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

r_rolo1

King of myself
Joined
May 19, 2006
Messages
13,818
Location
Lisbon, Portugal
Welcome to the 11th 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 :p ): starting in isolation....

For the 11th game in BTS the choosed leader was Ramesses II of the Egyptians:
Spoiler :



Ramesses is one of the more respected leaders in Civ IV. It has a strong UU, good for a early rush, a powerful and early UB and Ind/Spi as traits, a quite strong combination. A lot of times Ramesses is used to run what some posters call "Religious Economy" ( aka making all the wonders religion related and the A. Wat and run a full priest economy with extra beakers and cash from religious buildings ), but even without that the extra speed in wonder construction and the ability of shifting civs without anarchy is a big deal.

His UU.
Spoiler :

The War chariot... basically a beefed Chariot ( in spite of the immunity to first strikes make of him a quite good archer eraser... as archers normally are the main garrison of the more ancient areas.... :devil: ). I'm sure that lots of people already read and/or tried a WC rush and I'm quite sure that they found that it is a strong move, especially if you somehow get the Stonehenge ( captured city becames productive much faster ). But in isolation they will be not much more than barb hunters and HR garrisons :(

His UB.
Spoiler :

The obelisk is a beefed monument that allows you to hire 2 priest specialists. As some players already showed, this specialist slots will be the first appearing in the game, and combined with Representation and A. Wat, these priests became very powerful specialists...... Of course that they will generate Prophets as GP , and some people shun them because of the lack of good bulbing options. But for a economy based in the religion, they are welcomed .....

The start:
Spoiler :

I really don't like this start.... not much of resources in BFC and one of them is a calendar one ... meh. But it has a decent ammount of food and wood to chop, so it is not that bad

Again a small request ( not mandatory :p ) :

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 :p ) 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 :goodjob: . And let the games begin!

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

Big and late P.S: I posted a group of WB saves to replace the missing files. Will probably replace gradually all the old LHCs for WB files if I still have original saves to transform
 

Attachments

  • LHC XI ( Ramesses ).zip
    51.3 KB · Views: 418
Hmm...well, I guess I completely missed the last one after not finishing the Ragnar game (I just gave up), but this one looks promising. I actually like the start: very cottagable, corn gives plenty of food, and there are floodplains.

PS- how did you get all 6 saves in one post?
 
The save links are taking me to a gmail login page.
 
I'm VERY excited about this one. I absolutely love playing Ramesses.
Angkor Wat + Stonehenge, Pyramids, U of Sankore, AP, and S. Minerat w/ Ind/Spi = Sex.

1/2 prices temples giving +2 :science:, :hammers:, :gold:, 50% wonder production, and being able to hire 2 preists off the getgo with stonehenge owns, not to mention free civic changes.


I'm going to be playing this one on Immortal, Ramesses has ideal traits for the ultimate settled specialist/wonder economy.
 
First attempt with Ramesses. I'm normally a CE type of guy who prefers the financial leaders. But Ramesses doesn't seem suited for that type of play. How did this end?

Spoiler :

In disaster! :lol: I tried the emperor save and was doing okayish. Founded Taoism and Islam and I realised afterward I should have slingshot and went for confucianism as well. As I said, I normally don't wonderwhore much and the religious techs were a bit awkard for me. Maybe I shouldn't have made that kind of strategy. I built most of the wonders I aimed at, pyramids (forgot to switch to rep until 30 turns later... again I don't build wonders! Stupid ind trait), GL, Angkor Wat, and a few more just for the hell of it. overexpanded (again, I'm used to financial income, not SE) got all my workers disbanded, but somehow I still stayed in the game. Was actually ahead when I came in contact with mansa and had a monster capital producing tons of GP points and fueling my research. Still, Sury managed to snatch lib 3 turns ahead of me due to a golden age and I figured I was screwed when it came to space or time win. Diplo, or military was also out more or less. So it became a culture gamble. Had two decent holy cities and my wonderheavy capital which I focused on. Went up the tech tree for the three 50% culture wonders and ET. I might actually yet have won this one if it hadn't been for Sury. He declared war on me and while I had enough troops to repell him, he managed to land a small invasion force in one of my holy cities and that was that. With most infrastructure gone there it was no point to drag it out. GG, gamble failed. I might make a second more carefully planned try, but it kinda feels like cheating when you already know the map.
 
@Pe Ell
Spoiler :
I would suggest you a retry... the map is not that generous and ramesses with cottages is simply :nono: ( I know a certain poster that would :wallbash: if he saw this... Hint: no cottages ;) )

And about knowing map = cheating... then I'm a cheater in all of the BtS LHC :lol: Seriously, if you try it after playing another map, you won't remember much.....


@cheffster
Spoiler :
I gave the map a test try ( in noble... always the first level I make ) and I suppose that what you suggested is the way to go with this map, mainly because the map has few good city sites... with a religious type economy your cities can be rubbish and still be useful. And the Ramesses traits joined with the UB make it very doable and powerful
 
Immortal

Spoiler :
Gave this one a go and am doing decent. I wanted to move the capital so that it got a levee, and I moved 1NE to scout, then went into the forest 1N of the orignal spot. This got me the pig, but I would have to later split it up with another city. As for the start, I went for stonehenge and got it, and missed the oracle by ~3 turns in my 2nd city, which is on the coast to the east with the pig and lots of mines. I could have chopped a forest to get the oracle done, but I wanted to *greedily* try to go for the civil service slingshot (had ~3 turns left on CoL, needed some 7 turns for mathematics). Wasn't very bright of me, but it turned out to be ok.

After the oracle miss, I picked up monarchy and head for the great library. I ended up getting the GLB in my 2nd city, and meanwhile rexed the continent. First contact came early with Frederick, and a little while later I sent out a workboat and found pretty much everyone. For some reason, suleiman teched really fast in this game (compared to the other LHC games I've done), but I still beat him to liberalism in 1050, picking up printing press. GP wise, I've gotten 1 preist that was settled, 1 scientist that made an academy, 1 scientist for a GA, 1 scientist to pop education, and will have antoher one soon to probably make another academy. Right now I plan to get the taj mahal w/ that tasty marble, will build 1 more city that will get farmed up, and might be able to get a war in the future . Suleiman and Mansa are with me in tech, but right where I left off the other continent somewhat went into a world war. Here are some screen-shots (right after I got literature and right when I got Liberalism).
View attachment 167967

View attachment 167968
 
About cottaging, Ramesses does have good synergy with a SE for a high-food economy and lots of specialists, but I personally still find it usefull to build some cottages here and there. You would need 2 farms in order to have enough food surplus to hire an extra specialist, and since I only ever have 1 GP farm, even with mids, by exchanging 2 cottages all you're getting is just 1 extra specialist, which even with mids, isn't really worth it imo. 1 Specialist giving + 6 :science: or :gold:, or cottages which after not too long would give 8 commerce instead, and then alot more after printing press, etc.
But it depends, since cottages don't give any :hammers: it might be better to build 2-3 farms per city and hire 2 priests, but after that I prefer cottaging.
 
Monarch

Spoiler :
Yup, I have to give this a try in a obsolete style method someday, since there is both stone and marble. This one is in a CE through :blush: But I have used priests and still use religious stuff...

There's been a Suleyman??? I never met one, maybe he started near Raggy... :lol:

That start isn't exactly isolated, met everyone with a workboat too... because I founded a city at the right location :crazyeye: After the borders expanded, I noticed a little island and built a workboat to explore it... WHAM, I nearly crashed into Sury's boat :lol:


Spoiler :

Checkpoint... 2.5, perhaps?

Started and moved the settler one north, too. Hey, that capital is a classical example for Sisis riverside ironworks city :lol: A little short on early prod though. My second city was built in the south to claim the pigs while still working quite some mines. Later copper popped in one. :goodjob: Then I built stonehenge in thought of a theology bulb. Settled another city further to the south to claim copper and built the mids, somehow no AI was interested in it and I finished it by 720 BC. Then expanding a little too fast, settling the first prophet to solve a bit of the issue hoping for another prophet but the mids kicked in and I got a engineer. Then I researched Theo manually and used the Eng for the Apostolic - better me than them. My workboat stumbled into Sury, Mansa and Freddy, and Theo was excellent trading fodder because I was 7 techs behind or so. There were religious issues, but Surys Hindu spread to me, allowing me to convert 5 turns to Hinduism, then trade and go back to Christianity. Got both Sankore and Minaret, and won Liberalism Race by one turn (thank god I diverted all EP to Sury!), claiming Printing Press for my cottage-heavy empire. I was going straight to Democracy grabbing the Taj in the progress. I started some other wonders in a city but they never finished, fueling my research. Now I'm 2-3 techs ahead of Mansa and even more ahead of the rest. Oh, and I met Louis, Raggy and Qin too. Louis seems to prepare war on me (he also has astro) so I'm beelining to Rifles.

Oh, and: Spiritual rocks. Absolutely.

The game should be won by now, question is whether I want to win by space or by domination. I'm leaning to the latter, getting tanks and SP and rushing over everyone.
 
That was a lot of fun! I decided to try out the Emperor save...

Spoiler :

I basically ended up playing an Obsolete-style WS/SSE strategy (except with cottages!) Seeing as Ramesses is industrious and we're isolated, there's not much else to do! :D

Early wonders:



Managed to grab every wonder I was aiming at except University of Sankore, and much later, The Three Gorges Dam.

Continent view around 1500 AD:



Trudging along nicely to space, until...



Can't have that!





Finally:



In the mean time, the French pay for their insolence:



And we're off in 1972!



Took its sweet time, but the isolated start and Sury's attempt at a cultural win delayed the launch considerably.

Save: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/63131/AutoSave_AD-1972.CivBeyondSwordSave
 
In my Monarch game, Sury had the 2 shrines of the dominant religions in 1 city. It was a prize. Knowing the AI will go down the scientific method line over the Infantry line made the war easy. I attacked sury with cannons and infantry. The next turn, everyone declared on me. It was a battle, I gained some cities from surry, then lost them to China or the French. Some of the stacks they sent were huge. I ended up retreating out of the city under seige, they would take it....then i would take it back with my CR2 Infantry.

I got peace with the French, then China....then Sury capitulated to me. I then attacked and capitulated Ragnar, then the french, then China. I think it ended in 1860ish.
 
To clarify, I was running a SE in my first game but I was so unused to it so I messed it all up. Had no timing and didn't know what to bulb. But now for my next trick:

Emperor

Spoiler :

I did three restarts, giving up fairly early just so I'd get a feel for the tech tree and what to do in different situations. Finally I was ready to make a second real attempt. Isolated start and ind just screams wonder heavy so I set up an economy using priest and scientist while my capitol built every single wonder, well nearly. Oracle slingshot for CoL, popped philo with a scientist, bulbed theo with a Great prophet and half bulbed/half research DR. That gave me four religions and luckily enough 2 holy cities, elephantine and memphis with my capitol getting tons of culture from all its wonders. I soon had all the shrines built and explored the other continent around 500 AD with a workboat.

Mansa and to some extent fredrick became my tech buddies, was soon up to friendly with mansa after I got lib and switched to free religion. Diplo bonuses would have killed me if I hadn't. I kept up in tech fairly well and went for the cultural wonder ones. I built enough of an army in time to repell the AI, which proved neccecary when Ragnar, Sury and Luis declared war on me the same turn around 1860. B*stards. By that time I had one city above 50k culture and two other above 30k. Memphis and Ele was both making 800-1000 k a turn (capitaol at 1400 a turn) so I just needed 25 more turn or so. Here's some screens right before the inevitable.









Cultural Victory in 1888! Woho! :king:
And not a single cottage built the whole game. :p

 
Took the immortal save:
I got oddly lucky a couple of times.
Spoiler :
I pop mysticism from a hut and decide to go for hindu after mining. This was kind of a cheap shot since if I'm beat I likely only sink a couple of turns into poly, and I was headed for oracle anyway. So I found hindu--maybe the only time I've done that w/o myst at immortal. In my early scouting I had missed a couple of tiles and as they looked like desert I ended up delaying scouting them (I was using warriors only to fogbust). This led me to miss the stone initially and found my second city on the hill by the pig/fish to the NE. I pop an early engineer with my capital forge and he builds the mids.
While I wonderspammed the capital (SH, Oracle--MC, Mids, AP, Glib, Uof S, Shywedegon Paya,Chicken, Angkor) so far, I build the colosseus in Memphis. This led to an early border pop and got me to the island and over to the other continent. So I got pretty early contact and trading while having the luxury of the continent to myself to develop at my leisure. A trireme stood guard just to make sure. To top it off the other continent is doing a good job of warring amongst themselves. At 1020 I'm about to pop lib, and if I trade edu around I pick up all the usual missing techs. I also pop gold. Not sure if I'll finish--seems a bit too easy now (5 settled GP and more on the way).
 
my save is here:
 

Attachments

  • Lonely Ramesses AD-1020.CivBeyondSwordSave
    215.4 KB · Views: 364
I've seached out the entire Island....so point 2
Spoiler :
Went wonder crazy. Not used to the normal speed, I'm a marathon player usually.

Built Oracle, took Metal casting, put in a forge, popped a GP first..oh well, built city in desert to claim the stone/copper/pigs.

Missed the Great wall, as I said, too used to slower speeds, built Pyramids, rep STRAIGHT AWAY :goodjob:. Built Pathenon, GL, Colossus, Statute of Zues, missed Mausaleum, Thinking of grabbing the free Great artist for Music, that'll be a first.

Met 2 AI's, or they met me with the work boats....Wow..dind't exepct that.

Someones waging a MAJOR war, GG's popping out.

Behind in Tech's, Settling my 6th city, Traded Literture for Iron working, and have just teched Machinary.

I"m a bit lost on tech order...all over place, teching at a good rate, but will have to trade my way out...it seems like...

I don't expect to win....have to wait and see how things turn out.



:confused: Hmm
 
decisions...decisions....:confused:
Spoiler :
After much reflection and consideration, I decided on a Cultural victory with a space race as a back up.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/74511/Civ4ScreenShot0006.JPG

Its a most interesting diplomatci situation, mostly Buddist, with one standout being Ragnar the Hindu.

I was considering a UN victory, but couldn't figure away to get Ragnar as my opponent, as Louis has Greatest Pop, and is proberly more loved than me.

I'm keepin up with the AI's in research, and production is a monster in my capital thebes.....

I've just achieved Railroad and the Machineguns...so I'll spam 3/4 in each city while I tech up the cultural wonders tree, then swing back into the Military again.

It would seem they are all quite happy to stay on own island, Surry and mansa, are Cautious with each other, and both have large stacks on boarder cities with each other, so I think its just a matter of time before they war, if at all:confused:

Ragnar, DESPITE being constantly DOGPILED. has maintained his empire, and a tech rate to stay alive, I'll be feeding him some most likely Railroad.

Surry is Trying a Cultural Victory on me, Louis, is trying a diplomatic Victory, I accidently voted for him in an apocolitic victory, thought it was for leader..:mad: DOH!!!!!! fell short....Phew......

The others...Quin, is behind, and Domination, Ragnar same again, Mansa, I assume Space, Frederick? dunno lost like I was

Interesting time ahead, have to see how I go.

I usually just kill all, and be dammed with Diplomatic relations, but this game, as I came from behind with tech's. I did some favourable trades to the AI's and ended up in a defence pacts, Frederick and Louis have one as well.
 
:eek: you'll have to peek to see :lol:
Spoiler :

1976 space race victory

I was oringinally going to go for a cultural victory, but Mansa and Surry, were BOTH going for this. I couldn't seem to get enough culture, even with the 3 cultural wonders and building Catherdrals for the 4 religions I had spread to me. They both must have set Culture to 100%, as they both fell off badly in the teching.

As I had both Mansa and Surry challanging me for the Cultural wonders, I had to rush a few in my capital, not an ideal situation, but it claimed them.

Only other late wonders I built were, SoLib (mid game), and 3Gorges Dam.

Built the internet, so went from being down 6 techs, mostly useless ones, to being up a couple...NICE...

From there, it was Labratories, Robotics for mech Infantry defence, and a few bribed wars on the other land once I felt safe defensively.

Bribed wars with a few techs, kept feeding Ragnar to keep him alive and a target, UNGRATEFUL LITTLE s**** Declared war on me, right after having made peace in another war, that I bribed for him....Proberly bribed himself.

Frederick kept having 'too much on his hands'...finally attacked...Ragnar I think. Got mansa dogpiled...end of his threat, same for Surry, and burnt down both their 3rd cultural cities, handly on the coast for me.

I missed the space Elevator, as I messed about too much, thought I had it easily, then couldn't build in capital, had to build in 5th hammer city...not happy Jan.

Frederick actually built it, both Engineer corps, as well as another, but still couldn't get to Fussion BEFORE i'd Launched.

Louis, was the score leader, with nearly my Island mass to self, all productive lands, so really more land then me. It was no wonder.

Once I started the war bribes, they 'Friendly alliances' Quickly fell away, with Qin, ready to back stab, Ragnar happy to attack ANYONE. Surry, bribed into attacking Mansa, I then bribed Ragnar to attack, and i did so myself, burning down his 3rd cultural city, 4th was on Ocean aswell, but didn't need to burn it.

Rangar was ONLY AI, who landed troops on my home lands, only because I wanted the GG points for wiping them out in my lands.

Very UNEVENTFUL game, UNTIL I decided, I was safe and bribed some wars, not worrying about diplomacy.

Damm Louis, tried for Diplomatic through UN, and the Apoltolic palace, till went free religion.

In final stage of game, I was just bribing, didn't care about the tech's, was selling ragnar techs from steel onwards for 10-50 gold, as I wanted him as target. But to be able to defend self.

Bribed Surry to first war with Plastics, but as was going for Cultural, it didn't matter. After that, it was bribed wars, or self initiated wars. Alway's nice to see 2 V's 1 wars.

I could have gotten a much earlier space race, if I'd been focused on it, and not so Laxidacial...

But for what is really only 1/5 games at normal spead over 2 yr's..I feel I did really well...
Need to work on my Cultural victories..
 
Having a crack at Monarch... Checkpoint 1:

Spoiler :
Settled in place.
Turn 7: Popped a hut for a map.
Turn 21: Adopted Slavery
Turn 30: Truffles? How delicious!
Turn 35: Popped hut for 37 gold.
Turn 36: Popped hut for hunting.
Turn 39: Settler built.

I'm quite excited by this start. Thebes looks like it would work very well with Bureaucracy, should I choose to cottage some of the land. But best of all... stone and marble! I'd like to get these hooked up from cities 2 and 3.

So, I'm thinking I might as well try to Oracle slingshot Metal Casting, for cheap forges. There's various seafood resources dotted around, so I may have a go at the Pyramids for Representation - maybe run a hybrid economy. And considering I like building coastal towns, Great Lighthouse seems like a no brainer. If I can found Confusianism, I'll probably run Organised Religion too.

Cultural victory is a possibility here, but we'll see.
 
Top Bottom