Kill your only neighbor?

[podraza]

Hey gang,

I'm playing a game, Prince, Continents, Small map. I ended up sharing one of the continents with just one other civ, the remaining 3 presumably sharing another (although I don't know that for a fact yet).

I did what I thought was a good move and went ahead and killed my neighbor almost right away, leaving me alone on the continent.

I am trying to figure out if that was smart or not. On the one hand, I now have nobody to trade tech with, while my 3 opponents all do. On the other hand, I'm not sure what Persia (now destroyed) could have offered me that I'm not getting myself, since I am now working all of their tiles myself, and gaining all that they would have gained anyway. In this sense, I don't have Persia to trade with, but I AM Persia, so what's the difference? Is there any?

 

[Toshiro126]

In that situation, I would say you did the right thing. In my earlier games, when I left someone else on my continent or island with the hope they would be useful later, they always ending up being a pain in the butt.

Whenever I can have a continent or island to myself in Civ, I always do it. If you're worried about not having anyone to trade with, work towards getting Caravels so you can make contact with other islands.

 

[Killroyan]

Look at it this way. If you had Cyrus live then he would have used hammers to produce units you would have to destroy later on, costing you also hammers in the form of units. Now you have the whole island for your self and all the hammers that get produced are used solely for your empire alone. The same goes for all the beakers. You could have been researching the same tech which would lead to a beaker loss equal to the researched tech. I do think that these two things alone already off set the loss of a trading partner.

 

[podraza]

Ok, this sounds about right. I got spooked because I was reading one of the strategy articles (the one about operational and strategic tactics) and somebody mentioned how tried and true methods sometimes don't work, specifically, that sometimes an "axman rush" [check] can kill off your only trading partner [check]."

But he provided no context to that statement. I agree with you guys that the benefits outweigh the detriments in my case. Just making sure there isn't something I'm not considering.

 

[Toshiro126]

Some people seem to be paranoid about not having a trading partner at the start, but it's possible to not have a trading partner at the start of the game, and still do well. In my current game, I started out alone on a large island, with everyone else (6 civs) crammed onto a much larger one. When I finally got a caravel over there, I was behind a couple of the AIs tech-wise, but I was able to catch up quickly.

 

[Yva!n]

I have had the situation where I peacefully co-existed with another civ on and they refused to trade tech with me anyway...

 

[DaveMcW]

I have had the situation where I peacefully co-existed with another civ on and they refused to trade tech with me anyway...

Yes, that's what usually happens. You partner needs to be Friendly (or Mansa Musa) before they are willing to trade.

 

[Proteus]

If the chances for a peacefuil coexistence are high, I normally would let my neighbor develop unitl there is no space for me to settle on the continent.
Only then I would slowly prepare to take over all of his cities.

Advantages:
1) Less barbarians as there is another civ with cultural borders (and therefore less unobserved tiles)
2) Trade
3) Your neighbor develops the tiles for you and you just have to take over his cities at one time to get the fully developed other half of the continent under your control.

Disadvantages due to taking your only neighbor out too early:
1) You have to develop all the tiles for yourself (i.e. have to keep more workers around)
2) Much higher upkeep costs for the cities until their sxxurroundings are fully developed --> probably less cities than in the alternative scenario where you let your neighbor grow peacefully and only after several millenia take over all of his cities
3) More barbs (because only your slowly growing borders keep barbs from spawning, whereas in the alternative scenario it would be yours and your neighbors)

But that´s just the opinion of someone who always plays huge maps (and marathon speed); for the mini continents you get with "standard map size" it might be more justified to take a neighbor out early, as barbs aren´t such a big problem and the time where you don´t find any spot to settle on the continent because of your neighbor is reached much faster.

 

[Xanxir]

1) You have to develop all the tiles for yourself (i.e. have to keep more workers around)

A corollary to that is that after you go over to conquer the neighbor, you'll have the workers from your civ and the other.

 

[mice]

It depends on who the neighbor is too. Cyrus always pops up in my games ,and he always gets beaten easily, so in this case i would let him develop the tiles,keep away the barbs, attack him with maces/catapults, keep all his workers. Tokugawa on the other hand is usually a big investment in hammers to counter his army and impossible to deal with so I kill him as soon as I can.

 

[nwadams]

if you and toku are on the same continent without anybody else kill him asap, he never trades tech's anyways so he's useless

 

[Mind_worm]

Yes, that's what usually happens. You partner needs to be Friendly (or Mansa Musa) before they are willing to trade.

It doesnt even matter much if you are friendly. It is easy to be friendly with the only civ on your continent, just found a religion (buddhism if you are spiritual, confuscianism if you arent) and it will spread to him - or convert to his religion. The problem is unless it is mansa... or maybe washington or ghandi, he frequently wont trade with you anyway - because he doesnt know of anyone else who has the tech, so you get "Im not ready to trade this tech yet."