

Spoiler :

Tech:

Spoiler :

 

[ecuwins]

strijder20, I played on Emperor.
This is the difficulty I am usually playing on in normal games. But I think that I need more experience when it comes to isolated starts.
I'll consider jumping down to monarchs for our next game.

Have you read You, Yourself and your shadow : Some lessons on isolated starts? I though it was in the OP but it's not. I'll add it in the future.

 

[Danelius90]

I said in the bullpen I've been waiting for a new lonely hearts game and I've not even played it yet! Had an exam last week, so I can do what I want for a few months

monarch/normal/no huts

up to 1500/1600 summut??

Spoiler :

decided to settle in place moved the warrior 1SW to reveal silk and a bit of what I think is coastline, but should have room to settle a coastal city there later. Looks like coast NE too...
So with a nice lot of FP and grass about, cottages would be a good idea, few mines for a good hybrid bereau cap. Unfortunately, our starting techs aren't very conducive to that end.
I'm going to go Agri > Wheel > pottery > AH and warrior > worker - bit of extra prep for spawnbusting and I don't think the worker is going to be that productive, just placing mines everywhere that I prob won't be using for a while, and allows some growth. I'll see

Less than 30 turns in, and the island has been pretty much explored, looks pretty small. And a few turns of working unimproved tiles, but the few commerce from the oasis is handy, not great I guess. Maybe could/should have managed the worker first.
BW next to maybe find copper, considering the size of the island its not worth rushing for praets when other techs are more useful (writing for libs and stuff, get to currency as I'll probably expand quickly to cover the land).

Ideas for city spots

prob settle the one just west of the capital, then maybe south as that will make a lot of that land visible
The plus point at the moment is that the cap has grown enough that it doesn't need the pig, so I can improve the other cities quickly on a few workers

Whipped the oracle in 1440BC for CoL for religion
Settled some more cities so I have visibility over all the island.
Went for calendar to make use of all those silk tiles. Now just improving each city



I really need to check out that island to the NE though, I always forget to do stuff like that. So that's next on the list

Researched music for GA a while back, kept him until I could get civil service within the golden age, changed to HR and caste system (no issue with happiness yet, so haven't needed HR, and caste for extra GPP) and will switch to bereau once I have civil service


island was pretty crummy, might be tempted to settle it if I had GLH, but prob not anyway as it will be pretty useless. Instead I'll settle a city by the incense and use the fish to feed those tiles

660AD is rather too late for the first academy, but didn't have scientists up and running early enough to stop the prophet. Look out for that next time I think.

Decided to stay in caste at the end of the golden age, and adopt bereau and pacifism (I built paya for failgold, as I have gold, but actually thought it would be useful as I don't have or need masonry, so can't get mono for organized religion was what I was originally thinking. Anyhow, its giving some use. Don't have philo yet. Heck I don't even have alphabet lol)

Oh *darn* I missed out on lib by 7 turns. Shame.

1260AD met one of Joao's Carracks. He's the founder of christianity and has 6 cities. 290 points ahead, and 5 techs I don't have, he needs 2 of mine.
Met zara in 1330AD, he most likely is the one who discovered liberalism..

Oxford is up, did some stuff (I add stuff here as I play when I feel like it )
Latest pic


Time for bed now <yawn>
Should get this finished soon.

 

[ecuwins]

I'm going to get started on this today now that my map knowledge has waned a bit. This will also be my first LHC game at the Emperor level I hope the RNG gods are in a good mood today.

I look forward to seeing how everyone else played it out.

 

[Danelius90]

Spoiler :

Played through to almost the end. I won. Well, actually I lost Just lost out on a space race because I wasn't paying attention to Suleiman who got cultural, not far out though. My excuse was I was rushing through it last night (at least 3 hours after I should have been asleep ) Joao was close-ish to space aswell, so was sabotaging his stuff, whereas I should have been sabotaging the ottomans, revolts destroy buildings etc. So prob could have won if I wasn't rushing Still, good fun - definitely some stuff I could do different. Next time?

 

[ecuwins]

1824AD - loss?

Spoiler :

So I'm going for space ship, thinking everything is going great. Then Mongols show up with a carrier, destroyers, and transports. China declared as well. I could maybe fend them off but that would probably ruin any chance of me getting the space ship in time. Lost cause?



I guess I should have paid more attention to diplo.

In hindsight, I probably should have never traded with Babylon(the only Hindu, all others were Jew). Additionally, I should have joined the Jews in their holy war when they asked. Fighting a "fake war". What was Hammy going to do to me with half of his continent at war with him? Probably nothing, and I had muskets by that time.

Oh well, play and learn