By "semi-isolated", I mean when you're isolated on a single land mass with one AI civ. No contact with anyone else; until Optics, it's just you and him.

IME this is worse than simple isolation.

1) If you're not in contact with any other AIs, your neighbor won't trade technologies with you.

2) The big advantage of isolation is that you don't need an army; you only need enough units to keep the barbarians away, and often that's just a couple of fogbusters. In a semi-isolated start, you have to build a much bigger military.

3) The other big advantage of isolation is that you can expand at your own pace and choose your city sites with precision. In a semi-isolated start, you don't have that luxury; the other guy will be grabbing for those nice city sites or, worse yet, will force you to built someplace suboptimal to grab a resource or block his expansion.

There is of course one advantage to semi-isolation, and that is: you can rush the other guy without having to worry about the other AIs. You can make peace for 10 turns, rest, rebuild, and attack him again without accruing diplomatic penalties. And if you take him out, you double the size of your empire without having to worry about things like cultural pressure from the neighbors.

But IME it's not worth it. You go through the standard economic slump from early war, but without tech trading it's much harder to recover. Without Code of Laws or Currency it's damnably hard to expand past 6 or 8 cities anyhow, so it's going to take you a while to digest your conquests. IME the upshot is, when the other AIs arrive in their caravels you're still struggling to develop Civil Service and Machinery.

Am I alone in this, or do the rest of you hate these starts too?


Waldo

Depends on your room mate. Shake or Monty and it's a bad situation. Mansa Musa or Darius, not so bad.

Good points for wemi-isolation

1) You can stela the other guys techs via espionage.
2) You can cement good relations and have a valuable friend when the world comes a calling.
3) You have a whipping boy that you can trash and pillage for extra cash, free of diplomatic penalties.

It's all about dealing with what you have.

This kind of depends on who you are semi isloated with. Easy pushover Victims are ok.

For example Izzy i was sharing island with: She was not teching too good, but still enought to steal a couple of techs from her, She also founded a religion. She made not too many settlers, instread she viciously spamed missionaries and spread the religion to my cities. She also managed to pop a Great Prophet and make a shirne, before i took her out. :goodjob:

Sitting Bull on the other hand... Protective, Dog Soldiers and spamming cities like Crazy... :mad:

Just kill them at first sight(unless it is mansa which you can trade with).

Without Code of Laws or Currency it's damnably hard to expand past 6 or 8 cities anyhow, so it's going to take you a while to digest your conquests.

Go to War fast and early, raze all of the cities, use whatever troops left as Fog-busters, and then expand at your own pace.

The last two games I've played I had no problem being stuck on a continent with a single opponenent. The first game I actually had a sizable tech lead over the other continent. Allowing me to war without reprisal (I had Galleons before most of them even had Optics).

Usually the only city I'll keep is either the capitol, a holy city, or if they nabbed an early wonder.

Another point is whether you can weaken the opposing AI buy cutting off thier land.

My current game as Mansa Musa (his turn in my list of playing all leaders once) I was on the same continent as Darius (battle of the tech hogs). I was able to cut him off with the capital and one very strategically placed city that also captured copper. Darius settled some real poor land after the second city and I came charging with spears and axes, taking all his land in three wars. At each step I got something else to stabilize the economy (Judaism shrine, CoL, currency), after knocking him out I settled the remainder of th continent until I met the next two AIs (Catherine and Hannibal).
Just an example.

If you can expand and keep your power in a safe position, you should leverage the situation by focusing a part of your income towards espionage to steal some techs. getting the great wall is awesome under this circumstance for the Gspy generation. But like others have said it all depends on the opposition. If your neighbour is Shaka or Monty, prepare for a war to the death and don't waste to much time on other stuff, it could be dangerous.

getting the great wall is awesome under this circumstance for the Gspy generation.

absolutely! and the great wall forces all the barbs to harass the other guy instead of you :). well, some might get stuck on the other side of you waiting around until your units want exp but that's cool too.

the first game where i got practice stealing techs was me and HC alone on a continent. it didn't start out that way, but a barbarian uprising killed monty when he had only his capital. best barbs ever! i could never be brave enough to axe rush monty, but i axe-rushed those barbs, and Teo-whatever was a great ironworks city. i was building the great wall when they had their uprising, and that convinced me more than ever it was a great idea! it was a really fun game :). in vanilla and warlords tho, i really didn't like starting out with just one contact.

A barbarian uprising on a 2 tiles large peninsula completely cut of by the great wall. :goodjob: Atilla the Hun and his buddies. I could not convince my self to kill the guys. Every time i felt like i need a laugh i just scrolled the map over to that peninsula.

The were eventually pushed off by a border pop. I would really like to know where they ended up - there was no unclaimed spot left on my island when the borders finally popped them off the peninsula. I hope they did not became Shark-fodder. I kind of liked those guys :cry:

A barbarian uprising on a 2 tiles large peninsula completely cut of by the great wall. :goodjob: Atilla the Hun and his buddies. I could not convince my self to kill the guys. Every time i felt like i need a laugh i just scrolled the map over to that peninsula.

The were eventually pushed off by a border pop. I would really like to know where they ended up - there was no unclaimed spot left on my island when the borders finally popped them off the peninsula. I hope they did not became Shark-fodder. I kind of liked those guys :cry:

I wish there were some way to find out! What if they popped up outside another civs capital on another continent and razed it? :lol:

Just look at it as someone else building your cities for you and giving you some punching bags to train up your military prior to the main event.

Just look at it as someone else building your cities for you and giving you some punching bags to train up your military prior to the main event.
which ensures you don't totally neglect your military.

+ the techs you get for free by :hammer:
+ the wonders this guy is accumulating, the tiles he is improving
+ there is usually more fertile land on the landmass if you have at least 1 neighbour

Just kill them at first sight(unless it is mansa which you can trade with).

I say take out Mansa as well, but just bring more swords and axes to the party to kill his pesky skirmishers. Then focus on economics techs, and trade/steal your way to tech parity once the rest of the world comes calling, with more land at your disposal you should be able to win space race easily as those cottages mature, alternatively, you can go for the more challenging inter-continental invasion and domination victory.