drhirsch
Warlord
I gave this one a try, because at heart I am a peaceful builder, forced to warmongering by emperor+ difficulty levels 
This start is absolutly awesome.
This start is absolutly awesome.
Spoiler :
Lonely Hearts 4b - Imperial Frederick
- Thread starter InvisibleStalke
- Start date
InvisibleStalke
Emperor
I found I reached a point where I simply couldn't trade with anyone - even the techs I could lightbulb the AIs already had. I'm in the 1600's now and trying for a culture win while Mansa builds spaceship parts.
My one hope is if I can generate enough artists before he builds the spaceship. Its a long shot at best. I only have two religions so the cottages aren't producing enough culture yet. I have a city with no religions waiting that I hope will catch a third, but I'm playing this out more to see what the AIs will do than anything else.
My one hope is if I can generate enough artists before he builds the spaceship. Its a long shot at best. I only have two religions so the cottages aren't producing enough culture yet. I have a city with no religions waiting that I hope will catch a third, but I'm playing this out more to see what the AIs will do than anything else.
Dirk1302
Deity
I played the game further as well, last time at 1000 ad i was way behind in tech, losing the lib race 560 ad presumably to MM. I kept the slavery civic so as to be able to whip in buildings asap.
Meanwhile Hannibal and Washington were at war with each other but the rest of the other continent was peacefully teching away. At 1460 i got my first break, while MM was still miles ahead i suddenly got Bio on him (a tech i had beelined since we're playing an SE). Negotiations started,MM was prepared to attack the power leader Ramesses and Washington at the same time.
After bio my research rate shot up with more and more specialists put to work and science buildings whipped in. First save after 1000 AD is this one from 1690 AD (i lost the rest of the saves due to a stupid error i made playing Roosevelt up to 1685 overwriting the Frederick autosaves
). Here's some pictures at that time:
Empire at this time, it's netting 1510 beakers / turn at the moment at 100%, losing 120 gpt/turn. i'd be more or less even (-40gpt/turn) at 90% netting 1390 beakers/turn. It seems that organized means you can research at 10% higher since normally it's 80% iirc.
As you can see MM still has the highest gnp, while i've reached second place with an SE so i asume i'm getting techs fastest at this moment. Note how MM's graph is affected by the double war declaration 1460 AD. Also MM was so advanced that he had to tech every thing himself while i could trade my techs for 2-3 other techs first with the others.
I've no power at all but i'm not in any danger i feel because the other continent is busy with MM at this moment. They really tore into him as a block and here his own power begins to fall. Only AI i had to watch once in a while was Wang Kon, the coward again managed to stay out of all the wars. He never showed any inclination to get at me though.
Finally the tech screen at that moment, i've radio and comps on every one and rocketry on a few. The others have combustion, industrialisation and probably plastics on me which is business as usual. The internet will take care of that. The game is clearly won at this time i think.
Meanwhile Hannibal and Washington were at war with each other but the rest of the other continent was peacefully teching away. At 1460 i got my first break, while MM was still miles ahead i suddenly got Bio on him (a tech i had beelined since we're playing an SE). Negotiations started,MM was prepared to attack the power leader Ramesses and Washington at the same time.
After bio my research rate shot up with more and more specialists put to work and science buildings whipped in. First save after 1000 AD is this one from 1690 AD (i lost the rest of the saves due to a stupid error i made playing Roosevelt up to 1685 overwriting the Frederick autosaves
). Here's some pictures at that time:Empire at this time, it's netting 1510 beakers / turn at the moment at 100%, losing 120 gpt/turn. i'd be more or less even (-40gpt/turn) at 90% netting 1390 beakers/turn. It seems that organized means you can research at 10% higher since normally it's 80% iirc.
As you can see MM still has the highest gnp, while i've reached second place with an SE so i asume i'm getting techs fastest at this moment. Note how MM's graph is affected by the double war declaration 1460 AD. Also MM was so advanced that he had to tech every thing himself while i could trade my techs for 2-3 other techs first with the others.
I've no power at all but i'm not in any danger i feel because the other continent is busy with MM at this moment. They really tore into him as a block and here his own power begins to fall. Only AI i had to watch once in a while was Wang Kon, the coward again managed to stay out of all the wars. He never showed any inclination to get at me though.
Finally the tech screen at that moment, i've radio and comps on every one and rocketry on a few. The others have combustion, industrialisation and probably plastics on me which is business as usual. The internet will take care of that. The game is clearly won at this time i think.
Dirk1302
Deity
Ultimately won the game in 1864 with a space race. MM was vassalized and harmless by that time.
InvisibleStalke
Emperor
Well congrats to those that pulled off a win on this map. I failed for the second time - my late game culture rush wasn't fast enough with only two religions. I could not get a third to spread and I didn't have any techs to stir up trouble on the mainland.
My conclusions so far:
- I am not great at running Philo - I need the practice and I'll try again, farming everywhere and running slavery for much longer.
- You can't have liberalism and optics on Emperor. In fact its dubious whether you can get liberalism (even beelining to it I missed it with Mansa getting it in the 600's or so).
- I think optics is the better tech for an SE - to get tech trading earlier and to get Astronomy which is absolutely crucial to raise happiness and health.
- Diplo win is the best shot
My conclusions so far:
- I am not great at running Philo - I need the practice and I'll try again, farming everywhere and running slavery for much longer.
- You can't have liberalism and optics on Emperor. In fact its dubious whether you can get liberalism (even beelining to it I missed it with Mansa getting it in the 600's or so).
- I think optics is the better tech for an SE - to get tech trading earlier and to get Astronomy which is absolutely crucial to raise happiness and health.
- Diplo win is the best shot
drhirsch
Warlord
Unfortunatly I have only one save:
View attachment Lonely Frederick BC-0175.CivWarlordsSave
Currently in process of building a small army for taking the barb city in the south. Besides this, barbs were almost a non-issue, mainly because of the wall.
Techwise I am beelining for optics.
I managed to loose a worker, though :-/ Barb warriors can move 2 squares and kill out of the dark, if I build them nice roads before. Well, yet another lesson learned.
The whole game I stayed extremly light on army, because I was isolated and walled in. Late in the game I engaged in a phony war, with no consequences.
You may note, I settled very slowly. This was on purpose, there is no need for REX (again, were isolated). My tech rate depends mainly on my wonderful capital, though late in the game 2 cities had a lot of towns but didn't even come close to Berlin which had 900+ Beakers a turn.
If I remember right, the last city was founded after 1000 AD. Some of the late cities ware in bad spots and didn't make much difference, they were mainly in place to keep the AIs from my continent.
AFAIK I didn't use the culture slider at all. Sience slider wasn't that important, because the main part of beakers (>50%) came from specialists, even in the late game. I remember setteling two merchants from Hamburg in Berlin, giving even more food
I settled a lot of early scientists (~5) and some engineers too. I refuse to lightbulb a tech, which I can research in lets say 6 turns or something. In the very late game I lightbulbed them anyway of course.
I managed to circumnavigate the globe, but did fail on liberalism. Whe I met the others, I was somewhat behind in tech, quickly cought up. After the Internet I had a tech lead and never lost it. A few turns before I launched, I was forced to adopt Universal Suffrage - the time for researching Future Tech 1 went up from about 17 turns to 30 or something ^^
View attachment Lonely Frederick BC-0175.CivWarlordsSave
Currently in process of building a small army for taking the barb city in the south. Besides this, barbs were almost a non-issue, mainly because of the wall.
Techwise I am beelining for optics.
I managed to loose a worker, though :-/ Barb warriors can move 2 squares and kill out of the dark, if I build them nice roads before. Well, yet another lesson learned.
The whole game I stayed extremly light on army, because I was isolated and walled in. Late in the game I engaged in a phony war, with no consequences.
You may note, I settled very slowly. This was on purpose, there is no need for REX (again, were isolated). My tech rate depends mainly on my wonderful capital, though late in the game 2 cities had a lot of towns but didn't even come close to Berlin which had 900+ Beakers a turn.
If I remember right, the last city was founded after 1000 AD. Some of the late cities ware in bad spots and didn't make much difference, they were mainly in place to keep the AIs from my continent.
AFAIK I didn't use the culture slider at all. Sience slider wasn't that important, because the main part of beakers (>50%) came from specialists, even in the late game. I remember setteling two merchants from Hamburg in Berlin, giving even more food
I settled a lot of early scientists (~5) and some engineers too. I refuse to lightbulb a tech, which I can research in lets say 6 turns or something. In the very late game I lightbulbed them anyway of course.
I managed to circumnavigate the globe, but did fail on liberalism. Whe I met the others, I was somewhat behind in tech, quickly cought up. After the Internet I had a tech lead and never lost it. A few turns before I launched, I was forced to adopt Universal Suffrage - the time for researching Future Tech 1 went up from about 17 turns to 30 or something ^^
I agree that you can't get both lib and optics. However, you were unlucky to have an AI get it in 600's. That is way early for emperor.
I would take lib over optics. You will likely get to trade with some AI who show up and if you get lib you can easily backfill the missing techs. On an isolated map you don't need MC, compass, mach, optics which is really a lot.
If you get really lucky you can trade edu for the missing pieces of optics just before lib then take astro and trade with the rest of the world.
Dirk1302
Deity
lib 600 ad is very early, was 560 ad in my game. I used to go lib in isolated starts this is ok on monarch since you'll win that race and can take astro.I'm not so sure on emperor+ anymore. Thing is Astronomy is the most important thing tech by far on isolated it takes priority over anything else. It's not likely you can trade for it getting lib early.
Moreover just beelining optics astro takes the load of you having to win that race, so especially in SE you can build up at leisure using slavery instead of racing to lib with 10 specialists in capital with caste system stalling the development of the other cities. Once you get astro and you've build up your empire well it's no problem to be several techs (10+) behind as you'll catch up rather easily.
I think i'll try this (not trying to win lib, beelining optics) in the next emperor+ isolated installment.
Moreover just beelining optics astro takes the load of you having to win that race, so especially in SE you can build up at leisure using slavery instead of racing to lib with 10 specialists in capital with caste system stalling the development of the other cities. Once you get astro and you've build up your empire well it's no problem to be several techs (10+) behind as you'll catch up rather easily.
I think i'll try this (not trying to win lib, beelining optics) in the next emperor+ isolated installment.
Altough the lib path has advantages as well--you should meet a couple of AI and may be able to trade for much of the astro path. The AI tend to prioritize optics over edu-lib, so if you go the optics route you might find you have little to trade when you meet the AI. Also since you don't have enemies to worry about, getting univ started earlier is pretty important.
One possibility would be to evaluate the position, and in a strong one go for lib, and in a weak one figure that is a lost cause and get optics.
Dirk1302
Deity
If i go the optics route on emperor+ i'm 100% sure i'll have nothing to trade when i meet the others, i'm at least close to astro though after which i can catch up.
If i go lib on the other hand and i lose the race i'll also haven't got much to trade and i'll be some distance from astro (though i can trade to optics with paper/edu in this case i still have to start on astro in this case), i will have used caste system so my empire will be less developed than when i beelined Optics (no slavery). Estimating if lib is on is a bit difficult,on average as a yardstick i'd say you must get it before 1050-1100 on emperor , before 900-1000 on immmortal to have a good chance of winning.
Whichever beeline is taken CS should always be prioritized and the capital improved to the max but i don't think i'm saying something new here.
We need more experience with emperor+ isolated start i feel to come to a more definite solution i think.
If i go lib on the other hand and i lose the race i'll also haven't got much to trade and i'll be some distance from astro (though i can trade to optics with paper/edu in this case i still have to start on astro in this case), i will have used caste system so my empire will be less developed than when i beelined Optics (no slavery). Estimating if lib is on is a bit difficult,on average as a yardstick i'd say you must get it before 1050-1100 on emperor , before 900-1000 on immmortal to have a good chance of winning.
Whichever beeline is taken CS should always be prioritized and the capital improved to the max but i don't think i'm saying something new here.
We need more experience with emperor+ isolated start i feel to come to a more definite solution i think.
InvisibleStalke
Emperor
Well, I did it. Diplomatic victory in 1660 AD - final score 51k.
Its my third attempt, so I had a good idea of what strategy would work well. And boy did it work well.
Ran a farm/SE using slavery. It meant I couldn't get the raw beakers of caste system, but my empire was much more developed. Oxford came online fairly early and by whipping specialist buildings I could run enough specialists to compete.
Build great wall and pyramids in capital and missed stonehenge by one turn in city 2. REXed to cover key sites while researching from scientists in capital. Used Great Engineer to build the Great Library. Built early academy in capital then lightbulbed Philo. I then burned an engineer on Ankor Wat for some more specialist slots. After that I went straight to Optics. Used another scientist on machinery and self researched everything else.
Got Optics around 650AD - fairly respectable. Made contact with everyone. I was able to trade Philo for some missing techs including currency. I was lucky that everyone was fairly peaceful. In fact I could trade with 5 AIs without incurring worst enemy penalties. So that gave me one rival for diplomacy and one enemy I was going to beat up on.
Next stop was Astronomy. And this was huge. It probably doubled my tech rate. Suddenly I could open borders with 5 civs and I had a great trade tech to score a lot more that I had missed out on.
I traded for Civil Service, researched paper and lightbulbed education. Liberalism was scored by one of the AIs around 1000 AD. Since I hadn't tried for it I hadn't lost anything. Continued lightbulbing through printing press and then researched Chemistry. I was just keeping pace with the AI - most techs I researched I could trade for 2-3 others.
From then on I kept self researching. I had switched to free religion so my great people supply slowed down. Then Scientific Method and Biology. Got another engineer that I saved. Physics, Electricity.
With Electricity I was finally able to start a world war against my enemy. Bribed three to attack and one joined in on his own. I had been keeping a minimal army but had build about 6 frigates and a couple of caravels which were stationed off the coast of my enemy ready to sink any invasion fleet. Everyone else was at least pleased with me by then.
So I started the war, and then joined in to gain diplomatic points. My contribution was limited to pillaging fishing boats and sinking caravels.
That took my four friends to friendly. From there I teched to Mass Media, burnt the engineer I was saving on the UN. Switched civics to match preferred civics for extra points. And put all my specialists to work on farms with 70% culture to grow my cities.
Win in 1660 AD. My earliest (by far) diplo win ever. I was behind for a space race at this point, but it really didn't matter.
Some thoughts after the win:
- Beelining Astro is very powerful - more so than Liberalism in my opinion.
- Free market was huge for me. I usually don't appreciate this so much but with lots of harbours I was getting a lot of trade income. My capital ran around 6 specialists for most of the game, and my other cities only ran 3-4. The rest of my research came from trading techs and trade income.
- Having caravels and a fleet outside my enemies ports game me a security that I didn't need to beef up my defenses at home. I ran nationalism for much of the game and occasionally drafted but I really didn't have much of a military at all.
Its my third attempt, so I had a good idea of what strategy would work well. And boy did it work well.
Ran a farm/SE using slavery. It meant I couldn't get the raw beakers of caste system, but my empire was much more developed. Oxford came online fairly early and by whipping specialist buildings I could run enough specialists to compete.
Build great wall and pyramids in capital and missed stonehenge by one turn in city 2. REXed to cover key sites while researching from scientists in capital. Used Great Engineer to build the Great Library. Built early academy in capital then lightbulbed Philo. I then burned an engineer on Ankor Wat for some more specialist slots. After that I went straight to Optics. Used another scientist on machinery and self researched everything else.
Got Optics around 650AD - fairly respectable. Made contact with everyone. I was able to trade Philo for some missing techs including currency. I was lucky that everyone was fairly peaceful. In fact I could trade with 5 AIs without incurring worst enemy penalties. So that gave me one rival for diplomacy and one enemy I was going to beat up on.
Spoiler :
Next stop was Astronomy. And this was huge. It probably doubled my tech rate. Suddenly I could open borders with 5 civs and I had a great trade tech to score a lot more that I had missed out on.
I traded for Civil Service, researched paper and lightbulbed education. Liberalism was scored by one of the AIs around 1000 AD. Since I hadn't tried for it I hadn't lost anything. Continued lightbulbing through printing press and then researched Chemistry. I was just keeping pace with the AI - most techs I researched I could trade for 2-3 others.
From then on I kept self researching. I had switched to free religion so my great people supply slowed down. Then Scientific Method and Biology. Got another engineer that I saved. Physics, Electricity.
With Electricity I was finally able to start a world war against my enemy. Bribed three to attack and one joined in on his own. I had been keeping a minimal army but had build about 6 frigates and a couple of caravels which were stationed off the coast of my enemy ready to sink any invasion fleet. Everyone else was at least pleased with me by then.
So I started the war, and then joined in to gain diplomatic points. My contribution was limited to pillaging fishing boats and sinking caravels.
That took my four friends to friendly. From there I teched to Mass Media, burnt the engineer I was saving on the UN. Switched civics to match preferred civics for extra points. And put all my specialists to work on farms with 70% culture to grow my cities.
Win in 1660 AD. My earliest (by far) diplo win ever. I was behind for a space race at this point, but it really didn't matter.
Some thoughts after the win:
- Beelining Astro is very powerful - more so than Liberalism in my opinion.
- Free market was huge for me. I usually don't appreciate this so much but with lots of harbours I was getting a lot of trade income. My capital ran around 6 specialists for most of the game, and my other cities only ran 3-4. The rest of my research came from trading techs and trade income.
- Having caravels and a fleet outside my enemies ports game me a security that I didn't need to beef up my defenses at home. I ran nationalism for much of the game and occasionally drafted but I really didn't have much of a military at all.
I gave this game repeated attempts.There are certain things i felt is essential to isolated + emperor and above.
1. Pyramids for representation. Max science specialists in capital is crucial to the tech parity race.
2. Astronomy is the determinant if you can catch up in the technology race. Liberalism is often won by the AIs in the other continent, even if you can reach it. The likelihood that you can bulb astronomy is low and the likelihood that AI has astronomy is low as well. If you delay astronomy, you simply lost the chance for tech parity. I will vote beelining for astronomy in isolated starts but avoiding trading this tech to your rivals unless you need it for diplo reasons.
3. Temple of artemis in capital and the great lighthouse seems to be critical wonders. If you are diplomatically "smart", your army deployment can be lax and you MIGHT be able to skip the infantry tech for military protection... going to the radio-computer route for tech trade possibilities and subsequently internet beeline. My observation in this game is temple of artemis/great lighthouse gives an additional +100 beakers to the research war.
4. Great persons lightbulbs. Settling seems to make a better choice if we beeline to astronomy. The only essential tech to lightbulb is philo.... for pacifism.
5. Getting AI that doesn't like you into trouble and getting strong AI into war is essential at emperor and above, even at the expense of critical tech if there is a chance.
1. Pyramids for representation. Max science specialists in capital is crucial to the tech parity race.
2. Astronomy is the determinant if you can catch up in the technology race. Liberalism is often won by the AIs in the other continent, even if you can reach it. The likelihood that you can bulb astronomy is low and the likelihood that AI has astronomy is low as well. If you delay astronomy, you simply lost the chance for tech parity. I will vote beelining for astronomy in isolated starts but avoiding trading this tech to your rivals unless you need it for diplo reasons.
3. Temple of artemis in capital and the great lighthouse seems to be critical wonders. If you are diplomatically "smart", your army deployment can be lax and you MIGHT be able to skip the infantry tech for military protection... going to the radio-computer route for tech trade possibilities and subsequently internet beeline. My observation in this game is temple of artemis/great lighthouse gives an additional +100 beakers to the research war.
4. Great persons lightbulbs. Settling seems to make a better choice if we beeline to astronomy. The only essential tech to lightbulb is philo.... for pacifism.
5. Getting AI that doesn't like you into trouble and getting strong AI into war is essential at emperor and above, even at the expense of critical tech if there is a chance.
drhirsch
Warlord
Impressive Diplo Victory, InvisibleStalke
The early game did share some similarities with mine, it seems. But I missed Stonehenge in my 2nd city by 2 turns :-/
I rarely use Caste System too, even if I run a SE. Whipping your city development outweights the few extra specialists you could have in most cases. Of course, this depens on the amounts of food you have available.
The early game did share some similarities with mine, it seems. But I missed Stonehenge in my 2nd city by 2 turns :-/
I rarely use Caste System too, even if I run a SE. Whipping your city development outweights the few extra specialists you could have in most cases. Of course, this depens on the amounts of food you have available.
InvisibleStalke
Emperor
Pyramids was big in my game - I staying in representation the whole time. But I wouldn't have gone for it without stone/industrious, so I am not sure we can count on it. HR is pretty good too and if you aren't running a specialist economy, a lot better.
If you are running an SE you can bulb Astronomy by skipping Civil Service. I wouldn't do this with a CE though.
Did you use Engineers to get these other wonders? I don't think they were available to me in time and I wanted to save my Engineer to be certain to get the Great Library. I took Ankor Wat which worked pretty well for me - but I can see these would be even more powerful.
If you avoid Civil Service you can lightbulb machinery and Astronomy which were worth it for me. I also lightbulbed paper - a mistake (should have saved the scientist for education). Settling with representation is pretty powerful though.
I completely agree. The nice thing about isolated starts is you get your choice of friends and enemies. If you just trade with your friends, pretty soon your enemies fall behind in tech. Eventually your friends like you enough that you can bribe them into war which cements the friendship and destroys your enemy.
Well, i will be impressed if someone pull off this game in a space race manner sub 1900 without the pyramids. Even if i don't have stone/industrious, i think i will still get the pyramids in an isolated start. +3 beakers per specialists cannot be ignored given AI's blatant advantages in the other continent.
Right now, i am inclined to believe SE/FE is the solution for isolated start pre-astro and can last you until the trade routes start hitting in.
HR doesn't do anything if you don't have foreign trade routes available at the start + the land in the game is actually crappy except the capital.
I actually tried lightbulbing to astronomy. Doesn't really make that much of a difference because of opponent's banking civic. The difference is that i don't get into the wrong side because i contact everyone first. Also, that depends on your great person luck.
I think the only essential early wonder to succeed in an isolated start above emperor is Pyramids. The second wonder is Temple of artemis if your capital is coastal.
Right now, i am inclined to believe SE/FE is the solution for isolated start pre-astro and can last you until the trade routes start hitting in.
HR doesn't do anything if you don't have foreign trade routes available at the start + the land in the game is actually crappy except the capital.
I actually tried lightbulbing to astronomy. Doesn't really make that much of a difference because of opponent's banking civic. The difference is that i don't get into the wrong side because i contact everyone first. Also, that depends on your great person luck.
I think the only essential early wonder to succeed in an isolated start above emperor is Pyramids. The second wonder is Temple of artemis if your capital is coastal.
InvisibleStalke
Emperor
This game and philosophical were crying out for the pyramids. But to counter the gain from the pyramids we missed out on the benefits of a heavily cottaged capital and bureaucracy. In other games (admitedly Monarch) this proved fairly decisive for a CE. HR became important because it let your capital grow early to run 14-16 cottages or so and push your research quickly towards optics.
I suspect it could work on Emperor too, given a good map/leader. Having a food rich capital with stone and few cottage sites made a SE fairly obvious for this map. On other maps a CE might have worked.
Getting to Astronomy probably doubled my research. I suspect some of the AIs had switched to Free Market by then - they had teched past banking. All you really need is at least one AI who isn't running mercantialism and it will help hugely. And you can trade resources to increase health and happy limits plus sell surplus resources. Its huge.
I suspect it could work on Emperor too, given a good map/leader. Having a food rich capital with stone and few cottage sites made a SE fairly obvious for this map. On other maps a CE might have worked.
Getting to Astronomy probably doubled my research. I suspect some of the AIs had switched to Free Market by then - they had teched past banking. All you really need is at least one AI who isn't running mercantialism and it will help hugely. And you can trade resources to increase health and happy limits plus sell surplus resources. Its huge.
willpax
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2006
- Messages
- 209
I'm finally getting around to this game, which has worried me because I don't normally play on emperor outside of quickly crashing and burning on GOTMs. Also, I've rarely made a specialist economy work well for me, so I thought I would give it a try. I had some snags: I was planning to bulb philosophy with a GS, only to find that I hadn't researched sailing yet which spoiled it for a few turns (and lost me my only good chance to found a religion).
The great start did give me some early optimism, as I snagged the Great Wall and the Pyramids in Berlin, then beelined for literature and managed to use an early engineer to get the Great Library (which is often a challenging wonder to build on isolated starts, as post-alphabet AIs start pulling away at that point).
My early expansion ran up against budgetary limits early, and, by first contact in the (for me) unexpectedly early year of 840, I had just lighbulbed paper. Here's the island at that moment:
I have two settlers being built, one to go south and one to replace the poorly located barb city in the west. I'll try for two more quick settlers, but my plans have been momentarily delayed by a barbarian galley wrecking my northern fisheries (and defeating the first trireme that was rush-built to stop it).
I was contacted by both Musa and Washington in 840. Here's the tech situation:
I haven't been playing with a cultural win in mind, but I'm beginning to regret that. These two AIs are different religions, but relatively peaceable, so now will be a chance for me to flex my diplo chops, I suppose. After I finish a rapid REX.
The great start did give me some early optimism, as I snagged the Great Wall and the Pyramids in Berlin, then beelined for literature and managed to use an early engineer to get the Great Library (which is often a challenging wonder to build on isolated starts, as post-alphabet AIs start pulling away at that point).
My early expansion ran up against budgetary limits early, and, by first contact in the (for me) unexpectedly early year of 840, I had just lighbulbed paper. Here's the island at that moment:
I have two settlers being built, one to go south and one to replace the poorly located barb city in the west. I'll try for two more quick settlers, but my plans have been momentarily delayed by a barbarian galley wrecking my northern fisheries (and defeating the first trireme that was rush-built to stop it).
I was contacted by both Musa and Washington in 840. Here's the tech situation:
I haven't been playing with a cultural win in mind, but I'm beginning to regret that. These two AIs are different religions, but relatively peaceable, so now will be a chance for me to flex my diplo chops, I suppose. After I finish a rapid REX.
InvisibleStalke
Emperor
Willpax - I think diplomacy is the only option for you. Good luck - this is a hard map and it took me three tries. Be very very careful with the diplomatic situation.
r_rolo1
King of myself
It surely looks a hard map ( I won't play it due to time restrictions (in this time of the year my job is eating 11 hours of my day 
Makes hard to play .... )), but looking at the map above it surely doesn't looks much better than the LHC 3 one and, adding to this, this is Emperor .... Good food potencial in capitol but not much more...
(in this time of the year my job is eating 11 hours of my day Makes hard to play .... )), but looking at the map above it surely doesn't looks much better than the LHC 3 one and, adding to this, this is Emperor .... Good food potencial in capitol but not much more...
