Lonely Hearts Club, BTS Edition, Christmas Edition: Financial smackdown

r_rolo1

King of myself
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May 19, 2006
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Welcome to the Xmas 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 :p ): starting in isolation....

As it is Christmas , I decided to make a more light and hopefully fun game..... put 6 Fin civs all isolated and see what happens. This will give time to more games ( I think that the tech pace will be pretty high... in my test game it was ) and more light ones.

So I introduce you the.....

:clap: :worship: Financial smackdown :worship: :clap:
Spoiler :

First some considerations:

I only choosed 6 civs because it was the only way of getting a all isolated map with the inbuilt scripts in game ( by some unknown reason costum continents don't work very well above 6/7 civs ) and the choice of Fin civs was very hard and used my personal standarts( so don't bug me with " Why not Pacal or wang or Victoria?" kind of questions :p I would really had liked to put some of the not placed civs .... )

The map is Hemispheres , 6 landmasses and tropical ( to give more grassland... temperate hemispheres gives too much desert IMHO ). Warning: The map is not balanced ( it is as it came right out of the map generator ) and some civs will have a harder time, most surely. Some civs also have a offshore islands big enough to hold a colony if you want to....

This time I'll give only one file, the WB save. To play it unzip it ( by some strange reason, both CFC attachements and uploads don't acept BtS WB saves :crazyeye: ), double click it ( hopefully it will autolaunch BtS ( in my computer it does ) or put him in the WB saves directory ( My Documents/My Games/Beyond the Sword/Saves/Worldbuider if you have a defaut install) and load it as scenario ingame. You'll be able to pick the level, speed and leader ( p.s if you play Darius, please erase my name ;) completely forgot to do that :hammer2: )

As for reports, I'll not ask you to make the checkpoints because I'm pretty sure that most of us are overloaded with Xmas things to do ( but you're free to do so ;) ). I only ask you to tag the leader, the dificulty and the speed to your reports, just to avoid confusions.



The last words are to wish good luck to all :goodjob: . And let the games begin! And BTW :xmascheers: :xmassign: :newyear:

P.S We don't have any kind of problem with defeats and reruns. Just play and enjoy ;)
 

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Holly goodie, it's gonna be a very nice xmas time :xmascheers:

Decision on which one to take will follow - have to examine closely these options... So many great guys :p
 
Thanks! Guess I'll go with the "king of badasses" as InvisibleStalker put it. ;)
Nice idea being able to choose civs freely in this one, will add to the replaying value after the first game.

Edit: Might go for Elizabeth instead, kinda undecided.
 
Will be going on for Lizzie and a SCE (specialist cottage economy ;)) or Huyana and his Priests. Stay tuned :scan:
 
This would be a perfect game to try deity as elizabeth for many players, but I'm not ready for that step and will go on immortal (thinking ragnar just for the heck of it).
 
Ended up on Immortal Ragnar somehow, but something annoying happened quite early.
Spoiler :
"2480 BC: The English civilization has been destroyed!!!" I guess Liz had some trouble with the barbarians we all love. :mischief:
This pretty much blows as there was 1 AI less to begin with, meaning only 4 rivals left, but I guess I'll continue anyway. Hope it won't happen to everyone else too.

LOL! Elizabeth managed to found hinduism before she got manhandled by the barbarians. I just arrived at her continent with some Caravels and there are a bunch of 10+ barbarian hindu cities with lots of culture. Those barbs are getting pretty good! Can they even be called barbarians at this point when they're in charge of "holy cities" :lol:
Screenshot of London and some more below!
Spoiler :
 
HC probably on Emperor - although I probably won't start until after Christmas.

I'm going to retry my Roosevelt ICS strategy with HC. Prepare for lots of small cities carpeting the island with cottages.

Thanks RRolo! Let the smackdown commence!
 
I'm thinking I might play the dutch for this one.
HC is my favourite leader (i may change my mind and play inca)
But the Dutch UB just kicksass, and it would give me more of challenge.

That barbarian "Civilization" is pretty damn funny too:lol:
 
Well, I thought I'd try it out with each of the six, just for variety. And I'll say:

Spoiler :

I started with HC on Monarch, and lost my first several tries. The island is not good, despite that Gold city, and although I could keep up with the leaders until the modern age, I just kept falling behind. Lost a space race.

So, I tried HC again. This time, I used the culture ocean crossing to launch a galley invasion of Willem's continent. The war went poorly, but I ended up colonizing both half of his continent and the entire extra island he has. Eventually won a diplomatic victory.

Next, I tried Willem. Did much better, since he has a nice island - except he has no oil. I had to attempt to rush Ethanol Corp, and the inability to build modern units HURT when Elizabeth and Darius ganged up on me. I quit when my capital was captured.

Third attempt was with Darius. Darius has the best starting island - In fact, under AI control, it's always Darius -> Willem in the 1 -> 2 slots for AI players. Under my control, I was well on my way to stomping the AI's, wiping out Ragnar, razing half of Willem's cities, and working my way through HC when I got modern armor - only to lose to sudden Cultural Victory to Mansa! It seems I'd never noticed his first two cities going Legendary. Ah, well. I feel stupid, but I'll pay closer attention next time.

Next up: Elizabeth. I think I'll try some early galley wars against Willem and Mansa, see what happens.
 
Trying Elizabeth first up, on Prince level. Knew I should have gone Monarch; appears I was right. Spoiler is for one of the checkpoints. Can't remember which one - but it's 1400AD, just met everyone. No screenies though.

Spoiler :
Trying an interesting monk economy. Have a double holy city (Conf/Tao), and Angkor Wat working multiple priests to solve the relatively low production on the island. The second shrine has just gone up, and the idea will be to spam missionaries with max multipliers. Currently getting approx 50 gold from them, but should get more.

I'm a long way ahead in tech and looking to win by space I guess. There seems to be a very promising colonial potential; lots of islands unclaimed around the place, so I might try colonizing those for a laugh. Game isn't really a contest any more.
 
mini-report (Dutch, Emperor, Normal)
Spoiler :
Cultural in 1956, no cottages.
Played fast, won by a small margin.
(Less small than I thought: Mansa had the slider up, but he was 26 turns from his third legendary.)

Built G Wall, Pyramids, Gardens, Sistine, Angkor Wat, Notre Dame.

1 Spy (unwanted but expected), settled.
4 Engineers (partly unwanted): rushed Sistine, Notre Dame, Globe Theater, National Park.
1 unwanted Merchant, settled.
8 Artists: 6 settled, 2 bombs.
Ran no specialists except Artists in the big 3, except accidentally.
Stayed in Caste the whole game.

9 cities.
Capital (food, forests): National Epic, National Park
big 2nd: inland in middle of continent w/ Hermitage.
big 3rd: inland in east of continent w/ Globe and FP.

5 religions (founded Conf and Taoism, got 3 others).
Turned on slider around 1920. Intended never to turn it on, but Mansa had 2 legendaries and I became desperate.
One bogus war against Ragnar, no other wars. 3 DPs at the end.
 
Mini-report also ;)

Huyana Capac, Monarch, Space Win, 1961 AD

Spoiler :

Great, fun game!
Won by a very small margin - Darius was some votes short of a Diplomatic Victory, and my Special Task Force (6 Mod Arm, 4 Mech Inf, 1 Mob Artillery & 1 Marine) had to make a punctual operation (my only war in fact) razing the city of Djenné in 1941 AD. MM would win cultural in 1957 AD...
The Inca lands are crap, still I'm very happy to have made it.
I heavily relied on Priest Economy, making Cuzco a huge wonder-city, boosted by the Parthenon and the NE. Most of the specialists there (well, I couldn't run that much of them due to light food) were the Priests and this resulted in a great cashflow for early REX.
Pyramids & Angkor Wat powered priests & settled prophets rock!

My lands on the last game turn:



And the über-capital:



Score is not that impressive - a comfortable 20k.

I think about going Darius one of these days, should my agenda be light :D


Thanks for this fun game r_rolo1!
 
Heres some of my Ragnar game (immortal, epic)

Spoiler :
I don't really like Ragnar's land. His capital started in a weird spot, where it had only a wheat, and I moved it around until I found a good place. I had difficulty getting cottages up, since there are few rivers or good city spots. I didn't tech well, and am not sure if I'll win this game. Got Monarchy late, and then once I got CoL I ran some merchants to keep the economy up. Another fun game, but next time I think I'll drop it down to emperor (considering that I only won immortal on the lonely Monty which had good land, and should have won lonely darius which had good land). Anyway, here are two screenshots showing my game.

View attachment 166503 View attachment 166504

just for reference, the capital started out 3N, which had only the wheat.
 
@SpockFederation
Spoiler :
I was quite puzzled by Ragnar's start as well... quite poor IMHO ( it is not my doing.... ) and with not a good amount of decent land.... maybe it needs a " military way " to win. IMHO Raggie's start was the worst of this map
 
@SpockFederation
Spoiler :
I was quite puzzled by Ragnar's start as well... quite poor IMHO ( it is not my doing.... ) and with not a good amount of decent land.... maybe it needs a " military way " to win. IMHO Raggie's start was the worst of this map

Spoiler :
Just my luck :lol:. It probably does lend to a military win, but the thing on isolated starts is that tech leads to military. Ragnar's land has quite a bit of production, but its difficult to get the tech going. On the plus side, I can try to upgrade berserkers to grenadiers for amphibious :).
 
HC is absolutely rocking for me. Techs like Scientific Method in 4 turns while running only 50% science.

Only tried Monarch - wanted an easy run before Christmas and I wanted to try out a new approach (new for me anyway). Should have tried Emperor. Currently at war with Ragnar to take his island, after which I'll tech straight for space.

The approach this time was:
1. Early Great Lighthouse
2. Pyramids and Great Library
3. Civil Service, then REX to fill the island. And I mean fill it - cities spaced every three tiles as densely as I can make it.
4. Tech up to Education.
5. Tech to Optics and discover neighbours.
6. Take Astronomy from Liberalism
7. Profit. Hugely from multiple overseas trade routes.
8. First to Economics and Free Market. Give Economics away.
9. Build lots of harbours and customs houses.
10. Tech to Democracy and build SOL. Run Emancipation.
11. Tech to Rifles and run golden age and draft/cash rush an army.
12. War with Ragnar to get the largest land area.

Mansa is being left in the dust by my research powerhouse - even my small cities are getting 5 trade routes at around 4 commerce each. The land is carpeted with cottages - most of these small cities have at least a couple of cottages and a free specialist. And I am running a high cash slider to rush in the buildings I need.
 
Well I'm holding things down with the dutch.

Spoiler :

So nothing terribly different to report. I used liberalism to get astronomy, since I had built the great-light-house -- so with international trade I managed to obtain a nice tech lead and went to war with absurdly over-powered troops.

Currently, its about 1820ish and I'm bringing in my east indiaman's filled with infantry to rock some longbow ass :)

(Yep .. my Infantry vs Engligh LONGBOWS, rofl. I need to fight them for otheir oil).


And naturally destroyers vs frigates:




I could really win easily by means of a space race, but I might just switch to state property and go for a domination win, or hmm... I could also go for a conquest victory... hmmm I never did finish my other game with De gualle or Perciles was it? in which I set out for a conquest win.. If I try it here first order of business would be to take out that bastard Ricardo Rolo who seems to be my biggest threat atm :rolleyes: not sure if I have the patience for a conquest win, but we'll see how things go.

Might step up to Immortal and play with my beloved Inca's for round 2 once I'm done.
 
Sounds nice, I'll see if I have some time to play this one through. Might try Darius or Ragnar, although Dutch usually rock bigtime.

I understand you had to pick out civs, and I think you chose the right ones... Maya and Korea has way too early UUs (hrm, Darius?)... Would've liked to play either Pro or Chm, I fancy these traits a bit atm, playing a Churchill game (just a tiny continents, but both AIs are on the same continent as me... Toku and Mao. Ofcourse Toku had to dow me although I was the most powerful, so hopefully he'll be gone soon. And Mao won't trade nobody nothing. :()
 
Finished with a Space win in 1938. Misplayed the end a little as I had so much research and not enough production. I should have saved a GP for a golden age. Most late game techs took 3 turns to research.

I could have also won with a Diplomacy win in 1900. I didn't build the UN but got elected secretary general and had enough friends to vote the win. I had totally eliminated Ragnar and had defensive pacts with everyone except Mansa.
 
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