Isolated Starts (Emperor/Immortal)

[Seabastian Civ]

Got an isolated start on a large continents map. China/Immortal/14 civs/18 CSs. Epic Speed. Starting location is nice, one gold, two crabs, two stone, two cows.

How should I play an isolated start on immortal? Rush to populate the island as much as possible? four city tradition?

I'd love to hear ideas.

 

[Browd]

By isolated, do you mean you are alone on your land mass (you refer to it as an island)? Can you tell yet whether the island is connected by coastal tiles with another land mass? Trying to understand how isolated you are (i.e., will you need Astronomy to find trading partners).

 

[Seabastian Civ]

On my own continent, no connection to anyone else via land or shallows.


Screenshot of the start- i explored the island, room for at least eight cities- probably five excellent places.

 

[civ54lyfe]

nothing much to do but try to wonder spam and grow tall. in a way you've already won the game.

 

[Seabastian Civ]

nothing much to do but try to wonder spam and grow tall. in a way you've already won the game.

Agree on King, but on Immortal with no Marble? How do I do this? Which first wonder should I shoot for? Stonehenge?

 

[civ54lyfe]

huge amounts of wonder-chopping Forest, maybe pick Monument to the Gods pantheon, Tradition start, any wonder that needs Stone. if you were to even try it out. if not, just get gigantic huge b/c your people are going to need to really hit the science books for when it's Navigation time.


or go Hammer-religion, make tons of Co-Kus and start bashing heads when you can get in deep water.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

I've been meaning to give Middle Country a try in BWN, would you mind uploading?

The only really safe early wonder on immortal is the oracle. With so much land available and noone competing for it, I don't see any reason to start a war. You can relax and expand as your economy dictates, rather than racing for the really good spots.

Might as well try for stone circles and a religion, you won't get one from the AI. You will be able to get away with zero military for the whole game, save for a few caravels patrolling later on just in case. Gold will be an issue in the early game, the mine and those crabs will likely be your only income for a long time. Culture could be a good idea, since you don't really start generating tourism until later in the game, really anything but conquest.

 

[Seabastian Civ]

Here's the save.

I'm frankly not very good on immortal. Unless I cook the settings, I don't win (I win emperor 100% of the time). I'd love to see what others can do on this map. I only played about 90 turns so far and realized I had no idea what I was doing!

 

[dragonxxx]

I'd restart that game tbh.

Random thoughts and reasonings:

1) The island is not very rich - you got only gold, pearls, crabs and silver and all except the crabs are 1 of.
2) No neighbours means no trades for luxes.
3) Not being able to get happiness will hinder growth
4) In order to meet someone you have to go to optics fast, and thats going to delay growth as well. You can try with the trireme, donno if u can reach someone.
5) You don't even have a CS on the island, so you cannot even build a caravan. Food ships are good, but u will need happiness for that growth ... Not to mention that you are going to get also no quests.
6) As you do not have trade partners, sooner or later you are going to start losing gold as well.


So as a summary, you have a big island for yourself, but u cannot expand that much, and at the same time you cannot really grow very tall as well, unless you get lucky and the AIs find you really soon. You are also not in a good position to find em yourself fast as well, as if you want to do that, you need to research rather useless starting techs like sailing&optics, and that might even not be enough, as its possible that you need Astronomy to find another land mass ...
So while you try to handle all these problems, some AIs will get huge tech lead over you, that you are not going to be able to overcome .

I can't say that this game is unwinnable, but its definitely not the game I want to play.

 

[Buccaneer]

I can't say that this game is unwinnable, but its definitely not the game I want to play.

But I thought somebody said the game was already won.

I would restart. In my first BNW game, I was on a small landmass surrounded by ocean but had one other civ and two city-states with me. Played nice, grew, teched pretty well and when I hit Astronomy around T140, I found everyone else and got PP/WC first. Couldn't imagine if I had no trading partners and no allies for the first 140 turns.

 

[MarshalN]

I'd restart, mostly because I find it very boring to play these isolated start games. This is especially the case if as you said the shallows don't give you access to anyone. Then it's 100 turns of boring until you get compass. Even after that is boring, because warmongering becomes difficult in those cases and your only real hope is to amass a good fleet of frigates.

 

[Seabastian Civ]

Well, that confirms my suspicions. I have been playing random civ games lately and trying to find a way to win... this doesn't seem like a very good China start.

Are we agreeing that Immortal+ isolated starts are nearly unwinnable?

 

[justanotherturn]

Are we agreeing that Immortal+ isolated starts are nearly unwinnable?

no, just very slow, boring and painfull.

 

[eewallace]

I just did an emperor game with an isolated start as Napoleon. (I did at least have 1 city state on my island though.) Happiness was a problem until I got caravels and was able to start trading luxuries. Gold also was a problem--I had to work pretty much every gold-producing tile on the island in order to support happiness and culture buildings. The good news is you don't really need an army in the early part of the game though. (I eventually won a cultural victory, but it did take quite a long time.)

 

[yasinbin]

I will give it a try, though i never played immortal. but eh...i could learn few things. thanks for the save game upload. I feel it should be a necessity in this forum for everyone talking about strategy for their game,.... cheers

 

[Seabastian Civ]

I will give it a try, though i never played immortal. but eh...i could learn few things. thanks for the save game upload. I feel it should be a necessity in this forum for everyone talking about strategy for their game,.... cheers

No problem. Yes, please update me with your results. I was getting my butt handed to me so hopelessly in this game I abandoned it. It was really, really hard...

 

[SirPepsi]

I played Isolated Starts as a rule on King and Emperor (Large Islands), though I did throw in a few Pangaea games every now and then. Now, on Immortal, I do prefer the early interaction granted by a Pangaea or Continents-style map, but I'm sure you'll be fine.

Without having shot up your game, I would recommend (Please note, I just started playing Immortal, and this may not apply):

1) 4-City Tradition w/ focus on NC
2) Delve down into construction and get Coliseums and Circus Maximus up ASAP
3) Minimize building maintenance by getting Lighthouses up quickly (extra food doesn't hurt, and the +1 gold from Sea Resources is handy) and by using Tithe when you found a religion

These should tide you over until you can hit Astronomy (Mtns might make this feasible anyways?). So good luck.

 

[Olodune]

This looked like fun.

To 10 AD

Spoiler :

Once I saw the rich starting location and nice lands I thought that this would be an easy 4-5 city liberty opener, followed by minimal-army empire building phase. Not so much. This was/is my first epic speed game so everything feels extra slow.

- The luxes are present but awkwardly placed
- Barbs are more of a problem than expected
- Beijing is on the "wrong" coast ...
- Isolation expected; minimal CS presence too!

I switched gears midstream and went Liberty -> (free worker) -> Tradition -> (monuments) -> Monarchy -> Patronage (Oracle) -> Consulates (under the logic that when I finally do meet the CSs they will be at +20 already ... not sure it was worth it) -> Exploration.

Two city opener -> NC -> 2 more recently placed cities. I have theology already so Education is not too far away (I diverted to Engi for an extra Cargo Ship + Aqueducts).

Challenging so far, but I think this is salvageable.

 

[Olodune]

The best part of isolated starts is when you do finally break out the world gets big! Fun times.

Spoiler :

It turns out that we were missing a single coastal tile that would have connected the Chinese Isle to the rest of the world. The two main continents did have a shallow water pathway

Slow building -> Astronomy -> Build a fleet of Galleas and Frigates. The plan was to train the Galleas fleet on the only reachable CS, but I got impatient and captured it after only getting one +1 range promo

Met the rest of the world. Attila is a beast having totally annihilated Portugal and Russia. He has 12 cities and is the runaway tourism leader (+26 TPT!). I have 0. That could be an issue down the line.

Anyways found a target (the tech leader with accessible costal cities)



Persepolis came with Chichen Itza, Great Lib, Globe (with writings inside), Hagia Sophia and put me into the score lead (but still ~ 3rd in most key demos).

Next target: Vienna has Notre Dame and the Forbidden Palace. You can bet I'm heading that way, even if it is awkwardly inland (only two range 3 frigates can bombard).



I still don't (quite) have the tech lead. The Dutch are first to the Industrial Era (via Public Schools). My spy got killed in Amsterdam trying to steal Architecture too. However, I think the game is essentially won. I will play it out

 

[Walter E Kurtz]

Pretty cool, I'll try it out too.