Lonely Hannibal Shadow (Iso game)

[krikav]

@SillyGoat I did the same mistake, went to monarchy through meditation because it's cheaper.
Had I not done that, getting out the astro guys with CoL would have been much easier!

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T133 :

After optics I whiped settlers.

The offshore island looks lovely, will drop down two cities there.

Found Monty, he isn't a good trading partner and he looked like he was behind already. I also figured he would be the worst enemy of alot of people. So I traded like crazy with him.
The trades you do with him, doesn't count toward the WFYABTA-limit to the other AIs, that counter starts when they have met you. So I usually try to sacrifice a few of the first AIs I meet, trading alot with them.

Found Bismark next, he had Paper so I gave him 10g to get him up to pleased, then sold him MC to get the map.

Joao and WvO have super high WFYABTA-limits while Pacal has a low one, Wang being inbetween. So ideally I want to meet Pacal last.
From the map alone I can tell that Willy/Joao/Pacal will be the main competitors.
Likely targets for me to start with is Monty or Bismark, then the other one and after that Wang.

12 turns to get the next GSci is too slow so I decided to just self-tech the other part of astro and continue trading what I can get.

Good guy wang gives me the option to go burocracy. I also swap to organized religion, anticipating that I'll get some religious spread that I can spread around.

Think I got about 80-100 commerce per turn from traderoutes alone when I reached Astro.
Iron to Monty for all his stuff, clam<->fur with wang, silk from Pacal, and corn from Bismark.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T153 :

Turns out Willy and Pacal are both close to finishing astro themselves... :/
Willy is abit closer so to get construction from him I need to pay him 5g. But from Pacal I can get it and 120g so I do that trade.

T134 I just save cash, was hoping someone else would offer upp Philosophy but that didn't happen.
Here I trade away Astro to Wang for his gold and Feud+Theo and with Joao I get Music+Paper+drama. I shouldn't have taken drama as that bumped me over the limit with Pacal. >_<

Traded here and hoped I could get Philo from Pacal for guilds, but the guild trade made me hit WFYABTA with Pacal so I finish Philo myself.

T140 I spawn my GSci that was going to bulb astro, but he bulbs half of Edu instead and I'm trying to race for lib.
After edu, I realize Joao is at least half-way through edu and since he has banking I suspect he will go for economics.
My plan is to attack with numidians upgraded to cavalry, promoted to flank2 (since numidians start with flank1). I think thats nice synnergy as cavalery doesn't have natural immunity to first strikes as cuirs do.
And with this plan, I need some teching power and a GMerch certainly wouldn't hurt... So I decide to trade for banking and lib economics.

After lib economics i revolt to free market+free religion.

Almost +100 bpt! Quite amazing.
Ofcourse I got no religious spread to speak of, so going org rel previously was just a waste of time.

Nationalism from Willy for guilds+edu. Apparantly he was teching edu himself.
I like that Monty and Bismark, the two militaristic AIs is waring, trading units and falling behind in tech. Should be easy to sweep through them.

An archer spawned in the jungle, I attacked him with first my 5/8 xp axe when I could get 3xp at 70% odds. That axe died.
Then I attacked with my sentry chariot which would also reach 8xp from the attack, but that one died at 60% odds too... One of the caravels that was at 5/8 xp also died at 80% odds when it was set to unlock heroic too. But this brave warrior did succeed at 60% odds or so.
Fourth time is a charm!

T153 tech overview.

I have national epic in Hippo now. Kerkouane and Utica is whipping numidians. Leptis will start shortly too. Thapsus I think I'll build heroic in.
Not sure how I should do with the islands... No forges there yet ofcourse and getting forges and barracks up might take too much time. Perhaps I should just grow them and wait for representation.
Have to remember to build some juda monastery before trading for SciMet too, but building it in the heroic city feels like a waste.

 

[konata_LS]

@SillyGoat

Spoiler :

Ah, I see. Your reason is solid. With FIN riverside cottages, Academy is worth it. Especially you've got Monarchy and grow a big capital. Your 12+ pop capital looks much nicer than mine .

@krikav

Spoiler :

So Monarchy in Iso is better when there are many riversides grass tiles, less effective when there are too few riverside tiles . Thanks for telling me that!

The Sentry Chariot makes you discover some suspicious tiles before Optics

I might keep playing some turns, up to Optic contacts maybe. But now I need to take a break from Civ, because I've got some exhausting troubles in the latest NC game due to mistakes in diplomacy .
(You'll understand the troubles by looking at the picture below. The AIs' names and photos are all covered, so there wouldn't be any spoiler about AIs if you play that NC later)

Spoiler We have enough on our hands right now :

Enough

 

[Fish Man]

@SillyGoat

Spoiler :

Ah, I see. Your reason is solid. With FIN riverside cottages, Academy is worth it. Especially you've got Monarchy and grow a big capital. Your 12+ pop capital looks much nicer than mine .

@krikav

Spoiler :

So Monarchy in Iso is better when there is many riversides grass tiles, less effective when there is too few riverside tiles . Thanks for telling me that!

The Sentry Chariot makes you discover some suspicious tiles before Optics

I might keep playing some turns, up to Optic contacts maybe. But now I need to take a break from Civ, because I've got some exhausting troubles in the latest NC game due to mistakes in diplomacy .
(You'll understand the troubles by looking at the picture below. The AIs' names and photos are all covered, so there wouldn't be any spoiler about AIs if you play that NC later)

Spoiler We have enough on our hands right now :

Enough

Pikaaaa...pika!

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T177 :

T157 Carthage finishes it's university, I also whip an observatory in Hadrum T156 and then I turn on tech again. Kind of impressed by the bpt of Hadrum.
Also extremly proud that I finally got around to edit this page (the scroll low down on the page) and changed the width of research so that it shows 3 digits!

T158 I bribe Wang against Bismark for education+300g, poor Monty was having a hard time and I don't want him to capitulate against Bismark before I'm ready to backstab him.

T159 My juda monastery is finished and I trade for SciMet with Willy for RP and economics.

T161 I gift economics to pacal to bump him up to friendly, then I get communism for RP+MT.

I have been waiting to get gunpowder in a trade, but apparantly they are very lazy about teching it. Joao offers physics for trade though.
He has almost finished RP so he wants about 1700g in the deal too, thats too expensive.
So I gift him RP with the idea to give him rifling next turn... Only that I don't have rifling.
That bumps me up to friendly with him too though (They both love HR), and I get gunpowder for liberalism+150g.
Then I get Physics for Communism+MT.
Shortly after that, Willy gets Physics too, and I think he self-teched it. So I swing away Physics for constitution with Pacal.
After gunpowder I start to rech rifling.

Delayed rifling one turn to whip another round of numidians. Now it's time!

I stayed extremly light in transports. I have 3 galleons in total so the first wave is 9 upgraded numidians that are upgraded inside a city so they can be loaded onto transports right away even though they spend their movement points, this way I can land them next turn.
Once rifling is in, I whip a bunch of airships since I can't build numidians anymore.
I give rifling to Joao my buddy for chemistry, and then give chemistry to my buddy Pacal for corporations. Good times!

Here the cavallery lands, so they can avoid attacking over the river.
I love how Monty/Wang/Bismark all have managed to settle all their cities except one each on flatland.

Airships from Wangs city will soften up the longbows which have no first strikes due to the flank2 promotion. Still a clumsy cavallery manages to die at 90%+ odds.
Once the city falls, the numidians who where pre-shipped (the galleons where busy!) pillage most stuff, but a bunch also rides into town and upgrade.
The two chariots gets to attack the last wounded units in preparation for a super medic.

Who doesn't love to pillage cottages? :> 380g the first turn alone!

Bismark just killed off one stack of Wangs, but Wang comes again strong. Here I give Bismark education for him to stop his war against Monty. The help was really appreciated Bismark, but I can handle it from here, you focus on Wang now.
(he does, but after a half-dozen turns or so, they make peace, realizing that noone really wanted the war except me anyway.)

It's when you see cities like this, you want a second heroic.

With CHA, I would get too much xp on the super medic to find good use for. 13xp is enough for medic3 and 20xp I get the movement promotion too, so I split the xp with a numidian instead.
I think I'll attach future GGenerals to cannons so they can tag along and bombard abit. Although an milacademy in Montys capital might be good.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T183 :

Had a GMerch standing in Amsterdam so I did a mission for 2100g there before whiping down the capital abit. Kind of starved for resources.

T178 Wang and Bismark make peace.
T181 Monty leaves this world.

3 cavalry, 2 numidians, good deal for an empire!

T182 I manage to get Steel from willy for rifling+communism.
I might be able to broker steampowder if I get either divine right or democracy and pair that with biology with Joao.

Nice pillaging run, 1337 gold over 11 turns!

I have a turn invested in electricity and would be able to get it if it wheren't for Pacal building broadway.

Bismark has positioned his main stack in his only hilled city, and wang is starting to look scary too. I'm starting to doubt that I can make much more progress without going for infantry+artillery. Still 5 turns left untill I can goad them against each other again too.

 

[Snowygerry]

Nice write up - looking forward to the rest,

especially impressed by the way you handled diplomacy/tech trade upon contact, that's when I usually Fup up a good Iso game

 

[krikav]

Nice write up - looking forward to the rest,
especially impressed by the way you handled diplomacy/tech trade upon contact, that's when I usually Fup up a good Iso game

You mean the trick to trade alot with the first AIs you meed, and refraining from making conntact with the others to avoid WFYABTA issues? I like that alot too.
The only reason I was able to do it to such an extreme here though was due to getting the map from the second AI early on.
In more normal games meeting others faster and getting a rough idea of what is going on faster usually trumps getting a few more trades later on.

Will probably continue the game shortly and:

Spoiler :

I checked the tech situation, and Bismarck is a loong way from rifles. Should be quite doable to continue waring against him shortly without much more required. Maybe a revolt to state property (to handle overseas expenses) and nationalism (to draft some defenders) and then just roll on. Airships and the heavily promoted cavallery should make short work of him if I can catch his main SOD on the defensive.

 

[Snowygerry]

The combination of all those things yes, it is very important to remain calm and resist the temptation to blindly trade with the first AI you meet, spoiling subsequent trades with others, it is quite easy to become hated by all quickly after spending so long alone.

More so at higher difficulty levels I imagine, you have a very "mathematical" playstyle I can only dream of

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T188 :

BIsmarck comes down to steal the gold, so I chop the forests before he gets them.

1 turn away from bio I trade away rifling to Pacal for divine right+360g (I also ask him to go into free market, mainly to keep him in HR for the diplo bonus) the idea is to broker both bio+divine right for Joaos steampower. Or at least I'll get divine right to sell around for all the others gold.

The plan worked out, yay!
Once that trade is in, I revolt 2 turns into nationhood + state property + theocracy.
Once that is done, I first draft 3 rifles and only then I revolt to judaism. That way I get one more turn of drafting and the cooldown starts one turn sooner.

Begged 30g from Wang before revolting to juda to keep him off my back while I focus on Bismarck.

Ok, now my units are healed up and in position. Bismarck has placed his doomstack in Cologne too.

Declare and slam him with airships. Happy cavallry runs the grenadiers down.

All green! This is much better than a fair fight.

I missed that Bissy got Astro, was out with my frigattes to bombard cities down, but he got the ocean now.
His doomstack is kindly placed on flatland right next to my army.

Thanks for making this easy Bissy boy!

Since I'm in nationhood now, I don't get commerce nor hammer bonuses in the capital so I take the opportunity to grow as much as possible now. The plains cottages can wait.
I'm pushing electricity now to hopefully get it partially from Pacal for my biology.

 

[Fippy]

DEAD Montezuma, looks like AI Survivor

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T203 :

Crazy-talk!
I sell divine right to Willy for 100g, but even with that extra cash, Pacal thinks I'm crazy-talking.
T190 he has biology, so apparantly he was self-teching bio.

This is why it can be really really good to have techs you don't have left, like drama/divine right etc. That way you can always see check for half-teched stuff with the AIs.
If I didn't have divine right, maybe I would have seen that he didn't want to give me divine right for bio even if I added 1000g.
But with divine right already known for me, I'm more blind to what the AIs are up too.

With the forge and state propertys +10%, I will be able to whip the levee at pop8 after two turns of marginal hammers and starvation.

Only 3 cavalry was 100% hp and they didn't have overwhelming odds either, so I move forward inbetween the injured doomstack of mine and Montys city 1S of the oil. From there my medic can heal both stacks.
I didn't keep track of pillaging against Bismarck, but I would be suprised if I didn't get about 1000g from his stuff.

First causalty! That horseman was probably drunk because he had 98% odds or so.

Planning a hell of a golden age once Bismarcks cities are out of revolt, this city with national epic provides the GPerson.

Artillery is in.

And Bismarck is out!
12 airships attacked his city, 8 from offshore cities at willys place, and 4 from a city Wang had since he didn't have OB with Bissy.
Look at that lovely cannon! After airships that had 98% odds and survived.

City would have been swamped by both AIs culture, I got liberation bonus from Joao and that made him friendly. Wee!

Railroad from Willy for Bio+Electricity, I have no coal yet though since I was too lazy to settle the northern part of the starting island. But will get some from bismarks territory soon.
Going full wealth in most cities here and teching assembly line.
I also bribed Joao into state property to make sure he stays in HR even though he wanted 400g to be bothered.

Two turns and he is still stingy. The next turn however the deal goes through when I add 300g to the deal.
I contemplated being greedy and trying to get radio from Pacal for a second or two next turn, but then I just took combustion for AL and was done with it.

 

[krikav]

T205 Situation

Spoiler :

I forgot to draft infantry last turn, should do that this turn at least. But perhaps I should delay the GA a few turns longer to get more of those guys out first too.
I think I want to go into organized religion to get factories and levees up.
Have one turn invested in most of the relevant buildings, so I could swap to org-rel and whip all juda cities and then swap to some other religion that is prevalent in Bis/Montys territory and whip all with the religious bonus.
Having just that single Moai city slow-building missionaries have been too slow to keep up with conquest, although I have managed to saturated the starting island with Juda.
National epic city should be able to get out two guys for a second GA in case I need a paci-push so don't think I need to fogus on that now. Getting factories up fast is probably of higher importance.

Have probably been too harsh to the cities, drafting and whipping. They don't look well prepared for a GA really.

Wang started plotting after I joined a defensie pact with Joao. I suspect Joao is #1 in soldiers because he have had AL for ages. Wang is probably #2 but I highly suspect that Wang is plotting against his W/E Pacal.
I think mine and Joaos combined power should deter plotting against me.

Only Pacal is a marginal cultural threat, but his third city is only around 5000 culture so no big deal. Also, he is running with 2 religions only.
Bis/Monty seems to have taken quite a few of the minority religions which makes that problem way less.
Looks like I just have to roll over them with tanks before they go to space to wrap this up.

HR is probably required to keep some friendly trading partner, but if I want to keep that up I probably have to get spies out and running.

Only trouble I can stir up is to have Pacal declare on Willy, but that would probably just result in Willy folding like a wet paper bag.

29 Cavalry, 29 rifles, 16 airships. Should build or whip some siege.
Flight would be nice and likewise would industrialism for tanks.
I like my combined losses.
The two caravels, the axe and the chariot was against barbs, Monty/Bis has only managed to kill 4 cavalry, 2 numidians and one explorer which I sacrificed.

 

[konata_LS]

Play some turns until Optics contacts. Situation is, eh, a little different from what I saw in LP Isolation games .

Spoiler Monarch level until Optics contacts :

To learn more about Isolation games, I watched Lain's Ragnar Isolation LP videos. It seems after Optics contacts, the player can get many techs like CS, Feudalism or Paper through trade. So, let's do it!

Chopped caravels and sent them towards that suspicious Fish. Met Monty and WK. Monty was busy warring, as always .

Monty might be the WE of some AIs, but I couldn't care about that, because I desperately needed Monarchy.

Finally my capital can grow:

On T141 I met everyone. However, the tech situation is really different from what I've seen in Lain's Ragnar videos.

Me: "Hello! Care to trade Civil Service for Machinery and Compass?"
AIs: "Are you kidding? We still don't have Feudalism yet."

No one had Feudalism. WK was the only one with CoL .
It seems after Astronomy, I have to self-tech Civil Service .

 

[konata_LS]

Spoiler T133 :

Spoiler :

You've got so many useful techs in trade. Very nice!
When I met others in 680AD, none of them had Feudalism. Only WK had CoL and he was unwilling to trade it .

Maybe that's why many experienced players say "Deity is a completely different game". In a same map, tech trading or tech situation on Monarch and on Deity can be completely different.

difficulty level matters a ton on tech trading dynamics

Now I truly understand what @ sampsa meant .

 

[krikav]

@konata_LS Yeah, it's entierly different.
On deity you can get alot of tech, but so can the AIs and it's super easy to get left completely in the dust while all the others blaze off into space.
@Lain is very good at being conservative with his tech trading, there is benefits about that in that every trade you do moves the AIs forward alot. Not only do they get the tech for free, but they reach later eras faster too, thereby gaining even more era multipliers faster. So it's very much like playing with fire, easy to get burned!

What I love to do, and the current game here is a perfect example of that, is to have some trading partners which I happily trade and broker with, and others that I leave behind.
Once there is a rift between two groups of AIs, they will cease to trade with each other.

Spoiler :

Happend in this game with Joao, Willy, Pacal and me getting ahead. And Monty/Bismarck getting left behind. Wang was sort of inbetween.

At a certain point, there wasn't much risk of Bismarck getting say... printing press in a trade, he was too primitive to have anything useful to give the other AIs and he was doomed to self-tech everything.

This approach causes problems too though, Joao/Pacal gets really powerful, and had I not gotten a good chunk of land they could have become too powerful to ever catch.

Your game:

Spoiler :

You are looking at a respectable astro date there I think.
You are ahead in tech and astro traderoutes and the happines resources will only widen the divide.

You can look at @Fish Man s game in @King Younk s thread for a game where he completely stomped the map on somewhat low difficulty and try to mimic that.

I would surely recommend going for numidians and upgrading them, they will serve you well riding against primitive foes.

 

[konata_LS]

Spoiler Monarch level from 620AD to the end :

When Astro was about to finish, a settler waited near Sugar. Once Astro researched, the city near Sugar will be founded, for the extra - from Sugar and for selling Sugar to AIs. After all, 4 1 from Sugar is not bad.

On T187, Lib something which only took 6 turns to self-tech. I felt like a moron . Self-tech Chemistry and grab Steel with Lib would have been much better .

WvO built Hindu AP, and all the AIs had Hinduism - the situation was dangerous. I had to convert to Hinduism and built missionaries to increase my vote, because I must prevent Pacal from AP victory.

Attack with Cannons. Dogpiled Biz who was fighting against Monty. Biz capitulated on T230:

A lovely gift from Biz: Berlin with 4 GGenerals (a capital with more than 3 settled GGs often happens when an AI has Monty as neighbour ). Even without Theocracy or Vassalage, Berlin could built 11 exp Cannons. Combined with CHA was even better

During the war with Biz, I captured the only German city with Hindu. So, there was no risk of AI's religious victory anymore .

Monty capitulated on T239, after only losing 2 cities. Maybe his main stack was already lost in his previous war with Biz.

The next target was WK. He only had 5 cities (he lost several cities in his war with Joao). WK disappeared in 1720AD.

The real trouble was Joao. He had 16 cities, though he was backward in tech: he had no MT, no Rifling, no Steel. Built Rifles, Grens, Cannons and Cavs to attack Joao. A tough fight. Finally he capitulated after he lost his capital:

Another nice gift from AI: Lisbon with 3 GGs and a Military Academy

Pacal already got Infantry but I only had Rifles .
Declared on Pacal on T287. Sent massive Rifles + Cavs + Arty to zerg Pacal's Infantries. Quantity over quality. With enough from SP workshops, who cares about quality. Just zerg everything.

Pacal capitulated on T298 with Combustion.

One turn later, domination:

With SP + Caste + more than 20 cities, quantity over quality.

Cavs + Rifles to zerg Pacal's Inf.

I didn't attack Willem, because I thought he was not a threat with only 4 cites and very few units. If VC screen shows one of WvO's city has more than 20000 , I can attack him at any time.

Attached the save at the end of the game. Suggestions and constructive criticisms are warmly welcomed. As I mentioned before, skipping Monarchy in this map turned out to be a mistake; the second city would have been much better if placed 1N. Apart from Monarchy and that second city, there are certainly many other aspects which can be improved.

Spoiler :

I would like to hear some suggestions about the civics. I used Paganism throughout the game, because I was not sure about the choice of religious civic . Which religious civics I should use in this game?

Another suggestions I would like to hear is about whipping. In such an Iso map with no early - resources, no Stone, no Marble, should we switch into Slavery together with HR? Hanni is not SPI, 1 turn Anarchy is better than 2 turns.
And what should I whip in this map? Should I whip Settlers/Workers, or whip Granary and Library?

This is the first time I play Isolation. I feel often confused and it seems I've made numerous mistakes.

 

[konata_LS]

@krikav

Thanks for sharing the map

Isolation is more challenging than standard Pangaea or Continents maps. But both leader (strong traits) and this map (enough + many riverside grass tiles) makes the map winnable. Some strong techers on the other continent prevent the map from being too cheesy.

Isolation might not be the best choice for people who just move up in difficulty. On the other hand, for those who want to try Isolation for the first time at a difficulty level they are used to, this map suits well.

Spoiler :

Oh I wish I had read your post earlier! I forgot about Numidians and went instinctively for Engineering-GP-Chemistry-Steel. The attack was solid but slow. Attacking with upgraded mounted units would have been much faster .

Trading with AIs on Deity is more subtle than lower levels . You're thinking about "trade with whom" while many people playing at Monarch & below just self-tech most of things.

@Fish Man

Spoiler :

As @ krikav suggested, I've checked your Kublai Iso game. Impressive gameplay.

Do you think Knights + Trebs also work well under Normal speed? Or Cuirs under Normal speed would be better?

 

[krikav]

@konata_LS Thank @Henrik75 too, it was his map! And watch his video, he went for cannons and thats way waaaay more common than going for some mounted attack in iso.

I agree on your assessment of the map, excellent trait, good map and still some formidable challenges abroad. Very good iso map!
Only element that would make it even better is to have some stay AI on a continent of it's own, that way it's guaranteed that at least one AI will be abit more behind and will be able to provide the player a foothold in case the others run away.

Regaring your questions.

Spoiler :

In my games I find that it's often faster to just go straight for steel and completely ignore paper/philo/edu/lib. All the techs along that line tend to have decent trading value too, starting with guilds.


Slavery and whipping?
Sometimes it makes sense to not revolt to slavery before you do a double-switch, but often it's useful, it's likely that you will at least whip something.
But if you have an abundance of forests and enough workers it can be better to just chop out the stuff you need (granaries and 2-3 libraries).
Whipping settlers/workers is often something you do once you have grown past happycap or are very close to it, and in those cases finding the right timing to put the overflow hammers into good use is a thing.
Sort of like... "I know I'll have pottery in 7 turns, and by that time I need to be either at pop7 with 30-39 hammers into a settler, ready to whip in 6 turns, so that I generate 40 hammers overflow, and that combined with a chop will finish the granary.
You are right to be sceptical about slavery on this map, the capital can't stand much whipping at all, at least not pre-granary.


Religion:
I adopted organized religion once I got civil service to start spreading a religion around, but I wasn't so lucky to get spread so I could not do it.

What religion to adopt can be delicate with regard to diplo, but often a religion is worth it even if it upsets someone.
In your game, I would almost certainly have been a hindu.

But if you feel really compelled not to upset the AIs, either free religion is a thing, or sometimes being in no state religion, but still adopting theocracy (to make Justinian/Bella/Saladin happy perhaps?) or Organised religion to build missionaries in preparaton for a later religious swap, or to please Ramesses or Sury.

Having a religion just to jump into for short periods of time during GAs can be worth it alone.