High Production Low Commerce Start

[Gunboat Diplomat]

I'm back. After several crushing defeats on Immortal, I dropped back to Monarch, and scored a few wins with Willem (including one very late game diplo victory that I don't feel I deserved).

Now I have stepped up to Emperor difficulty, switched over to Suryavarman II and rolled this abomination of a start. Normally, I would just reroll and get on with my life, but this time I have decided to see if there's a skill here that I can learn.

Settings: No huts, No events, Fractal map, Emperor difficulty. Everything else standard.

Spoiler Starting Position :

Spoiler Previous Attempts/The Story So Far - Major Map Spoilers :

Both of my previous attempts at this map have started with a SIP then tech AH followed by Agriculture.

In my first attempt I was able to pick up The Colossus, which helped my financial situation a bit, but it wasn't enough. By the time I found the other civs, I was significantly behind in tech. I also found myself with periods of time where my cities had literally nothing to build. I ended up having to minimise my hammers so that I didn't end up with too many units.

My best attempt involved an early writing, using my first GS to bulb Maths on the way to currency. I figured that an early currency or alphabet would at least let me turn all my juicy hammers into something useful. I then pivoted to Monarch for the happiness. I did manage to use Liberalism to tech Astronomy in this game, but then had to trade them both away to pick up all the techs I'd bypassed along the way. In the end I was still a hair behind the AIs in tech. Certainly not the overwhelming advantage that I have been led to expect on such a low difficulty.



In both cases, I could not see a clear path to victory.

This is the first map I've stuck with where I don't meet anyone until Optics (I used to play Pangea exclusively), so there are two things I really need to learn here:
1. How to tech at a decent rate with such poor land; and
2. How to leverage that into an intercontinental attack at Astronomy.

What next?
I'm open to running this as a shadow game - apparently I still need the hand-holding. I would also appreciate any general advice on tech paths, building priorities and city placement on this type of map, because I'm sure I'm getting them wrong.

I swear, I'll get the hang of this game eventually.

Thanks people.

 

[a pen-dragon]

First, the capital.

Due to having more river tiles I would like to settle 1NE, however that runs into the risk of orphaning seafood, so scout N-NE should be done first.

With how many rivers you have that is not necessarily a low commerce start, you just have to pic up pottery. With the low food and number of forests, and bare hills to mine, pottery before BW seems to be the way to go.


Now about isolation starts.

What you want to do is beeline optics (and I mean beeline, currency, alpha, CoL, monarchy, Aesth, calendar will slow you down more often than not), and get out 2 GS to bulb astronomy ASAP. The only worthwhile deviation from this beeline, after setting up, is to pick up a tech for happiness. The idea is that you want to meet the other players ASAP for tech trades and get astronomy for foreign intercontinental trade routes. The important milestone is the Astronomy date, so teching fast is paramount, limiting expansion to a few (4-6) cities, depending on how good they are. Buildings and city placement are as usual, except a focus on getting the high-commerce spots now and leaving the rest for later. getting 2 GS sufficiently early also means that you want 2 libraries soon.

Usually you will be able to trade optics and frequently machinery to most AIs, filling up the tech that you need.

Around when you get astronomy you can start expanding, to get more cities to produce for the coming war.

What units to attack with is dependent on the map, but cannons+maces is the more solid choice, as cuirs can come a bit late, and everything else is further down the tree.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Beautiful start! Lovely rivers for grassland cottages, some hills for production and there's likely a second food in the fog.

Re running out of things to build, now you know you are isolated beeline Alphabet so you can build research on your way to Astronomy. @a pen-dragon has given one possibility, the other is to Oracle it if you have Marble anywhere.

 

[sampsa]

1. cottages, failgold.
2. depends. Drafting is one way.

Isolated play requires a bit of a different skill set than pangaea. There are many great threads out there by excellent players.

 

[Izuul]

Loaded up the save and I'm a bit curious why you categorize this as low commerce.

T10 spoiler

Spoiler :

There are several rivers here and 2 gold tiles plus quite a few food resources. I haven't explored the entire island yet but that already looks pretty good for ISO. The gold will allow all cities to grow 1 size larger in addition to the commerce it provides. The river cottages will provide the bulk of the commerce - just need to get Pottery pretty early which we should already do anyway with cheap expansive granaries.

There's also marble nearby which is interesting. Going Aesthetics > Lit is a big diversion in iso games, but getting TGL could be worth it for the extra great scientists. You also get potential fail gold from ToA and Parthenon.

 

[Chalybion]

Played 20 turns, this is a great start!
To me, low commerce start means double plains cow start, no river, and no hunting/agriculture. Then your research is crawling towards pottery with nine commerce, while you only have the option to build units that cost you maintenance.

Commerce is also tricky with Joao and Sury, who get lots of production bonuses on early units/buildings and start with mining. It often makes sense for these two to skip bronze working, or else end up with nothing that can be economically be produced in cities (except to build units and delete them to get rid of maintenance)

Other advantages of this map:

Spoiler :

Your island can be fog-busted with only four warriors

 

[jorissimo]

If you would like to go ahead with this, by all means, go for it. But as others have pointed out, iso is tricky and so you shouldn't see this game as a test of your skills but rather as a difficult challenge. I personally would go Pangea all the way until you're comfortable on Immortal.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I've run a couple of quick games using what you've all suggested, and whilst I did do better, it still wasn't a winning position, I feel. I haven't managed to nab Oracle yet, but I'll have another crack at it later.

First, the capital.

Due to having more river tiles I would like to settle 1NE, however that runs into the risk of orphaning seafood, so scout N-NE should be done first.

With how many rivers you have that is not necessarily a low commerce start, you just have to pic up pottery. With the low food and number of forests, and bare hills to mine, pottery before BW seems to be the way to go.


Now about isolation starts.

What you want to do is beeline optics (and I mean beeline, currency, alpha, CoL, monarchy, Aesth, calendar will slow you down more often than not), and get out 2 GS to bulb astronomy ASAP. The only worthwhile deviation from this beeline, after setting up, is to pick up a tech for happiness. The idea is that you want to meet the other players ASAP for tech trades and get astronomy for foreign intercontinental trade routes. The important milestone is the Astronomy date, so teching fast is paramount, limiting expansion to a few (4-6) cities, depending on how good they are.

I tried this and failed. I had another look at the bulb order and think I figured out my error. It seems that to bulb Astronomy, I need to avoid CoL (which unlocks Philosophy) and CS (which unlocks Paper) both of which are above Astro on the list. I also need to manually research Calendar and Alphabet (which also pips Astro on the bulb list)

My best effort so far is T193 (1330AD) for Astro. That feels late to me. Half the other civs already had Guilds.

Buildings and city placement are as usual, except a focus on getting the high-commerce spots now and leaving the rest for later. getting 2 GS sufficiently early also means that you want 2 libraries soon.

"as usual" might be half my problem. My usual, as it turns out, often leaves me broke.

Loaded up the save and I'm a bit curious why you categorize this as low commerce.

Because I keep struggling to research techs that allow me to build useful stuff. I realise now that that was probably due to overexpansion, but that's why I categorised it thus.

Played 20 turns, this is a great start!
To me, low commerce start means double plains cow start, no river, and no hunting/agriculture. Then your research is crawling towards pottery with nine commerce, while you only have the option to build units that cost you maintenance.

Fair enough. That would be completely unplayable for me. If I'm struggling to get to currency, I fall behind and never catch up. I know this has a lot to do with my expansion, but I just can't seem to fix it.

Commerce is also tricky with Joao and Sury, who get lots of production bonuses on early units/buildings and start with mining. It often makes sense for these two to skip bronze working, or else end up with nothing that can be economically be produced in cities (except to build units and delete them to get rid of maintenance)

This is where I end up in a LOT of my games.

If you would like to go ahead with this, by all means, go for it. But as others have pointed out, iso is tricky and so you shouldn't see this game as a test of your skills but rather as a difficult challenge. I personally would go Pangea all the way until you're comfortable on Immortal.

Thanks. I've been playing this game for nearly 20 years. If I wait until I'm comfortable on immortal, I'll be decades in the ground before I ever get there, I reckon.

 

[sampsa]

My best effort so far is T193 (1330AD) for Astro. That feels late to me.

Well that is extremely late. I think you should be able to half-ass 800AD astro.

When isolated, something like 6 cities is plenty. If you go for more, perhaps currency "pays back" but also delays everything.

 

[a pen-dragon]

"as usual" might be half my problem

A city should have food (not necessarily in the first ring, as sury is creative). Infrastructure as usual means a granary, lighthouses in cities with seafood and a few libraries. (obviously no barracks in the early game in isolation) In isolation you will quickly finish this list, and afterwards each city should (no rush) build a library, and then whatever to not waste hammers. Barracks or forges are reasonable options if you can not build wealth/science. A few workers/settlers to prepare for astro can also be build preemptively.

It seems that to bulb Astronomy, I need to avoid CoL (which unlocks Philosophy) and CS (which unlocks Paper) both of which are above Astro on the list.

Yes.

I also need to manually research Calendar and Alphabet (which also pips Astro on the bulb list)

If you get optics sufficiently early and immediately get a few caravels (you need to meet the others ASAP) you can usually trade for calendar and alpha, speeding up astro. Trading optics for calendar might seem like a bad deal, but trading optics to multiple AI and getting useful techs out of each of them (while keeping the astro bulb open), is extremely helpful. Due to speeding up astro even a single tech trade for alpha or calendar is in fact a good trade.

 

[Izuul]

Here are some general pointers for isolation.

• You should know within about 10-12T that you're in isolation. It's extremely rare not to meet any AI in that time frame unless you're isolated
• Once you realize you are isolated the first order of business is dealing with barbarians. Based on my experience in this Emperor game, they are pretty non-threatening at this level, but on Immortal and, in particular, Deity they can be extremely dangerous on iso maps because there aren't any AI units running around to help spawn bust and kill them. After doing a little initial scouting, I like to position my first scout/warrior on a hill somewhere that reveals a bunch of tiles and prevents barbs from spawning in that area. Preferably in the vicinity of your 2nd city location. Once you finish your first worker you generally want to build several warriors and place them in key locations to spawn bust. Barbs cannot spawn in a 5x5 grid centered around a unit - even if some of those tiles are in fog. The bigger the island the more dangerous the barbs are likely to be.
• The tech path needs to be streamlined a lot to get to Optics quickly. Most techs that aren't on the Optics path are an unnecessary diversion that are unlikely to pay off. Step 1 is to get the essential techs that consist of food techs, Mining > BW, and Wheel > Pottery > Writing. At this point you will often want to TURN OFF research and save gold for a little bit while you build libraries. Once you get your libraries up that gold is converted into 25% more research. At this point the essential tech path is now Sailing > Iron Working > Metal Casting > Compass > Machinery > Optics. You can fiddle with the tech order a little bit based on needs. Sailing first if you want lighthouses, IW first if you need to chop jungle, MC first if you want to start building forges, etc.
• Any tech that isn't on that path requires some justification. Alpha for building research may or may not pay off. Alpha is 468 beakers on Emperor and a little over 500 on Deity. Will you be able to build that much research while still getting forges up in your cities? If not, skip it. Monarchy is around 800 beakers if you have to tech the full Myst > Med > PH > Monarchy line. This gets you +1 size in all cities, and essentially unlimited in the capitol, but you do have to pay maintenance on all of the warriors you stuff in the capitol. I think this tech path probably only pays off if you have an amazing capitol or if you also have wine so all cities get +2 happiness just from the tech and HR. The other primary diversion would be the Aesthetics > Myst > Poly > Lit line that we have on this map with the marble. These techs are 1000 beakers (more than Optics) on Emperor so it's a very large investment, however TGL is very strong and you also gain access to wonders to build for fail gold at a 100% multiplier which is a lot more efficient than building research. TGL itself provides 6 base beakers per turn from the two free scientists, and this wonder will make it extremely easy to generate the two scientists for bulbing Astro and likely allow for an Academy or something as well.
• If you're playing a Philosophical leader you can probably justify teching Math and Alpha to open up the Optics bulb while also getting the benefits of 30H chops and building research. Philo leaders can get 4 GS in the same amount of time others can get 2 so they can build an Academy and bulb Optics, and still get the 2 GS for Astro later.
• Don't settle too many cities and crash your economy. 4-5 is usually good on Deity, and you can probably add 1 more to that on Emperor since maintenance costs are lower. You can settle more cities than this in certain situations where the land is incredible or you're able to build The Great Lighthouse or something, but generally the rest of your cities should be delayed and settled right after getting Optics.
• You need two scientists to bulb Astronomy! Astro is an extremely costly tech to research. It's over 3000 beakers and has no prerequisites thus no research bonuses. In case you aren't aware, you get a 20% research bonus for each prerequisite of a tech you already know. For example, if you already know Pottery and AH you will get a 40% research bonus while teching Writing. You don't get any of that with Astro so it's a full 3100-3200 beakers. The good news is that two great scientists will research almost exactly the entire tech for you. You really need to plan out these great scientists and make sure they are ready when you need them. In an ideal situation you get your caravels out, meet some AI within maybe 5-10T, trade for some key techs including Calendar (needed for Astro), and then bulb Astro to get those foreign trade routes up and enable resource trading which should immediately give you a boost to your happiness.

After this the difficult part of the game begins! Overseas invasions are tough and iso games are often long affairs that involve going deep into the tech tree. Sometimes there will already be a runaway AI on the main continent to contend with. Picking up Communism for State Property is often a must so you don't die from the colonial maintenance costs once you start capturing cities over there.

 

[jorissimo]

Thanks. I've been playing this game for nearly 20 years. If I wait until I'm comfortable on immortal, I'll be decades in the ground before I ever get there, I reckon.

The same goes for me. I've had some really long hiatuses though. But civ feels kinda like chess in this regard: don't play for a few years and your rating will certainly nosedive. Anyway, maybe I should rephrase. Do isolation at a given level once you're comfortable at that level. In your case you'd be good to go on Monarch, but since you've recently moved back up to Emperor, I just wanted to point out that it's tough and non-standard.

 

[sampsa]

Great post Izuul! One factual correction though:

Philo leaders can get 4 GS in the same amount of time others can get 2 so they can build an Academy and bulb Optics, and still get the 2 GS for Astro later.

this is not true. For non-PHI leaders 2 GS cost 100+200= 300. For PHI leaders 4 GS cost (100+200+300+400)/2=500. For PHI leaders 3 GS cost 300 i.e. the same as 2 GS for non-PHI leaders.

 

[Gumbolt]

Is this going to turn into an earliest date for astronomy save challenge thread? Cottages and learn how to bulb astronomy.

I think on Monarch 800ad is more than possible. Of course we don't know how good or bad the OP playstyle is.

 

[drewisfat]

Imo how many cities you should build in isolation pre-optics depends on how many cities can have a fair number of cottages. Sure, around 4 cities will be optimal for optics/astro timing, but I'd rather be a handful of turns later to those if it meant I had a dozen extra cottages developing. Often with iso you get pure seafood cities - those can wait. But if you've got great land you should invest in it as you know the game will be long.

 

[Gumbolt]

Great post Izuul! One factual correction though:

this is not true. For non-PHI leaders 2 GS cost 100+200= 300. For PHI leaders 4 GS cost (100+200+300+400)/2=500. For PHI leaders 3 GS cost 300 i.e. the same as 2 GS for non-PHI leaders.

The philosophical trait adds +100% to the base great people points. (GPP)
The parth wonder adds 50% to the base rate.
Golden age adds 100% to the base rate.
Pacifism civic can add 100% if the city has the religion. Philosophy is a distraction from optics beeline.
National epic can add 100% bonus to city it is built in.

Most people only run specialists during golden ages. if you do it right you could have a 450% bonus on the base rate.Some will argue building National Epic is not really worth it. Sury is not philosophical.So 350%.

If you build TGLib too this gives an additional 6 GGP from the scientists and 2 GPP more from the wonder itself.

So in a golden age 3 GPP is worth at least 9GPP a turn. Likely more if you abuse the above list.

For isolated you may just want the GS super quick.Running 2 scientists outside of a golden age will slow a cities growth.

 

[Fippy]

Great post Izuul! One factual correction though:

this is not true. For non-PHI leaders 2 GS cost 100+200= 300. For PHI leaders 4 GS cost (100+200+300+400)/2=500. For PHI leaders 3 GS cost 300 i.e. the same as 2 GS for non-PHI leaders.

I think what Izuul meant is: If 3 cities start on scientists for Optics & 2x Astro (after a first GS was already created and used for an Academy),
the last Astro GS requires just 33 turns = same amount as non-phi leaders need for GS #2.

 

[Izuul]

Thank you both for the clarification. I was indeed thinking about the 4th GS taking the same number of turns as the 2nd GS for a non-Philo leader and not the total amount of GPP needed to get 4 vs 2. The actual timing is obviously more complicated because it depends on how many cities are running scientists and when you start them.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Here are some general pointers for isolation.

Oh wow. That's awesome. Many thanks! I'll try to put all that info to good use tomorrow.

Oh, I forgot to mention before that in my last game I was also able to pick up Colossus and the Mids. I feel that running Rep helped, and the extra commerce from colossus didn't hurt either, but I'm now wondering whether the actual numbers are likely to support that intuition. This game can be deceptive that way. But it's not like those cities were doing much anyway.

 

[soundjata]

On my part, I think > 50% of deity iso require Monarchy.
More often than not, you don't have the trait (charismatic) or the resources (just one silver / fur / whale etc...)
you cannot tech efficiently to Optics without sufficient size in your few cities (need to breed scientists as well!)

Of course on other levels, Monarchy is probably a detour.