[BTS] Help - Isolated Emperor

[hankinsohl]

Can someone please help? I need some advice on how to proceed.

I'm playing as the Romans at epic speed, Emperor difficulty. I started alone on an island whereas the other civilizations share a single large continent. It's now 1300 AD and I've just met all the AIs. I'm understandably way behind in tech; in fact, the only thing I seem to have going for me is that I'm 2nd in land mass.

My Land:




Diplomacy:



Tech:



Standings:



Attached is a saved game file.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Cam_H]

hankinsohl,

Welcome to CivFanatics.

I know you're asking for future directions, but I must look backward for a second and say that you've got yourself so far behind to a large extent because of lack of city specialisation. Your best production cities have Cottages not Farms (e.g. Neapolis can't work several Mines due to lack of Farming), you're trying to use your capital as a Great Person Farm under Bureaucracy, heaps of terrain is undeveloped including several riverside forests, you've got Education and Astronomy but Rome being the city that's carrying the bulk of your scientific output has neither a University nor Observatory let alone Oxford Uni' ...

... So, you've got an opportunity to reshape your empire and dramatically improve the extent of specialisation of cities. Also, I'm not sure how or why you've got such a massive bank balance, but I'd start using it.

In terms of victory conditions, nothing leaps out:

Personally, I'd be looking at a Cultural win by working hard to leverage the four religions that you have present in your empire as well as a few sites that could pop some Great Artists for end-game bombing. If pursuing this victory, you'll want to prioritise Liberalism (Free Speech) and Nationalism (Hermitage) and I've found Railroads's Machine Guns a great unit for defence if you were to cease research and hit the Culture switch. It's not going to be a sure thing though, and not helped by missing The Sistine Chapel, not having too many Cottage laden sites, not really pursuing this victory to begin with, and already using a few Great People for alternative uses making future Great Artists slower to pop.

More assertive players would probably recommend trying to take a military position. Provided Montezuma doesn't capitulate to someone in the current wars, he's your obvious future target being both backward and unpopular. Your military of course would have to start from scratch as you've got nothing much now. You'll need a lot of siege (I'm thinking Artillery) as Montezuma's bound to have big stacks of backward units. If you can take the Aztecs as vassals, then a range of possibilities might open up. Diplomatic may be back on the table, or if you have sufficient momentum you can press on with Domination.

You just seem too backward to pull off a successful Internet bee-line, but with some rearrangement of your empire, it might be possible. If you did secure the Internet, with your large landmass with the benefit of a couple of reasonable production sites you'll probably be one of several well placed nations in a very competitive space race.

Hope this is of some help. Chop down some of those forests!

[hankinsohl]

Thanks for the detailed response Cam!

I'll fix my specialization problems and see how things improve. Perhaps culture is the way to go per your suggestions.

[dirtyparrot]

Going strictly from your screenshots, you could use many more workers. Also, if you didn't already build it, the Great Lighthouse would have gone great with this map. You're not that far behind. All you really need is one tech that noone has and you can pretty much recoup all those missing tech in one shot. I would probably advise to forget about chasing Liberalism, as you're most likely going to get beat to it. I would probably suggest you get Astronomy, which will open overseas trade routes and give you a trade chip. You've got some pretty peaceful neighbours (apart from the backwards Monty). Good luck and hopeful my advice is somewhat useful.

[Cam_H]

dirtyparrot,

Liberalism's freebie tech' is long gone, but of course has the 'fantastic for Culture' Free Speech. hankinsohl has Astronomy. Tech' situation isn't good but can be quickly fixed, but there's little military, so there's a risk of invasion if unit building continues to be put aside for other priorities. Nationhood of course gives the capacity to draft units as well as access to Hermitage.

hankinsohl,

Best of luck. I'm not sure if you can pull off a Cultural win at this point or not, but it's the option that appeals to me as the one I would attempt. I might try a shadow of this game if I get the chance.

[hankinsohl]

A funny thing happened on my way towards a cultural victory...



I was very worried about getting attacked with my miniscule army so I gave in to almost every demand and, as seen above, ended up with a diplomatic victory instead.

Well, this is only my second win on Emperor difficulty, so I'll take it!

[Cam_H]

Hey - congratulations!

I was just starting to get going on your game, but I guess that's moot now!

Well done.