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

[Fippy]

Hmm i would not, i think food is valuable cos you can improve the river plains hill after corn and have good production then (and there are more hills).
With hunting as starting tech, i would research AH now cos sheep are imo a power tile with adding 1c. Then you can see if horsie are near before commiting on warriors, or maybe you want archery.

I like your scout position, too important corner to leave

Merry x-mas Iso players

 

[Lain]

Anyone wants to show me how to deal with barbs on this map? I just died a horrible death with warriors. I usually do, so I am working on this before I play any further. Room for improvement here, can't go Archery all the time.

 

[Pedro78]

This is a map where I'd normally go Archery (start with Hunting), no good spot to fogbust, bad terrain for defense, large island.. Thankfully it's an obvious fishing-mining-BW start and there's a nice spot (on a hill) 3W of the capital with Copper. There's a few forested hills next to your second city to fend off the barbs, so the whole thing is doable with warriors into Axemen. Gotta hook up the Copper fairly quickly though.

 

[MeowZeDung]

Hullo all. I just played through the first 50 turns or so on this map and didn't meet anyone. After the RNG was not so kind to me and I lost my newly founded third city to the barbs, I confirmed in WB that it is an isolated start, so I'll post it here for everyone's gaming pleasure.

A mild spoiler for the masochists among you:

Spoiler :

The land isn't the worst by any means, but you don't have any happiness resources.

 

[Izuul]

The Nappy save got me thinking about how his traits might change things in isolation. It's also been quite awhile since I've played ISO games.

1) Is Myst + monuments worthwhile assuming there's no other happiness around? I would imagine that's something you generally skip in favor of library border pops.

2) Does ORG allow you to settle an additional city?

 

[Pedro78]

1) Is Myst + monuments worthwhile assuming there's no other happiness around? I would imagine that's something you generally skip in favor of library border pops.

In iso, teching Myst to build Monuments when CHA is 100% worth it, even with other happiness resources around, the ability to grow every city one more pop is huge.

2) Does ORG allow you to settle an additional city?

That's not exactly how I would put it. The "standard" for iso starts is to stay at 4 cities for the most isolated part. Sometimes you have good land that justifies settling a fifth or even a 6th city. Can be even more, especially with FIN, but is quite rare. ORG basically reduces the cost of every city by ~20%. So with ORG it's sometimes worth it to settle spots that wouldn't pay off with a non-org leader.

But the only trait that really makes it worthwhile to settle more cities in ISO is FIN.

Btw, merry Christmas everyone

 

[Izuul]

I gave the Nappy game a shot and got 175AD Optics. Seems that could be improved since the land is actually decent. I don't have much experience with this to fall back on though so i likely made mistakes.

Spoiler :

I went with 5 cities - split the fish and the crabs to the west and settled the overlapping fish city to the north. I don't know if that's better than just 4 cities. The 5th city cost 6gpt when settled.The south is also intriguing with the ivory and the river down there, but it's a bit far away and there were a lot of archers down there for a stretch. it seems like settling fewer cities up north and a couple in the south could be an option.

It's difficult to determine what's going to pay off by like ~100 AD though and whether it's actually worth it to delay Optics a few turns to get a stronger base.

 

[Pedro78]

Joao game:

Spoiler :

Settled 4 cities. Went BW-Wheel-Ag-Pottery-Writing-Alpha. Then I beelined Optics. Land was pretty good so Optics came quite early.

Had a couple of "lucky" fights against Archers in the very early turns (won @66% chances twice in a row) so I didn't have to settle the Copper first (which I would have done otherwise). Barb Axemen typically don't spawn before T60-70 so I felt pretty safe (not totally safe, but was more fun this way )

From now the rest of the game is most likely a simple formality, I don't see how one could lose from that position. 1AD Optics and one extra GS for bulb/GA, low on infrastructure/cities but it doesn't matter at this point. Log tells AIs have been at war a lot, no one even has Music yet and religions/wonders went fairly late -- this is probably one of the rare cases where I'd go for Lib in iso (have to meet the AIs first)

The land isn't the worst by any means, but you don't have any happiness resources.

Don't you count silver as a happiness resource?

Thanks for the nice map!

 

[Pedro78]

It's difficult to determine what's going to pay off by like ~100 AD though and whether it's actually worth it to delay Optics a few turns to get a stronger base.

This is where most of the difficulty in iso comes from. On most maps Optics doesn't come this early, though. On a map with good land and big vertical growth potential I'd rather go for Monarchy, settle more cities and get Optics @T130 instead of T115-120 though. Allows to trade for stuff like guilds/engineering which you would otherwise have to self-tech (unless of course you go for lib, but that's rarely a good play in iso).

With 175AD Optics the rest of the game shouldn't be too hard though, whatever your current position is, because you'll be able to maintain a tech lead for the whole middle game.

 

[Fippy]

I think with ORG we could play around with CoL, which might be interesting
We did not believe in Alpha some days ago, never know.

Caste in some way can act a bit like Alpha, instead of working hammer tiles you can use more scientists or merchants, and quickly chopped courthouses can make more cities positive.
Poly would have to be used (avoiding Philo over Astro bulb), there's some potential fail gold on that way with ToA or Oracle (if going late).
Most interesting part would be, what techs are you willing to delay so you can still grab some of that gold and get CoL benefits sooner.

 

[Pedro78]

think with ORG we could play around with CoL, which might be interesting

It might be good in some cases (lots of food and lots of forests), but would require Monarchy aswell. Caste can't be really efficient unless you've got quite large cities already. So I think CoL would only be a good move on very rich maps.

Most interesting part would be, what techs are you willing to delay so you can still grab some of that gold and get CoL benefits sooner.

I wouldn't delay anything to get Poly unless I've got marble or a lot of early commerce.
Can use Chicken failgold too

 

[Lain]

@Joao game: As you mostly worked cottages + scientists, did Alphabet pay off here? Probably did just because of the copper mine and 50+ turns time (before reaching Optics). You dedicated at least 10 extra hammers/turn into Research... Which is kind of why I think... Alphabet is pretty good in many situations, no? Unless you have 15+ river tiles and just Monarchy-cottage anyway. There are always some power hammer tiles which turn into "gold mines" with Alphabet.

Remember that infamous Mao game? Totally going Alphabet there now.

I thought about it a lot and I really, really don't believe in CoL. You wouldn't settle cities like 2nd ring fish before reaching CoL, but then you still need to whip granary etc... it's a micro nightmare. Again, maybe with someone like Gandhi it's good.

 

[Pedro78]

Had Alpha on T71 and Optics on T116. So Alpha only had to "add" 13.5 to pay off. In this case I think it did only net me ~15 extra bpt at most, considering that I could work cottages/scientists instead of mines. But it also allowed me to build one less worker, so it was definitely worth it.

Alphabet is pretty good in many situations, no?

Not always. If that Joao map had a slower start (say I played it with Toku -- Joao is actually a pretty darn good leader for this kind of start), Alpha wouldn't have been worth it. When you're not sure, just do the maths

I thought about it a lot and I really, really don't believe in CoL. You wouldn't settle cities like 2nd ring fish before reaching CoL, but then you still need to whip granary etc... it's a micro nightmare. Again, maybe with someone like Gandhi it's good.

It is an actual micro nightmare. But I still believe CoL can be worth it more often than you think, even though it's an expensive investment. As Fippy mentionned, it does definitely ask for some testing.

I'll take a break from Civ for the next month or so.. a bit of overdue rl stuff to deal with and I still can't played focused games and finish them.. also not really playing well except for those iso forum games where I try to snatch a decent play.. I always play a lot better after long breaks anyway. Hope y'all still around here cracking iso maps when I pick up

(oh and Lain keep up your YT vids, real fun to watch and a very good way of teaching the "silent majority" how to beat deity )

 

[Izuul]

I guess the first part you have to look at is hammers you would already be working (plains cottages, silver mine, city tile, etc). These are sort of wasted without Alpha once you have the important buildings in place (just granaries and libraries here). I think you can consider those hammers mostly as bonus beakers with Alpha as the alternative (putting them into barracks, forges, etc isn't spectacular). Other tiles like copper and iron have an opportunity cost and you can only count the extra beakers (via hammers) that you would gain above a tile (or specialist) you would work without Alpha. I think Pedro highlighted that in his long post regarding Alpha. The copper mine isn't worth 5 additional beakers and the iron mine isn't worth 4. They are worth the difference between the beakers they provide and the beakers provided by a cottage, scientist, etc that would work instead.

In Pedro's Joao game Alpha is generating him about 13 more beakers per turn at 25 AD than the alternative. That's working a scientist instead of copper mine in Coimbra though which is a little sketchy because it drops to -1 food. Some tile juggling might be necessary there.

Edit: Cross post with Pedro. 15 extra beakers seems reasonable as working a scientist indefinitely in Coimbra probably isn't a realistic option.

 

[Lain]

I decided to battle until death with the Mao map again. Need advice here. 4th city or full failgold-vertical growth mode?

I think I can't afford a 4th, but it's grassland pigs... really think about delaying it until Alphabet though. Tech would go: Poly -> Aesthetics -> Literature -> Math (?) -> Alphabet. Skip Monarchy + CoL. Maybe even a 5th city south-east if enough failgold can be generated.

Why didn't I get Poly already for ToA failgold? Because it would have come late (1500 BC?) and that wonder goes pretty early sometimes. Would look silly if I delayed Writing and then it gets built. If it gets built in 800 BC now tears are going to drop though.

So, thoughts?

Edit: Enjoy the Civ4 detox and come back stronger, Pedro!

 

[Fippy]

Hmm i would consider another worker too expensive, most certainly will cost 1g/t and you want to start your library next turn?
Slavery would also cost gold and anarchy, while being only useful in Bejing for a short time.

Leaves not much room for a settler, if building them is annoying i guess that answers the question if you should get pigs city soon
So i think i would build Pyras in Bejing this turn, then library.

 

[Izuul]

Wow that Mao map.

 

[Fippy]

Funny part is, our land would actually be nice..barbs are causing all those problems lol.
Closer copper would be such a relief here.

 

[Izuul]

To be honest, barbs still slaughter me like 50% of the time on these bigger islands in ISO. If not slaughter me, at least cause major problems that slow me down.

I need to work on that.

 

[gaash2]

This is where most of the difficulty in iso comes from. On most maps Optics doesn't come this early, though. On a map with good land and big vertical growth potential I'd rather go for Monarchy, settle more cities and get Optics @T130 instead of T115-120 though. Allows to trade for stuff like guilds/engineering which you would otherwise have to self-tech (unless of course you go for lib, but that's rarely a good play in iso).

With 175AD Optics the rest of the game shouldn't be too hard though, whatever your current position is, because you'll be able to maintain a tech lead for the whole middle game.

Been following this thread with interest. I have gotten close, but without a fin leader have not had much success even on easier levels (imm) despite regularly getting optics at early dates (around 1AD). It feels like early astro (to start building galleons) is more important than the optics date, even though they are correlated. And even then, production isn't there to deal build a big enough army fast enough. When do you start building up military, and at what cost to Optics/Astro dates?