Lonely Hearts Club, BtS Edition, Chapter XXVI : Cyrus

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Checkpoints 3-4, 1933 AD dom win

Spoiler :

It wasnt long after my last post I teched optics and started exploring meeting other ai's and cricumcising the globe.

I wasnt TOO far behind in techs but wasnt really leading either. But I noticed both Petey and BootyCall were lagging behind and had I HUGE continent with TONS of resources. So after I got curisars and some frigates I went over and took over Petey. He wasnt much trouble but right before I declared he ahd vassalized to bootycall but it wasnt too bad. I handled what stacks she sent in while I kept taking Pety's cities. He eventually broke away which let me get peace with her and then I finished off petey.

I gues she was holding a grudge since as SOON as the 10 turns were over she comes up jiggling her implants on the diplo screen to DoW on me.

I wasnt completely ready for a big fight with her since her land at this point was HUGE so I hold her off till she declares peace again while I start building up my army.

meanwhile she was starting to get a lil prissy as this pic will show:



hmmmph it wasnt long after that that I DoW'd on her to show her she wasnt all THAT 1337

After bootycall was dealth with it was mostly just building up all my new cities. I was at a point that I seem to get to a LOT--number 1 it just about everything BUT not feeling all that comfy.

Mostly because I was getting waaaaaay behind in tech. Having to focus SOOOOOO much on units to take and hold bootycall's cities meant things like banks uni's observatories (and as result osford and wall strt) didnt get built til VERY late.

Now I am NO expert but I DO have some mid game benchmarks I try to make tech wise in mid-late game. Like by Indy age I like to be at LEAST 900-1000 beakers per turn. and dbl that by modern age. and thats just minimum Im really not feeling like my civ is doing all it should if it isnt around 1500 bpt by indy era but will settle for minimum.

But in this game by indy age I am at like 590 beakers per turn. waaaaaaay below min. so it is LOTS of turns building up newly captured cities and building civie buildings in home cities. Sloooowly but surely I start to build up my beakers. meanwhile other civs ESPECIALLY jao and his lapdoggy wang are teching LIKE crazy. And not JUST teching but also wonder whoring. Jao pretty much grabbed ALL the indy and modern wonders before I could EVEN try for him. I have nooo idea how they were teching THAT fast even with ai bonuses giving how little land they had.

but as things wore on into modern age I STARTED to pull even and even a lil ahead. Jao and Wang still has some techs I didnt by end of game but had a few neither of them had too so it was bout even.

Now I decided to go for dom win and started preparing and THEN I noticed something. Now all this time I assumed ALL the AI's were doing good techwise. Seeing wang beat me to pentagon seeing jao build christo and hollywood before I even got electricyt, seeing sald sail destroyers all while Im still a cpl turns from combustion made me think they all way up there in techs and also in modern military. Espionage didnt help cuz by late indy-modern era my espionage was waaaaay low and wasnt till VERY end of game that could see what anyone was resaerching again.

I didnt check out tech screen really for looong time and when I did Rosey was waaaaaaay behind. So seeing how far back rosey was I launch attack I COULD launched like 40 or so turns earlier DOH!!!.

The vertern stack that took over Petey and BootyCall invade rosey's lands and he folds like origami. Best thing bout it is he was kind enough to build versaille in one of his cities so with versaile on that continent and fp on on other maintainance costs are not THAT bad. I also get -25% inflation event which also helped TONS.

ok by this point I am feeling better my tech rate is now up where I like it my military is strong and jao and wang like me and HATE salad and with roseys cities I have nice launching pad to invade salad and get dom win.

But to make sure I build up a lil more. Upgrade my cannon to artillery and start making a sceond HUGE stack and while adding to my veteran stack. Plan is to sail new stack to salads west and takke his cap right off the bat from sea while attacking his cities on his eastern border by land from roseys old cities.

By 1930 AD everything in position and I attack:

my naval stack taking mecca:



my hardened veterans along with some new reinforcements attacking from east:



After I take first two cities I take one more city and at that point:



And that put sme waaaaay over dom threshold so next turn I get dom win

My final score:



Actually even higher than I got in Hattie game and it ended at same date but this game seemed MUCH longer for some reason.

Final demographics:



Number 1 in most things by end but jao was still able to turn his gnp into LOTS of beakers and I think he built wonders sooo fast by rush buying so he was using AI bonuses to max hehe.

Top 5 cities:


My cap managed to get to number by end passing wonderwhore cities of jao and wang.

final look at my home empire:





These cities all seem kinda small considering how late in game it is and how early they were founded. I dont know if it cuz of lack of food or poor placement or poor management but I am pretty sure that slow growth and smallish size is reason why game was a lil tuff until end beaker wise. I never even managed to as many great people as I do most games. One thing that REALLY helped mid game was managing to get mining inc which helped cities build stuff they were lacking and get up to speed.

That and the TONS of resources on big continent. really THAT is biggest key. Get those and even if behind you can catch up. It kinda like no wonder japon wanted to invade asia so much hehe.

Closer look at my best cities. my cap:



Not a great city but by end it turned out ok I think and was my best science city. which given number of beakers is kinda sad and shows why it took sooo long for me to get beakers going.

My money city:



really only boosted cuz it was a corporate hq. Not bad but not best city I ever made either.

My hammer city:



Say what you want bout booty call but she did make a nice city for building units But since my best hammer city was a captured one and didnt really get up to speed till late in game it just shows how this game it really wasnt about quality but quantity. In the end my beakers and economy really was result of TONS of ok cities as opposed to a few core GREAT cities. And key to that was mining inc which helped all those cities get off and running and key to that was eastern continent having tons of metals to make mining give a HUGE boost.

So not the best game I ever played but a win is a win and I will take it

Kaytie

 

[Lord Chambers]

Well it's apparent no one read my post, because surely someone could have pointed out that after you bulb Astronomy you can't go forward expecting your scientists to pull weight bulbing to Liberalism. I'm glad I caught this before I bulbed Astronomy.

Great Scientists go Scientific Method then Physics after Astronomy (assuming you have Printing Press, which you probably don't), education will only come around again after those are discovered.

 

[semirami]

Well it's apparent no one read my post, because surely someone could have pointed out that after you bulb Astronomy you can't go forward expecting your scientists to pull weight bulbing to Liberalism. I'm glad I caught this before I bulbed Astronomy.

Great Scientists go Scientific Method then Physics after Astronomy, education will only come around again after those are discovered.

Sci Method requires Printing press and Physics requires SM. If you block PP a great scientist will bulb Education, exactly what I did in the previous LHC with Hatty.

EDIT: In this LHC too.

 

[Lord Chambers]

Sci Method requires Printing press and Physics requires SM. If you block PP a great scientist will bulb Education

Well, you don't need to block Printing Press, you just need to not research it, because it is a prerequisite for Scientific Method which prevents it from being bulbed before Education.

 

[semirami]

That's what I mean. Unfortunatelly, my english is far from perfect.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well it's apparent no one read my post, because surely someone could have pointed out that after you bulb Astronomy you can't go forward expecting your scientists to pull weight bulbing to Liberalism. I'm glad I caught this before I bulbed Astronomy.

Great Scientists go Scientific Method then Physics after Astronomy (assuming you have Printing Press, which you probably don't), education will only come around again after those are discovered.

If you cough up GLH and harbors though it doesn't matter - that's obscene commerce in every city and available very early. It's like every coastal city has 4 mature towns on top of whatever tiles they work. If you're going to bulb astro and not take it with lib or something then you'll probably want to milk trade routes as much as possible - the advantage can be pretty huge. GLH isn't exactly a bad wonder for isolation early on either - it's 2 commerce/coastal city (and most will be) and it's not like someone else is going to take your land.

That said, I often skip it anyway - I like settling land ASAP to be rid of barbs and to grow my cottages. On most difficulties if you settle 12 decent-to-strong cities you can win space and depending on the tech situation may be able to win militarily also. For a cottage whore like me rush bought cavalry or infantry are great for this. Frigates bombard away d as the troops land, bombard on the next turn before the attack, and you're set to attack the city if you have a tech lead - very powerful tactic on water maps because even without amphibious you move from city to city pretty quickly...much more quickly than any land war.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Check point 4

Spoiler :

Bah, I really gave up at 1, I just couldn't even get started, I'd get 3 cities out, and my economy would crash. I'd have barb spearmen, axemen or archers running amock. I nearly allway's and that's 4 tries, building warriors and deleting them.

Moving my capital, wasn't such a brilliant idea, its sunk my game beyond repair.

I'll have another try later, maybe...but I think I'll still crash economy...Maybe sailing.........maybe....

 

[dalamb]

As usual I started this game before finishing the previous (Nobles Club Catherine).
2075 BC - 980 AD
980-1415 AD

Spoiler city locations :

I settled in place -- good food, good production, on the coast; I plan to try to get the Great Lighthouse but may have missed it because of the slower tech path I'm taking, postponing sailing for a while to do other things. To this point my Tech path has been AH > myst > wheel > pott > mine > bronze. I'm currently working masonry for stone, followed by fishing/sailing for exploration, followed by writing. As someone suggested, I'm saving some huts hoping to pop a better new technology.

I've grown the city towards (but not quote to) the happiness cap and build Stonehenge (without stone yet) to help with city growth and to take advantage of the Charismatic +1 happiness from monuments. I've now reached the point of whipping my first settler (to save trees for the GLH), so here's my plans for possible city locations. Primary motivation was to pick good coastal locations (or at least those that don't suck) for GLH and Colossos benefits.


I'm thinking green first for the stone, then red for copper, then dark blue for gems.

Edit: any advice on city placement? I'll check back through the thread, too.

 

[mirthadir]

Checkpoint 4 1961 culutral victory - immortal

Spoiler :

Scouting show me a low food island with two sets of offshore land and stone. This just begs for a TGL/mids economy, spam lots of crappy costal cities, run a few scientists and break even with overseas trade.

Tech order is BW -> fishing -> sailing -> masonry -> AH -> HBR (goodie hut) -> metal casting.

I nab TGL in 1200 BC and the Mids at 550 BC. Cities are founded at deer/sheep/stone, fish/silk, iron/crab/whale on island, and on the ice island. Immortals make fine fogbusters and I only have to kill one ax, two archers, and a warrior before I have all tiles revealed. Religious tech is going fast, I'm guessing 3 religious civs, though it could be lower if Mansa or some other tech whore is running out that way. GP are merch, merch, sci, merch - 3 settled GM's and one academy in cap.

Nothing much of note for now. I tech out to astro, finish the horse whisperer quest (+1 food is huge), and settle almost all the costal spots with any food surplus (sheep/silk, crabs/copper, and gems/gems on the river). I randomly strike gold on the fish/silk hill.

I promote two triremes to caravels (one with nav I from barbs), and promptly find Peter and Roosevelt. The Celts and Arabs follow soon after, but I'm not seeing any Confucians (the American/Arab isle is hindu with minority Jewish, the Celtic/Russian is Buddhist) head on southerly diagonals with both ships, come across a desert isle with fish and then find the Koreans (choked to 3 cities) and the Jao, master of a large land and founder of Confucianism. I promote my galley to a galleon and settle on the western tip of the island. Overseas trade and fish make it worth it for now and that much desert just begs to have oil.

I bulb my GS for half of Edu (I've backfill traded out to paper after the UoS was completed, my economy is rocking with foreign trade routes) and proceed on to liberalism. I wanted to trade for PP and get Sci Method, but that's a no go, so I trade for engineering and gunpowder and take chemistry. I promptly trade my way up to economics to take FM and I now run a rep/B/slave (for whipping my new cities up)/FM/FR empire. cities are founded on the central river for IW and next to the lake by the stone for NP.

After that its teching out to medicine to get a much needed food boost and then trading to corps so I can found Sid's (I have banked a GM and a GE). Sid's is founded in the cap and I promptly trade all my surpluses for seafood. My cities balloon up and my tech rate (which had begun to lag) now spirals out of control. I tech out to combustion and take CreCon. Right now I have a good setup to run corporate cultural economy. The AI's hate each other so I tech out to radio, only to lose the wonders to Roosevelt (he actually burnt a GE on CR). Undeterred I tech on to Mass Media and drop Hollywood as well as the UN in my IW city. Cap is WS/NE running for a GE, but I spawn a GS. No worrys, my next tech is out to Rocketry and I found Al Corp. I finally get my GA and found Civ Jewels. After that I tech out to refrig for more health/food and then turn culture up to 100% (my GMs, corps, and half my non major cities hammering cash gives me a surplus).

As I'm beginning to spam Infantry, Marines, AT, and SAMs from the cap, Roosevelt declares war on me (I previously got a DP with the Celts, but Roosevelt elects to declare anyways). I have Flight so it is trivial to just skip units on the rails/airlifts from city to city until he lands his SoD and promptly fails to take anything. I have to wait another 5 turns after he loses his whole SoD and gives me GG (used in cap for more production) before I can buy peace for Mass Media (I semi-control the UN and the Celts vote against ending the war).

The starvation from burnt boats and loss of cultural resources to missiles hurts; I easily pick up another 25 turns for victory from this (I have only 3 religions where I can make missionaries and swapping out of FR will piss off too many people). 4 turns prior to spawning my next GP (~87% chance of getting a GA) Jao sends off a spaceship. On the turn before I pop my GA (which will be enough to push me over the top in my third city) Jao has 49,000 culture in his weakest city. I click the big red button and roll the dice, I get a GA, bomb him and promptly win.

Mistakes made:
1. Not noticing that Jao LACKED OIL when I had industrialism and flight. A monopoly of bombers and tanks makes for a quick victory.
2. Giving Jao Al Corp. Yes I needed a surplus, yes everyone else had CB or mining, but still I saved him several turns off his space flight.
3. Not investing in a navy sooner so I could stop Roosevelt from trashing my corporate economy.
4. Not bribing Roosevelt to end war with Saladin before the latter vassalized.
5. Not getting fission so I could build a nuke or 5 to take down Lisbon or some such.


I have to say when isolated I'm a big fan fan of leveraging trade routes, maybe a RE, and corps.

 

[dalamb]

4000 - 2075 BC

Haven't met any AIs yet, so this is checkpoint 1a, I guess:

Spoiler :

I placed cities differently than in my dotmap; in particular Ecbataba in the northeast is placed a little east of where I thought, to get access to the sheep that otherwise might have gone to some centre-of-island city; I got bronze from a weak city to the southwest, near some seafood. I also settled the island, hoping that expanding borders might reveal nearby coast, but no such luck.


I decided I wanted a religion, so I used a prophet to bulb Theology. I built the Apostolic Palace to keep it away from everyone else, and in faint hope that once I find the other AIs I can convert a few.

Persepolis has Stonehenge, the Great Lighthouse, and the Colossos. Pasagardae has Pyramids and Hanging Gardens, and may get Hagia Sophia for the Great Engineer points.

I am not entirely sure what victory condition to pursue; conquest and domination seem unlikely. Cultural goes a lot faster if I can collect some additional religions, but with all my cities Christian their religions aren't going to spread to me. I can hope Christianity doesn't spread to Susa (the island city) before I contact some other civ. Maybe I can get one by creating a last coastal city (after Astronomy?) and hoping one of their religions spreads to me? I suppose I can also try to beeline Divine Right for Islam.

 

[mirthadir]

@dalamb

Spoiler :

You could always find a backward AI with a multi-religious city on the cost and us OR/slavery to whip out a few missionaries before gifting the city back. Also remember if you settle overseas land those have a very good shot of picking up new religions. The bigger problem is getting missionaries out if you aren't running OR after Sci Method.

 

[dalamb]

4000 - 2075 BC (checkpoint 1).
2075 BC - 980 AD (checkpoint 1a)

Checkpoint 2:

Spoiler status :

I met all the rivals and found an all-buddhist continent with Peter and Boudicca, all-hindu with Saladin and Roosevelt, and pagan with Joao and Wang Kon. Roosevelt and Peter are pleased with me, likely as a result of massive trades; I switched to "no religion" right after contact to avoid upsetting them. All the rest are cautious.

In the midst of exploring with caravels (1375 AD), I teched Astronomy, losing Colossos but gaining international trade, for a net +14 gold per turn (from -17 to -3 with science at 60%).

I'm running 10% espionage, which is leaving me 'way behind in espionage ration, but just got an event that gives +2 EP for each barracks. Is that worth pursuing? That is, would it be reasonable to build barracks everywhere just for those points?

I did found Islam, but I don't know if culture from 2 cathedrals per legendary city is good enough for a culture win. Juduaism's holy city is in Saladin's realm, and Taosim in Peter's. I don't see any empty space to plant a city, hoping for one of the existing religions to spread to me, Christianity having spread to my last-founded coastal city before anything "foreign" did. I suppose I could try to take over one coastal city each from Boudica and Saladin, hoping to whip a couple of missionaries quickly before losing them or giving them back.

Is that actually a reasonable strategy in general? for me it's problematic because I've never tried an overseas war. Also, they're both 'way above me on the power graph because I've not bothered much with military while isolated. Unfortunately Peter is friendly with Boudica so my attacking her would upset him, and similarly with Roosevelt and Saladin.

Spoiler query re Apostolic Palace :

Is there a good tutorial on getting an AP diplomatic win somewhere?

I don't think I can manage an AP win; I seem to recall someone saying I had to have at least once city in every other civ with my religion, and Saladin is running theocracy.

If that weren't a problem, I suspect I might be able to spread Christiantity to the pagans, so one of them would wind up a candidate. With Roosevelt and Peter pleased with me, if they only have 1 city each, would they likely vote for me instead of Joao or Wang? The two former pagans are also friendly with each other, so if both became Christian they'd vote for each other rather than me.

 

[mirthadir]

@dalamb:

This may contain map knowledge you don't have:

Spoiler :

Is the desert island above the Koreans settled? Fish is worth it alone if you plan to try for Sushi; a third overseas city for internal trade is also good.

Spoiler :

If at all possible, I'd send Christianity down to Jao and Wang Kon; 2 missionaries = buckets of cash if they spread it.

Regarding capturing cities. It is highly unlikely that both blocs are going to keep up with you in tech. Their religious differences should begin to make them hate each other (and both the Arabs and Celts are pretty bad about this). You should eventually develop a tech lead over one side, my money says likely the celts (no econ traits) and the Russians will fall behind the Arabs and Americans (indy and organized are both ownage traits for the AI).

Worst case scenario, you bribe them into war with each other and then hit the losing party in the rear. You can do a costal assualt straight off the boat and sail in enough CG II troops to hold the place through the unrest and then to whip out your missionaries (though using US to buy them may well be better).

Regarding AP wins:
The key is to control the vote. You want the setup to be only you with a significant number of votes, but just enough other votes in the world that you can't vote yourself in (otherwise the election is never called). So let's say you have 100 votes in the world and you need 66 to win. You want to control 65 yourself, 1 with a friendly civ (non-Christian), and everything else parceled out in whatever manner works. Vassals must vote for you unless they are in the running themselves.

So how do you engineer this? Well you want to directly one poor low pop city in every civ but your friendly heathen buddy. If you have a civ, like Arabia, which is in theocracy you can try several tactics:
1. Bribe him into OR (or whatever) by offering a juicy tech. Doesn't work sometimes, but is quick and easy.
2. Use spy action to influence his civics, harder to do without dedicated espionage investment.
3. Get OB, send a missionary over, gift the missionary (the AI normally tries to convert something). This will, however often mean that the AI converts somewhere really populace.
4. Force FR down their throats via the UN (you cannot know Mass Media, but the AIs can and they can build the UN which you can control).
5. Take a city (normally tundra wasteland is good) in war, convert, and either give it back in the peace, liberate after the war, or intentionally let it fall.
6. Kill that civ. Works wonders with Toko.

Okay so how to rig the actual vote? Pick a target that is easy get and keep at friendly. Seeing as you can't run their religion, you want want someone with a favored civic that you can run and for them to care about that greatly. You may also want to stir up some wars so you can get brownie points for mutual military conflict. Give them whatever they want. Lastly this AI cannot actually run your religion - normally founders of other religions make good votinig buddies, but also anyone who has a favored civic of FR works wonders, forcing FR is also pretty good. You then convert their cities so that togethor you have a victory vote majority, but not alone.

Regarding the pagans - you control two religions, do you not? Send them Islam first to their major ports; then send Christianity to the backwater cities. Pagan AIs normally revolt instantly to the first religion they can, and if you make it easier for them to spread Islam they will go Islam.

The "easier" shot is to just get a vassal either by releasing one from overseas territory or by smacking down an AI in war. So long as the vassal is not running, they MUST vote for you but they don't count to being over the too many votes threshold.

 

[dalamb]

@mirthadir
Thanks a lot for the tutorial! I'll mull things over and try some subset of what you suggested; it's all new to me, so likely a good learning exercise.

Spoiler :

The island is still unsettled; I have never dealt with corporations so didn't think about its relevance to Sid's Sushi. Maybe I'll try that, too!

 

[mirthadir]

@dalamb:

Spoiler :

The island nets you two fish, which if you control sushi means you can expect an additional pop in your cities. This translates into enough specs or additional cottages to pay for the upkeep of the city. While it will never be a good city, with Sushi and Mining (or Cre Con) it can at least put out enough infra to be marginally useful.

For a good corporate economy you want to have a dedicated commerce city. Preferably one that has enough hammers that you can quickly get WS up and running. Found your corps there (mining and sushi or sushi, creative, civ jewelers, and alum) and spam them everywhere (only if you run FM, otherwise you need to be a bit judicious as you the costs can outweigh the benefits outside of FM). You can also turn a healthy profit by spamming some more or less useless corp overseas. Personally I find Alum to be exceedingly useful for this. Don't give it to the tech leader(s) but everyone else can run it and give you massive cash flow.

On this map I dropped WS in my cap (not the most effective). If you have a highly cottaged river (i.e. your city on the central river), something with lots of gems/gold/silver (i.e. in the southeast), or the shrine city of a religion (which I didn't have) these are likely superior. With what I've seen of your map I'd plan on going with Ectabana or founding a cottage spam location on the river with silk/iron.

Do be warned that Sushi (and to a lesser extant all the other corps) can be nerfed by wars. While it is highly effective to buy surplus seafood from the AI, wars result in burnt fishing boats and even if you remain out of it your foreign deals get canceled. It can sometimes mean that you have to step in to claim the good fisheries for yourself or a vassal; or you may need to bribe to end wars. It is extremely painful to lose 12 food supply in just a few turns.

 

[ungy]

early game

Spoiler :

I scouted the early lands and just decided there wasn't enough there to have a decent chance (immortal) so I gave it up.