Isolation on a Continents game

[CivMcNut]

My latest game I chose Continents map, King Difficulty, but much to my surprise I was all by myself. I had one city state on my island, but everyone else was elsewhere. I later found the Aztecs had a really big island to themself too, but all the other Civs were in what resembled a Pangea Continent. Has anyone else had a start like that on Continents?

What sort of strategies work well under those circumstances? What I'm about to do is declare war on Egypt, who only has only two cities on the Pangea, take over their cities, and then I don't know. It's driving me nuts, I usually have a lot of puppets by the Renaissance Era earning me gold, but now I only have one puppet (that City State), and my cash flow is a lot weaker than in normal games. I'm building a lot more cities from scratch too since the AI isn't coming around and gobbling up the territory near me. I only have a modest sized army, but aparently it is the 3rd largest, so I wonder if a domination game is still possible? Nobody seems to have much of a navy.

So I don't know how well being isolated will work. What advantages do I get? From what I've read on the forums today, the AI doesn't do overseas invasions very well. So I guess I don't have to worry about defending the home turf. Would this be a good time to try a science victory? I've never had one of those.

I remember building a lot of wonders early on so I somehow survived till Astronomy without getting behind in tech, so maybe I can launch an assult and try to dominate like I usually do.

Sorry I couldn't post the save. I'm on a different computer than the one I play on.

 

[ChuckVader]

Check the demographics screen - if you're leading in tech, a science victory should be pretty straight-forward. If you're not, I would just attack whoever is leading in tech.

You're fortunate, I'd expect if you were isolated that long you'd be significantly behind in tech since you haven't been able to use RAs.

Regardless of which victory path you choose, I'd at least get a presence on the main continent in case you do later need to intervene with military to prevent an AI win. Especially if Greece or Siam are present.

 

[Camikaze]

An isolated start could leave you with a number of possibilities. Culture would be one to pursue, although you'd need to gain contact with other civs reasonably early on for RAs. The advantage here would be that you'd be less likely to be attacked, so you could more easily concentrate on building without any distractions.

Domination is another option, as you can develop your core well before going on a later invasion spree. Similarly, scientific victory could be pursued by strengthening your core and then getting a puppet empire, or at least exploiting RAs.

But in the circumstances, domination might be best, because you can take down the bigger continent one civ at a time.

 

[swordspider]

In your exact situation I would go for the Aztecs as soon as you could and claim their island as your own too. Once you have both islands, you can pretty much win whatever victory path you want. The AI rarely launches an ocean invasion when they have other civs on their primary land mass (at least I have not ever seen it).

 

[CivMcNut]

Well, I took over Egypt pretty easily (only lost 1 unit) then it seemed like a big mess. Rome who shared a border with Egypt, denounced me and had a weak military, so when Songhai asked me to declare war on them, I told them to give me 10 turns. While I was waiting for the turns to pass, Songhai and France both declared war on me in the same turn. They too shared a border with the former Egyptian empire. I guess it looks like I'm well on my way to a domination type game.

@swordspider - Aztecs have an awful lot of cities and the 2nd strongest military in the game. I was thinking of saving them for last. They are still friendly with me. They don't seem to be much of a threat since they are isolated too. I couldn't pass up taking out the Egyptians, they only had two cities.

@Chuck - I did check out the Demographics screen. I didn't see a way to see who's leading in tech. It did show who had the highest literacy rate.

@ Camikaze - The domination option appears to be the best one. I have 5 non-puppeted cities now, so that makes a lot for a cultural win. I am behind some of the Civs in tech still, so science victory is probably bad, and I don't have any alliances formed with City States so diplomatic looks bad too.

To everyone- I highly recommend playing a map such as this if you get the chance. It makes for a very fun game.

 

[LamaGT]

well usually i consider being isolated a blessing on small continents where you most likely can reach the others with a trireme, but with normal continents may'be that's not so good.
Anyway with no need of army you can concentrate on building building and building so i usually have tech lead on king without signing a single RA

 

[lolocoster]

@Chuck - I did check out the Demographics screen. I didn't see a way to see who's leading in tech. It did show who had the highest literacy rate.

Literacy rate = tech leader, its basically the percentage of the techs after writing you've researched.

Also, these games are fun for me because it gives me a chance to do empire building. Depending on the size of the continent I try to get as many cities as I can, especially around the border so that AI can't get in and build cities on my continent.

Usually in these games I go for science, build near rivers and food resources, and pop out as many GS as I can and get population as large as I can. I once had all of north and south america to myself on a standard world map as russia (well after I took out monty's one city in like 500 bc ) and by the end of the game Moscow, Yaroslav'l and St. Petersburg were all over size 25, and moscow was size 34, and I had 2 other cities that were over 20.

Just make sure you have resources for happiness and gold once you start to trade. Having copies of resources is great ( I had 3 silver and 2 gold) because you can trade away extras without any and make money. After a while, your cities will grow to a certain size and become profitable with trade routes, markets, and banks.

If you avoid war you can get to space by the 1980's easily

 

[Buccaneer]

That's the funny thing about tech lead and RAs. In all of my games, I think I had only one RA, yet I managed to lead or at least keep up in techs. My priority has always been saving money for city-states.

 

[Bibor]

That's the funny thing about tech lead and RAs. In all of my games, I think I had only one RA, yet I managed to lead or at least keep up in techs. My priority has always been saving money for city-states.

Concerning the tech pace I prefer (in this order):
1. investment into my own empire (rush-buys; Unis or Public Schools for example).
2. City-states (Especially if having Patronage)
3. Research Agreements

RAs are good till industrial/modern era, when global relations really begin to deteriorate. It becomes harder to get money from resource trades and I usually use the piggy bank to either snipe critical city-states (to deny UN victory), to promote units or to rush-buy science buildings.

 

[Civsassin]

That's the funny thing about tech lead and RAs. In all of my games, I think I had only one RA, yet I managed to lead or at least keep up in techs. My priority has always been saving money for city-states.

I recently moved up to immortal, and it seems like you need to do anything possible to keep up on tech because of the huge bonuses the AI gets. Lately, I've been unable to invest much into CSs, unfortunately, due to the gold I've been spending to speed builds and purchase RAs.

 

[Buccaneer]

That's a good point, haven't moved up to IMM post-patch.

 

[TheMightyQuinn]

I had a fairly similar situation on my last game (Emperor, Standard Map, Darius). I went for and won a tech victory and had RAs with all players throughout the game. This was possible even in the late game as all civs stayed friendly with me for some reason.

Obviously RAs took up most of my gold but with the extra long golden ages I had enough to buy science buildings for my high pop/low production capital and to thwart Siam's cultural victory. Having coal and aluminium on my continent made building the spaceship parts a lot easier too.

Pre patch or on lower difficulty levels I might have gone for a cultural victory myself but the AI spends much much more on city states now.

 

[CivMcNut]

I'm still playing this same game I opened the thread about. (have had to pause a while to get housework done)

Now I'm in the modern era and I feel like I'm running out of time. I still have the Aztecs I'm trying to conquer (and it's not going well). I took over the Chinese capital and completely wiped out the French. I still have Songhai and Rome to conquer after the Aztecs for a domination win. Everyone has infantry at this point, so I feel like the game is almost over and I'm out of time.

In summary: I don't recommend going for a domination win if you start isolated.

It certainly isn't easy. Part of this though might be this is my first game at a higher difficulty level, but still these naval invasions really make you go through the troops, and troops are expensive in Civ V.

 

[bryanw1995]

I recently moved up to immortal, and it seems like you need to do anything possible to keep up on tech because of the huge bonuses the AI gets. Lately, I've been unable to invest much into CSs, unfortunately, due to the gold I've been spending to speed builds and purchase RAs.

wait until tp's get nerfed to 1g instead of 2g... puppet empires won't be nearly as profitable post-feb patch.

 

[bryanw1995]

I'm still playing this same game I opened the thread about. (have had to pause a while to get housework done)

Now I'm in the modern era and I feel like I'm running out of time. I still have the Aztecs I'm trying to conquer (and it's not going well). I took over the Chinese capital and completely wiped out the French. I still have Songhai and Rome to conquer after the Aztecs for a domination win. Everyone has infantry at this point, so I feel like the game is almost over and I'm out of time.

In summary: I don't recommend going for a domination win if you start isolated.

It certainly isn't easy. Part of this though might be this is my first game at a higher difficulty level, but still these naval invasions really make you go through the troops, and troops are expensive in Civ V.

post your current save and original save as well.

 

[Buccaneer]

Well, I had an isolated start in my science game (Babylon, emperor, fractals, standard). It was a smallish continent connected to a large landmass by a thin ismuth completed blocked by mountains. No one bothered me and I was able to concentrated on science. But the isolation came at a cost:
No gold
Negative cash flow
No luxuries (beyond the 4 that I tried to recycle)
No RA
No City-States
No growth
No GNP
Slow SP
Slow GP
and by 1500s, tech rate stagnated while holding on a small tech lead.

In other words, I really sucked at trying to play in somewhat isolation. Science (and perhaps Culture) would be the way to go but only if you have a good variety of luxuries to sell.

 

[Tabarnak]

Well, I had an isolated start in my science game (Babylon, emperor, fractals, standard). It was a smallish continent connected to a large landmass by a thin ismuth completed blocked by mountains. No one bothered me and I was able to concentrated on science. But the isolation came at a cost:
No gold
Negative cash flow
No luxuries (beyond the 4 that I tried to recycle)
No RA
No City-States
No growth
No GNP
Slow SP
Slow GP
and by 1500s, tech rate stagnated while holding on a small tech lead.

In other words, I really sucked at trying to play in somewhat isolation. Science (and perhaps Culture) would be the way to go but only if you have a good variety of luxuries to sell.

Get astro ASAP. You don't need AIs(RAs) or CS to do a fast beeline of it. Make a detour to currency before education.

 

[builer680]

Nice 7 month old thread.

 

[Steelyglint]

Polynesia much?

 

[Fluffball]

In the one totally isolated map i did play i actually found it a lot easier to go for science in particular and keep up with the score as once i found out i was alone i ignored all aspect of military and was free to concentrate entirely on building up my civilization without fear of interferance.

This also allowed me to concentrate more on the top half of the tech tree where all the scientific/peaceful expansion techs are and as part of that take the water based techs so i could beeline to caravels to go explore and meet everyone asap.

Once i did meet everyone i had excellent relations with everyone throughout the whole game as i wasn't seen as a threat due to not being anywhere near them and didin't pick sides in anyway.

The only concern i had was something i learned from past experience which was to ensure i claimed every viable tile on my island as a seabourne invasion was unlikely and easily defeatable if it did ever happen but from past experience i have seen the AI build a city on my island/continent and use that as a base to launch a land based attack on me from so culture was a little more of an issue due to having to build a few more cities than i would have done normally but they did add to my science and due to my virtual ignorance of the military side i had lots of spare capacity in both production and maintenance costs to build extra cultural building to push me down the rationalism tree as well as being able to pick up a few cultural wonders to help me along as my science was good anyway so managed to get many wonder techs first.

I guess i was lucky in some respect as it was a reasonable size island and had a few luxaries and at least a minimum of each strategic resource altough the strategic resources i purely sold and didn't really use myself until i got to frigates where i started to build a small navy.