Starting in a Small Space

Lothe · Sep 16, 2014

Hi all,

I've been playing a game on a Standard-speed, Standard-size Continents map on Prince. I'm playing as Brazil, and my hope when I started was to pursue a Tourism victory.

The wrinkle is that I started on a relatively small land mass (maybe not big enough to call a "continent"?) with only one other civ, Arabia (though no less than three city-states). I founded a second city relatively early and in a not-super-great place--the former because Arabia was starting to gobble up our already limited territory, and the latter because I was perhaps too keen to settle near a Faith-producing Natural Wonder I'd found. (I had some idea that I was going to be a major religious power to aid my victory, which hasn't really turned out to be the case.) The second city has a bunch of food sources around it, though, so I thought I'd try to make it my Science center. Unfortunately, it's been hamstrung by having just a few Production per turn.

I'd scouted the entire continent before long; after that, I did a whole lot of waiting until I was able to reach Astronomy and start sending units over the ocean. The upshot was that I didn't get off my little island and start discovering other civs until well over 150 turns in. (To be fair, though, I influenced the heck out of Arabia.)

I haven't completely written this game off, as I've quickly managed to discover most of the other civs since setting to sea, and I know most of the biggest boosts to Tourism come in the late game, and we haven't gotten there yet. Still, I'm curious: if you start a game and realize after some scouting that you're stuck in a small area with limited potential for growth, what do you do? Is it just a matter of taking stock of the available resources and making the best of it, or is there a way to shortcut Astronomy that I'm not thinking about?

-Lothe

Asklepios · Sep 16, 2014

With most civs, when I find myself hemmed in I switch to a war footing and conquer my way to a decent size. A handful of CBs and your starting scouts will be enough to capture a city, early on.

Thats not an especially Brazil friendly tactic though, hampered as it is by your jungle squares giving low resources, and the trek to Brazilwood camps.

As a good rule of thumb, if I'm Brazil I prioritise a hill start, and will use my early worker to get hammer on the city radius as fast as possible. Also, as you're going to need workers aplenty, declare war on the first city state you meet and perma-war them (or at least a millennium of war) so you can farm them for workers. Concentrate on growth and science over culture: don't worry about carnivals yet as you're best off having your tourism multiplied when you've established good base tourism, so the unhappiness of growth is okay. Between a hill start, an early settler in the queue and a settler bought for cash you should easily hit 3 cities regardless of how tight things get, presuming standard map. Once you've established your 3 cities and your science (NC of course) either get a military and take a capital, or get your resource production even higher. Now, and only now, you go for the culture victory. You grab the wonders you need, you build guilds and start allocating specialist slots to them, you time the Carnival right and then boom... cultural victory by late renaissance.

There's faster ways to do this, of course, but if you can play the faster game you're likely not needing basic Brazil advice. There's also the suboptimal but equally enjoyable path of taking it all the way through Freedom and up to Internet, fighting only defensive wars, maintaining good relations, and letting the UU do the rest. On Prince level, three cities will get you that victory sooner or later regardless. Two cities is trickier, but still doable.

Rooftrellen · Sep 16, 2014

If I'm well and truly alone with just one or two other civs, my priority becomes army. I want them gone, and I want them gone before astronomy. Double that if I'm Brazil and don't want them taking down my jungle.

The challenge with Brazil, of course, is production, but if I'm near a warmonger, I know I'm going to need an army anyway, and if the other guy(s) are peaceful, I don't need much.

It's hard to say much more than that without a specific layout, though. CS's can provide gold via trade routes after other civs are gone, but in a very CS poor area (not your case, I know), it's not an option.

I think going for a religious wonder was probably a good idea if you wanted to have a good religion. I know I often go right after that type of thing, myself, but from turn X (when I found how small the area was), I would have started gunning for Arabia, not only because we'd be alone, but because he likes his religion so much.

If you can totally remove the enemy before anyone finds your island, you'll not suffer diplomatically, and, because there was only one other civ to possibly influence with your culture, removing them could have been a shortcut.

My rule of thumb (and I play on marathon mostly, lots of potential for dead turns) is that if I'm not doing something this turn that gets me closer to winning, I'm getting closer to losing. Thus, I'm not sure I'd do much waiting around to find everyone else.

That being said, certainly don't crack it up as a loss. I always felt Brazil was more about controlling the game than outright winning with culture (though they're done good at it, just not as good as France, for instance, in my experience), and, as you pointed out, most tourism comes later.

Next time, if you want to play around with different possibilities (or if you want to wrap things up and start over in the same situation), I'd suggest going for eliminating the enemy early and see how it goes. You'll probably burn most of the cities, and you end up having to be disciplined about settling cities too fast, but removing one enemy from play is like getting dominate culture with them instantly, and every victory condition for every civ can benefit from a second capital location.

Best of all, you don't even need really good production to do it, as long as you can make some units, since they'll either have an army to feed you exp or not have an army to hold you off well, so long as you go down that war path early.

RatesAnalyst · Sep 16, 2014

I think the main problem here was that Culture Victory wasn't the best play style....

I know it's tempting as Brazil but I think (as others have mentioned) that the best approach would have been an early war to clear Arabia from the island (you won't get warmonger penalties with civs you haven't met). Then, once you have a nice, juicy, moderate-sized island to your lonesome you can get 4-5 cities up and running easily and then turtle for a while. (Preferably with coastal cities and cargo ships taking food around the edge...)

You could pursue a science victory from there or still go after CV if you deliberately get a caravel off exploring early (after killing Arabia!). The extra cities make it easier to have the production to build the necessary wonders to really make the CV a possibility.

GoStu · Sep 16, 2014

Rooftrellen said:
If I'm well and truly alone with just one or two other civs, my priority becomes army. I want them gone, and I want them gone before astronomy. Double that if I'm Brazil and don't want them taking down my jungle.

The challenge with Brazil, of course, is production, but if I'm near a warmonger, I know I'm going to need an army anyway, and if the other guy(s) are peaceful, I don't need much.

It's hard to say much more than that without a specific layout, though. CS's can provide gold via trade routes after other civs are gone, but in a very CS poor area (not your case, I know), it's not an option.

I think going for a religious wonder was probably a good idea if you wanted to have a good religion. I know I often go right after that type of thing, myself, but from turn X (when I found how small the area was), I would have started gunning for Arabia, not only because we'd be alone, but because he likes his religion so much.

If you can totally remove the enemy before anyone finds your island, you'll not suffer diplomatically, and, because there was only one other civ to possibly influence with your culture, removing them could have been a shortcut.

My rule of thumb (and I play on marathon mostly, lots of potential for dead turns) is that if I'm not doing something this turn that gets me closer to winning, I'm getting closer to losing. Thus, I'm not sure I'd do much waiting around to find everyone else.

That being said, certainly don't crack it up as a loss. I always felt Brazil was more about controlling the game than outright winning with culture (though they're done good at it, just not as good as France, for instance, in my experience), and, as you pointed out, most tourism comes later.

Next time, if you want to play around with different possibilities (or if you want to wrap things up and start over in the same situation), I'd suggest going for eliminating the enemy early and see how it goes. You'll probably burn most of the cities, and you end up having to be disciplined about settling cities too fast, but removing one enemy from play is like getting dominate culture with them instantly, and every victory condition for every civ can benefit from a second capital location.

Best of all, you don't even need really good production to do it, as long as you can make some units, since they'll either have an army to feed you exp or not have an army to hold you off well, so long as you go down that war path early.

I second this strategy. Annihilating the neighbor(s) where possible is a fun move and it takes a competitor out of the game. On Continents it's totally possible to get away with murder like this. Arabia's a good candidate for wiping out too - he likes Wonders (yay, more to loot!) and you're almost certainly getting some great terrain out of the deal too.

One thing I'd like to add is that I find this most effective as a timing attack in the Medieval era. This way, he's had a chance to generate a bunch of writings for you too - free Great Works are the best Great Works.

DarkestOnion · Sep 16, 2014

With a small subcontinent and a nearby neighbor I tend to rush to 3 Composite Bowmen and 2-3 Spearmen. With these forces, I then remove my neighbor before I meet any other Civs to prevent any Diplomacy Hits for my Early Warmongering. I would also suggest you consider Loading an Earlier Save if you are on a small subcontinent, and you have accidentally Settled a non-optimal Capital. Although that may sound a little unethical...a bad start on a small subcontinent can result in a less than fun game.

Lothe · Sep 17, 2014

Hi all,

Thanks very much for the advice! This is actually my first full game on Prince (I've played two full games on lower difficulties and completed the American Civil War scenario on Prince), so these relatively basic principles and strategies are perfect for me at the moment. I also hadn't realized Warmonger penalties don't apply with civs that don't know you--a very useful tidbit.

Question: If I click "Save Map" in the Save window, and then restart using that map, will I and the other civs all spawn in the same locations, or will we get new start positions on that same map?

phillipwyllie · Sep 17, 2014

I think your problem was settling the NW, without a screenshot(with tile yields) it would be hard to comment properly. The only civ who should be settling a NW at all costs is Spain. I know what you were thinking that you'd get Sacred Paths but if your second city is in a poor spot enhancing your religion first won't do you much good. In my experience NW usually aren't in good spots, especially Mt Sinai.

What I'd do is already been said but I would have done a 2 city NC then taken out Arabia with a perma war with one of the CS until the first GG has been generated(to steal land). Also you want to take out Arabia after he founds a religion thus denying an unmet civ a chance at a religion. This will need units so one of the first tech would be Bronze Working to chop the jungle off of the hills.

Browd · Sep 17, 2014

Lothe said:
Question: If I click "Save Map" in the Save window, and then restart using that map, will I and the other civs all spawn in the same locations, or will we get new start positions on that same map?

You will start in random locations.

Asklepios · Sep 17, 2014

As a nice basic tip, a good religious synergy for Brazil is the culture boost on jungle tiles.

Another basic jungle tactic, as Brazil tends to jungled up, is to leave bananas alone. They're better as a jungle tile that gives slightly less food, as at university they become a science source, and with the right pantheon belief jungle makes culture. Improving banana is generally a waste of worker turns.

At Prince level on Brazil, I find a nice opening is to hit Pottery first, so you can get a shrine up. Then instead of going straight to writing, which is the usual play for most openings (save the most aggressive military rushes) detour to mining and bronze working.

Then, get to adding hammers to your first city by finding those jungled hills and turning them to mines. Any jungle on plains, leave alone for later brazilwood camp / trading post goodness (I prefer the former, though trading posts can be better with the right social policies, I tend to go towards tradition then aesthetics for Brazil, which denies some of the bonuses). Once you have hammers to build with, things go a lot smoother for Brazil, and basically if you can survive to the point of Brazilwood Camps and three cities, you're pretty much set for the game - from then on its just a case of how fast you can make your culture victory. Machinery is a long way off the beaten path though, so be sure that after Bronze Working you swing back and complete the climb to University before doubling back for it. Universities are what make a jungle start suddenly awesome.

Starting in a Small Space

Lothe

Chieftain

Asklepios

Warlord

Rooftrellen

King

RatesAnalyst

Chieftain

GoStu

King

DarkestOnion

Prince

Lothe

Chieftain

phillipwyllie

Wannabe Deity

Browd

Dilettante

Asklepios

Warlord

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