What's Next? Help on this Isolated Start...?

[r_rolo1]

paulthebug, you're free to disagree ( I'm not dogmatic ), but some points:

-The wonders you mentioned, even with the Ind discounts, make at least 6 settlers in hammer spending. OP has lots of land to settle and the simple fact of having settled cities helps with the barbs ( cities are the best fogbusters ). Not to mention that normally 6 cities pwn one....

- Of course that SE can bulb easy your way to lib, but if you are isolated you don't want Lib, you want Astro ( not Optics like lots of people think .... astro helps a lot more in economical terms ).... and it depends a lot of how your economy is when you hit lib. I prefer hitting Lib in 1400 ( or not hit Lib at all ) with a strong eco than getting Lib in 800 with a weak eco. But that is probably a matter of taste.....

- Your last point presumes that barb spawn their cities in good places, a thing that is far from certain. That is like having a automated settling option enabled....

 

[Bleys]

Despite my well-documented Wonder Addiction, I am with rolo here. That massive chunk of land NEEDS settling. I suggested the GLH and ringing it with coastal cities merely as a means to an end, and I would continue to focus on Wonders that aid in that plan to REX. Bismark is an excellent city-spammer with the GLH (as we found out in the recent MC game), those cheap granaries and harbors are absolutely HUGE.

Fid's plan to go for Castles now that he has the stone hooked up is pretty solid IMHO. A monster empire that will soon have his pick of very simple VCs. Everything should work toward his "goal" of a huge empire full of big Trade Routes. Keeping the peace is a very good idea. Personally, I like to wait until a few AIs decide to go into Merc, and then pop em, in this kind of game. I have even been known to gift Economics to AIs who I know love FM (Hannibal comes to mind), when I have a big TRE set up like this. Nothing better than going from -50 gpt to +74 in a single turn, and knowing it was because of the 20+ coastal cities you have getting a new, double-value Trade Route.

Personally, the TRE is now my preferred style of play on 90% of the maps in the game, but I have never used Castles, so I will be interested in seeing how they work out. I generally like a fast Eco for the free GM, so Castles seem to have a small window for me.

 

[paulthebug]

r_rolo1 & Bleys,
I don't mean not to settle at all, I am just saying, I value the early wonders so much that I am willing to postpone settling a bit. (1) There isn't anyone around to steal prime real estate from you, (2) You can't settle more than 4 cities without crashing the econ for the first wave anyway. (3) By postponing early settling just a little bit, Bismark's trait can help land more useful early wonder than other. In the longer run, I think it is more useful.

Actually, I like all early wonder except TGL. That one, I like to take from AIs by force. Not very useful early on anyway.

 

[Bleys]

r_rolo1 & Bleys,
I don't mean not to settle at all, I am just saying, I value the early wonders so much that I am willing to postpone settling a bit. (1) There isn't anyone around to steal prime real estate from you, (2) You can't settle more than 4 cities without crashing the econ for the first wave anyway. (3) By postponing early settling just a little bit, Bismark's trait can help land more useful early wonder than other. In the longer run, I think it is more useful.

Actually, I like all early wonder except TGL. That one, I like to take from AIs by force. Not very useful early on anyway.

By TGL, do you mean The Great Lighthouse or The Great Library?

If you mean the Lighthouse, you are very mistaken about its "early" benefits. It is HUGE early, and will single-handedly support a LOT of REXing, way more than any other early wonder could ever dream of. I cannot think of another early wonder as game-breaking as the GLH, especially on island type maps.

Personally, I never build Stonehenge at all anymore, and only rarely build the GW or the Mids. The Lighthouse is just too good to pass up on most maps, the biggest exception being Pangaea. Nearly every other map type will have the potential to REX in a circle around your island, and support that REX with the instant trade routes.

Seriously man, I think you are grossly underestimating how powerful this wonder is, especially with Bismark. Try this, make a Medium and Small game, Snakey continents, Islands mixed in, and only build the GLH, Oracle (taking MC), and then bee-line Compass for Harbors and a Currency Bulb with your first GM. Its insane how much commerce you can generate and still pretty much REX like mad.

 

[paulthebug]

By TGL, do you mean The Great Lighthouse or The Great Library?

If you mean the Lighthouse, you are very mistaken about its "early" benefits. It is HUGE early, and will single-handedly support a LOT of REXing, way more than any other early wonder could ever dream of. I cannot think of another early wonder as game-breaking as the GLH, especially on island type maps.

Personally, I never build Stonehenge at all anymore, and only rarely build the GW or the Mids. The Lighthouse is just too good to pass up on most maps, the biggest exception being Pangaea. Nearly every other map type will have the potential to REX in a circle around your island, and support that REX with the instant trade routes.

Seriously man, I think you are grossly underestimating how powerful this wonder is, especially with Bismark. Try this, make a Medium and Small game, Snakey continents, Islands mixed in, and only build the GLH, Oracle (taking MC), and then bee-line Compass for Harbors and a Currency Bulb with your first GM. Its insane how much commerce you can generate and still pretty much REX like mad.

Hi Bleys,
I think you are right. I play too much continental/inland start.

 

[Bleys]

If one consistently plays Pangaea maps, or straight Continents, then one would naturally assume that the GLH is not a very powerful Wonder (although it can be very strong on Continents if the continent is not "uniform").

However, take a look at the variety of maps available in the Custom Game menu. How many of those map-scripts are going to have a ABUNDANCE of coastal areas available.

The GLH is NOT just for Archipelago maps. There are tons of maps where its extremely powerful. Islands to settle make in incredibly strong, but even just a large, snakey landmass (Fractal types) can benefit from this wonder.

I look at it like this, if a majority of my cities are going to be coastal, then I go for the GLH. If it looks like I will have a large inland set of cities, then I skip it and go for the Wall or maybe the Mids if I have stone. Quite often, even Hemispheres maps will have a couple smallish landmasses which are ideal for a coastal ring of cities, with maybe 1 or 2 inland ones. Once you begin to understand how colonial maintenance works, you will really be able to abuse the power of the GLH. I am beginning to think its as broken and abusable as the Mids, and that the TRE is even stronger than the CE or the SE.

However, Pangaea and Continent remain very popular map choices, and I readily agree that the GLH is not ideal in games where you have a big land-mass with plenty of inland cities and a few sprinkled-in coastal ones. If you like to play random maps (I use Refars map script chooser, myself, too lazy to get the link) then you will begin to notice that the "big, solid, limited coast" landmasses are the exception, not the rule, and that many many map types, from Fractal to B&S, M&S, etc, can take advantage of the GLH's strength.

 

[r_rolo1]

Even pangea can get some islands and more varied landscape if you choose natural shoreline option .... everytime I choose pangea in my games I press that option, and byebye oval shaped big continent

About the great lighthouse... even in Pangea it means that your coastal cities will have atleast 3 coins from the trade routes, and that may be enough to pay the maintenance of the cities until 6 cities at 60% without courthouses ( depends on the distance, of course ). This may not look much, but having more cities is a big asset in itself

 

[Fidardorist]

I am moving toward corps which will knock out the old G Lighthouse and as I've got about 200 in trade, I figure I'm going to lose about 80 bucks: a significant bite seeing that my total gold with sliders at 0% is about 389 right now.

To offset this near 25% loss in total moneys*, I hope to have built up some banks and custom houses. Then look at a profitable corporation. Other GLH recession reduction initiatives would be interesting to hear.

EDIT: Turns out I will lose no trade routes bcs. though the loss of the GLH will mean -2 trade routes, the technology of corporation gives you +1 trade route and the civic of free market unlocked by econ, one before, gives you +1 trade route. (Also good to keep in mind for trade warfare if you didn't get the GLH in the first place.) Then the custom houses from econ give 100% trade route yield which is a massive step forward. So this is a no brainer.


*Can someone straighten me out with a link or explanation that shows specifically the diff. between the GNP on the comparison screen, the revenue on the financial advisor and, well, I guess the $ coming in when you lower all the sliders? What I want to do is isolate trade to watch it more closely. I had enough trouble isolating trade revenue that I actually just went city by city for a tally...

 

[Fidardorist]

I'm in a position to build privateers now and I am ready to begin stealthily leeching off my strongest friendly competitors. Can I damage my own trade by doing this if I hit a city that is on my trade network? Probably so. So what is the correct procedure? Just go through all your trade routes to find cities that you are not trading with and blockade them? Other privateer tips? How many to bring? How to determine most cash blockade location? How to avoid being killed a few turns into a blockade?

I'm just full of questions, ain't I?

 

[vale]

It really isn't as bad as you are expecting. You will lose one trade route per city but it will be the 1 worst trade route per city. If one of your big cities loses a foreign route, it might be compensated by the fact that one of your smaller cities picks up that route.

Corporation doesn't hurt that bad and the techs it unlocks can definitely hurt...but not you.

 

[Fidardorist]

EDIT: Turns out I will lose no trade routes bcs. though the loss of the GLH will mean -2 trade routes, the technology of corporation gives you +1 trade route and the civic of free market unlocked by econ, one before, gives you +1 trade route. Then the custom houses from econ give 100% trade route yield which is a massive step forward. So this is a no brainer...

Well I've got Econ/Corps and am running free market but come to see I only have 4 trade routes compared to the 5 I had when I wrote the above. This I don't get...

(Still trade is up from about 200 to about 236, thanks to improved trade in non-sea towns, and some improved big cities, like the cap going from 26 in 1400 AD to 30 in 1605 AD with the customs house...)

 

[Fidardorist]

1760 AD, Turn 390

I'm on the fence in the moment of truth and such like cliches. Tis true, though. I'm coasting along with a superior econ, even getting to military parity after trimming dead weight and upgrading, uhh...good weight, to infantry. That while running pacifism and only currently spending 11 on units. Got my UB, the assembly plant, a factory replacement that allows you to stack in 4 or 5 engineers, which is cool.

Other Features of My Burgeoning Empire

• Oxford In Capital
• Wallstreet in shrine town, now, finally, complete with shrine
• 90% tech slider with 50 gold coming in each turn
• Naval Dominance (Hello Destroyers!)
• Ironworks
• 2-3 Academies
• 2 Mili Academies and Nat Epic spread around to hammer towns

How I Stack Up at the Moment

Yes, it's looking like springtime for Germany.

Everybody Loves Fidardorist

Ahh that Fidardorist; what a guy!

So I've kinda left everything open and I'm in the funny position to be able to choose my victory condition this far along.

Remember when I said that the only war I could envision was one with naval domnance, my UU, the Panzer and Transports? "Oh, yeah, sure we do yeah, uh huh. " Well, I'm blithely playing along, just got through an artist ingnited, MoM turbo-charged 15 turn Golden age that installed a bunch of said assembly plants in many of my cities, beelinging to plastics for the clean power from Three Gorges, when it occurs to me, BAM!, I can build panzers now. If there will be war, now is the time to get on it! So I took a gander South across the pond and thought about the effort and the lack of pacifism (slow down in GP's) and the sheer numbers it would require to take down Rome and her vassal Egypt and...I balked. I thought, "Diplo Victory?" And I says to myself, probably not without some ownage of Rome, anyway, to secure the unhappy votes. Anybody else seemed out of the question, they would screw up my hard earned, bribed and cajoled diplo cat bird seat.

But then, if you aren't going for diplo, what's a little bruised feelings when I take down someone in the club with destroyers, bombers, parartroopers & everything else in the book? Then I looked east across the water at Boudicia and thought about how backward her tech is...and she's an ocean away in a war with Nappy and...a whole big continent to myself, practically...

But then...I think I balked again...What's the point if I'm not going for Dom or conquest? Bottom line is I think I have this one in the bag and I want to chalk this victory ASAP. Also, I'm not role playing, but it just seems more in keeping with the tenor of the game to keep the peace and role out the tech line, trading our way into space. So is the long path to space also the fastest way here? May well be.

Now how to contrive some serious beeline to blast off time. Perhaps the UN just to open up another trade route? Onward and upward. Monarch is looking closer all the time.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

By TGL, do you mean The Great Lighthouse or The Great Library?

If you mean the Lighthouse, you are very mistaken about its "early" benefits. It is HUGE early, and will single-handedly support a LOT of REXing, way more than any other early wonder could ever dream of. I cannot think of another early wonder as game-breaking as the GLH, especially on island type maps.

Personally, I never build Stonehenge at all anymore, and only rarely build the GW or the Mids. The Lighthouse is just too good to pass up on most maps, the biggest exception being Pangaea. Nearly every other map type will have the potential to REX in a circle around your island, and support that REX with the instant trade routes.

Seriously man, I think you are grossly underestimating how powerful this wonder is, especially with Bismark. Try this, make a Medium and Small game, Snakey continents, Islands mixed in, and only build the GLH, Oracle (taking MC), and then bee-line Compass for Harbors and a Currency Bulb with your first GM. Its insane how much commerce you can generate and still pretty much REX like mad.

I will often make stonehenge with non-creative leaders, in a bid for a prophet to bulb theology. In isolation, this allows you to grab a religion for quick and the sour-grapes nature of AI teching with theology means you'll have several hundred extra years to build the AP. If running SE you can also use theology for paper - education - lib path since a CS capitol matters less for SE (though I prefer CE usually).

It trades well too. I can often shop it around if I get it first (and its beaker value means things like currency, code of laws, math, even metal casting are viable trades), even if I hang onto it forever to build the AP. Once in a while I can even shop it around after getting optics and finding AI's while isolated! Monarchy is right there too so it has SOME CE synergy since IMO monarchy is just as important to CE as currency/CoL, perhaps more so.

Note: the exact same thing can be done with the oracle, and which I take depends on my leader, the map, and whether I have one of the resources.

Generally speaking, if not going this route I find it easier to just chop or whip out the monuments, or build a missionary and insta-spread religion to a new city for the border pop.

Anyway, land comes before wonders, just build a key wonder or *maybe* two that helps you use your land with your REX. This is true in isolation and in non-iso, though in the latter if you spawn close enough to AI's you may wish to forgo wonders entirely, at least until you capture them.

 

[r_rolo1]

Fidarodist, you're in complete control of the game here, so any conclusion you choose will be easy ( BTW IMHO you should go up to Monarch.... you are completely pwning the Prince AI )

Some issues:

Why Rep? Only 231 beakers form your 1600ishs come from specialists...... given your tech advance over everyone, US would be far better......

Your foes are hopelessly backwards.....

Gilga wants a DP with you.

Boudi is a friend of Hannibal.

Now my idea:

Halt research ( maybe Fission would be better for you than Plastics.... ) and switch to US and State property . Cash rush a army and the infra you still may need in your empire and strike Boudi. Prepare to have some culture spending that boudi should have a gazilion units..... ( that is why I spoke of : they are nice to kill big numbers... and as no one is even near of the UN or of any counter to nukes.... )

Clean Boudi and deal with Hatty + JC... by then you should be near of Dom limit. Then betray one of your friends and voila: Dom win

Space would be easy as well, but given that you have a huge tech advance, why not flex the military muscle?

 

[Ultimocrat]

Re: Diplo victory. Who would be your opponent (who's #2 in population)? Rome? If so, you've got 3 other leaders who will vote you the win? Is that a winning coalition (I'd guess so)?

How far away are you from Mass Media and the UN? You've set yourself up to win whatever type of victory you want. It's likely your fastest route to victory if it's only a few techs away and you can build the UN fast.

Space will be easy but will take a long time waiting, teching and building. Domination or conquest will take a long real amount of time, moving units around, and despite your insurmountable military tech advantage and production lead, you will be facing huge numbers, alliances against you, significant war weariness, and military traits.

 

[Fidardorist]

Interesting. Two opposing suggestions from two major sources. Beginning to like this forum thing. Moral: if at first you don't succeed, ask, ask again.

Okay, speed reply-

Why Rep? Only 231 beakers form your 1600ishs come from specialists...... given your tech advance over everyone, US would be far better......

Good point. Main reason is that I am hap/health capping in the cap and may as well work those specialists harder and mostly happiness issues. The moment I switch over, all 5 of my largest cities go sour , many with few to no immediate redress through buildings. So...do I wait on Radio and get the Eiffel tower and then consider the switch?

Gilga wants a DP with you.

Yeah, I saw that. I took the DP with Hanni bcs he asked without being sure of all the reprucussions. It seems like a when in doubt, do it, backstab profelactic measure with no negatives, but I don't know/have no experience with DP.

[Edit: Defensive pacts surely are primarily just a hedge against getting attacked. Anyone know where to find the mechanics on how much it 'boosts your power rating' in eyes of the AI, if indeed that's what it does? Surely there is the potential for bonus good feeling from the AI w\whom you have the Defensive Pact over time. It can and does, like the vassalage bond, cause bad feelings among those who call themselves 'rivals' of your new defensive partner. (Boudi did this to me, though she was buddies with the civ in question according the to the glance screen.) I believe this diplo negative, along with the positive with your DP ally decays with time. Of course, if someone in the club declares on your DP ally, you incur immediate major negatives against them, but the likelihood is quite low if you and your ally are powerful. You'd have to be suicidal to declare against an alliance that leads the game in power. When it doubt, you can get more DP's to further lessen the chances of such an unfortunate war.]

Boudi is a friend of Hannibal.

Right. But I could absorb a couple negatives with Hanni given the effusive adulation he's sending my way, right? How big would the diplo hit be?

Halt research ( maybe Fission would be better for you than Plastics.... ) and switch to US and State property . Cash rush a army and the infra you still may need in your empire and strike Boudi. Prepare to have some culture spending that boudi should have a gazilion units..... ( that is why I spoke of : they are nice to kill big numbers... and as no one is even near of the UN or of any counter to nukes.... )

Interesting. Many a change in directions offered here. Doubts about US we covered, but state property would crash my whole trade economy. The Boudi idea was kinda up my ally. Don't understand what we mean by culture spending here...oh, to absorb the war wearies... (Part of the answer to my US objections.) Here is a view of the happiness picture, where we can see the top 5 pop cities at the top of the list, with most happiness building installed and still touching there caps. I see nowhere to go but Media/Eiffel of broadcast towers or a plodding religion/temple spam and maybe free relig. (Bye bye speedy GP's.)

Happiness Conundrums of War

Spoiler :

Then theres nukes. Never used one. I don't have any moral objection (it's a GAME, per my sig) except to the idea of ruining good land and improvements. I try not to even pillage much during wartime when I take land. Still, I have thought about it so little that I'll have to visit the...okay there's some major fallout: the diplo penalties, the nuclear gunk fallout...and there are twenty turns to get rocketry and fission, plus 2200 odd hammers to build the Mannhattan project. For those prices, they should throw in Mannhattan for free, am I right? :rimshot:

But seriously folks, I can be persuaded of one or all of these suggestions: that is the purpose of this thread, but I'm not sure I'm there yet.

Clean Boudi and deal with Hatty + JC... by then you should be near of Dom limit. Then betray one of your friends and voila: Dom win

Yep, this looks like the road to domination win. Maybe w\the nucs maybe without & with the eiffel instead of Manhattan? I think your point when you say halt research is that everything can stall for a concerted war effort (happines, research, GP etc) bcs the lead is that big, by the time they begin truely catching up, the games over. Food for thought.

Thanks to rolo for opening the save and giving it some thought.

 

[Bleys]

I have a suggestion for your Monarch aspirations Fid, try the LHCs and the Nobles Clubs at Monarch. They are sort of "Monarch Light" since the AIs dont get their bonus starting tech, Archery, but everything else is at Monarch. Its a good step between the levels.

I suggest the Hannibal LHC from a few months back, and the Kublai Khan NC from a couple months ago. Both of those had some solid learning strategies to play. Then you can check the threads, see how you did compared to other players, etc. I dont have the links, but all the LHCs are linked in Rolo's bullpen and all the NCs are linked in my NC bullpen. The reason I suggest the Hannibal LHC is that its similar to yours in a way, coastal border pops allows you to meet some AIs pre-Optics, so you arent "truly" isolated. The KK NC is just a free-for-all Conquest game that has some solid opponents, and is a good Pangaea Domination Learner with a super strong Warmongering leader.

 

[Fidardorist]

Re: Diplo victory. Who would be your opponent (who's #2 in population)? Rome?

No, sadly. It's our pal Hanni.

How far away are you from Mass Media and the UN?

12 turns, and it jives with the quest for Eiffel.

It's likely your fastest route to victory if it's only a few techs away and you can build the UN fast.

I'm likin all this fast talk. Plus I've never done a diplo, only an AP one.

Domination or conquest will take a long real amount of time, moving units around, and despite your insurmountable military tech advantage and production lead, you will be facing huge numbers, alliances against you, significant war weariness, and military traits.

Roger that. Nobody likes Caesar so I don't see an alliance problem until the final betrayal push (ie the last civ to attack, a former pal, to get the final sliver for dom according to rolo's calculations). You can hardly call the Egypt/Rome vassalage situation here an alliance of titans (though Rome itself will have literally hundreds of nasty units to squash.) Which brings us back to the nuclear question. No, if diplo could work it seems like a crafty little solution. I can win Boudy's heart further by giving her little trinkets. Trouble is that while Caesar and Hatty may not be a military alliance to fear, they may be a diplomatic doorstop...which brings us round to war again...this time definately sans due to diplo penalty. If you can't join em to the cause beat them into it...

Now I have no way of calculating the numbers on the Caesar/Hatty voting block (assuming I can land the other voters vs. Hanny), but it can be dissapointing when a diplo strat just goes south. Still, this could be a decent sub-plot on the road to space, even if it were to fail.

I'm all ears. Thanks for the two cents.

Re-hash of Current Diplo Glance

Spoiler :

 

[r_rolo1]

When Broadway is in ( 9 turns away ) and if you get eifell + R&R ( not that hard) , 10 % culture will cover that easily

Your eco would not crash with SP... yes you would lose some trade routes, but the gains in maintenance would cover it ( I made the test: switching from FM to SP increased your income by 30 gpt ). And SP is a absolute need to maintain the overseas cities.....

The issue with manhatthan is that you can cash rush lots of nukes in 2 turns ( remember to make Kremlin ), one to cut the cost of the $rush penalty for rushing in the first turn and the other to rush in itself and make some other assorted stuff in between ( I don't recall seeing rushmore and you still lack some jails... ). You won't need much of them if the AI continue in the snail pace that we're seeing now, probably you will need one or two for Boudi and maybe other two for JC ( if you map the AI well enough to see where the main AI stacks are )

But cash rushing is far more powerful than nukes... it would allow to get units near the front instead of waiting for the ferry or the airlift and that by it self is a huge asset.

My advice regarding techs would be to research more 32 turns exactly ( Flight, Artilery, Rocketry, Radio, Fission , not necessarily by this order.... ( IMHO Radio first and then Fission )) and then shut down research. I really doubt that both JC and Boudi can tech up enough in that period to change this much ( JC doesn't have even Astro ... ). make some army and infra in between and strike then by the order I already said....

BTW you need to focus more your

 

[Ultimocrat]

Bottom line is I think I have this one in the bag and I want to chalk this victory ASAP

Sorry I can't open your game Fidardorist -- I actually don't have BtS (just vanilla). Given that you're building Broadway, you have Electricity; given your tech pace, you could get Radio and Mass Media in ~15 turns. I don't know how many hpt your best production city is getting, but maybe ~10 turns for the UN? And if you've got the UN votes (and the deck looks well stacked if Rome is #2 in pop -- 3 friendlys who will cast their ballots for you), then diplo victory is as little as 30-35 turns away. If you don't have the votes, then maybe Boudica's land can give them to you, as long as you don't take too big a hit from your allies.

If you went for domination you'd have to take a city a turn to approach this victory speed.