Deity Isolation Workshop (Stan/Norm/Fractal/NH/NE)
- Thread starter Lain
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It's even easier than that -- just put anywhere between 1 and 4 hammers into a treb and 3pop whip it -- that's a "free" cannon (assuming you have a forge ofc)
I wouldn't call it boring. The main problem is that there is so much stuff to micro if you want to play it "well". So if you are already in a winning position it's boring to keep playing. But if you have a clear goal in mind (good win date, or just are not in a great position and want to win), it can probably be very interesting. Going space can be fun aswell.
Izuul
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Very true.
Lain
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@ Toku game... interesting that you only pre-built 5 Trebs. I guess going for Rifling really gives enough time to just build up normally. Did you even whip that much? Or mostly workshop-production? Because I usually whip about 200 times, I guess that's where problems start. Never recover from that and reinforcements slow down. Maybe it's a illusion that whipping is really "faster". Anyway, since I added Drafting to most preparations, everything works much smoother... having to whip Galleons+Frigates+Maces+Pikes+Cannons is just too much... in too little time.
It's really rare that I can just go pure cannons. Don't know why, but they are all teching like pros. When playing Pangaea or just normal Continents, they sometimes don't get Rifling until 1300 AD ... but once I play isolation they start playing serious suddenly and race to Artillery. Or you have Monte who is a bit behind but has a 40 units SOD.
I still have many questions about the actual war... Guess you need a lot of experience to bring exactly the right amount of units for the "first wave". But just the workshop thing is a bit of a conceptual breakthrough for me already
. Just sometimes there doesn't seem to be enough production for what's needed.
Kind of stopped believing in Vassalage a little bit. If you tech to Rifling the beaker loss is kind of tough to take, no? You stayed in Bur too, Pedro.
PS: You got more saves from 1000 AD or so?
It's really rare that I can just go pure cannons. Don't know why, but they are all teching like pros. When playing Pangaea or just normal Continents, they sometimes don't get Rifling until 1300 AD ... but once I play isolation they start playing serious suddenly and race to Artillery. Or you have Monte who is a bit behind but has a 40 units SOD.
I still have many questions about the actual war... Guess you need a lot of experience to bring exactly the right amount of units for the "first wave". But just the workshop thing is a bit of a conceptual breakthrough for me already
. Just sometimes there doesn't seem to be enough production for what's needed.Kind of stopped believing in Vassalage a little bit. If you tech to Rifling the beaker loss is kind of tough to take, no? You stayed in Bur too, Pedro.
PS: You got more saves from 1000 AD or so?
Fippy
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When are you switching into Vass usually, Lain?
I find Bur really important, after building up a cottage Cap with Academy while still teching
Hmm there was something i wanted to add too about Pedro's Toku game, oh yep..
we can see attack date is so much more important than pre-building 5xp units, only longbows and old stuff still for Vicky.
I think spreading a Reli for Theo works much better than Vass if you can do so, cos Bur Caps are often 50% of our research. And they can even get more units with the 50% hammer bonus.
I find Bur really important, after building up a cottage Cap with Academy while still teching
Hmm there was something i wanted to add too about Pedro's Toku game, oh yep..
we can see attack date is so much more important than pre-building 5xp units, only longbows and old stuff still for Vicky.
I think spreading a Reli for Theo works much better than Vass if you can do so, cos Bur Caps are often 50% of our research. And they can even get more units with the 50% hammer bonus.
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@Lain Most of the initial samurai/trebs/cannons where whipped. When I reached Rifling I immediately switched to Nationhood+CS. Later I double-switched to Bur+SP (it's critical to have 12 cities or less when doing a double switch -- with 13+ cities it takes 2 turns, and with 25+ cities even a single switch takes 2 turns)
Vassalage can be good in some games. When you're not going for Rifling immediately, then Vass is very strong. When you're attacking with Rifles then it's less important to have 5XP cannons.
Btw the two things that I messed up the most in my game were forgetting to trade CoL+Philo+Nat early enough (had to give away expensive techs for CoL&Philo) & bringing too many reinforcements to Victoria (could have attacked Brennus sooner). 1000AD & 1200AD saves attached.
@Revent https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...rm-fractal-nh-ne.612863/page-34#post-14981058
Vassalage can be good in some games. When you're not going for Rifling immediately, then Vass is very strong. When you're attacking with Rifles then it's less important to have 5XP cannons.
Who talked about "exactly the right amount"? You only need to bring "enough"
Btw the two things that I messed up the most in my game were forgetting to trade CoL+Philo+Nat early enough (had to give away expensive techs for CoL&Philo) & bringing too many reinforcements to Victoria (could have attacked Brennus sooner). 1000AD & 1200AD saves attached.
From my experience this is rarely possible, and even then it's usually a questionable move. On these fractal maps adopting a religion early might really screw up your trades. Plus you have to get the right religion spread early enough AND invest the necessary hammers into it (60h Monastery + 200-300h in Missionaries). And even then it's an extra 1T of Anarchy. Not saying that it cannot be good in some games, but it's usually not a good option imo.
@Revent https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...rm-fractal-nh-ne.612863/page-34#post-14981058
Just had a go. Probably a bit too hard for me. Need more Deity practice first.
@Pedro78 My game is going fine, but I can't keep up with your rate of playing/finishing games.
At astronomy now. Will probably get a save zip up later tonight or tomorrow morning. Think I got optics 2 or so turns after you, but with 6 matured (size 6ish) cities. I'm sure there were room for improvements. Also got a little screwed by super early Chicken Pizza.
At astronomy now. Will probably get a save zip up later tonight or tomorrow morning. Think I got optics 2 or so turns after you, but with 6 matured (size 6ish) cities. I'm sure there were room for improvements. Also got a little screwed by super early Chicken Pizza.
Lain
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Fippy said:When are you switching into Vass usually, Lain?
I find Bur really important, after building up a cottage Cap with Academy while still teching
Hmm, usually as soon as available. Other option would be to tech until Steel and then switch while pre-whipping units. But I think ~20 turns of Bur are not worth the extra anarchy? And then I go Nationhood anyway, so... much easier with SPI
Cuirs are just too easy to get for the AI and they have too many cuz they love building Knights and upgrade, so ... go Team Rifling~
Lain
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Kind of want to talk about the opportunity cost of Aesthetics path... take a look at this map and help me judge if the detour to Great Library + failgold is worth stagnating @size 4 until 300 BC or so. Well, not like there is big growth potential with the health situation, but you know, just generally... what to do?
Monarchy first and then Aesthetics-Literature seems way too risky.
Also any feedback appreciated. I feel like I handle the early game much better now. Feel free to crush my confidence into little pieces again
Monarchy first and then Aesthetics-Literature seems way too risky.
Also any feedback appreciated. I feel like I handle the early game much better now. Feel free to crush my confidence into little pieces again
Spoiler :
Fippy
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I would say nope for Aest, even if it's usually fun :-/
With wine, no Anarchy & not that many forests, Mona wins imo.
Good question if sheep are enuf for health hmmm, annoying that Rice city would be so weak.
I might have settled Helio 1N, loses one green river tile but gains Rice after 2nd border pop (no biggie with Cre).
With wine, no Anarchy & not that many forests, Mona wins imo.
Good question if sheep are enuf for health hmmm, annoying that Rice city would be so weak.
I might have settled Helio 1N, loses one green river tile but gains Rice after 2nd border pop (no biggie with Cre).
Lain
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Hmmm, hard to resist Aest, but yup, delaying Monarchy is sad. Good point on Heliopolis. Just felt that with so much commerce maybe we can afford a weak rice city . Has some green tiles at least.
I should really think about ToA a bit more often... could have got lots of failgold with wonders going late.
. Has some green tiles at least.I should really think about ToA a bit more often... could have got lots of failgold with wonders going late.
Izuul
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Limited sample size, but ToA seems to go around 1200 BC in the ISO games that i have played. Of course it's possible for it to go quite a bit earlier or later, but I've found that if you can't get a decent amount of hammers into it by 1200 BC you probably shouldn't bother trying.
@Rusten only 2T later Optics with 6 cities and CoL? That's quite impressive, I'm definitely interested in looking at the saves.
@Lain Here I'd most likely go Monarchy - Litt. I don't recall ever seeing GLib built before T100 by the AI, and you can def. get it before that. Also, why isn't Helio 1N of its current position? More forests and less tundra crap, plus it will have the rice with second border pop.
Don't forget that ToA requires Poly+Masonry, neither of which you want if you're skipping CoL&Litt -- I don't think ToA failgold is all that attractive when you're not IND / are not going for Litt.
Btw I've played another opening in the Sally game and got T63 Oracle - CoL -- quite a risky gamble, but having CS so early with a SPI leader is really cool
@Lain Here I'd most likely go Monarchy - Litt. I don't recall ever seeing GLib built before T100 by the AI, and you can def. get it before that. Also, why isn't Helio 1N of its current position? More forests and less tundra crap, plus it will have the rice with second border pop.
Don't forget that ToA requires Poly+Masonry, neither of which you want if you're skipping CoL&Litt -- I don't think ToA failgold is all that attractive when you're not IND / are not going for Litt.
Btw I've played another opening in the Sally game and got T63 Oracle - CoL -- quite a risky gamble, but having CS so early with a SPI leader is really cool
Looking at it now it's 3t slower to optics.
Game peculiarities:
Other musings (updated as I recall things):
In a regular game plains cottages are a big nono. In isolation it's not the case if you have strong food resources as there are limited ways of dealing with happy cap and very few useful things to whip. In some ways one could argue that the plains cottage outperforms the grassland one because many times you're just growing into unhappiness anyway and unhealthiness becomes a concern. It also benefits more from golden ages.
If you have a mix of grassland and plains it also lets you keep the cottages post optics while you're farming the grassland for drafting/whipping (thus not bulldozing villages). It's something I will keep in mind for later games -- it might be better to cottage the plains tile over the grassland one taking everything into account (for certain city types).
Game peculiarities:
Spoiler :
In a regular game plains cottages are a big nono. In isolation it's not the case if you have strong food resources as there are limited ways of dealing with happy cap and very few useful things to whip. In some ways one could argue that the plains cottage outperforms the grassland one because many times you're just growing into unhappiness anyway and unhealthiness becomes a concern. It also benefits more from golden ages.
If you have a mix of grassland and plains it also lets you keep the cottages post optics while you're farming the grassland for drafting/whipping (thus not bulldozing villages). It's something I will keep in mind for later games -- it might be better to cottage the plains tile over the grassland one taking everything into account (for certain city types).
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Thanks for the saves Rusten. I looked through all of them. Gave it a bit of thinking and I like your strategy much better than mine -- it gives you a lot of flexibility after first contact (i.e. can attack with Cannons+Maces pretty early, which was impossible in my game). You're also way ahead in GPP (even though you'll be a little late to Astro, and you have these horrible artist points in Tokyo -- ofc you will get the Whale sooner, but isn't getting a GM later more important?). I really like that settled GS.
There is a few things that I disagree with, though.
Do you really bulldoze villages to build farms after Astro in iso? I'm usually doing fine with just grass cottages and whatever food surplus I have, maybe build an additional grass farm if available -- too much whipping results in a lot of unhappiness. And after Chemistry, caste workshops outperform whipping anyway (especially when you start drafting later on, you can't really whip+draft)
Now that I think of it btw my third city location was really dumb -- not sure what I was thinking (maybe pigs not having any commerce fooled me..)
One last thing that I don't like is that you have only 2 triremes and no gold in the bank, which means it will take you until T+3 after Optics to send the last caravel (not a huge deal as the Astro GS is a bit late, but can possibly deny you some trades)
Chicken Pizza @450 BC is stupidly early, yup. Usually goes in the ADs or very late BCs -- I don't think the AI priorizes this wonder a lot.
Anyway, your game was a lot of food for thought, definitely looking forward to the next "zip"
There is a few things that I disagree with, though.
- Pottery first and 4th city settled so late. Kinda goes together because Pottery first hampers your early production & that city has a great commerce potential. I don't mind reaching Monarchy a bit later if I have 4 instead of 3 size 5-6 cities with libraries by then.
- Non-river plains / GH cottages in capital, even though you have grasslands available? Ofc these tiles were forested, and forests adds health, which makes running plains cottages better than chopping the forests. But you could've chopped a Settler in Kyoto and whipped a library in Tokyo. The more (iso) games I play, the more I see unchopped forests as a bad thing -- chopping does really speed up your development + you wouldn't have to build these crappy hills cottages (especially as WMs are much better after RP). And if you're going to build an Academy in your capital, you reall want it to grow.. I don't understand your logic here
Do you really bulldoze villages to build farms after Astro in iso? I'm usually doing fine with just grass cottages and whatever food surplus I have, maybe build an additional grass farm if available -- too much whipping results in a lot of unhappiness. And after Chemistry, caste workshops outperform whipping anyway (especially when you start drafting later on, you can't really whip+draft)
Now that I think of it btw my third city location was really dumb -- not sure what I was thinking (maybe pigs not having any commerce fooled me..)
One last thing that I don't like is that you have only 2 triremes and no gold in the bank, which means it will take you until T+3 after Optics to send the last caravel (not a huge deal as the Astro GS is a bit late, but can possibly deny you some trades)
Chicken Pizza @450 BC is stupidly early, yup. Usually goes in the ADs or very late BCs -- I don't think the AI priorizes this wonder a lot.
Anyway, your game was a lot of food for thought, definitely looking forward to the next "zip"
