Lonely Hearts Club, BtS Edition, Chapter LXXV: Brennus

[ecuwins]

Welcome to the 75th 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 Brennus of Celtia.

Spoiler :

Traits: Spiritual & Charismatic
An interesting pair of traits here. Allows for cheap bursts of civics paired with cheap upgrades. One might also find the free happiness useful

Techs: Mysticism & Hunting
At least it's better than nothing

Unique Building
The Dun
A Wall which gives eligible units the Guerrilla promotion. Obsoletes at Gunpowder, no? Not much use here, really.

Unique Unit
Gallic Warrior
Swordsman that starts with Guerrilla I and can be built with only Copper. Again, no use here.

The Start

Spoiler :

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 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!

 

[Giant Wolfman]

Haven't played a Lonely Hearts before, so took a quick look and will play this one

@ecuwins

Spoiler :

Minimap shows a blip of land which I can only assume is the original starting position you switched us out of. Not a huge deal but just fyi

 

[ecuwins]

^ There is a new zip Sorry about that.

 

[krikav]

Pretty nice start, an invitation to bourocracy and monarchy I guess.

Starting techs and UU+UB could make this abit challenging!


Thanks for saving the weekend ecuwins!

 

[vicawoo]

I played the original, and there's a blip of land, and when my caravels saw some fishing boats, it did not make contact (but seeing borders did).

Spoiler :

 

[i_imperator]

Im gonna play this, Emperor Epic. I played the previous one (Hammy) but I haven't uploaded it as i cant remember the start of it for the life of me. I found monarch/Epic to be Ridiculously easy.
Also its nice to be playing civ again!

 

[Hippias Minor]

when my caravels saw some fishing boats, it did not make contact (but seeing borders did).

That's because the wb owner didn't have optics.

 

[krikav]

I played on immortal up to around lib a couple of times.
I am not satisfied at my speed.

When I cottaged everything except for one city close to the pig+sheep, I did manage to win liberalism, but later my lack of production made it impossible to compete.

When I took a more production-oriented aproach, I did not manage to keep up with neither tech, nor troops (lost lib and circumvention).

Not at all sure how to play this efficiently.

Tech path and cities:

Spoiler :

I tried Agri->Mining->Wheel->Pottery->Writing->BW->Math->Currency
Settling a city NE of the capital (close to the corn)

and one city at the marble+corn.

I cottaged alot in the capital, and eventually had 4 satellite-cities that helped to grow a few cottages.

The aim was to get a academy and CS in reasonable time.
However, I didn't get it untill some time after 200 AD.

Went for parthelon in the production city, and national epic+GLib in capital.
Settled all GScientists.

I would love to see how other players did this.
Have anyone managed to win on immortal?

 

[vicawoo]

I think astronomy's much better than liberalism. And bulbing education at least gives you a lot more leeway.

Aesthetics+Poly+Literature costs as much as optics itself. Every great library isolation game, my astronomy has been much slower because of the tech costs and the need to drop 175 hammers (assuming marble) into the great library.
The way you compensate is by getting alphabet/mathematics so you can bulb optics, but honestly you're saving maybe 75 beakers + whatever you get off alphabet. I'm pretty sure Great Library is always going to be a significant sacrifice to your astronomy time (maybe 300-500 AD without) at the cost of more great scientists later to keep you in the astronomy race.

I'm starting to think that completing Parthenon might be too costly in isolation. I'm also considering skipping the national epic until I can bulb Optics (this is assuming we're going the extremely expensive great library route).

 

[vranasm]

I guess philo would make look the TGL much better...

 

[krikav]

Are you suggesting to skip polytheism+aesteth+litterature?
When I saw the marble, I just took that path for granted, have not reflected much about it.

 

[Cam_H]

lurker's comment:

Small points:

Duns obsolete their Guerrilla promotion effect at Rifling, not Gunpowder.

Gallic Warriors with their free Guerrilla I promotion can be upgraded to more advanced units that don't normally get access to this line of promotions - namely Macemen and Machine Guns. Given Brennus is Charismatic, it can be relatively quick to get to Guerrilla III ... if that's of any interest in the first instance.

With that said, I agree with ecuwins though, that both are of relatively little use here.

Best of luck everyone with this game!

 

[ecuwins]

I'm not a huge fan of GLibrary here. Once Astro is in, I'm pretty much done with GScientists. Post Astro all I want is trade missions.

I am a fan of meeting AI ASAP. The national wonder techs and Feudalism line can be easily traded for.

lurker's comment:

Small points:

Duns obsolete their Guerrilla promotion effect at Rifling, not Gunpowder.

Gallic Warriors with their free Guerrilla I promotion can be upgraded to more advanced units that don't normally get access to this line of promotions - namely Macemen and Machine Guns. Given Brennus is Charismatic, it can be relatively quick to get to Guerrilla III ... if that's of any interest in the first instance.

Great points! Thank you.

 

[krikav]

I think I'll try a new replay then, skipping the marble-line alltogether, and instead rush for astronomy!

I guess one goes for techs like currency, CoL, and CS before shooting for optics?

 

[ecuwins]

Currency, yes. CoL, maybe. CS is a if you want to bulb Astro at all.

I usually skip CoL pre-Optics, but since Brennus is Spiritual, I'm debating using a relatively short burst of Caste to help get my second Astro bulb GSci out. At the same time, another city can get started on that GMerchant that I'm going to be wanting thereafter.

 

[Bloodstone]

Is there a "bullpen" or something related to Lonely Hearts that covers what it's all about? I'm just curious, I just started looking at playing forum games and would like to read a little more about it before I jump in. Thanks for any guidance.

 

[ecuwins]

Yep. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=410649

I'll start adding it to the OP as well.

 

[krikav]

I still have troubles with this map...
Anyone care to share their dotmap?

I tried to beeline optics after currency, no success.
Tried to go currency -> monarchy -> optics as well, but no epic victory.

Didn't set up any GPF, that could be part of the problem.

 

[ecuwins]

Checkpoint 1.5 Emp/Normal

Spoiler :

Tentative wonder sites are marked. None of that is set in stone.

Techs went Agriculture > Mining > Wheel > Pottery > Bronze > Writing > Animal Husbandry > Math > Currency > Fishing > Sailing > Metal Casting > Calendar > Masonry > Iron > Compass

I built an Academy with my first GS, the second one is on stash, and the third one should be coming in about the time I can bulb Astro. It's not a huge rush post Optics as you still need to meet some AIs before you can reap the benefits.

I'll run merchants in that Nat Epic city.

 

[krikav]

@ecuwins

Spoiler :

I like your placements.
I settled Tolosa 1W from your position, which now in hindsight is pretty bad. As it cramps Verlamion and the future deer-city.

I like Gergorvia, and the fact that you farmed the flood-plain. I had cottaged on all of them, so gergorvia wasn't that suited for GPF.

The future city by the pigs at the west of your capital, I had that city 1N from your marking with the idea to kill a plains tile, and save a grassland tile. Also posibility to share the corn.

Thanks for the pointers!