Alone On The Island---can´t Make It. Advice Needed.

[tutankamon]

I like to play the scenario of continents, large map. I have got 4 continents and I am on the smallest one totally alone.
I have played this scenario 3 times only getting better very slightly.
By the time I manage to make contact with other civilizations, the best ones are 800points ahead of me. Nobody has my religion and I am very behind with the techs so I can´t trade them anyways.

I am playing on PRINCE.

I have tried number of different strategies. Firstly trying to get o the galleon unit as soon as possible....horrible strategy as I was forced to run my science at 30% at many parts of the game. I had also no religion here which might have been a big minus

Than I tried building cities as soon as possible and getting rid of the barbs. Same result actually.

Finally i build my second city next o the marble resource and I build 3 wonders. This has been pretty helpfull as I run my science at 90% most of the time. I discovered hinduism, judaism and christianity as the first civ too.
I still ended up 700 points behind gandhi when i first made a contact with him.

In all of the games I seem to produce fair amount of great people but besides the Great Merchant that I used for getting some 2500 golds from the great trade once i discover the civs. I am unable to use them effectively.

I suppose the key is a really thought out strategy and combination of wonders and specific techs....I don´t know what it is tho.

Any advice is welcome.

 

[Mannu]

You might want to consider an alternate victory strategy. Sounds like Conquest, Domination, Space Race, and Time are out. Maybe cultural? If you have marble, it could work. Grab religions and the Parthenon. Expand slowly so you can keep your tech at near 100% early on. Your continent might get colonized, but your really need only 3 good cities and a couple of others for military units. This is what I would try...

 

[jkp1187]

Maybe you could upload the save file from 4000BC? This could be an interesting group project.

 

[walkerjks]

Also, rather than trying to build a lot of cities, I would build axeman (assuming copper or iron) with city raider promotions to capture the barbarian cities. This allows your core cities to grow in size, your military to build, and you will end up with cities anyway.

Most of the time when I find myself alone on an island, I expand more slowly.

 

[tutankamon]

I am lost.....I got it down to 600 points difference with Gandhi by the time I made contact with him.

I have taken over barbs practically with no units. One axeman, one horsearcher and one swordman....they had no iron so they only had archers.

I have build oracle, panthenon, national epic, heroic epic, hanging gardens and same XXXX chapel.....still so much behind....i´ll go couple of saves back and will try to get ahead with the world library or whatever it is called....but still.....4 tries and such a small improvement.

 

[tutankamon]

I forgot to mention.....its interesting tha the most advanced civs are on the biggest island.

 

[Rhandom]

I have tried number of different strategies. Firstly trying to get o the galleon unit as soon as possible....horrible strategy as I was forced to run my science at 30% at many parts of the game. I had also no religion here which might have been a big minus

Than I tried building cities as soon as possible and getting rid of the barbs. Same result actually.

Finally i build my second city next o the marble resource and I build 3 wonders. This has been pretty helpfull as I run my science at 90% most of the time. I discovered hinduism, judaism and christianity as the first civ too.
I still ended up 700 points behind gandhi when i first made a contact with him.

Any advice is welcome.

The lack of trade routes is probably what really hurts early on, as that is a lot of lost income to accomodate.

without seeing the map, its a little hard to know how best to approach the problem. If you start with resources and tech to improve food tiles, I's pop a worker first, otherwise wait till size 3. In the mean time, run out warriors to clear the island and keep it clean. At size 3, pop a worker, then a settler, using the worker to accelerate the production with chopping forests. I'd put a worker out of each city to farm and chop, and wait until size 3 or 4 before putting out another settler - you should be able to keep at 80% or 90% research this way.

Tech would go Mysticism, Polythesism (unless you start with mysticism, and can get budhism right off the bat), Bronze working, Agriculture/hunting, A few other low resource techs, writing, then go straight for currency. Then go for boats. Make contact, get some trade going, and the money will help a lot.

I'd make scientists and merchants as much as possible.

Or, go for the cultural win, don't worry about finding people, and focus on getting religeons so you can build more stupa's and such.

 

[Arathorn]

Down 600 points is quite manageable. I've been down further on Monarch and come back. Just keep going. Don't quit just because you're behind. Not only will you not learn too much, you'll never even attempt the higher difficulty levels. It's when you're behind that the most interesting strategies become apparent/viable.

Play to your civ's strengths. You haven't mentioned what civ you're playing, so I can't give further coments. But utilize your strengths, be it Great People, Civics, cottages, or whatever.

Smart worker actions. Terrain improvement is still critical, maybe even moreso than in earlier civ incarnations. Do it smart and do it well. Smart depends on a lot of factors (which is good), so it's hard to give overall advice.

It's not surprising that the most advanced civs are on the biggest island. They've probably traded food, luxes, and techs for far longer. They probably share a religion, too, so they won't fight each other much. That's a tough clique to break in to. Hopefully you can trade.

Buildings are key, too. They're free in Civ4, so build a lot of them. They help with commerce immeasurably. And if you can be semi-large, catching up that 600 point deficit will be easy. Just have a plan for what you're doing and why.

Arathorn

 

[tutankamon]

Thanks a lot with your help. I have taken some things into consideration...especially the fact that I may be able to catch up.

I am playing as Incas which should be spiritual/fiinancial if I am not wrong.
Here is couple of things I did not mentioned.

It seems that I do the tile managemnet and city management, wonders and barbs quite well at the beginning up util maybe 1000 A.D, or basically up until the others discover literature and start trading knowledges. At least up until 1000 or so I am considered the MOST ADVANCED civilization.

The problem is.....do I go for religions? I always get hinduism first and I manage judaism as well....even christianity....but than what happens is that the rest are of only 2 religions....which means they don´t fight each other and trade even more. Than in 1700 comes one of them with a huge army that I am unable to stop. I manage to sink some loaded boats, but its not enought.

When we talk about size....I have a very decent size. Maybe even the biggest, with 9 cities and plenty of resources.
My income does go up significantly once i start trading genarting up to 40 golds per turn when running on 90%, 80% science.....but I am still 7-8 techs behind.
I really have no time for war if I wanna catch up so when this ONE civ comes to me in 1700-1800 its pretty much over for me.

 

[weimingshi]

something wrong with your economy, if u got8 or 9 city and its 1700 AD, you should at least have 200 or 300 gold per turn runing at 80% research.

 

[Padmewan]

I second the earlier suggestion that you upload the 4000 BC save file... I'd love to play this (tho I'm not at Prince level, wonder if you can reset the level of the game to something I can handle???). I concur with another that you can probably only pull off the cultural victory, or maybe diplomatic. As for diplomacy, if you have 3 religions go for free exercise or whatever it's called, or don't have a state religion. It may hurt your cultural / GP production, but what's that worth when you get invaded? Civ's don't get mad if you have no religion at all.

 

[suspendinlight]

I think the cultural victory is a possibility here if you can found 3 nice cities and plan them to be your cultural cities from the beginning (having marble and/or stone would be helpful too).

Also, an interesting thing to try would be to try and get every religion and spread all of them to all of your cities. At that point, you could build tons of cultural buildings and also make some income off of your cities multiplied by the number of religions you found. Besides, this would stop the AI from capturing any religions and they would not have an immediate negatives with you. I do want to say though that this strategy probably won't work, and if you missed one religion, you would have problems because the rest of the world would all be living peacefully under one religion until you show up.

Anyway, please upload the save so we can try it out.

 

[Padmewan]

...and if you missed one religion, you would have problems because the rest of the world would all be living peacefully under one religion until you show up.

I do have to say, this would be such an amusing situation to imagine in RL... one nation that has 6 major religions, and the rest of the world united under another?

Of course, if you pulled this off, beeline for freedom of religion and missionary-spam. It may not be that hard to convert other nations (though you have to be of that religion to get the diplo option, I think).

 

[Shillen]

I have tried number of different strategies. Firstly trying to get o the galleon unit as soon as possible....horrible strategy as I was forced to run my science at 30% at many parts of the game. I had also no religion here which might have been a big minus

What does going for astronomy early have to do with running science at 30%? It sounds to me that you're building too many cities/military and not generating enough commerce. Build lots of commerce. The key to being on your own continent to begin with is to make yourself a research powerhouse. You will get to Optics long before the AI's do. You then go out and meet them and you can trade optics/whatever other techs you have to every single civ and get back to tech parity. You need to be careful about which civs you trade with, though, as trading to an enemy of another civ can ruin your rep with them so they won't trade you techs anymore.

But I've started on my own continent twice on prince and once on monarch and won handily all three times. In fact I like starting on my own continent because then I don't have to race to build cities.

But the key is cottages, cottages, cottages.

edit: I also had no religion and rarely go for one early anymore. I don't find them that big of a bonus and on prince+ difficulty if you don't start with mysticism they're not very easy to get anyway.

 

[Zevus]

there are some techs that the computer just about never goes for that you can trade w/ them even on the immortal level (and possibly deity too, but i havent tried that)... stuff like biology and medicine, and then you can trade this to all of them.

 

[guyjr]

I do have to say, this would be such an amusing situation to imagine in RL... one nation that has 6 major religions, and the rest of the world united under another?

I think that's very close to what we had around 300 A.D. or so - when the Roman empire converted to Christianity, the entire European world was more or less united under the one religion, while the as-yet undiscovered Americas had many different Indian civilizations each with their own religions. Of course it's a stretch, since I'm not counting the Asian continent, but then again, my world history is kinda dodgy at best... anyway... back to your regularly scheduled topic.

 

[Mazruk]

Maybe the problem is you grabbed the religions leaving them peaceful.

If you let them get say all but one religion, they'll be divided and warring amongst themselves?

Would be good to try the 4000BC save...

 

[Heroes]

I am playing as Incas which should be spiritual/fiinancial if I am not wrong.

Inca is aggressive and financial.
Besides these 2 greatest traits (IMHO), beginning with mysticism and agriculture, having a super anti-archer UU, -- Inca is the most powerful civ in general I would say.

 

[tutankamon]

I think uploading the save for you would be a problem.

I have a laptop and the only way I can play the game is by modifying the mapvisible0mapvisible file for me un unveiling the whole map from the beginning of the game. Otherwise for the ones of you who don´t know the problem, I am in dark all the time and can´t see any tiles.

I think the idea of going without the religion MAY be an answer. I will try to chop and chop and build cottages.

I don´t really see how can I makemyself a powerhouse in science when it takes soo long to get to optics.....by that time everybody else is trading techs already.

I have finished the game yesterday with 600 points behind Gandhi and Cyrus, but it was ELIZABETH who was 3rd in points who won the SPACE RACE.

I was very far away from cultural victory with 15000 cultural points at my best city.

Conquest and domination...obviously not a way to go here.

Diplomatic....no way since I never get to be candidate for the UN councel.

The only way I see possible is therefore SPACE RACE and maybe it is possible for me to do something like Elizabeth.

By the year 1900 or so I have 9 decent cities....small sizes tho...around 9-11.
But I have forges and plants....if I go for the exact techs I need for the space race...I might be able to do it. That is, if I can manage to stay out of war. I have to give up sometimes a knowledge or good for free, but I managed to stay out in my last save.

 

[Padmewan]

Read the thread in here about the guaranteed cultural win that depends heavily not on building Wonders but on generating huge numbers of Great Artists. That strategy works well in combination with founding 6 religions, because each will generate culture up the wahoo, esp. if you have enough space on your Australia-type continent to build 9 cities. (9 temples = 3 cathedrals). Cultural win is boring, perhaps, using this method but if you're anal enough it could work. If you've been successful in picking up Wonders, concentrate on the ones that generate Great Artist points and let the good times roll. Using this strategy walkerjks claims he can win by 1900 as other civs are just starting to build their spaceships.

Cultural wins take a lot of planning from the beginning, but based on your previous cultural success (founding religions) I'd say you have a very good shot at it!

I wonder if Firaxis will do a "seed number" feature as they did for civ 3 so we can try this at home w/o your savefile.