bad surrounding land on monarch

diegobueno

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hola civfanatics

well .. the title says it all, recently I read in this forum, a tread asking advice about what to do if you got bad land.

Recently improve my game from prince to monarch (holy shiet is hard for me on This level :crazyeye: ), and decided to play a game with C. de Gaulle ind/char,
when loading the map, I get excited, I played random islands, 1 player, no tiny islands, and not barbarians by mistake (SRY) and I touched stone and marble out of my urban area, 3 seafood and hills SP !!!! Settler workboatx2 warrior-worker ... omg this land ...
90% of the land was snow / tundra

I'll add the saves, if anyone wants to try it, and rly appreciate criticize my game, I'm having trouble winning monarch (3/5 win lose) i cant follow the tech ritm of the ia from Renaissance era to industrial era, also have some questions, I play with no technology brokering option, there is something wrong with that? aggresive ia change somthig in the game? i used to play agg ia - quick game, but since noble to monarch i play on normal speed - no agg ia option.

spoiler: my island map
Spoiler :


spoiler: my game and some details, if you want to play the map dont read this,

Spoiler :
win for cultural victory i try diplo but that damn portugal vote abstain;
not many health resources, and those who are not health as silk, I do farms, to feed my citizens :(
no coal sucks i had to make nuclear plants for the 1st time
and for the 1st time i have to sit great priests on other citys to add producction so i can make the national wonders;
i run representation - buro to help my reserch


thnx for read and greetings to all :king:
 

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I'll play the map in a short while to see where it gets me.

Aggressive AIs makes them build more units and more likely to declare war. So you have to watch out a bit more, BUT if you manage to keep them peaceful through diplomacy they will tech a lot slower because of the amount of units they build. Overall probably makes it easier.

No technology brokering - haven't tried that at all.

EDIT: You chose "Climate: cold" for the map. You should expect tundra and ice :D
 
Spoiler :
Considering the enormous number of water tiles you ended up working, The Colossus might have been a good wonder. Also, I am thinking you could have built a city in the south-west by the hills and furs, but along the coast. It wouldn't have cost a lot in maintenance considering your small empire size and it would work those furs for commerce. In the earlier game, just a few high commerce resource tiles can make a big difference in teching rate. That city would probably go 3 south, 1 east of Tours to get some food from the ocean.

Am I reading correctly that you built a settler first? Thats very unusual...


Of course, I dont really play at a much higher level than you, so someone more skilled could say whether that city would be a good investment.
 
I played to 75BC. Very winnable game.

The land is absurdly bad, so what do we do? Don't build any other cities but only wonders of course!

The one key wonder which allows you to get research going with one city only is Pyramids, which I built as first wonder about 1700BC. Without that it's going to be tough. But since we have teched Masonry anyway and wonders go slowly we also get

Spoiler :


taking Aesthetics (Code of Laws is alright but health is a problem and we have lots of hammers to spare). So we build the Great Library + National Epic while getting our first Scientist (for an Academy). Then towards

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for Caste (made a mistake and went Metal Casting first for Triremes - forgot about no barbs)

and a bit later

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So now we have good research and get lots of great people to bulb Astro. Which might not even be necessary since the last border expansion showed an island to the east which would be accessible in 50 turns with the next border pop (less if we build more wonders).

So at 75BC the city looks like this:

Spoiler :






The bottleneck is of course production, but with such a great city Caste workshops (after Chemistry) will allow for some very superior units to be produced very fast. Not to mention (moderate) drafting! I'll play on and see.
 

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Am I reading correctly that you built a settler first? Thats very unusual...

my bad, some times i make mistakes copying from the notepad, im hispanic, so i need to write what i want to meant and translate, i went warrior 1st and fishing, but didnt finish that warrior, went 2 wb and a worker then i make i think sh and oracle before the settler iirc

as for the other city i could make, if you see my pic theres a settler asleep on the snow, i try to make another city but there isnt enoght seafood for the city, and with only seafood i cant work a mine properly :(
 
The land is absurdly bad

when you wish more seafood for your cities well...nuff said.

in addition 2 things:

1) you dont have coal, aluminium, health resources.
1b) no coal equals no railroads, if you wanna rairoad your capital, good luck reaching to plastics for sea oil

2) and dont chop that thundra you gonna need some hammers :cool:

3) if you want power :nuke: reactors, (i was like, ok... now the last i need is that small chance of nuclear meltdown in my face to leave the game)

:goodjob:
 
@diegobueno: Coal or Oil don't matter, you should conquer a share of land long before they come into play.

I got interested in this game so I played on a bit...

Reached Astronomy rather fast after the last post. Got my foreign trade route :lol: and almost no tech trades at all, they would have had a couple of decent techs like Feudalism but didn't trade them since I was the only civ they knew :rolleyes: and I didn't feel like gifting them a lot of techs. So in hindsight another tech path might have been more profitable.

With so little production I want my units to count so I want strong units. Like Riflemen.

Spoiler :




The capital was tough as it had two Guerilla Longbows behind 100% culture so I needed to sacrifice two Trebs first. Note that all but one Rifle at this point were CRI Macemen upgraded through a Great Merchant mission to speed things up.

A couple of turns later I have taken the second city (this time without Trebs, first Rifle had 90% chances against Longbows). Suleyman is going to give me four more cities (this time with decent land). By the time that war is over I should reach Cannons (14 turns away) which basically wins the game here since the tech situation is not too bad:

Spoiler :


My capital working those 1 Food 4 Hammer Workshops should be able to put out a Cannon/Rifle every turn after getting access to the Heroic Epic. EDIT: Or not - forgot this isn't One City Challenge, I already made National Epic + Moai there.

So a winnable game, and I'm sure other players can do much better here. But it would be tough on Emperor and maybe close to impossible on Immortal (especially if you don't get those early wonders).
 

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I wanted to see if it could work with just one city for most of the game!

Playing on a bit (but I think I'll let it rest with that)...

Attacking Joao with cannons:

Spoiler :


In 1595 Joao caps and nobody else even has Printing Press or Gunpowder. So I don't think they will last particularly long.

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The capital in full hammer mode (but still producing over 100 beakers through settled scientists + trade routes with Bureau + Academy):

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Disclaimer: Don't try this one-city strategy on a Huge map ;)
 

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:goodjob:

good job man! this was a hard one, i win by cultural i dont like playing agresive that much :lol:

this map should be gotm for bts :lol:

imagine this map on deity omg
 
lol i would have founded another city, could work silks?
Trade route also.
idk i have to farm that silk to feed my citizens
the game has a after and before biology, 2 vs 3 food is huge in this map...
tours rheims and orleans have 2-3 and 4 farms respectively
at the begining you need a lot of micro to no starve :crazyeye:


edit: also i abuse of slavery even on my capital building wonders
 
The land is so abject-terrible that you're settling for resources only basically.

Great lighthouse, Pyramids, and Great Library are wonders to consider especially with stone/marble. Before biology most of the land is unusable, so you just whip granary/lighthouse combo and grow on coast commerce tiles to whip, mostly such cities are just there to help grow capital and give you trade routes.

Priority tech is astronomy for overseas trade routes and conquest of better land, and it's worth bulbing for it. On monarch with these settings the AI techs very slow so you can invade before rifles.

When production is so joke levels of terrible, using globe theater + drafting off that food in capital just to get the hammers to do anything can be worthwhile.
 
I would have been interested in trying this map on Deity.
Yep you only have 1 city, but with Gaulle and both stone + marble it will be great.
3 clams also nice food.

AIs have not much land too, there would be no runaway trains :)

Silk city could at minimum be size 3 with 1 cottage added (if you do not want to bother with lighthouse and growing slowly), and important for traderoute.
Horse city could get 2-3 green farms, doubtful those are needed in Paris.
 
yes, i think about it early but im a kind passifist, and with that levels of production y was unable to win by space, i was lucky i got infected by lots of religions and make catedrals on my 2 cities
 
When production is so joke levels of terrible, using globe theater + drafting off that food in capital just to get the hammers to do anything can be worthwhile.

You can also pre-build galleys and cheap versions of your land units, and use a great merchant via galleon transport once you get Astro ;)

They give great gold for oversea missions, and Caste for generating them can ofc be used cos slavery will not be missed in Paris.
Maybe also some failgold and gold trading with AIs, should be nps.
 
You can also pre-build galleys and cheap versions of your land units, and use a great merchant via galleon transport once you get Astro ;)

They give great gold for oversea missions, and Caste for generating them can ofc be used cos slavery will not be missed in Paris.
Maybe also some failgold and gold trading with AIs, should be nps.

True, cash upgrade would work pretty well also.

I can't imagine it would be really challenging on deity compared to a normal map. You could always do an obsolete-style wonder spammer, and in contrast with most scripts you'd be giving up almost nothing for doing so. Similarly, AI couldn't hard-city spam due to bad + limited land so no 15-20 city deity AI monsters on standard maps coughing out several units/turn across its cities in a war, far less advantage in absolute :hammers: produced by AI, nothing to threaten early game, joke barb spawn busts.

AI tech on these maps tends to be awful and the setup is bad for AI culture too, so anything other than letting them :backstab: you for Paris would probably leave it significantly easier than average deity game.
 
Wait a minute...significantly easier than average Deity games? I don't quite believe that.

Yes, you can spam wonders and have a good capital. But by the time you get to Astronomy, the 3-6 extra cities the AI have will provide them with a lot of additional research and production. I surely played this map with little focus and not an optimal strategy, but I really would like to see someone have an easy time with what is basically a OCC-map for most of the game without the advantages of OCC. Not to say it can't be won, but...easier? No way.
 
Easier compared to fighting big deity AIs, Tmit has a good point :)

He's also right that there will be no early DoW, and 1 (main) city makes for rather easy choices.

This would still be difficult without Ind and stone + marble, but it's very true that you are getting the perfect circumstances for your city.

Production matters little if you can upgrade an (now advanced) army with gold, you will create so many great peoples with the wonders + Rep + Caste + lightning fast NE that you could probably just buy units with gold later for critical army mass as well.
And then you just have to take few AI cities to catch up in land.
 
Yes, I would estimate that playing this position (as IND/CHA, with both wonder resources) is easier to win on average than a standard-settings deity Pangaea map, for the following reasons:

1. AI culture is much slower than normal, and if you wonder spam you further trash their culture win speed.
2. You have virtually no early game existential threat to manage, which is a significant constraint for hard deity starts.
3. AI naval invasions are awful.
4. Even on deity, AI production/science will be slow compared to its usual. This will delay space wins.

Basically, even if you're not very good at micro, as long as you get to tactical nukes and build a few before someone launches a ship you win. You probably win sooner than that if you can beat deity in standard settings. If you take down even 1 AI in rifling era it's game over.

The combination of "you're not going to die early" and "AI is going to take forever to win compared to normal" is what makes this less threatening in my mind. The fact that you have IND and both wonder resources skews it even further. Between CHA + market resources you basically just need health if you get 'mids.
 
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