All Leaders Challenge Game 15:

http://www.civfanatics.com/images/civ4/warlords/mehmedii06sm.jpg

Pre-Game Thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=216299)

Starting Position (this post, below)
Round 1: 4000 BC to 2260 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5319975&page=3#59)
Round 2: 2260 BC to 580 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5329627&page=8#146)
Round 3: 580 BC to 410 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5343368&page=13#244)
Round 4: 410 AD to 1280 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5352300&page=15#295)
Round 5: 1280 AD to 1358 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5365616&page=18#348)
Round 6: 1358 AD to 1520 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5379832&page=22#424)
Round 7: 1520 AD to 1836 AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5379832&page=22#424)

The idea of the All Leaders Challenge is that I'm going to play a game with each of the Civ IV leaders--mostly the less popular ones--that I haven't tried before. With the help of all the posters who participate, I will attempt to make the most of the leader's unique characteristics: traits, starting techs, unit, and building. Aside from the leader, the other game settings are kept constant, at their defaults, for the sake of comparison--although I'm introducing a couple of variations starting with this game (see below). I will post the saved game files, screenshots, and status reports here as the game progresses. Everyone then has a chance to chime in with their strategy ideas, or voice their frustration (or glee) when I make a mistake. ;)

Everyone is invited to offer opinions and advice, and to make your own attempt at playing the same game. But if you do play a "shadow game", I kindly request that you refrain from posting spoilers--i.e. any facts or even hints about the map, opponents, and so on--before I'm there myself. I'm trying to play the game as authentically as possible.

In this ALC game, I'll be playing as Mehmed II (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmed_II), leader of the Ottoman Empire. I'm playing the game using the Warlords expansion pack (complete with the 2.08 patch). The difficulty level is Monarch, the map is Fractal , and the speed is Epic .

I should also let you know that unlike the previous games with fractal maps, I have not had someone check this one for an isolated start. Mehmed doesn't have an early UU, so I don't see an isolated start as being an issue like it would be for Kublai Khan. It may, in fact, be very informative to have an isolated start. (Of course, now that I've said that, watch me turn up on a Pangaea map!)

Here are all of the game settings:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_4000BC_01.jpg

And here's a look at the start:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_4000BC_02.jpg

Well, in the pre-game thread, we talked about growing quickly to take advantage of both Mehmed's Expansionist trait and his happiness-granting Unique Building, the Hammam. We also considered researching Pottery very early on to get a head start on a cottage economy.

I think this start bodes well for those ideas. I have rice, which our first worker can farm immediately since Mehmed starts with Agriculture. Furthermore, we have at least 2 sugar tiles, both beside the river. They can be farmed and will yield the same amount of food as they will with a plantation (4). Riverside grassland tiles are my favourite locations for cottages. We also have 4 hills (1 plains, 3 grassland) for decent production along with several forests for chopping. All that empty plains and grassland bodes well for a hidden resource. And, of course, there's a goody hut!

I frankly don't see much point in moving. This is not a spectacular start, but it's a very good one, and I don't see a more appealing location nearby. Well, the plains hill to the northwest is mildly tempting, but I suspect there will be tiles over there that I wouldn't want in the capital's fat cross. Looks like we're north of the equator, but not by too much, going by the jungle I see in the fog to the southwest. That precludes a move in that direction--I'd just end up with jungle in the fat cross.

I think the Warrior should move 1SE onto the hill just because it will reveal more tiles. Let the first border expansion pop the goody hut.

Once I settle, I think the first build would be a Warrior for exploration, timed to complete when the city grows to 2 pop, followed by a Worker. Meanwhile, I research Animal Husbandry, then Pottery, then Mining -> Bronze Working.

How does that sound for the opening round of play?

Sounds good!

Seems like a wise move to me. I think that this start should work out well enough for our purposes.

> I frankly don't see much point in moving.
Word. Just do it.

> Warrior for exploration, timed to complete when the city grows to 2 pop, followed by a Worker
Word, and popping your fat cross will let you use the plains forest hill for the Worker hammer bonus.

> Meanwhile, I research Animal Husbandry, then Pottery, then Mining -> Bronze Working.
No reason to start with one you won't use. I think Mining -> BW -> AH -> Pottery would give you stuff when you most want it. Until the first settler is out I think it would be better to work 4FP tiles than cottages, unless you're really hot to chop it instead of relying on worked tiles. BW and AH before Pottery would ensure that you could send the first settler to the good stuff.

Not an amazing start but far from bad. Chances are you have horses, bronze, or iron in your fat cross because you only have three resources visible. I'd expect another foodsource or luxury in those tiles in the fat cross to the south. Lots of grassland for cottaging if you were running a CE, but i'd expect SE to be the way to go as ottomans, maybe not initially but later in the game once you have HR, CS, and aqueducts. Might I ask why you'd want AH first? Do the barbarians start showing up earlier on monarch or somthing?

Settle in place.

Wait on AH. You have enough food production that you'll want to get to BW ASAP for Slavery. After that, go for Pottery unless you don't see a Copper resource to nab with your second city.

EDIT: Changed my mind. AH before Pottery for sure.

Niiiiiice. A solid start that will produce a strong, well-balanced capital...not to mention a fairly sizable one. You look to be in one of the temperate zones just north of the equator too, given the sugar. Nice again....expansive will mitigate initial unhealthiness from jungles, and that river looks pretty long too. Might need a name, as it could well be the cradle of Turkish civlization...at least until the assimilation begins:borg:

Oh, and don't worry about AH. In fact, I'd say Pottery should be coming pretty early. Once that rice and some of the sugar is farmed, this sucker is going to grow like a weed. Pottery and Mining-BW should be your immediate priorities, IMO, unless an AH resource shows up in the fog....goddamn....just think of the growth if there're PIGS out there:eek:

If there were a lot of flood plains, I would say animal husb.--pottery--mining--BW while building worker first. Since not I would go towards BW, then back to husbandry and pottery.

Also settle in place.

Just curious, do you have someone checking your map to see if you are isolated, and what do you do if you are. I like fractal also, but lately I have been getting isolated starts on crazy small islands. While it might be a good learning experience, it could also be rather boring.

Is that coast up there beyond the grassland hill to the north or are my eyes playing tricks on me?

GS

Also settle in place.

Just curious, do you have someone checking your map to see if you are isolated, and what do you do if you are. I like fractal also, but lately I have been getting isolated starts on crazy small islands. While it might be a good learning experience, it could also be rather boring.

He has a way of making every game interesting. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=4597003)

Agree with the consensus.

Settle in Place.

Research Pottery a little later to give you more idea of where second city should be placed.

He has a way of making every game interesting. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=4597003)

Yeah, I read through that game, hoping to see a Quecha rush executed. Oh well, almost.

Is that coast up there beyond the grassland hill to the north or are my eyes playing tricks on me?

GS

I didn't see it but after you mentioned it, it looks possible.

Is it me or does it look like coast or a lake to the north?

A good possibility of an isolated or small continent start?

Mining or Pottery 1st, definitely.

Move the Warrior N or NE top check out the coast/lake, you won't find much moving towards the hill to your SE, because you sight is blocked off by the forest.

Why not move the warrior first, to the hill to see if there's anything interesting eastward, before even touching your settler? Chances are you will not find anything to pry you from your starting point, but who knows? You might find a [insert nice resource here, maybe a riverside wheat or something]. Of course that means that you lose a riverside grassland tile in exchange for the [whatever resource] and a riverside plains forest, but you also can chop that riverside plains forest for production early on.

EDIT: Oops didn't see that you were already planning on moving the warrior. Well why not do that and then give us more information to work with?

It's looking like a good start even if the warrior finds nothing.

> I frankly don't see much point in moving.
Word. Just do it.

> Warrior for exploration, timed to complete when the city grows to 2 pop, followed by a Worker
Word, and popping your fat cross will let you use the plains forest hill for the Worker hammer bonus.

> Meanwhile, I research Animal Husbandry, then Pottery, then Mining -> Bronze Working.
No reason to start with one you won't use. I think Mining -> BW -> AH -> Pottery would give you stuff when you most want it. Until the first settler is out I think it would be better to work 4FP tiles than cottages, unless you're really hot to chop it instead of relying on worked tiles. BW and AH before Pottery would ensure that you could send the first settler to the good stuff.

Sounds like an excellent analysis to me. Why differ from it?

I am always tempted BIG time to settle on plains hills, but this is smells like hidden horses, bronze or probably iron later on.

Once I settle, I think the first build would be a Warrior for exploration, timed to complete when the city grows to 2 pop, followed by a Worker. Meanwhile, I research Animal Husbandry, then Pottery, then Mining -> Bronze Working.

There is no real reason to wait with worker. Getting it out there asap is just soo much stronger it is not funny. I also advocate going mining -> BW first as that allows your worker to go farm-> mine-> chop for settler which is fairly powerfull imo. going for pottery early for cottages doesnt realy fit that well in with a SE but it is amazing for getting up those cheap grannries which you would likely want to have(whipped!) before you grow for the 3rd time as they only take half pop. Remember to get it done before your halffinished with growing to take max advantage off it going a build order in the line of worker->warrior->settler->grannary->warrior/barracks depending whip another worker(with an expancive leader there is no reason whatosever to not whip most of your workers as the food to hammer conversion this way is quite extreeme) then get out another settler after you have some more protection. Having the worker Farming the rice mining the hill chopping some wood then farming over the suggar for some awesome early growth titles which later can be used to used to run sevral specialists. Building workers the hard way especailly when you allready have a grannary and you mostly have high food sources is just way slower than growing the city then whipping it. I am not sure the hammers needed to whip on epic but on normal you need to invest 25% of the hammer needed for the worker before you can whip it for one pop, i assume this is the same for epic. Of course you can whip for 2 pop in some cities with low production since that give excelent overflow, just remember to invest some hammers first ;) . I recently looked over whipping as expancive and it realy is an entierly different world. If you get into early war i would like to see you whipping out axemen or simmilar using the whip trick(this also works for cattapults later). Invest some hammers into the axeman, on normal speed this is 1-4 hammers(1-10 for pults) so very low then whip the axeman for almost max overflow so you can produce 2 axemen/catapults on 3 turns. This is the strongest part of the expancive trait imo and not showcasing how you can whip out hordes of workers in no time would be a shame imo. You might also need it to clear out the jungle so you can farm it over for more whipping ;) . Good luck by finding the fastest way to gunpowder though i do strongly advice you do not skip over construction/currency(espeically as this gives markets which is nice running an SE + you can allways use extra happines). Good luck.

For research path i would probably go with mining > BW > pottery > AH to first get the whip enabled(heck and we get chopping too!) then pottery for the awesome expancive granaries. Converting other reasources into hammers especially in greater numbers than the hammers give themselves is some of the most powerfull mechanics in the game, it would be a shame to not use them properly espeically since they mesh so well with your leaders traits.

Mehmed!!
Sounds interesting.

Is this going to be a lonely game? Survey says...

Yes. More details if you want em: (nothing too revealing)
It's going to be very lonely, no contact 'till astronomy, but your island is quite large if you want to pursue an isolationist space race it's quite doable.

Solid start and I expect another sugar or some other resource in the lower uncovered tiles. Cottage heaven with decent production for sure. I always like the warrior first approach to get more huts, especially with your luck Sisiutil. AH, mining, BW and pottery sounds good. But indeed first move the warrior but I don't expect to see a better spot although it could reveal a resource behind the hills on the right. If so you can move 1E saving 1 forest and getting a grassland hill instead of a plains hill.

Settle in place seems to be the best choice. In my opinion you should start with a worker, you want it out ASAP because:
- You already have rice and two sugar tiles to irrigate, and you want some mines also sooner or later. Worker has enough things to do right from the start.
- You probably have improved all necessary tiles (rice, 1-2 sugar, 2-4 mines) once you finish settler, hence your first worker is ready to improve second city ASAP.
- Because of expansive trait you build worker a bit faster, take advantage of it!

I suggest you start worker-warrior-settler. I would go for BW first, you really don't need pottery for a long time (but chopping and whipping is very useful). In the start you want growth and production, so cottages are not necessities. And you definitely need to build 2-3 settlers to grab land before you should even consider building granary. Hence I would research mining-BW-(AH?)-pottery.

Subscribed.
Now move on ;)

Subscribed.
Now move on ;)

I think we need Blake to update the Sistiutil AI. The current version has too long of wait times between turns. ;)

Move warrior se as suggested. Depending on outcome of that (and the famous blue circles) you could cross the river while keeping three known resource tiles.

Move warrior se as suggested. Depending on outcome of that (and the famous blue circles) you could cross the river while keeping three known resource tiles.

To follow up on this, I thought about 2 different option (= not settling in place).
1) Moving to the tile were the warrior started saves 1 forest, losing nothing. Depending on what the warrior discovers, it can be a better city site.
The bad thing is you can't work the sugar straight away. And among the unimproved tiles, riverside sugar is a very good one.

2) Settling on a sugar allows you to have 3 food 1 h 1 c in the city center. It may seem wasteful, but sugar is really a weak tile to work. A lot weaker than a cottage. Settling on the thing allows you to get the sugar without wasting worker turns on a plantation and wasting a good working tile on a otherwise useless plantation. + it allows you to work the other sugar straight away. The bad part is losing the rice + hills + not knowing what's on the southern tiles.

Maybe after moving the warrior 1 out of those 2 solutions will look good, but I don't think so.

Is it worth researching pottery, building a worker and then putting cottages down on the two sugar tiles to kickstart your economy?

Is it worth researching pottery, building a worker and then putting cottages down on the two sugar tiles to kickstart your economy?
I'd say a farm on the sugar is easier and faster for a more direct impact (4 food = 1 specialist fed). + it won't be a heart breaking decision to plant the sugar over a farm. A whole different issue if you cottage it :eek: .

I'd go warrior > worker > settler, while researching mining>BW.
Pottery can wait until the settler is out.
After that, I'd try for the oracle (all those forests!), while building units (including another settler) with the second city.

I'd say a farm on the sugar is easier and faster for a more direct impact (4 food = 1 specialist fed). + it won't be a heart breaking decision to plant the sugar over a farm. A whole different issue if you cottage it :eek: .

I'd go warrior > worker > settler, while researching mining>BW.
Pottery can wait until the settler is out.
After that, I'd try for the oracle (all those forests!), while building units (including another settler) with the second city.


Farming the sugar does seem the way to go.
What sort of economy are we going to run? If it's a SE then how early do we go for writing?
Or maybe it's going to be another Great Merchant Economy. :)

Farming the sugar does seem the way to go.
What sort of economy are we going to run? If it's a SE then how early do we go for writing?
Or maybe it's going to be another Great Merchant Economy. :)

According to the first post in this thread, Sisiutil will be running a CE or at least a HE.

This would be my move:

Move warrior. If nothing special appears (like a plains fur :lol: or a two wheat one rice and one fish spot ( it happens sometimes (mostly to the AI [pissed] :ar15: ))) , then settle in place and:

Queue: Worker -> Warrior -> settler -> (something) -> whip granary

Techs : Mining -> BW (chop, chop) -> (Animal husbandry, if no cooper and near annoying Civ) -> Pottery

Worker actions : farm riverside sugar (at least one ) and rice

I would recommend Mining- BW to open up chopping and slavery and copper. I would start with a worker since there is work to be done.
:p

Also, if that is jungle to the SW, BW gets us closer to IW for clearing it.

So it sounds like the consensus is to move the Warrior and unless he reveals something more spectacular, settle in place. Then research Mining and Bronze Working while building a Worker.

The last one's the only recommendation I'm having trouble with. I don't like building a Worker first. I feel I get more value out of having a 2nd exploratory unit, and the Worker gets built faster with 2 citizens working tiles. So you'll have to forgive me if I go astray from that idea.

I'll probably play the first round tonight an post it as well.

I would settle in place, unless by moving the warrior on the hill you see something worth changing for.

Unfortunately, you lack cows or pigs or some other resource that adds to equivalent of 5 or 6 production to a settle. So you are stuck with 4 'production' on your first settle :( .

You do have a lot of grassland, which could mean copper or horses or iron if you're lucky :). So maybe it might be worth researching AH first just for that. Otherwise... the first three tiles I would work would be: farmed sugar, mined hill, and cottaged sugar. So maybe, AH-->Mining --> bronze --> pottery?

Might need mysticism too depending on when you are founding your second city and how soon it needs a border pop.

Most likely there is going to be jungle south surrounding that sugar, so maybe you can build some extra workers via expansive to help clean up the mess.

Mehmed II is a great builder, and jungle will eventually turn into very good commerce cities.

I look forward to this ALC with the same relish I have all the others. Thanks for doing this - it is both entertaining and instructive.

Like Sistuil, I also find it difficult to believe that building a worker with only one tile is efficient. So I often start with a warrior. But our intuitions in this may be wrong.

I remember weeks ago reading a thread which did a controlled multi-turn analysis of this question and, unless I am mistaken, it came down decisively in favor of the worker first option. Does anyone know the link to that thread?

I look forward to this ALC with the same relish I have all the others. Thanks for doing this - it is both entertaining and instructive.

Like Sistuil, I also find it difficult to believe that building a worker with only one tile is efficient. So I often start with a warrior. But our intuitions in this may be wrong.

I remember weeks ago reading a thread which did a controlled multi-turn analysis of this question and, unless I am mistaken, it came down decisively in favor of the worker first option. Does anyone know the link to that thread?
I'm sure the Worker finishes earlier if built 1st with only 1 tile worked than it would if built after a Warrior and then 2 tiles worked. That's not the issue I have with the Worker first tactic.

The issue for me is not how fast the Worker gets built, it's what I'm missing by not having a 2nd Warrior out exploring. More tiles for more resources and better city sites revealed, a better sense of the map (remember, it's fractal!), more nearby rivals encountered and located, more tribal villages popped, and the chance of stealing a Worker. Not to mention the risk that your only Warrior could get eaten.

One of my exploring Warriors usually makes it all the way to Woodsman II; there's a greater chance of that happening with 2 of them. He later gets upgraded to an Axeman who is a top-notch stack protector.

So in my opinion the Worker can wait and be the 2nd build.

I'd also go for a warrior first for exploration. In my opinion it's just too important to pass. I want to have a better feel of the map and pop those huts. You never know what pops out, do you? :D

I want to have a better feel of the map and pop those huts. You never know what pops out, do you? :D

With Sisiutil doing the popping ?

anything can happen :king: :trophy:

With Sisiutil doing the popping ?

anything can happen :king: :trophy:

Sisiutil's luck is soooo good that i'm thinking on hiring him to start my games :lol: (fee needs to be discussed ;) ). With his hut luck, anything can happen ( pop AH + BW + Pottery + Masonry :eek: :lol: )

Seriously. I think he didn't bother having the map checked for this ALC because even if we're isolated, he'll just pop Astronomy anyway.

I did check the map, last post on the first page, maybe it got missed? maybe no one cares?

I did check the map, last post on the first page, maybe it got missed? maybe no one cares?

maybe the spoiler tags prevents those not wanting to read the spoilers to see it?

1. move the warrior as noted.
2. post screenie.
3. 3 more pages of where put the city. ;)

1. move the warrior as noted.
2. post screenie.
3. 3 more pages of where put the city. ;)

Agree with point 3. And we still have to discuss the merits and demererits of Cabert's other sugestions for city site (1NE and settling on sugar) given the new information. Maybe 3 pages won't be enough :lol:

I find that delaying th eworker 10 turns is so much worse than delaying the warrior 15 turns. Your city gets goign so much faster and you can get your first setler out that much quicker. Post spoilers in spoilertags. Someone should have a mod remove the posts without...

There's way too much agreement here. Why is no one arguing for scouting 5-10 turns with the settler so we can be certain that no better capital sites exist in the neighborhood? :crazyeye:

did you guys see the techs he got from the huts last time? i'm all for delaying the worker to build a hut popper first :)

There's way too much agreement here. Why is no one arguing for scouting 5-10 turns with the settler so we can be certain that no better capital sites exist in the neighborhood? :crazyeye:
I used to do that in Civ II. However, in Civ IV, with so many crucial resources being hidden until you do some research, it's better to settle and get said research going rather than waste too much time wandering around. Starting positions are, by and large, very good, with more challenging terrain surrounding them.

I say go supply-rax-rax-sup-' Sorry, wrong game.
Good city spot anyway. Gotta love river, plenty of food and grass hills.

On a side note, Sisiutil's signature is getting rather cluttered. :crazyeye:

I also think Worker first would be a good move. He will have lots of work to do with three tiles being available to farm.

For techs I would go straight to BW. With three good food sources we can have decent production through slavery :whipped:

I say go supply-rax-rax-sup-' Sorry, wrong game.
Good city spot anyway. Gotta love river, plenty of food and grass hills.

On a side note, Sisiutil's signature is getting rather cluttered. :crazyeye:

He could make a thread dedicated to keeping all the links and keep only a link to that thread (and the current ALC for example) in his sig. That way at least the ALC part would be un-cluttered. :)

SPOILERS .I have played through 1100 AD. Here are some conclusions.



I have played through 1100 AD. This is an isolated start on an island with only barbarians in the neighborhood. This leads to a boring game (with no Ai to contact or trade with) until astronomy where you can plan domination or just win in a relaxed Space race. Boring , better to reload the map. Anyway with the expansive trait, Health Bonuses , Hanging Gardens and with the Hereditary rule civic and UB bonuses it is very easy to have huge cities early. Regarding Hereditary rule : better to beeline to monarchy something you will realize soon in the game when you find out you are isolated.

Based on the spoilers, I have a feeling Sisiutil will be rerolling this start, if not right away than at least when he discovers what people are talking about...

We want the UU to see some action, don't we?

I hope he plays it out, only because I suck at isolated starts and I wouldn't mind seeing what a pro can do with it. :blush:

Based on the spoilers, I have a feeling Sisiutil will be rerolling this start, if not right away than at least when he discovers what people are talking about...

We want the UU to see some action, don't we?

Didn't you kind of just give away what was in the spoilers? I mean, the first one mentioned that it was in reference to whether it was going to be a lonely game or not. Mentioning rerolling with that hint is pretty obvious, to me at least. And I think Sisiutil is smarter than me at least when it comes to Civving.

Really I just wanted to get in on the hot spoiler action.

Didn't you kind of just give away what was in the spoilers? I mean, the first one mentioned that it was in reference to whether it was going to be a lonely game or not. Mentioning rerolling with that hint is pretty obvious, to me at least. And I think Sisiutil is smarter than me at least when it comes to Civving.

Really I just wanted to get in on the hot spoiler action.


Possibly he wants Sisiutl to be spoiled so he can reload the game as jerVL/kg desires.
The fact that now another post is in spoiler tags will ignite peoples curiosity of WTF is happening here.
.

Since so much greatness has been coming frm goody huts in these threads, I thought I would share mine from a game a little while back.

Trying to move up to Monarch, random leader fractal. Got Frederick. Hut near my sttler, popped with warrior (or scout? can't remember starting techs) got BW. Nice. Two turns later, popped a hut, screen showed "you entered classical age" got Iron working. My initial borders had not even popped yet. Asoka was next door, and he had a short time in that world.

Needless to say, it was not a typical game, so I did not play it too far. I did not feel I would learn much.

Back to the regularly scheduled programming.

Round 1: 4000 BC to 2260 BC

I started by moving the Warrior SE onto the hill. Did he reveal anything exciting?

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_2260BC_01.jpg

Not so much. So, with no compelling reasons to move visible, I settled in place:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_2260BC_02.jpg

First build: a Warrior. :p Old habits die hard. However, in concession to the group mind, I consented to research Mining and Bronze Working first.

The first hut I encountered popped for 48 gold. Shortly after that, I adjusted the worked tiles in Istanbul so that the Warrior would finish on the same turn that the city grew:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_2260BC_03.jpg

Another hut gave me 84 gold (!), and shortly after that I finished researching my first tech:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_2260BC_04.jpg

On to Bronze Working!

The next hut pop didn't exactly thrill me:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_2260BC_05.jpg

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_2260BC_06.jpg

Oh well, I had a good run there. At least I didn't get hostile barbs.

Once the Warrior was completed in the capital, I had him start exploring as well. Meanwhile, I started building a Worker, followed by a Settler. The Worker managed to irrigate the 2 closest sugar tiles before the round ended.

I also had news about religions being founded. Hinduism first:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_2260BC_07.jpg

Buddhism followed much later, in 2320 BC.

My next hut gave me a Scout:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_2260BC_08.jpg

Yes, and notice I have a source of Stone. Normally I'd start thinking about the Great Wall, but as you'll see, that may be overkill.

The Scout found another hut, which contributed more funds to the treasury:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_2260BC_09.jpg

That was it for huts--no eye-popping free techs this time, just a pile of gold, which is nothing to complain about. That will fund research at 100% for several turns.

And on the next turn I finished tech #2:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_2260BC_10.jpg

There is copper located a few tiles south of Istanbul, though not in its fat cross. I also changed civics:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_2260BC_11.jpg

With Bronze Working completed, I went back to the tech path I'd originally considered for this game:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_2260BC_12.jpg

I then started researching Pottery. It's nearly done--3 turns from completion. I also just finished that Settler in the capital on the turn when this round ends. Here's a look at Istanbul:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_2260BC_15.jpg

I'm thinking it might be safest to not move the Settler until that Warrior is complete and can provide escort.

I lost a Warrior and that Scout to barb animals, leaving me with one Warrior who has Woodsman II, IIRC. I did manage to get my exploration completed, though:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_2260BC_14.jpg

An isolated start! Now I see why those of you posting spoilers were talking about re-rolling the start. However, I'm disinclined to do so. If I had an early UU, I wouldn't hesitate, but Mehmed has a mid-game UU. In addition, I frequently see people posting on the forum asking how to handle an isolated start, and I think this is a good opportunity for the group mind to tackle that type of game. It's not like we haven't done it before--the Huayna Capac game also featured an isolated start.

I may not be completely isolated: there's another landmass of some type to the northeast which is reachable by triremes, galleys, and work boats. That could be a larger land mass that hosts other civs or could lead to those types of land masses.

Well, obviously, certain things become higher in priority, others lower. So, here are my thoughts on the matter. Let me know if you agree or not.


Military - Just enough to deal barbs. I think I should hold off on barracks until other civs are within reach.
Cities - Coastal cities are obviously a priority. There's seafood to the northwest, west, and southeast. There are other good potential coastal city sites due south (to claim the copper) and northeast (wheat and cow). I look forward to the dotmaps. Some REXing is in order, I think.
Resources - I think either copper or horses are the priority, for defense from barbarians. Which one I go for first really depends on which will be the better city site.
Techs - Obviously Fishing -> Sailing becomes a priority. However, with all that jungle to clear, so is Iron Working.
Victory Condition - And isolated start always makes me start considering a cultural victory. In which case, we'll need to figure out how to get to Music first for the free Great Artist, and how to get the Sistine Chapel built. However, much may depend on whether other civs are within reach.

Why does the Great Wall become a lower priority? When I play isolated I tend to go for it, it is nice not having to worry about barbs, and since you do not have to fogbust, they might settle some nice cities for you. Plus, spending hammers on it is not so bad, since you are not competing for space with the AI at the present, and do not need to build up a military.

What are the arguments for and against?

Round 1: 4000 BC to 2260 BC

An isolated start! Now I see why those of you posting spoilers were talking about re-rolling the start. However, I'm disinclined to do so. If I had an early UU, I wouldn't hesitate, but Mehmed has a mid-game UU. In addition, I frequently see people posting on the forum asking how to handle an isolated start, and I think this is a good opportunity for the group mind to tackle that type of game. It's not like we haven't done it before--the Huayna Capac game also featured an isolated start.

I may not be completely isolated: there's another landmass of some type to the northeast which is reachable by triremes, galleys, and work boats. That could be a larger land mass that hosts other civs or could lead to those types of land masses.

Well, obviously, certain things become higher in priority, others lower. So, here are my thoughts on the matter. Let me know if you agree or not.


Military - Just enough to deal barbs. I think I should hold off on barracks until other civs are within reach.
Cities - Coastal cities are obviously a priority. There's seafood to the northwest, west, and southeast. There are other good potential coastal city sites due south (to claim the copper) and northeast (wheat and cow). I look forward to the dotmaps. Some REXing is in order, I think.
Resources - I think either copper or horses are the priority, for defense from barbarians. Which one I go for first really depends on which will be the better city site.
Techs - Obviously Fishing -> Sailing becomes a priority. However, with all that jungle to clear, so is Iron Working.
Victory Condition - And isolated start always makes me start considering a cultural victory. In which case, we'll need to figure out how to get to Music first for the free Great Artist, and how to get the Sistine Chapel built. However, much may depend on whether other civs are within reach.


SPOILERS. You are free not to answer as this can effect negatively or positively your game. >> (I have played through 1100 AD. Here are some conclusions.)



The northern landmass is extremely small (one fat cross city). There is no landmass where other civilizations are present that you can reach before Astronomy. Are you going to play 100 something turns by yourself ? Boring

Yeah, not that I ever build the Great Wall, but the less isolated you are, the worse it becomes, since AIs slaughter barbs and land is settled quickly, plus you need to build a military anyway to defend yourself from enemies. All alone, you expand at leisure (meaning time for wonders), there is no one else to clear barbs and you could get along without a military at all. I think Sisutil was saying that because the continent is not that big, though.

I hate to say this, but I do wish we could get a reroll. It isn't that there isn't fun to be had on a little island, but a janissary rush may now need astronomy, which definitely puts a dent in the strategy. But act as you will, I'll enjoy it either way.

I agree with Martin031 on the Great Wall part. Having it built will mean no need to protect workers from Barbs which in turn can lead to Barb Cities as less fog busting.

This provides you with:
a) Free city in ideal location; or
b) City to raze only but at least you get exp and gold.


Also I agree. No re-rolling. Isolated starts are a good way to learn.

Dont quible now. You may be all alone in the dark but stiff upper lip and all that.

I agree with Martin031 on the Great Wall part. Having it built will mean no need to protect workers from Barbs which in turn can lead to Barb Cities as less fog busting.

This provides you with:
a) Free city in ideal location; or
b) City to raze only but at least you get exp and gold.


Also I agree. No re-rolling. Isolated starts are a good way to learn.

GW is probably unnecessarily expensive at this point, especially without industrious OR stone (no, that one down there doesn't count--too far away to quickly and efficiently use, though technically his 2nd city could go for the GW right off the bat rather than the capital, saving workers the trouble of roadbuilding). I'd go for chariots if available, expand, and see if a galley can check out that mysterious landmass up there.

2nd city to the south with rice and copper (or cow/river/copper, to link it fast and leave the rice for a cow/clam/rice coastal city to the west). There are a lot of city cites that otherwise would be nice but are frusteratingly stuck with desert, mountains, or both - or would make nearby cities just suck.

It looks like your smaller river to the east has a pretty awesome production city site, though it'll be a slow grower with a) needing to chop the jungles and b) at best 1 food resource and a sugar.

Those two fish to the far NW just tick me off. Two fish and a cow - plus mountains, desert, and ocean. Yay.

As a short term strategy, I'd say get that copper to axe up some barbarians, and with a continent that makes me cringe trying to dot-map, fill it up with as many cottages as possible and push towards astronomy in whatever way the smarter-than-me tech strategists recommend.

I stand by my pre-game statement about cottaging the world and teching like a maniac - but you *need* to meet some other civs sooner rather than later, so you can see where you stand in the tech race and trade as needed - so at least one coastal city sooner rather than later.

As far as the great wall, it might not be a bad idea at all.

1. Lots of hammers to build, but you shouldn't need an awful big military soon. GE points are also yummy for free wonders later.

2. It takes the priority off linking copper/horses fast, which means you can concentrate harder on building economy cities and less on resource grabbing cities this early in the game.

I actually like the idea of the great wall for this start - as long as you don't let the combination of isolation and no barbs hoodwink you into ignoring your military too much.

Hmmm...

1)Well....you haven't built early since the Incan game, and you have stone. Sounds pretty nice to me. No need for Stonehenge or GW, but the 'Mids and HG are looking very nice and very achievable...your little island does seem to have good land and a good smattering of resources.

2)We can see some land across the sea in the northeast...it might be a good idea to scout that, even if that entails founding a city there earlier than normal.

3)Woohoo! Two long rivers with lots of grassland. Cottages, with food to run some specialists in many places.

The way I see it...you run a monster hybrid economy, fueled by your UB, Mehmed's traits and your high-quality land. Your cities figure to be very productive. In fact, I'd wager we won't be seeing any caravels....it'll be the AI who sees the caravels. Obviously, this makes Astronomy the overriding priority, but I don't see why you can't pursue that and Gunpowder effectively. No doubt there's some one like Monty out there whose pretty much guarenteed to be a good victim for the Janissaries....

Obviously, this makes Astronomy the overriding priority, but I don't see why you can't pursue that and Gunpowder effectively. No doubt there's some one like Monty out there whose pretty much guarenteed to be a good victim for the Janissaries....
The importance of Astronomy very much depends upon whether or not any other civs are reachable via Galleys. We could always build a big fleet of Galleys to transport the Janissaries to their target. If I win the circumnavigation race, it might give those Galleys 1 extra movement point at roughly the same time the UU becomes available. Hmmm...

you have a grand total of two happy resources (one of which needs calendar) until you can trade with somebody? yikers!!!

edit .. i figured it out. you did this to yourself, S. you did say you wanted to go for a whale economy next game, didn't you? you have this whole island to yourself and not a single whale in sight! beeline for astronomy and go harpoon some, buddy!

I'd stay with it - I like green.

General thoughts

1) Do pay attention to the fact that you've got a happiness crisis which will need to be addressed.

2) Fishing/Sailing are only a priority if your early cities are going to be coastal. Get that dotmap built, then prioritize.

3) Dude, those pictures aren't worth a thousand words.

You have no option as to beeline to Monarchy sooner than later else your cities will not grow.

you have a grand total of two happy resources (one of which needs calendar) until you can trade with somebody? yikers!!!

I'd stay with it - I like green.

General thoughts

1) Do pay attention to the fact that you've got a happiness crisis which will need to be addressed.
Keep in mind that Mehmed comes with a built-in way to help reduce happiness problems (the Hammam). In the short term, by combining the UB with HR, I don't anticipate too many problems. Long-term, however, yes, I'll need to obtain other happiness resources. Fortunately it looks as if I'll have plenty of Rice (3), Fish (3), Sugar (4), and Cows (7!) to trade.

are you seroious?? you worked the 2f 1h tile while growing instead of the 3F title all the way to size 2. Thats 16 turn to grow/get the warrior instead of 11 turns to grow then 3 more turns to get the warrior so you wasted 2 turns AND you got less comerce....

EDIT: working the 2 forested grassland hills of course.

After finishing a game as the Spanish, I thought I'd roll up a game as Mehmed, whom I've never played as before. Since I read the ALCs religiously, I figured I could play along, using some of the strategies that came out of this game. I read, with a touch of sadness, of the isolated start. Then I dove into my game...

Which had an isolated start. Oh bitter, bitter irony.

I'm all for you playing out this start, Sisiutil, if for no other reason than to see how you played your game differently than mine. I do have some ideas to offer as well:

I was lucky, I got gold and silver on my island. That made Metal Casting a priority. I went for an Oracle rush, took MC and had already prechopped myself most of the Colossus. Wheee... instant :gold: in all my coastal cities. I don't know if the payoff for you would work as synergistically.

As a consequence of my overflowing happiness, once I got Mathematics, I could speed for Optics. The Hammam is a thing of beauty. I'm will into the 1300s and whipping all kinds of buildings. It doesn't hurt that my island is grassland rich and mountain-poor. Thus, I skipped over Monarchy and Hereditary Rule. I had +4:), I didn't need to worry about troops. This could cause problems later.

Optics gave me caravels. I had already built a pair of explorers. I find that carrying an explorer on each caravel gives me the option to explore by land as well as by sea. I met the rest of the world, got the circumnav bonus. With a bit of skillful tech trading, I'm more or less in the race.

Interestingly, I'm way ahead of poor Saladin, who's on his own island to my north. (Had I paid close attention, I could have done the border-extension trick to get up there. Alas.) This means I have an interesting possibility. I've picked up Astronomy (ahead of most of the world). I have gunpowder (via the Hindu faction of George Washington, Augustus Caesar and their leader, Louis). I'm building Janissaries and Trebuchets, planning to attack... Saladin. I have my own island, but I want another. Plus, he's Buddhist (and no one else is), so no one will care if I wipe him out.

Right, before I ramble on for ever, here's a summary of what I've learned:

* Hammams good
* Colossus good
* Great Lighthouse/Temple of Artemis bad (no decent trade routes!)
* Minimal military good until you meet people. Then everyone will make demands of you.
* Find a faction you want to stick with. Keep them happy, plot against everyone else.
* If you go for culture, try to pick up at least one religion on your own. It's 1300 AD in my game and I have no religion at all. Conquest or nothing for me. But in your case, consider using the Oracle to slingshot either CoL or Theology.
* If you go for conquest, find someone even more technically backward than you (there's always at least one). Go after that civ. It's not hard to have Astronomy before Gunpowder. Janissaries vs. a backwards civ can be fun.

are you seroious?? you worked the 2f 1h tile while growing instead of the 3F title all the way to size 2. Thats 16 turn to grow/get the warrior instead of 11 turns to grow then 3 more turns to get the warrior so you wasted 2 turns AND you got less comerce....

EDIT: working the 2 forested grassland hills of course.

Actually, if I read the screenshots correctly, he did 5 turns working the river sugar, and then 9 turns working the forest grassland, taking 14 turns. The alternative is river-sugar for 11 turns, and then work the forest grassland and river-plains for 4 turns -- remember that borders don't expand until turn 15.

So he did go the fastest way for getting the warrior out, at the expense of some commerce.

only way to get the worker out as the same time as the city grow is to work a mix of some forested title(doesnt realy matter which though forested grassland hill is a bit better) and the sugar. This will let you grow/get warrior after 63/4=15.75 aka 16 turns. If you grow for 11 turns 33/3=11 to get to size two then work the two forested hills (4 hammers) (22-11)/4=2.75 you'll be done 2 turns earlier...

Colussus should get a bigger priority. Short look at the map gives me about 6 or 7 coastal cities. That makes a big yes for metal casting quickly.

Since you are isolated you might want to try to get the oracle and pop confucianism through code of laws. A nice religion will give you organized religion for a quick build and some extra happiness. Also a religion would not be bad if you want to go cultural.

I hope iron will show up because right now you won't have a real production power house as far as I can see. This will be a very entertaining ALC especially if you would go the bottom techline with compass/optics. I do think that a circumnavigation bonus is a priority.

If you're going cultural then it might be worth thinking about CoL and philosophy slingshot coz you may have to wait a while for religions to spread to you.

Otherwise you may be better off heading along the south track to optics, maybe picking up Colossus en route, maybe using a couple of GS to speed things along then head off and see what you can pick up in trade.

Edit: There's a lot of land out there for barbs to spawn.

cultural may be nice in this situation.
No health problem, high culture slider = no happiness problems.
Of course, you're not spiritual, you will have no early religion, you're not financial, you're not philo, you're not creative, you're not industrious :eek:, so it may not be this easy.

I see 2 options both include a rush to CoL and large cottage spamming.
option 1 :
- going cultural, using the stone to get yourself some wonders, and the not so early religions (confucianism and taoism should be doable). Just hope for other religions to reach you somehow before the end of the game. theology and DR are doable too, but it's a high cost, low reward route.
- going for space. Tech trading in the late game maybe just as good as early tech trading. Don't bother reaching the other continent. Just fill your landmass, cottage spam like crazy and whip those courthouses.

I think domination or conquest are somehow hard to target now. Not saying it's impossible, but at best it is a long shot.

Did someone say dotmap? I didn't have time to do the whole continent but this one should get you started:

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/1313/alc152260bcdotmap2im4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Found red city first. Chop an Obelisk, and try to get the Oracle built here. Pink city should come 2nd, this will give you nice continuity when you build the Great Wall, which you will chop in your capital. ;) I think GW is a major priority, that way you can totally ignore military and just build, build, build. You have eight forests in your capital, that's plenty for early wonder-chopping.

You're isolated, so your main priority is RESEARCH. That means cottages & libraries everywhere, and at least one religion (preferably 2 or 3) for monasteries. Tech path = Mysticism, Masonry, Meditation, Priesthood, Writing, Math/IW. Take CODE OF LAWS with the Oracle (Metal Casting is tempting, but religion & courthouses are more important!) Run 2 scientists in the capital for a GS to pop Philosophy (which is why I wouldn't build GW & Oracle in the same city, to keep the GP gene pool clean...although you could always pop Christianity with a Prophet.)

After that, it's MC/Machinery/Compass/Optics ftw! Not all at once, naturally -- you'll be slipping in techs, like Fishing, when needed. I would ignore the top of the tech tree entirely, in fact I wouldn't research Alphabet at all until you're ready to meet other civs. Yes, I know that means no Great Library...but you don't need it. (Trust me.)

You're going to have happiness issues, but with hammams + temples + hereditary rule (if necessary) you should be okay. Other wonders you want are Hanging Gardens & Colossus, and maybe U. of Sankore. Great Lighthouse would be nice, but without a coastal capital you've probably lost that one already. (Too bad the stone wasn't in your fat cross, otherwise I'd recommend Stonehenge & Pyramids as well...)

I'm glad you've decided to play this one out, I've always wanted to see how you handle an isolated start. And no, the HC game doesn't count! :lol:

I've got a feeling you're not as isolated as you may think.
I'm looking forward to seeing what you find on that landmass to the northeast, but even if that's empty you may be able to reach other civs with galleys.

If you are alone and you decide to head for Optics then you're going to need a few early cottages up and running to make your early economy as strong as possible.

I can't remember exactly the order of lightbulbing (haven't got the list with me), but I'm sure there's a way of bulbing astronomy, I think it requires you to miss meditation.

Keep in mind that Mehmed comes with a built-in way to help reduce happiness problems (the Hammam). In the short term, by combining the UB with HR, I don't anticipate too many problems.

yup he's the man. the only time i've played him was medieval start, so i automatically founded judaism. i had no troubles with happiness at all! even without that i think you'll be fine, that map screenshot just make me go :eek: was all.

i've never even tried going cultural when isolated, totally not my style. i like to share their religious love (and hope to not provoke their righteous frenzy), that way i don't have to chase after founding all the religions myself. isolation would definitely make the land-grabbing easier, but it would take away the fun of culture-flipping their resource tiles ;). might be fun to watch you play it!

I'd say you'll definitely want Colossus for this one. There are quite a few city sites that would require working water tiles and without Colossus they're quite bad.

If you want to get into the tech-race quickly, you may want to consider:
1) building the oracle for code-of-laws
2) adopting caste-system
3) generating 1 merchant, and 2 scientists (in that order) such that your merchant is done before math and your scientists come some time after (they won't be used until you have compass and calendar, but before theology or civil service)
4) use merchant for metal casting (prior to math so you can't bulb currency) this is why you need caste system- its impossible to run merchants pre-currency without it
5) use scientists to bulb machinery and optics (need compass and calendar)

It would also be interesting to see someone use caste system instead of slavery. It does have its benefits. And it would also make founding a city in the north with the fish and cows very useful as that would make a GREAT city under caste-system.
Later, once you have a merchant and a couple libraries, you can switch to slavery if you want to.

EDIT: oh yeah, and no meditation or else you'll light philosophy

My 2:commerce:

I go along with what Immaculate suggested.
I approve Caste System instead of Slavery, also for the following reason :

You need big numbers in population. ( you are organised, expansive and hammam enthusiast )
for a large economy ( HE with a good number of cottages )

Dont crack the whip, fight the urge !

This is -to me- pretty much set in stone. I.e. you cannot go wrong with these cities IMO
http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/3715/alc152260bc14setinstonebg4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The one debatable point I think there is about this is the Teal vs Yellow.
You can use the green -desserty- city to get a lib up and run specialists (most likely scientists or Artists if you go culture).

Then to fill the remainder: Option 1, a bunch of OK-ish cities
http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/3530/alc152260bc14option1bw1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

And Option 2, A few big ones.
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/5725/alc152260bc14option2mk6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

If you are isolated, bulbing Astronomy can still have you running with Jannies and profiting from them.
I would forgo any wonders, you simply lack the production capacity.
MAYBE Oracle or TGL if you can chop it, MAYBE Colossus if you can chop it in Blue or teal/yellow. Collosus with a beeline/rush to Astro is going to be short lived.

Short term, Get a granary and beeline CoL so you can fill the island.

Red city in mailmans dotmap. Why not 2 spaces up (N of the cows)?/ That would open up copper city 2W1N of the copper (with rice). Copper is great for the colussus. I agree with all of the top cities. The lower cities are debatable. Red city of JerVL is a bit low on food but has high commerce/production with cow/horse/gold.

Getting a galley/trireme/workboat out quickly is something to consider too. There is land in the NE corner. If you get a bit lucky you might come in contact with other civs. You nevern know and there may be some good land to settle.

Janissaries will definitely kick some barb bottoms. Unfortunately, that wouldn't show anything.

Red city will grow fast. In my game i founded first the blue city then the red one (yes it was the same location). I also advice at cottaging/farming all of your Sugar resources. There is an additional Sugar resource and you can always replace a farm-Sugar with a plantation.

The biggest early priorities are Iron Working to get rid of the jungle, workers to chop it (obviously) and a scouting workboat.

There's some great land under that jungle just waiting to be cottaged.

That last dotmap was brilliant, go for white red and blue sites first.

nothing against the who did the first one but the distance charges would kill even with cheap courthouses whipped.

isolated cultural is my fav strat, tho i did it with ghandi, that made it a lot easier and Mehmeds traits do not exactly encourage it.

i say go for it then divert yourself to space race if you see too many "wonders being built elsewhere" messages.

Well, I just want to add some thoughts. This a point in the game where you have to make a very difficult decision, not knowing how things are going to turn out. Think carefully, but be realistic. What are the risks and what are your priorities? If you want to do a Gunpowder beeline, I advise you to restart. It's not worth taking the risk and potentially wasting your time. You're only going to play Mehmed once, aren't you?

I had to do this too. In my current game, for example, I had to choose: Go the safe way and research Construction for catapults first or maximise the Philosophical trait by researching Literature and building the GL first. In the end, I looked at the situation, weighed the risks and my priorities and decided that, in order to play well on Immortal, I had to choose the safe way in that instance. And indeed it was the right choice.

The immediate issue in this game is going to be dealing with the barbarians that are due to appear very soon. Options will be major fogbusting, active defence (requires chariots asap) or great wall.

Not much fogbusting is required in such a small island. An axeman or two(for each city) , should be enough.(DAMN INSOMNIA,today)

I vote for a horse gold city very soon and a large fogbusting using sentry chariots.
This is something a lot of people seem to forget or simply don't know :
a sentry chariot next to pike will cover a huge sector.
+ chariots can take out all the barbs showing up (they have a hard time with archers on forested hills though ;))
IMHO, you only need 4 or 5 fogbusters here.

While a Gunpowder beeline to leverage the UU was planned initially, it appears the more traditional Liberalism->Astronomy beeline is in order. I'd also say that Oracle->CoL makes more sense now. So instead of leveraging the UU, we'll see the UB and the Organized trait leveraged.

I like namliaM's pink dot better than jerVL/kg's blue dot because the pink dot can work the gold easily. Working cows and horses will make working the gold difficult, and isolation makies the $$ from the gold mine a higher priority. I'd consider moving namliaM's gray copper site one east to be able to utilize the rice, and that or the horses should be the priority if you're not going for the Great Wall.

I'd like to see a large scale late midevil naval invasion, don't think i've ever seen one of those done. Beeline liberalism then pick astronomy and build a fleet of galleons, make trebs while working on gunpowder then go crazy with jans.

But for the moment, I agree with immaculate that slavery isn't really nessicary for this game, at least not for now. Mehmed's biggest advantage is gigantic cities which are ideal for a SE or HE, so caste system would be a pretty good idea. Plus you can get Confucism from CoL, and a religion will help with happiness. Once you get the island settled down you will only really need military for HR happiness. A strong late game navy is always a great idea on an isolated island, and I don't think we've seen a navy heavy ALC yet either.

If you do need Astronomy as early as possible then this may be worth trying.

The Wheel - Myst - Poly - Priest (CoL with the Oracle)

Fishing - Sailing - Writing - Maths (you'll need those anyway)

Iron Working - Metal Casting - Calendar

Compass - Machinery

If I've worked it out correctly you can lightbulb Optics and then Astronomy with two GS.

I don't know if going the Liberalism route is better, but it would certainly make a change from the usual. :)

how plausible is it to attack with janisarries from galleons?

An isolated start ... at least the island is big enough to be useful.
And now? There isn't such a big need for a "hard" gunpowder beeline and, if we are really isolated, the main focus should be research ( there is a tech crazy guy somewhere, surely). Maybe a priesthood -> oracle monarchy (for Hereditary rule) and teching to maths (for the UB) would be a good idea, for some good sized cities, for a HE/SE (your choice)(Caste System required).
About city placing, second city should be jerVL/kg's red city ( I'm inclined to believe that in isolated starts we need a more mobile force, so we need Chariots. And, besides that, a gold/horse/cow spot makes a nice second city).
And I'm with Kietharr regarding a late medieval / renaiscence sea invasion, if we find someone suitable for that. Maybe there we could get some training ground for our Jans.

The dotmaps so far have been way too casual on early military. Alone on such a large continent, you have *got* to get copper or horses *very* early. Every warrior you build is just this side of a waste.

I would put the second city 1E of the copper, which gets two strong resources and can be connected with 1 road. The third city probably should go at the mouth of the river. The copper city placement messes up dotmaps for the south of the planet but I think the early gains are more important. Besides, with an isolated start you can't build too many cities since it'll kill your research.

Metal Working will be a key tech, for a) leveraging the gold since you're short on happy resources, b) the Colossus on an island and c) the path to Optics.

a sentry chariot next to pike will cover a huge sector.

Do you mean next to a peak? There are enough mountains in convenient locations that 4 sentry chariots can probably cover all but the southeast. The southeast might need 2 and/or a city.

One thing you don't mention is that it's not completely trivial to create a sentry chariot (let alone 5 of them). Sentry requires two promotions. A barracks gets you 3 experience, but you still need 2 battles before you get Sentry. I often find it difficult to obtain enough experience for my chariots, because they do such a good job of fogbusting that there aren't very many barbarians around.

given the isolated start, one way to make up the research deficiency would be to shoot for the lighthouse and colossus. orcale sling to MC then get the colossus built???

the lighthouse would be useful, but I don't think as much since you have no other civs to trade with. although merchants generated can pop some good techs for you on the way through the top path.

just my .02 this early in the game

NaZ

Is this really a fully isolated start ?

There is a small bit of land in the NE which could be a small island or the big continent where everybody hides

I have a quick question about exploring, since you place such a high priority on it.

Once you popped the hut for the map, your second warrior was only a turn or two from completion. Which direction did you send the second warrior in? And when/how did you fill in the gaps that the map from the hut left you with?
I find maps from huts distressing because of the gaps in the map they give. I'm tempted to explore the area the map didn't reveal (unless another hut is revealed) but backtracking to fill gaps is so inefficient.

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Well, obviously, certain things become higher in priority, others lower. So, here are my thoughts on the matter. Let me know if you agree or not.

1. Military - Just enough to deal barbs. I think I should hold off on barracks until other civs are within reach.
2. Cities - Coastal cities are obviously a priority. There's seafood to the northwest, west, and southeast. There are other good potential coastal city sites due south (to claim the copper) and northeast (wheat and cow). I look forward to the dotmaps. Some REXing is in order, I think.
3. Resources - I think either copper or horses are the priority, for defense from barbarians. Which one I go for first really depends on which will be the better city site.
4. Techs - Obviously Fishing -> Sailing becomes a priority. However, with all that jungle to clear, so is Iron Working.
5. Victory Condition - And isolated start always makes me start considering a cultural victory. In which case, we'll need to figure out how to get to Music first for the free Great Artist, and how to get the Sistine Chapel built. However, much may depend on whether other civs are within reach.

I won't weigh in on long term priorities but in the short term I see a few areas that need to be addressed.

1. Barbs - Great Wall is a good possibility, as others have mentioned. I am kind of a fan of that since it would mean you can choose your sites at a more leisurely pace. Otherwise its a rush for Copper or Horses. Unfortunately neither site looks like it has great food resources available in the short term. Placing a city S or SW(also coastal) of the horses would give you horses and Gold in the first ring, no need for a border pop, with Cows in the second ring. You'd get two or three desert tiles for your trouble, but with Horses and Gold you'd have some decent early production. It does look kind of bad in the long term though.

2. Culture - with no religion in your near future and the likelyhood of settling 8-10 cities on your island, you will need a way to pop borders. Stongehenge might be a good call here. It costs the same hammers as 4 Monuments, so if you think you'll need to build/whip 4 or more it starts looking pretty attractive.

The map looks challenging and I'm looking forward to seeing how you tackle it. The second city site is a difficult decision, with a lot of other difficult decisions in the near future. Getting a workboat out to explore and make contact in the NE would be nice, but for now there's no reason to settle in that direction.
I agree with your assessment that Sailing should be a priority. Your UB is set to be the star of the show, which means you can't put off Writing (nor should you.) Getting Sailing and making contact will allow you to grab alphabet and tech trade, which you are quite adept at and seem to enjoy.

Seems like we might end up with oracle and stonhenge after all? :p You cold rush a settler down to the stone site and get the stonhenge going though that might hamper your economy severly. You could also go for great wall to let you rex in peace and possibly do an Great wall -> pyramids gambit(run a scientist from a library or a priest from a temple most of the time.

You can also build stonhenge in the same city a bit later for over 50% chance of generating a GE(for mids) when you are poping a GP, only problem is that it is likely to take a pretty long time...

even if you miss the mids you can rex realy fast cause of free monuments and no worries abotu barbs.

I vote with jerVL/kg on his dotmap. I think that doing Gold/Cow/Fish leaves the horses and the stone out for way too long.

Also note jerRED city is connected pretty quickly with that long river running down the middle. The only problem is that it leaves bronze out, and that would be nice for the big bronze statue we want. Also jerRED doesn't need IW to be effective.

Although there is lots and lots of food on this island - including all that grassland under the junge - you are very short on happiness resources. The UB will help a lot there. All that food makes an FE, SE or HE a tempting option instead of the usual CE. Since you haven't done a FE before in the ALC, you might give that a try.

The bigger problem is that the bronze and the horses are on the other side of the jungle from your capital. You will very soon need barb fighters, but getting them will take time and be expensive in maintenace.

I would recommend the horses/stone site. It is a better city location and chariots are faster than axeman in fending off barbs.

Given the likely slow pace of play on an island start, you may wish to pack more turns than usual into each playing round.

Since you haven't done a FE before in the ALC, you might give that a try.

The food economy is really more accurately described as a trade route economy, and with no neighboring civilizations, getting good trade routes is going to be a problem.

I see a thread up on the first page here about a Food Economy, but I haven't heard of it before. Is it well known term/strategy? From what I understand most economies are cottage-driven, while the SE is a newer approach that is more specialized. It sounds like a FE is even newer/more fringe.

The FE thread was more a demonstration than an actual viable strategy. There's no reason he couldn't have easily gotten the benefit of those trade routes as well as a normal economy. Of course, pretty moot since we don't have foreign trade partners.

I'd say SE is also less attractive without foreign contact. One, a lot of SEs power comes in war through whipping, a benefit pretty much lost to us for a long while. Also, another strength is from the trade associated with its burst power - light-bulbing big techs and then trading them around. Without trade, a steadier pace doesn't lose much.

There is a spot on the map that would allow stone, horses, and sugar in the city's BFC. This city, with a quick monument, could at least have some good production tiles in the stone and horses.

Perhaps a Stonehenge here along with Oracle? You could get COL with the oracle, and with the proper techs researched a quick Prophet could lightbulb Theology (and thereby a head start on Sistine). Gives you two religions to work with if you can pull it off - plus who knows if you might be first to Monotheism on the way there. Just a thought - easy to get all of the 9 cities one usually goes for with regard to cultural...

The Great Wall would appeal to me because

a) No worries about barbs. Constantly shifting units around to protect tile improvements when you're alone is very annoying.

b) Points for a great engineer - is it 1 the GW gives? Small, but could be handy if you're going for the cultural victory - Engineers churning out the cultural wonders in your top three would be nice. Also, guaranteeing these wonders and therefore GA points gives you an easy culture run.

I think we neeed to see a return of the wonder-holic.

Definitely grab the GW and definitely grab the Oracle. You should also be able to grab Confucianism, which will help a bit with the Happiness situation.

After that, you need to decide how you want to win. If going for Cultural, I would suggest a beeline for Literature, with the added bonus of making Music available. Then, start bulbing GSs for Liberalism. Use the free tech for Nationalism, grab the Taj for an uber-bonus. Keep on Caste System and run a pure SE, screw cottages.

If going for some kind of Conquest victory, you definitely need to go the Metal Casting route for Astronomy. You should definitely pick up Colossus. I wouldn't recommend the GL since it's usefulness will be limited (Corporations is quick to follow Astronomy). After Metal Casting, beeline for Optics and try and tech trade your way up the tree. Then it's Gunpowder for the UU, Nationalism for blah blah blah, I'm sure you know the drill.

I'm a fan of either option. I would actually be interested in seeing how quickly you can grab a Cultural victory.

With all that open ground there is a good chance there is Iron in the capitols BFC, or I think so....

I don't think wonders are a good thing to push for early. You don't have Marble, so Oracle is hard to build. The stone site is far (= high maintenence = lost research) and will take a good deal of road to hook up. And what do you get for it? Stonehenge? - with no furreners nearby to have culture contests with? The Great Wall would be handy, but with the time lost to hook up that remote city makes it risky. If you fails, you'll have a pretty bad setup, with a dispersed empire, a slowed start, bad military, and no neighbors. I think the best goal is to REX out 4 or 5 cities on those nice rivers, to get the commerce.

I think we actually CAN afford to try for wonders given the situation, and this would be especially true if cultural becomes the victory condition of choice.

The arguments for and against an SE are difficult to solve. On one hand, there is not a great deal of 'natural' production (though workshops and water wheels can be used) and if the choice is cultural we would want more specialists to make use of the Sistine Chapel. On the other hand, there is not a great deal of happy resources to utilize and no very good sites with flood plains and the like to use. Even the areas with seafood are not all that great.

Still, if cultural is decided from the start, I would push for a second city by the stone as I mentioned (with horses so chariots can be hooked up quickly too). If we build Stonhenge here we don't have to worry about connecting to our capital right away, and I'd follow with the Oracle right away to push for an early prophet to bulb Theology - I can almost always get this done on Monarch.

We're bound to be behind in techs no matter what we do - even if we quickly get a caravel out there to meet others it means bypassing some key techs that the AI loves to trade for - leaving us in a not-so-great place for trade anyway. Further, when in cultural 'mode' I often lower or even stop teching slightly more than half way through the tree. Since we won't be in it for the space race or for a military tech advantage, it won't be so rough if we're trailing somewhat.

crap. i wanted a jannisary assault with trebs on some unsuspecting foo. go for really big city option on the dotmap.

Cities which can use the horse and stone have very bad food supplies. The only worthwhile food resource is the cow, and the only city which can use all three is a) one inland from the coast and b) has *no other* tile producing a food surplus until bureaucracy, and only one grassland even then! Cities northish of the horse and stone only get a few grass tiles and no usable food resources. A city with such tight food caps is just a colony, and I think the second city should be one with good long-term prospects.

you could do the stone/cow/fish city though that would need to pop borders before working the stone which means you need a monument in adition to the stone wonders which is kinda redundant...

I would agree about aiming for the great lighthouse or colossus if you can. The great lighthouse isn't going to be quite as effective since you won't have overseas trade routes, but it would still be useful if you have time for it. You may need to found your 2nd city near horses to deal with the barbs. IMO chariots are better at dealing with barbs because of increased movement, and they can also defeat the occasional axemen that appears.

The island seems a little big to fogbust completely, although I suppose it's possible. I think aggressive fogbusting + chariots + any wonders you can fit in would work pretty well.

Later on, lots of workers + cottage spam + hammams should make for a nice mid game.

As Wonders go I would probably be turning my attention to the Boston Gardens. You are building the 'duct anyway, and you've got rocks.

settler to the jungle on the river 1NE of copper. or the coast. probably the coast.

looks like a cottage spam game. space race here we come

fish/gold on hill and northern rivermouth (1SE of cows for best food balance) are good early cottage centers.

clam/cow/rice is very good but with low commerce and a third ring Istanbul fogbust, it can wait.

desert fishies looks fun. needs plains hill.

And green, jungle-cut landlock cities can work alot of cottages

all in all, you could dotmap this a dozen different ways.

But alot of it depends on how you want to play it. I wonder what's better, a land-locked city working 15 cottages or a coastal with 8 cottages and more in trade routes. in the end the trade routes win (At least i think - water tiles bring in some commerce don't they, UN trade route, ...) but it takes a while to get there (and convienently enough, pop 8 coastal cities usually have plently of land to work).

But you're going to need astronomy to compete with the other civs if you end up isolated. You can pop astronomy with exactly 2 scientists if you avoid paper (no Civil Service or Theology) and Philosophy (no Meditation). or you could just get 3 scientists, one for philosophy, but you won't find too many friends if you're the only taoist. You could also go to Liberalism and get Astronomy (Education does lead to gunpowder), but who knows.

Everybody want wonders but i dunno man. stick to the "rocks" but nothing too soon. If the stone could provide any resemblance of a city i'd talk pyramids but it just doesnt. nothing but plains farms over there.

But then, with no need to field an army, you gotta spend your hammers on something. I'll make a wild guess and say the Great Library gets chopped somewhere.

but hey, why not have fun with it. Maybe culture's the way to go. maybe it's time to build the Chicken Itza. Or maybe not.

This is the same situation Monty was in the last game and he built the Chichen Itza. Laugh if you want, but he was the only AI that Sisiutil didn't beat up on.

This is the same situation Monty was in the last game and he built the Chichen Itza. Laugh if you want, but he was the only AI that Sisiutil didn't beat up on.

:lol: Yeah, 'cuz I find Chichen Itza so intimidating... :lol:

I'll try to somehow coalesce all these suggestions into a strategy and play and post the next round tomorrow, I hope.

Alone on such a large continent, you have *got* to get copper or horses *very* early.

Agree with this for the most part. You aren't going to be able to fogbust everything.

Every warrior you build is just this side of a waste.

Strongly disagree with this. There is a noticeable happy problem slapping us right in the face here even with hammans and forges. Hereditary Rule is going to be critical to jump starting the economy. If you avoid hunting or avoid hooking up copper you will be able to produce mobile warrior temples as necessary. I really think Monarchy should be an extremely high priority.

(Re: early Warriors being a waste)
Strongly disagree with this. There is a noticeable happy problem slapping us right in the face here even with hammans and forges. Hereditary Rule is going to be critical to jump starting the economy. If you avoid hunting or avoid hooking up copper you will be able to produce mobile warrior temples as necessary. I really think Monarchy should be an extremely high priority.I agree Monarchy will be really important. I think, though, that it's far more efficient to build an Archer or Spearman later than a Warrior early. When you're by yourself, cities often get built out and have nothing better to do than produce military units. I think that's they way to get the garrison units.

Strongly disagree with this. There is a noticeable happy problem slapping us right in the face here even with hammans and forges. Hereditary Rule is going to be critical to jump starting the economy. If you avoid hunting or avoid hooking up copper you will be able to produce mobile warrior temples as necessary. I really think Monarchy should be an extremely high priority.

This was discussed in pre-thread.

consensus was that MMII needs HR to show power of his UB and run huges cities. throw in hanging gardens to added gravvy.

Pyramids/representation is an alternative though.

Sorry this is taking so long, but I find myself having to re-read several pages of advice to determine how to proceed! Let's see if we can't come to some consensus.

I was, frankly, surprised by some of the city suggestions. Some of you advocated settling the north of the continent first. :confused: There are NO strategic (i.e. military) resources up there! The south HAS to be settled first to ensure we have protection from barbs, which WILL show up, and before too long.

Of all the dotmaps, then, jerVL/kg's made the most sense, despite the early maintenance costs, because its cities will claim the key early resources: horses, gold, and stone. The only thing I would add to it is one additional city 2W1N of the copper to claim that resource and the rice. In fact, I consider that city a higher priority than the magenta one on his dotmap, which is weak on resources unless iron shows up there somewhere. Speaking of which, we'll have to revise the dotmaps when IW is completed, obviously.

As for research, teching towards a handful of early wonders holds appeal. Whether I build the Great Wall or fogbust, I'm not going to need an excessive amount of military. As I said earlier, I plan to forgo barracks for a very long time. So once Pottery is completed, expect me to hopscotch around the lower-middle tier of the tech tree (Mysticism, Masonry, Polytheism, Priesthood) for Stonehenge, the Oracle, and the Great Wall. Then its off to Mathematics for the UB and the Hanging Gardens.

So I'm hoping to see a little more debate around this plan, and then I'll play the round and post it later today.

Re early wonders: stonehenge, oracle, great wall. If you prioritise wonders you're likely to get one, lucky to get two and water-walking to get all three. Stone will help once you've got it quarried, roaded and protected from barbs.

Or did you regard my previous comment about 'recovering wonder addict' as a challenge? ;)

I look forward to the next round with interest.

Sorry this is taking so long, but I find myself having to re-read several pages of advice to determine how to proceed! Let's see if we can't come to some consensus... So I'm hoping to see a little more debate around this plan, and then I'll play the round and post it later today.

You didn't say much more about the issue, so I presume you are willing to give up the Jans for a shot at this game anyway. A pity, if indeed you won't be using the UU, but you do have another shot at this when you play Napoleon (whose UU is more interesting).

An isolated start, though, isn't all that hard to manage. The simplest solution: cottage spam. With this in mind, you should aim for the cottage civics - Liberalism and Democracy. Getting the former asap and grabbing Consitution, which leads to the latter, as the free tech makes a lot of sense. I know most people are calling for Astronomy, but why do you need it so badly? Optics is at most what you need to gain contact with the other civs to trade techs. And, often, the AI will find you. If you can manage a Liberalism/Constitution beeline on your own, I don't see why you need to worry. Doing it, though, is tricky. My gut feeling is you will need the Great Library to have a good shot at it, so I think you should save enough forests to chop that wonder to completion. Stone can help you build the Kremlin later on, which will complement your cottage economy well.

A cottage-powered cultural victory or a space victory shouldn't be too hard.

Of all the dotmaps, then, jerVL/kg's made the most sense, despite the early maintenance costs, because its cities will claim the key early resources: horses, gold, and stone. The only thing I would add to it is one additional city 2W1N of the copper to claim that resource and the rice.
That city will have 3 peaks in its fat cross, eyyewww....

Some people have claimed that my Red City is short on food, but it's not. Farming the river tile will let you work all 3 resources (cows/horses/gold) and still have +2 food for growth. Also -- and this is most important -- this city, if it's the 2nd founded, will almost 100% be the city your first religion is founded in. And holy city + gold mine = $$$$$$$$.

I would actually consider avoiding Stonehenge, and build obelisks directly in every city. The problem with Stonehenge obelisks is that they disappear after Calendar, whereas real ones stick around and eventually produce +2 culture. If nobody's built it by the time you hook up the stone, go ahead and build it, but I wouldn't make it a priority.

As for other wonders:
Great Wall -- definitely chop in the capital ASAP (after settler #2). The nice thing about GW is you don't need fogbusters; you're on an island, so you actually WANT barbs to spawn, to give your units enough XP for the Heroic Epic. (Or does the HE require more points now?) Besides, you've never built the GW in an ALC before, it'll be something new & different. :lol:
Oracle -- definitely chop in city #2 ASAP, and take Code of Laws, which appears to be the consensus.
Great Lighthouse -- you might have a chance of building this in city #2, if you're lucky. I would go for it (after Oracle) and enjoy the cash refund if you don't get it. :cooool:
Pyramids -- probably zero chance of building this, unless you get lucky and pop a GE. Don't even bother with it.
Hanging Gardens -- a no-brainer, build in your capital once most of your cities are founded. You'll definitely have stone hooked up by then.
Colossus -- another no-brainer, though you have plenty of time for this one.
Parthenon, Temple of Artemis -- no marble, no chance.
Great Library -- hmm...I still think it's best to avoid Alphabet/Literature until you meet other civs, but this is an ALC and you're probably going to build it anyway, so what do I know? :lol:
Notre Dame -- With stone + lack of happy resources, this looks like an appealing Wonder, except that it's way off the tech path. But if you wind up going for TGL, might as well build this one too!
Hagia Sophia -- I really, really like this wonder for the engineering points, but with no marble it will be tough to build. It all depends on how quickly you get Engineering.
University of Sankore, Spiral Minaret -- with stone, and lots of religious buildings, both of these look like excellent choices.
Chichen Itza -- believe it or not, this might be a worthwhile wonder to build for the prophet points, depending on how many religions you found. Heck...why not??
Angkor Wat -- on second thought...build this one instead. :cooool: (Assuming you get Philosophy early.)

About the copper city, Sisiutil, I would place that lower onthe priorities list than the horse city. Chariots are better vs. barbs in Warlords, as they get a bonus when attacking axemen, and there really aren't any AIs around to strike you. There might be someone up on that other island we haven't explored, but if so you'll have more than enough time to fill in your continent before worrying about fighting.

Whew, this is making me dizzy. I'm a player who is still challenged by Noble level games, unless all the chips fall my way.

So I'm going to contribute the best advice I can.

1. Watch out for barbarians. HEY - is that a bear? RUN FROM THE BEAR!

2. You're going to want more food.

3. On the other hand, you're gonna want more hammers, too.

4. On the third hand, you could wear a glove.

See ya. Perfect

PS - thanks for these threads. Learning a lot.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/69073/2.JPG

Pink: high prior fast and mutch cottage
orange: mediocre but settle able
Red: not necesery but settle able

I would actually consider avoiding Stonehenge, and build obelisks directly in every city. The problem with Stonehenge obelisks is that they disappear after Calendar, whereas real ones stick around and eventually produce +2 culture. If nobody's built it by the time you hook up the stone, go ahead and build it, but I wouldn't make it a priority.

you are right on that, but i would not even bother with obelisks. temple and/or library are of more use.

As for other wonders:
Great Wall -- definitely chop in the capital ASAP (after settler #2). The nice thing about GW is you don't need fogbusters; you're on an island, so you actually WANT barbs to spawn, to give your units enough XP for the Heroic Epic. (Or does the HE require more points now?) Besides, you've never built the GW in an ALC before, it'll be something new & different. :lol:
Oracle -- definitely chop in city #2 ASAP, and take Code of Laws, which appears to be the consensus.
Great Lighthouse -- you might have a chance of building this in city #2, if you're lucky. I would go for it (after Oracle) and enjoy the cash refund if you don't get it. :cooool:
Pyramids -- probably zero chance of building this, unless you get lucky and pop a GE. Don't even bother with it.
Hanging Gardens -- a no-brainer, build in your capital once most of your cities are founded. You'll definitely have stone hooked up by then.
Colossus -- another no-brainer, though you have plenty of time for this one.
Parthenon, Temple of Artemis -- no marble, no chance.
Great Library -- hmm...I still think it's best to avoid Alphabet/Literature until you meet other civs, but this is an ALC and you're probably going to build it anyway, so what do I know? :lol:
Notre Dame -- With stone + lack of happy resources, this looks like an appealing Wonder, except that it's way off the tech path. But if you wind up going for TGL, might as well build this one too!
Hagia Sophia -- I really, really like this wonder for the engineering points, but with no marble it will be tough to build. It all depends on how quickly you get Engineering.
University of Sankore, Spiral Minaret -- with stone, and lots of religious buildings, both of these look like excellent choices.
Chichen Itza -- believe it or not, this might be a worthwhile wonder to build for the prophet points, depending on how many religions you found. Heck...why not??
Angkor Wat -- on second thought...build this one instead. :cooool: (Assuming you get Philosophy early.)

great wall is not hard to pull, but must be done **very** early and will probably forbid more than one another early wonder (it produce a GE). Maybe fog buster chariots are better

Oracle/MC/pyramids seems to me the way to go. You probably have to choose between GL/HG & i would take HG, as the UB leads to huge cities easily (with HR from the pointy 4 sides things). That also means a pure CE is probably not the way to go, SE or at least HE will produce better early results (yes i know MMII is not phil but CE is only really powerfull late in the game).

Colossus/lighthouse would be handy but at least the latter must be built very early.
UoS is fine too imho

Parthenon/ToA could be probably pulled from the GW GE, if you choose this path.

Notre Dame, as you said, is way off the path.

Maybe we'll luck out and find a Marble on the landmass in the NE.

And I want to reiterate/agree with lukep that SE is the way to go. You need the higher production from farms+mines in order to win these wonders. Plus, you can get higher populations faster with SE and be able to whip 6+ citizens for wonders.

Note I haven't reed other People's post... can;t be bothered going through 3-4 Pages

this is on the Assumption you're going for a Cultural Victory.

http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/9766/culturalcitiesgp5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Blue dots are the locations of the Legendary Culture Cities and Red dots are potential GP farms

Blue dot Rice/Sugar has:

12 GL
2 P
2 GLH
1 PH
1 DH

Blue Dot Sugar Cow has:

11 GL
3 P
4 GLH

Capital (3 Sugar/1 Rice) has

11 GL
1 P
3 GLH
1 PH


You can do the numbers on how many cottages, windmills and excess food you can produce in those cities, remember that 100% of your hammers can be converted into research, gold or Culture so in the late stages of your cultural Victory you can use those hammers to help you win earlier.

Fish GP farm can produce 9 excess Food (Requires a lighthouse)

Rice/Clam/Cows can also produce an excess of 9 Food but requires Lighthouse and CS for Chain irrigation of the Rice, you can also build more farms on the grassland tiles for extra food and specialist there too but requires CS.

What I'd do is make Double Fish my Main GP Farm and when CS comes switch to Rice/Clam/Cows I'll make sure to build National Epic at Rice/Clam/ Cow of course.

Cool... looks like I'm in time to weigh in with a dot map of my own:

http://files.tagworld.com/41764e2e9625432eb96cad98c9106519.jpeg

Locations #1 and #2 are no brainers... securing the resources necessary for repelling barbarians. I'd personally chop Stonehenge at the capital after sending out your first two settlers, to speed up expanding your borders.

If you're planning on going for the Great Wall, I'd settle #3 next... but it has distance maintenance issues, as do #5 and #7. I'd settle them at my current level, but it may make more sense putting all three of them off until later. :dunno:

#6 would make an excellent Great Merchant farm and Wall Street City... it has sufficient production to build gold multiplying buildings, plus plenty of food to support merchant specialists.

The more I think about it, the more I believe this start completely perfect for utilizing this leader's trait to the fullest. PLEASE read this before your next round, Sisiutil, as this time I really believe I have a great plan for winning this.

First of all, I don't think he'll be able to afford to build the great wall. He's got way too many priorities. Firstly, there's Oracle and CoL definitely, since he can then chop out the granaries and courthouses at half-price, and there are plenty of forests around this game. Maintenance cost, there's no avoiding it - horses and gold as second city is an absolute must. Usually I would also advocate stonehenge for expansion, but this time, I'm very strongly against it, for the simple reason that he'll need the sugar hooked up for the hapiness. Also, the pre-requisite for calendar is mathematics, which unlocks his UB (thank goodness!).

You won't utilize the cheap lighthouses, cheap harbours or the great lighthouse/colossus, because domestic trade routes are like 1 commerce a city and you need to be working cottages rather than sea tiles. Plus, you'll have way too much health anyway.

Here's my suggested plan:
A crappy but necessary second city: on top of the hill with horse 2E1S, cow 2S1W. Your third city will be cow-gold-fish. Your maintenance costs will be bad, or, not so bad, as you get cheap courthouses, and your third city's gold mine will pay for itself. But the reason why I suggested that crappy second and third city placement is because you can take advantage of the river. Chop out monument, hook up horse, and then let the river connect the horse resource to your capital. You look hopelessly under-defended, while not being able to afford the time for great wall either

Oracle, CoL, very quickly. Wait for great prophet, build confucian shrine. In your new cities, don't build monument. Wait for confucianism to spread, which should be very fast under a holy shrine, believe me. With mathematics and leader traits, granaries only take up 1 forest chop and courthouses only two forest chops. With organized religion, if you research monotheism, you'll only need two forest chops, as there will be hammer overflow. After monotheism, go for monarchy. Might as well, as you need the other forests to chop out Hammam.

Total hapiness so far: 3 (default) + 1 (gold) + 1 (sugar) + 1 (monarchy) + 1 (official religion) + 2 (Hammam) = 9. Still blows. PRAY you get scientists quickly enough under caste system and pacifism to beeline to liberalism in time for astronomy. For those that don't know what I'm talking about, it's 4 scientists, popping: philosophy, paper, education, education. If you research metal casting, compass, machinery and optics first, your scientists will be popping guilds, which you don't want. Be careful Sisiutil, and good luck. You're stuck in a rut, and really, this is the only leader that can pull it off!

P.S. Don't build Chichen Itza.

If you research metal casting, compass, machinery and optics first, your scientists will be popping guilds

Huh??? Since when do scientists bulb Guilds???

Artists, Merchants and Engineers can lightbulb Guilds, Scientists can't.

I'm still a strong advocate of a military win. Yeah, it's not the best way to take advantage of the isolated start, but it'd be far more interesting to watch than a space race or culture win. You have plenty of grassland to cottage spam on, so you should be able to keep your science rate on equal grounds with the other AI for a while, at least until you can get contacts. Optics is certainly a big one, so i'd beeline there to get contacts first, and from there try to do liberalism using the AIs to catch up in tech, and pick either nationalism or astronomy, then research gunpowder, then the one you didn't pick from lib. Your cities will probably be pretty sizeable at this point so you'll be able to draft and whip out Janisaries or grens pretty well for a naval assault on whoever on the other island is easy pickens. You're not a spiritual leader so the other island will probably have 5 or 6 of the religions, hopefully distributed enough so you can cause strife without the others getting angry. Your continent probably has 18-20% of the world. A very unconventional victory for an isolated start, but it'd be a fun read :)

I'm still a strong advocate of a military win. Yeah, it's not the best way to take advantage of the isolated start, but it'd be far more interesting to watch than a space race or culture win. You have plenty of grassland to cottage spam on, so you should be able to keep your science rate on equal grounds with the other AI for a while, at least until you can get contacts. Optics is certainly a big one, so i'd beeline there to get contacts first, and from there try to do liberalism using the AIs to catch up in tech, and pick either nationalism or astronomy, then research gunpowder, then the one you didn't pick from lib. Your cities will probably be pretty sizeable at this point so you'll be able to draft and whip out Janisaries or grens pretty well for a naval assault on whoever on the other island is easy pickens. You're not a spiritual leader so the other island will probably have 5 or 6 of the religions, hopefully distributed enough so you can cause strife without the others getting angry. Your continent probably has 18-20% of the world. A very unconventional victory for an isolated start, but it'd be a fun read :)


I agree, domination would be most challenging strategy, even if people don't consider it the most conventional.
That was why I came up with a possible route to Astronomy earlier in the thread. The quicker we get there the quicker we can start a naval assault.

Round 2: 2260 BC to 580 BC

I started the round by postponing my research of Pottery in favour of a tech that would be immediately useful--perhaps even crucial:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_580BC_01.jpg

Mysticism was needed so I my second city could start with a monument as its first build. The best locations for either the copper or horse city did not have the strategic resource in its first ring.

Although the Settler was ready in Istanbul, I had seen some barbarian Warriors wandering around, approaching my borders and then disappearing. No sense taking any stupid risks. So I finished building a Warrior to accompany the Settler.

After much deliberation, I decided on the site for my second city:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_580BC_02.jpg

For copper, of course. Yes, unfortunately, it has three--three!--peaks in its fat cross. But it will give me copper and will, with Iron Working, be able to feed itself with that rice tile. It was also close, much closer than the horse city. As it turned out, time was indeed of the essence, so I think I made the right decision.

I also decided to prioritize the Oracle as the early wonder. I didn't think I'd have the Great Wall completed in time to fend off the barb onslaught, nor would I have that stone hooked up any time soon, so I doubted I'd get much more for my efforts than a little gold and a lot of unwelcome company. The Oracle, for Code of Laws, would give me several things: (1) a free tech (duh); (2) a religion; (3) GP points towards a Great Prophet for that religion's shrine; (4) access to the Caste System civic; and (5) access to Organized's cheap courthouses. Pretty darn good for one wonder!

So I held off continuing with Pottery and pursued the religious techs for a while, making my way through Meditation (cheaper and faster than Polytheism, plus I can build research-enhancing monasteries and missionaries), and then on to...

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_580BC_03.jpg

However, I couldn't start building the Oracle in the capital just yet. I had some unruly company to deal with:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_580BC_04.jpg

As I recall, barbs start invading your territory when the number of cities on the continent is n+1, where n is the number of civs on the continent. Well, since I'm the only civ on the continent, that meant once Edirne was built, the barbs came a-callin'. Another disadvantage of an isolated start. I had no choice but to build Warrior after Warrior, hunker down, and watch the barbs destroy every single tile improvement around the capital. Every one, even the roads.

However, my cities held; they were fortunate in their placement. Edirne got almost no barb attacks, protected as it was by the mountains and the coast. Istanbul was fortunate in that it's placed west of the river and most of the barbs came from the east. The barbs therefore attacked across the river (stupid barbs! ha ha! :p ) which gave my city-defending Warriors a +25% defensive bonus on top of fortification and city defense. So I didn't lose a single Warrior.

The barb attacks then seemed to taper off, so I figured it was safe to start working on the Oracle in Istanbul while I re-built the roads that connected my two cities. However, the barbs were apparently just taking a breather while they waited for their Axemen to go after me. :eek: Drastic action was required. Edirne's borders had popped and the copper mine was operational. This is where all that gold from the goody huts came in handy.

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_580BC_05.jpg

Yes, I took my best Warrior (with Combat I) and 110 gold later he was outfitted with an axe, a helmet, a leather kilt, and those BDSM-style strappy things the Axemen wear on their chests. Hey, whatever grinds your turkey, guys; so long as you defend the empire, I don't care what you do in your off-duty hours.

So I now had Axemen to defend myself (that's all Edirne was building for awhile), and that allowed me to have my Workers put the tile improvements back, along with some new ones. In particular, the plains hill northwest of Istanbul was mined and its forest chopped.

I finally finished researching Pottery while the Oracle was built, followed by Writing, so I have the prerequisites now for CoL. Several turns and dead barbs later, I was ready to wield the whip:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_580BC_06.jpg

Like I said, no sense taking any chances.

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_580BC_08.jpg

I chose Code of Laws, as recommended and expected:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_580BC_07.jpg

And Confucianism was founded in Edirne:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_580BC_09.jpg

No, it's not the greatest shrine city, but it won't be half-bad. Once I have Iron Working, I can clear that jungle and lay down at least 5 cottages on its grassland tiles, maybe even some on the plains tiles too. If horse city had been #2 and the holy city, I doubt I could have cottaged it at all, given the lack of food it has.

Anyway, I immediately adopted Confucianism as my state religion. That will help a bit with the happiness cap, and it gives me a way to get my borders to pop without building monuments.

I played just a few more turns to get a couple more Axemen built. The extra Warriors I built are now serving as fog-busters, especially near the choice city sites in the southeast; I don't want to have to spend a lot of hammers on Axemen to prise loose a barb city down there. The barbs have built a city in the northwest, and not in an ideal location, so that will have to be dealt with later. Fortunately, since they're settling down, getting married, and raising little barbarians, their attacks on my territory have largely subsided.

The goody hut money has now run out and I'll be at 60% research on the next turn. I've researched Masonry and Fishing and I'm partway through Sailing. (I guess I should also mention that Judaism was founded somewhere out there.)

Now I could start building the Great Wall in Istanbul, but I'm wondering if I should bother. If I'm starting it this late I doubt that I'll finish it, and as I mentioned, the barbs have turned all sedentary on me, so it may be pointless. I would probably get a pile of gold for it, but I'm thinking the hammers would be better spent on other things: a library, a monastery, Settlers, Workers, and a few Axes to take down that barb city, for example. Plus I think it would be smart to save the forests around Istanbul for a wonder I have a chance at.

At this point, I think my immediate concern is going to be the economy, so that means cottage spam around the capital in particular. I also want to build the cow-horse-gold city next (on that coastal desert tile between the cows and gold). The gold will definitely help the economy and research. After that... well, we can talk about what cities go where and what the priorities are.

As for research, I thought after Sailing that Iron Working would be sensible, if only to see where, if anywhere, the iron is so we can plan the cities even more carefully.

At any rate, here is a map and below it, the saved game file:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_580BC_10.jpg

Tough luck with the barbs out there. Maybe including an early Archery in the research path would have helped, but you didn't even have Hunting... Tough call.

I'd say there's no way you can still get the Great Wall. In one of my tests with Qin I aimed for GW & Oracle combo to lightbulb Machinery but I had to really speed things up to score both wonders most of the time. Without stone connected and not being Industrious there are simply too many things against you.

Might be worth building WB to explore the north east island; you still don't know if you're totally or partially isolated. Good news is that all the barb cities being built will help fund your research; your axes are likely to be busy for the next set. Bad news is 2 cities and 8 beakers/turn is well behind the clock.

Sisiutil, in my opinion you should not build the great wall in your capitol; you need some more down to earth things, like a granary ( :whipped: time) and a library. And after sailing, what do you plan to research? IW? Math? Alphabet? And that barb city to the north doesn't fit well in any dotmap, so should be razed for $$$. Still, nice defence with warriors vs archers.

hmm. 2 cities size 2 in 500 BC, you are in for a tough ride. AIs are probably in the 4 or 5 cities now, the biggest ones being 8 or more.

To overcome this slow start, but inevitable when isolated, you really need to grow fast, so farms not cottages. you can and should run somes of the latter, but you want to have at least +5 or +6 food in every city for good early grow. Fortunately MMII strengths allow for that, so you should really try to focus on that.

Also CoL from Oracle may be ok, but you still need to prioritize Maths and Monarchy imho, as CS is far too early. IW of course come first.

gw is too late imho

imo, you needed more warriors to fogbust on good tiles even if it would've meant a later settler. Hindsight is 20/20 though.

Warriors can do a pretty decent job vs barbs especially if you put them in forested hills and upgrade them for jungle/forest defence.

This is why I thought it essential to settle city #2 next to a military resource. Alone on such a large island you had to have military right away. To add to your troubles, city#2 still has no food resource. Your #1 priority now should be growth. You want 3 more cities pronto. Probably 1 at the mouth of the river, one between the cow and the gold, and one south on the river near the rice, in that order. Iron Working is definitely a priority. Don't sweat Pottery, you need some growth before you can afford cottages.

Ouch, I have to echo what the other people are saying, two cities at 580BC isn't looking good, although I don't have any doubts that you'll win in the end. Now that you have axes up and running, you need to expand and FAST. You have courthouses now so you should be able to fill up the island by 250AD or so, if you don't get going ASAP you're going to fall pitifully behind. Hope for a lot of barbarian cities to show up for money, and optics is even more of a priority, IW is also a big one but it's on the way to optics.

I'll concur with the general sentiment in favor of fast expansion. Granaries, then three settlers and escorts, with perhaps a workboat thrown in just in case we can nab an early contact in the northeast (we'll kick ourselves if we didn't even try, and a workboat will find a use later if there are naught but rocks up there). Monrachy and math should be the next research goals (in my not merely humble but abject-I-lose-on-monarch opinion).

Good job weathering the barbs.

By the way, can you get enough warriors out to fogbust NW and SE? It would leave only the E side for barbs to show up and you can group your Axes there.

my attempt at a . map. not very different from others.

all sites nicely are either coastal or near water and claim all ressources.
total 10 cities, no need imho to think about fillers yet.

C and D can be settled right now as they have enough workable tiles which are not covered by jungle. H would be also ok but too far away

For A you need to get rid of barbarians

E is nice too but will need CS first.
imho F,B& H are to be done much later

I have to say that this game may be exciting after all, not because it allows us to see you win in an interesting way, but because it allows us to see you come back from a very weak start, hopefully to intense greatness and a victory. If you manage to pull off a domination win here (not the easiest win, but I would love to see a military strategy from an isolated start), I will be extremely impressed.

A specific suggestion - once you have enough Axemen to guard your territory, build Settlers/Workers in Edrine and everything else in the capitol. Pop growth in the capital is far more useful since it has much better tiles.

Woo! Sis took my advice!

Anyway, I still see this island as perfect for an SE. I know when you see fields of grasslands (or jungle) you think CE, but you're so far behind, you need the immediate benefits of an SE. Besides, the UB is perfect for running an SE.

So, Iron Working and Civil Service are both priorities. Although, I think a detour to Metal Casting in order to pick up Colossus is a valid path. Colossus will more than pay for the detour. I think Liberalism is out of the question, so you really need to decide how you want to win this game Sis. It's still early enough to go any way, but we need some kind of direction ;D.

Tough luck with the barbs out there. Maybe including an early Archery in the research path would have helped, but you didn't even have Hunting... Tough call.

I'd say there's no way you can still get the Great Wall. In one of my tests with Qin I aimed for GW & Oracle combo to lightbulb Machinery but I had to really speed things up to score both wonders most of the time. Without stone connected and not being Industrious there are simply too many things against you.
I was thinking that about Archery as well, but specifically, after I saw that I had neither copper nor horses in the capital's fat cross. On a non-isolated start the barbs seem to take a little longer to invade my borders, giving me time to get everything hooked up. Nevertheless, the Warriors did admirably well against the barbs--one Woodsman II Warrior, fortified on a jungle hill, even defeated a barb axe!

Nevertheless, the barbs definitely slowed me down, which is why I only have one city. Okay, then, the next round will focus on REX, especially now that I can build courthouses. SE may be the way to go, especially if I switch to Caste System soon once a little infrastructure has been whipped into existence.

Astronomy is only one more tech from Optics (and Calendar). If we can afford to spend two scientists for it then its benefits will help us down any path chosen from then (which could very well include Liberalism and Democracy).

The benefits being the commerce taken in from trade routes get multiplied by more than 2.5

Mehmed, with Expansive's cheap harbors and potential high populations, is the leader who can benifit the most from the trade route game.

A necessary side track is Hereditary Rule, due to circumstance. Currency is also important.

Edirne fixes how the coast should be settled. Desert-gold, stone-fish, river-jungle-hill and cow-clam shouldn't change too much on the appearance of iron.

As much as you can, I'd REX to get these cities out and built with infrastructure, and then go to caste system for a city-dependant, hybrid SE. Desert-gold and stone-fish get mostly cottaged while river-jungle-hill is all farms and mines. Give cow-clam the mines it needs to build its buildings (lighthouse/library/monastary), and then it goes scientists too. Edirne all cottages (and IW ASAP), Istanbul has food and mines till pop 8 but needs to be working cottages too - It will greatly benefit from beaurocracy but be patient.

When it comes to the building that gets double production with traits, it's best to do all or nothing whipping. Either whip it immediately to get its benefit right away, or build it all the way at bonus, and whip excess into something else. the excess isn't doubled, but you end up working more of the doubled production.

And make sure and build the workboat to scout the island.

In Sisiutil's defense I'd like to say I very much doubt researching archery or fogbusting would have yielded any better results.

On one hand the island's too big to fogbust effectively; at best it would've been a drain on the economy with all the units about.
On the other hand, neither of the alternatives would have prevented the pillaging thanks to the new barb behaviour in warlords. Barbs just don't bother anymore with those well-defended units on forested hills but will instead head straight for city improvements, irrespective of distance.

So IMO he did what he could without early strategic resources in the capital. I also think focusing on the Oracle was the better choice here.

Rough start with so many barbs around but there wasn't much you could have done differently without draining your economy even more. Archers might have helped but OTOH you didn't lose a single Warrior as you said yourself.

Now keep cranking out Axes, Workers and Settlers and REX it up. Barb cities will help fund your expansion as well :cool:

2 things :
- good call on your second city. The peaks certainly won't give you food, hammers or commerce, but they gave you more fogbusting than you could have managed any other way.
- time to expand. It's also time to think about the victory condition (yes!).
I don't recommand going cultural, but if you want to try you're going to need religions, and they are getting scarce. You could try to get taoism, and that's it. I think a space race is doable.
You're going to fogbust a lot better with cities than with units. My guess would be gold city next to fund your empire a bit, while teching to currency.
Markets are good for the gold city and the capital. courthouses are good everywhere (maybe including the capital if you need 1 more for the FP). Don't be shy on overlapping. Your cities will be smallish for a while, so overlapping will make the best use of tiles.

edit : I think the order of the cities will be essential to :
- keep the empire running (commerce!)
- fogbust asap.

My guess would be to get those 2 cities first:
1) gold + cow + horses, by settling on the desert next to the gold hill
2) double fish + cow GP farm, by settling on city n°6 in one of those dotmaps. another peak city for maximum fogbusting.
After that, it's jungle time.
It's not commonsensical, but I would settle a jungle city after that (IW is coming after currency IMHO).

Don't go crazy on caste system. You're going to whip a lot IMHO.
Drama and GT in double fish city is a long term option to make the city worthwhile.

Space is indeed a good idea.



But how about a Diplomatic Victory? If he manages to get enough population, making friends should be easy without any border tensions and careful planning.

I'm playing a shadow and actually went the way of major fogbusting; built 6 warriors and six archers early on which didn't actually cost that much in maintenance (I'd cottaged the sugar tiles which helped of course). I lost three warriors, killed 4 barb warriors and 4 barb archers by 100bc and that was the extent of the barbarian problem: no axes, no pillaging. There was a cost to be paid which was no early wonders. Fogbusters weren't wasted as they later became initial garrisons (avoiding 'we fear for our protection' penalty).

I'm playing a shadow and actually went the way of major fogbusting; built 6 warriors and six archers early on which didn't actually cost that much in maintenance (I'd cottaged the sugar tiles which helped of course). I lost three warriors, killed 4 barb warriors and 4 barb archers by 100bc and that was the extent of the barbarian problem: no axes, no pillaging. There was a cost to be paid which was no early wonders. Fogbusters weren't wasted as they later became initial garrisons (avoiding 'we fear for our protection' penalty).
Mind posting a screenie of the distribution of your FB's? If you still have the savegame handy, that is.
As I said earlier I can't for the world of me get it to work anymore since Warlords, bar literally busting all fog of course. I've almost grown used to being pillaged early-game when no copper or horses pop near my capital :p

The lack of axe barbs makes a huge difference though, and that's entirely down to the random factor. Those fellas tend to chew right through any defense I can muster without early strategic resources, accruing XP for some nasty promotions in the process :sad:

So I held off continuing with Pottery and pursued the religious techs for a while, making my way through Meditation (cheaper and faster than Polytheism, plus I can build research-enhancing monasteries and missionaries), and then on to...

I have a question about choosing meditation over polytheism.

meditation gives you monastaries, its true, but now forces great scientists to lightbulb philosophy over the machinery/optics path.
Now, this could be good if you want to start running pacifism, but the end result of running pacifism from bulbing philosophy is that you get 3 scientists in the time it takes to get two but that you use 1 of those to run pacifism in the first place. (and you end up not being able to use organized religion which you should use to make use of your organized trait).

Furthermore, it forces you to avoid civil service for that much longer as you get scientists out for the needed light-bulbing path.

anyway, i still advocate caste system switch and running two merchants in the next city which is available to do so (you'll want to to this before math is researched and you don't want to avoid math for too long). This assumes you want to light-bulb metal-working with a merchant prior to working on generating scientists.

Lastly, getting off this rock quickly means you don't have time to generate a prophet prior to the getting the scientists you need for optics so pay attention to your capitals prophet point generation- you want to make sure your cities generating merchants/scientists stay ahead.

This message relates to the path outlined here (quoting myself so you don't have to look up an earlier post):

If you want to get into the tech-race quickly, you may want to consider:
1) building the oracle for code-of-laws
2) adopting caste-system
3) generating 1 merchant, and 2 scientists (in that order) such that your merchant is done before math and your scientists come some time after (they won't be used until you have compass and calendar, but before theology or civil service)
4) use merchant for metal casting (prior to math so you can't bulb currency) this is why you need caste system- its impossible to run merchants pre-currency without it
5) use scientists to bulb machinery and optics (need compass and calendar)

It would also be interesting to see someone use caste system instead of slavery. It does have its benefits. And it would also make founding a city in the north with the fish and cows very useful as that would make a GREAT city under caste-system.
Later, once you have a merchant and a couple libraries, you can switch to slavery if you want to.

EDIT: oh yeah, and no meditation or else you'll light-bulb philosophy

My 2:commerce:


Lastly (this is getting to be a long post- so sorry):
Considering the fact that you may not be able to generate 3 scientists and 1 merchant (metal-casting, philosophy, metal working, machinery and optics), you may want to consider aiming for 2 scientists and 1 merchant (metal-casting, philosophy, optics). This would force you to self-research machinery but would let you skip calendar (which a scientist bulbs before machinery but not before optics).

JoeBlade: I'll probably post something in the spoiler thread (100bc); can't post it here because I'd researched IW and don't want Sisiutil to know if there's any iron on the island.

I believe beelining to optics is counterproductive (not much to trade).
I believe a standard CE (loads of workers, cottage spamming, rush to liberalism) approach would make an almost sure space win. The jungle sites are certainly good for this :).
A late state property production conversion may not even be necessary, some production capable cities are there.

I believe beelining to optics is counterproductive (not much to trade).


You usually give really good advice (and seem to be a strong player- and your avatar rocks too) but i am not sure i agree with you regarding this comment.

I would like to hear why you think there wouldn't be much to trade. Just asking so i can learn.

I.

You usually give really good advice (and seem to be a strong player- and your avatar rocks too) but i am not sure i agree with you regarding this comment.

I would like to hear why you think there wouldn't be much to trade. Just asking so i can learn.

I.
first, you don't need to bow before me, I'm only a monarch level player ;). Big mouthed, but not THAT good.

Second, the beeline to optics isn't opening anything in term of research or commerce, really.
Going for a strong cottaged up landmass and letting the AIs find us while teching to liberalism seems a lot stronger to me. It's easier to have something to trade for when you're the first to liberalism.

I agree with cabert on the Optics beeline. In general, there are two reasons why people are recommending getting there quickly.


We need contact with the other civilizations!!!
We need Astronomy for trade!!!


There's also the circumnavigation bonus, but I don't think anyone is using that as a motivation for a beeline. It's a nice bonus but not that huge.

As for contact, yes, contact would be very useful. Presumably there will be a technology gap when we meet our overseas neighbors, and it would be useful to get working on that as soon as possible. However, as far as contact goes, we're no better off if we contact them than if they contact us. Furthermore, if we assume that we'll be behind on technology, what are we really going to offer them in trade?

Astronomy is actually somewhat similar. Of course, there is a lot we want from trades, what with our happiness issues and so forth, but what do we really have to offer? If I counted correctly, our surplus will be 2 fish, 2 rice, 3 sugar, and 6 cows. Given how much we lack, that really isn't much. I consider the cows almost irrelevant due to their common availability. How many games have you played where you needed to trade for cows? With our built in health benefits and major happiness problems, we can consider trading away our last instance of one or two health resources, but that's an extreme option.

So, in conclusion, I'm not saying that Optics and/or Astronomy are bad or that we should avoid them, but I do think that our isolated situation makes them a little less beneficial. There are so many options on the technology tree that I think there are plenty that are more important than optics (Mathematics, Philosophy, Drama, Monarchy to name a few).

I'd be more inclined to pursue Liberalism through Drama (theaters) and Philosophy (Taoism). Cultural might be tough at this point, but it's by no means lost. If we pick up Taoism and Islam that's 3 locally founded religions. Three is enough for a cultural win, and if a fourth one spreads to us, we're all set. Diplomatic and Space Race remain as extremely viable backup options. Military victories aren't out of the question, but they'd clearly be the hard way.

The wide spread of temples would probably take care of most of the happiness issues if we go for a cultural win. If that fails, then it's probably worth looking at an attack on one AI to pick up some additional resources.

This is a hard, hard, hard game. I really do have doubts whether he can pull this off at all. Don't ask for what kind of victory he'll get. Ask whether he'll get one at all. I'm willing to even bet he won't win this one.

I thought about archery, but like someone said, you don't start with hunting. And axes will be useful for attacking barb cities. What's pathetic about this is the pointlessness of dot-mapping. He needs growth so much he'll take any barb city as is, bad location or not.

As for astronomy and trading - he won't make any tech trades, but he'll sure as heck make resource trades for hapiness resources! And isolated starts usually lead to smaller empires, which means a lot of trading money too. Plus - and this is quite key - the great lighthouse obseletes with corporation, not astronomy. Since great lighthouses sometimes don't get built until the medieval era, it could unleash a golden era of 90% tech research.

This is a hard, hard, hard game. I really do have doubts whether he can pull this off at all. Don't ask for what kind of victory he'll get. Ask whether he'll get one at all. I'm willing to even bet he won't win this one.
I take the bet :).

I agree it seems hard, but it's a nice change from the magic hut popping or the totally unfair agressive protective grenadiers ;)



I thought about archery, but like someone said, you don't start with hunting. And axes will be useful for attacking barb cities. What's pathetic about this is the pointlessness of dot-mapping. He needs growth so much he'll take any barb city as is, bad location or not.


I don't think so.
Seeing that there is no AIs competing for the tiles, and seeing there is only a limited land available (maybe another island if culture allows to reach it?), optimal city placement with calculated overlapping is necessary.
I think 10 good cities are necessary to not be outteched.

As for astronomy and trading - he won't make any tech trades, but he'll sure as heck make resource trades for hapiness resources! And isolated starts usually lead to smaller empires, which means a lot of trading money too. Plus - and this is quite key - the great lighthouse obseletes with corporation, not astronomy. Since great lighthouses sometimes don't get built until the medieval era, it could unleash a golden era of 90% tech research.
The Great lighthouse isn't doing a lot of good for an isolated start, except denial for the AI. The 2 commerce it would give won't even cover the cost of the building.
Better build 2 settler and 2 workers :).

To work Astronomy perfectly you have a merchant lying around after it's done. You research all the techs you want then at deficit, with all the AI bonuses kicking in. Pre-Optics, any tech is without AI bonuses so that would lean you towards researching the bulky techs, MC and Machinery. Compass helps a little with commerce, much more so later, and most of the other early to mid commerce techs are already in, Pottery, Monastaries, Libraries, Courthouses, Caste System. Only one missing is CS, but maybe can do without. You hold on to Astronomy, play some catch up, and then trade it around for what you can. Then slowly head towards a full CE, and space. And all these great people call for pacifism.

Does Vassalism do anything to negate the unit cost of Pacifism?

One thing Sisiutil does have is enough land. If there are neighbours beyond north east island there may be competition for the land otherwise he's got until astronomy. Developing the land is going to be the issue. Is it best to go for staged colonisation (build a few cities, restore economy, build a few more) or all out colonisation then try to rebuild the economy?

One thing Sisiutil does have is enough land. If there are neighbours beyond north east island there may be competition for the land otherwise he's got until astronomy. Developing the land is going to be the issue. Is it best to go for staged colonisation (build a few cities, restore economy, build a few more) or all out colonisation then try to rebuild the economy?

without competition, it's certainly better to go for regular colonization.
This doesn't mean slow (CoL is already there!).

just get out all the cities asap then worry about economy afterwards. He have col and he have writing and pottery not like he need anything else to get his economy up and running.

One thing Sisiutil does have is enough land. If there are neighbours beyond north east island there may be competition for the land otherwise he's got until astronomy. Developing the land is going to be the issue. Is it best to go for staged colonisation (build a few cities, restore economy, build a few more) or all out colonisation then try to rebuild the economy?

Rapid, locust-like expansion IMO. Then, build worker/workboat, then whip a Courthouse in every city. After you whip the courthouses, jump to Caste System and start recovering your economy. You should be able to eat up all the land in very few (50-60) turns. And since we'll be running an SE (right?) research rate isn't much of an issue. We just need enough gold to keep our 1 unit per city from disbanding.

An added bonus to rapid expansion is busting the fog. Since we've abandoned the GW, we want to clear that fog out ASAP. Every unit lost to barbs and every improvement raized is a waste of hammers and worker turns that could have been avoided.

I have to agree with Whitefire, Sisiutil. Rex your whole island asap, regardless of commerce. After that, farm or cottage up, and catch up to the AIs. If you're near AIs, then you can forego ReX and instead take cities from the AI, which is usually the trade-off I see between ReX and early teching. Here, there's no AI to take cities from. Instead, if you delay expansion, you'll delay long-term teching. Also, there's less short-term tech pressure, as you have no AIs to military keep up with.

[QUOTE=Dr Elmer Jiggle;5332008]I agree with cabert on the Optics beeline. In general, there are two reasons why people are recommending getting there quickly.


We need contact with the other civilizations!!!
We need Astronomy for trade!!!
QUOTE]

Trade?
I wanted us to lightbulb our way to Astronomy for domination.
I have a domination fetish! :blush:

I'm gonna jump on the 'REX the island ASAP' bandwagon and say, "Yeah, Yeah ... do that."

Actually, I just happen to agree. :D

Since we lost so many turns watching barbs dig ruts in the lawn from the front porch, we've lost quite a few turns in which we should have had cities going up. I reckon now's our chance to make up those turns.

We have the workforce and the food supply (nearly two per city) to whip up some pretty fast Courthouses, so the economy shouldn't see a hit for too long (after which I expect it to boom). Plus, the two great rivers running through our Empire should alleviate the need for any excessive road-building between our land-locked cities for now -- allowing more focus on tile improvement.

It's my belief we're a lot further behind in tech than we think. I'd also vote for building a lonely Trireme or something to go find out.

Good advice so far (as usual). :)

Now, to open a can of worms: SE or CE? I hear both being recommended.

In favour of the CE is a lot of grassland (underneath that jungle) that lends itself to cottaging.

In favour of the SE is a lot of grassland (underneath that jungle) that lends itself to farms.

:lol:

Since I've mostly improved tiles with farms around Istanbul, I might be well on my way to a SE. Certainly I haven't played a ALC with a SE for some time (Frederick, and sort-of with Alexander). SE certainly offers early-game tech advantages, whereas the CE takes a lot longer to get going.

On the other hand, as I recall, the SE relies upon war booty for gold and popping GP to trade techs. I see problems here already. Let's assume the worst (always a good idea): we're isolated from contact until Optics, and from military until Astronomy. That rules out warring and tech trading for a long time. Also remember that although Mehmed can run larger cities earlier than other civs, he's not Philosophical.

At this point I'm leaning towards the CE, and the deciding factor is my familiarity and comfort with it as opposed to the SE. With all the other challenges this isolated start is presenting, I think I could do without an economic model I barely know how to implement and manage, especially not, in these circumstances, optimally.

However, as always, I am open to convincing arguments.

I wanted us to lightbulb our way to Astronomy for domination.
I have a domination fetish! :blush:

OK, so you're going to beeline to Astronomy and then dominate with your awesome swordsmen and chariots? If I'm correctly understanding the plan that cabert was responding to, we would have Astronomy but no Civil Service (no macemen), no Feudalism (no longbowmen), no Guilds (no knights), no Horseback Riding (no horse archers), and no Gunpowder (no janissaries or grenadiers). Would we even have Construction (catapults)?

I guess if we're realistic about it, getting Astronomy that early would give you some trade opportunities to catch up on missing technology, but I still think you'd have an overpowered navy with no worthwhile ground forces to back it up. You'll also probably have an underpowered economic and happiness situation which will lead to poor production hampering your ability to actually build any of those great naval and land units in time for an effective assault.

Either economy you choose, just make sure you expand fast. I hate stagged expansion in isolated starts. I'll usually get all my settlers completed, then hike them out to the site I want, waiting for my economy to recover enough to settle the next city. Of course I'll have 1 axeman guarding with a chariot a few moves away in case an Axe pops up. Although without the Horses, you'll have to play Hide n' Seek in the jungle for a bit.

If you do go CE, I'm thinking Currency will be the next tech to go for. We want Maths for our UB and Currency is just beyond that. The question is whether you want Maths before or after Iron Working.

As far as the new cities. After whipping or building cheap Courthouses, build Granaries for growth, then whip a Hammam, build a worker to wait out the unhappiness, then build/whip a Market (Library if you still don't have Currency). You should be able to claim the continent and recover your economy in 100ish turns.

I say again, since no one seems to have noticed the first time, don't bother with Astronomy. Grab Constitution with Liberalism, beeline to Democracy and spam cottages. The AI's will come looking for you as they love Optics and caravels anyway. Especially since you have a weak start, catching up with a powerful CE is the best bet. I've seen it work twice firsthand, once on Emperor and another time on Immortal. Space race or even cultural is highly possible. Domination doesn't seem to be realistic, but maybe I can't judge for Monarch.

To get to Liberalism first, you probably need to run some form of SE. It's fine. The transition to CE can happen post-Emancipation.

OK, so you're going to beeline to Astronomy and then dominate with your awesome swordsmen and chariots? If I'm correctly understanding the plan that cabert was responding to, we would have Astronomy but no Civil Service (no macemen), no Feudalism (no longbowmen), no Guilds (no knights), no Horseback Riding (no horse archers), and no Gunpowder (no janissaries or grenadiers). Would we even have Construction (catapults)?

I guess if we're realistic about it, getting Astronomy that early would give you some trade opportunities to catch up on missing technology, but I still think you'd have an overpowered navy with no worthwhile ground forces to back it up. You'll also probably have an underpowered economic and happiness situation which will lead to poor production hampering your ability to actually build any of those great naval and land units in time for an effective assault.


This is all irrelevant now anyway because we have meditation which we needed to avoid.
BUT :) don't forget we would have only been one tech away from Macemen, and one more tech away from Catapults. In the meantime, go exploring, find the weakest neighbour to attack.
Those veteran Macemen can be upgraded to Grenadiers later.

Anyway, with our current situation I certainly wouldn't take that route anymore.

Now, to open a can of worms: SE or CE? I hear both being recommended.

In favour of the CE is a lot of grassland (underneath that jungle) that lends itself to cottaging.

In favour of the SE is a lot of grassland (underneath that jungle) that lends itself to farms.
[. . .]
However, as always, I am open to convincing arguments.

I think you need. . . a hybrid. :lol:

Early on, focus on population growth and try to get one early GP farm, because we will need some bulbing, academy, and settling to juice the tech pace. At the same time, have some cottages worked in your capitol and a few other cities, ready to take on the heavy lifting around the liberalism shift.

What this means in a practical sense is that cow/clams in the northwest might need to be an earlier build, along with help from other cities to get some workboats to it quickly (perhaps your scout should head there after a bit of exploration in the northeast). Then whip a library and get to work on some scientists. After REXing is over, switch to caste system to maximize things.

REX -> Farm -> Hybrid Economy ( mostly SE ) -> ... -> Emancipation ->cottage farms -> CE -> Space ?
(I'm with aelf ; His Monty Immortal challenge proves that is doable)

Another question is do you raze barb cities and place your own (short term costs with long term benefits) or use existing barb cities to speed up colonisation. Along with that is the question of how many cities do you want to fit in the island.

As for contact, yes, contact would be very useful. Presumably there will be a technology gap when we meet our overseas neighbors, and it would be useful to get working on that as soon as possible. However, as far as contact goes, we're no better off if we contact them than if they contact us. Furthermore, if we assume that we'll be behind on technology, what are we really going to offer them in trade?


If we can manage to contact them early, and we're behind in tech, we'll at least get the beaker discount for contact with other civs that know the techs we need to catch up on. If I understand this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=146163) correctly, meeting all other civs would give us approximately a 30% research bonus. Is that such a minor factor that it makes no difference?

However, we don't even know at this point whether we even need Optics to meet the other civs. Perhaps they're all hiding on that rocky island to the NE. Let's go send a workboat there to check it out!

You have no choice but hybrid. Half of your cities won't have fresh water (eg Edrine) and can't farm until Civil Service, which you're going to need a functional economy to get. OTOH the first few specialists are so insanely efficient you'd be crazy to give them up. Fortunately your capital will make an excellent GP farm so run specialists there and maybe in one more food-rich cities. Otherwise, cottage.

Astronomy will give you foreign trade routes, which are a HUGE benefit.

for me it's CE all over the place + 1 GP farm. Too bad it's the capital, but you can relocate the palace later or just build that double fish +cow city for a new GP farm.

Grab Constitution with Liberalism, beeline to Democracy and spam cottages.

Sorry. I meant to say grab Nationalism with Liberalism.

Astronomy will give you foreign trade routes, which are a HUGE benefit.

Overrated. Pales in comparison to an Emancipation-powered cottage spam. You can do the math.

I say again, since no one seems to have noticed the first time, don't bother with Astronomy. Grab Constitution with Liberalism, beeline to Democracy and spam cottages. The AI's will come looking for you as they love Optics and caravels anyway. Especially since you have a weak start, catching up with a powerful CE is the best bet. I've seen it work twice firsthand, once on Emperor and another time on Immortal. Space race or even cultural is highly possible. Domination doesn't seem to be realistic, but maybe I can't judge for Monarch.

To get to Liberalism first, you probably need to run some form of SE. It's fine. The transition to CE can happen post-Emancipation.

I'm with Aelf here. By the way, could you figure out how big your island is in comparison to the others?

By the way, could you figure out how big your island is in comparison to the others?

By the looks of it, the island ( maybe small continent fits better) where we are should have between 20 - 35% of the dry land of the map. I'm betting for atleast other small continent.

I say again, since no one seems to have noticed the first time, don't bother with Astronomy. Grab Constitution with Liberalism, beeline to Democracy and spam cottages. The AI's will come looking for you as they love Optics and caravels anyway. Especially since you have a weak start, catching up with a powerful CE is the best bet. I've seen it work twice firsthand, once on Emperor and another time on Immortal. Space race or even cultural is highly possible. Domination doesn't seem to be realistic, but maybe I can't judge for Monarch.

To get to Liberalism first, you probably need to run some form of SE. It's fine. The transition to CE can happen post-Emancipation.

Exactly. Don´t bother with Astronomy. If you´re too backwards, you won´t get yourself out of the hole with the Astronomy.

The only chance you have is a massive cottage spam ( SE is good for war, now whom exactly do you plan to fight?)

The other AIs will make contact soon enough and if not, you will have astronomy in no time when you got the CE up and running.

To determine how much of the total land this small continant is, could we not simply look at victory conditions for current percentage, then figure what it would be with all the land on the continant.

Good advice so far (as usual). :)

Now, to open a can of worms: SE or CE? I hear both being recommended.

In favour of the CE is a lot of grassland (underneath that jungle) that lends itself to cottaging.

In favour of the SE is a lot of grassland (underneath that jungle) that lends itself to farms.


and the answer is HE ! :p

What i mean is you want to grow fast, to overcome both the bad start and the AI advantages. being isolated is already bad so you need to be bigger to have a wider beaker base.

that means more than +5/+6 foods in each city (there is an excellent analysis somewhere on this forum, there is really a threeshold on this value). With HR and MMII health bonus you can afford that. it is also a big advantage when :whipped:

So you need at least some farms in each city ( at least 3 i think). From there, you can have cottages, but i would still favor a mix with more farms, at least early. Also be carefull to have production (mine or bonus tiles) everywhere.

in the middle game you can cottage the farms in the commerce cities, or go full CE post emancipation.

I think the prospects for winning the Liberalism race are pretty dim. You have a slow start, no tech trading partners, no foreign trade routes, tight happy caps, no research-boosting abilities, and you're being advised to REX, which will kill your research until your cottages mature. If there's any time you'll ever lose a tech race, this is it.
(I agree with REXing for the long-term benefit, but the medium-term cost is substantial and must be planned for.)

We have to find out if we are truly isolated as soon as possible. A fishing boat is a very cheap way to find out whats going on with that northeast land mass.

As much as I hate to say it, if we are isolated, I think its time to run a CE. Lightbulbing isn't nearly as lucrative when you have no trading partners. I might try to run two scientists in the Capitol short term to get an academy down there, but after that I would say go with cottages. I would consider building academies with any scientists at least until you are close to meeting someone.

I must add that a fishing boat makes a pretty good fogbuster, and you'll need the boat later for you fish city.

"I think the prospects for winning the Liberalism race are pretty dim. You have a slow start, no tech trading partners, no foreign trade routes, tight happy caps, no research-boosting abilities, and you're being advised to REX, which will kill your research until your cottages mature."

Nice summary, curtadams. It's definitely a challenge! But then, that's the whole point...

Isolated starts are tough. But they do come with two advantages.

One, you can put your cities just where you want them.

Two, you don't have to build barracks, nor must you build an army.

The second point deserves a little thought. The inability to tech-trade means you will fall behind on beakers. But not building barracks and units means you have more hammers to play with. An isolated start is like getting hit with a 50% penalty on research but gaining a 25% bonus on production. It's not something you'd willingly choose, but it doesn't /completely/ suck.

If Sisiutl seems confident, it may be because Mehmed is a good leader for this sort of start. If he were Aggressive or Protective, his traits would be totally wasted. As it is, he gets five cheap buildings, three of which will be immediately useful; the hammers not used for Axemen and Catapults can be used to build cheap lighthouses, courthouses and granaries. And if the UU doesn't get a workout, the UB certainly will.

I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts on isolated starts generally. Which leaders are best? What strategies suggest themselves? I haven't seen a thread on this topic, and this seems a good place to discuss it.

cheers,


Waldo

odds for being first are pretty high since CoL and meditation are already in the box. Now it's time to build a library and run scientists in the capital.
The odds for a GP make it less a sure thing, but a shrine isn't something to spit on + if he founds double fish city, he'll be able to run for a sure fire scientist.

Good advice so far (as usual). :)

Now, to open a can of worms: SE or CE? I hear both being recommended.

In favour of the CE is a lot of grassland (underneath that jungle) that lends itself to cottaging.

In favour of the SE is a lot of grassland (underneath that jungle) that lends itself to farms.

:lol:

Since I've mostly improved tiles with farms around Istanbul, I might be well on my way to a SE. Certainly I haven't played a ALC with a SE for some time (Frederick, and sort-of with Alexander). SE certainly offers early-game tech advantages, whereas the CE takes a lot longer to get going.

On the other hand, as I recall, the SE relies upon war booty for gold and popping GP to trade techs. I see problems here already. Let's assume the worst (always a good idea): we're isolated from contact until Optics, and from military until Astronomy. That rules out warring and tech trading for a long time. Also remember that although Mehmed can run larger cities earlier than other civs, he's not Philosophical.

At this point I'm leaning towards the CE, and the deciding factor is my familiarity and comfort with it as opposed to the SE. With all the other challenges this isolated start is presenting, I think I could do without an economic model I barely know how to implement and manage, especially not, in these circumstances, optimally.

However, as always, I am open to convincing arguments.

I'd have to say start running scientists anywhere you can as you build your economy up. The 2 fish+cow city and your capital are prime spots for a few scientists, and you're definately going to be playing catch up now, so you need every beaker you can get. Echoing others, once you're working on democracy, cottage most of the farms, run emancipation, free speech, and universal suffrage. I still think a domination victory would be cool to see (at this point i'm thinking not till you get marines, but at that point people will be starting apollo), but space race is probably the better option.

I think the prospects for winning the Liberalism race are pretty dim. You have a slow start, no tech trading partners, no foreign trade routes, tight happy caps, no research-boosting abilities, and you're being advised to REX, which will kill your research until your cottages mature. If there's any time you'll ever lose a tech race, this is it.
(I agree with REXing for the long-term benefit, but the medium-term cost is substantial and must be planned for.)

It's possible. Not being Philosophical is a minus, but as cabert says, at least CoL is already discovered. Next, try to get a GS and lightbulb Philosophy. Research towards CS, as usual, then Paper and Education, one or both of which can be lightbulbed. You may have to delay techs like Machinery till late, but hey, why do you need them?

You don't need trading partners either. They usually only help you backfill techs you are not focusing on anyway. You need GS's.

I am playing an isolated large island start with Hayuna Capac right now so this ALC should be most helpful for me. I agree with the HE plan and the need for a GPP farm which will generate GS's. That - and lots of cottages - is the best way to play tech catch up in a situation like thiis.

Realistically, a domination win is quite unlikely. Space is your best bet.

People aren't talking about diplomatic victories. Why not?

You could get the stone, build pyramids, and run a specialist-based economy (since the game wouldn't go nearly as long as it would for a space-race victory atempt). Use that to bee-line mass-media (through printing press and astronomy, not through printing press and chemistry). At some point start spamming confucian missionaries to the appropriate civs and hope to get a vote before too many civs assume free religion.
This is just my thoughts, but i am more interesting in learning why others are not interested in a diplomatic victory attempt. Too difficult? If so, why? Or is it too boring?


On a partially un-related note...
if one were to run a specialist-economy in this case (lets say you got the pyramids for example), would it be worthwhile to reseach drama, build theatres and run 20% culture?
what about doing the same thing with a cottage-base?

People aren't talking about diplomatic victories. Why not?

You could get the stone, build pyramids, and run a specialist-based economy (since the game wouldn't go nearly as long as it would for a space-race victory atempt). Use that to bee-line mass-media (through printing press and astronomy, not through printing press and chemistry). At some point start spamming confucian missionaries to the appropriate civs and hope to get a vote before too many civs assume free religion.
This is just my thoughts, but i am more interesting in learning why others are not interested in a diplomatic victory attempt. Too difficult? If so, why? Or is it too boring?


On a partially un-related note...
if one were to run a specialist-economy in this case (lets say you got the pyramids for example), would it be worthwhile to reseach drama, build theatres and run 20% culture?
what about doing the same thing with a cottage-base?

running a specialist economy will be hard here!
only a handful of food heavy cities, as far as I know.

edit : I see 7 potential reasonable food cities (= able to run at least 2 scientists)

I would advocate a CE with 1-3 GP farms largly focused on getting great specialists for lightbulbing and academies. Lets face it, the most likely win condition is space race. Get those cities proerply set up and just start aiming for the stars. Cottages are better in the lategame and the midgame doesnt matter that much. I guess what i am advocating is a HE:p.

Interesting game. I suggest beelining to liberalism, you can do it without trading partners, as aelf mentioned you need trade just to backfill. And you can backfill later.

In my opinion hybrid economy is best option, get fishing village up asap. It can give you 1-2 scientist to lightbulb, perhaps you could get your first (and easiest) GS from there? You probably don't want to have scientist on your capital all the time, so second GS city will definitely help.

I don't think that you can afford many cities yet. Just build fishing village and maybe grab stone for wonders and walls, but stop then for a while. Cottaging all that jungle will benefit your empire one day, but not yet.

First thing you should do is still build a workboat and check what lies behind the island, it can make a difference.

People aren't talking about diplomatic victories. Why not?

You could get the stone, build pyramids, and run a specialist-based economy (since the game wouldn't go nearly as long as it would for a space-race victory atempt). Use that to bee-line mass-media (through printing press and astronomy, not through printing press and chemistry). At some point start spamming confucian missionaries to the appropriate civs and hope to get a vote before too many civs assume free religion.
This is just my thoughts, but i am more interesting in learning why others are not interested in a diplomatic victory attempt. Too difficult? If so, why? Or is it too boring?

I think diplomatic is going to be hard in this game, because when S reaches Optics, most probably the other civs already have a state religion, most problably widespreaded in their cities. Not only S would have to had a lot work and lost hammers to convert them, but it would put him in the "worst enemy list" of someone. In diplomatic terms I think that the path is to stir religious wars in the other(s) continent(s) to try to stop the AI teching.

P.S.Maybe keeping our state religion and Sankore/spiral minaret could be a good move.Thoughts?

P.S.Maybe keeping our state religion and Sankore/spiral minaret could be a good move.Thoughts?
interesting!
SM is a bit far away, but Sankore is in the liberalism beeline, and his certainly doable.

People aren't talking about diplomatic victories. Why not?

I think I mentioned it recently as a good backup option. I think there are probably two primary reasons why it hasn't been discussed much yet.

First is the unknown. With no contacts, it's too hard to predict whether a diplomatic victory is available. To win diplomatically, you really need a coalition of several mutually friendly civilizations. If everyone already hates each other, that's probably not going to be possible.

Second, regardless of whether a diplomatic win turns out to be possible, there's not much we can do about it now. Whether we are or aren't working toward a diplomatic win, the short term strategy should be more or less the same. Once we start meeting people, then we'll need to be careful about our dealings with them, but for now it really doesn't matter. There are really only two things I can think of that we can do now that might affect our chances for a diplomatic victory.

We could aggressively research toward Philosophy and Divine Right (and Theology? Has Christianity been founded?) in order to reduce the amount of religious diversity in the world. That would improve our chances of finding a bloc of allies that we can court as our diplomatic coalition. It might already be too late for that anyway, with Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism already loose in the field, but it's an idea. Either way, I think that path has already been suggested since it plays well into a cultural victory, so I don't see that as a strictly diplomatic strategy.

We could also make a case that the Optics / Astronomy beeline would be beneficial for diplomacy. That would get us earlier contact which would give us more time to develop good relations. That's a valid point, but I think you could just as easily argue that the other way. The earlier you meet everyone, the more time you have for them to hate you for your religious differences before you switch to Free Religion and/or to suck you into unwanted wars. I think you could go either way on this one. I'd be inclined to ignore this issue, especially since I'm of the opinion that the Optics beeline isn't really beneficial to our other options.

I'm a big fan of the diplomatic victory, and I think Sisiutil has only done it once in the ALC's and that only after a lot of prodding ;). This might be an opportunity to notch diplomatic victory #2, but it's way too early to tell or to do anything about it.

Two, you don't have to build barracks, nor must you build an army.


What if an AI suddenly lands on your shores with a huge stack? You never know when you might meet them and they could pounce quickly if they are aggressive.

It's possible. Not being Philosophical is a minus, but as cabert says, at least CoL is already discovered. Next, try to get a GS and lightbulb Philosophy. Research towards CS, as usual, then Paper and Education, one or both of which can be lightbulbed. You may have to delay techs like Machinery till late, but hey, why do you need them?

You don't need trading partners either. They usually only help you backfill techs you are not focusing on anyway. You need GS's.

My problem with that is we need techs like Iron Working, Maths, Currency and Calendar before beelining to Liberalism. We could probably live without the last two, but skipping IW and Maths would be shooting ourselves in the foot. This much of a divergence from the beeline, coupled with the expected tanking of researching from REX, makes Liberalism really iffy, even though we have an edge with CoL. Then again, we might as well go for it anyway. Free Speech will be important for the Towns we have, and free religion will probably outweigh the benefits of Pacifism by then. Add in being just a stone's throw from Emancipation and gaining access to useful wonders like U of S and Statue of Liberty, and the Liberalism path seems like a good choice in spite of the chance that we may lose the free tech.

I'm so good at contradicting myself.

And enough with the debate! Lets see some action!

My problem with that is we need techs like Iron Working, Maths, Currency and Calendar before beelining to Liberalism. We could probably live without the last two, but skipping IW and Maths would be shooting ourselves in the foot. This much of a divergence from the beeline, coupled with the expected tanking of researching from REX, makes Liberalism really iffy, even though we have an edge with CoL.

Only IW seems to be really necessary, given all the jungle around. I guess it has to be inserted somewhere (before CS?). Calendar is really unimportant, since it will only give you sugar. You have to live without Monarchy, that's true, but it should be bearable on Monarch.

I think I mentioned it recently as a good backup option. I think there are probably two primary reasons why it hasn't been discussed much yet.

First is the unknown. With no contacts, it's too hard to predict whether a diplomatic victory is available. To win diplomatically, you really need a coalition of several mutually friendly civilizations. If everyone already hates each other, that's probably not going to be possible.

Second, regardless of whether a diplomatic win turns out to be possible, there's not much we can do about it now. Whether we are or aren't working toward a diplomatic win, the short term strategy should be more or less the same. Once we start meeting people, then we'll need to be careful about our dealings with them, but for now it really doesn't matter. There are really only two things I can think of that we can do now that might affect our chances for a diplomatic victory.

We could aggressively research toward Philosophy and Divine Right (and Theology? Has Christianity been founded?) in order to reduce the amount of religious diversity in the world. That would improve our chances of finding a bloc of allies that we can court as our diplomatic coalition. It might already be too late for that anyway, with Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism already loose in the field, but it's an idea. Either way, I think that path has already been suggested since it plays well into a cultural victory, so I don't see that as a strictly diplomatic strategy.

We could also make a case that the Optics / Astronomy beeline would be beneficial for diplomacy. That would get us earlier contact which would give us more time to develop good relations. That's a valid point, but I think you could just as easily argue that the other way. The earlier you meet everyone, the more time you have for them to hate you for your religious differences before you switch to Free Religion and/or to suck you into unwanted wars. I think you could go either way on this one. I'd be inclined to ignore this issue, especially since I'm of the opinion that the Optics beeline isn't really beneficial to our other options.

I'm a big fan of the diplomatic victory, and I think Sisiutil has only done it once in the ALC's and that only after a lot of prodding ;). This might be an opportunity to notch diplomatic victory #2, but it's way too early to tell or to do anything about it.

You and I seem to be of the same mind on this in general. I started a shadow game (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5334440&postcount=8) (posted in the Mehmed spoiler thread) to try and see what i could do with the same start.

In regards to the optics/astronomy bee-line, my thoughts were to get to caravels and organized religion as fast as possible (i'll get optics 46 turns after 10bc, whatever that is), so as to start exporting my religion as much as possible to potential allies as early as possible.

I was reading some of the SGOTM-3s, and the winning games seem to put out a very steady missionary output.

In regards to the comment regarding founding religions... do you think that if you hit them early and hard enough (with missionaries) you really need to hog all the religions? Don't they serve a purpose by dividing other civs into blocs and preventing their cooperation? Maybe it depends on how many missionaries you are willing to build?

Only IW seems to be really necessary, given all the jungle around. I guess it has to be inserted somewhere (before CS?).

And Maths? The UB will be vital in making the GP farms all that they can be. Although, now that I think about it, Maths is a prereq for education, isn't it?

And Maths? The UB will be vital in making the GP farms all that they can be. Although, now that I think about it, Maths is a prereq for education, isn't it?

It's a prereq for CS, which means it's included under "research towards CS".

In regards to the comment regarding founding religions... do you think that if you hit them early and hard enough (with missionaries) you really need to hog all the religions? Don't they serve a purpose by dividing other civs into blocs and preventing their cooperation? Maybe it depends on how many missionaries you are willing to build?

I just depends on who founds what other religions. From what I've seen, the AI's tend to favor a religion they founded themselves over a foreign one.

So if, for example, you have Isabella founding Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism herself, then you probably don't need all the others yourself. There are few enough to go around that you can probably convert a few other civilizations to whatever is your religion of choice. Or convert yourself to their religion of choice.

On the other hand, if Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism have all been founded by 3 different leaders, then you've got 3 natural blocs formed already. If those leaders happen to be religious kooks like Isabella and/or Brennus, then you have 3 blocs that will hate each other passionately. If you let them found 2 more religions on their own soil, you're just going to see even more splintering.

So at this point we don't know, but I would argue that founding religions ourselves increases the chances that we'll find a bloc of 2 or 3 Hindu (for example) leaders that we can bring over to our side. Letting the AI found the remaining religions increases the chances that we'll find a complete diplomatic mess where everyone hates everybody else.

Since founding the religions also plays into the cultural victory (which I think is probably the easiest and surest path at this point), I'm all for that. Philosophy is on the path to Liberalism too, but Theology would be a diversion if we went for it.

My problem with that is we need techs like Iron Working, Maths, Currency and Calendar before beelining to Liberalism.

I think there is enough time to research all those techs without problems.

If we have time to generate only three GS (philo/paper/edu), why don't we research other techs for a while and delay lightbulbing, if we are then able to get 4th GS in time? Probably we reach the Liberalism not many turns later, as benefits of other techs (currency?) help our empire and give us a little bit more beakers

In my opinion it makes more sense to spend 20 turns for currency and then lightbulb rest of the education, than simply research 20 turns for education.

It's a prereq for CS, which means it's included under "research towards CS".

Yeah, my bad. I never could memorize the tech tree. With just the IW divergence, we can probably win Liberalism.

<derail>

On the other hand, if Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism have all been founded by 3 different leaders, then you've got 3 natural blocs formed already.

In one of my last games every player (me + 6 AIs) founded a religion and adopted it. I was powerful enough to adopt my religion but I tell you, switching to Free Religion was a relief. :)

</end derail>

<derail>



In one of my last games every player (me + 6 AIs) founded a religion and adopted it. I was powerful enough to adopt my religion but I tell you, switching to Free Religion was a relief. :)

</end derail>

This is not off-topic as far as I'm concerned. It's another reason for Liberalism to be an attractive target, for the FR civic. I played an isolated game once where all the other civs were Buddhist and I was the lone Confucian heathen who was pursuing a cultural win and was therefore low in power too. :eek: FR was a blessing, if you'll excuse the oxymoron. ;)

What if an AI suddenly lands on your shores with a huge stack? You never know when you might meet them and they could pounce quickly if they are aggressive.

To be honest, I've never actually seen an AI land anything resembling a "huge" stack. ;)

But mostly, the discussion is centering on the short/mid-term strategies involved in an isolated start. And vormuir's right, that in the short-term, the AI won't have more than 2-4 units (galley, then galleon) to land for a time. And one of those will likely be a settler, at least at first. So for the near future, all we need is enough military to prevent barbs from thrashing us.

It got eerily quit around here.... is everyone just following the spoiler thread now?

As I suck on isolated starts I will be interested to see how our champion manages to stay with the tech pace. I imagine there will be some aggressive trading when the out-of-towners start coming around. I play (and lose) at Prince and I'm amazed at how everyone here seems to be convinced that Liberalism is still a possibility. I have never come close when isolated. I know I will learn something (as always) from this game.

It got eerily quit around here.... is everyone just following the spoiler thread now?

I just don't have any more constructive input ... I'm waiting for the next installment.

I looked at the spoiler once. It's boring ... there's something to be said about giving it up on the first post ...

... if you know what I mean. ;)

I'm amazed at how everyone here seems to be convinced that Liberalism is still a possibility.

FWIW, I'm not entirely convinced that it is still a possibility, but I am convinced that whether or not we get there first, that's a good general direction to head. The reward for success is high, and the cost of failure is minimal if we're going for a cultural win.

It got eerily quit around here.... is everyone just following the spoiler thread now?

I just need to post the next round, which I'll do tonight (I played through it last night, then it was bed time for little Sisiutils).

FWIW, I'm not entirely convinced that it is still a possibility, but I am convinced that whether or not we get there first, that's a good general direction to head. The reward for success is high, and the cost of failure is minimal if we're going for a cultural win.

Or Diplomatic, or Space Race. Free Speech will help with the CE, and Representation (just a few techs away) is vital for a SE. Plus, it may give us a tech or two that is tradable, letting us catch up an era or two. I wonder if he can win this game bypassing Rifling and Military Tradition entirely?

Being isolated, I have to agree with taking a shot at liberalism if only for the civics unlocked on that path and for the benefits of education on research.

Even if Sisiutil doesn't make it, he needed to go that way anyhow. I do think that is essential to get a couple of scientists to help out with the expensive techs (education).

The problem will be trying to combine liberalism beeline with rex. If you want to build settlers fast your high food cities will be producing settlers not great people; if you rex you have increasing maintenance costs which slows down research (and you can't lightbulb all the techs required). If you don't rex you have more barbarians to annoy you.

It will be interesting to see how Sisiutil balances this equation.

It will be interesting to see how Sisiutil balances this equation.

"How" or "if"? :(

"How" or "if"? :(
" A victor can't call itself that if the defeated doesn't accept defeat"

"How" or "if"? :(

Hi Sisiutil et al.,

This is my first post to the ALC threads. They're all entertaining reads & instructive to boot.

You might consider getting Monarchy, cottage spamming the capital, revolt to HR & Bureaucracy, and using units on MP duty so the city can get to the health cap. Essentially, the capital would be carrying the rest of the empire both financially & scientifically until the rest of the empire can grow & build/whip some infrastructure. Mehmed is Organized, so you do get a break on civic upkeep & cheap Courthouses to offset some of the costs of REX. As the HR/Bureaucracy CE capital is coming into its own, you'll want to shift Settler & Worker spamming duties onto another city so the capital can grow as fast as possible as well as build needed infrastructure.

As far as the Liberalism race, if you generate GSs (and not any GPs), you can still pull it off. I would save GSs for lightbulbing Education & Liberalism itself, but not Paper, because the overflow from bulbing Paper doesn't seem to roll over to Education. Also bear in mind that you'll need to research things like Sailing & Optics (I think) to unlock the Paper-Education-Liberalism line for GS lightbulbing.

Good luck with the next round. Isolated starts are tough.

Welcome, Traiano!

A couple of points:
- lightbulb overflow never carries over to the next tech
- here is the list of great people tech preferences: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140952 ; lightbulbing Liberalism itself is pretty hard with a GS, but Education is easy, no need to research anything before (you'll already have writing and math); so either GS on Paper + two GSs on Education (lose some beakers, but that's life), or Academy in the capital and GS on Edu, or combinations of this are the best ways

Sisiutil, don't forget you can build research directly. With a lot of small cities you can actually have a decent tech rate as long as you have a food source per city. I think cottages will be too slow to mature in most cities anyway, so food + production of research + scientists might be the way to go. I really don't think either beelining for Astronomy or wanting to take over with Janissaries will be possible. If you're lucky the AIs will find you before you get Liberalism and you'll trade to make Astronomy available.

Is the Liberalism beeline worth a major discombobulation? You get one free tech, usually Nationalism, and I don't see that as a particularly critical tech to get early here. So, basically, it's just bonus research. Offhand, I'd guestimate that having Monarchy during the runup to Liberalism would generate more commerce via larger cities. Is early Free Speech all that critical? How many towns do people have by the time they score Liberalism? I generally don't seem to have many.

The AI tends to ignore the middle line. Following it not only gives a free tech but also valuable trading opportunities.

Is the Liberalism beeline worth a major discombobulation? You get one free tech, usually Nationalism, and I don't see that as a particularly critical tech to get early here. So, basically, it's just bonus research. Offhand, I'd guestimate that having Monarchy during the runup to Liberalism would generate more commerce via larger cities. Is early Free Speech all that critical? How many towns do people have by the time they score Liberalism? I generally don't seem to have many.

Nationalism is a fantastic tech to snag early. Besides reaping the benefits of a free, medium beaker (3k+) cost tech, you also get access to Nationhood, one of the best warring civics. In addition, you can now research Constitution, then Democracy (with Printing Press). These give you access to Repesentation and the Statue of Liberty, respectively, which are 2 of 4 key components to an SE. Not to mention access Emancipation and the gold bonus to villages and towns from Printing Press. No matter what kind of economy you run, all of those techs will give you a major boost.

That's why Liberalism is important ;D.

Im not a monarch player so i dont know how important it is, but if you wanna try something different, ignore Liberalism and trade for it

but again take my advice a grain half grain of salt

Round 3: 580 BC to 410 AD

I began the round by switching research mid-stream:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_410AD_01.jpg

I figured I could finish researching Sailing later. Mathematics would open up the UB, which would raise the happiness cap, and give me a shot at another wonder. Besides, I realized that a workboat could explore just as well as a Trireme and was cheaper.

I also began employing the whip as my cities grew in order to hurry the infrastructure along:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_410AD_02.jpg

With the barbs becoming happy homemakers all of a sudden, I took advantage of the lull in their shenanigans to start expanding my still-too-nascent empire.

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_410AD_04.jpg

A good thing, too, since I also got a little news about my status in terms of civ size, and it wasn't complimentary.

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_410AD_05.jpg

Thank you, barbs. Thanks so very much.

Not much happened until I finally finished researching Mathematics in 80 AD:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_410AD_06.jpg

I started building a Hamman in the capital right away. It could definitely use the additional happiness, and I wanted to see if I would be lucky enough to snag the Hanging Gardens.

Meanwhile, I continued my expansion:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_410AD_07.jpg

I think that's the most essential cities, claiming the best resources, now built. Which ones should come next, and where? To help with those decisions, I was researching Iron Working.

In 200 AD, I got some bad news about one of my favourite wonders:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_410AD_08.jpg

Okay, don't panic, I've played ALCs without the Great Library before. Besides, I had my eye on another wonder:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_410AD_09.jpg

The game even recommended it to me! Surely I still had a shot at it!

Eh, not so much, it turns out:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_410AD_10.jpg

Of course, it's not the HG builder who worries me. It's the wonder maniac who's built Stonehenge, the Great Library, the Temple of Artemis, and the Parthenon all in the same city. That has just gotta be an industrious leader. Then there's whoever has a source of stone, built the GW and the 'mids, and is gonna be up to their eyeballs in Great Engineers all game. :rolleyes:

Well, at least the Oracle earned me a Great Prophet:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_410AD_13.jpg

I used him for the Confucian shrine, which helped with research. Just a little.

I also finished researching Iron Working:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_410AD_12.jpg

Good news: there is iron on the island.

Bad news: I build a workboat and did a little exploring, and I'm truly isolated.

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC15/ALC15_410AD_15.jpg

Now I remember why I usually abandon games where I discover I'm isolated: they're kind of boring. I'm willing to persevere with this one, but I've got the sinking feeling that when the other civs show up in their caravels, they're going to be so far ahead in tech that it'll be ridiculous. And couldn't I have gotten one lousy happiness resource on that little island to make settling there worthwhile? Noooooo...

So what now? As I mentioned, I don't usually play isolated starts so I'm beginning to feel out of my depth. It's becoming obvious that winning the Liberalism race is not in the cards.

UN beeline? :dunno:

Culture Victory!:goodjob:

<TONGUEINCHEEK>

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5343409#post5343409

</TONGUEINCHEEK>

In all truth, I just don't know. My wild stabs into the dark of night:

Optics / Astronomy. If isolation is bringing us down, then let's eliminate isolation. Assuming the rest of the world isn't rich in Cows, Rice & Sugar and is missing a few of the techs we have, maybe we can get the resources (and maybe some GPT trade) we need to start competing.

Again ... I don't know. I'd probably lead the game astray, so I look very much forward to what's going to transpire over the next few hundred years.


Then again, there's always <Ctrl>+<w>. :) j/k


-- my 2c

I vote in favor of a restart. But I'm a quitter.

Go cultural I say. Whatever you decide, don't quit, you cruised through a few games recently and I wanna see a tough one, should be interesting...

Just looked over the save. Thoughts:

It's 410 AD & the empire is generating a total of 37 commerce. Obviously, working the cottages that were laid down will help, over time. I stick by my earlier comment that HR/Bureaucracy/CE capital is the way to go given this start & geography. Courthouses would help quite a bit too, probably reduce upkeep by close to one-third when they're all in place.

One other thing regarding commerce: military expenditures account for 6/18 gpt in upkeep costs. Maybe you should consider downsizing your military until your cities grow to support more free units? The worst that the barbs can send at you are axes, which you can easily counter with a chariot or two. I would, however, keep a fogbuster 1E of the iron to make sure the barbs don't pop a city in that area.

The capital could use a couple of scientists, as the temple that's under construction can take its time building with the city being 3 under the happiness cap & you need the extra research.

As far as research, don't mean to :deadhorse: but HR/CS with maximum commerce in the capital seems to be the way to go. Health cap will top out at 14 when the two seafood resources are brought online. The capital can work a maximum of 12 cottages if you go that route, and support 2 scientists. That might not bring you to technological parity with the leading AI, but it'll at least put you in a better position to beeline key techs for trades to bring you closer to parity with the AIs.

About the identity of the AI hogging all the wonders, I suspect that a single civ built all the ancient stone & marble wonders. The reason I say that is because the size 14 city that houses Stonehenge & the 3 marble wonders was founded in 4000 BC while the size 7 city that houses the Pyramids & GW was founded in 2830 BC. If it were two separate civs, then I would have expected the Pyramids & GW to have been built in a capital & not a second city. The fact that the Pyramids & GW were built in a second city leads me to think that there's only one wonder-hogging civ. And I'll bet it's Louis because he's industrious & has a thing for those great building projects. :rolleyes:

It will be tough but if you focus on getting those jungle tiles cleared, and cottages up you will be able to zoom to a late culture win even with a relative tech deficit. The big problem if you go that route will be keeping your power rating above the easy target line.

You are gonna need to found another religion, I think. If christianity is still on the board you can pop it with another profit.

I think going cultural or space are only mildly different now, get to emancipation and free speech, and cottage spam.