MyOtherName
Emperor
- Joined
- Dec 7, 2004
- Messages
- 1,526
I just fired up a Monarch game in vanilla Civ4 on the default map settings (in particular, continents), and found myself with Hatsheput.
After a little bit of exploring, it became clear I was alone on an island. The kicker was that my island was the size of half a continent!
I wasn't isolated; Isabella also had half a continent to herself, and there was only a one-tile-wide straight between our islands, and we made contact before I even had a worker. She nabbed hinduism, so we had a religon.
It turns out that our two half-continents put together was a little smaller than the other continent, and the tiles were so-so; neither great nor terrible.
It's been a while since I've played Civ4 -- I vaguely remember playing island starts by quickly expanding to all of the prime spots on my island and then trying to quickly research economic techs and then beeline to optics. But this is the first time I've had such a large island to myself! My intuition tells me that the same plan should work: expand to fill out the island and then beeline for optics. But rushing to 10 cities is a lot for a non-expansive leader, and even then I didn't have my entire island filled!
Well, the short story is that my science slider dropped to 20%, then slowly (but steadily) worked its way back up as cottages matured and cities grew. I caught up to Isabella and then started swiftly surpassing her. But the other continent found me just after I researched optics, and unsurprisingly I found myself pretty far behind. Even though I had the #2 GNP, I never managed to catch up. (And, somehow, Ghandi's GNP was significantly higher than mine)
So, my first question is whether or not this is even a sound strategy to try! The usual advice is to found only a few cities, get your economy into full swing, then found more cities; does this advice still apply to this particular situation?
My second problem is with the general tech and development strategy; I've never done especially well on island starts. My inclination is (after getting the basic development techs) to beeline to currency, literature, monarchy, and finally optics. I didn't try for any wonders, because my early production was devoted entirely to expanding ASAP and whipping economic buildings in most cities.
Is this a generally sound approach? (meaning I need to work on my execution) Or is my tech choice drastically flawed? Should I try hard to get certain wonders? Is a cottage economy the way to go, or should I try learning a specialist economy? I didn't get a great person farm early; was that a big mistake?
After a little bit of exploring, it became clear I was alone on an island. The kicker was that my island was the size of half a continent!
I wasn't isolated; Isabella also had half a continent to herself, and there was only a one-tile-wide straight between our islands, and we made contact before I even had a worker. She nabbed hinduism, so we had a religon.
It turns out that our two half-continents put together was a little smaller than the other continent, and the tiles were so-so; neither great nor terrible.
It's been a while since I've played Civ4 -- I vaguely remember playing island starts by quickly expanding to all of the prime spots on my island and then trying to quickly research economic techs and then beeline to optics. But this is the first time I've had such a large island to myself! My intuition tells me that the same plan should work: expand to fill out the island and then beeline for optics. But rushing to 10 cities is a lot for a non-expansive leader, and even then I didn't have my entire island filled!
Well, the short story is that my science slider dropped to 20%, then slowly (but steadily) worked its way back up as cottages matured and cities grew. I caught up to Isabella and then started swiftly surpassing her. But the other continent found me just after I researched optics, and unsurprisingly I found myself pretty far behind. Even though I had the #2 GNP, I never managed to catch up. (And, somehow, Ghandi's GNP was significantly higher than mine)
So, my first question is whether or not this is even a sound strategy to try! The usual advice is to found only a few cities, get your economy into full swing, then found more cities; does this advice still apply to this particular situation?
My second problem is with the general tech and development strategy; I've never done especially well on island starts. My inclination is (after getting the basic development techs) to beeline to currency, literature, monarchy, and finally optics. I didn't try for any wonders, because my early production was devoted entirely to expanding ASAP and whipping economic buildings in most cities.
Is this a generally sound approach? (meaning I need to work on my execution) Or is my tech choice drastically flawed? Should I try hard to get certain wonders? Is a cottage economy the way to go, or should I try learning a specialist economy? I didn't get a great person farm early; was that a big mistake?