r_rolo1
King of myself
Welcome to the 18th 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 
): starting in isolation....
For the 18th game in BTS the choosed leader was Kublai Khan of the Mongols
Mongols are clearly one of the AI that can cope worse with isolation: both UU and UB are clearly geared towards early war and the traits of the leaders are not exactly the best for a economical buildup. Kublai is Agg/Cre, a combination that is by far better for early warfare than for the patient work that isolation normally needs. Of course that Cre helps a lot with the early land grabbing a thing that flexibilizes the game planning enough to normally make Cre leaders strong gamers ( besides the important fact of the halved priced Theaters, colloseums and libraries, a thing that , properly leveraged, can make quite a diference ).... Agg is always good regarding warfare and it also shines in gunpowder age.
His UU.
Keshiks are a boosted horse archer with 3 moves per turn... That makes them brutal war beasts in pangea maps ( the extra speed clearly makes a big diference ... AI is not good dealing with extra speed units ). In isolation they simply are useless: too late and too overkill for barb hunting ,too soon and weak for later anti-AI action. Besides the capturing of a barb city , I don't see much use of them in here....
His UB.
The Ger is a boosted Stable that gives extra XP to mounted units. It has a strong synergy with the mongol UU ( besides boosting in XP a UU, it also comes with the same tech ) and because of that it will be of limited usefulness in here atleast until cuiraseers and cavalry.
The start (for reasons that I'll explain below, the warrior may not be exactly in that spot in your game ):
Seafood, a FP and hills... OK. but 2 calendar resources and 8 water tiles in the BFC for a civ that does not start with fishing? It is not a bad start, but clearly not well suited for KK . Of course that this seems to be a all forest start ,a thing that makes those 2 holes in the forest highly suspicious of housing metals..... I wonder how people will cope with this.
Again I made a functional scenario ( In that regard I must say a thing: free techs for both AI and humans are not kicking in, and that makes that AI in higher levels starts with warrior/scouts instead of archers ( with the correct numbers. Settlers/workers are working well ) . That is not a issue of my scenarios , but of the way the game is coded... the game atributes the free techs before choosing the leaders.... if the leaders are already chosen it simply moves on . And as the handicap file does not specify archers as free units , but simply "defensive units" ( if you give Rifling and Robotics to a AI, it will start with Mechs
) if the AI does not have archery they will get warriors/scouts ( depends on hunting ) instead. In isolation that is a minor issue ( you can't rush 
), so I took the decison of letting things to stay this way, because the correction would need to change the game code, a thing that is not exactly my objective with this games ) ).... All the speeds are working well ( no more games ending in 1900 ) The save is zipped... you only have to unzip this to the worldbuilder saves or for the PublicMaps folder ( either one will do ) and load it from the scenarios.
Any problem PM me...
Again a small request ( not mandatory ) :
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 ) 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
. And let the games begin!
P.S We don't have any kind of problem with defeats and reruns. Just play and enjoy
): starting in isolation....For the 18th game in BTS the choosed leader was Kublai Khan of the Mongols
Spoiler :
Mongols are clearly one of the AI that can cope worse with isolation: both UU and UB are clearly geared towards early war and the traits of the leaders are not exactly the best for a economical buildup. Kublai is Agg/Cre, a combination that is by far better for early warfare than for the patient work that isolation normally needs. Of course that Cre helps a lot with the early land grabbing a thing that flexibilizes the game planning enough to normally make Cre leaders strong gamers ( besides the important fact of the halved priced Theaters, colloseums and libraries, a thing that , properly leveraged, can make quite a diference ).... Agg is always good regarding warfare and it also shines in gunpowder age.
His UU.
Spoiler :
Keshiks are a boosted horse archer with 3 moves per turn... That makes them brutal war beasts in pangea maps ( the extra speed clearly makes a big diference ... AI is not good dealing with extra speed units ). In isolation they simply are useless: too late and too overkill for barb hunting ,too soon and weak for later anti-AI action. Besides the capturing of a barb city , I don't see much use of them in here....
His UB.
Spoiler :
The Ger is a boosted Stable that gives extra XP to mounted units. It has a strong synergy with the mongol UU ( besides boosting in XP a UU, it also comes with the same tech ) and because of that it will be of limited usefulness in here atleast until cuiraseers and cavalry.
The start (for reasons that I'll explain below, the warrior may not be exactly in that spot in your game ):
Spoiler :
Seafood, a FP and hills... OK. but 2 calendar resources and 8 water tiles in the BFC for a civ that does not start with fishing? It is not a bad start, but clearly not well suited for KK . Of course that this seems to be a all forest start ,a thing that makes those 2 holes in the forest highly suspicious of housing metals..... I wonder how people will cope with this.
Again I made a functional scenario ( In that regard I must say a thing: free techs for both AI and humans are not kicking in, and that makes that AI in higher levels starts with warrior/scouts instead of archers ( with the correct numbers. Settlers/workers are working well ) . That is not a issue of my scenarios , but of the way the game is coded... the game atributes the free techs before choosing the leaders.... if the leaders are already chosen it simply moves on . And as the handicap file does not specify archers as free units , but simply "defensive units" ( if you give Rifling and Robotics to a AI, it will start with Mechs
) if the AI does not have archery they will get warriors/scouts ( depends on hunting ) instead. In isolation that is a minor issue ( you can't rush ), so I took the decison of letting things to stay this way, because the correction would need to change the game code, a thing that is not exactly my objective with this games ) ).... All the speeds are working well ( no more games ending in 1900 ) The save is zipped... you only have to unzip this to the worldbuilder saves or for the PublicMaps folder ( either one will do ) and load it from the scenarios.Any problem PM me...
Again a small request ( not mandatory
) :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
) 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
. And let the games begin!P.S We don't have any kind of problem with defeats and reruns. Just play and enjoy
because nobody else had it yet) and settled 9 cities on our little island chain with one more filler city to come. I took astronomy with Liberalism and have a comfortable tech lead with Monty and Gandhi in particular being pretty backward. I've got a GM and GE parked in the capital ready for Sushi/mining and should have no problem getting the late game happy wonders to be able to stockpile resources for an easy space win.
aaarrgghhhh, Oracle was built in 1150 BC..Hmm maybe not so fast, but missed it by 7 turns, 8 of which I messed about building something else...aaarrgghhhh 
