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

[krikav]

The Mao-Map:

Spoiler :

I read up abit and found interesting ideas from Fippy and BorninCantalope
I thought I would take a crack at this completely different (for me) aproach.

I settled 1S, to gain access to two more unforested hills. Important since I'll postpone BW for quite abit.
AH right away to improve the sheep+pigs.

Techpath: AH -> Myst -> Masonry -> TW -> Polytheism -> BW -> Fishing -> Pottery.
BW before Priesthood to supercharge the failgold bonanza with chops. And since Oracle when halfway through BW there was no point.

Worker goes sheep->grasslandhill mine->plainshill mine->quarry->roading toward city#2.

CIty works toward target size 4 and then stagnates working all mines, doing 12 hammers/turn.
Plenty of warriors are produced.
I put 8H into SH for some failgold early, and then about 30 into TGW.

City#2 is settled with horses in first ring, and produces a monument first, then takes over ToAR duty while capital is busy with other things.
A third worker is produced in time for BW to get alot of chops into ToAr asap.

Barb spears are not that much more dangerous than archers. The humble woody1 warrior gets almost 68% chance of victory against this foe when fortifed on a forested hill.
When you are doing 12h/turn in your city early on, it's totally acceptable to lose quite a few.
And with failgold rolling in, unit upkeep is not as much of a problem.

Only after BW is in, I go for fishing. Feels totally paradoxical, but it seems to work out ok!

1000BC situation.

Compared to lains more normal aproach:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...rm-fractal-nh-ne.612863/page-12#post-14793902

It seems like this is abit slower (only 2 cities), which is no suprise really, since we lacked chops early on.
But in isolation I think this is less of a problem.

Previously, I have dismissed this "early marble"-play as something extremly risky and suboptimal. But I felt quite safe the entire time. And now I think this is clearly an playable variant.

Since marble and poly is in, I think this save is best followed up with writing->aesteth->litterature. To chop alot into parthenon, and possibly build GLibrary.
Other ideas on how to follow up on this?

 

[Zelus]

@kikrav
You're trying to pile up fail gold, and not actually build the Temple of Artemis nor the Parthenon, am i correct ?

If so, how valuable is it to chop into this ? I always thought chopping into failgold wonders/wealth building was kind of wasted.

 

[Fippy]

In Iso there are no higher priorities than getting gold and commerce
So turning 1 forest into 40 failgold = great.

 

[Zelus]

Ah, yes, especially since we are industrious. Thanks !

 

[krikav]

@Zelus Yes, the idea is to gather up a huuuge stack of failgold, this enables us to tech faster.
Thanks for dropping by & welcome to the forums!
We are not industrious (Mao is Exp+Pro), but we do have access to marble, thereby getting +100% extra return on our hammers.

More mao map thoughts:

Spoiler :

I'm still not certain on how to follow up on this though.. Finish pottery, then PH->Writing->Monarchy?
The extra island makes me want to go currency. Probably through math, since the luster of alfa is gone if I also go currency. Especially if I have failgold to ride through untill currency is in.

Do I even bother with aestethics+litterature?
When to squeeze in sailing?

 

[Zelus]

We are not industrious

How to make a fool out of oneself in exactly 2 messages

 

[Rusten]

I wanted to wait until I had finished my game, but seeing as you're playing I can drop off some early saves.

I've since played to what I consider a winning/won position, but it's very time-consuming and I have other priorities right now. I'll get it done later.

 

[krikav]

Oh nice Rusten, this will help alot!
My failgold stash went dry after math, and I had to slog along between T116 and T136 like a snail to reach currency.
It does not feel right at all, there is no way I could catch up with your T144 position like this.

Any advice about what might have gone wrong earlier (or what I could have done to ease the situation) would be appreciated.

Was it a horrible mistake going toward currency trough math and not through alfa?
Was the expansion of Chendu premature?

Spoiler 1AD and T136 overview screenshots :

 

[Rusten]

Chengdu is not premature, I settled it way earlier, but you need to have a WB in place the turn you settle it. Coastal fish is way better than the sheep.
Mistake going mathematics over alphabet: Yes. Building research is a game-changer.

You've got no GPP -- big mistake. A settled scientist is 6 base beakers/t +1 hammer. Get this early.
Paying 18 gpt for units is too much. IMO making military police is a trap. That's 15 hammers that could've gone to research/wealth instead and it takes time to get it back. You can do it for some selected cities, but overall I think it's better to just have the 1 warrior per city.

 

[krikav]

Is a capital move in the cards here? Thinking possible your Xian position.
How do you decide where to settle your GSci? A spot where you are likely to end up with an academy? Or just any city that has a library and might need that extra hammer abit more?

I really like how you have placed cottages on some plains tiles too, I understand that every city should be able to contribute commerce and it's not a horrid way to diverge surplus food either.
Lots of accepted wisdom that I still have to unlearn it seems.

 

[krikav]

Barb galleys...
T122, I have bulit 3 galleys of my own (lost two of them already.) and there are 5 barb galleys around.
How do you handle them?
Can't really afford spawnbusting the entire coastline pre-currency.

Just in case someone else had missed some barb-galley mechanics I found this:


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/question-concerning-barbarian-galleys.330680/

There are 2 major abuses that I use to virtually ignore them, even in the LHC series:

1. Barb galleys can be locked out by spawnbusting (just like land barbs they can't spawn 2 tiles or less away from another unit).
2. Barb galleys can only "see" 7 tiles into your culture, and will not enter unless they can either pillage or attack something in that range. In other words, if your pillage-able seafood is 8 tiles or more in, you don't even need defenses vs the barb galleys there.

I wasn't aware of 2. and wasn't 100% sure of 1.

 

[Rusten]

Is a capital move in the cards here? Thinking possible your Xian position.

Not ridiculous if you can chop it early, but I don't think I'd bother.

How do you decide where to settle your GSci? A spot where you are likely to end up with an academy? Or just any city that has a library and might need that extra hammer abit more?

Anywhere that has a science multiplier. Academy city if you're planning on one. I settled it in the 2nd city as I got a late capital library and had no plans for an academy.

 

[Zelus]

Hello Rusten

I've read people talk about Bulbing versus Academy several times or even golden age sometimes, but settling the great scientist never appeared to be even considered. Is there something special with isolation that suddenly makes it more appealing, or is it just something you think is underrated ?

 

[Rusten]

Settling is nearly always a bad idea, but isolation games are longer by nature so it has more time to pay back. Lightbulbing mathematics to rush currency can be considered, but outside of that there's nothing productive to do with it other than settling. There's no clear commerce city on this map and the science slider is expected to be low so an academy does very little in comparison. The settled scientist will retain its full value when you are nearly broke at 0% science in the turns leading up to currency.

 

[Zelus]

That... does make a lot of sense ! Thank you

Another case of "don't take anything for granted in this game"

 

[Fish Man]

Almost got wrecked here. Update to T50 (2000 BC).

Spoiler :

I also settled 1 NW. Partly due to my own strategic considerations (1%), but mainly because of Rusten's advice (99%). And there is stone in the BFC. Oh happy days.



Warrior made his way towards the south-east, since I wanted to explore that river (probable 2nd city location). Didn't really push out further, just happy to survive for now.

Decided to go Mining after Agriculture. Worker needs something to do, I want to build warriors and I also had a cheeky idea of some kind...



Does this screenshot give it away?



YES, I decided to go all out balls to the (great) walls. All out Tokugawa RPG style. (Masonry after Mining!). At the very least some decent failgold, I want the Pyramids and 1f4h is a pretty sick tile in the early game. So I think it makes sense to hook that up.

Some nerve-wrecking turns ensued. I know why I never do this crap. Squeezing out every hammer to get it done... uhm I hope I didn't work a citizen like the screenshot suggests. Fail... BUT anyway, moving on...



Teching Bronze Working. To speed up expansion no matter how this turns out. However, barbs are knocking at the door... but the Great Japanese Empire prevails.





Well, I probably would have survived either way with 2 warriors sitting in the capital. 100+ gold at this stage of the game is a good consolation prize. But absolutely chuffed having pulled this off. I feel this will be a good game.

After Bronze Working I decided to go for Animal Husbandry. It was a toss-up between that and Pottery, but this beautiful 2nd city swayed my mind... 1) There is sheep and pigs to improve now 2) Priority lies on hammers right now, with me wanting Pyramids and all that 3) Gold tile will take care of research for now

Perks of having TGW ... can just settle this and those ghost train cashiers are carted outside immediately. Switched into Slavery aswell.





Capital whipped a worker (5 -> 3 ... was that a good idea? Think it was. Whipped away a grassland mine, but also an unimproved pig tile), overflow will probably go into Pyramids. Or settler, but I don't think I want to fool around here. This thing has to be up and running by 1500 BC. Otherwise heads will roll... or, more precisely, guts will slip out I suppose.



Worker #1 hooked up my 2nd city. It's growing on oasis to size 2. Will then work the gold which is being improved right now.
Worker #2 will commence chopping those Pyramids.



Going well so far. 3rd city will be placed on the river, using capital's pigs.

Securing Pyramids would also mean that we can skip the whole Monarchy line.

Spoiler :

Big necro but I'm having a go at this map. In the mood for a somewhat easier iso (hopefully). With gold and mids...maybe I can be the runaway this time instead of some 16-city Justinian or HC with a vassal.

t75: 5 cities at 1000BC, mids almost in. Worker turns were the main bottleneck here, so I decided to spam 4 of them relatively early on despite the unit costs. Barbs gave me a bit of trouble but luck was on my side and I ended up with a superwarrior, killer of archers - enough for heroic epic at level 4 already. No need for great wall, and IMO as long as you get mids by 1000BC-ish you should be fine.

 

[Fish Man]

@krikav - interested in giving this one a go as well? I tire of all the LHC isos with their crappy jungled in starts and barren wastelands; why not try a more hospitable start?

 

[krikav]

Thats the toku map, isn't it? I played it the first 50-100 turns or so 2-3 times. The island is really sweet.
The path I took was that I played that one and thought "well, this is too easy", tried the boudica map and thought "well, this is way too hard" then I stumbled on the LHC boudica map instead.
Can you provide a rather non-spoilery hint as to why it would be worth playing out?

 

[Fish Man]

Thats the toku map, isn't it? I played it the first 50-100 turns or so 2-3 times. The island is really sweet.
The path I took was that I played that one and thought "well, this is too easy", tried the boudica map and thought "well, this is way too hard" then I stumbled on the LHC boudica map instead.
Can you provide a rather non-spoilery hint as to why it would be worth playing out?

It's t120, I have optics, and close to 10 great generals have spawned .

 

[krikav]

@Undefeatable

Spoiler :

It sounds fun, but I have two games I want to pay attention to first.
@Pedro78 posted a nice game with Stail which I will have another go at as a shadow to keep him company.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/all-about-mistakes-deity-fractal.641203/

Then I really want to pay attention to the BTOM game, it's not that common that they are set on deity difficulty. And Pericles that starts with ivory? Well thats a chance in a lifetime.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/news-botm-168-pericles-deity-starts-18-jan.640805/