Lonely Hearts Club, BtS Edition, Chapter XLIV: Mehmed II

[mystyfly]

@Huaojozu:

Spoiler :

From my limited experience with cultural victories I might be able to give you some advice:

• stop teching alltogether after a specific tech. An idea might be after Liberalism, where you take PP off it. Or after rifling, to get you a good defensive unit.
• try to found a multiple of 3 cities as every 3 temples allow another cathedral
• get as many religions as you can as the religious buildings really boost your progress. Have a look at a more recent version of BUG, ruff added an extended religious advisor
• adopt free religion once you start meeting AIs. Diplo is the most important part in a cultural game (beside culture itself) as you most likely won't be able to defend yourself anyway so not pissing of the AIs is a good idea
• I see you have lots of mines. Try to convert the mines that are not worked by a production cities into windmills once you discover replacable parts.
• try not to meet the AIs. No big deal if some backwards AI doesn't find you. You just can't be dragged into wars or other stuff you may not want if you don't know the civs. Those civs that matter WILL find you
• good luck

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

On start, you would have to go for the Maximum number of River based hills to gain max production. +1 Commerce and +1 hammers with a levy. 3 river based hills, settle in place is +3 hammers and +3 Commerce. Irrigated corn and a irrigated silk tile. Plains could hold some resources. A mined pig feeds itself.

My initial strategy will be move warrior 1 NE, settle in place is nothing jumps out like gold on a river, mine the pigs early on, and pasture later when foods up and running.

25% worker production, can't have enough of them, Hamman for +2 happy, looks like fun in isolation for a change.

P.S. Ola Rolo, a nice change from the initial starting positions in the last couple of games, I never went back to Bodecia's game, I looked ahead and lost interest.

 

[darklegion]

no prince? i won noble domination quite easily. never played monarch and just moved up to prince. or can i change the difficulty before starting?. some scenes from midgame didnt take early screens just showing how i owned . i let the computers found all religions so they can be warring with each other before i even meet them.

Spoiler :

after meeting AIs i decide vic would be the easiest target to start with since shes alone. and has her own religion.

Spoiler :

after getting her to become my vassal i regrouped and bribed zara to declare on caesar. soon after they made peace and i declared on caesar forced him to become my vassal. declared war on zara who had a defensive pact with sury. took 3 fast cities from zara with good position of troops and forced both them to vassals.
tech situation at this point

Spoiler :

screens b4 declaring on cryus


and after

final result

Spoiler :

highest score i got so far im new to posting and was wondering, can my vassals become free states on their own? like they do to the other AIs. and referring to Huaojozu screens how do u get that type of interface? looks nice

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Prince, Marathon 1330 AD checkpoint 2, settled my island and have met all the other ai's

Spoiler :

I settled out my land and managed to do some wonderwhoring in capitol. ONLY wonder I missed out on that I REALLY wanted was GLH but it got done before I even strated sailing. Managed to found a religion teching CoL but all the others been founded by the other AI's.

Ap been built by Alex and HUGE empires seem to be Cy and Augie. As usual I am waaaaaay behind in power but luckily not as far behind in techs as I usually am but the ai's still have a tech on me.

My empire so far:



Probably could have picke dmy sites better but at least they somewhat productive and this game I didnt fill out that seperate island until AFTER I build FP over there hehe.

Tech sitch:



AI's have DR on me but so far that seems to be it just dont know if they will end up passing me or not at this point.

Demos:



Waaaaaaay behind in power but I am hoping once I get gunpowder and jannies I can catch up a lil bit.

Not sure what plan is right now. ALex is AP and while ther elots of dif religions Vicki is ONLY one who not a ap member so I have to avoid ap religion cities no matter who I attack. Attack vicki could be dangerous just cuz if I take her out and then accidentally get a ap religon in my city that will open up ap vote. So I have to look around and see who to go after.

Only good thing so far is I did win lib race and picked astronomy but havent made trades yet cuz I still wanna see how diplo sitch sorts out.

I may try and get on augies good side since he not full ap member, and has biggest army and has most resources to trade but he is worst enemy of cy and cy is HUGE in land and pop with Sury as his vassal so that could be dangerous. if I can find wich city has ap I may just attack alex first and try to raise it since getting rid of that headache will make verything else LOTS easier.

So thats it so far not dead yet but not really in a good position eithe rbut hopefully I can improve it. wish me luck

Kaytie

 

[mystyfly]

@Darklegion:

Spoiler :

Firstly, welcome to CFC

Secondly, that interface is from the BUG-mod. Have a look there it is great and adds lots of info to your UIs and considerabely speeds it up.

Thirdly, vassals that capitulated as part of a peace treaty can only become if 3 conditions are fulfilled; Having at least 50% of their master's land, having at least 50% of their master's pop and 100% of your original land. That last condition I don't really understand myself though... I have already seen vassals break free otherwise, namely if they still get picked on hard, like "you're a bad master and are not able to protect myself, I think I'm better off without you". Again, I don't know exactly how that works, it's just to put you on your guard. If there is someone with more accurate knowledge, be my guest and share your knowledge
If a civ becomes a voluntary vassal, they can break free whenever they like.

@Kaytie:

Spoiler :

Your game is in the bag. Whatever you do I don't think you'll find a way to screw it up Being behind in power is not unexpected in isolated games. You see, you're only 6th, so there's still somebody even weaker If you go for space, just make sure you have a decent army to cope with ANYTHING the AI might throw at you... and keep being nice to the superpowers

I don't think jannissaries give you more in "soldiers" than ordinary muskets but I might be wrong. Again, I'd rather improve naval defences instead of the city-defenders.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

I am not 100% sure but I THINK it works like this--vassals that have capitulated to you can only break free IF 1) they lose up to 50% of the land they had at time of capitulation-- they can lose it either by another civ conquering their cities or culture from another civ (including yours) pushing em back or a combination of that they can break free, or 2) if their land equals or betters 50% of your land AND their pop equals or betters 50% of your total pop (both have to happen) and again I THINK it doesnt matter how it happens either you lose land and pop or they gain it or a combo of the two as long as at some point their total land and pop at the time is euqal or better than 50% of your land and pop ten at that point they can break free if they want, or 3) if they have a resource or a tech or something available and you demand it (the "time for your tribute, refusal means war" option in the diplo trade window) if they refuse then war is declared and they are no longer your vassal.

I even think I just read that if they try to break away after meeting condition 1 or 2 then you have option to declare war or just let em break away and not do anything.

Kaytie

 

[darklegion]

thanks for the info

 

[Learningciv]

First ever LHC. I wanted to play a shared game, and isolation is definantly not one of my strengths so I cover 2 bases here. I will be interested to see how others play.

Checkpoint 1, Emperor/Marathon

Spoiler :

I initially spent a few turns scouting to find my 1st cities site. While the start definantly wasn't bad on marathon it doesn't hurt to spend a few turns checking for commerce resources or stronger sites. Popping a hut revealed a map which gave me quite a good view of the western coastline and on turn 7 I settled

Spoiler :

I initially had to choose between AH or mining for a starting tech. Being expansive my first worker will arrive in 24 turns. 2 pigs (1 hillside) in BFC would normally make me chose AH but I went instead for mining so that 1) my worker doesn't have to sit idle when it is first built 2)It won't have to sit idle while teching towards 2nd tech 3) I could just build some mines and go for an size 3 settler build. This choice ended up being the best decision because:

Spoiler :

That was lucky, it gave my start an enormous boost.

My tech path ended up going Mining (with hut AH), pottery, hunting, mysticism, bronze.

I went hunting because my first warrior died (while on a forest) to a random panther very early. I didn't have much land at all to the north scouted and was unsure what I needed for fogbusting. However my 2nd warrior scout ended up revealing quite a few jungle hills and I decided that I could instead use warriors with +75% to fobust for a while and didn't have to press archery. My 2nd city also was hooking up horses on its first border pop so I had a decent counter for everything except spears.

At 2100BC my empire looks like this (anarchy to slavery)

Spoiler :

I have marked out where I intend to settle my 3rd city. I wanted to settle it 1N of its position but I revealed bronze which made me want to settle it there. Expansive cancels out the penalty for not settling on fresh water.

 

[Learningciv]

Checkpoint 1.5 (1A.D), Emperor/Marathon

Spoiler :

I decided to go TGL route, and settle some cities on the island to the east. This became very fortunate as I settled my 1st island city and find a hut with an axeman

Spoiler :

I continued settling but got a the barbarian event on my island. This ended up costing my the city, my hillside axeman, and I had to produce 5 spears to kill the barbs (terrible RNG with my spears v HA's). This event slowed me down considerably.

Spoiler :

At 1AD my empire looks like

Spoiler :

I feel I need to mention I did reload once in this game I was starving a city during production and due to distractions in real life while playing forgot to cancel the starvation once the food stores got low so my city lost 3 size. I replayed the 3 turns exaclty like I did in the original but changed the city so it didn't lose the 3 size. I don't know if this is cheating but I feel it doesn't venture from the spirit of the game.

At 1 A.D my capital has collosus + TGL, I am generating around 80 bulbs per turn, and all my cities are growing with room to grow (I just hooked up both fur + gems). I am building Parthanon on my inland production city to keep GA's out of the GP pool, and in ~10-15 turns will tech Literature to start GL in my capital. I will then have 18 GPPs in my capital from wonders. To date I have only generated a single GP which was a merchant I settled. Normally I approach GPs much more aggressivly but this game I actually got them out really slow.

 

[Learningciv]

Checkpoint 2 Emperor/Marathon

Spoiler :

Quick rundown. It is now 840A.D. I have 10 cities, an awesome capital with TGL, GL and Collosus, an inland production city with Parthanon. Just finished meeting all civs aswell as being the first to circumnavigate. I am sitting on "The Harbormaster" quest which when I produce a few more harbors I will choose to give all my naval units +1 movement.

Tech wise I should be first to Lib, am I very competitive with the AIs for tech. I am considering teching astronomy before education though for the trade routes and because I am 36 turns from generating a great scientist (well ~70% chance of scientist....).

I am currently sitting in slavery + bureac, just aquired Monarchy from trades. There is no need for me to rush into a revolt for HR just yet as my cities aren't happy capped yet (still growing after calandar) and if I tech astronomy before Edu it will open the way for trade of resources.

4Images in spoiler

Spoiler :

A quick note on happy cap management in this game as I am still not running HR, or running culture slider. My first 3 cities all had food resources + production tiles, while my following cities all had more then suffecient food for whipping. Considering my UB adds +2 I decided early I could forgo teching Monarch and make use of the UB + 2 happyness resources. The happy resources are also doubled with Forge + Market, 1 of which is build early in nearly every city. With Forge alone thats +5 in every city. I decided I would prefer to run size 9 cities (larger if I get a market, or after Calander) and have my choice of tech path then tech Monarch to get HR. This also freed up quite a bit of production as I didn't need large city garrisons just yet.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Immortal/Normal no events

Checkpoint 2 (and thinking of 3) 1040 AD

Spoiler :

It's a good capitol. I put up AH, then mining, then ignore BW a bit to pick up economy techs and masonry. But I am ahead of myself. I get the usual early 2nd city:



Pyramids w/o stone? Why not in isolation...I even got some more cities out first.



Check out the DanF warriors fog bust:



I went straight through math ----> currency for UB (which was great with from rep, gems, and eventually silk). After currency I go CoL and wind up with a nice surprise:



Hanging gardens was the intent and I got some good yield from building them. Yay!



The wonder spam w/o the resources slows expansion a tad but nothing serious in iso



By the way, my fogbust warriors had to kill a barb warrior and a barb archer. Only the archer entered borders, and it only came b/c a barb city @ the top built it and sent it my way. It attacked a warrior across a river in a city and lost, and later on I used 4 axes to take the city and unlock heroic epic.

After CS I go toward optics to meet the AIs. Looks like I'll lose liberalism but I have good trade bait for certain.





I am in position to win circumnavigation.

My intent from here is uncertain. This looks like a relatively peaceful game. There are only buddhists other than victoria. I'm thinking culture or space here, even though normally I'd go to knock some heads with this bunch it might not be practical. Obviously I have to hope for buddhism to spread but the new cities I settle/capture on the SE island and whatnot should help with that.

Despite using rep a lot of my cities wound up cottage cities and my tech rate isn't bad (and will explode after unis/oxford/obs). I have a few hammer cities at the top of the island that can produce enough military to keep the computer off of me.

The easiest here is probably culture. The tech path then would be astronomy, democracy, corp/medicine (sushi), beeline mass media (possibly culture wonders, jewelers). 200 to 250% culture on corp culture + cottages should get me to legendary in about 50 turns once set up...faster than any AI will win space though I do have to keep a computer from beating me to culture itself.

I'll not rule UN out either.

 

[r_rolo1]

@TMIT

Spoiler :

I would not discard a warlike future for you. In my game they were all budha except vickie and... well, just read my post in the "Is there any logic in AI DOW?" thread . When I saw the replay pretty much everyone had been in war with everyone once The AI that are in this game aren't very religious, so they can definitely backstab a brother of faith

 

[TheMeInTeam]

@TMIT

Spoiler :

I would not discard a warlike future for you. In my game they were all budha except vickie and... well, just read my post in the "Is there any logic in AI DOW?" thread . When I saw the replay pretty much everyone had been in war with everyone once The AI that are in this game aren't very religious, so they can definitely backstab a brother of faith

Spoiler :

True, but that doesn't mean I have to be involved in them. If they wind up distracting each other, all the better.

 

[Learningciv]

@TMIT

Spoiler :

I would not discard a warlike future for you. In my game they were all budha except vickie and... well, just read my post in the "Is there any logic in AI DOW?" thread . When I saw the replay pretty much everyone had been in war with everyone once The AI that are in this game aren't very religious, so they can definitely backstab a brother of faith

Spoiler :

Damn I wish my game was like that. Everyone had different religions which led to a ton of warmongering. Eventually they split into 2 big empires, then the empire of Zara conqured the other one. At the end of the game with only 1 small vassal he had 50% landmass.

 

[Learningciv]

Checkpoint 3+4

Spoiler :

Well this was an interesting game. Some time just before 1600 A.D. I decided to go for a cultural victory. Prior to this I was thinking of space but Zara had become a runaway AI. He held around 35% land (only 2 very small vassals) and was growing. I knew he would either get domination or UN before I could reach space. I didn't feel like going to war against such a big force either on this map as ocean warfare is definantly not my strenght.

I looked something (this was my closest save) like this when I went for it though I finished rifling for defense:

Spoiler :

The problem with cultural victory was the game was getting late and I had done nothing so far to set myself up for one. None the less I switched civics and started spamming the 4 religions about my islands, then spammed temples.

When it was all setup I was only getting ~600 culture per turn in my weakest city. 50 turns out from victory Viccy dows me, I kill her 2 stacks she sends then sue for peace.
20 turns out the massive empire of Zara dows me with by now a big tech advantage. His destoryers/battleships control my coastline, while fighters smash some of my land. Assualt teams of tanks/marines/saminf/etc end up capturing one northern city when I am 7 turns from victory. The next target is one of my cultural cities. Zara is now willing to talk so I bribe him into peace by giving him another of my northern cities. I then hit enter 7 times

Spoiler :

As you can see from the final screenshot Zara has a pretty big empire by now.... I don't think he was far off domination victory.

 

[schlaufuchs]

Checkpoint 2, to 1335 AD Noble, Epic (Warning, Image Heavy)

Spoiler :

Alright, I've played through another round, and now I'm in it to win it! I've encountered all the civs, and I'd say that I have have a definitive game plan to end game (Oh, and pay attention r_rolo, as I just may end up using the Janissaries in this game! But that's enough banter for now, on to the game.

First off, the techpath: Mysticism->Pottery->Fishing->Masonry->Writing->Alpha->Sailing
->Meditation->Priesthood->CoL->Currency->Monarchy->Philosophy
->Mathematics->Civil Service->Metal Casting->Hunting blush:)
->Machinery->Compass->Optics->Paper->Education->Liberalism (First, 1295 AD)
Printing Press (Free Tech)->Construction->Engineering. It's very scattered, I know, it's a weak part on my part, but it's alright, it's Noble, I'm allowed to make mistakes.

So, now that that rediculousness is out of the way. Leaving off from the previous round, I took my settler and settled him in the depths of the jungle:


That began my REXing stage, as I quickly got another one out to claim some wheat, and establish my first port city.

After that, I noticed that SH still hadn't gone yet, so I figured what the hell, I'm not creative, and I could spare the hammers, so I set build in Istanbul to SH. Well, what'dya know because in 1625 BC:


After that, the Random Numbers gods proved just how fickle they could be:


That was the second time I got that event in that area.

Ahh what the hell, more REXing:


Thankfully (or Unthankfully, perhaps) I really took my time with settling this island out, so I never really experienced a big crash, I think it the slider was about 40% at it's worst, and stayed at 80 or higher for the majority of the later stage of this round.

By the early ADs, I finally committed a settler to that nice swath of unclaimed island to our East:


I later set out a small contingent to got destroy that Barb city to the south, I re-settled it, I think two north (?)

Anyways, at about that time I was shooting for CoL for the courthouses. And, despite all the reports that I was last in tech, what'dya know:


Yes!! It was a big boon. Not only was it nice to see that I was beating the AIs (meaning I wasn't woefully behind), but it also meant hat I had a religion to appease the people. I opted to convert right away for the happiness. I also had a Prophet from SH waiting in the wings to go build the Kong Miao in the holy city, granting me another click on the slider.

The good times just kept rolling, as after Philosophy:


Cool! The Holy City for that one was on the Eastern city on the Eastern Island. I currently have another Prophet on the way to build the shrine there.

About 300 years after that disaster struck, as the Vandals appeared on my peaceful Eastern Island. It was unfortunate because I was woefully underprepared for defence. I just managed to scrape by, and did fend off their horrendous hoard of 4 swordsman, however I did lose the Taoist holy city in the process (don't worry, it was swiftly recovered.)

Anyways, after that, I researched Optics, and started sending out Caravels. The first civ I encountered was Darius. He was kind enough to provide me with a nice world map very cheap, and from there I just went and discovered everyone.

In 1295, low and behold, I was first to Liberalism. I took Printing Press as my free tech.

Also around that time, I started to notice that everyone was starting to hate me due to my "heathen religion" so I switched into FR asap.

In 1315, I proved the world was round, and I was thinking about stopping there, but I wanted to show you some things I noticed, but noticed I had not the required Espionage. So, I sat and waited, it also allowed me to finish my current techline (Constr.->Engineering). My next techpath is going to be towards Astronomy, and then towards Gunpowder. Then depending on the tech situation, I might use Janis to kill off the Hindu block (The minority), starting with Vicky. SO anyways, here are some screenshots for y'all:

First, my modest empire:
Starting with my quaint island:


Now the main island




Now, for the tech situation


The World Politics


In regards to the above two images: They were taken in 1315, so some updates: Alex and Cyrus are no longer at war; they made peace a short while later. I believe Cyrus got the worse end of that war. Obviously, since I have researched Engineering, it is no longer on their will not trade list. Also, I traded for Feudalism shortly after that picture was taken.

The Deomgraphics:


And now some more in-depth views: Power and Prod (Pay attention to Vicky here)



Vicky's got me beat in Military, but I have the production power to outdo her methinks.

Finally, my civics:


A little weak, but...meh, whatever.

So, thoughts. I hope to play the next round tonight (Don't have to be in school until 12:25 PM, tomorrow, so I might just play to the end )

Well, there you are, hope you like my little report (sorry for the sheer amount of images.)

 

[Sleepless]

Checkpoint 1 reached at 500AD, is this the latest in LHC history?

Immortal/Normal

Spoiler :

I started off by settling in place. Not being coastal I gave up on the idea of the GLh (built in 1400BC elsewhere). Managed to pop a hut for.



Which led to me building the Oracle and taking MC. I soon discovered we had some land East and West so my next 2 cities were built on the coast, 1 not very optimal but will be ok in the long term. I was still undecided what route to take. Whether to go for Lib or bulb astro. As it is I haven't really tried for either although I'm going to head towards Education next and let the AI discover me.

My first GP was a prophet which I kept for a couple of turns as I was likely to found Conf and would use him on the shrine which I duly did. There was a barb axe on a hut in the North. So a chariot to weaken him and managed to get my 9xp axe to 10 by killing him and.



So with gold from the other 2 huts I found not a bad haul.

For some reason probably to do with all the jungle I settled some cities on the island before going North. With the very strong marble site I wished I had settled earlier but my own fault for not exploring enough.

So I had 9 cities before I eventually explored everywhere.



Current lands and future city sites.







With all the land available I'm likely to head for space (as usual ) but might find someone else has other ideas.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Checkpoint 1 reached at 500AD, is this the latest in LHC history?

'Fraid not. Especially in the earlier ones, when I was still a beginner (like sully, I didn't know about all of "my land" until well after 1000 AD!!!).

 

[gskyes]

Checkpoint 2
prince, epic (sorry, no screenshots)

Spoiler :

I enjoy these LHC's because I actually like the isolation for a while. It's like a sandbox game, without other AI's beating me to good land. Although I still have to race for religions or wonders.

Capital is a good production city, but I didn't wonderspam as much as I could. Built Hanging Gardens, Mausoleum, Parthenon, and eventually Taj there, as well as Swedagon Paya. I founded a city on the north end of the island, near the pigs and silk, that became my science city. I wasn't planning on it, but The Great Lighthouse didn't go as early as usual, so I finished it in that northern city. Later built The Great Library there too. I built the national epic there as well, as it had lots of food for specialists, and it was going to get Oxford, but when I founded Taoism, it became the holy city, and a Great Priest at 9% odds from the capital built a shrine, so now its going to be Wall Street instead.

I was teching nicely thanks to cottage spam. Got Philosophy first, founded Taoism, and was first to Liberalism, taking Nationalism as usual for the Taj. I like Swedagon Paya in isolation, because it lets me run Free Religion early, for the extra science in each city. And when I meet the AI, if I founded a religion, I'm not immediately everyone's worst enemy. Which, by the way, Victoria visited by caravel first, and later beat me to circumnavigation. The other AI's didn't seem too interested in sea travel.

Military was entirely warriors until I needed a few axes to help clear out the other island. Later, after meeting the AI's, I started spamming Janisaries, which should at least not make me such a tempting target.

This game let me try something a little out of the box. Around the time that I was researching Philosophy, I spammed out 4 settlers to the south eastern island, and as soon as all 4 cities were founded, I broke them off into a colony (which I was able to do without knowledge of Feudalism, which surprised me). I got Wang Kon as my colony, who helped it feel not as lonely anymore, and is a nice tech trader, too. I can't tell if this move helped or hurt, but it felt like a good move anyway. Did anyone else try this? Any thoughts on the effectiveness of the colony here?

 

[Sleepless]

'Fraid not. Especially in the earlier ones, when I was still a beginner (like sully, I didn't know about all of "my land" until well after 1000 AD!!!).

Bet you didn't have 9 cities though.