Lonely Hearts Club: Huayna Capac

[willpax]

Welcome to the first game thread of the Lonely Hearts Club, a series devoted to exploring what many see as a common challenging game situation: the isolated start. The basic approach will be to generate a save game that has been developed normally, and begin our discussion at the moment when isolation becomes obvious. Such a start prevents optimization from the opening for an isolated start.

For our first leader, we have selected Huayna Capac. Capac is a leader well suited to the Lonely Hearts challenge: the early unique unit does well against the first waves of barbarian warriors and archers, the industrious trait helps snag crucial early wonders, and the financial trait can help us keep up with the AIs in our isolated state.

Welnic has been generous enough to find our first save:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/93671/betterIsland.jpg

And here is the save file, for those who wish to play along:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/93671/HC2_BC-2800.CivWarlordsSave

And the game so far, for those who are interested:

Spoiler :

Cuzco founded
Cuzco begins: Quechua (22 turns)
Research begun: Polytheism (15 Turns)

Turn 1/660 (3970 BC) [09-May-2007 00:40:49]

Turn 2/660 (3940 BC) [09-May-2007 00:40:58]

Turn 3/660 (3910 BC) [09-May-2007 00:41:08]

Turn 4/660 (3880 BC) [09-May-2007 00:41:25]

Turn 5/660 (3850 BC) [09-May-2007 00:41:40]

Turn 6/660 (3820 BC) [09-May-2007 00:41:47]

Turn 7/660 (3790 BC) [09-May-2007 00:41:56]
Cuzco's borders expand

Turn 8/660 (3760 BC) [09-May-2007 00:42:02]

Turn 9/660 (3730 BC) [09-May-2007 00:42:41]

Turn 10/660 (3700 BC) [09-May-2007 00:42:53]
Cuzco grows: 2

Turn 11/660 (3670 BC) [09-May-2007 00:43:03]

Turn 12/660 (3640 BC) [09-May-2007 00:43:44]

Turn 13/660 (3610 BC) [09-May-2007 00:43:51]

Turn 14/660 (3580 BC) [09-May-2007 00:44:11]
Tech learned: Polytheism
Hinduism founded in Cuzco
Hinduism has spread: Cuzco

Turn 15/660 (3550 BC) [09-May-2007 00:44:26]
Research begun: Mining (8 Turns)

Turn 16/660 (3520 BC) [09-May-2007 00:45:41]

Turn 17/660 (3490 BC) [09-May-2007 00:45:52]

Turn 18/660 (3460 BC) [09-May-2007 00:46:00]

Turn 19/660 (3430 BC) [09-May-2007 00:46:31]
Cuzco grows: 3

Turn 20/660 (3400 BC) [09-May-2007 00:46:42]
Tribal village results: weak hostiles
Cuzco finishes: Quechua
While defending in the wild, Quechua defeats (1.24/2): Barbarian Warrior (Prob Victory: 67.8%)

Turn 21/660 (3370 BC) [09-May-2007 00:47:35]
Cuzco begins: Worker (15 turns)
While defending in the wild, Quechua loses to: Barbarian Lion (1.60/2) (Prob Victory: 25.1%)

Turn 22/660 (3340 BC) [09-May-2007 00:48:49]
Tech learned: Mining

Turn 23/660 (3310 BC) [09-May-2007 00:49:00]
Research begun: Bronze Working (15 Turns)

Turn 24/660 (3280 BC) [09-May-2007 00:49:29]
Tribal village results: map

Turn 25/660 (3250 BC) [09-May-2007 00:49:42]

Turn 26/660 (3220 BC) [09-May-2007 00:49:49]

Turn 27/660 (3190 BC) [09-May-2007 00:50:14]

Turn 28/660 (3160 BC) [09-May-2007 00:50:23]

Turn 29/660 (3130 BC) [09-May-2007 00:50:29]

Turn 30/660 (3100 BC) [09-May-2007 00:50:37]

Turn 31/660 (3070 BC) [09-May-2007 00:50:44]
Cuzco's borders expand

Turn 32/660 (3040 BC) [09-May-2007 00:50:54]

Turn 33/660 (3010 BC) [09-May-2007 00:51:22]

Turn 34/660 (2980 BC) [09-May-2007 00:51:28]

Turn 35/660 (2950 BC) [09-May-2007 00:51:34]
Cuzco finishes: Worker

Turn 36/660 (2920 BC) [09-May-2007 00:51:40]
Cuzco begins: Quechua (22 turns)

Turn 37/660 (2890 BC) [09-May-2007 00:53:02]
Tech learned: Bronze Working

Turn 38/660 (2860 BC) [09-May-2007 00:53:21]
Research begun: The Wheel (10 Turns)
Research begun: Pottery (10 Turns)
Research begun: The Wheel (10 Turns)

Turn 39/660 (2830 BC) [09-May-2007 00:54:46]

Turn 40/660 (2800 BC) [09-May-2007 00:54:55]

 

[willpax]

Let's begin with some initial analysis of our strengths and weaknesses, leading to some potential victory goals.

To start, this island has an excellent resource mix--stone and marble, copper, wine and gold for happy, deer & sheep & rice as well as every flavor of seafood for health. We can see how dotmapping will play out, but there seems to be room for at least six good cities, possibly more.

Of course, six cities is a somewhat narrow base on which to build a cultural win, always an option on an isolated start. And the northern latitude we seem to be on gives us fewer grassland tiles to maximize our cottage spamming to take advantage of our financial trait.

So: what should our moves be from this point?

 

[Hold The Onion]

I say you use Industrious to build the oracle and get early monarchy for LARGE cities very early. If you're thinking culture, remember that commerce = culture when you crank up the slider later and it means reasearch now. Lots of cottages ASAP. Plus you'll get a prophet for your shrine.

PS- besides Hereditary Rule is Capac's favorite civic anyway

 

[pigswill]

In terms of wonders Colossus looks fairly useful, I'd also consider parthenon to speed GPs along. Not going to need a big army at all before astronomy which makes pacifism a useful civic. As already mentioned HR will help grow larger cities though there are only three non-seafood health resources so inland cities have a problem in that respect. Going coastal seems the way forwards.

 

[Hold The Onion]

plus coastal gets extra health fro harbors. nice call pigswill

 

[Killroyan]

Nice island. Lots of good city sites, stone, marble, copper and industrious. If you play this right you will be leading in world wonders without much problems. If you can get the great lighthouse and the colussus (the last one being the most important one) up and running you will definitely have no problem keeping up with the rest (every sea tile is 2f and 4 coins then). Even the trahs cities will pay them back easily.

Cuzco is going to get sick with all the flood plains, wines and sheep. Will be following this.

 

[r_rolo1]

Oracle -> Monarchy -> HR
+
Collosus
-
Hunting
=
Large coastal cities

I believe that this is the best shot

 

[patagonia]

Picked up the save - some initial thoughts:
(spoilered because I'm not sure how "open" this is supposed to be)

Spoiler :

Expanding super-early isn't essential since we're isolated, so there's no pressing need to grab the best city sites. Quechua's get a bonus against archers so we can capture any barb ones that pop up easily enough and don't need to grab copper right away.

Industrious + Copper + Stone?
Pyramids? Gets rid of any happy issues - representation might be nice.
Colossus? With financial this makes sea squares a powerful option and we've got lots of coast and seafood, which means we'll want the Oracle for MC.

That's a fair few wonders to build, but the lack of a landgrab priority means we can easily accomplish that on Monarch. Yay!

Right, I'm off to found city 2 on the plains forest between stone and lake, and that can build the Pyramids while Cuzco builds the Oracle and gets more Quechuas and a settler for city 3 1E of the gold in the east (where the Colossus will go).

After that it's REX REX REX as coastal cities will pay for themselves almost instantly.

 

[patagonia]

Just finished a shadow game, thoughts below:

Spoiler :

Space Win in 1897

Pretty slow and sloppy on my part, but as isolated starts go this was pretty straightforward. For a bit of "flavour" I played like a true Incan and shunned alphabet and all its subsequent techs which definitely slowed things down (admittedly it would have been more accurate to shun both writing and the wheel...).

I followed the basic plan in the spoiler tags in my previous post, expanded out to fill the island and settled on the small one off the east coast too.

Despite running representation (from the pyramids) for happy, I neglected specialists, cottaging just about everything to exploit financial and bureaucracy fully - also something of a mistake as one city could easily have farmed a few great people in a relatively organised manner. When the other AIs put in an appearance, I was up a bit/down a bit in tech having focused on a liberalism beeline and won that race comfortably in the end. From that point on I was tech leader for the rest of the game.

All the late-game resources (oil, aluminium, uranium) were present on the island so space turned out to be an easy win. Culture was also definitely viable if played for early since without making a run on religions I managed to pick up Confucianism in addition to the Hindu start and could easily have snagged another if so inclined (I actually avoided religious techs to try and get some unrest sown in the rest of the world).

The main problem was a lack of health pretty much everywhere - even coastal cities were struggling by size 15-16 since most of them lacked a fresh water bonus. Having sick cities is less of a problem than having unhappy ones though, even if that green cloud does look ugly.

Savegame

 

[Gryman]

Why wouldn't you post the initial save?? I would have played much differently from the start of this game! Guess I'll give it a go from here though.

 

[willpax]

Here's my first attempt at a dotmap, aiming to secure resources with less overlap (and hence fewer cities with slightly less maintenance).

 

[patagonia]

Here's my first attempt at a dotmap, aiming to secure resources with less overlap (and hence fewer cities with slightly less maintenance).

You should found the eastern sheep/copper/gold city 1NW to be able to work the crabs, otherwise you're going to have a hideous lack of food over there. That'd probably push blue circle 1W too, which isn't a bad thing as it can help grow cottages for the capital from that position. Yellow and green circles were my 4th and 5th cities when I played this, so I think those are good locations

With Cuzco in the middle of the island, distance maintenance isn't going to be much of an issue on this map, so I wouldn't worry too much about trying to fill the space with as few cities as possible, or about cities overlapping slightly (especially if there's a short-term benefit to doing so).

 

[Gryman]

Victory in 1874

Spoiler :

Space Race in 1874

Very similar to Patagonia's win. Used Oracle to grab Machinery then teched out to optics fairly early. settled the Continent then the Island to the east (Captured by Brennus during a surprise attack ) . Cottaged most cities with 1 GP farm. Got Astronomy with Liberalism and opened trade routes with allies (not many resource trades as the AI had already traded between themselves). Very comfortable Space Race, Would've been more fun going for a Domination. Settled or built Academies with Great Scientists and ran 2 trade missions with Great Merchants.

I really don't mind an isolated start as military can be neglected early along with prioritizing Optics to meet some neighbors. Would be a lot tougher on higher levels though.

 

[r_rolo1]

Victory in 2022 ( don't pick on me, it's my first Monarch win )

Spoiler :

A messy game, similar to patagonia's and gryman ones, just with inferior skill.

Oracle ->MC, Self research Monarchy, HR, REX loosely based in wilpax dotmap. Forced to a war with Brennus to not hostilize the Buda block and suffered a sneak attack from Japan while fighting Hannibal with the bulldog and the ironman ( bribed by me... the other financial civ had to die before it ran away) which was repelled with minimum losses : this was all the military action I saw.

Fortunately the big island had all the late game resourses ( by the way, alluminium popped under two cities ) and, with some sabotage on the bulldog's three gorges dam ( he was the first to finish Apollo) and with the ironman bully everyone but me and churchill, victory was just a matter of time.

I'm quite happy with the result, even if it isn't brilliant. I wasn't even counting on winning.... But I made a lot of mistakes that costed me at least 50 turns, like the settling order and the dotmap. But now I will open my Champagne bottle and celebrate....

For those interested, the save:
r_rolo_AD-2021.CivWarlordsSave

 

[CivSetä]

Victory 1903

I checked previously posted saves, Future tech 16 in 1874!!!! How do you guys do that?

Spoiler :

My game was actually quite easy, and boring too. I finished quechua, and built two workers after that, then two settlers to found cities next to a marble and stone. I built Oracle in marble city for CoL and pyramids in capital. I had some scientists in every city to take advance of pyramids and representation, but had cottages everywhere. So hybrid economy was my choice.
I was running caste+pacifism, but had bad luck, got 5-6 GEs (thanks to pyramids) instead of badly needed GS, so I had to use them build many wonders. (Well, in general I was having wonder-fest whole game because of stone+marble+ind, maybe that had something to with relatively late win!) Got liberalism easily, I grabbed constitution in 1112 AD. Could have had whatever I wanted, though, but I didn't risk anything because I haven't met anyone yet. And because someone else grabbed philo before me I was afraid that somebody like Mansa was rushing towards it. Perhaps should have used all those GEs lighbulb lower techtree for optics to find out ...

I had to research everything by myself, as nobody found me soon enough. Later I realized that there was some war going on all the time on other continent. They were really backward and I couldn't trade anything except useless techs (Theology, Divine right, horseback riding etc), I made the trades for +4 trading bonus. I only got banking+economics from Hannibal. They never progressed, I think that nobody else even had finished Apollo yet.

One stupid mistake in the end delayed the launch about 7-10 turns, I started a golden age before I hurried Space elevator with GE. Of course the GE was used for golden age and I was left with GP...

 

[Hold The Onion]

i thought we were doing this as a group discussion then he plays like ALC, no? Oh well either way. Will continue to follow this one. Good leader choice is really gonna help (or has already helped for some)

 

[Gryman]

Victory 1903

I checked previously posted saves, Future tech 16 in 1874!!!! How do you guys do that?

I'm sure it was 16 turns remaining on Future Tech 1. I wish I were that good

Originally posted by r rolo1

Victory in 2022 ( don't pick on me, it's my first Monarch win )

Congrats on the Win!

Originally posted by Patagonia

With Cuzco in the middle of the island, distance maintenance isn't going to be much of an issue on this map, so I wouldn't worry too much about trying to fill the space with as few cities as possible, or about cities overlapping slightly (especially if there's a short-term benefit to doing so).

I tend to agree with this, aim for more cities than your dotmap in order to take advantage of future trade routes as well as financial coastal tiles. I'm also interested in seeing how you leverage the Industrious trait being isolated.

 

[CivSetä]

I'm sure it was 16 turns remaining on Future Tech 1. I wish I were that good

Right! Should not check saves 5AM...

 

[CivSetä]

Victory in 2022 ( don't pick on me, it's my first Monarch win )

Congrats! In my opinion, on Monarch you have to know how to play!

 

[r_rolo1]

Congrats on the Win!

Congrats! In my opinion, on Monarch you have to know how to play!

Thank you both.... In spite of my game had been far from stellar

I agree with gryman about the dotmapping. You'll need a lot of pop to survive to the isolation and in this map, with so little health resouses.... more cities will help you more than a slowly growing one. And if you're planning to build the Collosus, the most coastal squares you have, the best...

For an aftergame discussion:

Spoiler :

Do you think that ind helped a lot in this game? At least for me, the Ind trait only had helped in the Oracle.... I wanted some other wonders like the GL and the Hanging Gardens, but I had no real hope of getting them because of the Monarchy research. Only when I got out of isolation I could be in the wonder race, but it's in the early game you need the most of the wonders...

In my opinion, at least in this map, Exp would have helped a lot... Trade wine for wheat is not a fair deal