How to play this island start?

[cleverhandle]

Feeling a bit frustrated with this game, my first shot at Monarch. It's still too early to see what kind of hole I'm in, but it definitely doesn't feel good at the moment - my economy is starting to grind down. I'm curious how people deal with starts like this one.

Game: Monarch, Standard Continents, 7 civs
Civ: China, Qin (Ind/Fin)

Situation: It's me on an island, all by my lonesome. Not another civ or any landmass in sight of the shores. Decent food sources, decent land, but zero luxuries. Zero. Well, OK... there are some whales on the frozen far north end of the island, but I still don't have Optics. Plenty of copper and horses (of course - since an early rush would have been so helpful) though no iron. I'm a few turns from Machinery and have the other prereqs for Optics when I get my first contact, with the Incas - Wayne is ahead of me, his 1000 to my 900, though he has only 6 cities to my 8 (IIRC).

I haven't met anyone else yet, so as I said it's still too early to draw many conclusions about my future. In fact, I'm a little surprised that Wayne isn't further out in front of me. I'm really more interested in what general principles people use to play this kind of start and what VC they shoot for. Particular areas of interest...

City development: I'm figuring that on an island start, you want to spread more (while still hitting important bonus resources) so that you're not stuck paying lots of maintenance for a lot of cities when your economy is already going to be struggling. That was pretty much what I followed after my second city, which was when I realized that I was all alone. What about numbers? It seems like 9 cities is a good target number, but I feel like I'm struggling with maintenance and I'm not even there yet. An obvious benefit of an island is the lack of land grab pressure, but I don't really want to leave any open space by the time Astronomy rolls around for the AI's.

Religion: Worth trying for with Qin in this situation? He's not the best for religion, but I didn't want to get stuck as a Pagan until Optics, especially with the near total lack of luxuries on my island. I had hoped to get Judaism since I at least had Mining for Masonry, but I was about 10 turns late on that. I knew I would need Monarchy early (again, no luxes), so after getting that I went for Theology and got Christianity, which I was surprised at. Still, I'm not certain that was the best play, given the many techs I'm still missing.

Tech: What to research? My original thought (and the one I played out in the attached game) was to head for Optics as soon as reasonably possible in order to get the heck off the island and pick up some tech trades before I was so behind as to have nothing tradeable. Sounds good in theory, but unfortunately a lot of the bottom techs are not so useful to me - it's mostly militaristic stuff in the metals branch of the tree. And nothing to help my cities - I basically stopped researching the top after Writing (for libraries and Theology) and found that my cities had nothing to build except military. No markets, aqueducts, colosseums, theatres, etc. So now I've been garrisoning about 4 units per city to keep them stable (no luxes), and have support costs weighing down my budget. I just grabbed Alphabet, interrupting Machinery, around 1000AD so that my larger cities could at least build research rather than more military. I'm wondering if the better research strategy is to let the AI boats come to you and focus on techs like Math and Currency that will let you get more out of your cities.


The game is attached. Comments on how to play it out or more general island-start strategies are welcome.

 

[cleverhandle]

I see the save got some views, so an update if anyone's interested...

Finished. Space Race win in 1951, ~16000 points. Pretty one-sided win, too - only Wayne and Victoria had built Apollo, but they hadn't finished a single part. Totally peaceful, never at war the entire game.

By the time I met the other AI's (about 15 turns after the first save), I found myself in the middle of the pack with the leaders (Vicky and Kublai) way ahead of me at about 1700 to my 1000. Build, build, build. Trade whatever I could for luxuries to satisfy my deprived people. The rest of the Middle Ages and Renaissance were scary - at one point I was so behind that the "available techs" in F4 needed two lines for every single civ. Kept plugging away at two-fers and three-fers and trading with Gandhi and Hatty, the other two bottom-feeders. Watched Vicky shuffling around infantry on the mainland while I still had longbows. By 1600, I had passed Wayne and was just short of Vicky and Kublai. Passed them sometime in the 1800's and then just tore away because they kept fighting amongst themselves. Ended with 3700 in-game points, 700 ahead of Kublai and 800-900 ahead of Vicky and Wayne.

Some strategic reflections...

1) While it worked out OK in the end, I think I would have had a stronger game taking a bit more balanced approach to early techs, as I mentioned in the OP. At the very least, I think it would have helped to work Alphabet, Mathematics, and Currency into the push to Optics. That would have strengthened my economy and let me settle more of my island faster.

2) There are several standouts when it comes to "catch-up" techs that the AI's rarely research and that can be traded around to make up for lost time. Philosophy and Liberalism don't seem to be researched by anyone else after the first AI gets them. Steel is another good one - I was a single turn away from grabbing a monopoly on it, despite how ridiculously behind I was at that point. Then they almost all got it the turn before me. But by far the biggest run was Biology, Medicine, Fission. The AI's had all totally ignored the first two in favor of Physics->Elec->Industrialism. By taking Bio->Medicine I caught up about 5-6 extra techs (this is when the leaders stopped trading with me due to "becoming too advanced".) And Fission grabbed the remaining 2-3 techs I was back and started off a tech lead. Fission is especially nice because a) it has a very high beaker cost compared to other contemporary techs and b) the AI seems to have no interest in researching it until after Rocketry.

3) The AI seems to have at least some idea of the difficulties that a transoceanic invasion entails, and is a bit more reluctant to declare on you because of it. Kublai was the aggressor of the game, having declared on just about everyone at some point. Every time he would ask to me to join in, I would refuse, and he would get more angry with me. By the end of the game I had I think a -7 for "refusing to help", several points of "trading with worst enemy", and no positive modifiers besides gifts. Definitely furious. But he never declared on me, even though my military was pretty crappy for most of the game.

4) Having "settlers at the ready" was essential to owning my island. By the time of Astronomy there were still two locations on the island that would claim resources, but I couldn't afford to settle another city without taking a punishing maintenance hit. So instead I built the settlers and just fortified them at my intended city site. As soon as an AI landed there, I woke them and settled. I think that this tip could be adapted to non-island games as well, though with the benefit of road movement for the AI settlers it may not be entirely foolproof.

 

[stormii]

Just read your posts and i have to say that i have been in the same position as you have. China and Qin seems to put you on a island on a standard continent map more often than others and Qin is my favorite leader. It usually works out on difficulties under monarch because i can get most of the important early wonders with wood-chopping and i'm usually taking christianity or confusism. The later is better because it also give you courthouses which helps.
What you should consider is that Qin is financiel which benifits greatly on watercities (more commerce) and that the colossus is _very_ nice to have with many watercities

I have recently tried with emperor and the tips you have written about teching could be helpful. The one try i did seemed to go very wrong because i was hopeless after in techs, scores and wonders but it seems like it's possible to turn it over (atleast on monarch).

Thank you for your thoughts, i will make a new try on that emperor game in the weekend. Now it's back to work

 

[Grogs]

2) There are several standouts when it comes to "catch-up" techs that the AI's rarely research and that can be traded around to make up for lost time. Philosophy and Liberalism don't seem to be researched by anyone else after the first AI gets them. Steel is another good one - I was a single turn away from grabbing a monopoly on it, despite how ridiculously behind I was at that point. Then they almost all got it the turn before me. But by far the biggest run was Biology, Medicine, Fission. The AI's had all totally ignored the first two in favor of Physics->Elec->Industrialism. By taking Bio->Medicine I caught up about 5-6 extra techs (this is when the leaders stopped trading with me due to "becoming too advanced".) And Fission grabbed the remaining 2-3 techs I was back and started off a tech lead. Fission is especially nice because a) it has a very high beaker cost compared to other contemporary techs and b) the AI seems to have no interest in researching it until after Rocketry.

I've had some entirely different results with some of the techs you mentioned, namely Philosophy and Liberalism. In my last 2 games, Philosophy went before I even had the prerequisite techs finished. The first was a monarch game, so not too terribly surprising, but the 2nd was on Noble. In both cases I had at least a slight, if not a commanding tech lead. I think it might be that Civs that tend to be pretty religious (Isabella for example) tend to place more value on the techs that create a religion, especially if they haven't founded one yet.

4) Having "settlers at the ready" was essential to owning my island. By the time of Astronomy there were still two locations on the island that would claim resources, but I couldn't afford to settle another city without taking a punishing maintenance hit. So instead I built the settlers and just fortified them at my intended city site. As soon as an AI landed there, I woke them and settled. I think that this tip could be adapted to non-island games as well, though with the benefit of road movement for the AI settlers it may not be entirely foolproof.

I've found this works pretty well too. I've found there are a lot of times during the game when there's nothing a city really needs to be building, so settlers is a good idea. At only 1g support cost / 2 settlers, they shouldn't break your economy nearly as much as founding new cities immediately would. I usually leave them fortified in a city near where I'm ultimately going to use them though (unless I've got something like your situation) because fortifying a settler and it's escort outside my borders will cost extra in unit supply.

 

[Samson]

I have not looked at your game, so this is from your writup. If you were to post your save from around the point where you realised you were on your own on the island I will have a play and see how I can do.

I would probably go for more cities rather than less. Until monarcy you are going to be stuck at size 4 (I think, 4 free happy faces at Monarch level?). This would be my highest priority. After that I would go for the religeons. Each one you get is an extra pop in each of your cities, as well as the extra 10% reaserch and 1 gold from the shrine. Should be very valuble in this game. Optics is going to be usfull, but remember you cannot get luxes until astronomy, so it will not help your city size (except for the whales).

The biggest thing I would do would be to prioritze cottages on the land. You do not need much pop (as your cities cannot grow) and you do not need lots of production (as you are not going to be at war for a while). Once you get monarcy each unit over the limit is going to cost you 1 gpt, but allow you to use 1 tile. Assumeing it has a cottage on, then it will soon (10 turns) be making you 2 gpt, so you make a profit from each unit. How you are ever going to get out of monarcy I do not know, but a war against a lux resorce rich AI would seem to be on the cards.

Glad you won anyway. Shows that human skill can overcome most obsticals in this game.

 

[eewallace]

Qin alone on an island can be a great setup for a cultural win OR the space race win you got. Cultural win seems pretty dependent on your ability to find optimal placement for your 3 culture cities. I managed one with Qin (on noble, though) where I was able to put my first 3 cities on the same river that I quickly was able to connect to horses, cows, wheat, silver and copper. Then added cottages. From this type of setup, you can either shoot for wonders/religion and the cultural win, or for science for the space race win.

It would be interesting to hear how others have been able to pull of any other sort of win from an isolated start...

 

[cleverhandle]

I think it might be that Civs that tend to be pretty religious (Isabella for example) tend to place more value on the techs that create a religion, especially if they haven't founded one yet.

Oh, absolutely - I wasn't saying otherwise. What I meant was that *after* one AI civ gets Philosophy or Liberalism the others seem to ignore them, presumably because the "first to discover" bonus is gone and neither tech leads to much else.

I usually leave them fortified in a city near where I'm ultimately going to use them though (unless I've got something like your situation) because fortifying a settler and it's escort outside my borders will cost extra in unit supply.

IIRC, I checked this out and found that I wasn't paying any supply cost. Perhaps you get a limited amount of free supply? Or maybe settler supply is different than military supply?

If you were to post your save from around the point where you realised you were on your own on the island I will have a play and see how I can do.

I attached the closest I had, from 450BC, along with the 4000BC. I discovered I was all alone at about the time I founded the third city (Guangzhou). At the time of the save I have my fourth, so it's a bit afterwards. Enjoy...

I would probably go for more cities rather than less. Until monarcy you are going to be stuck at size 4 (I think, 4 free happy faces at Monarch level?). This would be my highest priority. After that I would go for the religeons.

Give it a try - I'd be interested in hearing how it turned out. I admit I'm skeptical, though. Maintenance was becoming pretty crushing for me by the time I hit about 7-8 cities. I was running 40% science and my tech rate just stunk. Shooting for CoL would be interesting, since it would get both Taoism and Courthouses, which would help alleviate the problem. But by the time I discovered I was alone, I didn't have the right techs to make a play for CoL - Confucianism was discovered in 625BC.

The biggest thing I would do would be to prioritze cottages on the land. You do not need much pop (as your cities cannot grow) and you do not need lots of production (as you are not going to be at war for a while).

Yeah, that makes sense. I was going for a more balanced approach and that wasn't helping a whole lot. In a typical conts game, even if you don't go to war you can at least build some missionaries and get something out of those hammers. In this game I needed to tilt more to commerce and less to production. Though I did build the Colossus and work a lot of water tiles where possible.

Qin alone on an island can be a great setup for a cultural win OR the space race win you got. Cultural win seems pretty dependent on your ability to find optimal placement for your 3 culture cities.

I had considered going for culture (I had previously won a Culture victory on Noble from an island), but I was concerned about the lack of religions. I figure you really need multiple cathedrals to win a culture game in a reasonable amount of time. In my Noble game (as Saladin) I was able to found several religions and even then my rivals were working on SS parts by the time I won. I consider myself pretty fortunate to have gotten a single religion in this game. *Maybe* I could have gotten two, but I'm really not sure about that. As it played out, I only picked up one other religion over the course of the game, and that was at the very end when I founded one little city in the 1800's to use a few unworked tiles in the center of the island. At Monarch, starting without Mysticism, and without early trade routes and tech trades I'm just not sure that banking on multiple religions is a wise move.

 

[Samson]

I attached the closest I had, from 450BC, along with the 4000BC. I discovered I was all alone at about the time I founded the third city (Guangzhou). At the time of the save I have my fourth, so it's a bit afterwards. Enjoy...

Give it a try - I'd be interested in hearing how it turned out. I admit I'm skeptical, though. Maintenance was becoming pretty crushing for me by the time I hit about 7-8 cities. I was running 40% science and my tech rate just stunk. Shooting for CoL would be interesting, since it would get both Taoism and Courthouses, which would help alleviate the problem. But by the time I discovered I was alone, I didn't have the right techs to make a play for CoL - Confucianism was discovered in 625BC.

I shall give it a go. I have had a look, it looks OK to me. Nice island. Taoism would have been great, but I find it always goes very quickly. I shall B-line for theology after monarcy, and cross my fingers. You so HAVE to get one.

Yeah, that makes sense. I was going for a more balanced approach and that wasn't helping a whole lot.

(Taking about cottages) The pressence of barbs really means you need decent production ATM. I shall have to have full control of the island before I go fully onto cottage spam.

Thanks for the save, I shall enjoy playing it an shall let you know how I get on.