My Starting Location is too Good

[JahtheIII]

Playing on Noble, Large Continents Map, with Space Race disabled.

Normally I am prepared to go to war early and often, especially on a large map with a lot of Civ's. I have been building up my Civ (Japan), and have found that I'm all alone on a VERY large Island or small continent. I say Very large, because it could easily support 9-10 cities and has all the resources I could need, Iron,Copper etc...

I've never been on a piece of land this large without having at least 2 other Civ's on it with me. I had been chugging along assuming I would run into someone soon, after around 1000BC, I explored the rest of the island and realized I was completely alone.

I don't feel like this is a good place for a Domination victory, too much sea-based warfare involved, and it seems difficult to launch a Naval invasion in the early game as the early sea-faring tech's are pretty weak, IMO.

My plan is to build a nice sized Navy for defense and to keep anyone else from setting up shop on my land. Hopefully this allows me to not have to keep much of a standing army around so I can focus on building other things.

I'm curious to hear what people think the best victory to go for in these circumstances is. I'm leaning toward diplomatic. I think it would be easy for me to stay out of most people's wars so hopefully I could maintain good relations with a number of other Civs(once I find them). Spreading religion, gifting techs, open borders, all seem like things that I could accomplish from this starting position fairly easily.

If anyone has any other notes about my gameplay, I'd love to hear them, I'm posting a recent save from this game if anyone wants to critique me, I'm sure there is plenty there!

 

[magerain]

I've played such map, but on standard, not large map. Noble difficulty, too. I suggest you to build over that continent, and as soon as you get hold of optics, send caravels out to find other civilizations. You will need that trade routes and tech trades.
And I won that game by space race. My first and last space race at Civ IV. Too boring for me.

 

[CivScientist]

I played a game with that sort of start once. I was happy at first until the barbarian hoards started coming. My suggestion is to build as fast as you can and then, when you approach 400 BC when the barbarian hoards start coming, build up your military and continue to expand while fighting back the hoards.

You'll also want to meet your fellow civs as fast as possible so you can start tech trading. All in all, being isolated hurts your technology because all the techs you get you have to get by yourself.

 

[JahtheIII]

yeah, i'm starting to realize i shouldn't have neglected the sailing tech's, as it is 500 AD and I still haven't met anyone, there is a small Barb state on the north side of the continent now, but i'm keeping it around because it is the only source of military experience for my units right now. i'll just send a couple of units up there to make sure they aren't planning anything big.

i'll be going for some more advanced sailing techs so i can make some contact, i feel as long as i can research the more advanced techs myself, i can catch up tech-wise when i make contact(hopefully).

 

[Pvblivs]

I also had such a start in my Monarch game on a small map playing Rome and my goal was a Domination. Unfortunately I did not meet anyone on my island except a barbarian city that I had to raze, as it did not use some otherwise unreachable resources.

I can tell you that for a Monarch start such a grand-island-for-your-own starting position is VERY difficult if you're not commercial.

Reason: It lasts that long until you reach optics that the others are far ahead of you in the tech race. With that it's difficult to go for domination or space race (with obsolete units and the missing the techs ).

I managed to win this game with space race though. It was my only chance as I was not prepared for a cultural victory and the others didn't like me that much (I was secretary as I was the largest by far but the others liked Hatty more ).
Egypt built its Apollo Program as I reached Industrialism, everyone except Greece managed to get it built before me.
But I was lucky as Egypt somehow messed up with Greece (that got destroyed by Hatty the same turn I finished my ship) after building most of the ship. I was spamming cottages to increase my research since I discovered Pottery (late, my fault), lumbermills, mines, railroads, factories and plants desperately for spaceship production. And did everything to have all necessary Space techs and I even managed (don't know why the others where so stupid to do not as they were far ahead) to build the space elevator. Finally I won my first (and hopefully last) space race comfortably before Persia that overtook silly Hatty as well.

So much about "too good" a starting position. I'd say it was challenging (at least on Monarch)

 

[mjsbx]

played a custom game just like this last night (no space race, ended up on an island all alone with tons of resources).
while optics is the key tech to work towards when you're isolated like that, you will be very far behind the other civs when you meet them if you beeline to it!
conquest/domination victories mean early war which is impossible with this kind of start, so i would go for a cultural or diplomatic victory. i've found cultural to be easier to achieve than diplomatic, and if you're looking for cultural strats, there's a thread on here somewhere that is very helpful.

 

[Bain]

My plan is to build a nice sized Navy for defense and to keep anyone else from setting up shop on my land. Hopefully this allows me to not have to keep much of a standing army around so I can focus on building other things.

I don't think that's a good strategy, simply because of a few things

first, your continent is really large, to cover the entire coast you'd need MANY frigates until you get destroyers, which are finally fast enough to intercept.

Another issue is that I consider naval combat incredibly poorly done. The +10% bonus for coastal defense makes it very hard to actually win fights between the same shipclasses (and there are very few shipclasses sadly. Only the frigate, which can sink galleons, the destroyer and the battleship. You won't face galleys you could sink with caravells and your caravelles would lose to galleons.
Once your rivals have destroyers to protect their transports, it becomes close to impossible to intercept any serious attempt at invading your continent, as your battleship might just be SUNK by a destroyer (most unrealistic fight turnout that you'll encounter regularly in Civ4) and just two transporters of tanks could mean doom to your civ.

I think it's far cheaper and safer to just maintain some mobile troops (6-7 knights, then cavalry, then tanks) to attack any invasion force right after they land ashore)

Also, there's no intercept like for fighters, so once your rivals have speed 6 transporters you can forget intercepting amphibious assaults altogether because they'll just rush the 6 fields and drop their units, allowing you to sink an empty transporter.

 

[Warspite2]

So far I have not had a continent by myself in any of my games. I been playing noble as well on continent and archipelago maps. A few times I ended up having my own continent after fighting a hard war but that is the only reason. Although I never looked at your map, I would think a diplomatic victory could be good to go for on a map like that, where you are alone on a large continent. So I say, minimize your military, keep the navy out there, maintain good relations, research the necessary techs and build up your cities. As Bain mentions, it can be tough to cover an entire coast of a large continent. You can, however, get lucky with a few ships stationed off your coast. I have done this many of times and its alot easier to sink a weak transport then what it is to defeat an invasion force. Especially if its a solid force of equal strength as your defending army. Not to mention it feels good to pound a loaded transport under. You can also position a few ships near other nations port cities, waterways or gulfs. Like this you can get them just after they depart from there city if you do it right. Once you get flight, you can use a couple of planes to recon or better yet a Carrier. Last thing though, if they do manage to sneak a transport by you, it could mean big trouble. So weigh your options for sure. Good luck!

 

[JahtheIII]

Bain, I think I'll take your advice and concentrate on having some mobile Rapid Reaction Forces instead of a large navy. Seems like a more flexible option in general, as some good troops are almost always useful.

 

[Oggums]

You still need some navy to protect the coastal resources, but yeah I've never have much success at keeping the enemy from landing. Mounted units are better for sure. I might be a good idea to keep a single catapult in each coastal city too. I get lazy and don't do that, and then I wish I had one when Montezuma drops 3-4 galleys onto a single tile, right next a city.

 

[Bain]

So far I have not had a continent by myself in any of my games. I been playing noble as well on continent and archipelago maps. A few times I ended up having my own continent after fighting a hard war but that is the only reason. Although I never looked at your map, I would think a diplomatic victory could be good to go for on a map like that, where you are alone on a large continent. So I say, minimize your military, keep the navy out there, maintain good relations, research the necessary techs and build up your cities. As Bain mentions, it can be tough to cover an entire coast of a large continent. You can, however, get lucky with a few ships stationed off your coast. I have done this many of times and its alot easier to sink a weak transport then what it is to defeat an invasion force. Especially if its a solid force of equal strength as your defending army. Not to mention it feels good to pound a loaded transport under.

The enemy is moving unprotected transporters to invade you? Strange, all transports I've seen so far shared the tile with a destroyer or battleship so I simply couldn't just take it out. if you lose your initial destroyer due to defense advantage in naval fights you need two more to sink the transport. Sinking just the destroyer will do you no good as naval units can't learn Blitz I think.

You still need some navy to protect the coastal resources,

The difference is that you don't have to attack when defending your coastal resources. Just park your destroyers on them and they can even defeat battleships with the +10% bonus.

 

[travathian]

Post the auotmated save game at 4000BC so the rest of us can play along too!

 

[JahtheIII]

Here's the 4000BC Save for anyone interested in trying it out.

Remember, Space Race is disabled, otherwise it's a Noble Large Continents map.

 

[Sapient]

PLaying Prince yesterday, I had the same problem/oppertunity. I made the mistake of trying to settle the whole thing as fast as I could, so I would not have to deal with other nation's ground forces. By focusing on settlers, I lost the race to build most of the wonders I tried for. The cost of having 10 cities so early across such a large land mass sent my finances into crisis, and I fell so far behind on technology that I eventually just gave up.

 

[Doctor Love]

I had a map like this on Monarch and wound up being a bit screwed because I couldn't trade techs or get any religions for a long time.

 

[Bain]

I just spotted a invading fleet coming towards me. 3 full galleons, protected by 2 frigates

IRL; a battleship would take all of this out in 15-20 minutes. in Civ4, I can't even sink the galleons in time...

 

[automator]

I could maintain good relations with a number of other Civs

Good luck. Once the Russians figure out that you're friends with the Egyptians, they'll hate you. J/K. You can do it.

Good luck. I hate being on an island alone.

In my current game, there's an island off the coast of the main continent that is the home of Eygypt. Everyone else is on the main continent. Egypt seems to be doing OK. They're tied for first in Techs and have a number of nice cities.

 

[ghen]

On a map with two major continents, I crushed my 2 neighbors and made tons of friends on the other continent. They kept warring between them, so relations were horrible and I won by diplomatic victory in the first vote.

 

[JahtheIII]

hehe, of course, I met the Russians before the Egyptians, so it's the Egyptians that hate me almost from the second they met me.

I met 3 other Civs at 1200AD, Russians,Romans and Aztecs and by about 1500AD I met the Egyptians.

It's now near 1800AD, I have the overall lead, seem to be slightly behind the Russians and Egyptians in tech's but not too bad. I still have a very small army, and haven't fought any wars. I have good relations with the Russians and the Romans, but poor relations with the Aztecs and Egyptians (whats new).

I'm going to build up a good defensive army now, as I am gettting the feeling one or both of those Civ's might come to attack me.

I have about 13 cities, I know I probably should have stopped at 10, but I wanted the population for when I get the U.N. and I figure I was playing Japan because I wanted to have a big Empire, might as well make use of it.

I'm curious if anyone else has played this one this far out yet.

 

[RogueNine]

Bain, your point about sinking escorted transports is a good one. It took me my first island game to realize this, but now I put my battleships in groups of 5 to handle things like this. I usually give a couple of my battleships the bombard ability, so that even if I lose one, the other destroyers in his stack are easier prey. Then I put a few destroyers and subs out in the sea to spot incoming ships, and spies in their coastal cities to spot the force when it launches.

It probably costs me as much to do this as it would to just build a nice fleet of tanks/infantry/artillery, but it is an option still. And its quite fun to sink a full transport.