How Would You Handle This Situation?

[isau]

Background: Immortal Difficulty. I'm Theodora/Byzantine. Got the third pick of religions but still managed to pick up Pagodas, the belief that grants +gold per number of followers, and +2 gold for each city following.

The start for the capital was rather amazing--3 wheat, 4 salt within bounds, then discovered one Iron, and also horses, all next to a desert and a lake. The city itself is built on top of a Marble resource. I went with Tradition and with the help of two nearby Culture city states zipped through it.

Then I hit the snag: I'm totally boxed in. Other than Kamahameha, I've only met Hiawatha, and it took 90 turns to do that because the southern pass is blocked by mountains that I had to get Optics to sail around. There are 3 city states eating up the entire eastern coast and some crap land to my south just north of the mountains with very few available resources.


Here it is on a map. As you can see from the screenshots, I'm stagnating in Science. I placed my second city on the mountain side of Haiwatha and declared war--I thought maybe with Dromons and CBs I could wear him down. No such luck though, the way his cities are configured along with the terrain makes any unit that tries to advance on him die within a turn or two. I managed to pillage a few of his resources but he's built up a wall of death that I can't advance on any further. (Likewise he can't advance on me because of the location of my second city.)


So the question is, how would you have avoided this situation? Just tried to make due with the tiny landspace in my starting area? Tried to quickly tech up to Caravels? Tried harder for Open Borders and risk ending up with a split empire on? Something else?


Start area:


Area near Hiawatha:

 

[uncle bulgaria]

There are far far better players on here than me but my £0.02 worth is I reckon I'd have built a city on your side of the mountains next to the river and coastal tiles. Chop a few of those forest tiles and get farms out, combined with lumber mills that could have been a reasonably decent city before too long.

Maybe annex one or two of those city states and use internal trade routes to grow tall. With those mountains you'd have quite a defendable little area to maybe try to turtle up in and try for a science win?

You need a coastal city on your side of the mountain to link up your second city and further potential expansion to your trade network as your capital is landlocked and you can't use roads because of the mountains.

Looks like one of those initially really promising starts that turns out to be a bit rubbish really.

The AI has placed those cities very nicely

 

[dragonxxx]

Something is definitely wrong here. Why is your science that low? I assume you have no Education yet? Your capital is fairly small too, with so much salt and what it seems like a decent land you should have 3-4 more citizens there by now.

Getting Onondaga should not be very hard from what I see here btw, just take it and some other cities from him and use em as your expansions.

There is enough place to plant another city between the two you have btw. It does not have a lux, but better to have it anyway. Gotta produce that army somewhere ...

 

[dragonxxx]

btw, can u post the initial save?

 

[kamikazees]

Do you have libraries and the national college? Your science seems low for T120, although it looks like you are getting education bt T128, so that's not too bad.

I think I would have settled my 2nd city on the other side of the mountain, coastal and next to the river/mountain. You would have 2 cities that could do gardens, and 1 that could build an observatory. From there, I probably would have built like 3 or 4 dromons/galleases along with a land army to take buffalo creek. That would give you a beachhead to take his capitol.

If he was too strong for dromons/galleases, you have 4 iron in your cap. 4 frigates would crush those coastal cities... but buffalo creek only has 15 defense. Comps/galleases and a couple of pikes should be able to take that.

 

[isau]

Something is definitely wrong here. Why is your science that low? I assume you have no Education yet? Your capital is fairly small too, with so much salt and what it seems like a decent land you should have 3-4 more citizens there by now.

Getting Onondaga should not be very hard from what I see here btw, just take it and some other cities from him and use em as your expansions.

There is enough place to plant another city between the two you have btw. It does not have a lux, but better to have it anyway. Gotta produce that army somewhere ...

It's possibly partly because as Theodora I had to race like mad to get my religion, and only barely got it even with Desert Folklore. That meant working some a couple of unideal desert tiles for a little while. I suspect Egypt is somewhere in the world too, because World Wonders were being snapped up left and right. Hanging Gardens was gone by turn 60-something. I do have the Oracle, a National College and a Library in the capital, along with a Granary.

I may restart this game and try again with a second city just north of the mountain to send population to the capital. I think that's where I really got hurt and waited too long to expand.

I should also have mentioned that I nearly always play Domination victories... or some version there of. Usually, on Immortal, I lose, but mainly by stalemate rather than anihilation.

As for invading him, what you can't see in that second screenshot is the tons of units he has hanging around. He had been planning to invade me for a while I suspect, even before I forward-settled on him. Literally one turn after I met him Polynesia tried to bribe me into war with him.

 

[isau]

I forgot to mention one other detail. Right before I declared war, Hiawatha had sent a Great Prophet at my capital! I made a nice holy site out of him. But war was clearly inevitable.

 

[funkymunky]

I would've probably founded a second city on my side of the mountains, like near that iron & fish to the south, and then focus on conquering those city states after that. The southern one appears to have gold, which would be good to have. Can't tell about the northern one, as the larger image doesn't open, so it's hard to see from the thumbnail, but being so close to your capital and being scare for land, it seems it would still be a good addition to your lands until you get caravels. Also, I think I would've picked the pantheon that gives culture for jungle. That would probably make you super progressive with all that jungle in the south. Perhaps max out tradition to get better upward growth until you can go seaward. I also wouldn't have picked on Hiawatha so soon. The mountains make it hard to get to them, unless you're Carthage, but they will probably also give you good protection for quite a while, and buy you time to get to Nav so you can expand seaward. Plus, it looks like for you a strong navy would make for the best military, with Dromon UU & mountains basically making the only way to you being by sea.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

I wouldn't try to take the city states. Second city on your side of the mountain, send food to Byzantium. Completely ignore the bottom of the tech tree, take the Iroquois out with a navy if you want.

 

[yasinbin]

Annex that coastal CS with gold,iron and fish....send a caravan to my capital for food. max tradition. rage most of the tiles of Onnodaga,buffalo creek then i would make peace with Hiwatha for some gpt....for at lest another 30 turns.
I would have put the second city r on my side of mountain, beside the river in the jungle tile. I could get the fish and cow as they are in 3 tiles radius.

 

[Greizer85]

'Annex that City State'... What am I missing here..? The last time I did that, I was world pariah for 3,000 years! Is it the case that civs you haven't met yet won't know about it? If so, then it would be worth doing in isolated starts... Can anyone confirm whether this is the case?

 

[katfish]

'Annex that City State'... What am I missing here..? The last time I did that, I was world pariah for 3,000 years! Is it the case that civs you haven't met yet won't know about it? If so, then it would be worth doing in isolated starts... Can anyone confirm whether this is the case?

Yes. Pretty funny when other civs discover your small continent with 4 puppets.
"Warmonger? Naaah it aint me, it was like that when i came."

 

[Louis XXIV]

I think you can get away with taking one and it's probably worth it in that situation.

Adrianople wouldn't have been my idea location just because it looks precarious and is hard to set up a city connection. It's a salvagable game, although I do think you need more cities and you need to get across the ocean and meet people.

 

[bcaiko]

I doubt you'll ever repair relations with Hiawatha. Even if you hadn't declared war, you've settled right on his borders and are competing for Religions. Hiawatha won't stand for that.

Like others have said, you should Annex the city-state to your south to give yourself breathing room and link up your empire. Fortify your southern most city. And start making nice with Kamehameha so both sides of the continent will be playing against the middle.