Lonely Hearts Club, BTS Edition, Chapter XI: Ramesses II

Snapman · Jan 26, 2008

Meh, I have nothing better to do today. Checkpoint 2:

Spoiler :

Decide to run a hybrid economy of sorts. Decided to have a crack at the Pyramids - being Industrious and having stone and all. Besides, I'm Egypt! The Pyramids belong in Egypt! I'll run a few cottages here and there, build The Great Lighthouse, and then build whatever wonders I fancy in the capital. Must make Civil Service a priority too.

Turn 42: Popped Pottery from a hut. Great! The Oracle slingshot to Metal Casting is made slightly easier.
Turn 43: Memphis founded 1S of the marble.
Turn 61: Heliopolis is founded south of the capital, to claim the stone after a border pop.
Turn 64: The Oracle is finished in Thebes. Took Metal Casting as my prize for those cheap forges.
Turn 85: Elephantine founded north of the capital, on the coast. The boundries cross with Thebes, so it can help with growing cottages while Thebes builds stuff.
Turn 86: The Great Lighthouse finished in Memphis.
Turn 91: The Pyramids built in Thebes. Immediatly switch to Representation
Turn 96: Alexandria founded on the eastern coast near the Pig.
Turn 98: Founded Confucianism in Helioplois. Immediatly converted.
Turn 102: Great Prophet settled in Thebes.
Turn 108: The Colossus finished in Memphis. Hadn't planned on building it, but it came fairly cheaply. Helped a little with the economy too.
Turn 115 (1AD): Pi-Rameses founded on the western coast, to get the Pig and Horse.
Turn 118: The Parthenon complete in Thebes.
Turn 119: Switched to Organized Religion.
Turn 125: Great Library complete in Thebes. Gives the research a nice boost.
Turn 126: Popped a Great Artist in Thebes. Dissapointing - the odds were so low too (around 5%). I'll save him for a Golden Age or something.
Turn 133: Giza founded. Little town on the river, near the otters. Should provide a few more cottages.
Turn 135: Settled Great Merchant in capital.
Turn 139: Met SURYAVARMAN II. Not sure how, but he's there. He also founded Buddhism. Also of note on this turn, I missed out on The Hanging Gardens by a single turn in Thebes. I'm not too dissapointed though - I only spent a few turns building it, and I've got over 300 gold as a reward. Nice!
Turn 149: Mausoleum of Mausellos built in Thebes. Hooray for longer Golden Ages!
Turn 157 (940 AD): Optics researched. Met MANSA MUSA, who is just east of me. He's already researched Paper, and he'll beat me to the Liberalism race if I'm not careful. Might have to try and do a bit tech trading.

I left it there. I'm teching at a decent rate now, and should be able to win the Liberalism race, hopefully. Building a few Caravels to go out and find the others civs, and hopefully scope one out to declare war upon. Should that happen, I'll probably plod along towards Military Tradition after Astronomy. I also might found another coastal town on the southern point of the island to grab that Fish. I dunno, we'll see.

Here's how it's looking;

End result!

Spoiler :

Lost it by 4 turns. Mansa Musa won a cultural victory in 1921, 4 turns before my spaceship was due to arrive at Alpha Centauri. Gutted. Was agonisingly close a Diplomatic Victory too. Just could never get the final 50 or so votes I needed. So I'm dissapointed to lose this one.

I made a decision after Astronomy to leave a domination victory - trying to break onto the other continent would be too difficult for me. On the other continent, the main players at first were Mansa Musa (tech fiend) and Suryvarman, but Sury soon lost influence and fell by the wayside. In his place rose Qin (of China), who suddenly started teching like crazy in the latter part of the game. Ragnar and his Vassal - Frederick - were only minor players, and Louis had a large empire but wasn't really achievement much tech, military or culture wise.

So. I managed to keep up with and have a slight tech lead over Qin and Mansa Musa. But then, towards the end of the game, round about the time Qin and myself built the Apollo Programme, Mansa started pouring everything into culture. I was left in a really tough spot. If I built up and declared war on Mansa Musa, I'd probably lose the space race to Qin. So I tried to bribe other nations to go to war with Mansa Musa, but it didn't really achieve much. In the end, I decided to go for broke, and poured everything into getting my spaceship launched ASAP, and hope I beat Mansa to the punch. Unfortunatly - despite having 3 consecutive Mausoleum of Mausellos enhanced Golden Ages at the end - it wasn't enough, and he beat me by 4 turns.

Gah.

mystyfly · Jan 28, 2008

Monarch

My game didn't really follow this order so I put the whole in this spoiler. Note please that this is my first LHC Game.

Spoiler :

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/125166/smitr_-_cultural_-_Lonely_Ramesses_AD-1832.CivBeyondSwordSave

Edit:

Spoiler :

pawelo · Jan 28, 2008

After a (quite long) period of silence, back on the track and reporting a pretty good going game.

Spoiler :

r_rolo1 · Jan 28, 2008

Monarch checkpoint 4

Spoiler :

As a aside , next leader will be Hannibal of Carthage. Stay tuned :goodjob:

dragomaster · Jan 29, 2008

r_rolo1 what mod do you use. the greate people points, growth warning people have mutch monney etc.. could you ad a ling to the mod maybe?

mystyfly · Jan 29, 2008

It's BUG-Mod, BtS Unaltered Gameplay, link

pawelo · Jan 29, 2008

I like missing some checkpoints

Spoiler :

Will surely be looking forward for the next one.
Thanks rolo!

Kennigit · Feb 1, 2008

This one ended in a loss for me. After I failed to get the taj mahal (Louis must have rushed it with a great engineer, he had nationalism for ~2 turns before he built it), I continued teching and won the physics race. I missed the Communism race by ~3 turns (would have started a Golden age), and was able to eventually trade for democracy. I continued teching and used ragnar/Louis as a gold farm, trading them older techs for money, and got in acouple useful trades with some techs, like biology, to the others. Unfortunately, Mansa was still ahead of me in tech, and right when I was 2 turns away from Industrianalism in 1720, Qin declared war on me. His rifles killed my weak units and took Memphis- at that point I just gave up. The whole other continent was at war, and I thought that I could sneak by with virtually no military, but in the end I lost. Still and fun and exciting game, and I was surprised at how quickly the AI's were teching compared to other BtS games.

dalamb · May 15, 2009

A recent discussion of the benefits of madrassas and obelisks led me to decide to use this game as a place to try out a religious/priest economy. If I understand correctly, the essence of a priest economy is:

Run priest specialists to generate Great Prophet points.
Found a religion and build its shrine with one GP for +1 per city with that religion. Spread it widely unless you've built the AP and want to try for an AP diplomatic victory. which is best if you have an ally of your religion and only one city in each other civilization with that religion.
Possibly use a GP to bulb religion techs like Theology (Christianity) and Divine Right (Islam); a later religion might only be useful if you have a spare GP for a 2nd shrine and expect to be able to spread that religion widely.
Possibly build the AP, which gives hammer benefits (can't recall the details) as well as enabling a religious victory.
Build the University of Sankore for +2 in its city per state religion building. Presumably this goes in your main science city, which might also have the Great Library and might be running science specialists.
Build the Spiral Minaret for +2 in its city per state religion building. Presumably this goes in your main commerce city, which might also have Wall Street.
Possibly build Angor Wat for +1 in its city per priest specialist. Presumably this is only appropriate if you expect to keep running priest specialists in the late game.
Possibly build the Sistine Chapel for +5 in its city for each state religion building, and +2 in its city for each specialist in all cities.

This means research priorities include

Theology for the AP and possibly Christianity.
Philosophy for Angor Wat and possibly Taosm, available after CoL. It's needed for Liberalism anyway. Apparently, if you get it first the AI don't prioritize it themselves, which helps win the Liberalism race.
Paper for Sankore, available after Civil Service, and required for Liberalism.
Divine Right for the Spiral Minaret, requiring the religious techs I'd be going for anyway, plus Monarchy.
Music for the Sistine Chapel and the cathedrals, which count as state religion buildings for some of the wonders. The GA would be useful for a golden age.

Are there any other pieces to this strategy?

I picked Egypt for the obelisks, and Ramesses because he's IND, which makes for faster construction of all those wonders. I play at Noble, and decided to turn off barbarians.

Anyway, as of 2125 BC I've explored the island and so am ready for

Spoiler Checkpoint 1 :

I finished exploring the island a little while ago, but didn't make a dotmap until just now, after finishing my first settler.

I expect to settle Dark Blue (west) first for the marble, which I want to have online in time to boost production of the Oracle. Light Blue (south) seemed necessary for the stone, to make it even faster to build Angor Wat and the U.Sankore and possibly the Pyramids, but it's otherwise a poor site.

A scout popped a map on the eastern hut, which revealed that interesting island to the east. Red is a horrible location but is worthwhile if exploration shows the possibility of connecting up with an AI border on another continent over that way -- I recall various comments in later LHCs about r_rolo1 cleverly allowing some early ocean-spanning via such borders in "some older LHC" and I guess this is one of them! The light blue northeast of Thebes is essential at some point so its border pop can let a galley reach the island. I initially thought I should make that the 3rd city, but later wondered if I should delay for a while to build the white city first; I don't know how valuable it is to reach the other AIs earlier, and even a fairly lengthy delay would let me "cross an ocean" long before Optics.

But none of these cities looks like an especially good production centre. I wonder if white (coastal, northwest of Thebes, near pigs) would be a good one, suitable for a 3rd city or even a 2nd, pre-stone? Or, possibly 1E of there?

It will have +4F from the pigs, +1F*4 from farmable grasslands, and +4F from fish with a lighthouse -- total +12F. This lets it work the horses (-1F) and the -2F tundra hills (-2F*3), total -9F, net +3F. Or, it could become a GP farm and run specialists instead of working the hills -- switching back to production when it needs a new building.
1E exchanges a farmable grassland for a river plains tile (a change of -2F) but lets me improve the grassland hill instead of settling on it, for -1F+2H. That's a net -3F with respect to the hill site, which means +0F total. It picks up a minable hill (-1F+3H) to the east but the bridge-to-island city is going to need that one, so White would rarely, if ever, work it.

I think this analysis means my hill site is a better GP farm and 1E is a better production city. Any advice?

Minor notes: I built Stonehenge to start on Great Prophet points and to make border expansion easier before I manage to spread around a state religion. I am currently researching Code Of Laws (enabled via Priesthood) but I may switch to Currency first, since (a) I need it eventually (b) I don't care if I miss Confucianism and (c) it apparently gives a research bonus if I have both prerequisites.

IPEX-731BA5DD06 · May 15, 2009

the Spiral Miranet Give +2 gold/science in the city that has the building, not the city of the wonder, so build it in you hammer city/wonder city.

Apostolic Palace, Change into a small non spread religion 1 turn BEFORE you build it, now the Apostolic Palace religion is now set to that Religion i.e. Taoism.

Switch back to your main religion now, eg Hinduism, that you've spread for the max gold effect.

Now if you want a religions victory, spread Taoism to all your cities and to 1 small population city of each of your opponents.

Now you have 80% + of the votes and the other's have MAX 20% combined. You now can vote yourself Religious victory.

Priests are strong as they give +2 hammers, +5 gold settled. Angkor Wat will give you +3 Priest specialists MUCH earlier then Ironworks become available.

Obelisk or Monument gives 2 extra Priest slots.

dalamb · May 16, 2009

IPEX-731BA5DD06 said:
the Spiral Miranet Give +2 gold/science in the city that has the building, not the city of the wonder, so build it in you hammer city/wonder city.

Great! Does the same apply to Sankore, which is worded in a similar way ("per state religion building")?

IPEX-731BA5DD06 · May 16, 2009

All the bonus per building wonders usually work the same, they give the bonus per building in city. You'll see a +2 :science:

or a +2

next to the building.

Things like the Extra Scientist etc, happen where the wonder is built, as its directly related to THAT wonder. Bonus enhanced buildings wonders happen where the building is built.

The others just apply across the empire, free this, bonus that etc.

Finally the +3 :science:

per library, is only for 1 city, so not that great really, if it was +3 per library empire wide, :wow:

dalamb · May 17, 2009

Checkpoint 2, 2125 BC - 340 AD. Not long after meeting the AIs:

Spoiler :

Ignorant Teacher · Mar 13, 2010

As the new ones aren't coming, let's play an oldie.

Immortal / Normal - Checkpoint 1

Spoiler :

Rolo, is the series over?

r_rolo1 · Mar 13, 2010

Not over... but you are the first person that even said something about continuing it to me :/

I will probably start one next Saturday. Not sure if I'll keep the two week peridiocity , though...

dalamb · May 26, 2010

My main problem over the years has been abandoning games when they started to get "complicated". Having recently won my first Prince-level game I decided I needed a break and re-did this one at Noble after a year's gap. I'm happy to say:

An AP win, pretty much according to the plan I talked about last year, with a few glitches.

Spoiler :

I built Stonehenge and Oracle'd MC, used the resulting GP to bulb Theology (to be used as the AP religion) but missed Confucianism this time around and went for Taoism instead; I used the 2nd GP to build the Taoist shrine, and spread Taoism as far as possible.

At initial contact I switched to No Religion for the diplomatic benefit, and discovered the Jewish Block: Mansa, Sury, and Frederick. They all more or less liked each other so I felt free to trade with them, worked all of them up to Friendly, and spread Taoism far and wide. Eventually they all converted to Taoism. This set up the requisite block of "friends" who would likely vote for me. It was easy to spread Christianity (AP religion) to one city each.

The problem was Ragnar, Louis, and Qin, all of whom disliked me. Expecting trouble, I tech'd to Liberalism, minus one turn, and kept an eye on what everyone else was researching before finishing it; this let me take Steel. In order to be able to do this I made sure to direct enough espionage to be able to see what everybody was tech'ing, so BUG could tell me who was getting close; somebody else was a couple of turns from Liberalism before I finished, and I just barely beat Sury to Communism for the Great Spy and Fascism for the Great General.

I did a lot more tech trading in this game than I usually do. I've always been afraid of trading a "good" tech to the AIs, but several times I was able to get a couple of techs from different leaders and sell something to the others. Trading with Sury gave him enough of a leg up that he beat me to a couple of things, like Economics, but it wasn't a real problem.

I then built up a nice set of cannons while tech'ing to Rifling. When Ragnar declared war on me, I shipped the army to Mansa's territory, and mustered them in Angor Wat (Sury's southernmost city), building a railroad to make mustering faster. I conquered Rags' two westernmost cities; when he capitulated I kept one to use as a foothold of my own on that continent, and gifted the other back. As a vassal he readily accepted my single Christian missionary; eventually I spread enough Taoists to convert him, too.

While building a bigger army to tackle Louis, who appeared to be my equal in power at that point, I noticed Qin was willing to open borders. Not knowing how long it would be before one of my friends demanded that I close borders, I gathered several missionaries near his borders, then OB'd and sent them in, getting my one Chinese Christian city.

With Louis I tried the "caravel with missionary" trick: gift a caravel to him, hoping he'd use it as people once told me he should, but the turn after I gave him the caravel it and its missionary disappeared. I had ships watching everywhere it could have gone. No Christian city. So once again I sent in the troops. There was a tense moment when Louis conquered Rag's nearest city, and another when a huge stack moved up against one I'd captured after I'd move the main SoD out to take the next city. However, I bombed the stack with airships, and watched it suicide against my Drill II machine guns (of which I lost exactly one). When he lost enough cities he capitulated -- converting to Taoism as part of the capitulation (I hadn't spread any missionaries myself; he must have had it auto-spread to a couple of places, or else Sury or Mansa sent him a few). I spread Christianity in one city.

Shortly thereafter Fred asked to become my vassal. Without checking, I accepted -- to find myself at war with Qin. I created a colony (under Sulieman) to free up all my troops and help Fred against Qin. However, within a few turns the AP victory resolution came up, and I won -- everybody but Qin voting for me.

Spoiler status at end of game :

Edit: I got one really nice event, which instantly grew one of my food-poorest cities to its limit:

dm17978 · Jun 2, 2010

I won diplo after conquering Loui and taking a few of ragnars cities i had friendly with mali and fred and qin shu huang. played on monarch.

dalamb · Jun 2, 2010

Was it UN or AP diplo?

mtr12 · Nov 28, 2011

Ecuwins told me to try this game. Dunno why tho.

Spoiler :

ecuwins · Nov 28, 2011

ops, not this one. This one - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=410572

I just checked and there is no Emp WB save, but one could be edited up in about 2min.

Lonely Hearts Club, BTS Edition, Chapter XI: Ramesses II

Chieftain

Knight of Cydonia

Emperor

King of myself

Warlord

Knight of Cydonia

Emperor

proud 2 boxer

Deity

Deity

Deity

Deity

Deity

Emperor

King of myself

Deity

Chieftain

Attachments

Deity

Prince

Emperor

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