What is The best expansionistic strategy for a small continent ?

[Foma2]

I almost always utilize expansionistic strategy (or some of its blends) when I play.
First of all we're talking about King and Emperor level cause at lower levels it's easy to develop civilization without much expansion.
Now let's consider three possible scenarios :
1. You're on a small island that is big enough to support not more than 4 cities (with a potential to reach the size of at least 14 for each of them - including some ocean squares - without major terrain changes like forest->plains or jungle->grassland, i.e. pretty much just irrigating and building mines and roads).
2. You're on a bigger island that is big enough to support 5 to 7 cities.
3. You're on a big island that is big enough to support 8 to 12 cities.
4. You're on a continent where you can have 13 cities or more.

I will briefly describe what I would do each situation and you're welcome to criticize me.

1. Build a city or two on your island and then sail your trireme with a settler or two to the nearest big island/continent. Develop your homeland cities (or even build one or two more) but use them as a base for further expansion on the big island/continent. Produce settlers/military units there and ship them overseas to expand and conquer. Consider moving your capital to a bigger island once you've got more population there than on your home island.
2. Let's skip this one as I gonna ask you a question about what to do if you found yourself in such situation.
3. Build as many cities as possible on your island and develop them. In parallel, settle on another medium sized island or a hidden corner of a big continent and expand. I would suggest avoiding waging the war (certainly if you have to, do not doubt to crash your enemy mercilessly with a brutal force). The point is that you do not need actually to establish your civilization here (like in scenario 1). If you gonna have at least 5 or 6 cities it would be good enough. And again if you settled in the corner of a big continent and if you feel like you want to expand - do it if you can. In that case you may want to move your capital there later on.
4. The most straightforward scenario - expand as much as possible - stretch your limits - gets as big as possible till city walls, knights and musketeers come to the scene than your chariots would not be as good.

So, and here comes the question : what's the best approach in scenario 2 ?
What comes to my mind is something similar to scenario 3 but with earlier shipping settlers to another island/continent that should be big enough to support at least 8 cities. And than moving your capital there (although it is not a must if you have e.g. 7 + 9 cities).

My main point is that the aggressive expansionistic phase should carried out at the early stage when you can take advantage of :
a. your powerful chariots
b. your yet military weak neighbours can be caught by surprise
Once your neighbours built a lot of phalanxes and city walls, it is almost impossible to defeat them without slowing down your science/city improvements in favour of military units.
And once they've got musketeers, it gets even worse.

No much offensive operations on land till you have armour (that's why science is so important - it'll give you a means to defeat your enemies in the modern age war).
I'd rather patrol my shores with a few ironclads sinking anything I can find. If a spotted enemy ship gets away from me I re-group my limited military resources to counterattack just landed enemy units (roads and later railroads are vital for that).

So, anyway what would you do in scenario 2 ?

 

[Osvaldo Manso]

1. Build a city or two on your island and then sail your trireme with a settler or two to the nearest big island/continent. Develop your homeland cities (or even build one or two more) but use them as a base for further expansion on the big island/continent. Produce settlers/military units there and ship them overseas to expand and conquer. Consider moving your capital to a bigger island once you've got more population there than on your home island.

I strongly disagree with this strategy. First, it would only be possible if a big island/continent is within the reach of a trireme and sometimes it is not the case. On the other hand, even if you find another land mass with a trireme, it would take several turns to circum-navigate it, in order to know the size of that land mass (it could be just a small island with room for just one city) and to collect evidence of not being inhabited by another civilization.

I also do not agree with changing your capitol to another city because you would have to pay maintenance costs for the Palace while you don't pay nothing for your initial Palace.

Here's what I recommend:
- build the maximum number of cities in your homeland. Sometimes, with a little settler's engineering (like turning swamps or jungles into grasslands), what seems like a terrible spot for a city becomes a «not so bad» spot;
- try hard to locate all your cities in the coast, preferably with one city in each geographical direction (north, south, east, west), unless it becomes evident that you are close to a pole (look for arctic and tundra terrain);
- concentrate your science research in the maritime technologies (Alphabet/Map Making, Ceremonial Burial/Mystycism/Astronomy/Navigation). Your aim should be discovering Navigation as soon as possible. Don't forget Writing (for building Diplomats) and Currency/Trade (for Caravans);
- try to build Wonders that will help your seafaring activities, like the Lighthouse and later Magellan's Expedition (be sure not to let this one escape since its benefits are endless);
- because you have no neighbours and are at peace, consider upgrading your government type sooner than usual (to a Republic or even Democracy). Building The Pyramids is a nice shortcut;
- building the Colossus is also great because you need to get the maximum trade from your few cities;
- build a trireme or two (but not more) and discover the surrondings of your island. If you find another land mass circum-navigate it to evaluate its potential for colonization. If you find no land mass, disband your trireme and wait until you can build Sail units;
- if you could not find nearby land available for colonization, consider a more military approach and taking enemy cities by force. If this is the case, put cities that possess wonders of the world in the top of your list.

3. Build as many cities as possible on your island and develop them. In parallel, settle on another medium sized island or a hidden corner of a big continent and expand. I would suggest avoiding waging the war (certainly if you have to, do not doubt to crash your enemy mercilessly with a brutal force). The point is that you do not need actually to establish your civilization here (like in scenario 1). If you gonna have at least 5 or 6 cities it would be good enough. And again if you settled in the corner of a big continent and if you feel like you want to expand - do it if you can. In that case you may want to move your capital there later on.

Generally speaking, I agree with this strategy. In fact, if you have room for 5 or 6 cities, it should be enough to be successful. Once again I strongly disagree about moving capitol. For me, one should only consider building a new Palace when the capital city falls in the hand of barbarians or enemies (and this should never happen, at least to an experienced player).

4. The most straightforward scenario - expand as much as possible - stretch your limits - gets as big as possible till city walls, knights and musketeers come to the scene than your chariots would not be as good.

Yeah, there's not much to say.

So, and here comes the question : what's the best approach in scenario 2 ?
What comes to my mind is something similar to scenario 3 but with earlier shipping settlers to another island/continent that should be big enough to support at least 8 cities. And than moving your capital there (although it is not a must if you have e.g. 7 + 9 cities).

My main point is that the aggressive expansionistic phase should carried out at the early stage when you can take advantage of :
a. your powerful chariots
b. your yet military weak neighbours can be caught by surprise
Once your neighbours built a lot of phalanxes and city walls, it is almost impossible to defeat them without slowing down your science/city improvements in favour of military units.
And once they've got musketeers, it gets even worse.

No much offensive operations on land till you have armour (that's why science is so important - it'll give you a means to defeat your enemies in the modern age war).
I'd rather patrol my shores with a few ironclads sinking anything I can find. If a spotted enemy ship gets away from me I re-group my limited military resources to counterattack just landed enemy units (roads and later railroads are vital for that).

So, anyway what would you do in scenario 2 ?

In this scenario, I would try to win via science and diplomacy. I would build as many cities as possible, linking them with roads and (later) railroads. Instead of looking for another land masses capable of hosting some cities, my seafaring activities would focus in discovering the location and size of all the other civilizations in the game and immediately establish an embassy in each one. The reports produced by spies and diplomats will be most useful for monitoring my own development.

 

[Foma2]

Thanks for your post. Very valuable piece of information.

I agree that development is more important than expansion.

And I did not know that new Palace has maintainance costs.

 

[Osvaldo Manso]

I'm glad to be helpful.

When you build a new Palace, the old one (if it still exists) disappears and the capitol moves to the city in which the Palace was built (if it is a different city). The maintenance cost for this new Palace is very high - 5 coins per turn, if I'm not wrong. So, it's great to hold your original Palace. My advise is to focus on building a solid defense system for your civilization and especially for your capitol. Don't let it fall to barbarians or enemy civilizations (of course this information is valid for every city but the capitol is indeed more important).