You , Yourself and your shadow : Some lessons on isolated starts

[Lord Parkin]

If you are gunning space, you are guaranteed to have the techs for nukes, a powerful navy, and probably modern armor (if you go for internet).

Fair enough for single player. In multiplayer games (at least in the ones I've played in), nukes are almost always banned long before anyone has the option to build them. Maybe it's just a group philosophy for the people I play with - we're all of the opinion that it kind of sucks when everyone has the ability to kill a stack in an instant with a couple of nukes, or when the cities you spent all game building up can be half-decimated. Or maybe we just don't like the ridiculous global warming. Either way, I haven't ever played in a game where nukes have not been banned. Oh, except in the one case of a recent no-tech-trading game where I ran away ridiculously far into the lead (1-2 eras ahead of everyone else)... so I figured there was no point in banning nukes just for myself.

Anyway, I guess my point is that in multiplayer it's not so easy to defend yourself against attacks, so you can't concentrate all-out on building spaceship parts - you have to also maintain a large military presence. This means that the Space Elevator can have its use in multiplayer, since less time spent building spaceship parts is more time spent building military.

 

[r_rolo1]

The Space elevator will cost 2000 hammers ( suposing no multipliers of any kind ) . That makes that the SE will only save hammers ( excluding GE usage OFC ) if 2000 + 2X/3 < X, with X being the hammers invested in SS parts after the SE ending, that gives X > 6000 . Well, a SS in normal speed will take at top 20400 hammers ( full SS , no lmultipliers ) .... so building the SE is a worthwhile proposition IF ( and this is a bif if ) if you finish the SE soon enough. That is the main conundrum, given that Robotics is somewhat out of the main SS path. My point is that, atleast in my empirical experience, the time needed to get robotics + build SE is normally enough to make it a unprofitable proposition ,unless maybe if you get Robotics and the SE while making Apollo ( and even then.... )

 

[Lord Parkin]

Great Engineers tend to be fairly easy to come by late in multiplayer games, especially if you have one or two friendly allies. I think the Space Elevator has been at least partially GE-built in most multiplayer games I can think of.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

MP is weird in that it is very hard to launch land attacks but very difficult to defend coastal cities when you have a lot of them.

But in a MP no tech trade game, isolation takes a MUCH more favorable position than a typical LHC SP game with tech trades on! As the iso guy you are the only civ in the world that can build peacefully and ignore humans for a long time! You have the opportunity to develop un-involved with the likes of choking, double-teams, and the like. The only issue is if a good player eats a weaker one on the mainland.

 

[Lord Parkin]

MP is weird in that it is very hard to launch land attacks but very difficult to defend coastal cities when you have a lot of them.

That's certainly true, although there are ways to counter the problem. (For instance, thorough sea patrols and air recons of the nearby coast.)

But in a MP no tech trade game, isolation takes a MUCH more favorable position than a typical LHC SP game with tech trades on! As the iso guy you are the only civ in the world that can build peacefully and ignore humans for a long time! You have the opportunity to develop un-involved with the likes of choking, double-teams, and the like. The only issue is if a good player eats a weaker one on the mainland.

Hmm, IMHO isolation isn't really so favourable even with no tech trading. Remember you do miss out on all those foreign trade routes until Astronomy, which can actually be rather significant over the course of the game, pulling you back in tech compared to a mainland civ. The main factor, though, is that an isolated civ can only expand at the rate it can build Settlers, while a mainland civ that builds up its military can "expand" at a much greater pace (and get pre-built up cities to boot) if it plays its cards right. The game in which I ran ridiculously far away onto the lead was where I started on the biggest continent, and went to work on my neighbours.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

That's certainly true, although there are ways to counter the problem. (For instance, thorough sea patrols and air recons of the nearby coast.)

I said it was difficult, certainly not impossible . Compared to what the AI does though, human naval tactics are very devastating and I ate a hard lesson in it once. It has to be taken seriously.

Hmm, IMHO isolation isn't really so favourable even with no tech trading. Remember you do miss out on all those foreign trade routes until Astronomy, which can actually be rather significant over the course of the game, pulling you back in tech compared to a mainland civ. The main factor, though, is that an isolated civ can only expand at the rate it can build Settlers, while a mainland civ that builds up its military can "expand" at a much greater pace (and get pre-built up cities to boot) if it plays its cards right. The game in which I ran ridiculously far away onto the lead was where I started on the biggest continent, and went to work on my neighbours.

I think it depends. When iso you can always pull things like an astro bulb or some such, also winning the race to any uninhabited islands since you can definitely sell out on it unlike others.

There's not going to be an easy answer to any game with multiple continents where you start isolated or near similar skill players, but someone else starts next to a cupcake and doubles up super fast. I've seen some reasonable players get burned by no strategic metal against a guy who went persia ---> immortals too. Stuff happens, and if someone goes runaway, it can be very difficult to deal with it regardless of start position as long as that position isn't close enough for you to be a factor in those early wars.

Of course, when it's YOU mowing down the scrubs, there's no problem . When I play game spy I do a lot of malinese skirmisher chokes. That's already really hard for a lot of people to deal with, but with unrestricted leaders anybody but inca and possibly persia (if they get horse in time) is going to have a hard time...standard archers SUCK against cover skirmishers, on any terrain. Note that merely choking the players usually gets them to quit, very convenient X_X.