Lonely Hearts Club, BTS Edition, Chapter XIII: Gandhi

[r_rolo1]

Bleys,

Spoiler :

if you don't get a cultural or a AP out of this one....

I think the best way to use the situation you created is to get some missionaries from diferent religions and spread religions to burn diplo even more ( or to create a anti big guy coalition... ), or alternatively , try a AP win... but religons will spread like bush fire after you get your first missionary out there... so it need a well timed aproach and no Astro out there.... )

I think that a Cultural + diplo mayem outside would be a nice aproach...

Good to see some very diferent aproaches to this game... clearly Gandhi traits allow a broad range of alternatives.

 

[Bleys]

rolo:

Spoiler :

I have been thinking about it a lot, actually. I havent even played another turn, other than to start CS research, and start the AP in my cap. I also had a missionary on the way to Calcutta, so I now have Buddism in all my cities, and I actually think I can squeeze 2 more reasonable cities in, one in the center of the jungle with a lot of shared tiles, but still, it can build 7 temples. Crazy fun though, LOL.

I actually got the idea from a combination of spoilers, since I noticed those who didnt get an early religion had much more conflict on the other continent, and those who went for more religions almost made it. I skipped techs like AH and IW for quite a while to pull it off though, backfilled those quickly with the early Libraries (and got the GL in my cap, to boot). I may even still go for Domination, since the other continent will be fighting a lot more than me. Once I get a couple more important techs, I am beelineing Lib with the necessary pre-techs to take Astro. I think, anyway, LOL, never had a game like this, so its all new to me. Thats the thing I love about these LHCs, so many new ideas and plans.

 

[DMOC]

Sounds to be like an interesting game. I would like to play but I just don't have the time now.

I read some of the reports and its interesting how Zara Yaqob managed to win a domination victory. Did he have a super start or is the Zara AI just the smartest of the AI's?

 

[r_rolo1]

I read some of the reports and its interesting how Zara Yaqob managed to win a domination victory. Did he have a super start or is the Zara AI just the smartest of the AI's?

Zara IMHO is one of the AI that plays better overall, and it is not unusual to see him pursue Dom ( The infamous " We rather win the game , thank you." when you ask for them to stop the wars..... ). He's quite dangerous if you let him loose ( I do remember my version of the João LHC where he decided to respond to my SS launch with a nice exchange of nuclear fireworks... the only UN vote that we agree was to block the no nuke vote )... but even when he doesn't get to try dom he always try to win ( he's one of the few AI that actually tries to win the game IMHO... Willem and Shaka can go there too), normally trying a backdoor cultural or Diplo win.

When I see him in a game I always know that I need to work a little bit harder.....

 

[pawelo]

@rolo

Do you handpick AIs ? Seems to me Qin is there rather often, and knowing your MLG choices...

 

[r_rolo1]

RNG.... and if I wanted Qin, I would play with him

P.S. I hate Qin... that is why I'm forcing myself to play him in the MLG

 

[Cam_H]

P.S. I hate Qin... that is why I'm forcing myself to play him in the MLG

Why hate Qin rolo?

Congratulations to those who found success, and commiserations to those who didn't (imho very unlucky on the Domination loss).

Spoiler :

I note that Organised Religion wasn't commented on frequently in the reports - to me Pacifism was the best religious civic until 'the competition' decided to show itself, but I felt OR was a very important civic prior to Philosophy, especially with the relatively 'ordinary' natural hammer haul of the island.

rolo - thanks again for hosting this.

 

[r_rolo1]

Qin is somewhat hard to leverage... or you go wonder crazy or you beeline hard to machinery to abuse of the UU. His traits aren't economical and his UB doesn't fit with the rest ( unless you want to pop artists to settle in cultural cities.... and I don't like cultural wins ). All of this means that whatever path you choose to use Qin , you need to choose it pretty early in the game and it will be not optimal due to the misusage of a lot of the features of the leader/civ combo....

 

[Bleys]

I think Qin was the most unbalanced leader in Vanilla, because he was IND/FIN (can we guess who that is in BTS? Oh yeah, the only leader not allowed in HoF games anymore, heh), because it was pretty simple to pop out wonders, MC slingshot with the Oracle, and pop a GE for Machinery, and you're practically Chu-time.

I havent tried him in BTS though, been too hooked on Ramses and Willem.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

After, having started 4 times over, I finally got off to what I was happy with.

Check point 1

Spoiler :

Rather late...proberly not till 1500's...As I still had 1 or 2 darkened Squares....but I sailed about the Island in ohh 500 bc..so take your choice. Not a lot of production, I decided to settle on rivers and then 4 squares around the coast, I made one error, in that I settled a coastal city, when I planed a Wall street/cottage city in centre of grasslands with 1 sugar tile...Settled the city then when...."doh..... " that last city blocked out the Land based cottage city..proberly cost my Mucho time.

I decided on the "don't found any early religions stratergy", So Beelined the Great Lighthouse, waited for Buddasism and Hundism to be founded, Teched Jedawaism to 1 turn, then went off for Mathamatics till it was...Popped a Great Merchant, as Great Lighthouse was only wonder, I missed temple Of A, bulbed CoL's, and teched Math's (1 remaining) then completed Oracle (1 turn) for a Civil Service Sling shot...Wooo Hooo I was killing them now.

Check point 2 met all the Civ's

Spoiler :

Bah..I just let them all come to me...Last one was DeGaul, I was Seriously worried he'd been Eliminated early on and I'd have to go 'look see' if it was so...but he eventaully turned up, as I was teching to Infantry. But then again, so was he....

Back to before, I messed about with Great Libriary, tried to build it in Bombay, By the sheep, without Marble, As I was just founding cities around the coast Via land...Dumb Dumb, as I could have easily built it with marble....

Teched paper, Uni of Sankor, Education, Uni's, but my 5/6 cities were rather imature...so had to wait on that, Liberialism, and took Constitution as free tech, Proberly could have held out for Rifling...lol....but too many tech's to backfill to get pre Req's...

Built the SoL, BEFORE anyone even had Constitution, Self teched Nationalism, and built the Taj Mahal. Other wonders I gained were as follow's, in order;
Great Lighthouse (Great merchant for CoL's, No Math's before), Pyramids, Oracle, Hanging Gardens, Founded Confussinism, Mausaleom of Mass, Missed both the Parthenon and Great Libriary, as I didnt' settle marble untill way too late...Just dumb that. Ankor Wat (founded Toaism) Missed the Colossus eek: ) didn't bother with any others apart from Statue Of Libertity

Onwards to Check point 3

Spoiler :

Well, with 2 big dog's and 2 medium dog's holding there own over there, it seemed a Space race was only viable option, as I could bearly keep a tech lead, if at all.
Shaka was decaring his love of battle at the drop of a hat, Zara, had 1 vassal, soon to be 2 later on, and sharing all techs with them, Qin, was just an oportunistic Swine, and DeGaul, seemed to be a vassal playing own game with Shaka...Later broke free ??

So Space it was, First to Rifles, got them BEFORE the had Replaceable parts...Thought..."Looking good, feeling fine, Sell Replaceable part to Shaka, to keep then in Strine"...ok doesn't rhyme, but wanted Shaka to survive, and stay a Viable opponent, ended up selling rifling 2 turns short to him. And what does that Ingrate go and do...Declares on me.... Then Zara and his Merry men, decide a fresh victim needs to be torn apart, and Qin joins in for the scraps...well the lot of them landed Some troops, which were dispatched the VERY NEXT TURN..Of course the Usual, 'fishing nets pillaged, lone Frigates sunk...crap.

Eventually peace was made with the lot of them, and they decided a land battle amongsht them selves was a better option...

Beeline Computers, with Plastics first for the Tanks.

Check point 4

Spoiler :

Could I win, would I succeed. I had to race Shaka to Combustion, he beat me, and pestered me with Destroyers and Frigates. Next I'm racing DeGaul to Assembly line, got there first, but he's Industrious, and beats me, I also built a Coal plant (NO COAL.. ) But still would have lost by 3 turns.

Race is now on for Plastics, I get there...Hmm no one close...BUILD THE 3 Gorges dam...Hmmm no one's got Plastics...?? hang on, only DeGaul has Industrialism...wha wha wha??? all cities get Factories.

Beeline Computers....Hmm just need Radio (Zara's got that), Keep a watch on Plastics research and madly tech Computers...
1st there, Building Internet, Zara has plastics, but no comuters,build research lab's in most cities..

Internet come online, FORGET to build Apollo program for a while...Dumb again, tech Satelites (Zara AGAIN ) He's going for the Space Elevator...

Tech Satelites, build Space Elevator, check Tech's...Hmm No computers for ANYBODY?? Build Space Elevator, while teching Robotics...Easily 1'st, upgrade a few Infantry to Mech...reserve lots of cash for an emergancy mass upgrade...

Lo and behold, Idiot No 1 Shaka declares again, with Calvary and rifles ...Duh.. My tanks take out that attack, only 8?? Hmm what's he up to??

1 turn Later Idiot No 2, in Zara, Declares as well, maybe 2 turn later, but fleet was on its way for atleast 5 turns..Another Moron attack with Calvary and rifles...Tanks have some target practice.

tech away down the Fusion line, Decide some time in there, Hmm APOLLO PROJECT....DUH ... AGAIN I'VE DONE IT...

Start cranking out Thruster/ docking bay, life support and a few others, get Fusion, start on Engines, 5 turns out of Deli. Deli and 2 other cities did the big ones..all finish within 5 turns of each other, with Deli doing the heavy lifting...lessor cities doing the Thrusters taking up to 18 turns...

Composites is last, No AI has teched it YET...!!!!!! Wha Wha Wha? , you mean I have to tech it my self, and get Modern armour as a bonus..ok I will.

Mass upgrade all tanks to modern armour, build casing in 3 cities, Deli does last 2 casing its self 4 turns each, worst other city was 8..

Launch, in 2012 or so...last to start/first to finsh...

Nearly forgot, I'd started stockpiling Great People proberly about the time of teching Astronomy Launched 3 consequtive GOLDEN AGES, in time of building/teching space ship, combined with Mausaleom of Mass, I had 36 turn golden age...Space ship arrived with 1 turn remaining....

Too sum it all up.

Spoiler :

3 religions were founded on other continent, first 2 within 2 turns of each other, so I knew they'd be fighting..Big difference this made.

Civil Service Slingshot pulled off...Bulbing CoL with Great Merchant, *only bulbing I did*, made for huge difference, allowed me to play as if I was Industious, Philosiphical, Sprititual combo's...ie Beauracry/organised religion with Confussinism spread to all cities..
Bee-lining some tech's..never researched archery/Theology/Engineering etc Traded mid game for Gunpowder, didn't take Mil Trad, but took Music?? go figure. Sold Replaceable part to Shaka, to bolster him AGAINST Zara..same for Rifling, as he was 1st, but tried to use it AGAINST ME...INGRATE.

Raced DeGaul to Assembly line??? and he was Shaka's Vassal..aaarrgghh...damm Vassal beat me to Pentagon (Industrious scum) (Stupid, coal plant don't work with out Coal).

Zara and Shaka, were focused on Domination, Qin and DeGual, focused on Survival... Lincon and Hanibal, were just Meat on the table to be torn apart by all and sundry.

Messed up on my planned wall street city, got carried away with the coastal settling, and block it off....Oh well...Also, messed up on Planed Maoi statutes city, with 2 sea food from Hill in the NE corner..Hmmm

36 turns of golden Age at end in Space ship building /teching...certainly helped, but 11 of them were used either watching space ship fly through space, with 1 to spare after game was over...Still had 2 more great people stockpiled at end too..hoping for a 4th golden age....but No..

Great Artists..ONLY POPPED ONE...in my 3rd golden age period, arrrggghhh...when I wanted one..couldn't get one....had to rely on G Scientist/G Profits/Great Engineers No Spy's 1 Artist.

Easy space race win in end with Sapce Elevator/Research Institutes and Aluminium proberly 40 turns before others...roughly?

Out teched once I build Observatories...Rather late with Astronomy, not till 1800's...Full Specialist Economy, only 1 bulb, for CoL's for Civil Service Sling shot, Proberly had it won from there really.

Very light on early defence, Mace's/settlers post Civil Service, pre was Axes/settlers. Settled ALL CITIES on Coast for Great Lighthouse bonus, Delayed Corporation till beeling Assmebly line.

Fun game,some things learnt..but when you know your Isolated...bit of a cheat..

 

[Bleys]

Well done IPEX!

Spoiler :

I was a couple techs away from Combustion when the destroyers came for me, I might have been able to hold them off, but they snuck too many troops in. Havent played much past "got all the religions, now what?" in the other re-try.

..but when you know your Isolated...bit of a cheat..

It is nice "knowing", but in the end, its really not THAT big a deal. If you played this kind of game "normally", you would find out your isolated pretty quickly as your units explore the land and no AIs show up. Of course, you never know HOW isolated you are, but even that is hidden here, take the Hannibal one, when another continent was only a Galley away once you popped a border and Alex popped his.

I think and play much differently in other games because of what I learn in these, I enjoy maps with more likelyhood of isolation now than I used too, because these are so fun. Fractal, custom-continents, games with only 1 other civ on my "continent", etc, all have taken on a new life, where I used to re-start them before, because they seemed too boring.

 

[Diamondeye]

Okay after finally pulling myself together (and getting BlueMarble), I am starting on prince. I am thinking of running a hybrid CE/SE, as I do not excel in SE but need atleast one academy and prferably lots of , plus I don't want to waste the Phi trait. Let's roll!

Spoiler :

I've explored the entire island. I am very depressed that there is much jungle and that the nearest, plausible city location is river, seaside, and one ressource, but can only grab 2 of ths bonuses. I made myself a quick little Dotmap:

Magenta circles are primary city locations
Limegreen circles are secondary city locations / backfillers

To me it looks like the only really good cities will be Capital, running specialists, the riverside horsytown for , and the eastern one grabbing 2 sugar (?) and rice for a monstrous cottage center.
I'v focused tching towards Pottery, to get cottages up fast, popped the scout from one hut and AH from the other. After pottery I'll get BW, perhaps backfill with worker techs or hit writing.

 

[pawelo]

Failed another time with SE...

Spoiler :

And I only had two religions...
I was counting on the heavy fight on religions polluted continent, and when I met everyone, they were all buddhists...
No way to compete like this - maybe the no early religion approach is the way to go ? Or the all-7 hydra version and diplo mess ?

 

[Diamondeye]

Okay got to coorporations, but I have a problem as I cannot found Sids Sushi, evn though I hae a great mrchant, clams,fish and rice, coorporation tech and refrigeration tech. And no, I am not in SP, I run Merc.

Spoiler :

Things go well, I founded conf and let it be at that, getting 5-6 greatscientists from my capital, which I decided to academy/settle in a city on th desert til to the south. I ran a merchant (from capital)-based science cottage economy (not below 80%, now rsting at a solid 100%, has don so for some time, even with some surplus at a time. Zara and Lincoln are even with me in tech and Lincoln keeps assalizing to Zara (the peaceful way), theyre both Hindu and so is Shaka, even though Shaka and Zara has been at war. So has Shaka and Hannibal, who is also Hindu. Qin was hindu until he, somewhere around divine right, decided to convert to christendom, which he had founded earlier. France is buddhist and doing badly. The AP is under Zara, Hindu. I get along okay with both Zara and Hannibal, and Lincoln trades techs een though he is annoyed. I have a problem now, though, as my economy is being halted by the Emanci. I haven't changed yet, since CS is too precious. I am, instead, using forest preserves (2-3 a city), to keep my up. Also, th Indian UB is handy here.
Might want to know that I am in Theo to prevent an AP victory.

Now, I don't plan to conquer anyone, I think I am aiming for Space, but I want Sids Sushi. Can someone take a look and tell me what is wrong?
The city:

And the civics:

Some help anyone?

...And if anyone wanna know, th computer I wrote this on has a lousy keyboard - especially "e" and "v" is hard to get to work.

 

[r_rolo1]

3.13 bug, that thing of merc.... install bhruic's patch.

 

[Bleys]

Also, Sids requires Medicine, not Refridge, thats the Cereal one.

 

[BurN]

LOL, I am so amused. I decided to re-try from scratch, and just for kicks, I went for something I have thought about a lot, but never actually tried.

Monarch again, pretty much a checkpoint #1, but with an amusing twist:

Spoiler :

I kept thinking about how Zara managed to get so powerful in such close quarters, and it dawned on me. He got Judaism, and spread it like a maniac, and since weakling De Gaulle got Buddism and I got Hindu and Confu, that pretty much allowed Zara to ruled that continent, since he merely conquered DeGaulle early, and everyone else was converted to Judaism.

So, I said to myself, "Self, how can you keep them from all having the same religion?" The solution was one of 2 choices, dont take an early religion at all, not even Confu, or, dont allow the other continent ANY religions whatsoever! That should keep em fighting!

I went for it, researched Med then Poly for the first two, did whichever pre-tech for Judaism, got Ag from a hut, then finally did BW. Built the Pyramids in Delhi early, as before, using my FE for settlers and workers, with tons of chop and whip overflow going into the Mids. 3rd city built the Oracle, which I took CoL, held on to 2 Great Prophets, one for after I self-researched Monarchy to use for Theocracy, and the other for Divine Right, while I was self-researching Philo for Tao. It was nuts. All the while I was still managing to pump out workers and settlers because of the massive amount of food my first 2 cities were producing. Here a look at my religion page, it still cracks me up:

My question now is, How do I turn this into a win? I will build the AP, but I am concerned that once a religion spreads to the other continent, it will sweep through. I am considering having a pile of missionaries ready when I get Optics, so I can load em onto the Caravels, and hopefully get them all to MY religion. Maybe Cultural is still the way to go, since I plan to have all 7 religions in all of my cities. That will give me enough temples to build 14 Cathedrals eventually, with the majority going into my 2nd and 3rd best, and having only a one or two in my Cap (unless I want to squeeze 9 cities onto my continent, that would give me 21 cathedrals!

I could try spreading a different religion to each of the AIs, that should make them fight plenty! I dunno though, its hard to do, I definitely want at least 3 religions on that other continent though.

Having a blast with this one, LOL. I cant wait to see whats going on over there. All kinds of GGs have been popping like mad, and most of the wonders I skipped are coming in very late. I am also attaching the save from the turn after I got Islam, the final piece. I hope I can generate 7 more GPs for 7 Shrines, that would be pretty cool! Heck, had I put Bombay down a couple turns sooner, I would have had 7 Holy Cities, LOL, what a hoot.

Oops, forgot the save. Here it is, for those looking for a laugh.

Looks like a fun game you got going there.

 

[Diamondeye]

3.13 bug, that thing of merc.... install bhruic's patch.

Means if I spoil my plans and go Free Market it'll allow it?

I might get Bhruics later, Firaxis doesn't seem to do anything about these major bugs...!

Also, Sids requires Medicine, not Refridge, thats the Cereal one.

I meant mdicine, sorry.

 

[shyuhe]

I played immortal. Finished with a 1905 diplo. It's been a while since I played a LH game

Spoiler :

The starting area looked very good. Lots of room to cottage up. I built the stonehenge and took CoL off of the oracle. I then turtled up as I gradually built more cities across my island. By the time I had circumnavigated the globe, I had also finished liberalism and taken astronomy.

Unfortunately the pangaea in my game was almost all Hindu. Lincoln was the only Buddhist and everybody was at war with him. I joined when somebody asked as there was no diplo penalty with anybody for joining (and it was a phony war).

Eventually I got some cavalry and took 2 of Lincoln's cities before he vassalized to DeGaulle. Now I had a problem at this point. Zara, Hannibal, and Qin had formed a triangular DP and were trading techs like crazy. I had to stop this and I took a break in their DP triangle to bribe DeGaulle against both Qin and Hannibal. This went on for a while until they got peace eventually. I wasn't asked to join the war although I was asked to stop trading a few times.

After all of this, I realized that Zara was still growing too large. I then bribed Zara against Qin and Hannibal this time. Zara had a tech lead and a bigger army (he had vassalized Shaka earlier) so I bribed him with gold to stop (I had no techs on him). I also bribed Zara to stop attacking Hannibal as well.

I had finished building the UN a while ago and I was manipulating my civics to get the remaining votes. DeGaulle liked me from the MM against Lincoln. Qin like me for running bureau. Hannibal liked me for running FM (we were both in environmentalism at the end of the game but I turned him back to FM). These votes + my own were enough to get me the diplo win, although it took a long time to manipulate the diplomatic relations.

I had built the Apollo but most of my cities were poor hammer wise. Zara also built the Internet so that was out. If I didn't get the diplo, I think Zara would have gone on for a domination win as he had a massive power and land lead over the other AI on that continent.

All in all, a pretty fun game. I was never at risk of being invaded so I never upgraded past warriors. But it was tough keeping up in tech against 3 friendly AI's that were whoring techs. I got a little lucky on my bail out plan of the UN.

Here are some graphs:

And the VC:

 

[lilnev]

Immortal.

Checkpoint 3: 4000 BC, I'm playing for Domination.

Checkpoint 1:

Spoiler :

I seriously considered moving the settler 2N. There's no such thing as "too much food", but there definitely is "more than enough", and sometimes it's better to split one over-fed city into two. In the end, though, I wasn't willing to move off the plains hill, so I settled in place.

Research Fishing-Wheel-Pottery. No need for Ag so early, but I want cottages on those floodplains. Then BW-Sail-Masonry, for the GLH. Now I have to choose between Writing-Math for the Gardens, or to Monarchy for happiness.... Build warrior-boat-boat-worker-warrior-worker-settler, iirc, settling the spot to the south that most of y'all chose.

Dotmapping (sorry, don't have the picture), I always try to have a food resource for each city, but here there aren't enough to go around. I'm planning on pulling the Rice, Sugar, and Sugar as far to the north as possible (i.e. settling on the Marble), which leaves a couple of spots just N and E of Delhi that will have to live off regular farms. Oh well. Overall I'm planning a CE, with Delhi as GPfarm and GlobeDraft (lacking production, I'm going to have to lean on drafting pretty heavily to pull off an overseas invasion; hopefully I can smash one or two backwards AIs, claiming enough resources for Mining Inc to take off). The double-seafood hill to the far NE will get Moai, I think.

peace,
lilnev