Isolation on a new level

[Sandman2012]

I just jumped from Noble to Prince level. My practice run, a tiny pangaea map, I won by military conquest. So I bumped up to a small continents map for my next game. It's 680 AD, I've got three cities and just recently got courthouses so I'm going to start expanding quickly now.

Here's my problem: I'm alone on a small continent, and the land is not great (1/4 of my continent is desert). What are some suggestions about strategies? I've not played many games where I start isolated and I'm worried about falling behind in tech and such. Should I focus on economy and spare the defense budget? Or do I need a strong defense for when I meet other, more advanced nations?

I'm not really sure how this will play out...

 

[Armorydave]

Generally speaking I go for a culture win if I am extremely isolated and feel like playing it out. That is the least tech dependent victory condition and isolation generally leads to a huge tech deficeit.

 

[synthboy]

Yeah, isolation means no trading and without trading you're stuffed. Of course isolation also means no-one coming to get you so you can concentrate on culture without worrying (too much) about defense. You'll need religion, however, plus at least one GP farm.

 

[braindrain]

culture victory seems like the obvious choise when starting on an isolated island...however, you need to make sure you can build at least 9 towns and have several religions...if you can't do both, then you must resort to invading the mainland as soon as possible. get caravels fast to start scouting out your easiest target and then get gallions while building up an obscene invading force...then once you get a few more cities and access to a few more religions, then you can continue with culture war...easier said then done, i know...i hate super isolated starts on small sandy islands...good luck

 

[General Failure]

I'm playing a similar game at the moment, although not as isolated as you and with better starting land (no desert, but tundra to my south). But being alone for a large part of the game with no one to trade with, really hurts your economy and science.

I would shoot for Optics and start discovering the world. If you can found a religion and spread that, you can make some money of off that, but the diplomacy penalty you get for having a different religion can be quite large.
Also, once you have discovered optics, make sure you can crank out some great merchants to earn some money to buy techs. This worked great for me.

For some more tips, see this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=186598

HTH,

General Failure

 

[DrewBledsoe]

For a truly tricky isolated map (Monarch/huge), see the screenshot below..



Haven't played for around 3 weeks or so, didn't mind the isolated start, chugged along, got copper, iron, recently horses, then realised something was nagging at the back of my mind....

Oh that's it, on the whole of my island continent, there are no happiness resources, and no calender resources whatsoever..and room for 17 cities..how unlucky is that!..(Note that the silver appeared recently from mining, and the whales are very recent "optics" additions...

Oh well I've masses of wonders, 2 religions, the most land, only about 10 techs behind the tech leader, and the rest of the world seems to be at war most of the time..

Not insurmountable, I will persevere and prevail

 

[synthboy]

culture victory seems like the obvious choise when starting on an isolated island...however, you need to make sure you can build at least 9 towns and have several religions.

Just a clarification: 9 towns or 9 cities? If its the former, why 9 exactly? If it's the latter I'd disagree and say you can do it with as little as three, especailly when you're isolated like that.

 

[jimbob27]

The 9 cities stragegy comes from the fact you need 3 temples to build a catherdal, so you need 9 cities, so you can have a cathedral of each religion in each of your 3 culture cities.

 

[synthboy]

The 9 cities stragegy comes from the fact you need 3 temples to build a catherdal, so you need 9 cities, so you can have a cathedral of each religion in each of your 3 culture cities.

That's if you need the happiness bonus. You get the culture bonus regardless of whether or not it's the state religion. So, as long as you have three religions and have spread them to all cities and built temples, you can have a different 'cathedral' in each city. Even better, get six religions and you get two 'cathedrals' per city. Hermitage in for your struggling city and away you go.

 

[Sandman2012]

Thanks for the advice so far, guys. I put that last game on the back burner for a bit, if only because I'm trying to learn how to win at Prince level and being isolated added an extra level of difficulty to that for me. Cultural victory is the only one I haven't successfully pulled off even on Noble difficulty.

I started another game but that one was a bust. I didn't get copper near me at all, and by the time I got iron Montezuma was at my borders with a stack of axemen and a declaration of war.

Oh well. If at first you don't succeed, try again.

 

[Yaype]

Haven't played for around 3 weeks or so, didn't mind the isolated start, chugged along, got copper, iron, recently horses, then realised something was nagging at the back of my mind....

Oh that's it, on the whole of my island continent, there are no happiness resources, and no calender resources whatsoever..and room for 17 cities..how unlucky is that!..(Note that the silver appeared recently from mining, and the whales are very recent "optics" additions...

I have a game going with the same problem. I'm the Zulu (expansive), and there are food and food resources as far as the eye can see. Without building anyting like an aqueduct or granary, I had cities up to 17 health before the medieval age. Problem was that there was not a single happiness resource, and I was not playing to found any religions early. So my cities were stuck at about size 5-6 for a LONG time.

Goal is to get Monarchy and switch to Hereditary Rule ASAP.