Lonely Hearts Club, BtS Edition, Chapter LXXXIII: Frederick The Great

[ecuwins]

Welcome to the 83rd 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 Frederick of the German Empire

Spoiler :

Traits: Philosophical & Organized
PHI is always nice, but it holds a special place in the hearts of lonely kings. One of the main strategies for total isolation is a double Astro bulb ASAP, sometimes even bulbing Optics as well.

ORG is pretty good to in this situation. Half price Courthouses and Lighthouses. Who couldn't love that? You will be on an island, after all.

Techs: Hunting & Mining
Hunting
Meh...

Mining
Always an early key tech.

Unique Building
The Assembly Plant
A Factory that can hire two additional engineers. Additionally, when constructing the Assembly Plant, it enjoys a 50% boost in hammers if you have coal. But wait, there's more...Freddy's ORG trait also gives a 100% boost. He can build this thing cheap.

Unique Unit
Panzer
This comes way late, even if some find it useful, it's far from game breaking.

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!

 

[FlyingSwan]

I almost didn't notice this thread,be nice for a change of pace.

checkpoint 1

Spoiler :

SIP,worker first-probably a mistake as I could of gone BW and whipped the worker...hmm Il carry on anyway.Good cottage capitol,settle 2nd city to the north for the great lighthouse.No stone but a faraway marble,so no mids or oracle.

After reading rolo,s article Im not sure what to do,he makes some pretty convincing arguments why not to go early optics or astro.

 

[Quip]

Checkpoint #1: 1080 BC (Immortal)

Spoiler :

A look at the Nascent German empire:


Settled in place and research went Agri -> BW -> AH -> TW -> Pottery -> Writing -> Fishing. Tentatively planning to go for Calender next, though still mulling it over. In general I've avoided wonders because of lack of bonus resources and the dire need for commerce.

Gentlemen and ladies, may I present the Great German River plan:

The river is going to be the power source of the great empire. The plan is to get the fourth city (Red/orange BFC) to nurture some capital cottages. No resources, but at this point we've got hold against the barbarians and don't have to worry about rival expansion, so commerce is king.

Still pretty new to Immortal, so wouldn't say it's flawlessly played but I'm feeling OK about the game so far.

 

[Quip]

Checkpoint #2: 1260 AD

Spoiler :

Well... We're still in it and we're not last in GDP.
Cue Demographics:

Well, things aren't looking great. But number 2 in land is a good sign, especially with 2 more cities to plant. Wanted to do an astronomy bulb, but I messed it up, so I used my two scientists for education and self-teched to astro. We have some viable trades for Astro and education, so even with the meager numbers we're putting up we aren't out of the tech race by any means.

Neglected to pick up monarchy, so better players avert your eyes at the next screen shot:

(Red dots are the final two cities yet to be planted)

Going to revolt immediately to hereditary rule and then I've got to plan the next move.

In my mind, there are three options from here.
1) A late game culture push with Corps and Electricity line wonders.
2) Space with my current land through Internet and some good luck.
3) Take this land.

Sury could definitely be a pain but that land would certainly improve my odds of winning this game.

Save attached for anyone wanting to take a closer look.

 

[ecuwins]

After reading rolo,s article Im not sure what to do,he makes some pretty convincing arguments why not to go early optics or astro.

Spoiler :

Early bureaucracy + monarchy capital is definitely doable here. That would open the possibility of libbing astro.

I do not like the Colossus here, but it can make for some nice fail gold.

 

[FlyingSwan]

@ecuwins.well I decided to restart and make a serious attempt at deity level.Holy crap what was I thinking!!!

Spoiler :

after my 3rd attempt of using warriors as fogbustersI decided that archery after after AGR was the way forward,then the wheel,pottery,AH(to make writing cheaper).

Did a lot of micro,1st farming the dye,then cottaging it etc.The GLH didn't seem like an option,but I made a mistake by teching fishing before mathematics I think.Then I went sailing/calander/currency.

Looking at it now probably monarchy would be better for the happiness idk,I got it into my head to whip in markets for the fur/silk happinesss and spam cottages.

View attachment LHC Frederick AD-0025 deity attempt....CivBeyondSwordSave


at this point with 7 citys I figured im not doing too bad,even though I still can,t get my head round how fast the wonders go at deity.

View attachment LHC Frederick AD-0960 first contact.CivBeyondSwordSave

at this point ive got the feeling im doing realy bad.The plan here is to stay in caste for 4 more turns till another great scientist drops then switch to bureau and slavery and see what I can trade before I double bulb Education.

I havnt even settled the whole island yet

 

[Fippy]

@Flying looks like a hard map for Deity Iso, but you could still learn some things so let me look

Most important, you are Phi and Org, created only 1 GP at turn 116 and do not have CoL yet. Even on a richer map, you would easily lose Deity Iso if you are not playing your leaders strengths
CoL (even cheaper CHs too) instead of Calendar (using PH line so you can also get Monarchy), and you also need some GP farms.

You should not place Hamburg there, or if you do you found a city that takes wheat + fish when Hamburg reached good cottages worked only size anyways.
Also north should be one more GP farm (Frankfurt 1S, founded early).
Or Essen could have taken Berlins Corn 1N, some options here but you used none of them

Cottages are much too slow compared to bulbing for keeping up on these settings, yep they are still good esp. for Berlin later, but nope you cannot ignore your possible GP farming spots. Not with Phi.

 

[FlyingSwan]

Thanks for the advice Fippy.Not going for great people farms was a mistake.I think ecuwins called it in his 1st post-double bulb astro is one option,but im thinking bulb everything I can-even maths-just to keep up.After the last save I bulbed paper,double bulbed EDU and then lost the lib race by 3 turns.I had nothing to trade then and got a DOW so it was game over.

Its a tough map,but im going to try it again.

 

[Quip]

1800 AD (Immortal) Reach for the stars!

Spoiler :

Well, This may be a bummer to anyone expecting action, but didn't go to war. Even worse, I let Willem settle on my island about 10 turns after my last update, I did have a settler building but I guess I didn't respect the AIs desire for more land. However, lemons from lemonade, and I decided to settle for Espionage against Willem to aid in a Space race. Let's see the German Empire in its glory:



Last update I had mentioned the possibility of war, but there were complications. The reason for this were a lack of infrastructure and the strange tech path that isolation had forced me into. My small cities could possibly muster and offensive, but I had reached Astro not far ahead of anyone and 5000+ beakers away from military tradition. Also, it didn't help that I'm not as comfortable at with the logistics of naval warfare, especially on immortal. But:


On the bright side, It looks like the original land might be enough. We're number 1 with food after grabbing Biology (Which means I've got to adjust my tiles a bit, but it's still not bad at all), and we're on the path to clear 5 expensive techs on the way to The Internet through espionage alone (Physics, Electricity, Assembly Line, Combustion and Radio in a couple of turns). A look at the tech situation has the Germans with a monopoly in a crucial tech on the way to building the internet:



Fun Fact: I have probably spent over 1000 gold and several techs in keeping most everyone out of Mercantilism in this game. Foreign trade makes up 280 commerce, while worked tiles are only at 215. I've actually built a few *gasp* Customs Houses.

A save attached for anyone curious on how it's going.

 

[Grashopa]

Interesting, thanks for the save quip

 

[Quip]

1940 AD Space Race Victory (Immortal)

Spoiler :

Well, I've had earlier dates, but with the cities I had and the competition I was facing I was happy to roll this into a victory. Let's pick it up from the last update in the 1800s where I was situated with combustion monopoly but not necessarily the best demographics, leading only in food and in fact below average on production and GNP.

As predicted, I stole Radio and was able to tech through plastics and computers with my lead intact. To augment the hammer production, Berlin worked to contain the river that had cradled the German civilization with the greatest dam ever built. Our first world wonder of the game was in fact the Three Gorges Dam. However, it would not be the last.

The internet took a while to build however, and that left us with only Fiber Optics to research without putting beakers into redundant techs. Of course, we'd finish that too early, which would lead to perhaps the most controversial build of this entire game. I am prepared to be harangued for the choice, but I've got some good reasons. I went for Robotics.

1) I had ~6 turns left of building before the Internet would be complete.
2) With Fiber Optics I was in pole position to land Fusion first once Fission came through Internet.
3)The Assembly Plant gives you double Engineers slots, meaning it wasn't too difficult to pop a GE to pair with the free one from Fusion.

For those of you who are like 'wut?', I built the Space Elevator in 1908 . On the bright side, I'm fairly certain this is one of the very few situation where this was actually a beneficial play. There were fears that both Napoleon and Isabella would surpass me in the space race, having built almost all the ship parts except engines. Also Willem, my tech lackey, was also building steam towards a cultural victory himself. See victory conditions for how (somewhat) close it was:


With Internet grabbing everything from Fission to Monotheism (Even though I kinda see this as an unimpressive win, Monotheism at 1874 AD is an achievement), we made the final push, which is not that exciting but I spent it nervous that any of the remaining powers would make my happiness garrisons cry. But they didn't, even when I declared war on Ragnar because Sury decided to take his navy on a tour by the island. Just lost some fishing boats and used the UN to save my bacon.

My smug Internet shot from the event logs:


We launched, and two turns before winning we bribed the big two nations, Spain and France, into war with each other for the lulz.

A final look at those demos:


You gotta love that scrappy German underdog.

Save included for the curious. Please take it easy on my improvements and civic choices at the end. Had it been a loss this entire post would've been a rant on how I got lazy about turning farms into workshops in the final stretch.

A non spoiler-y review of what I gleaned from this game, three points style:

1) Not really surprised that this map hasn't been crazy popular, as the commerce was hard to scrape together. I'm glad my instincts pushed me towards trying to maximize my gains from our starting river, as this kept me in the game to begin with. However, pushing the trade economy was vital. Spending money and techs to keep people out of mercantilism was the difference from getting 30-60 commerce to 120-160 commerce out of trade in the vital post-Astro period where I secretly thought I had already lost the game.

2) Espionage, even without discounts like holy city, was vital. While I had to divert some commerce into the effort, the stolen techs were essentially half the beakers I needed when I started the Internet beeline after Biology. Definitely a need in games where commerce is not flowing, plus it's extremely quick to set up if you get going before communism and democracy become too popular.

3) Finally, The Space Elevator . Probably one the bottom 5 for most people's wonder lists, this time it was actually worth it. It's so extremely situational, but since I was building space ship parts for 22 turns after building it and the tech deviation was 4 turns, I'm not going to go into serious math to assert that it saved me several turns. It also helped that I was able to use two GEs on it as well as built it in a city that was not producing spaceship parts. Thanks Assembly Plants!

All in all, an interesting game. Hopefully we'll get to see some alternate histories and I think I've left a very beatable finish date. Thanks for posting the map Ecuwins.

 

[Ohblivion]

1950AD immortal; space.

Spoiler :

OMG can't believe I won this.

Same story as Quip, but with a twist.

I goofed off in the bcs, tried spanwbusting like a pro only with warriors, lost my nerve and went late archery, this delayed my spawnbusting and a barbcity spawned, so I had to make some axes to take care of that. I still manage to get 11 good cities and tech up.
Double bulb Edu; Liberalism takes Printing Press; I double bulb Astro and go say hi to the world.

I beelined communism, and built my first wonder, the Kremlin; then Sushi. This allowed me to get a head start on everyone by rushbuying assembly plants all over the place.

By 1860 I decided to run a little naval invasion of the Khmer since he was 30 turns away from culture. I raze his third city before my stack gets obliterated. Problem solved right.

Manage to get the internet comfortably.
I built the space elevator in 1900 . Considering the incredible amount of engineers we spawned in the lategame it felt like the right thing to do; 3 engineers and zoom!

Meanwhile i'm selling techs and bribing toku and ragnar on everyone that looks at me funny...

Then I check the vicotry screen as I'm making my way to fusion; and I see the Khmer have 15 turns to go for culture AGAIN

I declare on the Khmer and bribe Toku and Ragnar in on him too.
With the 2 engines building in the best production cities; the rest of the empire scrambles together a taskforce of mobile artillery and modern armor in a last ditch attempt to take their weakst city.


The moment I sail out; Napoleon declares on me and sinks half my navy and transports

I rushbuy another round and manage to land a SECOND strikeforce which takes Angkhor Watt with .... 4 turns to spare; and the spaceship launches next turn

EVERY time I decide to go space the frigging Khmer almost steal the game; on the Kublaih Kahn map it was the same; I hate those guys !

 

[Ohblivion]

Actually I'm gonna post my 1330 AD save here; maybe someone with more experience can have a look and tell me if they agree that conquest/domination is still possible from this position; or wether I goofed it up too much for that.


Also I looked at endsaves with QUIP and I need to learn something about the lategame I bet. How do I go from making 200 beakers /turn more than him in 1300s; to having 350 beaker/turn advantage (If both economies are sitched to full science and building research) but with +6 sushi and full assembly plant + Wallstreet infrastructure in 1800 to being slower than him in the spacerace. Ok sure I fought 2 wars and all, but still. . I've left the 1800AD save for comparison as well. Either it's my techpath; the espionage; I don' t know.

Spoiler :

Might not be in time for cavalry+airships although that would be ideal I guess.

I'm thinking Infantry/artillery;
Probably start with Khmer; then take over rest of the continent; and duke it out with Napoleon and Ragnar later, probably with nukes.

 

[Quip]

Well, at the 1800AD point my espionage game was reaching the end of its usefulness. What probably put my game ahead of yours in finish date was skipping the military excursions. I believe I had 8 cities which produced at least one ship part; if you were building military to save the game you probably had to hold some hammer cities back in the effort. I pretty much put thrusters/casings in any city that could finish it in 20-30 turns while I waited to finish the tech tree (and push out those expensive engines).

I was pretty fortunate that I didn't have to do any build up, as all the other civs seemed to be too busy fighting over ancient grudges. I was more than happy to just keep a skeleton army and hope for the best.

Spoiler :

Sury got absolutely curbstomped in my game and never got ahead of the dutch in the culture race.

 

[Ohblivion]

Yeah the buying of infrstraucture + modern units sure cost a pretty penny; Kremlin rushbuying is a habit of mine I took over from Emperor, I'm not sure it's all that efficient on Immortal, what with the extra maintenance. Maybe it's that. Still if you look at my infra in place by 1800 it's still surprising to me; I mean I got pretty much everything . What was your techpath for space ?

Also pretty please can someone have a look at 1330AD and advise me wether I could attempt conquest from that position ? I'd love to revisit this save at a later date.

 

[Quip]

The tech path after computers went something like this:

Superconductors > Fiber Optics > (Internet completes, Can build Apollo Program) > Robotics > Satellites (From Internet)> Fusion > Laser (Internet) > Composites > Genetics > Ecology

I've already talked about why I went robotics, but here's some thoughts on the path.

Superconductors: After winning the race to computers, Superconductors were an obvious choice as Labs are a very worthy build in a city that is producing parts. You unlock thrusters as well, which is nice to have for the marginal production cities to work on as soon as you have Apollo completed.

Fiber Optics: This was the last tech I had available without having to perform redundant research, but it unlocks the cockpit and in games where you're going for internet you'll want to beeline as far as possible.

Robotics: Again, was very game specific having to do with Internet build time vs. research speed, as well as the german ability to pop GEs out with Assembly Plants.

Fusion: To get the GE, as well as lower the chances other Civs choose the tech path there. Engines!

Composites: This is where I usually get annoyed, because while my path looks good the 5 casings are always a pain to produce when you're trying to get everything out in time.

Genetics > Ecology: Stasis chambers aren't boosted by resources, so it's better to go genetics first.

Getting everyone to war at the end certainly helped, as two civs went for the laser and got me satellites for free.

 

[Tall German Joe]

Hmmm, felt like this one was a little easier.

Spoiler :

I feel like all the trees, the marble, and narrower island made this one pretty easy. Tried this on Immortal, and delayed my first settler and first worker to get some spawn-busters out. Went for GLH at 4 cities, finally chopping it out around 1000 BC. I then beeline Monarchy -> Aesthetics->Literature in order to land TGL, grabbing that around 400 AD. Used my first GP, a great merchant from GLH, to start a golden age as soon as TGL was in, and then double-bulbed Astro at 720 AD, met everybody by around 960ish AD. It's currently 1300 AD, I'm #1 GNP, just started another GA and a turn away from libbing Rifling, after having spent two more bulbs on Education and Printing press. Nobody else even has education, and only two civs have paper, as of a few turns ago, because I traded it away a couple turns ago to get guilds and engineering. I think I could even try to lib something completely absurd, like AL maybe... Not sure if I'm going to bother playing this one out though, as naval invasions are really tedious if there's no tension.

 

[krikav]

I played this up to T150
Checkpoint1, 1.5 I guess?
Optics but no AI-contact yet.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Moved scout NE->NW.
Made the call that I should settle NW of starting position.
* 2 more green river, but one floodplain less.
* No loss of resource (Except perhaps forested deer/fur)
* Chance of gaining riverside resource.
* Will get happines resource (fur) in third ring.
* Settle on plains instead of grassland.

Am I overcomplicating things? Is this worth the loss of a turn? Am I making some error in judgement?

Spoiler :

This is the situation after some initial scouting.
I'm thinking Agri->BW->TW->Fish->Pot at this point, I'll want a fogbuster standing on that sheep.

Spoiler :

I felt the need to go archery after BW, I had some barbs spawn in the south, and had no idea how large a landmas I had to the west.
Was abit unlucky and lost 2 warriors at 25-30% odds, so I was starved of scouting/fogbusting.
Agri->BW->Archery->TW.
Had another worker before the first settler, teching is slow, hampered more by going BW.
Was BW a mistake here? No techs to unlock resources for cities to utilize right away do make chop lose abit of it's luster. Could have mined another hill to ensure enough archers.

Anyway, revolted to slavery when settler was in transit. I had barely reached TW here and will get the road done next turn before I settle to get instant +2 commerce from traderoutes (finally some commerce!)
I don't have fishing yet, so this is an ackward situation, second city w/o recource.

In hindsight, the wheat-spot would have been better, but I saw the crab at T6 and it cemented itself at city #2 in my mind.

Spoiler :

After AH->Writing I went for calendar for the silk+dye. Math->Sail->Calendar.
All four cities have libraries, working 2 scientists. Capital did the first GSci before it was relieved of specialists duty and allowed to work cottages nonstop.
PHI is really nice, I got a academy early on, and I ended up settling two scientists in the capital too, not sure if this was good. I liked the boost in techrate, and I still had time to get 2 more GSci for the astro-bulb.
Myst now to get a quick monument for the city south to get the fish quick. This city will run a whole bunch of merchants at CoL.
Settlers will go to the spot 2N1E of the wheat where the worker is standing, and will aid capital with development.
I will also settle on the grasshill close to capital (with wine+rice in second ring.) to help capital, and to gain access to wine in time for monarchy.

Note that copper is unimproved... I sent all workers SW before borderpop. Should have let one linger there and perhaps mined a hill or something.
And then I should have whipped a worker, but I was so excited with running specialists that I didn't want to.

Spoiler :

After myst I went for currency.
I whipped a market in capital which was a very bad idea, since it deprived cologne of the food, slowing down GP-generation there.
I ended up going through poly toward monarchy instead, if I wanted the philo-bulb I should have gone there way earlier.
I'm abit torn about the entire techpath tbh.
After writing, I should perhaps have gotten sailing, but avoided math and instead rushed myst->med->prist->CoL, and then bulbed philosophy to get early religion.
Cities could have built courthouses instead of wealth. Granaries would have been a pain to get up with early caste and non-math-chops though.

Monarchy after that and only later math/calendar/currency.

Spoiler :

Optics was in somewhere between T140 and T150. Had to wait a few turns to get the last GSci for astro-bulb in Cologne. (Damn you market!!!)
No harm done though, I haven't encountered an AI yet.
Economy is fantastic, and I'll cram out 3 more settlers to settle even the marginal spots. I think the astro-traderoutes make them good anyway.
I built two swordsmen to hopefully get a lvl4 guy for heroic against that barb city.
One is at xp7 now and healing, but the other one died and now the archer is city garrison. I should have been more patient.

I'll go for burocracy now.
But I'm abit uncertain of a long term plan (will probably be clearer when I meet more AIs.

I'm thinking abit along the lines that it could be good to develop the economy further with perhaps constitution, and just cruise all the way toward AL for the lovely org-german factories. and only make a pivot toward military then.
Perhaps even just shoot for space?
Not sure about late-game warfare, but I guess that the panzer could work kind of good when fighting at tech disatvantage against modern armor?

 

[krikav]

I got abit depressed with the mao map in the deity isolation workshop thread and decided that I have to practice more with easier maps first.
Abit suprised that this hasn't been played more, this is the last LHC map I have found.

Try it out if you like isolation, it's not an very easy map but quite fun and you have some different options.
Perhaps it's time to post some new LHC games?

 

[krikav]

@Fippy

Spoiler :

I saw your reply to Flyingswan, and realize that my techpath was very similar to what he did.
How would you recommend that one goes through the teching on this map?

AH before BW?
myst-> (med or poly?) -> PH ->CoL right after writing?
I ended up building an academy and settling two GSci in my game. I see you are recommending bulbing "Cottages are much too slow compared to bulbing for keeping up on these settings", what bulbs would you recommend?
Philosophy? Optics? Something else?