Separate Island Kingdom = guaranteed altar victory?

[loffenx]

I know the AI and it's (in)ability at sea warfare has been discussed much. Myself I've never seen any AI naval invasion consisting of more than 2-3 units. Atm I'm playing a game where I intended to go for an altar victory, and seeing that I'm alone on an Island, my question is simply - can I loose? I mean, can the AI make cross-sea invasions? I don't think they can, but I don't really know. Any ideas?

 

[Honor]

what difficulty are you playing on? i've seen the AI attempt naval invasions at higher difficulties (emperor+).

 

[loffenx]

Ah ok, I'm on immortal on this one, maybe there is still hope then

 

[Lone Wolf]

The naval capacity of all ships should be enlarged by 2.

 

[JonathanStrange]

Ok, I haven't played or started on an island in centuries, but in earlier versions of FFH2 when I was on an island, there were massive invasions. Well...not massive but the AI would show up with 30-40 units which is nothing to sneeze at.

Now that I find myself mainly on pangaea land maps, I see fewer invasions at the Deity/Immortal level but there's less need as just about everyone's on the same continent. I remember that there are times when the AI civs seem to fall asleep on the offshore larger islands while we knock each other out on the continent; perhaps they don't invade for good reason.

 

[loffenx]

Well the last stages of the altar should give them something to swim for Thanks for input

 

[Brokenbone]

I had heard okay things about this AI mod: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=309696 , it turned out fairly easy to apply to the game, and I noticed a substantial improvement in the level of sea invasion jeopardy, whether in normal games or in FFH2 official scenarios.

An example if playing the Black Tower with and without this mod going, is that most people should manage to hold a particular island as their main base of operations... before the mod was added, sure I'd see the occasional naval unit sniffing around, with the occasional blockade to ruin my day, but after the mod, I'd find ship based stacks of doom showing up now and again and me having to scramble defenses to concentrate on whichever coastal region was in the most danger.

I am sure there are other good AI packages out there, but this one seemed to up the challenge for me in terms of not neglecting navies.

Still, on the main point of this thread, if you can find ANY method of "turtle" type defensive play, sure you can try to do an Altar victory. Small amount of turf is needed, unlike the Tower victories where you need a whole lot of mana (and therefore the territory to do that). Again, that turf is often an island, but sometimes you'll find on an Erebus map that you're able to hold onto a mountain-protected kingdom pretty well by keeping focus on defending a couple of bottlenecks, though you might be harassed now and again by rare flying units, like some of the upper tier Mercurian ones (Ophanin chariots? Heralds too? I forget).

 

[GoodGame]

Ok, I haven't played or started on an island in centuries, but in earlier versions of FFH2 when I was on an island, there were massive invasions. Well...not massive but the AI would show up with 30-40 units which is nothing to sneeze at.

This was my experience too. Haven't been playing enough of the current game to say that it's weak now.

 

[apotheoser]

The naval capacity of all ships should be enlarged by 2.

Capacity and speed both. There's no reason Chariots should be faster than ships.

 

[psychoak]

Considering chariots can move faster than some sail powered ships...

The cruising speed of a trireme was only around 12 knots, walking speed of a horse is nearly a third of that, running speed of a good quarter horse is over twice that. They'd have the edge in long distance travel, but civ has no functions for separate speeds.

 

[Guale]

Well considering that it is obvious that a turn is more than a few hours, likely days or weeks, the speed would be average and over time. The ship can sail nonstop while the horses have to stop to rest therefore the ships should be considerably faster.

 

[JonathanStrange]

That's so true; while the horses sleep, you're cruising x knots over the salty sea.

 

[Earthling]

I do kinda agree that FfH2 is very lacking in naval-related stuff, also including the problem that OO is just invincible to anything else on the seas (for the player). This is generally why I never play games with large separate continents - pangea-like with mountains is good. The only real solution I have is to not have a game with such a "continent" - the AI can produce enough for invasions of a few cities at least. I wouldn't mind increasing late game ship capacity and speed either though. At least for altar you have to tech/play a significant amount of time so it's not guaranteed easy, plus you'll draw the wrath of all evil civs anyway; isolated culture might even be easier with the right civ.

 

[apotheoser]

That's so true; while the horses sleep, you're cruising x knots over the salty sea.

it's a big blue watery road...