Island start with one neighbour

[Baldas]

Hi. I am new to this discussion board and fairly new to Civ4, although I did play a lot of Civ1 and Civ2 years ago. I have been reading these strategy discussions with interest, as there are a lot of good tips out there.

In the early versions of Civ, I generally tried to destroy my neighbours as quickly as I could, but I think in Civ4 I need to be a bit more subtle. Which leads me to a question about the game I have just started. I am JC of the Romans and I'm on a fairly large island with only Saladin for company. I have divided the island by building my second city at a choke point, leaving me lots of room to expand peacefully, and him a much smaller area to expand unless he comes round with galleys or declares war and marches through. I don't think he has any galleys yet.

There are plenty of resources in my area, like iron (next to the capital!), horses, gold, marble, stone (inconveniently placed), but no copper. Saladin has horses and various others, but possibly also no copper, although I can't see all of his land. Saladin has founded Buddhism, and I haven't discovered any religions yet but I am researching towards Code of Laws to get courthouses and Confucianism (hopefully I'll found it). I have only two cities and so does Saladin, but it is still very early in the game. I don't know who else is out there yet, but I am protected from them for a while by ocean.

My question (finally!) is what I should do with Saladin and what I should do about religion. At the moment we have met and made peace, but that is all. I don't need his area of the island for expansion, and in many ways it would be easier to let him develop it and defend it from invaders, with the option of taking it all for myself later of course. I will have enough to do developing and defending my larger portion of the island.

I have read here about isolated starts and why they are bad because of no technology exchange, and that is another reason to resist my urge to destroy (I'm not like this in real life, honestly). So if I'm going to be friends with Saladin should I adopt Buddhism when it spreads to my cities, or found Confucianism myself for the benefits of having a holy city? I know I could get a holy city by invading Saladin and taking his, but his holy city is far into his land and I'd have to obliterate him to get it, and I'd like to avoid an isolated start, which is what it would become.

Remember I am a novice at Civ4. I am on Noble level, and do not have the Warlords expansion. Thanks for any advice from more experienced players.

Baldas

 

[Welnic]

If your culture at the choke point makes it out into the ocean far enough that he can't hug the coast without being in your culture, then he can't get by with galleys.

It won't really help tech trading wise to be friendly with him. AIs do not trade techs that they think they have a monopoly on, so a certain percentage of all the civs that they know have to also know the tech. Since Saladin just knows you, he is not going to trade any techs. Mansa Musa is the only leader who will trade a tech that only he knows. If you hover over Saladins redded out techs you see "We are not ready to trade this away just yet" (not exact).

So your main worry will have to be keeping up tech wise with the other civs. I wouldn't found a religion as that means that there is one more religion that the rest of the world has to stir further unrest. You need to get to optics in order to meet everyone else.

I would probably wipe out Saladin. What else are you going to do with those Praets?

 

[mice]

First off, welcome to civfanatics

If it were me I would take Saladin's religion if yuo're not going to attack He is , along with Issy, very unhappy with civs with other religions. It's not worth the bother.

As for the shrine, take it later.

You will effectively be isolated because Saladin wont trade unless he has contact with one other civ.

This is one reason to attack him. You can extort techs for peace. Crippling him would be a good idea. then grabbing the shrine and his capital at your leisure.

So in that case religion doesn't matter much. Beeline to catapults and hammer him.

Or, tech as quickly as possible to Optics and send a caravel to other continents. Then you can tech trade. In that case not having a religion at al is bette for first contacts.

Small trick, give away a cheap tech on first meeting of a new civ and your diplo rating will go up quite a bit.

 

[Welnic]

Extorted techs for peace is a great idea. Normally that doesn't work that well to get very many techs because every time you declare war after a peace treaty you get a new "You attacked my friend" with everyone else. But Saladin doesn't know anyone else.

 

[mice]

The other thing is that his UU is a Knight so it's better to slam him with the preatorians before the medieval times set in, and make sure he gets no horses.

 

[Baldas]

Thanks Welnic and Mice, that is useful advice.

I had forgotten about galleys not being able to get through the culture border at sea (it isn't big enough yet, but it will be). And I didn't know that Saladin won't trade techs in this situation, so that changes things a bit. Yes, optics is starting to look much more important, and starting a religion less so.

Thanks.

 

[Munch]

The other thing is that his UU is a Knight so it's better to slam him with the preatorians before the medieval times set in, and make sure he gets no horses.

Saladin's unique unit doesn't require horses! All the more reason to destroy him quickly with praetorians.