archipelago production

[solvero]

I just finished playing an archipelago map with tiny continents on noble, and had a big problem.
Because most of my cities were on a land tile surrounded by sea, I had lots of food and lots of commerce (I was financial) but I couldn't find any way to create hammers! What I did is stayed with slavery for the whole game until the industrial era, then beelined mass media and won a diplomatic victory because I understood I won't win the game otherwise.
My question is- if you stay with slavery, how can you get more hammers in archipelago maps?

 

[Airefuego]

I agree hammer-intensive cities are rare - I had a similar game and a "good" production city was 10 hammers in the mid game. Not too special but I still won conquest.

Usually you will get only a couple of big hammer cities - Moai statues of course, plus probably one where you happen to get a metal and a few hills. I recommend relying heavily on them for the big items and military production, and using the whip and the draft in others.

Sounds like you figured it out fine though, congrats on the win, adjusting your game to the map, nice job!

 

[oyzar]

Just whip huge things and regrow quickly...

 

[xanadux]

On tiny islands you just aren't going to have many. Any city site with extra land tiles is premium for workshopping. You mostly just have to either rely on slavery or play with the Dutch (which is pretty much cheating).

On the positive side, the AI doesn't have production either, so it should be easy to get a dominate navy and still take them out if you want.

 

[Refar]

There is also the possibility of Rush-Buy with Universal Sufrage civic. I.e. as you mentioned being financial... It comes a bit late, but can be accessed via Piramides.

A high food surplus might allow to run specialists... Engineer slots are hard to get however (Forge, Factory...) Priests will make hammers as well, more with a wonder of which i can not remember the name... [edit] It's Agkor Wat

Finally - if you at least have some land, just being short of Hills for mining - you can make hammers from Workshops those are boosted by Caste System.

 

[LlamaCat]

play as Willem. build the Moai Statues and dike and even in a 1-tile land city surrounded only by water you can actually get great production, especially for building a navy, since the drydocks gives you 50% bonus production. the other key is to build forges, as these not only give 25% bonus but allows you to run 1 engineer specialist. finally having a religion helps at least with Organized Religion, and later on State Property gives you hammer bonuses.
In the 1-tile city example, it takes a while to get the infastructure built at first, but once you do you can build water units the rest of the game. All you need is a drydock, forge, granary and later add a military academy when you get a great general. Then squeeze in a courthouse and/or library later when production is good and you have a few turns to pause from increasing the navy.

one other thing in general for this type of map that I like is to get Railroads early - gives you extra hammers in mines and forests, but also allows you to build ironclads for defense, which are very powerful for a long time, and thus you don't need to build as many land units. the key building here is the drydock, get those built because they are 10 times better than a barracks when water units are more called for (the problem is most people play maps with more land action so they don't seem as valuable usually). But barracks and stables don't speed the build time and don't give as many experience points.

 

[Gooblah]

Okay...Production in Archipelago style maps.

Hm.
I play Archipelago a lot, simply because war is more of a challenge, and certain techs are nerfed while others are forced into play. Trade due to coastal links is almost guaranteed, as is contact with most Civs. But I digress.
Try these tips:
Settle large islands. This means pump out Settlers and create a colony-like system around the capital. Set up a settling radius. Settle all islands within 10 tiles first. Then 20, then 30, etc. Skip settling tiny 1-9 tile islands unless they have special resources on them. Their land will usually be part of another city's radius. Whichever island has the most hills/metals will be granted Moai Statues. The rest will be granted Workshops and Watermills. In settling priority:
Large island> small island with resources> small island> 1 tile islands.

Research to techs like Replaceable Parts, Metal Casting; these will increase the production of pre-existing improvements.

Use civics like Universal Suffrage, Slavery, Nationhood, Bureaucracy, and Caste System.

These are my tips-hope they help!

 

[Airefuego]

Angkor Wat is a great wonder in these games! An extra hammer for priests makes them better than engineers, and settled Great Prophets add another hammer again.

 

[solvero]

Thank you all very much, the tips really helped.
Just of curiosity, what's the earliest space race you got on an archipelago map?

 

[oyzar]

Somewhere right before 1900ish i believe.

 

[oyzar]

Just play the dutch for awesome production. Their ub is nuts on such maps.

 

[futurehermit]

early --> slavery

later --> universal sufferage

also, prize any legitimate production cities