Deity Isolation Workshop (Stan/Norm/Fractal/NH/NE)

[Lain]

Well, at least we settled in the same place. Only checked the first save so far, I'm still playing. I noticed how easily you deal with barbs. Build 3 warriors and completely safe. Pretty straightforward.

I want to ask little questions one by one, so you can answer inbetween. The whole barb thing bugs me. For example, a situation from the Mao game... the 2nd city should go here, right?

Spoiler :

Pigs first ring. But the island is big and there is tundra. So what do I do about barbs then?

1) Settle horse in first ring and get out chariots. Easy to control the island with them and push down south.
2) Tech Hunting -> Archery (pure killer with low commerce, even lower than in the Joao game)
3) Build warriors and hope for the best?

Now 3) is probably my best bet to stay competitive. But you said once that if you are good enough, you can play safe and still win. And one barb axeman is all it takes to end my game. So... ugh, get the horses and wait 20+ turns for the pigs? Doesn't sound right.

 

[Rusten]

One tip for dealing with barbs is to not kill off the warriors unless you can completely fogbust the area around them already. That way you won't have any archers spawning to replace them. But I think I also got a little lucky this game not having any archers at all. I teched hunting early in case the situation got out of control and I needed to add archers.

Option 2 I think, and settle pigs first ring. In the Mao game you can put a warrior in the 1-tile mountain pass and force all barbarians to approach from the west early on. I'd still get archery due to the sheer size of the island, but you won't need more than 1 or (max) 2 as there's not a big area to defend with the eastern entrance sealed off. Unit costs (per turn) should be kept at a minimum

 

[Fippy]

Chariots are not that good for barb defense, somehow they like sending Spears your way early when isolated
So not worth settling horse in first ring over pigs imo.

Yep as Rusten mentioned, if you are lucky with a 1-tile pass you can block that with any unit, even scouts would work.
Barbs will not even try going that way anymore, it's funny.
I also like keeping my first warrior very safe and not explore much, finding an important fogbust spot early.

Fishing and workboats can be a big problem, usually i will build warriors first and wait with boats until chops.
It's really annoying with 30h early, when you need fogbusters instead.

 

[Lain]

Somehow my barbs won't really behave...

Spoiler :

Luckily I won~.

Did you settle a cottage city by the river without a food resource (plains hill)? It would probably be my 3rd city (2nd being pigs+horse).
Yes, it would be a city without a food resource when others are available, and yes, it would totally be worth it. I'll let you have a guess at the reasons why.

Ok so I thought about it... you want to settle the river without a food resource. So basically... 1N of archer, right?

Spoiler :

I kind of understand that it grabs lots of forests for chopping failgold later... and some much needed commerce. But how do I even develop this thing? Work plains mine until Granary is done? Cottage a plains river? No BW yet. Writing first for earlier library in capital should be right?

Overview is a bit lost with me playing 3 games every day and all. Not optimal. But this is a thread about everything isolation related aswell, so I guess it should be okay~. Just trying my utmost to learn here. And playing as many starts as possible is certainly the way to go, right?

Please teach me the ways. Fippy, I would also appreciate to hear your advice every now and then . I did skip workboat.

 

[Rusten]

Don't settle it until you have BW+pottery. You need to chop the granary on size one while working a grassland cottage.

Identifying your bottleneck is important for every civ game. In isolation it's always commerce, which is why you want a nearby city on the river. No hurrying to beat AIs to spots and securing production. With such a low happy cap settling such a city is totally ok. You don't need to whip it as you've got the island to yourself. I did something similar in the Joao game.

 

[Lain]

Your tips helped me a lot. I am at 1000 BC and now have no idea what to go first: Aesthetics, CoL or Monarchy. I guess Aesthetics and chop some into Parthenon (without Math though?). Then on to Literature before Monarchy? CoL last?

Some screenshots in case you can't look at save

Spoiler :

Guess I should get advice here, because I have a valuable blueprint for the Joao game already so I will study that before asking more questions there.

 

[Olafeson]

Good luck with this mao map Lain,

I started the map. Then played a couple of turns, the map felt itchy and scratchy. Opened WB to see my island, and it was so ugly that i had to instantly leave it, and go back to the hannibal game.

 

[Lain]

Yeah that's why we "officially" play the Hannibal map. Encourage more people to join etc. I am also playing the Hannibal map of course, but also tons of other maps. So maybe people can benefit from those little discussions aswell.

 

[Rusten]

All tech paths require Polytheism so I'd start with that and then reevaluate when you get there.
Look at what dates wonders have gone, your current tech rate, how important is HR right away, etc.

 

[Fippy]

You love those no happy resi iso maps, geez it's painful

I not like the Shanghai development, cottages not on river (and without Fin) are imo hugely inferior to running 2 scientists.
For that i would still use slavery + granary, so i can whip that library sooner.

With marble, Oracle becomes nice.
You want Poly anyways, and CoL (with Reli) would imo be huge. Even Monarchy would be okay, if no time for writing.
Can easily be lost, but ToA as backup plan for failgold works nice enuf.
I would def. delay pottery for that try, fishing too..narrows techs before Myst line down a bit.
I think it's also required to try warriors and no archery for that plan, depends on barbs but the mountain block looks promising for surviving.

 

[Pedro78]

A lot of interesting reads here

If the Hannibal game drags on until July I'll definitely play it ^^

 

[Rusten]

@BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

I'd also go fishing, but IMO growing to size 2 first is better. You get an early warrior out for fogbusting compared to size 1 and it's very comparable in output.
Get the worker on size 2 working forested PH+clam.

 

[Lain]

Spoiler :

Fishing first for one single crab? Hm, would never have occured to me. I settled 1S to have non-forested hills available, teched AH and improved the stuff. Sheep is +1 commerce, crab gives +2... and it seriously delays AH, no? Because Fishing is followed up by BW in this scenario? Otherwise what is the worker going to do. Or do you skip BW? And you still want Archery then. So AH won't become before 2000 BC probably.

Can you shed some light on your early tech path here?

Rusten, are you picking up the Boudica game this weekend?

 

[Rusten]

Fishing also picks up the lake which is not a bad tile early on.
Fishing-hunting-ah-archery (warrior-wb-worker)

I'll pick up my games at the end of this week. Possibly as early as wednesday.

 

[Rusten]

One game down (Boudica).

Spoiler :

Diplomatic victory 1635 AD.

Perhaps a little anticlimatic and not what you had hoped for, but I had been away from the game for so long that I just wanted to wrap it up rather than slog it out for domination. I'll save my energy for games that I start up the coming weeks.

Reached tech parity around AL/electricity so I had other options. However, when I opened up the game again and saw Ragnar, Saladin and GIlgamesh all friendly with me after taking out Joao I took the easy way out.

 

[Lain]

Good job on that. Pretty impressive. Would have liked to see Domination, because pulling off a landing in the Railroad era can be a bit tricky, no? But nothing wrong with winning Diplo at all.

Regarding the Joao game (I did look at all saves by now)

Spoiler :

Since you used the first 2 GS for settling/academy, Astronomy will be a bit delayed I guess? How did you decide on that? For example skipping the Academy would have meant slightly later Optics, but Astro could have come earlier. How do you decide what is worth more in that case?

Random question, since you surprised me with the Fishing tech path for the Mao game. Would you go Fishing here aswell? And if not, what is the difference?

Spoiler :

(Please ignore that the scout didn't move, I played the map already. Can't find out about FPs or second clam on T0)

 

[Rusten]

Which Russian leader is it?
I'd definitely consider fishing based on the starting BFC. With a 3 tile it's not that bad not having fishing as a starting tech. But because settling reveals a river for the 2nd city I might skip it. Depends a bit on the leader -- it's very close.

Joao:

Spoiler :

Underestimated my tech pace a little bit, but I'd still do the same with the GS. I will starve out the next two scientists. First one in the Oasis city (starve once or twice) and 2nd in deer+crab+sheep (because it's settled later it can cross the threshold the same turn as Oasis city). I'll have both GS by the end of the 7th century -- 6xx AD Astronomy is not a problem. And early Optics "guarantees" having all the pre-requisites by then.

Can also consider only bulbing Astronomy once and using the other for a golden age sometimes. Or even for Education if you're far ahead.

But yes, ideally I'd have both scientists by 5xx AD and not 6xx. Could've planned a little better.

 

[Lain]

It's Catherine. I see, so Fishing can have higher priority in low commerce environment, even to sacrifice some food/production. Just feels kind of wrong when there is corn available. What if it was wet corn?

But teching BW and Archery with 9 commerce is really a huge pain.

 

[Imploding]

Some really cool high level games played here! Multiple joyous reads!

 

[sampsa]

Some really cool high level games played here! Multiple joyous reads!

Yeah, best thread in years (well, there is also Wastin's thread, but it is about completely different game, while this is the cIV I know). I have learned so many nuances about isolated play and the play is more strategic in nature compared to what feels like rather straight-forward conquest play on pangaeaish map scripts.