Strategy when isolated

[zoiks]

I am playing a two continents game - six opponents and they all started on the other continent, leaving me on my own.

With no one to trade with, I struggled to grow my cities as I had few happy/health resources so reached the caps quickly, and low commerce from my trade routes, and also no one to trade technologies with. When I finally found everyone after beelining Optics, I then had to beeline Astronomy to start trading on the ocean.

It was nice not having to build units, other than to raise the happy cap in Monarchy, but after meeting the other civs I found I was way behind on tech. I decided to concentrate as much as I could on research, knowing that the oceans were my defence, but when I saw the first destroyer on my coastline that any hopes of staying alive were gone. I didn't continue the game as a defensive bloodbath was inevitable.

So what strategy can you take when you find you are isolated?

 

[krikav]

I love playing ISO games.

Here is a collection of games to play, and compare with other players results to see how you stand up, and how you could improve:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/lonely-hearts-club-bullpen.250960/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/the-lonely-hearts-club-second-cycle.410649/

Here is a guide, I haven't read it and some stuff might be outdated, but most stuff should be good:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...hadow-some-lessons-on-isolated-starts.268883/

Here is a more advanced workshop thread:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/deity-isolation-workshop-stan-norm-fractal-nh-ne.612863/

The super short story is this:
In the vast majority of games, you will want to beeline astro.
That usually involves either an academy and two GScientists to bulb astro.
Or sometimes you lib astro, or sometimes you just get one GSci and have to self-tech half of astro.

But the first objective is to get optics, and how you get there depends a whole lot on the island you are given, and the leader you are playing.
Quite often you go for one detour before beelining optics.
One such detour might be marbleplay (aestethics+litterature) which involves alot of failgold techniques.
Or you go for CoL, if you have alot of food and the map is suited for GPeople play.
Or if you got alot of natural hammers (lots of horses/iron/copper tiles that generate hammers, then the detour might be alphabet. And if you go for alphabet, more often than not you also go for math, as that opens up the possibility to bulb optics.

Pyramids are great in isolation if you see stone, and if you pop a GEng that guy can bulb machinery for you.

Once you have optics you want to send at least two caravels in opposite directions as soon as possible, best is if you have settlers or something pre-whipped and can finish the caravels in one turn with overflow and possibly chops, or if you upgrade triremes for 50g.

The key is to get to optics so fast, that you can get good trading value out of compass/machinery and optics itself, so that you can trade yourself to tech parity, and crucially get your hands on alphabet+math+calendar, so you can bulb astro.

 

[krikav]

Oh, and once you got your hands on astro, the paths diverge. If your island is crappy you need to go get someone elses land, and the most common tool for that is cannons + some riff-raff such as muskets/pikes/maces, or cannons+grenadiers, or cannons+rifles which is best but tend to come at the expense of a much later attackdate, and getting a quick attackdate is nice as you will be fighting longbows mostly and the nastiest thing you have to worry about is knights.

 

[Henrik75]

I am playing a two continents game - six opponents and they all started on the other continent, leaving me on my own.

With no one to trade with, I struggled to grow my cities as I had few happy/health resources so reached the caps quickly, and low commerce from my trade routes, and also no one to trade technologies with. When I finally found everyone after beelining Optics, I then had to beeline Astronomy to start trading on the ocean.

It was nice not having to build units, other than to raise the happy cap in Monarchy, but after meeting the other civs I found I was way behind on tech. I decided to concentrate as much as I could on research, knowing that the oceans were my defence, but when I saw the first destroyer on my coastline that any hopes of staying alive were gone. I didn't continue the game as a defensive bloodbath was inevitable.

So what strategy can you take when you find you are isolated?

I'm not that experienced in Isolation myself but the typical strategy is to double bulb Astronomy by 500AD if you are fast, if you have really really good land you could go for civil service beaurocracy capital first and self to to astro potentially.

If you can get Astro by 500AD, even 700AD on immortal and lower chances are no one else will even have optics and some might even be lacking metal casting, compass, machinery etc which you can use all as trade bait to catch up. Remember to 3 pop whip caravals immediately when you get optics and set sail in two directions to meet people ASAP. cold whipping to save 1 turn is worth it, could make the difference of you giving compass for alphabet instead of optics for alphabet.

Deity Isolation is something I don't dare try until I can get a 1AD optics date.

 

[Fippy]

Deity Isolation is something I don't dare try until I can get a 1AD optics date.

1AD is very early.
You could try using aggressive AI, slows their teching down significantly.
(if you like playing deity but feel too slow still in Iso)

 

[Henrik75]

1AD is very early.
You could try using aggressive AI, slows their teching down significantly.
(if you like playing deity but feel too slow still in Iso)

good idea, i managed around 300ad optics last time i did deity iso or semi iso but wasn't enough as chad bismark sails past with his caraval at 200ad! i meet everyone else and everyone has optics and machinery already by 500ad.

 

[krikav]

Yeah, 1AD optics is very early. Thats something that only happens on maps that are advantegeous.

T125-T135 optics is a span that I think is very common.
If I land a T126 optics on a bad map, I pat myself on the back.
If I get T134 optics on a good map, I stop and consider if I did something that perhaps slowed me down too much.

The optics date isn't everything though. Sometimes you cut down too much and stay to lean.
Not fun being at 3 cities with 0 infrastructure because you have just built research and then bulbed optics, then having to catch up.
Another thing that have to be balanced is the raw research contra GPeople generation.
If you don't stop and think and do a quick calculations, It's all to easy to find yourself at T105 and realize that you won't have that second GScientist for double-bulb until T150.

I had not thought about the aggressive AI setting that @Fippy mention, but it makes sense.
Another setting that is usually very helpful is actually high sea level.
That way you very rarely encounter 10-20-city monsters. The AIs stay somewhat small and manageable.

 

[Henrik75]

Yeah, 1AD optics is very early. Thats something that only happens on maps that are advantegeous.

T125-T135 optics is a span that I think is very common.
If I land a T126 optics on a bad map, I pat myself on the back.
If I get T134 optics on a good map, I stop and consider if I did something that perhaps slowed me down too much.

The optics date isn't everything though. Sometimes you cut down too much and stay to lean.
Not fun being at 3 cities with 0 infrastructure because you have just built research and then bulbed optics, then having to catch up.
Another thing that have to be balanced is the raw research contra GPeople generation.
If you don't stop and think and do a quick calculations, It's all to easy to find yourself at T105 and realize that you won't have that second GScientist for double-bulb until T150.

I had not thought about the aggressive AI setting that @Fippy mention, but it makes sense.
Another setting that is usually very helpful is actually high sea level.
That way you very rarely encounter 10-20-city monsters. The AIs stay somewhat small and manageable.

ya the issue last time was everyone was on a pangaea together pretty much and we had willem and mansa with 11 or 12 cities bleh. might try it again in future but i'll probably practise isolation on immortal a few times first. pulled isolation off pretty well with genghis khan who's not a good leader at all for iso so i pat myself on the back for that one.

 

[krikav]

@Henrik75 Some maps give you that... It's rare but it does happen. What map did you play?

Often in those maps, there is at least one or a pair of AIs that have gotten shafted, and that you can still trade with. (Often at diplo hits which is annoying but what can you do?)
And it's something that you have to be prepared for too.
It's a huge risk to right after optics settle 3-4 new cities and start to build up, as you gamble on being able to trade for math+alpha+calendar with your now tanked economy.
It can be cautious to delay the post-optics expansion phase abit to make sure you don't have to slug through that self-research phase too.

Then again.. There are maps where you won't even get trade value out of astro. Ragequit maps.

 

[krikav]

Genghis Khan isn't that good. But still I find that Agg is a suprisingly good trait for iso.
You often have to take care of barbs yourself, and commerce is the largest bottleneck, so teching archery is annoying.

I would advice to play the same map multiple times and compare, that reinforces or disproves your intuition.
When I started to interest myself in iso maps, my biggest take home message first was the thing I taken for granted previously, to claim land and expand quickly wasn't applicable at all.

 

[Qactus]

I admit I always just used to reroll maps as soon as I found out I was isolated. Recently however, after following some Iso games here, such as @Pangaea 's and @krikav 's Toku Deity one, I made the decision to play it out the next time, no matter what. It didn't take long for the next iso situation to manifest (it happened on an Ice Age map with Brennus) and I think I did horribly and can only partly blame it on the land.
Two questions emerged:
- What's the opinion on the Great Lighthouse in Iso for domestic intercontinental traderoutes? It was a situation of two separate landmasses with obvious city spots on both. I knew I was isolated when I took the decision to build it.
- Detour such as Animal Husbandry for a single hill pig? I teched it, knowing Alphabet would come late, but should've maybe just kept focus and mined it.

 

[sampsa]

I think GLH is good only under optimal conditions: lots of intercontinental trade routes available. I don't think this is the case when isolated, though maybe not completely worthless if you have 3 island cities.

It's nice to be able to skip AH. Still, tempting to get more food especially with a CHA leader as you are able to grow more. Hard to say without seeing the exact position.

 

[krikav]

Well.. Tough to say if AH was worth it, you could have popped some nice horse tiles too, but generally those things are stuff that you want to think hard and make tough choices about. Sometimes skipping agriculture is possible too.

Regarding GLH... It really depends alot. It's really good in that it adds commerce but doesn't add upkeep, and if you got room for 2-3 offshore islands it give you carte blanche to do a very rapid expansion.
It can be really nice post-astro too as iso usually involves quite alot of coastal cities and you have intercontinental traderoutes with alot of AIs, and corporations (GLH obsoletion) is still far away.

There is also some merit in just the fact that you are denying the AIs that wonder. There have been many games where I have seen some AI just blaze ahead in tech and wondering why, then I realize they are partly powered by GLH.

But with that in mind, it's a risky wonder to pursue, it's costly and to make sure you get it you have to screw up your initial expansion abit, and if you fail... well it hurts more than say a pyramids fail, since you don't get double the failgold.


Here is a map where I made the choice to go for GLH:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ter-lxxx-isabella.473600/page-2#post-15346753

 

[Qactus]

Thanks both of you. GLH was indeed underwhelming compared to how it rocks with foreign trade routes on such a map. Then again, it was at least some commerce which I found otherwise quite hard to come by.

If you want to play the start, a savegame around optics would be more than welcome to have some kind of a benchmark to compare with.

Spoiler Start :

 

[krikav]

I'm right in the opening phase of a nice Charly game myself so won't start that one right away, maybe abit later tonight! A new iso game would be fun.
But the opening screenshot looks interesting already.
Agri->Fishing ? Worker first, farm and then make a camp.
I like the lake alot, thats why fishing early would be splendid, early commerce helps alot with the celts.

Brennus is CHA, and there is ivory, so already I'm thinking that there is opportunity to ignore monarchy, with a monument the capital can already reach pop8 and cities without monuments can be comfortable big at pop6.
Since monuments give happines, it's likely that we will build at least 3 of them, so the aestethics detour scores a point allready, but if there isn't any marble the ivory is not enough on it's own.

Rivers are always nice but especially useful in isolation. So much so that one often settles cities by rivers even w/o any food resource. Riverside plains are also somewhat better than in regular games as you are likely to stagnate at happycap for some time, and plains tiles are good for that.

 

[krikav]

Ok, diving in now!

 

[Fippy]

I still try GLH in Iso if there are no other urgent tasks (like not many good spots for expansion, which should be grabbed asap).
Games are not over after getting Astro, and it's easily worth ~12 beakers per coastal city then
Most spots even if they are crummy otherwise are worth settling then as well.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T16 :

I see no reason to move away from the lovely fish, but maybe there is more food and gold up there?

Nah, just a lot of brown!

12 turn worker and improving corn gives me a 5 yield tile at... T17.
Growing to pop2 on a warrior, and then building a workboat should give me a netted fish at T14. Seems superior, but these seafood starts are always very tricky.

Only 5 AIs, rival best has 8 tiles, rival worst has 5 land tiles in their 3x3 starting cross. (Land Area).
The average is 6.8 tiles, with 5 AIs thats 34 tiles. 34 - (8 + 5) = 21
21/3 = 7, so ALL AIs have a few water tiles in their starting city although some could just be inland lakes. But this means it could be high competition for GLH.

Warrior about to finish, I prefer rolling hammers along instead of filling up the food bin, so I do what I can to secure overflow. This won't speed up the workboat but maybe the next build.

Workboat about to finish. Could work the lake here to exchange overflow hammers for commerce, but I just choose to maximize hammers instead, maybee that will make the worker finish faster, can't be bothered to check the math.

Overview at T16. Scout found a nice fogbusting location up there, the warrior is keeping eyes on a nasty bear.
The land I see here does look like it's favourable for GLH! Lots of brown nastiness and very little food.
There is also room for alot of offshore islands, and a lighthouse would be nice for both the fish and for the lake.
There is also a bunch of forests to aid with the build.
I think I will go mining first to keep the worker busy a while longer, but maybe sailing before BW after that, could also aid with city placement and let me skimp on TW. But if not, 1E of pigs looks ok.

There is marble too! I think an aestethics/litterature detour looks nice here, getting a unit to 8xp would be sweet too.

 

[krikav]

Games are not over after getting Astro, and it's easily worth ~12 beakers per coastal city then

Yeah, it's a pretty long period between astro and corporations, and it's usually a period where commerce can be tight too. After corporations commerce is abit less important as you are often close to being "done" teching (AL etc).

 

[sampsa]

T50

Spoiler :

I went agri-mining-BW. Maybe not the best to delay fish and the worker was unemployed for ~5T pre-BW. 2nd city to share corn, lucky with the copper location. I think the map is pretty good for GLH with so many islands, so I'm giving it a shot and likely to succeed I guess. Capital has 71 in a settler. 2nd city builds a galley when available, then settle 2 cities to the south. 3 warriors up north so almost full fog busting.