Lonely Hearts Club, BtS Edition, Chapter XXIII : Catherine

[r_rolo1]

Welcome to the 23th 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 23th game in BTS the choosed leader was Catherine of the Russians:

Spoiler :

Our favourite backstabber..... When I was browsing the list of the already played leaders of the LHC, I noticed that we hadn't used a Russian leader so far. And given that a lot of people has a love/hate relation with her ( her slightly over-18 lines also help ), I thought that it would be interesting to try her.

Well, back to business..... Cathy is Cre/Imp and her AI uses this for spamming cities and stealing resources from the humans, leading to major . Humans will probably prefer the half priced Libraries and Theaters and the enhaced GG generation, along with their ( unfortunately heavily nerfed ) UU, but in fact Cathy has a strong portfolio of qualities to use.

Her UU.

Spoiler :

Cossacks are a beefed cavalry unit with a anti mounted ability.... I do remember ( *whips tear away* ) when this guys had 18 Str and didn't needed rifling, making them probably the 2nd more overpowered unit ( 1st was and is the Roman UU ). But even in BtS the Cossacks are a respectable UU, given the native flanking ability and the bonus against cavalry and cuiraseers ( that some AI love to spam ). Will we see someone trying a yntercontinental invasion with them?

His UB.

Spoiler :

Research institutes are a beefed Laboratory that also gives 2 free scientists. Of course that in most games this will be a very late addition to the game , but the extra scientists can really make a diference in tight SS races or a nice hand for a late GA...

The start (for reasons that I'll explain below, the warrior may not be exactly in that spot in your game ):

Spoiler :

Nice start... for a civ that starts with fishing ( which is not the case of Cathy ). Well, with some woods and a nice assortement of food, this looks like a nice place to start ( but that river between hills.... ), but will need some extra teching ( atleast Agri, BW and Fishing ) to be usable.

Regarding the saves: given some complaints about the efects of the AI starting without archery in high levels ( giving a unfair advantage to AI that have early UU and/or have early warmongering tendencies ), I decided to make 2 WB saves ( both in the same zip file ). The WB saves are equal except for the fact that one of them ( labeled Monarch ) has all of the AI with archery as starting tech ( corresponding to a game started in Monarch ) while the other is the corresponding to a game starting in Noble ( labeled Noble ). Both WB saves are playable in all levels, but if you use the Monarch one the AI will start with archery ( and archers ) in any level. This has only a slight effect in the human directly ( mainly via the garrisons of barb cities ), but has a huge effect on the AI gaming in the outer lands ( avoiding scenarios like Pacal, Shaka or Sitting Bull to take all the barb cities and becoming moguls ). I strongly recommend the usage of the Monarch save if you want to play in Emperor+.... All the speeds are working well ( no more games ending in 1900 ) The saves are 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...

P.S WB saves are crosscompatible between 3.13 and 3.17 if they don't have No Espionage ticked. No problem with the patches here

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

 

[Rusten]

Think I'll play this one. Been a while since I did a LHC game and I can't resist Cathy's smile.

It doesn't really matter that Russia doesn't start with fishing. There's a 3 food tile in the first ring so growing to size 2 makes it all okay.

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

Nice start. I'll probably settle 1 E.

 

[Julian Delphiki]

Humans will probably prefer the half priced Libraries and Universities and the enhaced GG generation, along with their ( unfortunately heavily nerfed ) UU, but in fact Cathy has a strong portfolio of qualities to use.

W00t ? I think you misspelled colosseums/and or theatres unless i'm tripping myself.

 

[r_rolo1]

My error Will correct ASAP

 

[TheMeInTeam]

That looks like a plains hill to the south, so of course I'm considering 1S. Scout goes 2s to see what kind of look that gives me.

This is the kind of start that one could consider a build like:

Settler, work boat, work boat, worker, archer . I think you could guess the tech path for something like this.

Edit: After starting the game, I realized what rolo said below. My bad :/. Settle in place it is then.

 

[r_rolo1]

Both the hill where the settler is and the one 1 S are plains ones.

 

[ranion]

when i saw that it was a plains hill that i was sitting on, i decided to settle in place, all that food and the plains hill to the south mean there will be enough production to get the basic infrastructure in place (especially considering whips), and it'll be a great gp farm capital long term. i'll certainly play, and i may even post a round or two, monarch/epic right now, maybe marathon depending on how i feel later.

 

[KaytieKat]

1400 AD, Noble, Marathon part 1.

Hi

After getting TOTALLY killed on the last cpl of LHC games I actually was able to get out of the BC's in this game and somehow managed not to get out teched by EVERY single AI on the map which is what usually happens.

Now I just have to decide which is best way to win and if I actually have a prayer of getting it.

Spoiler :

My Empire so far:

My Main Island





I managed to take over the Isalnd to west from the barbies.



My Cap is working on a settler to go start a take over of this island to the east before anyone else can get to it.



I figure I can get at least 3 or 4 cites going here. They might not be good for much this late in game but they could at least be a jump off point for an invasion to the main AI land mass if needed.

My cities:



A few cities are working on temples only because when they started they were approaching happy cap. BUT I managed to win lib race without even getting a single GS yet. I bought phil for 900 gold and used a great spy to start a GA so I could speed thru Edu and then got lib down pretty quick after that and choose Astronomy as my freebie and then went and made some resource trades so know my happy cap is LOTS higher. So I'm thinking switching from temples to military builds since I am waaay behind most civs power wise.

My over all sitch:



Not great but I am actually leading in a cpl of categories but just middle of pack in most and waaaay behind in power which I need to work on.

Diplo sitch:



Diplo wise is problematic since everyone is one big happy buddhist block with the AP going. Only peri is not running buddhism but he still has some votes in it so I have to be careful not to let buddhism get in my cities since I could lose the ap win vote before I even have a chance of spreading it to all my cities so I could have an impact and even THEN it might not be a big enuff impact to deadlock the vote :/.

I DID make building that shadamithingy built so as SOON as that first carval sailed by my borders I switched to free religion so no religion hits. I got a few up to pleased except for Mao and Izzy and Peri, the last two dont worry me. Mao could be a apin but it looks like he hates peri more so I am not TOO worried at this point.

Tech sitch:



Yeah it's bad I know. I have at least a cpl of techs on most of em but am waaay behind the leaders and they wont even think about trading what they have at this point.

My plan is to go printing press, rep parts, then gunpowder, rifling, nat then mil trad then chem. Hopefully at some point at least nat will become trade bait so I can skip that and maybe even gunpowder.

Thats one reason I am doing priinting press first. Its a tech I am gonna need anyways and will help give time to make nat be available thru trade and hopefully even speed up teching the rest.

I think I am getting close to image limit so I will continue in part two with my plan on what victory to go for.

 

[KaytieKat]

1400 AD, Noble, Marathon part 2 my plan for victory.

Ok, I think I dont have the hammers to do a space win or the cities for culture so that means I am gonna have to build an army and navy then go send em out to do a Buffy on someone.

Spoiler :

Most likely target seems to be Peri. he is odd man out religious wise, backwards in tech AND he beat me by ONE %*&^*&ing turn for navigation bonus grrr. Pluss he has a lot of coastal cities including squirrels and I LIKE squirrels they are soo cute



Howver some of his cities are Buddhist so taking them would cause AP headaches. However AP city is the Maya cap so maybe I should just attack it first and raise the darn thing. I assume rasing it will eliminate it



Maya also seems like an easy touch even though they are one of tech leaders. Just 5 or 6 cities ALL coastal. I guess Pac got boxed in early which is strange since whenever we share a land mass he ALWAYS seem to spread quicker than paris Hilton on a first date.

He is also looking to try for a culture win so taking him out will end THAT headache too. Raising Mutal would also trash a few other wonders too but I checked to see what wonders are there and they are --AP which I want trashed to eliminate AP headaches, Stonehenge which is gonna be obsoleted soon anyways and besides Cathy is creative, Spiral which is nice wonder BUT only helps if you running state religion and diplomatically I cant afford to anytime soon so it looks like free religion most of the way at least so trashing spiral is no biggie and Notre dame, another nice wonder but ONLY if its on YOUR continent so keeping it wouldnt help me much. So it doesnt seem I would lose much trashing Mutal and wont need to worry about AP anymore if I do so at this point I am thinking Maya first on the list.

One thing that is kinda worrying me is this:



For people without bug mod that lil fist by cyrus means he is either at war or is in "we have enough on our hands mode" and since active wars column is blank he is definitely feeling froggy and looking to jump at SOMEONE in near future. But not sure who since if you rem diplo screen he is either pleased or friendly with EVERYBODY. I am HOPING he is just planing a move on Peri and not me. But he doesnt have astronomy yet so if it is me hopefully by time he can do anything my military will be a LOT bigger.

I DO have a potential ally though:



Plus side looks like at this point ol ghengis will DoW on his own mama for code of laws and a poke in the eye. On minus side it also means he could be bribed into jumping on me so I will have to move quick so I am able to start a war and bribe him in before Cyrus or someone else DoW and bribes him in on me.

Other downside is at this point in game ol' eienstein there still NEEDS code of laws so he probably wont be much help other than just a distraction.

Other plus side on his being so small and backwards tho is if I do get him on my side in war the shared struggle bonus along with a few gifts MIGHT be enough to get him to voluntarily vassalize to me which would make getting conquest or dom win a lil quicker.

So thats my plan at this point tech up on some militray techs and then go out and try to use agressive negotiations to get a dom or conquest win.

No sure thing though since I still feel a long way from being there. The ONLY thing I have going for me right now is I have astronomy and noone else does.

What i have against me is my military needs BIG build up and my play SUCKS especially with war so things could fall apart VERY fast if make too many screw ups so any advice will be helpful

Kaytie

 

[Bleys]

Quit the Sury game to play this one (as well as the Joao NC game).

Checkpoint 1, Monarch save, Monarch difficulty, Epic speed:

Spoiler :

Explored and got 1 tech from the huts, Myst. Great, didnt need it, LOL.

Early thoughts plus dotmaps:
GLH, maybe Mids with that stone.
Hope we have horses, heh, since the UU will come into play this game in any kind of overseas war.
No happiness resources again, sigh, but this game I want to get a religion to help if possible. Decent food though, and some nice river areas in the middle of our landmass.
Cap likely to become a GP farm, so moving the Palace to that river for cottages is possible.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

around 1600 AD Noble, Marathon

Spoiler :

Ok I started the war with pacal. I got my military built up to where I am a close second in power now just behinf Cy. I made a few miscalculations during build up though.

First though early on in that round there was HUGE pile up on Peri. It wasnt AP dogpile tho cuz Cyrus didnt jump on board but EVERY body else did. So when Ghengis asked me to join in I said yes and then just did phony war for the diplo points.

Later on Peri capped to Mao. Cy was still worrying me since he didnt join in and was STILL with hte we have enough on our hands. But later on he comes around offering defensive pact. My first thought was if he offering that then it's NOT me in his bullseye for his build so I should just say no and relax a lil bit. BUT I wasnt 100% sure thats how it worked so I accepted. Then like 4 or 5 turns later that idioit Ghengis DoW's on Cy. So of course I automatically DoW on Ghengis cuz of pact. grrrrrrr.

So now not only was I at war with ghengis I also get the you declared war hit since technically I declared first as part of the def pact with Cy. SO even though afterwards we at peace again NOW he wont let me bribe him to declare on ANYONE so I lost my potential attack puppy :/.

Before I could go after Pacal he voluntarily vassalizes to Mao. But I still DoW on Pacal since I HAVE to go to war with SOMEONE in order to make any progress and to do that I NEED to take care of the AP first. So I attacked Mutal and razed it and am starting to take Mayan Cities with Cossacks, maces and a few cannons and rifles.

Thats about the only other good thing going for me now. At this point in game MY UU is coming online while EVERY body elses has gotten obsoleted. Just too bad these arent Vanilla level cossacks cuz if they were I would say game pretty much over hehe. But since now they only slightly better than regular cav and seige and naval war are nerfed I am not out of woods yet.

Hopefully after I take out Pacal I will be able to get Mao to declare peace pretty quick cuzz I really didnt bring enough troops for long war with Mao. So I will need time to build up a little more to press Mao. Its gonna be dangerous since He has astronomy and chem now so he can get to me plus he is teching rifles as fast as he can.

Im not in clear yet it just depends on how fast I can take out Pacal and how well I can hold off mao. But if I can get him to declare peasce then build up more then finish him off I might be in clear at that point.

This is another place where Marathon takes a bit of hit compared to slower speeds. That 10 turn period after peace declared really isnt enuff to get a super build up going before its over. Pluss my hammers are ewwwww. It already took FOREVER to get the units and the galleons and the frigates to go after Pac so getting a fleet and stack big enough for Mao could take a looong time :/.

Happiness is getting to be a bit of an issue too. I lost some respurces when I declared plus spies are going and pillage all over on the main AI isalnd. At least thtas what I THINK happens when a trade gets canceled out of the blue. It cant be cuz of request to stop trading since other deals still going. So I am thinking a spy pillaged the resource improvement and since AI no longer has it to trade the deal gets cancled so I have to wait for them to fix and they take their sweet time doing that grrr.

And all thats going to get worse once fight with pacal goes on long enough for WW to hit.

Grrr slow hammers and sucky resources is one reason I took a pass on NC club Jao game just cuz watery maps ALWAYS have that problem. It seems to be dbl whammy since on watery maps hammers are small but you need bigger armies since not only do you need land units but you also need LOTS of naval units to move em around. So build ups take forever.

My tech rate isnt going too well and will porbably get worse as I start taking cities but I am hoping if I just build units and keep attacking eventually I will start getting vassals. Everybody is starting to get physics now which I havent resaerched yet so airships will probably be a headache too.

I just hope if I keep pressing I will get enough land for dom win BEFORE either Cy or Mao tech far enough to launch major attack on my main landmass and finish me :/.

Kaytie

 

[TheMeInTeam]

When I get the chance, I'm going to try out the Astronomy bulb for a change rather than taking it off Lib...for this I'd need to block CS and Theo to avoid paper, correct? I think I'd also need to block philosophy so no aesthetics or CoL? Maybe I could just get Philo though and THEN bulb...probably better to bulb astro 1st though.

Yes, will attempt GLH with Astro bulb, unless the island screams out a different approach.

Before I do it I'm going to look at DaveMCW's save in MC3 though...he went a "lighthouse/slavery approach" which honestly I'd have ignored as subpar except that one of the better players on the forum did it and is in a seemingly very strong position. I will learn something perhaps!

 

[semirami]

You need to block Meditation only and you must selfresearch/lightbulb or trade Alphabet. I got Astronomy at 490 AD ! With GL it immediatelly doubled the beaker income. Of course you'll not have CS, or Theo, because you wont have time for these techs.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You need to block Meditation only and you must selfresearch/lightbulb or trade Alphabet. I got Astronomy at 490 AD ! With GL it immediatelly doubled the beaker income. Of course you'll not have CS, or Theo, because you wont have time for these techs.

So you need at minimum alphabet, calendar, math, and optics, and not to have meditation, aesthetics, or code of laws (or can you get CoL if you block meditation?).

If one gets the mids then this could yield an incredibly quick access to astro, even earlier than 490...

There wouldn't be much to trade with the AI though, so GLH would probably be better for its massive bonus via intercontinental trade. Such a game would wind up being pretty peaceful though given reliance on TRs.

 

[r_rolo1]

You can have CoL if you don't have meditation....

Just remember that you need 2 GS for the complete bulb....

 

[semirami]

So you need at minimum alphabet, calendar, math, and optics, and not to have meditation, aesthetics, or code of laws (or can you get CoL if you block meditation?).

If one gets the mids then this could yield an incredibly quick access to astro, even earlier than 490...

There wouldn't be much to trade with the AI though, so GLH would probably be better for its massive bonus via intercontinental trade. Such a game would wind up being pretty peaceful though given reliance on TRs.

Great Scientist:

Writing
Mathematics
Scientific Method
Physics
Education
Printing Press
Fiber Optics
Computers
Laser (BTS)
The Wheel
Alphabet (BTS)
Philosophy
Chemistry
Fission
Fusion
Optics
Paper
Astronomy

You need to block Philosophy and Paper only, so you must skip Meditation, CS and Theology. There is no way to avoid Alphabet, because Writing will enable this tech and you need Writnig for Mathematics. CoL you may or may not research, in my game I took it from Oracle, because it's critical tech if you want to pop more scientists.

And yes there wouldn't be much tech trades, but you can trade resources and raise your happy cap.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

1765 AD Noble marathon,

Grrr I am in trouble.

Spoiler :

Ok I finished taking over most of maya just leaving him one city that wasnt all that good to begin with. and then got Mao to declare peace even given me some tribute no techs but lump sum and then more per turn. So I am thinking coolies just rebuild up a bigger army then go after Mao and cut him down to size. Then stupid Cyrus makes def pact with Mao. So I thinking ok then I will go after Izzy her cities are crowding half the mayan cities I took anyways. Only sure enough Cy has a defensive pact with her too grrrrrrr.

I COULD take over Gehngis but he so low taking his cities wont put me anywhere near dom win I would STILL have to take over Mao and then most of Izzy or Peri.

This is frustrating. Now my best bet is attack Mao which will bring in Peri cuz he Maos vassal AND bring in Cy. and that is the BEST scenario I have right now. Attacking Izzy would bring in Cy and most likely Mao would jump in too.

I am stuck. I just dont have the hammers to make an army big enough to handle EVERYbody I would end up needing to fight. Cy is gonna beat me to assembly line but he doesnt have rifling yet. So I WILL beat him to infantry but he teching better than me so he can get rifles FAST if that what he goes for next.

ONLY plan I can really think of is tech toward assembly while saving up gold and build machine guns and rifles and after assembly teched upgrade as many of the rifles as I can then switch to Nationhood and then draft moreinfantry for any attacks Cy will send my way and hope I can hold him off long enough for me to get Mao out of the picture and then get cy to declare peace. Or maybe I should attack now and do nat drafting deal with riflesand not wait on infantry. I am just not sure which would be best.

Grrrrr this is FRUSTRATING. My beakers are sucky just around 590/turn or something at this point but I cant really improve them without sacrificing build up even longer since hammers are sucky already and I cant imporve hammers much either at least not until i get factories and even then getting factories going is going to take awhile. Mao already near electricty which I am not even close to and all I have to trade for em are techs that would get the AI's to rifling even FASTER. I feel like I SHOULD be doing lots better.

Last game I played which was with summerians whose leader is supposed to have sucky traits compared to cathy at this point my empire was doing close to 3000 beakers a turn and my best hammer cities got to point where they were cranking out tanks at rate of 2 every three turns (first tank would take two turns but then overflow would make next one only 1 turn) I wish ALL my games would go that way. :/

I'll probabaly just stop playing right now and hope things look better in morning. Right now it looks like at BEST its gonna be long drawn out fight trying to take cities from one civ while holding off two to three other civs from taking cities I already have at same time .

I included save in case anyone want to see how bad it is and has advice

Kaytie

 

[slobberinbear]

checkpoint 1: Monarch/Epic

Spoiler :

I have a total of 12 city sites mapped out (including start), with minor overlap. We have copper and stone -- 3 stone, to be exact. We have just one happiness resource, but six health resources. Four city sites can claim 2 or more food resources ... combined with cheap libraries, that means lots of scientists. The continent's production is a little low -- we may not reach big hammers until workshops and their enabling techs are learned.

This seems tailor-made for a SE-powered REX game, with Cathy's Imperialistic trait spewing out settlers left and right.

Since we are considering a SE in several cities, it would also make sense to build the Pyramids with our plentiful stone. However, the lack of happiness resources means that our happy cap, at Monarch, will be 4 + 1 religion +1 temple + 1 silk + 3 representation +1 colisseum ... that's only 11. We may need to run Hereditary Rule instead, but we'll miss out on the Representation bonus beakers.

All the more reason to get Astronomy fast and get some trade going for happy resources or settle any uninhabited happy resource islands.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Ok I'm off and running again.

I must say the games off to a great start...Watch for Further F' up updates

Spoiler :

Settled in place, 17 food, GP FARM here I come.

First 2 builds were Worker/Fishing boat..but all that changed 3 turns in

YEAH BABY.....Do I ever.

Build order is now worker/Chopped&mined worker (on 2nd plains hill)

Next two builds were workboat/workboat Possibly a 3rd worker next.

My scout did what Scouts do best, Scouted about..(What else), Popped another hut for a Map...Sheeze...isn't that what a scouts for, mapping out the lands.

Anyway he meets a lion in the South, AND WINS , YEAH SCOUT.

Finds another lion in the Darkness to the south, I'll leave that till last, as more land to uncover.

Explore rest of Lands, moves south, fights the lion, His last fight I'm thinking, but jobs done, and HE WINS AGAIN!! rename him Daniel.

I've tentatively dot mapped out 10 city sites, Going for the Great Lighthouse/Pyramids Combo. I'm hopping my 3rd boarder pop, will grab stone, if I've miss calculated, I'll have to settle it sooner.



Just look at it from my point of view, and its straightened up.

Thinking of moving capital inland to 4 Sugar resourse sight (16 food) and making it a Cottaged/Beauracy capital, Combined with Wall Street/National epic.

Iron works will go to Levied city with copper in South, Moscow will get Oxford/Heroic epic Moai statues to north (16 Sea tiles) will get West point and settle ALL great Generals.

All this is subject to my changing my mind/resource locations

1 change, move levy filler to coast, GLH after all

Wonders required are; Great Lighthouse, Pyramids (Rep), Sherw Pagoda (free religion) and Oracle (maths)