Lonely Hearts Club, BTS Edition, Chapter V: Sitting Bull

[r_rolo1]

Welcome to the Fifth 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....

For the Fifth game in BTS the choosed leader was Sitting Bull of the Native American :

Spoiler :

I already faced and played Sitting Bull in a number of ocasions, but all in a very diferent context ( like on pawelo's open game, where we had to survive with him in the middle of 6 agressive AI with the serious handicap of not having military fees unless in war ). I really am not a fan of both of his traits ( the SE people are starting to shoot on me ASAP, but I find hard to leverage Phi... maybe too much Ragnar play ( CE for the win.... ) ), but I can see the advantages of both of his traits: Phi gives a nice boost to the GPP ( that plays well with SE ) and Pro helps you having a nice promo boost on your archer and gunpowder units ( Sitting Bull x-bows, if you have his UB + barracks , are quite something ( CG I Drill III are my favourite combo ) )

His UU.

Spoiler :

The dog soldier.... a modified axe that has 100% vs melee, with reduction of strength. Not the best of UU IMHO, but may be useful to fend Barb axes and swords

His UB.

Spoiler :

This is the big star of the "Sitting Bull package" : a monument that gives 3 xp to all archery units ( archers, x-bows and longbows ). Allied with the the Pro trait and barracks, you can get lvl 4 archery units right out of the bat.... In spite of the usefulness of this feature in isolation is small, maybe it can be leveraged to get some nicely promoted units for promotion to gunpowder type units. And having a nicely promoted longbow as garrisson can be a real life saver against a naval landing....

So, here is the settings( from deity save ):

Spoiler :

And the start:

Spoiler :

This is a really nice start for a SE IMHO ( correct me if I am wrong.... ) : lots of food ( especially sea food .... we have fishing as starting tech ) and a nice patch of forests to chop the Pyramids... too bad that Sitting Bull isn't Ind and not a patch of stone in sight ( we can't have it all, can we ? )

About saves: As usual, pick the level you prefer in the end of the post. Deity save is in the next post.

Again a small request ( not mandatory ) :

We ask the participants to do, if possible, a write-up with the victory save and a description of your game ( strategies, techs researched, wars,...). All the info should be in spoiler tags ( to not disturb other people's games ). If you want ( we would like to ) post reports at this moments of the game:

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).

The last words are to wish good luck to all . And let the games begin!

P.S We don't have any kind of problem with defeats and reruns. Just play and enjoy

Another P.S : I forgot to say , but this is a Fractal game. Who knows how the outside world really is ?..... ( except me, of course.... )

P.S 3 : Corrected glitch that showed tiles on the other side of the world ( thanks VoU )

 

[r_rolo1]

As usual, the deity save is the black sheep of the family

P.S As above, corrected glitch that showed tiles faraway ( thanks again VoU )

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

What have you been up to, that there are revealed tiles on the other side of the world?

 

[r_rolo1]

In what save....? Wierd.... *scratch head* I only opened WB to check isolation and to make a scenario, to create the various levels.... Will check.

 

[r_rolo1]

Ok, I remember what happened. I miscliked the fog tile when checking isolation in WB ( my computer was lagging.... ) and accidentally created that "scratch" in the fog of war. Will correct it and post good saves ASAP

 

[r_rolo1]

Corrected glitch that showed tiles far away..... if someone finds any other glitch, be free to say it

 

[cheffster]

giving this one a shot on deity (edit: going to do Immortal instead)

 

[illram]

Great start from the SS. It seems we haven't had a good high food start since the Jao game IIRC.

 

[Kennigit]

Boy, you guys have been cranking these lonely hearts club games out. Good reads/games so far.

 

[LlamaCat]

the real power of the dog soldier is that he does not require copper or iron... but alas the dogs are isolated, so this unit is really useless now as I seriously doubt anyone will have to deal with anything tougher than barbarian archers. well anyway, game on!

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Well I'm almost finished the previous LHC. I haven't posted an update yet but I will when I've finished. I nearly at a Space Victory on Emperor - possibly I might try Immortal on this one - but I'll probably try for diplomatic if I do (not AP version).

Protective is a good wargaming trait and a fairly good combo with philo. Philo = SE which means free speech and bureaucracy is of little use but Nationalism is a good civic for SE and plays well with protective as you will draft very strong defenders. Protective is good for late game warring too and its weakness early on doesn't matter for isolated starts. I don't think I could pull a conquest or domination win on Immortal though (or even Emperor - and in fact I doubt I even want to do that much late game MM!).

Dog Soldier = useless. Totem pole is limited use. I doubt I would rush Stonehenge for it but I'll probably stock up on CG3 longbows in my coastal cities.

Start looks good. Move 1N to keep fish and get some hills for production.

 

[cheffster]

im playing imoortal and doing pretty crappy, no financial or pyramids for early representation and super-specialist .. I'm way behind in tech but have a chance at lib

 

[cheffster]

I've given up.. I really couldn't leverage any of Sitting Bulls traits on a lonely island. Protective useless. Philosophical - decent, but without pyramids, settled specialists aren't that great. I rely on either: UoS/Sm/AP, or Financial town spam/ or Great Lighthouse/ToA to dominate, otherwise I'm really at a loss what to do.

Spoiler :

I lost Liberalism, so time to finish my 18civ egypt game.

GL on other players, maybe you guys can show me up and tech me some things.

 

[r_rolo1]

I'm having a tough time as well... the island we got is not as cozy as it looks in the beggining and I had a game breaking event ( in the bad sense of the word ). Will make a update sometime today

 

[r_rolo1]

Monarch checkpoint 1 / 2

Spoiler :

First of all, I started settling on place an having a stupendous ammount of luck:

Spoiler :

This was followed by popping Myst and BW ....
In spite of this I decided to try a decent SE ( a thing in what I'm deplorable ): Mids, settle GP in one city ( a la Obsolete ), Great Library, farm everywhere ( especially after CS ) and adopt Caste, Rep and Beauro.
Researched Masonry, and all the necessary techs for the Mids and TGL. the Mids eated almost all of my capitol trees ( settled in place ... should had done it 1 N ) and it needed some whipping overflow ( the dog soldiers used for that had their use as anti barb units ( unlike some said, I've seen ( and killed... ) some swords and axes )). I must confess that it delayed a lot the settling of new cities ( that and the horrendous ammount of the main island that was covered with jungle )....
But I'm putting the wagon in front of the horses.... I said in the previous post that I had a game breaking event in the bad sense of the word... and this was the one:

Spoiler :

Well, not to me .... but notice the date... far too early for a AI -AI war ( and this is monarch.. AI starts with archers, so a capitol taking with a warrior ( or even a archer ) is impossible )... most likely a nasty barb event ( like the one with 6 HA ... ) struck the chinese ( QSH... I know the leaders from the WB )... Later I discovered Beijing in American hands...
Why does this event was bad to me? One less civ is a good thing, isn't? Not always... ( but I'll talk about it later )
After some work and exploring I made this map:

Spoiler :

Checkpoint 1.... check

After some more work, and some more wonders ( the S. Paya ( decided to give it a shot because of not having a religion for Pacifism and wanted to have FR ASAP without having to wait for Lib ) and TGL in capitol ( it had some engineers and other GP settled, so it was becoming a major hammer powerhouse ), and some more cities settled ( so much that I touched the 0% research slider ( as a decent SE should be ) and most of the time was in 10%/10%/0% )... I was busy trying to straight things up when this appeard:

Spoiler :

Looks at his points: high, isn't it? Later I discovered that Wash and QSH shared a continent separated from the rest of the civs... with QSH down wash had almost 40% of the avaliable land just for him... and he surely ReXed it.... Having one less oponent is not always good: if it helps our contenders, it is not a good thing, most surely.
But my SE was holding on against the gigantic foe ( and all the others, that I already met except Isabella at this point ) and I was able to get this:

Spoiler :

Got Natio out of it... too bad that Wash had already self researched it and made the Taj... but was a nice coin for backfilling.
One of the things I' m not sure that it was the best move was making this:

Spoiler :

I liberated the other island cities to the hands of Ragnar ( mostly for the reduction of the maintenance fees and the vassal ), but kept a city in the cooper on the small island ( SoL and Internet booster )... It surely helped in the moment, but I'm sure that it was the best long turn decision.
After a long time.... a really long time ( I already knew where she was for a long time ), this appeard:

Spoiler :

Friendly as ever ...

Plans for the future:

This is going to be a very hard game, because of the mogul Wash. For Dom I absolutely need to destroy Wash ( yeah... easy as eating apple pie ), Diplo is almost impossible ( Wash by it self is a bloc, and KK has his vassal/s ( Willew capitulated as Hatty is in and out ..., Izzy is a rogue ( she dislikes everyone and everyone dislikes her ( I've seen this movie for a million times...), with a personal hate to KK and I'm feeling in the edge of the knife diplomatically ), Cultural seems a mirage, and Space...well, If I can make a Space victory out of a SE against a guy with 40% of the land and a Hatty that is repeatedly bombing with GA her cities ( I wonder what she is up to ), this will be a case study . But well, space looks like the best shot....

 

[illram]

Monarch checkpoint 1

Spoiler :

Played it out a bit past mapping my continent. Lots of grassland, I think I'm going to move my capital north for the bureau bonus and turn my first city into the GP farm while running a CE.



Took MC with the Oracle, built the GL also:



Bulbed philo because I wanted to run pacifism and no one had founded Taoism:



I had a bit of a head scratcher when I built the GL, because the extra trade routes didn't show up even though I had sailing and all my cities were coastal. My problem was one tile I hadn't explored on my coast that was preventing the cities from connecting. Basically delayed the GL from being useful for about 7 more turns till my warrior got over there. D'oh!

The island isn't bad, lots of grassland and I figure I can fit about 12 cities on it. We'll see how this pans out, I have a feeling the AI has been teching a bit quicker since the new patch so we'll see how badly behind I am in about 30-40 turns...

 

[pawelo]

Checking in

I'll be giving this one a shot on Monarch. I found the last prince a pinch too easy (was it the start, wonder spamming or else?) - I'll see how I can manage my second one on Monarch (in the first one, RB-Adv23, my eco crashed too badly while the last AI had only three cities left... ).

Don't expect any news before friday though - it's a pretty hard week.

 

[shyuhe]

I tried this game on immortal... I was finally starting my economic recovery when one of the others declared on me. This is a very hard start, since you have three strikes against you - isolated plus ridiculous amounts of jungle + no happy! The crappy leader doesn't make it any easier either...

Also, liberalism went very early in my game - 1000 AD. It was the first time I saw it go so early (of course the silly AI took Divine Right with it...). Good luck to the other players.

 

[LlamaCat]

I tried this on Monarch and it was just too difficult... no real way for me to leverage the unique traits on this map. I was so far behind in techs. The deal-breaker for me was getting the Master Blacksmith quest and having 6 of the 7 forges built and then losing it to someone else-- argh!

Well, maybe it's back to Prince level for me in the next lonely hearts!

anyone having succes on Monarch or above yet? I'd like to see how it was done.

 

[shyuhe]

I don't think you can realistically expect to keep up in techs with this map until you hit free market + astronomy. The land you start with sucks for about the first 4000 years of the game. I had to spam a lot more workers than normal and it really hurt my economy (that and the MP).