Lonely Hearts Club, BtS Edition, Chapter XLI : Peter

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Oh yeah ROLO, Mr 'Soft and chewy caramel Centre'

Spoiler :

What's with the 2 oil tile side by side??? is that just random generation, or did you play with it.

Thanks Rolo, I'm a bit disappointed in my first 2 efforts, 3rd try was just a lot of enter, focused on space only, forgot the Corps line..ha ha..I had Numerous Great People going to waste too, settled couple into cities, rushed space elevator with Engineer (10 turns), had a spare spy at end, and NEVER 1 GREAT ARTIST

 

[dalamb]

Pre-game thoughts.
Checkpoint 1: 4000 - 2240 BC (with dotmap)
Checkpoint 1a: 2240 BC - 1170 AD
Checkpoint 2-3, 1170-1600 AD

I'm apparently no better than Warren Harding -- I guess a relatively late spaceship victory doesn't earn a lot.

Spoiler place in history :

Spoiler :

Spoiler score :

I had remained totally war-free for the whole game. Conquering some neighbour in my spare time might have led to a better score; there was a point where I had a good defensive military, and I was starting to build tanks, when nearly everybody invited me to attack Ramesses. He was nearby, and with my circumnavigation bonus and a few nav-II transports already in place I could have mounted an invasion good enough to wipe him out or take him over. He eventually capitulated to Charlemagne; Churhill had capitulated to Ragnar long ago just around the time I managed to spread Confucianism to both of them.

Research institutes, aluminum, and the Space Elevator in my northernmost city (NE of Moscow) led to fast production of spaceship parts, and I used up a few Great People who had nothing else to do to start a Golden Age.

I wish I'd kept the gene pool in Moscow pure, for Great Engineers, but I got wonder-happy and produced too many great artists. I founded Sid's Sushi with the Economics GM and got quite a bit of gold out of it by spreading it to Churchill, Rangar (requiring spying to flip him into Free Market), Justinian, and eventually Mehmed when he offered me open borders -- he'd been annoyed, but perhaps gifting him a Hit Musical and some silk eventually improved his attitude.

I notice at least one of my Spaceship Victory comrades had cities in spots I'd ignored; I had only 6 and perhaps that's why I was slow. Perhaps I'll try a restart later -- but there are plenty of other games going on at the moment, including a restart of the Willem NC, an Earth 18 with Isabella, and the current BOTM.

 

[ungy]

Earthling: Very impressive. Few are brave enough to take on deity on the LHC.

My game --immortal, normal.

Spoiler :

this one's pretty dull. I settle St. Pete down by the stone and take an unsuccessful shot at the GLH there (building the 'mids successfully).
Drop the engineer on the GLib and bulb my way to astro. Oddy enough I pick up lib in 1190 and take econ for the merchant.
At this point I see the world as 2/2/2 with the AI in various stages of backwardness and I have good relations all around so I don't think I'll play it out-- winnable to space peacefully but whacking the backwards Churchill is also easy.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Prince, Marathon, choose religions, 1876 AD, checkpoint 4, dom win

Spoiler :

Ok I take up where I left off last report. I keep slider at zero building up gold and also build some units. I also realize no way around going into anaerchy since I NEED to do some MAJOR civic changes so in one big swoop I go into FS,FM and OR it takes 6 turns of anarchy to get through it but it worth it.

After a few more turns I take a look. I know one of my shortcomings is I tend to over prepare for wars sometimes. Delaying attacks until I have waaay more troops than I really need. So with that in mind I took a more critical look at my stack and decided:

Ok these guys should be enough (see? only needed 24 transports to carry em all which means I kept it under a 100 ) so they sailed off and then:

I let Rags know the boys are coming over to say hi.

I take two cities without much trbl and then instead of showing some pride and stand and fight like a girl, Rags caps to winnie. GRRRRR I HATE when the AI's do that.

But I decide to keep pressing on and declare on Winnie and his new lapdog. I have to split my stack now and while a Cossack heavy stack was ok for rags it really NOT the best way to go against winnie and his $%^$$% redcoats so I start building more infantry and more MG's since winnie also have airships and shuttle em over as fast as I can. (and THATS why I try to over prepare no matter how big your stack is youre prolly gonna end up needing bigger )

Then it just matter of taking cities while trying to bild up infratstructure over in west. Eventually those cities start to contribute a lil more and beakers start to get if not great at least somewhat respectable. They also get a boost from this:

That help me push slider up a lil higher and then I keep going. Winnie and his redcoats are a bit of a pain. Rags on other hand:

Im like rags buddy yeah I know youre an ocean going type of guy but sheeesh you REALLY need to rethink your choice of garrison units hehe

Eventually I take one unglish city and notice it just BARELY puts me over the dom threshhold. So in the interest of SHAMELESSLY padding mt score I let Winnie and Rags cap and check the vic conditions again:

There! thats a lil better so then I hit shift return and:

My first win in LHC on on prince level

Here are final graphs:

I had leads in lots of categories but see culture and espionage? You cant call it a TOTAL blowuout cuz I wasnt ahead in EVERY category so hehe

Final demos:

I did manage to get comfy leads in most of the important categories though.

I only managed to get 2 cities in top 5 tho cuz of that wonderwhoring lil %&^%^% mehmed hogging LOTS of the shinies.

But I still managed to win and it all added up to:

Pretty nice score specially considering it while play above my level and in lhc game which can be very tuff for me sometimes

My final empire:

Knwoing me I probably could have located some cities better but a cpl turned out pretty nice.

empire north:

Honestly, I rpobably could have done better if I attacked up here FIRST. Rags was MUCH weaker earlier on and I probably could have taken him out and been after Winnie before he got to redcoats. Not only would it have made overall warring easier but I probably could have gotten more infrastructure built faster just cuz for LOTS of time I was over in west fighting I was still building a TON of units just to be on look out for backstab by Rags--ok well not REALLY a backstab cuz rags mr subtlety was making NOOOOO secret what his palns were. But before I made a move on them both Ram and BK were pretty harmless so taking out rags and winnie first THEN going after ram and bk was probably the smarter move. But I just couldnt help it:

That contient seemed to have better resources over all and I wanted em. Especially squirrels. I like squirrels they are cute and game always more fun when my empire has some

My cap:

Ended up being my science city. And btw, is it just mean or compared to what you can end up eventually getting on same tile with a water mill, or town or railroaded lumbermill or even a biology farm--arent plains silk tiles kinda sucky?

My hammer city:

It was getting all set to go on wonderwhore spree but game ended just as it was starting to . it did at least manage to get boradway done on VERY last turn of game.

My money city:

It wasnt making all that much at first but by switching to OR I was able to start spamming judaism to the western contient and then that and corpspam started to get its number a lil nicer by time game ended.

Okies so thats it. Oustside of attacking to west first instead of the weaker Rags up north I think I did ok. Im just glad I didnt end up getting my you know what handed to me. Which was a BIG concern since some of my biggest whompings by the AI have come in this series I still always start out a lil wary even after I started putting together a winning streak finally. And trying it out on prince just made it worse but it turned out ok so that means I am starting to learn

Anyways thats it this game. Tahnks rolo and everybody and see y'all next one

Kaytie

 

[GGS]

Noble/Normal

This game was started just to practice city placement, LHC is great for this. But, "just one more turn" led to one more strategic choice, one more grand tactical manoeuvre, one more...

Checkpoint 1 and a bit.

Spoiler :

On turn one it was easy to resist the urge to go for the space race victory as completion was not on. Moscow was settled for the extra hammer, the huts provided 42 gold, archery, warrior and experience. The tech path was BW, AH, agriculture, fishing with the build line of worker, warrior, settler. The NE fish/clam/sheep city was number one. The power of such a GP/science centre was my principal lesson in NC Sulieman. Besides, the stone city was only of interest for the Pyramids which could wait a bit.

Checkpoint 2.

Spoiler :

The fourth city went for the horse/clam/silk in the east and chariots did most of the barbarian removal. Moscow built the Pyramids, the Hanging Gardens and the Mausoleum of Maussollus while St.Petersburg got the National Epic, the Great Library and the Parthenon. The central brain-dead move in this period was settling Yaroslavl one west of the silk rather than on the river. On the brightside Team Russia succeeded with the libraries and stables quests. Remembering my LHC Saladin debacle I got off the island early and in strength. Between 1000AD and 1130AD (circumnavigation in 1190AD) the opposition was located. They only knew their island partners and were tech-challenged.

Checkpoint 3.

Spoiler :

As much as I wanted to go for the Space Race, Ragnar is not the most pleasant of neighbours so the temporary victory order was domination, space race, conquest. Everything was falling into place from Liberalism, to the Taj Mahal to the commissioning of a naval screen in the west to a Great Merchant but what really sealed Ragnar's fate was his on again off again war with Churchill. In 1745 the frigate/galleon fleet landed the cossack/rifleman/cannon army and the Viking civilization was destroyed in 1836. In the case of Churchill tanks looked better than redcoats but of greater import Justinian I and Mehmed II had a defensive pact as did Ramesses II and Charlemagne. In 1921 the English were eliminated. (By 1872 the defensive pacts were gone). Ramesses II had a city with Legendary Culture - a bullseye on his back.

Checkpoint 4.

Spoiler :

So, it became an internal victory condition race between the northern island with eight settled Great Generals for domination vs. the science-drven home island for the space race. The Egyptians were destroyed in 1943. The HRE was a tougher nut but in 1955 gave up enough territory for a Domination Victory, 16 turns before a fully-equipped space ship could launch.

The mistakes were, of course, manifold. The Russians should have committed to domination early. In terms of sheer sloppines it would be hard to surpass the Yaroslavl comedy of errors. Built away from the river it was denied the levee and as I learned far too late the crucial Three Gorges Dam. Wait, it get's worse. Right after I made it the new capital, I built the Forbidden Palace in Moscow rather than saving it for the northern island. The biggest surprise? Enough infantry and cavalry can smash modern armour and artillery. The best bit of luck? The Apostolic Palce faith did not spread to Egypt and the HRE.

Interesting game. But it would seem that my old crutch of the financial trait has been replaced with a hammer-sufficent-three-food-resource city. Oh, and a whack of long Golden Ages are useful.

 

[CHEESE!]

Well, here I am, the last poster:

Noble/Epic, to 3000 BC:

Spoiler :

I settled Moscow first, in place, then moved the scout for 156 gold:


The next (3) huts were as follows: 2x map, 1 scout.

Agri-> AH, and when AH came in...


Ponyland!!!

My scouts have finished exploring, and the island looks like this:



With citysigns:



One ? means not sure, ?? means dubious. In total about 8 or 9 cities.

 

[dalamb]

@CHEESE!:

Spoiler :

OR HERE (NW of Moscow) is where I put St. Petersburg, and it wound up being an excellent GP farm -- source of many Great Scientists. My 2nd city was SW near the stone, but I think not in quite the same place -- mine was coastal. I only went for 6 cities but think that may have slowed me down in the long turn.

 

[CHEESE!]

Dalamb:

Spoiler :

Yes, that is my plan. I am going to checkpoint 2 tomorrow.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

@ Cheese: You SHOULD found most cities coastal, and go for the GLH. No spoilers as to resources and such, but settle most coastal, as you know you end up with a couple inland.

Try settle in waves as well. First wave would be about Moscow, 2nd wave to claim good city sites/fogbust, next wave more cities etc and keep going to all cities claimed.

I'm using this map as a trial of settling, record is 13 cities by 1000 AD in green and researching well.

Oh

@ TMIT What's with all the settled Greenery you do??? in you cities?? why not just Adopt Environmentalism and be done with it, all way's the Greenery on you UTUBE commentary??? are you some sought of Closet Rabid Environmentalist.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Hmm...I don't recall saving many forests. The only exception possibly was very early on when worker turns were tight. Rather than chopping I'd be improving my special tiles, and was a bit slow on workers due to prioritizing wonders.

I do tend to save plains forests if there isn't a pressing chop goal. I will tend to work plains last, and the health may be worthwhile. Lumber mills=mines on plains too.

I'm no environmentalist...or even a commie for that matter .

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Its a joke on your accent, or what I hear as an accent.

Always the "Greenery" in your cities...I need a 'Greenery'

well I thought it funny enough to mention.

so

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Oooh, that's interesting. I never knew I had an accent that was distinguishable. That's kind of cool.

 

[Sleepless]

Imm/Normal - Diplo Victory would have been space a few turns later 1933 AD

Spoiler :

A short summary. I find its always awkward coming back to a game you hadn't played for a while. Things like forgetting you researched Lib to one turn. Luckily I had set my research for Chem and when that finished I thought ooh no-one has finished Lib yet so managed to pick up steel. I had decided to play peacefully, unfortunately Justinian wasn't keen on that idea. Followed by Churchill (had vassaled Ragnar), then Justinian thought he would have another go. I managed to beat them off easily. Churchill was easy. He didn't seem to realise I had destroyers when he had frigates. England certainly didn't rule the waves then.

I eventually went to war myself against Rameses. Only because he built the UN and Churchill was his opponent so thought I'd better go and get it myself. Job done and 1 vassal. I realised I clould get Just to friendly by religion and Charlie already was, with my vassal I'd pick up a diplo victory. The first couple of times Just voted for Churchill and then with my ship 8 turns from landing I had enough positives for him to vote for me so diplo victory in 1933.

Thanks for hosting this R Rolo.