Archipelago tips

[Shawnees]

I'm a new player to civ IV who currently plays at the Prince level. I was wondering how many players play on Archipelago style maps and what their strategies are? Do you even worry about BW, Archery, etc... early on, or just go straight for the Great Lighthouse? Do you rush to circumnavigate the globe? What are some of your strategies?

 

[r_rolo1]

BW is good because it allows the and chopping ... even if you go to GLH, that is a big necessity

 

[Mylene]

What rolo said, BW is always good.
Iirc it is easier to spawn bust Archipels and barbs are not a big problem, so i would skip archery.
Sometimes delay the wheel for sailing too, i guess.

 

[Dr.Null]

Strategy 1: play as the Netherlands.

 

[coanda]

Great Lighthouse is ridiculously overpowered; in any single-player Archipelago map I'd give it a shot. Colossus is great, albeit not as broken as GLH.

Rapid expansion is generally a good idea. Your limiting factor is most likely going to be how fast you can produce enough settlers, workers, and workboats. Even without GLH, guaranteed overseas trade routes plus coastal tiles if necessary makes it difficult to go bankrupt.

When you've got the hammers to spare, send a workboat/galley/trireme or two out to try and (a) find good islands to settle, (b) meet other civs to trade with, and (c) possibly eventually circumnavigate. Workboats are cheaper, but barb galleys will probably kill them sooner or later so they're a bit more of a gamble.

Slavery is going to be very important early in the game. Odds are you won't have that many hills to work, so you need the whip to use seafood tiles for production. Later on you can rushbuy stuff or use workshops.

Sid's Sushi is extremely powerful late-game; if you can manage to get it and the Kremlin you've won and the AIs just don't know it yet. Even without Kremlin, the population boost can run a ton of specs. to skyrocket your research rate.

Privateers can absolutely cripple an AI if you get them before they have Frigates, and earn enough to pay for themselves in the process (plus they're a good way to earn Great General points).

Late-game, submarine-tactical nuke-transport is by far the easiest way to clinch a military victory - basically all AI cities should be in range of your subs. Defensively, if you have the patience for it, a couple carriers on patrol with fighters can give you plenty of advanced warning of any enemy fleet approaching, letting you crush them before they unload their troops... but it takes a fair amount of micro.

Rather than always using galleys as personalized transports for your units (taking them from where they start to their final destination), consider setting up "ferry" galleys between major neighboring islands in your empire. That way you don't need to sail all the way around those islands every time - you unload on one side, walk across, and load onto a different galley waiting on the far side; it often lets you get away with fewer galleys, saving you a few hammers.

If you have 3+ cities on an island which doesn't have your capital, you start paying colony maintenance costs too. These can get quite expensive, but decreasing distance maintenance also decreases the cap on these costs - so if you have a big island full of cities without your capital, consider putting a forbidden palace or Versailles there (at least be sure to get Courthouses).

Don't bother making an effort to grow to work coastal tiles unless you're FIN. They're only slightly better than break-even for non-FIN leaders (in some uncommon circumstances, they can actually cost you more in upkeep than they earn). If you have the food surplus and nothing better to do with it, go ahead and grow, but don't stress if you can't.

You can use your cultural borders to form bridges between islands before Astronomy. A city's borders will automatically expand to fill it's whole BFC (the set of tiles it's citizens can work) even if some of those tiles are deep ocean tiles. And pre-Astronomy units can enter ocean tiles as long as those tiles are within your cultural borders. So if you have a spot where just 1 tile of ocean separates you from coastal waters on the far side, you can get across that by founding a city near there and popping it's borders once.

Watch out for FIN AIs. They tend to be by far the strongest AIs on Archipelago maps.

Ok, out of Archipelago tips-and-tricks now.

 

[elmurcis]

In general I can say something from my own experience (Arch is map I play most times)
TGLH and Colosus are great to have.. but... its also great to live without these both (Instead.. if have stone - grab Pyramids for Repres until have developed country enough strong to turn to US..) And.. if you don't have GLH and Col, you will more likely try to shoot to Astronomy...
For defence - as long as you can be sure about your naval power, your cities can be defended even with 1 single warrior until Astronomy
Astronomy from my view is key tech here - try to take best city places on map as fast as possible (maintence will pay back if there is resource.. big land... or... lot of sea food).
Also remember that Burea on this is map is much much more useful civic than usually (its not often when I can make enough towns on map to switch..)
And as said before - border using for ocean tile crossing is key to success here. Use eagle eye to see if there is coast under dark or not might reveal wonderful city place for Forbid for example
And Sushi... this is map where you can get almost unlimited food with it
And.. Dutch is ultimate power of this map.. best combination can have for waters

 

[Shawnees]

Those are all very helpful tips, thank you.

What I got out of your responses is that:

1) Finance is great due to coastal.

2) Sids sushi is pretty much unlimited food later game.

3) Dont really need an army until astronomy.

4) Connect the islands with cultural boundries.

5) Privateers are good if AI does not have frigates yet.

6) Use carriers late game to spot incoming ships.

7) Get pyramids if i can.

8) GL is broken! Lol.




Sent from my PG06100 using Tapatalk

 

[Celebithil]

There is quite a difference between archipelago maps with small islands, or the one with bigger islands. If you choose small islands you'll have lots of <4-tile islands, which are not worth settling unless you can use of coastal tiles. This means you basically need to be financial or build the Colossus, preferably both. The Portuguese and the Dutch get extra credit for their UB, which improves coastal tiles even more (besides the fact that their leaders are financial). Not settling those small islands often leaves you without places to settle at all, which is also not an option. In the other archipelago maps you can often get by with a more land-based economy.

If you manage to build the Colossus, inventing Astronomy can be a huge drain on your economy. So you may want to postpone it, even though it is obviously an important technology on such maps. Note that without Astronomy it is possible to research Combustion, giving transports and destroyers. This lets you rule the seas with your destroyers, and avoids the need of galleons. You won't get intercontinental trade routes though, and can't connect cities you conquered on other continents with troops brought by transport. (As Dutch you can also get Steam Power for dikes before Astronomy.)

Don't forget about the power of using your ships to block trade. This will disallow cities to work tiles in the blocked area. This way you can easily decimate cities which rely heavily on working coastal tiles (which many cities will). I have halved the population of AIs simply by building enough ships to block every coastal and ocean tile in his BFCs. Of course this only works if you have a dominant naval unit, but with the human player's more focused research this is often possible.

 

[hr_oskar]

A few more tips not already mentioned:

1. Whip whip whip. Whip a lot. Archipelago maps tend to have plenty of food sources (from the sea) but lack hammer tiles and forests for chopping. As was already mentioned as well, there's little reason to work the coastal tiles without FIN or Colossus, so you might as well whip off that excess pop. Personally I like to play 'rocky' archipelago maps to counter this a bit.

2. I've found that the best way to be the first to "circumnavigate", is to get Paper early and then just get everyone's map. Works like a charm

3. Keep expanding. Archipelago is a wonderful map for peaceful players who would enjoy a longer period of exploring and settling without war.

4. Consider granting independence to the more distant islands that you've just settled for the resources. You need at least two cities on a single land mass to do this, which is not too hard. Once you grant independence, you get a vassal who's extra friendly to you and will always hand over whatever resources you demand from him. Maintenance is a problem on archipelago maps due to the distances and high number of cities, many of which take a long time to develop enough to make them pay off. By granting independence, the colonies also get two defenders in each city, which can sometimes allow you to use less military units for your expansion.

 

[Abegweit]

There is quite a difference between archipelago maps with small islands, or the one with bigger islands. If you choose small islands you'll have lots of <4-tile islands, which are not worth settling unless you can use of coastal tiles. This means you basically need to be financial or build the Colossus, preferably both.

This is simply not true. With the Lighthouse, every new city gets a minimum of 12 - 1 from the city centre, 2 from a coast tile and 9 from trade routes. Every city is profitable no matter how bad. That's precisely why people say that the Lighthouse is broken.

The Portuguese and the Dutch get extra credit for their UB, which improves coastal tiles even more (besides the fact that their leaders are financial).

The Portuguese UB is useless and the Dutch one comes far too late.

Not settling those small islands often leaves you without places to settle at all, which is also not an option. In the other archipelago maps you can often get by with a more land-based economy.

Not settling small islands is, as I said, an error.

If you manage to build the Colossus, inventing Astronomy can be a huge drain on your economy. So you may want to postpone it, even though it is obviously an important technology on such maps. Note that without Astronomy it is possible to research Combustion, giving transports and destroyers. This lets you rule the seas with your destroyers, and avoids the need of galleons. You won't get intercontinental trade routes though, and can't connect cities you conquered on other continents with troops brought by transport. (As Dutch you can also get Steam Power for dikes before Astronomy.)

International trade routes are huge. 'Nuff said.

 

[Ataxerxes]

There is quite a difference between archipelago maps with small islands, or the one with bigger islands. If you choose small islands you'll have lots of <4-tile islands, which are not worth settling unless you can use of coastal tiles. This means you basically need to be financial or build the Colossus, preferably both. The Portuguese and the Dutch get extra credit for their UB, which improves coastal tiles even more (besides the fact that their leaders are financial). Not settling those small islands often leaves you without places to settle at all, which is also not an option. In the other archipelago maps you can often get by with a more land-based economy.

TMIT's posts are ringing in my ears. Dutch UB is overrated, but OK. Portugal's UB is quite weak - look up last year's "Worst UB" poll and find some of the essays on the Feitoria. That Worst UB poll was one of the best threads ever.

I'm just amused by remembering all that's been written about these two UB's. Abegweit's answers are very good for the overall view.

 

[hr_oskar]

It's too bad the hall of fame doesn't distinguish between map scripts. Archipelago conquest or domination naturally cannot be achieved as early as pangaea for example.

I'm wondering if there are players out there who've played archipelago for early wins. Seems everyone likes to get cozy on those maps and go for corporations and other cute things that imo are never really needed to win the game (unless they want to go for space). I would think that for military wins you shouldn't really need anything more advanced than Galleons and Cannons to conquer the world (even on deity). Anyone have more experience of this?

 

[elmurcis]

Hmm... I haven't tryied playing this map time for early conquest just because I dont feel all fun from game if I haven't played all eras in game.. (stupid me with East Indiamen it could be so easy to attack.. next time I will do that )
And maintence I don't see as huge problem here unless you can get very very far before Astronomy.
And about 1 tile cities - if there is food resource - build without thinking if its "clean just +2 food" city, than have to check other options 1st. If its last available or if it could become bridge to new land - build. If there is chance to get new city somewhere else soon - better wait. Even AI don't build cities there usually.
Yeah, and I totally forgot about whip.... actually there will period when all cities should build only settlers whatever to grow back. Basic way for me - grow to almost 5 (so that would need just 1 turn to grow to next size).. start settler... and whip when possible (2 pop), next turn city will be 3 already and you will have some time to build something else. Side note - land defence on these maps is optional for new cities, so I usually have 2 settlers in 1 galley and I build defence on new built city after finishing needed workboats (or worker if need).
And Dikes... why its underrated? after get it in all of your cities, you can build whatever you want in all cities with nice speed and nice commerce same time

Just some screenshots from my current game... (Emperor, Huge, Marathon)

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[Abegweit]

Abegweit's answers are very good for the overall view.

I did forget to mention that Astronomy brings resource trades which typically explode the size of your cities. You should beeline Astronomy, not avoid it.

Libbing Astro is a powerful move on an Archi map.

 

[hr_oskar]

Hmm... I haven't tryied playing this map time for early conquest just because I dont feel all fun from game if I haven't played all eras in game

A lot of players feel this way, and I can understand that. A lot of the late era content has no real purpose other than to entertain those who play that way. Personally, I stop enjoying the game when I feel I'm no longer trying my best to achieve a certain objective (such as winning). When I find myself fooling around with corporations or dikes or air units or whatever when I could just whip a proper army and finish off the AI's, I know I'm no longer trying my best.

 

[elmurcis]

A lot of players feel this way, and I can understand that. A lot of the late era content has no real purpose other than to entertain those who play that way. Personally, I stop enjoying the game when I feel I'm no longer trying my best to achieve a certain objective (such as winning). When I find myself fooling around with corporations or dikes or air units or whatever when I could just whip a proper army and finish off the AI's, I know I'm no longer trying my best.

Yeah.. Its totally different actually to play for fun or to race for result (play and race I count as 2 different ways of CIV)..

 

[artificialj]

To quote a legend:

Amphibious Archers

 

[Mylene]

I've tried to play one today, but gave up
I found it just too boring, it's pretty much a fact that FIN is the best trait with lots of sea tiles, and that alone makes for an unbalanced game.

 

[DanielTorrence]

I found on certain maps that even with financial the AI can run away on snaky continents. The RNG sometimes assigns so much (good) land to one or two far away AIs, that they practically play pangea, while you have to deal with small island cutbacks like a lack in production and happiness resources, and the character of a water map delays sufficient attacks until astronomy. Fighting Redcoats with Maces isn't what you would call fun...

A question about blockades: I assume one naval unit only blockades one tile, but what about the cities trade routes? How many are required to blockade them?

 

[coanda]

When you select the "blockade" option, you'll see a square outline - it's something like 5x5 or 7x7, centered on your naval unit, although I forget the exact size. Every tile within that square is blockaded: enemy civs can't work them, and trade routes can't pass through them.
If the city has a road to another city on the far side of the island that isn't blockaded, your blockade doesn't hurt it's trade. By the same token, blockading all the coastal cities on an island will also cut off all intercontinental trade for inland cities there.