Strategies for isolated starts?

[SiGG]

I'm wondering if anyone can provide a bit of advice for what to do when they start in an isolated island chain and the computer is on a couple of connected continents?

I recently started a random map quick noble difficulty game as Hannibal of Carthage and started on a small island with 4 seafood and a plains hill sheep. I was able to fit two decent marginal cities on my island and expand to another for two more okay cities.

I went for compass and explored the map, and found that the Mayans, Celts, Romans and Koreans shared a large land mass and the Indians and Egyptians shared another smaller continent. They all have more land and more resources by the nature of their starts.

I was able to keep up somewhat well in science by cottaging all the grassland I could as well as running scientist specialists, building the colossus and building the great library, and trading techs.

Once I unlocked astronomy I was able to put down a couple more cities on another marginal island, which helped me secure a second source of iron and a horse. I wasn't able to settle any luxury goods to assist with my happiness cap, but I was able to trade some seafood for gold and silk with astronomy.

I am currently last on the leaderboard because all the other civilizations have a lot more cities in better land and they're all well ahead in terms of military production. I recently unlocked scientific method and I'm building universities in hopes of building Oxford, but some of my cities are very slow in production so I may get beaten to it. I was out teched to liberalism by one turn, so I feel like I'm at least close to teching at the same rate as the AI.

I'm considering trying to incite a war between some of my more powerful rivals to buy myself some time and hopefully get a tech lead, so that I can try to take some cities on the mainland.

I'm wondering if anyone has any tips for what they might have done on a similar start, or any advice as to how to pull off a win?

 

[Seraiel]

From what I know (but it is too late for that in your game already) :

Ignore Liberalism if isolated, don't research anything that unlocks Paper, generate 1-3 GSs and bulb (maybe Optics and definately) Astronomy.

Happiness issues are most easily solved by building Warriors and running Hereditary Rule.

Once you have Astronomy, it should be no problem to keep up with the AIs, due to tech-trading.

Regarding your game: If you could find the other civs before Astro, you're not really isolated. You could have built a Workboat to explore in the beginning, and would probably have had very early contact to the other civs.

AI gotting bigger and better land is something that on your level should be easily solved. Because of playing Deity mostly, I know that it's definately possible to get down an 8 cities empire with myself only having had 3 cities, one didn't even have Food but only got a strategic resource (Horses) .
A usual Deity-emipre has 6-8 cities at 1 AD and AI not seldomly got twice than that, still, the human has the advantage, because AIs build all sorts of unnecessary stuff, while the human can really focus on a specific goal, like Cuirrassiers i. e.

You building Universities i. e. appears to be contra-productive from my point of view, because Universities (+ Oxford!) are very expensive and usually only pay back in games that last at least until Mass Media (UN) , if not even Space!
What you imo should do is build Galleons and fill them with some units, most preferable Rifles. If you need production, use the Whip or the Draft! Don't worry about being the last of the scoreboard, score is mostly made up by population-count, and AIs always grow their cities bigger than humans, because humans know that a smaller city can be better, because being more efficient (i. e. through lower maintenance and the whip or draft themselves just out-produce any AI in the game) .

Making your enemies go to war with each other is a good idea, but once you've lured them into war, you should follow with your own army in order to take AIs cities. Make sure you have good diplomatic relations to the other AIs so you can beg gold from them to get peace-treaties, otherwise, you risk the chance of other AIs being bribed against you.

Best is you post a save, so the users here can comment on your play precisely.

Sera

 

[Zacar]

Oxford is a national wonder. For national wonders, each civ can have their own.

 

[Pangaea]

Oxford is a national wonder. For national wonders, each civ can have their own.

Yes, that is clear. But Oxford is very costly. First you need 6 universities at 200 a piece, and then Oxford itself for another 400 (half with access to stone). You'll probably want a university in the capital anyway, so lets say that is 1400 that could be spent on troops. That's quite a lot of troops. The universities don't give that much extra boost to non-capital cities, so the game must last a long time for the investment to pay back. If it's a military game, you're probably better off pumping out more units and winning earlier instead of 'wasting' hammers on 5 unnecessary universities. If you plan to go into space, on the other hand, +100% from Oxford can be well worth the invested hammers.

 

[pigswill]

Great Lighthouse would have been good for this kind of start but a bit late now. Generally if you have high food and low hammers you need to whip most of your production.

 

[SiGG]

I think maybe I fall heavily into the trap of not specializing my cities and building a lot of unnecessary buildings, and I definitely initially overlooked hereditary rule which would have solved my happiness problem. I'll post my save though to hopefully learn a bit more about the game.

Since I last posted I played a bit more and had the Celts and Mayans declare war on me (from pleased I think). I was able to fend them off and then bribe them with gold to stop attacking to try to build up my army a little bit.

I'd love any advice you all could give me.

 

[Fippy]

Stop drydocks and ships for now cept maybe transports (i did not look how many you have).
Build Infs and maybe cannons for upgrading almost everywhere, tech Artillery (why is your slider on 30% ?) then get those and build an army you need to get off that small island
Some MGs too maybe, they defend better against their Infs.

With being in US you may want to buy some Artilllery (after putting 1 turn of hammers in) and maybe hold teching for some time.
Watch for stuff you can sell.
Actually you can sell Boudi Lib for 830g now, and start buying units (remember that 1 turn of hammers invested makes that much cheaper).
I think building your army with gold = no brainer here, and you need no buildings for that.
Watch for Electricity trade too, you could tech towards tanks afterwards.

 

[SiGG]

I turned the slider down to save up some money to upgrade to destroyers and transports, but I'll crank it up again. Thanks very much for the advice!

 

[SiGG]

Incidently, I played this save through prior to receiving your advice. I tried to launch a war against boudica with Rifles/Transports, but I was badly crushed. I think what i'll do is play a noble's club through to get more advice in a new game, and next time make sure my units are a bit more advanced than my opponents.