How to stay up in techs while isolated???

[ice2k4]

Recently I started a Continents Game (non-cutsom game) and set the difficulty to Prince and the Map Size to Standard. The Game speed was Normal. I picked Julius Caeser because Praetorians are just rape if you have iron. With Praetorians you can easily take your continent before you meet the other civs.

Either way I thought I got a decent start, and fully explored my continent, no one was to be found. This called for a change in gameplan. Continental Conquest was no longer an option, I shot out to expand.

So I covered 66% of my continent and Mansa sails a caravel over to me. My first met civ! I open up the diplo and he has atleast 10 or so techs more then me (and I dont have any he doesnt have.) He is only 100 points ahead of me. As more and more civs visit me I realize I am in dead last, 700 points out of first (Victoria.)

I haven't accepted defeat and I've never got my own continent when playing on continents. Not only was it my own island, but it was a full sized continent, the rest of the civs got cramped on two tiny continents.

I thought that settling all those cities, while keeping my science rate at 100% would give me a huge boost in techs. (I didnt settle the very top half of my continent because it meant settling a few cities in jungle and I didnt want to take my science rate below 70%.)

Now I'm still working on that game and Im going for a diplo victory, becasue no other victory is possible.

However what I want to know, is how do I get ahead or keep up to pace in techs if I ever get a start like that again??? I obviously lose some research pace becasue of the boost meeting other civs gives you, and I also wasnt able to trade techs because I knew no one. So what do you recommend for a situation like this?

Edit: ALso let it be known that I founded Confucianism and spread it to all my cities so my economy was helped by that. I also had a large military of praetorians to keep all my citizens happy through hereditary rule, and it looked like my military outnumbered the other civs, but because of my place in techs, the power graph showed me way below.

 

[Meatbuster]

I thought that settling all those cities, while keeping my science rate at 100% would give me a huge boost in techs. (I didnt settle the very top half of my continent because it meant settling a few cities in jungle and I didnt want to take my science rate below 70%.)

...

Edit: ALso let it be known that I founded Confucianism and spread it to all my cities so my economy was helped by that. I also had a large military of praetorians to keep all my citizens happy through hereditary rule, and it looked like my military outnumbered the other civs, but because of my place in techs, the power graph showed me way below.

You should've expanded as soon as you could! I think the a rule I find true in Civ is: if you're making money or breaking even at 90-100% you need to expand or war. Maybe the 70-80% with more cities can do more research than your 100% with fewer cities. And you have more cities to spread the religion to, right?

You DO have Iron Working right? I'm sure you have excess workers to remove the jungle problem.

If you wish to continue the game, I think you can salvage the game if you open borders with the other civs and run free market. The trade routes will benefit you more than them. Also try warring with the weakest civ offshore with all your excess Praetorians being used as monarchy police.

 

[svv]

I don't know except to beeline optics and then alphabet, so that it's your caravel sailing around meeting everybody instead of waiting for one of theirs to come to you. I'd say the same thing goes if you've got one or two others on your continent but you know there are a lot more out there.

 

[CrimsonEdge]

If you have a continent of your own, a change of gameplan is required. Whenever I find myself alone on an island or large set of land that I know I'll be safe on for a long period of time is to settle as many cities as possible. Cover your continent and put your capital in the middle.

You'll want to have lots of research pumping, and I do mean lots. Find the three best areas on your hunk of land with the best hammer output and make them your research depots. Use only as much farm land that is needed to get your city to max/near max, put mines on hills, and fill the rest of the spots with cottages. Make these towns pump out the research. Fill them with libraries, universities, and all of those research boosting wonders. Inbetween building things, put the town on research.

You'll want to have 3 or more commerce cities as well, especially later on in the game so you can buy your techs.

Have some great person cities as well, possibly geared towards science. Merchants can help GREATLY later on, especially since you'll be far away from the enemy.

The rest of your cities won't matter as much. Have them build lots of military so when you DO get invaded, you can defend. Turning on Mercantilism and Representation early on can seriously help your research, especially in your GP cities.

One last thing, you'll probably have to have some major happyness boosters going on in your towns. Putting your research at 80% and your culture at 20% can net you some nice smiles while netting you some extra cash that full 100% research wouldn't. Notre Dam is nice to have as well.

 

[civtrader]

While you are alone on the continent, you should not build high-cost units as police. build cheap defence units to keep you cities happy and use ALL cities for resarch to grab high-cost-techs to trade.

But now you have the military...so attack someone!

 

[Wlauzon]

I just finished a similar game at Prince. 5 custom continents.

In 1949 I got future tech 1. I was 19 (!!) techs ahead of Genghis.

Played Asoka, who is great for rapid expansion on open continents if you have no nearby rivals. When I play a continent to myself, I don't even build military until I get gunpowder, unless I need a few cheap units for riot control.

 

[cabert]

i won't go very far, since most of the advice you've got are good.

A few points :
- under the jungle, there is grassland. Grassland is great for cottages. + you already have a need for IW (praets), so it's not a big deal to settle in the jungle. Just try to find fresh water and good food ressources.
- being isolated is good to avoid invasion. It's bad for trading. So breaking isolation doesn't mean being able to actually travel to the other island. It just means seeing the other civs. You can grow culturally a few coastal cities to see further and thus achieve contact. You also should beeline to optics, then astronomy.
- 100 % research is usually bad. It means you're a lazy expansionnist
- war against tech superior opponents is doable. What you need are numbers + colateral damaging units. Don't wait too long.

 

[Gaizokubanou]

I cottaged spam in my prince game when I was all alone as Churchill. Because I actually had the largest landmass (others had larger continents, but they had to share ), I was able to keep the tech level up, and it was I who actually discovered the AI first with a caraven. After couple of tech trading with lesser nations, I was right in second place on the score board, and by using fairly straight forward diplomacy, I was able to corner the leading civ by having all other civs declaring war on it (which was somewhat easy since I had a tech or two left to trade, so I gave a tech away for a war). Than I just warmongered my way to the top.

But your game sounds pretty grim and unsalvagible...

 

[Rast]

Solo starts aren't bad usually, but they do call for a change in plans. Generally I only build enough military to keep the barbs off my back, beeline to writing (for library spam), then optics, then build some caravals and research alphabet.

The only real key to a successful island start for me is to get optics FAST - this is my #1 priority, everything else supports this. As long as I'm the first to optics it doesn't matter if I skipped a lot of crap to get it since I can trade for it once I find some other civs.

After that astromony so I can trade, depending on how things look I generally decide then if I want to go for science/culture (both generally pretty easy on island starts since you're insulated from the other civs), or go for chemistry/military tradition and start the invasion.

 

[cabert]

the hard part about isolated start is barb fighting.
Fogbusting is the way to go although it's costing a lot...

I try to clear one side of the "island" of fog, and settle asap in the other.

 

[Jonny211]

I'm currently at 1400AD or so in a similar game to yours... I'm third in the table and maybe top of the techs, I'd recommend beelining to Chemistry and rushing your weakest neighnour with Grenadiers and Frigates. At least that's what I'll be doing when I get home later!

 

[jerVL/kg]

Build the Pyramids (for Representation), beeline Banking for Mercantilism. Prioritize Writing (for Libraries), Education (Universities), and Printing Press (extra money for villages & towns.) Cottage EVERYTHING. Build the Great Library, if you can. Assign Scientist specialists for Academies & lightbulbing techs. Found at least one religion, two or three if you can, build monasteries.

Don't worry about military except for barbarian defense -- archers, chariots & axemen are plenty. (But make sure you're on the path to Gunpowder & Chemistry for when you meet other civs.)

Also, when you build your first caravel, bring an EXPLORER to pop those goodie huts on far-flung islands. If you're very, very lucky, you might get ASTRONOMY as a free tech...and then you will truly rule the globe!