SE in Isolation

[iamnleth]

Simple: How best to handle a specialist economy on an isolated fractal map? My basic idea was to simply beeline to some expensive techs so that I may have trading opportunities when some other civilizations show up, but I'm usually wrong. Any help?

 

[Harbourboy]

Depends what level you are playing on.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

See the lonely hearts club games for some experience with isolated starts.

In general - on Monarch and below - get your economy running first, (techs like civil service, monarchy and code of laws). Then head for optics with self research while lightbulbing towards liberalism.

On Emperor we are experimenting with a difficult SE game in Lonely Hearts 4b. So far lightbulbing to Liberalism while building your economy seems to be better than striking out for Optics. Let the AIs find you.

Good wins from isolated start include diplomacy (you don't incur early negative diplo penalties and you can lightbulb a lot of the way towards mass media) and culture (aim to get a few early religions if you can).

 

[iamnleth]

I'm going to head over and checkout the lonely hearts games. My level is prince: after attempting to go against longbowmen in 500 AD, I decided to put off monarch. It may have been feasible, but I didn't think myself experienced enough.

 

[obsolete]

Lightbulbing to Mass Media is a big waste of precious GPs IMHO. The AI does not prioritize this tech, and you can easily get it even when lagging behind. In fact, the AI is so stupid it will trade numerous techs for dead-end mass media techs even after you have built all the wonders from then, so no rush to bulb anything! You get no brownie points for being the first either (no extra GPs or free techs).

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Lightbulbing to Mass Media is a big waste of precious GPs IMHO. The AI does not prioritize this tech, and you can easily get it even when lagging behind. In fact, the AI is so stupid it will trade numerous techs for dead-end mass media techs even after you have built all the wonders from then, so no rush to bulb anything! You get no brownie points for being the first either (no extra GPs or free techs).

Lightbulbing through techs like scientific method and physics isn't a waste of time though. You head up to Radio, at which point you decide if diplo is on or not. If its on, then you go mass media and build UN. Nothing else matters at that point. If its not on then you are on the path to Computers anyway which is the pivotal tech for a space race.