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

[Pedro78]

I've looked at your T80 save and a few things come to mind -

Spoiler :

• We didn't settle the silk+sheep city in the same spot. I like the extra commerce from the silk and having these first ring forests (chop granary, 1whip lib), but having the sheep first ring is nice too. Could argue both ways. Same thing with cottaging the silk: I don't like that as we've got other riverside tiles to cottage, later on it's a big loss in commerce. But the early commerce is useful, too. Saving half a turn towards Optics can be good. Not sure.
• I don't think you gain anything by grabbing the fish with Tokyo. It makes you tech Mysticism+build a monument + miss out on some river tiles. You can't grow big anyway before Astro.. too many losses imo
• Why did you settle Kagoshima? It's a useless city until you start building units. It's arguable that a 5th city can be beneficial (probably the western clam+FP), but I don't see a reason to settle this city, especially when building another Settler in Osaka..
• Looks like you'll have a better set-up empire than me when reaching Optics, but you'll reach it later, unless you hold some kind of dark secret
• Oh and as always you built less workers than I did, but land improvement isn't bad

Anyway, how did things go after that?

I smashed my copper mine and re-built it, worker turns were not a bottleneck here

 

[Fippy]

Did not play on yet, discussing first seemed better (and was getting late)

Spoiler :

Yup i thought about cottage on 1 silk or not, it's imo a loss later when you can trade resis away for gold (or for other resis). But no commerce loss as village, and better with PP or town. But it's also that i actually need the cottage, at size 5 (without border pop), and there would be 3 silks total.

Good point with Toyko fish I thought so too when i teched myst, but did not want to reload.

Kagoshima cos it's so close, and can take sheep. Should be commerce positive with lake tiles, nope?

 

[Pedro78]

Well right now it's costing you 6gpt (can see the difference in maintenance if you delete the city with WB). When it grows and your other cities growth it will be ~8gpt. If you settle another city, Kagoshima's cost will be over 10gpt. Plus the -2pop and halt growth from the Settler.. no way it can pay for itself. And in iso at this point of the game it's better to work grass cottages than lake tiles (takes 40 turns to pay off, which is way before Optics). So Kagoshima will be at a net negative for a long time and will never really pay back the original deficit

 

[Fippy]

Hmm guess i was encouraged by the good commerce overall (silver start), will try some sort of mini rex and look at what Optics date it gives.
Could be interesting. Can make use of Tokyo fish with a sheep city added.

 

[Pedro78]

You'll be at six cities after the settler is done in Osaka. It's a lot already, every city added after the fourth one delays the Optics date (unless there are exceptionally good spots to settle or you're FIN -- neither is the case here).

With good micro and contained maintenance you can maybe get a decent Optics date with 6 cities, but I think any more would be suicide. Don't forget that Mansa is in the game = usually faster tech pace. The wonders and religions are also going crazy fast in my game (Taoism 675BC). If everyone has Optics when you meet them it's going to slow you down a lot

 

[Fippy]

Be my guest judging if that's valid

Spoiler :

not really good micro overall, could have been done better (earlier Trireme, another Axe for barb city, some other mistakes).
Plan would be bulbing Optics, and eventually switching into Caste for 2nd Astro GS from Kyoto if it's possible to trade for later.
I tend to think it's more fun and okay, cos it's an interesting empire.

It's all messy now ofc with Wang Kon meeting me unusually early, but was never very serious with reckless settling.
I also deleted a barb galley east, fighting those little buggers (forgot spawn buster and Trireme build) in that direction was not what i had in mind for this test..but it's not right ofc, so apologies for that.

 

[Pedro78]

I'm at T136 right now and the game looks winnable, not sure if I'll be the one to win it though.. Will play a few more turns, then write-up, then look at your saves and be annoying disagreeing with everything as always

Spoiler :

I usually don't like to bulb Optics, but I guess that can be a good move in some cases if you wing it correctly.

Wang had Optics before me in this game aswell. Lib was gone before T130 iirc.

Lol the galley thing is totally ok. In these practice games I don't mind reloading/replaying and this kind of stuff. And unexpected barb galleys are certainly one of the most annoying things in Civ4

 

[Fippy]

You will have to do your best with disagreeing, cos i am not sure how to judge that game myself
Just know i had more fun playing like that, much more going on.

 

[Pedro78]

Actually I'll first comment, then write-up. No point in writing up if you're not gonna read it because you haven't played that far lol
(The good news is that it's 700AD and I'm closing in on Chemistry, the bad news is that I've got 4 annoyed AIs and 2 cautious )

TBH the part that I'm the most eager to see in your game is how you handle the diplo & the first war. I usually don't have much problems reaching Steel in a half-decent timeframe, but I tend to mess things up later (I rarely even play that far lol)

Btw, @Lain where are you? You used to be the most active guy on this thread.. not having fun playing iso anymore?

 

[Pedro78]

Opened the saves

Spoiler :

Hmm where to start..


8 cities!?!! Well actually settling this island was a very good move, considering that you already had 7 cities on the island -- big commerce boost. These expansion games are quite fun to play, not sure how it will turn out here. The good news is that you will have a strong empire by the time you reach Astro. The bad news is that you're in a tech hole. Compared to my game, you're almost 20 turns ahead in city count / infrastructure but also close to 20 turns behind in tech.


You cannot bulb Optics without Alpha+Maths. I think you forgot that when you mentionned bulbing Optics. This means Optics will come very late, might be in the 600s if you emphasize tech for the next dozen of turns.


When you reach Optics, if you can trade for the Astro bulb prereqs (Alpha, Maths & Calendar) and get a monopoly (or semi-monopoly) on Astro then you will be in a very strong position. If everyone has Optics already then the game will most likely be an incredible slog.


I'm quite impressed of your land's improvement state, considering that you used only two workers. However I'm 100% sure that building at least one more would've benefited you quite a lot -- all these unchopped forests could have been put to good use, especially as you were still expanding for a long time. People often forget how powerful it is, for example, to chop a granary at size 1.

And what do you plan to do with the 9th settler standing in Osaka?


Now, I’m not convinced about that expansive playstyle in iso. Unless you have a lot of great land, vertical growth is far superior to horizontal growth commerce-wise. But a bit of horizontal expansion will put you far ahead in terms of infrastructure by Astro time. I don’t think either of the extremes is good. And the worst is probably horizontal expansion without vertical growth, i.e. having many small cities: each city produces little commerce but costs a lot in maintenance because you have many cities. If you’re going to settle many cities, they must have some growth potential to give a real boost to your empire. If you’re settling a city and make it stagnate at size 4 for 20 turns, you’re doing something wrong.

I’m beginning to think that reaching early Astro works the same as building economic wonders: the crappier your land, the stronger it is. Basically when you have crap land reaching Astro early is very valuable, but when you have good land you’re better off reaching Astro a bit later and having a stronger setup.

If we take this game as an example, I was making 90-100bpt and -18gpt deficit when reaching Optics. When I reached Astro (T134 – 475 AD), it jumped to 160bpt and -9gpt deficit (had settled 2 more cities) thanks to trade routes (with Currency) and resource trades. If the island had some strong city spots and some vertical growth potential, I would just look like a fool compared to the guy with 6 size 10+ cities reaching Astro on T145 and doing 400bpt, with forges and harbors everywhere. But on this map, getting more cities would only have netted me a little more commerce and a lot more maintenance. It would have put me ahead in infrastructure, but it wouldn’t have made up for the instant +30gpt and +60bpt from Astro, far from it. Not to mention that reaching Optics in the early-ish ADs guarantees you to backfill a bunch of tech even if the global tech pace is very fast. My point is that the most important (and hardest) thing in the early/mid-game for isolated starts is finding a balance between Optics date and empire development.


Anyways, your game gave me a lot of food for thought, that’s pretty cool. I hope you will continue so we can see how it all compares around 1000 AD. If you've made it through this impregnable wall of text, there is nothing left to fear

 

[Lain]

I am still very interested in all of this. Just lacking a bit of commitment right now to play myself. Could be nice to try and optimize early game though... like 2000 BC, maybe 1000 BC tops.

I am looking at all the saves and see that early mines are not really worth it? Better to chop heavily I guess.

What does my head in is the question... when to go Fishing vs Animal Husbandry? When to invest into Granary vs Library first? It hurts my brain. Also I have to go Archery less to get better results it seems.

I experimented a lot with ignoring AH, but it doesn't seem to give the best results.... Main thing I learned (I guess) is that staying at 3-4 cities for a long time is no problemo. If you can reach 300 AD Optics I really wouldn't worry about the rest of the game. I don't always manage that though.

I will start posting a bit more. Maybe play various starts to 1000 BC. Need analysis.

Toku game looks fun, maybe I will play a few turns, but I looked at saves already. Hmm.

Need to get game sharpness back. What about playing a start to 1000 BC every few days? Would you join?

 

[Fippy]

Certainly Lain, imo early game is most interesting (and also good training for gotm type of games )
By now i need that HoF type of finishing date motivation to complete them.

Great writeup on my game, Pedro
I did not think much (Optics bulb lol..ouch), and it shows.

There's one reason why i am not tempted to continue, imo you are 100% right that it's all luck dependant now.
Which i wanted to avoid with that dreamed up Optics bulb.

I would be more interested in playing again, and seeing if teching Alpha early and then maths for that bulb can be made work.
Alpha would add some beakers via building research, could pay for itself actually, and would be a more interesting game (especially if playing thoughtful, this was just reckless rex basically).

 

[Fippy]

I was just thinking, considering that we play with Toku and rather weak starts..we are all Iso experts by now
Still remember the times where winning with great leaders (Hannibal was one used) on deity Iso was a huge achievement, and questioned how it's done at all.

 

[elmurcis]

Well, this was fun 1st time to play Deity/Standard/Normal speed game with Tech Trading and Barbs in >year I guess

Spoiler :

Got DoWed ("finally".. by Holy Charlie not Monty ) on 1670AD... Long story short - really did try GLH "strategy" (to prove myself its right or wrong) - its good but not that great on Standard size map as city maintence for 3 oversea cities (that are too far away from capital in this situation) was too big to gain good enough profit even with 6 commerce/city trade routes... So with heavy maintence (with 9 cities <10% green - my mistake was to settle 7th-9th city..) was extremely slow. Did bulb MC (big mistake.. should take Currency with Merchant instead I guess... building wealth would be much better choise after I used Moai failgold option) and Machinery (not bad with Engineer I guess) but anyway was too late on reaching Optics (let say - I had nothing to offer..) But as it was "whatever happens will be good game", I got "little back" into game with GM mission and researching Astro with that money. Got something from 2 AI for that, got back economy in shape but still I was 1 era behind so I did some "beeline" towards "last hope tech"... But 2 turns before I could bet Communism (could backfill many techs with that) it was over

 

[Pedro78]

I am looking at all the saves and see that early mines are not really worth it? Better to chop heavily I guess.

Yup mines almost never beat chops early on, as they bring only +1 hammer compared to a forested plains/gh. Mining hilled pigs/sheep is a different story. Sometimes you also have a specific reason to save your forests, but then if you're building mines you probably have too many workers..

What does my head in is the question... when to go Fishing vs Animal Husbandry?

The most important factors I usually take into account:

• Having fishing as a starting techs
• Having a 3F tile to grow to size 2
• How bad is the early commerce (very low commerce favors fishing)
• How much better is AH expansion-wise -- how far ahead will I be in cities/workers @T50 if I go AH over fishing?
• How many worker turns are wasted if I go AH?

The combination of all that makes that it's often better to go fishing first when playing such low commerce starts. Another thing, when you're forced to go AH and don't start with either of its prereqs and have 9-10bpt it's usually better to grow to size 2 on a warrior and then build a worker @size 2. Getting out a very early second unit can help a lot with barbs aswell.

When to invest into Granary vs Library first?

This problem is much easier than it looks:
If you're gonna 2whip the library, the granary saves you 25 food

• If you're gonna 2whip anything else, that's another 25 food and the granary will have paid for itself
• If you plan to grow to size 6 (assuming that you whip the granary 4-2), that's another 30 food saved by the granary

So basically the only cases where I might build a library before the granary is where I'm going to either completely chop the library and not whip at all or 2whip the library and not regrow past size 4-5 for a long time.

If you can reach 300 AD Optics I really wouldn't worry about the rest of the game

IMO that's just wrong. Optics is just a big milestone among others. In my game I had 300 AD Optics but now it's 700 AD and I still have <200bpt. I was lucky and was able to trade for Gunpowder very early, that's the only reason why I feel like the game is in a decent position.
Reaching Astro gives you a big boost, but it doesn't win you the game. You always need to build up a strong commerce base or a big GPP base. 300 AD Optics is good and allows you to stay close to tech parity for the mid-game, but it doesn't win you the game. That's why it's much better, when you have good land, to get Optics 10 turns later and have a much better empire and tech rate by the time you reach Astro. The only way being very early to Astro might turn out to be better is if you get an early religious spread for some Caste+Pacifism action (which I completely neglected in my game - and wrongly so).

Need to get game sharpness back. What about playing a start to 1000 BC every few days? Would you join?

Sure. But I'd rather play fewer games and play each one until right after the big Astro trades. In iso there are many important decision that are made much later than T50/T75. I feel like most of my problems stem from later -- I've litterally played hundreds of iso starts to T50, but only a handful to Astro+

I would be more interested in playing again, and seeing if teching Alpha early and then maths for that bulb can be made work.
Alpha would add some beakers via building research, could pay for itself actually

In genuine isolation it's very rarely a wise move to bulb Optics. There is simple maths behind that:

• Alpha+Maths=929 beakers
• Optics=1014 beakers
• Which means you're using a GS for 85 beakers

Now you can add in the benefits of early-ish Alpha. But in most games it's not more than 200-300 beakers, and these are hammers not invested infrastructure (sometimes doesn't matter). The only "true iso" games where I would bulb Optics is when I have expanded a lot (6-7 cities), have a strong GPP base (PHI leader or CoL+high food), am late to Optics and have a lot of surplus hammers. The combination of these factors is very rare. Otherwise if you have an extra GS it's usually better to save him for a golden age or a bulb later on.

I was just thinking, considering that we play with Toku and rather weak starts..we are all Iso experts by now
Still remember the times where winning with great leaders (Hannibal was one used) on deity Iso was a huge achievement, and questioned how it's done at all.

Well, "experts" might be overstating things a bit, but this thread has definitely done a great job of making us get a better understanding of iso starts

 

[Pedro78]

@elmurcis If you posted some screenies/saves we could probably figure out what went so wrong in your game. But I can already tell that building GLH was a big mistake -- not enough good coastal city spots.

 

[Fippy]

You are surely right, with the Optics bulb.
Maybe just Alpha could be benefical with a larger empire thou?

I think 20 research / turn could be realistic, with cities like copper + silver bringing in 8 already.
Cost of Alpha would be slightly above 400, with the 20% invisible bonus for pre-techs.
Also 1 tech that would not have to be traded for later.

edit, too bad that currency is locked behind maths or Alpha.

 

[Pedro78]

I think 20 research / turn could be realistic, with cities like copper + silver bringing in 8 already.
Cost of Alpha would be slightly above 400, with the 20% invisible bonus for pre-techs.

I've actually made the same calculations and came out to the same conclusion a few weeks ago when I was trying to deal with these horrible all-plains iso maps. But the reality isn't that bright:

• You can work a cottage or a scientist instead of a copper mine
• In most games you will tech Monarchy and will have to build warriors for MP

You would indeed need +20bpt for 20 turns for Alpha to pay for itself. But in reality it's closer to +10bpt that Alpha would give on most maps, considering the two above facts. Assuming that you reach Alpha on T100, it would take until T140=600AD to pay for itself -- you will have Optics for a while already by then.

And even in the case where Alpha would pay for itself, it will have costed you 400 hammers in infrastructure.

In the end, if you have lots of good land to settle (6+ cities) and you end up with a big hammers surplus, then it can be worth it to tech Alpha, assuming infrastructure is not a bottleneck. But that's a lot of "ifs". And you don't settle more cities just for the sake of teching Alpha and making it pay off -- it's not worth it

Also 1 tech that would not have to be traded for later

True. But you can always trade for Alpha, and you need 2 turns to trade for Maths+Calendar anyway. So having to trade for Alpha will almost never delay your Astro date. Only real benefit would be one less tech towards WFYABTA, but that's a drop in the ocean, right?

 

[Pedro78]

Let's see how this goes..

Spoiler :

Was a bit late on the units, but he's already at war and there will be a steady flow of reinforcements. Only built 4 Galleons cos he is so close. Mansa having 1k gold for trade on the turn I reached Steel helped a bit

 

[Fippy]

I wonder what you think about this one, for some reasons totally unknown (must be sado maso..) i felt like playing again and trying maths + currency.
Optics can be seen as 3 turns later than yours, should be 375
Was interesting to see it's not a huge difference, maybe we can do something with that.