Isolated Island with Mongolia

[demetrious]

I've moved up to Prince and started a game this weekend with continents / standards / random civ.

Looking for a direction...

I got Mongolia and a river and started the well-stated chop rush start to get a few cities out.

After going down this path I realize that I am on a continent to myself - fishing boats are circling the island and I am alone. I have 4 cities and room for around 7 or 8 easily on the continent. I move towards 2 settlers and drop down cities to get to 6 cities when I realize that my reasearch drops to 40% due to upkeep. Secondly my capital and one other city are maxed out on at a pop of 6. No religion is hurting now.

So I spam cottages and push towards Currency to Code of Laws because all earlier religions are gone - beat to Judism by a few turns. Next it is to Optics and Astronomy for exploration and for trading on the high seas.

There is one major continent (6 or 7 civs) and one island continent (mine) and one small island (not inhabited - one fish resource and iron - I have 3 on my continent).

Through this phase I am in 2nd place. I barely have a military. I am 1st in GDP and have moved up to 5th in manufacturing (was dead last 20 turns ago). I am leading or tied for the lead in techs with my partner England. Cyrus is ahead - 1st in land, 1st in pop (double mine) but I'm starting to close the gap. It is around 1830.

I am now building frigates and have completed the Heroic Epic in my best production city to build riflemen - so trying to build the military now for the first time in the game.

What direction should be next??

My production simply is not good enough for an assault onto the other continent. I'll be lucky if I can hold off an invasion if one comes. I'm trying to help England / Germany and not Cyrus in trades hoping that a world war will break out on the other island. England is friendly and Germany is pleased (one point below friendly) so diplomatic is probably an option. Culture victory is gone due to one religion and lack of planning for that. Space race seems unlikely with my production issues but maybe that is an option.

Overall I'm really pretty pleased with my play thus far - good for me I think. Mongolia and the isolated continent aren't a good match. I think if I were financial it would be over. That said, I'm clearly in 2nd and without some good moves - Cyrus will be victorious. He's around 2700, I'm at 2250 and the others sit at 2000 or less range. About 30 turns ago I was neck and neck with England and Russia so the 2nd largest land mass is paying off.

Should I place a city on the remaining isolated island? It is fair but certainly not great. I have around 8 cities right now.

Finally, Cyrus plopped down one city on my continent and it is getting close to flipping due to culture. It is 58% down from 65% around 15 turns ago - pop of around 6-8.

High priority to navel units and neglect costly ground unit techs??

Thanks for any thoughts or ideas. Wonders are low likelihood due to production ranking. No pictures unfortunately due to work locale.

 

[Wodan]

Which Mongolia are you?

Since you chose the cottage / research path, I'm thinking you have little choice but to go for a spaceship or time victory. You seem to be fairly high on VP, so that might be a good option.

Spaceship might be hard if your production is really that low. I'd head pretty straight for the Elevator, building Labs in all your cities. Should be do-able. If anybody else is challenging you for a tech lead, make sure they get involved in wars.

Timed win is probably easier. Max out things that give you points. Don't recall exactly what, but it's probably things like citizen happiness, culture, winning battles. If this is what you want, then you probably want to move your culture slider to 20% or so and leave it there the rest of the game. Really.

Wodan

 

[demetrious]

Genghis.

It is funny to read "chose" the cottage / research path. I mean I guess that is correct but it certainly was not the intent at the first turn - to me it was forced to survive I chopped quite a bit early and then expanded leaving me in a hole financially, then I realized I needed to get out to Optics and Astronomy to compensate for the island. I guess that points out I'm not Civ guru.

The island removed any aggressive early stance and after the chopping there is little production to be found.

I guess the other major route to this point would be isolationalist type approach and go for a balanced production / financial path more focused on culture victory. I just don't have a single city with 2 food resources and don't have a GP farm and with the happiness issues, it wouldn't have worked for a long time anyway. I needed trade for happiness.

Elevator is a good thought. I have never built that and that does seem like a way to really boost production.

 

[Wodan]

If you head pretty much straight for the Elevator, and build it in your best production city, by the time you're done you should have about half the Techs you need for spaceship parts, plus you'll have Labs in all your cities (+25% spaceship production).

Usually I go straight for the 3-river gorge dam, then from there straight for the Elevator. Make sure you meet the reqs for both, though.

good luck.

Wodan

ps Oh and if you really have tons of cottages, be sure and run Univ Suffrage for the hammer benefit

 

[voek]

Get the other civs to go to war. It will slow them down. Be carefull in setting up sides. If they easily win the war, they will only gain (production). For example; get 2 average civs to attack Cyrus, not one otherwise he will be crushed. Offcourse, you wont get everybody to do bend to your will but be carefull in setting up wars. In my last emperor game it was the key to victory. (With a little backstabbing ) A good war can help you very much , even when you are not involved.

 

[demetrious]

A morning update:

Unfortunately, the war broke out at home rather than overseas. The Incans declared war and immediately landed a large stack next to a small (8th most critical city) and destroyed it one turn later.

Of note: I wish Sentry picked up transports or at least acknowledged that there was a large "obvious" invasion force coming. I had 3 ships parked right next to that region on Sentry but because we weren't "at war" until the turn they landed, I got no notice. Should have had 2 -3 turns notice from the patrols.

I moved forces and I'm ready to send the Incan's packing when a large Greek force lands opposite edge of my island continent and takes out my 4th or 5th best town. About 10 turns later the Inca's and Greek are gone and my destroyers are taking out all galleys and frigates but 10% - 15% of the continent is pillaged.

It appears Cyrus is on track victory. Diplomatic victory still lies out there as a hope but I don't know if I will rebuild or retire.

Game Notes:

Sentry is definitely weak. That was a frustrating turn. Almost reloaded. I guess that is the downside to turning off opponent moves - it becomes just about impossible to determine if an attack is coming. Looks like that option needs to be toggled back off.

I expanded too early. With the isolated continent I should have taken time to build a proper economy with 3 or 4 cities and not "boomed" to 6. Booming then required the shift to cottages because of maintanence issues that didn't play into the strengths of Mongolia.

The weak military was reasonable up until Optics but then I really needed to switch on military production rather than wait until riflemen and infantry. Too little, too late and they eventually attacked.

 

[pegasus1346]

well you seem to be royaly screwed now possibly. When in that situation, I would...
1. Build a huge navy. Your enemies can't invade if they can't get their transports to your island.
2. Be agressive with that navy. Keep a bunch of ships near their coast. To strike back and see exactly when a transport leaves a city.
3. i HATE sentry. I always manually patrol my vessels. works a lot better and fewer units can patrol a larger area. plus this way I don't miss anything.