Isolated start location - how to win?

[Taronas]

hi,

after having just won a incredible 38.000 Domination victory (Noble, Brennus, with an incredible good start position - usually I score at around 5000 ) I continue my random games.

But with this one I'm stuck - I don't find a way to win.

Issue: I'm alone on a large landmass and to get contact I have to cross ocean - that means I'm researching on my own and have no trade routes for quite some time - too much time.

I wonder how you guys would go on with that start. Anybody care to take the savegame and share some hints on how to play such an isolated start?

thanks

 

[OTAKUjbski]

All in all, this isn't too bad of a start.

I usually don't mind being isolated, because I like being able to focus on building instead of warmongering.

Your island's fairly spacious and has a good mix of resources (6, 5, Stone & Marble, Iron & Copper).

The one thing I hate about this island is the amount of Plains all over it. The food resources could use a shift, too. They're in awkward places to get in the fat cross with production tiles.

Anyhow:

I was lucky enough to pop 2 Scouts off the goody huts, so I used these guys to help fogbust. There was relatively no barbarian activity.

Starting with Mysticism and Marble in the fat cross = ezMode Oracle and GL. The 7 forests make it even easier.

With all the trees everywhere, I was able to chop- and whip-rush Courthouses and Terraces in nearly every city shortly after founding it to keep economic detriment at a minimum.

The Terrace is one of the strongest UB's in Warlords ... definitely get those up quickly.

Teching so far:
Polytheism - for Hinduism
Bronze Working - to start prechopping for Oracle & find Copper for Colossus
Masonry - for Marble
The Wheel - to hook up Marble
Priesthood - for The Oracle
Writing - Library + CoL prereq
CoL - free via The Oracle
Pottery - Cottage spam + UB
Alphabet
Literature - GL ftw
Animal Husbandry - to facilitate expansion cities
Metal Casting - Colossus ftw
Fishing
Sailing - for Lighthouses & coastal
Mathematics - for better chopping as I expand
Civil Service - for Bureaucracy
Meditation
Philosophy
Music - I just wanted the free Artist
Iron Working - I needed happy Gems
Calendar - I needed happy Silk
Paper
Education
Liberalism - for Free Speech
Nationalism - free via Liberalism (forgot to stop Liberalism @ -1 turn)
Machinery - traded Music & Drama to Alexander
Printing Press
Constitution
Democracy - for Emancipation and to bring up my cottages
Guilds
Banking - Mercantalism + Representation + SoL (soon) ftw
Economics - go go Wall Street

And that's where I'm at now.

Mansa Musa's GNP is greater than mine, but I'm hoping to match him soon.

I'm currently selling Silk to everybody but Genghis Khan (so as not to screw up relations with Roosevelt, who's at war with him) for about 6 GPT each.

The only resource I'm trading for right now is Corn.

The year is 1360, and I just finished The Taj Mahal.

I'm poised for just about any victory I want. However, the lack of production so far on my island has me leaning towards a cultural victory.

Highlight screenshots attached.

What did you do different, and where did it fall apart for you?

 

[vsipinen]

Teching so far:
Polytheism - for Hinduism
Bronze Working - to start prechopping for Oracle & find Copper for Colossus
Masonry - for Marble
The Wheel - to hook up Marble
Priesthood - for The Oracle
Writing - Library + CoL prereq
CoL - free via The Oracle
Pottery - Cottage spam + UB
Alphabet
Literature - GL ftw
Animal Husbandry - to facilitate expansion cities
Metal Casting - Colossus ftw
Fishing
Sailing - for Lighthouses & coastal
Mathematics - for better chopping as I expand
Civil Service - for Bureaucracy
Meditation
Philosophy
Music - I just wanted the free Artist
Iron Working - I needed happy Gems
Calendar - I needed happy Silk
Paper
Education
Liberalism - for Free Speech
Nationalism - free via Liberalism (forgot to stop Liberalism @ -1 turn)
Machinery - traded Music & Drama to Alexander
Printing Press
Constitution
Democracy - for Emancipation and to bring up my cottages
Guilds
Banking - Mercantalism + Representation + SoL (soon) ftw
Economics - go go Wall Street

And that's where I'm at now.

Mansa Musa's GNP is greater than mine, but I'm hoping to match him soon.

I'm currently selling Silk to everybody but Genghis Khan (so as not to screw up relations with Roosevelt, who's at war with him) for about 6 GPT each.

The only resource I'm trading for right now is Corn.

The year is 1360, and I just finished The Taj Mahal.

I'm poised for just about any victory I want. However, the lack of production so far on my island has me leaning towards a cultural victory.

I am curious, have you been able keep up with the technology research of other civilizations - and if you have, how did you manage to do that without trading with others (being isolated at start) ? I guess that it is often the most difficult thing to achieve, when starting in an isolated location.

Also as I don't see astronomy in the list of researched technologies, how are you able to trade with others ? Do the other civilizations have astronomy or wasn't the starting location really isolated after all ?

 

[Taronas]

Thanks, interesting.

What did you do different, and where did it fall apart for you?

Now, when I played first time of course I didn't know that I was on that island alone. So I prepared to meet other civs, went for alphapet etc. But then I was alone and could not reach anybody by sea either - when I finally met everybody I was way behind Mansa and Alex.

Second time I tried to make the best ouf of knowing my situation. Perhaps the first Mistake: I wanted not to be bothered by barbs so I went for Great Wall instead of other wonders.

Then I slowly expanded across the island and tried to focus on research meanwhile. But again, the others where ahead, but not so much this time. I had a close eye on diplomacy: I managed to found 5 religions, choose one for myself and started to spread that immediately when I could reach the other land. At some point I had all on my side but Mansa. Unfortunetely everybody was still friend with Mansa, nobody wanted to fight with somebody else (I had hoped to get them to fight each other to become weaker). Finally, around 1500 or so, the "Pleased" Alexander backstabs me: War I was not prepared for that. Switching all to defense mode brought my economy and research to a halt and when we had peace again, Mansa seems too much ahead of everybody.

Now, I think I do nothave enough good production to go for space race, I have not focussed on Culture enough neither. Diplomacy? Also went not so well. Nobody is my friend ... My military also is no match for the others.

thanks

 

[Vynd]

Playing for a culture victory often makes sense when you start isolated. When you're going for culture you don't want to spend a lot of resources on military units, being isolated helps there. And so long as you can manage to establish at least a couple of religions it otherwise doesn't much matter if you keep up in technology.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

I am curious, have you been able keep up with the technology research of other civilizations - and if you have, how did you manage to do that without trading with others (being isolated at start) ? I guess that it is often the most difficult thing to achieve, when starting in an isolated location.

I hate competing against Mansa for tech. I'm just barely ahead of him and am likely to fall behind if I don't knock it up a notch soon (as his GNP is substantially higher than mine).

I think one of the biggest factors on this map is the ability to effectively manage chop- and whip- rushing. I didn't feel like I had time to build up my infrastructure the old-fashioned way, so most of my buildings were either chopped or whipped into place.

Universities? I whipped my empire from 1st place to last place in one turn for those things (5 across the empire ... saving me 20 turns of waiting for Oxford).

Oxford? Well, by that time I had hooked up the Stone in the east for it. I also had a throng of workers poised and ready to chop the remaining 3 forests in Cuzco's fat cross and another 2 just outside of it. I whipped for 2 population to finish it off -- ensuring I wasn't going to kill my would-be scientists.​

Beyond that I teched very specific to what I needed (except Music). Cows were in my fat cross but were unnecessary until I started expanding. My starting tech Agriculture was plenty to keep me going.

Currency didn't come until after Democracy when I went for Banking. Most people think Currency is an answer to REXing, but this is only true when you have trading partners or ginormous cities -- neither of which I had. The extra trade route only amounted to +1 per city, so I saved it for when it was worth 8 instead of 3 (and could be teched in 2 turns instead of 12).

You'll also notice Literature was the 9th tech I researched, followed shortly by MC 11th and CS 15th. I wanted a very strong capital very early ... simply put.

I'll know soon enough if skipping Monotheism was worth it. I wanted to run Pacifism for the extra GS's to settle and felt chop- and whip-rushing was enough to outweigh OR.​

I started building Pyramids late just because nobody else claimed them but lost them at about -15 turns. It was worth ~500 , though, so you didn't hear me complaining. Since I had no + buildings at all, it was imperative I keep the science slider as high as possible (90% most of the time).

My biggest screw up is religion. I failed to spread Hinduism before founding Confucianism and Taoism, so I have 3 religions spread out all over the place. This may be handy later if I go for a cultural victory, but having even 2 in the same city would have been monstrous come Wall Street time. Oh well.

Screw up #2 was building my intended Ironworks city 1 tile too far North. I had my eye on that spot for so long that I forgot about the Copper I coulda put in the fat cross by moving 1 south. Stupid.

Screw up #3 was not stopping Liberalism at -1 turn. I felt I had a strong enough lead that I coulda tech'd Nationalism normally and scored Constitution for free instead. That set me back about 4 turns of research.

Also as I don't see astronomy in the list of researched technologies, how are you able to trade with others ? Do the other civilizations have astronomy or wasn't the starting location really isolated after all ?

Oh no, we're isolated pretty hardcore.

As far as the how and why ... I'm not sure. I think it may be that Alex and I have adjacent & open cultural borders. In the same way culture allows travel on ocean tiles as if they were coastal tiles, I presume they similarly enable trade (via Sailing).

I intended to beeline Astronomy when I met other people for trade, but somehow I see I won't need that now.

I'm hoping Emancipation will buy me some time against foreign teching. My immediate goal is to get to Steel for the Ironworks and for Ironclads to defend my coastline / get my Power rating up higher. Electricity is also way up there so I can farm the east coast Plains.

After looking at everything, I'll probably change gears and seek out the UN. Mansa will be difficult to win over, but I think I can leverage my tech lead against everybody else ... we'll see.

I'll finish this probably Saturday and let you know what happens.

 

[mrt144]

go for the cultural victory.

 

[Peachrocks]

I haven't finished yet but I'm clearly in the position to win comfortably. I'm going for space race.

Cultural is definately the way to go when doing an isolated start, but just for doing something diferent . I expanded pretty fast and went down the Oracle CoL, Mathematics, Courthouse/Terrace spamming. I also got the great library and spammed a lot of GS from Tiwanaku, which I placed to work the cow and rice.

I did a fair bit of cottage spamming in Cuzco, but mostly went for a specialist eco mainly due to the lack of decent city locations on rivers and well placed food resources.

I expanded and took up the entire island pretty quickly, and although according to the 'most advanced' list I was fourth, I had much better techs when I ran into Gandhi as I was planning to use Liberalism to get astronomy to get both free religion and observatories. Gandhi and Mansa were basically equal on techs, Mansa basically is the same but lacking Optics.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/108061/Civ4ScreenShot0003.JPG

I eventually met everyone and knew if I was going to win by Space Race quickly it'd be better to expand. Although Genghis took a city vs Roosevelt, he was clearly the weakest and less connected and advanced. It made him an easy target for my cavs/trebs.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/108061/Civ4ScreenShot0004.JPG

Mongolia is out from the game now at 1650 and i've parked my cannon/cav/grenaders on the American border to take them out, and maybe India too.

Anyway, it's far easier to build up peacefully when isolated which means you won't be as far behind everyone else when you find everyone. I might not do it the best way to get astronomy with liberalism, but I just like the free religion civic .

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Culture victory is always a good candidate for an isolated start, that is, if you start with the mysticism and can score three religions when you are done, spread after trade becomes possible (late cities founded) or founded yourself.

 

[mrt144]

Culture victory is always a good candidate for an isolated start, that is, if you start with the mysticism and can score three religions when you are done, spread after trade becomes possible (late cities founded) or founded yourself.

when youre on an island by yourself you should easily be able to direct your research to do this.

 

[Welnic]

...
Then I slowly expanded across the island and tried to focus on research meanwhile. But again, the others where ahead, but not so much this time. I had a close eye on diplomacy: I managed to found 5 religions, choose one for myself and started to spread that immediately when I could reach the other land. At some point I had all on my side but Mansa. Unfortunetely everybody was still friend with Mansa, nobody wanted to fight with somebody else (I had hoped to get them to fight each other to become weaker). Finally, around 1500 or so, the "Pleased" Alexander backstabs me: War I was not prepared for that. Switching all to defense mode brought my economy and research to a halt and when we had peace again, Mansa seems too much ahead of everybody.
...

If you get 5 religions, that means that there are only 2 for everybody else. Since one of those is probably Buddhism or Hinduism, that religion will spread to just about everybody and they will all be one happy peaceful group. Unless I know very early that I am going for cultural I only get one religion so that there are more to go around for everyone else.

 

[mrt144]

If you get 5 religions, that means that there are only 2 for everybody else. Since one of those is probably Buddhism or Hinduism, that religion will spread to just about everybody and they will all be one happy peaceful group. Unless I know very early that I am going for cultural I only get one religion so that there are more to go around for everyone else.

in one recent game there were 3 continents where I eliminated Julius quickly and then was on my own for 2500+ years. Turns out there are 2 more continents with equal dispertion of other civs. one continent was buddhist/jewish, the other hindu.

I proceeded to found every other religion after that which was great. By the time I made contact with them I was running free religion to negate any different religion penalties and then I gave everyone liberalism so they might go the same direction as I.

the problem with limiting yourself to one religion is difficulty of building cathedral buildings in each of your cities which provide a cultural boon almost unmatched.

 

[Instant_Cereal]

A little off-topic, but how do you change the interface colors and what is HOF?

 

[OTAKUjbski]

A little off-topic, but how do you change the interface colors ...

There are a variety of mods that'll do it. I use the Civilization IV Blue Marble Project.

The Blue Marble Terrain looks WAY better than the stock graphics, and the Graphics Scaling Tool allows you to modify the interface color (and more).

... and what is HOF?

HOF is the Hall of Fame.

HOF 2.08.004 is the version of an HoF mod being used (I have no clue what it does, but I presume it's for keeping HoF games fair and free of cheating).

 

[Instant_Cereal]

Oh, okay. Tried loading the save file up but kept getting errors and was wondering why. Thanks OTAKUjbski.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

Well, I was Friendly with Mansa Musa, Roosevelt and Gandhi for the longest time, so I took for granted I had their votes for a Diplomatic Victory.

I was wrong.

I built the UN in 1752 and very easily was voted in as Secretary-General. However, Gandhi kept voting for Mansa Musa -- despite the fact I had far more diplomatic positives. Mansa Musa never voted for anyone but himself.

So Mansa and I were deadlocked until the late 1800's -- at which point Gandhi finally came to my side ... still not enough votes, though.

Having abandoned a Cultural Victory, my only peaceful choice was to win the Space Race.

Mansa Musa looked like he was going to give me a run for my money towards the end when he built 3 parts in the same turn AND started a Golden Age. As it turns out, he still didn't stand a chance.

I launched very late in 1901.

In 20/20 hindsight, this round's mistakes are:

1. Abandoning a Cultural Victory shouldn't've meant screwing my potential culture cities so badly
2. For the UN Victory, I should've unified via religion instead of taking 'Friendly' votes for granted
3. When Alexander declared war on Mansa Musa in 1655, I should have declared war on him to secure his population (and thus more UN votes)
4. I failed to colonize the Barbarian island to the NE

Winning is winning. I've attached a couple screenies and my last save if you wanna check em out.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I have posted a strategy article on this kind of situation

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=218507

 

[gettingfat]

I also agree you don't need five religions for cultural victory. In fact, it could be counterproductive. I'll aim at getting three and allow the other AIs to share the remaining four so they will be more likely to fight in their big continent and less likely to hug each other and give exchange techs. If it's possible I'll bribe somebody to attack Mansa, as he's the only legitimate leader who will get a space victory once in a while.

 

[cabert]

I also agree you don't need five religions for cultural victory.

right

In fact, it could be counterproductive.

wrong,
at worst, it allows you to build more temples and monasteries, at best it allows you to build more cathedrals= faster win
One thing I noticed, when having a very large number of religions, is you should plan the spread very carefully.
It's no use having 4 temples of 3 religions, when you could have 3 temples for 4 religions=1 more cathedral available
Sidenote : spread the religion that gives cathedrals for which you have the bonus resource before the others .
Finally, if you're a bit low on cities (=less than 9), having more religions can allow you to build cathedrals in all 3 legendary cities, not of the same religion, of course.
For instance, having 6 cities and 6 religions allows you to build 12 cathedrals = 4 per legendary city, just as good as having 4 religions and 9 cities.

I'll aim at getting three and allow the other AIs to share the remaining four so they will be more likely to fight in their big continent and less likely to hug each other and give exchange techs. If it's possible I'll bribe somebody to attack Mansa, as he's the only legitimate leader who will get a space victory once in a while.

if you have gandhi in a peaceful world, he'll launch before Mansa Musa.

Isolated starts have a few bad aspects :
- no early war
- no early trade
- no real friends

but they also have a few good aspects :
- no early wars = no need for early military
- no unreasonnable demands = no big enemies