Help me with this tactic

[lodester]

So, i'm no Civ master but I've been struggling^H^H^H^H^H^H^H playing the game on and off since the original.
I started a [large, standard time, king, continents] game where i just discovered (turn 29 now) that I'm on a continent with Montezuma, Askia, and Hiawatha .. possibly more farther south. I'm playing as Harun al-Rashid, so I have not much to counter the early game potency of my neighbors.

Here's a screenshot: http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/5076/rashidturn29.png

I'm in a fairly decent defensive position, north end of the continent with no close neighbors (all are to the south) and a large forest between me and my easily-aroused neighbors.

But since I'm playing Rashid I need to get my economy going and while I have cotton and sugar next to my capital, there is little else nearby to jump start gold. I am tempted to try and hijack some incredibly sweet spots down near Monty - one with three Silver plots within the second ring of a tile. I think this is a mistake, though.

Strats? The below are not mutually exclusive, just some thoughts...
1. Turtle up and try to get those three to beat the snot out of each other and leave me alone. I am thinking expand quickly to cover my southern forest border and sell out to get the great wall wonder when it comes up. Should allow me a stout defense with minimal units in the forests with a few well placed forts.
2. Get off this continent ASAP and start populating outposts near lux resources.
3. Early expansion on continent, go for broke and try and snatch up those high value income tiles. Seems risky, and spreading out very far very quickly.

Thoughts?
Thanks very much

 

[lodester]

So, since there is marble nearby and it's a production-heavy area i might grab the marble early and go for some early wonders and get the border expansion that way. I also need to explore the northeast passage as there is a chance that opens up farther north.

Either way, seems like early wonder/production with those three lux resources i have nearby will give me a good strategy early while I look for expansion elsewhere for economy. ?

 

[osumce]

I'm also no Civ-master, but based on the few games that I've played post-patch I'd do a combo platter of #1 and #3 of your suggestions. In my games, #2 would never work because by the time I could get anything off-continent any spot worth taking is already taken. Having such a strong defensive position up north should allow you defend that pretty easily (and cheaply) and focus on expanding on a more speculative basis. I guess another option is going aggressive off the bat and taking Monty out. I think founding a city down by the silver would help this since you could hit from North and South. Maybe found a city down there and try to tech up to take Monty out?

Like I said, certainly no expert, but some things to chew on.

 

[lodester]

Thanks for that input. Makes good sense to me.

With respect to #2 what i usually do is take some risks with Embarked units only and see if I can coast my way to greener pastures, if you will. This has about a 25% success rate, but when it works it normally gives me a pretty significant advantage particularly with economic civs like Rashid.

Taking out monty early could be a big resource sink while still getting my ass handed to me by Jaguars, so I'm a little gunshy on that approach. Having aggressive (Askia) and expansive (Hiawath) neighbors very close by I am thinking with a little diplomacy (or even without) I expect two or all three of those civs will start beating each other up relatively soon. I struggle with Civ 5 diplomacy, though. I like the format much better than the awful imbalance of civ 4's religion tampering but I am still learning how to manipulate civ's in Civ 5 to do my bidding. I'm banking on the mix of leader traits down south will handle conflict instigation more than my diplomacy skills.

Thanks again for your reply!

 

[osumce]

Yeah, I was thinking that attacking Monty wasn't such a great idea after suggesting it. I think I'd plug down two cities to wall off your northern peninsula and then go grab that silver district. They also have horses down there, which you don't appear to have up north. I'll be curious to hear how it goes...

 

[lodester]

there just isnt' enough food up there to expand rapidly enough for that strategy unfortunately. Even with Tradition and three farms (two being worked at the time) it was 14 turns to get a settler, by that time Monty already started planting cities northward and encroaching quickly.
I tech'd to pottery and literacy and timed my tech to masonry perfectly to get the first settler to settle the second city directly on top of the Marble so I wouldnt have to send a worker up there to build the quarry. From there my GL cost went from 38 to 25, and I was sure I would get the GL first.
With one turn left to GL someone else got it. I ragequit around turn 75 because by this point monty and hiawatha were on city #5 while I was looking for a reasonably positioned #3 city. not to mention by that point monty's borders were rapidly approaching my capital.

it looks like a nice defensive position but there just isn't any room to grow culture OR cities with the resources available. I tried to go the small empire/wonder route and it just didn't work out. I think if i restarted the map my only viable option left would be to try and take monty out, but he is shitting out jaguars like they are WhiteCastle burgers and so early in the game, without food, my apparent production advantage is nullified.

Sorry for the tease but I am abandoning that map. It looked interesting but on a large map at standard speed I was not going to accept that slow of a start considering my neighbors.

I do appreciate the feedback, however.

 

[osumce]

Bummer. If you do decide to restart the map, maybe try planting your capitol between the deer and fish on the east coast? You should be able to purchase/expand out the other two fish tiles and I think that should pump up your food fast enough to try to counter Monty.
Then again, sometimes screwed is screwed.