Is this winnable? (emperor/fractal/normal speed)

Short of some sort of impossible situation like GHP just described every map is winnable -- it just may be the situation that even the best players would usually lose, or would lose the first playthrough before they knew the map layout.

I'll go out on a limb and say there's no naturally spawned map (on fractal/pangaea/continents, etc) that is impossible to beat, even on Deity, even with culture/AP excluded.

If you can survive until nukes you can beat enemies many times stronger than you. Even with a horrible land disadvantage a good player can get to nukes before the AI launches a space ship, by using tech trades / bulbs / resource for GPT / espionage economy.

So the main challenge is surviving, which may be impossible with some horrid early DOW luck, but DOW luck is just that, luck. Luck will change from game to game, so the map would not be impossible. On a gamier note, you can argue that any game where you win with reloads, even 100 reloads, was inherently not impossible. If you can avoid a DOW long enough to where you manipulate diplomacy to get the AI pleased/friendly you're in the clear.

The other big early game threat is being cut off with too little land. But GLH can carry your economy on life support even with god awful cities. And if you don't have enough room to build enough even marginal cities, then you're probably close enough to the AI to choke them.
 
I just beat this game. I normally play immortal (marathon though) so thought that an emperor game would be pretty easy, even if a hard map.
BUT! I am not used to standard speed (still wasn't too bad though). The major thing: this map is brutal. Bad starting location, no happy resources before a single calendar resource (multiple copies for trade at least), only 1 AI you can for sure meet before optics and it's "I don't like trading even though you're the only one in the world not completely beyond me in tech and thus my only potential trade partner" Toku (OTOH, I actually met Zara before optics, and If I had realized what the map looked like, I might've been able to meet darius a little sooner, as he beat me to optics).
Meeting Zara did nothing other than allow me to improve diplo a little sooner, as we couldn't trade with one another (ocean tile) and he was way ahead in tech. I lost lib by... a lot. I didn't even try for it, just went for Astro.
Right as I was getting ready to bulb astro, darius gets it and trades it away. I managed to trade it for multiple back techs to someone though, so not a complete waste. Finally got a monopoly at replaceable parts and traded it to all but my targets (Toku and Darius, who was a behemoth in number of cities but was oddly behind, extra weird since he shopped astro around), and traded rifling away too when I got it (again, not to toku or darius). Even then I was still backwards, but not as backwards as toku and darius :).
Drafted a LOT (all cities pissed off), crushed toku, drafted in all of toku's cities and my cities again (completely wiped toku out so I could draft in his cities) and was 1 turn from declaring on Darius when he signed a defensive pact with tech leader Asoka.
Said **** it, and Dow'd anyway ~1350 AD. IT took a LONG time before I could get peace with asoka, as his destroyers and infantry were wrecking havoc on my wooden boats and riflemen. Finally got 1k gold to get asoka out of war in ~1700.... and Darius peacevassals to a friendly Zara who now dow's on me. He was friendly! The asshat! Taking out darius took from 1350AD to 1800 AD (!) thanks mostly to his partner asoka and then zara. But by then I had infantry and zara only had rifles and cavalry, and I crushed zara by ~1850. I got ramesses to declare on zara for a bribe too, but that backfired when ramesses capitulated to Zara (arg) from solely losing lots of wooden boats to destroyers (zara never took a city nor even invaded as far as I can tell). Killed zara, killed ramesses, game over. For the heck f it, I played on and nuked augustus and asoka into nothingness.
 
Congrats, traius. :) This map certainly is harder than a random immortal/marathon game.

To the end

Spoiler :
After teching engineering, I decided to get astronomy anyway, despite it was not needed to reach other civs. I just had the 2xGS ready to bulb it after optics and couldn't see any other useful tech to aim for. I could bulb towards liberalism too, but to take what? Astronomy would be the most useful tech anyway, beneficial stuff at war (=steel) is just too far away for now. After astro towards feudalism to be able to take vassals and to run vassalage. All cities except capital whipping units non-stop from now on, whipping away everything else but food resources and cottaged floodplains. Soon was ready to attack Tokugawa. He was much behind in tech and didn't have convincing defenses.



Toku got seaschneckted and was willing to capitulate soon. Gave him his capital back, as I didn't want to invest a ton of troops to prevent revolts.



Started a 2nd golden age to revolt to vassalage and caste to generate some more :gp: and by the end of GA to vassalage-slavery-theocracy where I stayed until the end of the game. Buddhism was spread out to all my core cities.



Next was Zara, who had four nice cities for me with lots of pop to whip away. Also finally got a xp 10 unit (somehow blew it in Toku war) and put the HE to the capital for the infamous HE/NE-combo. ;) Also settled most of my GG:s there.



Tech was pretty much killed at this point, but it's not a huge deal. I don't really need techs anymore. However, with trades and with the help of vassals I was able to reach some useful techs before the game is done.

After Zara I attacked Darius of course, who was the biggest threat.



Amphibious knights.:hammer:



Maintenance 45 :gold:pt... No, I refuse to build a rathaus! Need to whip moar units!



After Darius was done, I gave Asoka some crIII-schnechkt action. He had been the target of a holy war and was an easy victim.

By this point, I had bulbed chemistry with a GS, so I was able to bombard coastal cities with frigates.



Ramesses had nothing, but Auggie has a decent stack. Still, he doesn't have enough siege to harm me. Speaking of siege, my mistake in the end was that I didn't build enough trebs and it's starting to show. Of course bombarding from the sea helps a bit.



Won lib just for fun. Upgraded 4 trebs to cannons, but it was all cosmetics at this point. Building wealth in all my core cities, so I'm not losing :gold: @ 0% :)



No trebs, so need to attack with bad odds. :blush: I have plenty of units so it doesn't matter though.





Finally they realize that resistance is futile. Conquest 1380 AD.





Warring wasn't terribly hard, just whip units, move units around with galleons, capture cities. I guess the part where most people struggle is setting up your empire in the BCs.
 
I have 5 cities now, with tokugawa still at cautious. He's not plotting, but he's not willing to accept any of my cities. Anyone know what could cause this?
 
I have 5 cities now, with tokugawa still at cautious. He's not plotting, but he's not willing to accept any of my cities. Anyone know what could cause this?

He probably has more than three cities. You can still possibly organize a gift city, but it must be on his island (depending on how he has settled, it's possible that you can't get there due to his borders blocking).

If gifting is impossible, either live with it for now (you will get him to pleased eventually after alpha via gifting techs) or re-load/re-start. ;)
 
In my time here I have seen only one game that fits this, and was only (almost certainly) unwinnable as the OP had already settled.
I don't remember the specifics of the island, but if I said it was 5*5 it would be a reasonable approximation. And on that island the capital had been settled in place.... in the middle.... with no coastal access.... and no possibility of settling any other city :goodjob:

lol. If the continent is sailable though, you might meet an AI. I wonder if it is ever possible to get friendly enough with an AI that they sell you a city? I guess you'd have to rush paper (to trade maps to see the city? can you ever trade for cities that you can't see?) and then currency to hoard gold to buy the city with.

I don't know enough about diplomacy to know how much you would need to buy a city.
 
lol. If the continent is sailable though, you might meet an AI. I wonder if it is ever possible to get friendly enough with an AI that they sell you a city? I guess you'd have to rush paper (to trade maps to see the city? can you ever trade for cities that you can't see?) and then currency to hoard gold to buy the city with.

I don't know enough about diplomacy to know how much you would need to buy a city.
Under normal conditions you cannot 'buy' a city while at peace (they tend to be redded out), they can only be 'bought' at war through war success and power, which you wouldn't be likely to ever get enough of, with just one city and no ships!

IIRC cities that are in a position where they could be liberated to you, do turn white during peace, allowing you to request them in a trade. Though under normal conditions you cannot offer anything back.... but GUI bugs may come to the rescue! :lol:
 
I've been running through this with limited success. Eng beeline seems the way to go. I found a new trick. Send a settler into the wilderness, find a barb, build city 1 tile from the barb, immediately gift city to an AI for diplo bonus, next turn barb autorazes city.
 
That's a pretty funny move, I'll have to remember that the next time the barbs are about to take one of my cities. But wait, doesn't gifting the city create two defenders? Or is that only when gifting to a vassal?
 
That's a pretty funny move, I'll have to remember that the next time the barbs are about to take one of my cities. But wait, doesn't gifting the city create two defenders? Or is that only when gifting to a vassal?
I think units are only created when you grant independence to a colony.
 
Returning captured cities also gives a garrison (maybe just to vassals).
 
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