What Would You Do on Isolated Starts?

[SauronCuneta]

I tried my first Emperor game yesterday. I played Elizabeth in a small/continent map.

I was isolated with Suryavarman II on one small continent (I really hated him in my Monarch days; him and Cyrus, they can settle 11 cities if they go unchecked). I axe/sword rushed him and wrote him off by 10AD. Unfortunately, I rapidly expanded my empire thru military conquest without COL yet (stupid mistake #1). So I was financially crippled, and tech backward.

So there I was, alone in the crappy continent, probably lagging behind tech and without any founded religion . So I decided to grab Taoism (and made it barely before any of them), and made to Liberalism first.

The three empires on the other continent were: Rhameses, Washington (the tech leader) and Hammurabi (the warmongerer). Rhameses and Washington were really good friends, and Hammrabi was basically a non-factor, pestering them to little effect.

Washington was aiming for Space race and Rhameses was aiming for Cultural Victory. During 1600, I was trying to determine how I could win the game. If I try paratrooper drop and go for domination win, it maybe too late. If I try for tech race, Rhameses may have 3 Legendary Cities before I coulde even launch my ship (I think I can still out-tech Washington at that point). If I try Cultural, maybe I could win because I'm PHI/FIN. If I try Diplomacy, I could win if I played my cards right (I had two chances to win thru diplomacy because Washington was voting for me; if I was able to win some brownie points with Hammurabi, I would have won the game).

I decided to go for a cultural win because of the situation. In the end, Rhameses won the game in 1930's thru cultural win.

If you were in my case, what would you do? By the way, I don't have a very good GP farm because all of my cities are either coastal or grassland, no floodplains or food-rich city Or, in general, what do you do if you were isolated? What kind of victory scenario do you pursue?

thanks for any comments or advices

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Play the lonely hearts club series, and read the guide by R_rolo1. Isolation is generally *slightly* harder than other starts if tech trades are on, and significantly easier than average if they are not.

In your situation, with a financial leader, I'd have rushed sury off the land, settled more cities, grown cottages early, and used the matured towns + large mid game tech rate to research and trade monopoly techs until at parity or a lead.

If anyone gets cute with culture, they make good vassals or pole decorations after you capture a top 3 city or two.

 

[tibbles]

Wouldn't cultural be rather tough with only 1 religion? Though suppose you did have until 1930.

I think not getting tech parity early with was the biggest issue. I just had my first emperor win the other day on a similar map. I killed the only AI on my island that fit 11 cities in 600bc, didn't meet another civ until like 1300ad and found to my surprise I was already the tech leader. From the lead to the victory is where I personally suck, so can't help past that I settled for smashing a few cities to stall the AIs while I built the spaceship, but I'm sure a better player could've won domination far sooner.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Wouldn't cultural be rather tough with only 1 religion? Though suppose you did have until 1930.

I think not getting tech parity early with was the biggest issue. I just had my first emperor win the other day on a similar map. I killed the only AI on my island that fit 11 cities in 600bc, didn't meet another civ until like 1300ad and found to my surprise I was already the tech leader. From the lead to the victory is where I personally suck, so can't help past that I settled for smashing a few cities to stall the AIs while I built the spaceship, but I'm sure a better player could've won domination far sooner.

Culture isn't too bad if you get the mass media wonders and manage to put up sushi + jewelers (maybe even createcon depending what you get).

With free speech, 2 culture wonders (each in your weaker of 3 cities), a cathedral, and some broadcast towers, your non-capitol cities are still getting +300%.

Now, add about 100 commerce/city and about 80 buildings/corp culture (very very doable with a normal cottage setup on the commerce, and also very doable on the corps), and you're getting 180 culture...and with the multipliers well over 500.

Once you have that setup victory is ~ 80 turns (you'll already have some culture accrued from across the game). Obviously more religions are better (and probable especially if you don't found one or manage to found several). If you have the diplo situation taken care of that will often win.

Still, IMO the easiest iso wins are military or diplo, since you are somewhat tech-hampered early.

 

[dworkin]

In my experience smoldering piles of rubble do not win cultural victories, nor can they build starships well.

Some days you must consider the benefits of smashing your enemies. Both cultural and starship wins depend on smoothly running empires. A campaign focused on pillaging every part of the map and razing important cities does not do them good.

A VP win may not be the most elegant victory but it still counts

 

[troytheface]

" was isolated with Suryavarman II on one small continent"

your not isolated- islolated means you are alone

the question is - "what do you do when your not islolated"

trade and peace or war.

 

[SauronCuneta]

" was isolated with Suryavarman II on one small continent"

your not isolated- islolated means you are alone

Gotcha! It should have been, "I was stuck with Survy in one small continent."

Anyway, I reviewed that particular game and look for any mistakes I've done. I was not really behind in tech, I was in fact the first one with gunpowder. liberalism and nationalism. Unfortunately, the lack of a tech trade partner during the mid game resulted to lots of essential tech I don't have. I only got access to those techs when the three other civs from the other continent found me. Then in 1500's I was able to trade most of my techs for other backward techs so I was almost in tech parity.

So, my plan was to try to win a space race or diplo or domination. However, by 1600's it was plainly obvious that Rhameses was gunning for a cultural win. And based on my predictions, if I don't win by early 1900's, I will certainly lose to Rhameses. If he was not going for a cultural win (or if they were in constant state of war), I could have won either in space race or diplo (or domination - if I can pull off a transcontinental invasion).

So, I shifted my focus to win thru cultural win because I became desparate. The moment that I shifted my focus became the start of my downfall - because I lately grabbed drama and music, I only have 1 religion - Survy apparently is not a religion hogger.

@TMIT: You are correct TMIT, I should have been really aggressive with my cottaging.

@troytheface: I usually go for Domination if I'm not isolated (e.g. Pangea maps), so I always go to war. I pick up techs thru peace treaties.