Archipelago Maps

[AnitaGaribaldi]

I usually find Pangaea maps quite easy: early rush, recover, war, recover, ..... Kill one AI after the other. But rushing in Archipelago is more expensive, I have trouble with water maps. You need boats, tiremes and troops. The cities have less production, they are harder to defend, resources are harder to get.

How are the best leaders? I play Warlords.
What is a good strategy? Build a few wonders early, go to war later? My last Pangaea game, I build no wonder, just troops.

Few thoughts about strategy:
Great Prophet Farm
Early Religion (1 or 2)-> Shrine -> Hire priests -> Settle prophets
Pro: One good production and gold city, around 100% science slider, bureaucracy increases the production from specialists
Con: expansion is delayed, specially if you decide for a double shrine capital
Best Leader: Elizabeth
Philosophical - more prophets earlier
Financial - research faster
Fishing - start working water tiles while researching Mysticism - Polytheism - for a double shrine capital: Masonry - Monotheism
Wonders with good synergy: The Pyramids (early representation), Angkor Wat (can hire more priests and they give more production)

Great Lighthouse/Colossus Combo
(worker techs, bw?) -> sailing (lighthouse) -> masonry (The Great LightHouse) -> Great Merchant -> Lightbulb Metal Casting -> Forge and Colossus
Best Traits: 1 - Industrious, 2 - Philosophical


Good Wonders for Archipelago Maps:
The Great Lighthouse
The Colossus
Temple of Artemis (good synergy with The Great Lighthouse)

Other good early wonders:
The Pyramids
The Great Library

Useless wonders:
The Hanging Gardens
Great Wall
The Statue of Liberty
The Three Gorges Dam

Starting techs: Fishing

Traits:
Financial - Water tiles give more commerce
Industrious - The Great Lighthouse has no resource to speed up production thus only Industrious get any bonus, cheap Forge for building the Colossus
Philosophical - lots of food, more specialists
Organized - cheap lighthouses and courthouses. Two cheaper buildings you want in every city.

America: Fishing
Roosevelt - Organized

Aztecs: Jaguar (Resourceless UU), Sacrificial Altar (UB - more production for food rich cities)

Cartage: Fishing, Cothon (UB)
Hanibbal - Financial

China:
Qin Shi Huang - Industrious

Egypt:
Ramesses II - Industrious

England: Fishing
Victoria - Financial
Elizabeth - Financial, Philosophical

France:
Louis - Industrious
Napoleon - Organized

Inca:
Huayna - Financial, Industrious

Germany: Fishing
Frederick - Philosophical, Organized
Bismark - Industrious

Greece: Fishing

India:
Gandhi - Philosophical
Asoka - Organized

Japan: Fishing

Korea:
Wang Kong - Financial

Mali:
Mansa Musa - Financial

Ottoman:
Mehmed II - Organized

Rome: Fishing
Augustus - Organized
Julius - Organized


Russia:
Peter - Philosophical
Stalin - Industrious

Spain: Fishing

Viking: Fishing, Beserker (UU), Trading Post (UB)
Ragnar - Financial

 

[Gwynnja]

I've never really been able to pull off an early game rush. Building tons of galleys never really seemed viable to me. Archipelago maps require a bit more patience. Here are a few suggestions:

Get chemistry and make lots and lots and lots of pirate ships. Pillage and maraude(sp?) until the ai catches up.

Don't delay scientific method. Find oil asap so you can build post combustion era vessels.

Do your best to get the world circumnavigation bonus.

Beeline--optics for caravels, liberalism for astronomy, chemistry for pirate ships,
Scientific method to find oil,
Combustion to build destroyers and transports,
Industrialism for marines and battleships, flight for aircraft carriers.

Now, when im planning on a overseas invasion I usually build a crapload of galleons that I plan to upgrade and fill with marines. With warlords you miss out on portugul and holland and their water based UUs and UBs, but you can still fill your galleons up with viking berserkers. If you plan on using seige, I would count on losing 25% more, and therefore you'll have to build more galleons to fill. The beserkers start with amphibious, combat I and an inherent +10% city attack, but they'll still struggle with fortified CG longbows.

Hope this helped

 

[Rameau's Nephew]

Archipelago maps do require more patience, but overall they're easier to win than almost any other map type. The AI just doesn't utilize naval combat nearly as well as a human does. Plus, it doesn't adjust its tactics based on the map type, so you're free to build the Great Lighthouse, beeline the naval-enabling techs, and turn these advantages into any kind of win you want.

 

[Calouste]

Don't rush on Archipelago maps, it's too expensive.

I have a played a lot of games on Tiny Islands maps, but only in Vanilla and BTS, I have never played Warlords.

Early strategies mostly revolve around having a lot of seafood and whipping everything. I consider a city with 2 seafood and nothing else a good city spot.

My most popular leader traits:
Financial - loads of water tiles
Creative - often you will have a second seafood resource in the second ring of your BFC, and Creative helps you grab it a lot earlier, and you don't need Mysticism etc early on. Faster cultural expansion also allows your galleys in more ocean squares.
Expansive - cheap granaries and harbors and free health. Health resources other than seafood can be hard to come by on a water map
Organized - cheap lighthouses and courthouses

The main point about cheap granaries and lighthouses is that you can whip then when your city is at population 2, allowing for much faster city growth.

In BTS, the Great Lighthouse is a very good wonder. With all intercontinental trade routes worth at least 2 , newly founded cities will be generating 9 (3 trade routes @ 2 each, 1 for the city square and 2 for the seafood resource you're working) , which means REXing is hardly limited by city maintenance costs.

War is very limited until about Gunpowder and because you usually can expose the whole island or small continent you are on, you don't have to worry much about Barbarians either. So you can have a really limited army, just city guards and a few triremes is usually enough.

As Rameau's Nephew says, Archipelago maps are quite easy to win, at the moment I win easily with Willem on Emperor. Not only does the AI not adjust it's tactics, a number of triats/UUs/starting techs are useless or worth a lot less on Archipelago maps. For example the Agg/Pro/Imp traits don't add much, pre-Gunpowder UUs (except the Berserker but including the Fast Worker) are as good as useless, not starting with Fishing is a bit of a pain because you can't start with building a workboat, and Hunting is fairly useless because there is not that much for the Scout to scout. The extra archers that the AI gets on higher levels are also redundant because there isn't anything to fight.

 

[AnitaGaribaldi]

Thanks for the replies. I have started a new game: archipelago, standard, medium sea level, arid climate. I took Germany. This time, if I find metal, I can kill Mehmed.

The settings:

Spoiler :

The map:

Spoiler :

Berlin:

Spoiler :

Game log:

Spoiler :

Berlin founded
Berlin begins: Warrior (15 turns)
Tribal village results: scout

Turn 1/1200 (3985 BC) [11-Apr-2008 23:27:25]
Research begun: Fishing (16 Turns)

Turn 2/1200 (3970 BC) [11-Apr-2008 23:27:48]
Contact made: Ottoman Empire
Tribal village results: scout

Turn 3/1200 (3955 BC) [11-Apr-2008 23:28:44]

Turn 4/1200 (3940 BC) [11-Apr-2008 23:28:59]

Turn 5/1200 (3925 BC) [11-Apr-2008 23:29:16]

Turn 6/1200 (3910 BC) [11-Apr-2008 23:30:05]

 

[Gooblah]

Looks pretty good.

I assume Darius (as usual) would be the best leader for an Archipelago map.

Anyways, I love Archipelago maps, but there are some problems. With BTS, it becomes a ton harder to settle large islands due to the colonial costs and other such things. A way around it is:

1) Find a Large Island: it should have key resources, and preferably a 'barren' area with desert, plains, and little resources.
2) Build 2 Settlers: Get 2 Galleys, plonk down 2 Settlers and 2 Military Units and land 'em on the island.
3) Settle 'Barren Lands': 2 Cities are the minimum to create a Colony. Thus, settle the crappy area first.
4) Form a Colony: Instant +1 in all your cities, less maintenance costs, and a Friendly Vassal.
5) Settle the 3rd City: In the rich area, put the city you always wanted to settle in the first place. Thus, you'll get resources and land without the maintenance costs!

 

[Morgrad]

I've found that the biggest single key to an archipelago map is doing whatever is necessary to get one really good production city (that borders the ocean). If you do that, you should be able to win every time.

Early privateers are also game-breaking. I'll shoot for super-early astronomy (400-600 AD or so), then beeline chemistry and crank out privateers. You can run your economy for 1000 years or more just on pillage, crush the AI's growth, prevent AI island hopping, and hammer their research. When you're doing that to *everyone* with no diplomatic penalty, it's insanely powerful.

Archipelago maps used to be my least favorite, but they're pretty fun once you get rule #1 down: one high production city bordering the ocean.

 

[AnitaGaribaldi]

Get chemistry and make lots and lots and lots of pirate ships. Pillage and maraude(sp?) until the ai catches up.

Looks pretty good.

I assume Darius (as usual) would be the best leader for an Archipelago map.

Anyways, I love Archipelago maps, but there are some problems. With BTS, it becomes a ton harder to settle large islands due to the colonial costs and other such things. A way around it is:

1) Find a Large Island: it should have key resources, and preferably a 'barren' area with desert, plains, and little resources.
2) Build 2 Settlers: Get 2 Galleys, plonk down 2 Settlers and 2 Military Units and land 'em on the island.
3) Settle 'Barren Lands': 2 Cities are the minimum to create a Colony. Thus, settle the crappy area first.
4) Form a Colony: Instant +1 in all your cities, less maintenance costs, and a Friendly Vassal.
5) Settle the 3rd City: In the rich area, put the city you always wanted to settle in the first place. Thus, you'll get resources and land without the maintenance costs!

Early privateers are also game-breaking.

I'm happy with the answers but I play Warlords and BTS wasn't released in my country.

What would you do if an AI starts on the same island with you?

 

[Jerrymander]

Smash the AI on your island.

 

[Gooblah]

whoops. took my stupid pills today, sorry Anita. So ignore what my 'tip' was.

 

[gusi]

I quite like playing on archipelago maps. Usually I play Prince, Archipelago, archipelago, high sea level.

In warlords I liked the Vikings. Beserkers in fast galleys or galleons make a nice diversion from the usual land stack of death.

In BTS I like the Dutch (being one helps). Yet to try the Carthaginians.


A good starting position will have plenty of hills and seafood and enough space for three or four cities. You'll want two cities with high production the others with a couple food resources. Preferably not too far away from each other.

The key is to get Lighthouse and the Colossus. The Colossus with Financial will give you 4 gold in every coastal square, this will out research anyone at Prince and below. In fact I often hold back from Astronomy until I get rifling (or steam power in BTS).

If you get stone or a GE you can also try for the Pyramids. I am not too keen too chop all my forests as production tiles are hard to come by on archipelagos.

I hadn't considered the Temple of Artemis synergy with Great Light House. I'll have to try it next time.

Usually you'll have more food than happiness resources so drama becomes important as well as running a Specialist Economy.

If you can't reach anyone without Caravels you'll want to found at least one of the mid game religions. In fact I like to found all the mid game religions to deny them to the other players. Though I am sure many will disagree.

The AI will invariably attack you at some point. If you have lightly defended cities he attacks amphibiously at reduced strength otherwise the units land next to your cities. I like to switch to vassalage and pump out some city defense 2 longbows if I can and have 2 or 3 in each perimeter city.

If Ragnar is you opponent make sure he is either your friend or he is lagging in technology. The reason he is so much fun to play (amphibious Beserkers in fast galleys) is also the reason that makes him a dangerous opponent.


Useful Leader traits:

Financial gives one extra gold in each coastal square, half the tiles of most cities.

Production is low so Creative has a double whammy, many buildings are cheaper and your cities easily expand their radius. (giving access to remote seafood locations).

Organised lets you run a slightly larger empire for the same price.

Charismatic may be useful for the early +2 happiness, don't forget the monument bonus.

Expansive for the health and cheap granary and lighthouse.

I don't think that fishing as a starting tech is that important. It usually takes only 15 turns to research and on archipelgo maps everything is in slow motion.


Miscellaneous tips:

You need to conquer much less territory for a domination victory, usually just over 50%.

The Aoai statues are a very powerful national wonder. They work best in cities with many coastal squares. Some offshore islands can convert deep sea squares to coastal squares. The city should have some hills or woods as well so it doesn't take 750 turns to build to build the statues. The staues have good synergy with the iron works.

Don't overexpand, specially if you can't contact your neighbours. You don't want to be visited by galleons while you're still on archers.

Keep a couple of galleys handy near your fishing grounds. You'll often have the odd barbarian galley passing though.

The first civ to circumnavigate the world gets a +1 naval movement bonus that is worth while. Send a workboat out to explore in the early game. If it can't get around send some caravels off in the mid game. You can also get movement bonuses from experience. Vikings and circumnavigation can easily get galleys with 4 movement points, these run rings around the opposition.

Great Generals can be attached to boats, I haven't tried it yet to see what combinations are the most useful. Attaching a GG to a city will also get the naval bonus to any naval units build.

I usually have a small navy of a few galleys if I don't meet any opponents. When I get optics I'll build a few Caravels to explore and defend.


BTS tips

The dutch dikes are very powerful, race to steam power. Then switch to US and put 100% gold on the slider and build them all in a few turns. The East Indiamen are pretry handy too.

The Portuguese Carack can carry a single land combat unit. The Freitora(?) gives one gold to every ocean square makes up for them not being Financial.

You can grant independence your colonies (making them AI's and vassals to you). Don't grant independence if you are going for domination victory unless you are overstretched and the colonies are unhappy. It is quite a useful way to deal with your vanquished. Conquer their main island, make them capitulate and grant independence to the main island and your 'large' opponent is now split into two medium sized vassals. When you grant independence the new vassal has the same tech level as you and gains two defenders in each city. This frees up your army to conquer someone else.

Espionage is rare, don't share islands. I have yet to see enemy caravels dropping off spies.


And a few BTS questions:

Colonies are defined as cities on remote continents. Does anyone know how continents are defined? I often get an option to grant independence to islands that I can reach by galley.

Does state property override the colony unhappiness/corruption bonus?


Enjoy!
PS I wonder why BTS has not been released in Brazil.

 

[J-man]

Tip: build the Great Lighthouse and explorer the map and establish trade relations with other civs and don't use mercentalism. You will get a lot of money for the trade routes.

 

[gusi]

I tried Hannibal last night, 6 traderoutes per city 5-9 gold each. I couldn't get the custom houses to work though. It never shows up on the traderoute breakdown menu.

 

[AnitaGaribaldi]

I've been playing some games. I just realized that it's hard for me know what to do post Liberalism. Of course this depends a little on the wonders you have built. There is not need to rush to Astronomy if you have close neighbors, but in case of a isolated start, you need it. In my last game I got a small island with room for two cities. Two good spots, one hill and one metal each. By boat I could built two other cities: one completely surrounded by water and another on ice (iron and fish)!!!

I decided I had to get Astronomy as soon as possible. I thought that the Great Lighthouse would not help me much there. 2 per turn is not much. I built the Stonehenge for the gpp, Oracle and I got Monarchy (I had whine), Pyramids and Great Library. I'm running representation non stop.

The first great prophet I used to build myself a shrine. The other I settled. I got lot of great prophets because I could hire up to 6 in my capital, thanks to the shrine and the three religions I founded there (Buddhism, Hinduism, Monotheism). Before someone says, you cannot found as many religion at higher levels, I tested, even on Deity, with Isabella, you can do this most of times (random opponents). For a small time I run scientist and build academies and settled two of them.

With Caravels I found some good not taken spots. So after Astronomy I start to rex. Because I still not used to this kind of game, I really regret not beelining Communism earlier. State Property is better than Courthouses, when you have a Empire across the World.

My capital:

Spoiler :

My map:

Spoiler :

I find Great Prophets so a strong move: production and gold. I really don't understand why people hate them. They are particularly useful in high food, low production maps. Ok, 2 hammers does not look so great but it is half mine plain hill for free, plus 5 gold and 3 breakers under representation. Your science slider is near 100% most of time. The city becomes too good that is hard to decided the National Wonders to build in.

I have noticed that I can hire now a engineer. Sometimes I forget this type of things. But you cannot run lots of engineers early in the game. I missed the wonder that would give my priests more production.

 

[fishjie]

I'm currently playing the game on Noble difficulty and decided to play a Tiny Archipelago Map to try it out. I'm playing Warlords btw. I've restarted the same map multiple times now, always unsatisfied with the way things turned out. Each time I have not declared war, because I'm not sure when the best time to do so is. Its almost like playing a completely different game.

This is my fourth try and I think I'm going to stick with it. I'm beelining the techs that reveal the key resources, iron and oil, and settling immediately. I'm no longer doing any chop rushing whatsoever, since those forests are too valuable. I decided to use Representation and run lots of specialists, including engineers to make up for lack of production, and occasionally get a great engineer. I've stuck with slavery instead of caste system though, because I need to whip infrastructure due to lack of production.

I've built a couple of airports, a bunch of bombers and tanks, and am ready to start destroying the AI. Hopefully it goes well.