WTH am I supposed to do now.........

[oosik]

........with only 5 towns and no land anywhere in sight! Even having the lighthouse doens't allow me enough movement to find any land!

Mind you, this is a predominant land mass map.......how the hell did I get the crap island!

this is the second game in a row that this has happened!

 

[CrackedCrystal]

This could actually be a blessing. You could get the great library, set your science to zero, rake in the cash, and when you have ships that can go far enough, the Great Lib will grab you a whole age of Techs.

It may be worth your while to try for cultural victory in one city. Probably one of the Northern cities.

Or for a UN victory, being isolated you will be free of wars and your reputation will remin good.

 

[Chieftess]

You could also use ICS (Infinite City Sprawl) on the tundra. Tundra only yields 1 food (two tundra stops growth). You can have them on those 2 "tips" - one that doesn't have a road, and the other that extends past your culture borders.

 

[cracker]

oosik,

back up and learn to play the game a bit or you;re are gonna hate yourself when you realize how badly some of your choices may be destroying your game chances. An island like this can be a true luxury if you exploit its strengths.

1) Your screen shot shows you have 3 turns to go to get the wheel in 570AD?? Even on the lowest difficulty level and whith both your legs chopped off in a horrible accident you should be able to be well past that tech.

2) Back up and look at the mistakes you are actively making in how you manage your empire. You have walls everywhere to defend against flies. Take your screenshot inside your paint program or image program then open your city display screen and put colored dots in place for each terrain position where you have a citizen working (this would be easier if your screenshot had the grid on.) You have 5 towns of 6 people each for a population of 30 citizens but you territory has at least 150 terrain squares available to be worked. You as the master of your domain are only getting a 20% utilization of the resources you have available.

3) Your town positions are chosen poorly to get you off that Island and in command of the world.

4) You have every city set to build wealthy and this is fatal.

5) read you map position better and use your galleys to explore wisely. You have numerous unexplored edges where you could have discovered a crossing to another landmass thousands of years ago. The galley movement will let you push back the black fog carefully to the north, northwest and northeast to decide where it would be worth your risk to send out a daring galley across the gap and seek out contacts. Galleys only have a 50/50 chance of sinking and if you are smart about your exploration choices you can usually make contact even without the great lighthouse if you map is not a horrble 80% water archipeligo with only one other rival.

6) these map results may be the result of choices you are making in the game setup and that is making it hard for your to learn to play the game. Following the game play in some succession games or in some of the Gotm games to get a better idea of what should be going on so that you can have more fun. Do not use random settings until you get a better handle on what you are doing and what the map settings will tell you about your world.

Here are some links that you should be able to use:

Handyandy's "I'm not very good" warlord training game

Improving Your Opening Play Sequences

Gotm15-Russia opening play sequences discussion

 

[MadScot]

There's room for waaay more than 5 cities, though. I reckon there are 34 non-tundra tiles, and you only have 5 pop 6 cities - you aren't even working all the good tiles. That cow up in the NE isn't in ANY city radius. Nor the NW fish.

With a small area like that I'd be tempted to pack them in tight. The five red circles would be one set I'd consider adding.

I've sketched in the limits of the working areas for your cities - with so little room you need to take advantage of every workable tile, including the coast, which is pretty good once you get a harbour.

 

[MadScot]

OK, I am waaaay too slow a typist!

 

[Knowze Gungk]

Originally posted by CrackedCrystal
This could actually be a blessing. You could get the great library, set your science to zero, rake in the cash, and when you have ships that can go far enough, the Great Lib will grab you a whole age of Techs.

Unfortunately, by the time you get the ships that can go far
enough, The Great Libery will be long obsolete.

 

[da_greatest]

Originally posted by Knowze Gungk

Unfortunately, by the time you get the ships that can go far
enough, The Great Libery will be long obsolete.

You can wait until the AI finds you.

 

[CrackedCrystal]

Originally posted by Knowze Gungk


Unfortunately, by the time you get the ships that can go far
enough, The Great Libery will be long obsolete.

I actually ment when the AI gets the ships. I just mistyped.

 

[cracker]

When thinking about the great library remember that it becomes obsolete when YOU discover Education.

If you are playing on a game below Regent you should rarely find value in the Great Library.

On Monarch and Emperor you can build the Library and exploit its value.

On Deity, the Great Library can be hard to get if you are not on your game.

In situations like this map it would be possible to meet the first civ across the ocean, and then trade for a good set of contacts and then get a whole slew of techs out of the great library. You can even get techs well beyond education and into the industrial age if you trade aggressively for contacts. This has happened in the past because great library works on all techs possessed by any two civs you may know and then education obsoletes the GrtLib at the end of the turn.

 

[planetfall]

Oosik,

Before you begin your gallery excursions, you can extend the fog by moving 1 tile out into the sea and then come back safely. The cow tile seems like a good place for this.

You seem annoyed at your start position. Why? Different starts are part of the game. Consider Monopoly for a moment. How much fun would it be if you always got Boardwalk? Each and every game?? Sometimes you get Baltic. Haven't you ever seen 4 RR's and Baltic-Met hotelled wipe out Boardwalk-Park Place because Baltic-Met was hotelled first and Boardwalk player keep on hitting RR's and the purple tiles and never had money to develop Boardwalk? Boardwalk is only winning in Monopoly when the other players don't develop their sets first.

Look at your minimap and you will see strengths in your position:

1. you have a sole land mass.
If you were in the middle of a large continent you could have 5 civs bearing down on you from all sides.

2. you are safe from attack from the south
This means you have 1/4 more military to use more effectively.

3. you have fresh water
Often you start on distant island with no water.

4. You have at least 4 bonus tiles
You could be starting in the middle of a continent in the middle of a jungle. Then you would no only be subject to attack from all sides, but you would have to chop and chop and chop just to get to a 2 food tile.

Another thread you might consider reading is one containing the phrase "a cold start". It is the story of a player who was given a start position in tundra, and how he overcame the obstacles to pull the game out. {If you can't find the thread here, check over at apolyton, it might have been over there.}

Finally, if you give up and always restart instead of trying to play, you will never discover the joy of pulling out a lost game.

Think about it.

== PF

 

[chaloobi]

I'd quit and start over. Why bother?

 

[Sim_One]

A city placement suggestion...

 

[planetfall]

Huh,

I would put the one at 7:00 out to the end of the point. I would also move the one at 4:00 out to the end of the point. I would also put a city on the point cow.

Why, to get the ability to work as many of the water tiles as possible. At first, all these mouths will be just people and no shields. but some of these can be changed to tax collectors or scientists. Later after you get offshore platforms, you can get real shields from them.

Sim_One-- what do you gain by NOT planting a city on the points?

== PF

 

[china444]

Originally posted by MadScot
OK, I am waaaay too slow a typist!

Spam.

 

[Chris1111]

By the lack of communication I'd say the guy gave up

The poor guy probably has all his cities building wealth cause he has nothing else to build except settlers,workers, and attack/defense units. Going into a deficit will just hurt him even more. By the looks of his map he also has no iron so when he does find someone he will be pretty much screwed IMO.

Im stuck on an island myself in my current game so Im interested in everyones strategies here. Luckily for me my land is grassland forests and rivers and about twice as big as his isle. No iron either

I've extended as far as my little galleys will go and Im praying I can get the lighthouse built so I can possibly make it over a narrow section of ocean and land in a sea tile or near a coast.

 

[oosik]

well that was certainly a lesson I wasn't expecting!!

as it turns out I found I could just barely get through to the east....as I would expect, al the other civs I found were at least 8 techs ahead of me!

the Great Lib was wrought by someone else, so there was no hope at that point!

Thanks though I learned quite a bit!

 

[oosik]

also on a side note about placing cities, or the way I do it....once your town hits it's first cultural conversion and the borders expand, htat is also your city production limit, nothing out side of that first border growth will get worked, so unless another town is using those adjacent squares they are essentially wasted.

I've found that when towns overlap too much, a lot can be lost later on when the city isn't as productive as it could be!

 

[Antha]

edit: deleted...cat ran across keyboard while reading

 

[Antha]

edit: browser went crazy after cat ran across keyboard