Emperor/Archipelago/Small islands/High sea level

[enderw]

I've been trying to win at the following settings:

Emperor/Archipelago/Small islands/High sea level

and am having a tough time doing it.

1st Civ choice
I have been trying with Washington and Elizabeth. It seems starting with fishing is a must and fininancial is really good with lots of coast squares.

I am contemplating possible roosevelt with a metal working/colossus rush?
Colossus and great lighthouse may be the strongest wonders at these game settings.

I'd appreciate any advice/strategy suggestions.

[Blake]

Those are interesting settings.
I have quite a lot of experience with Asoka on tiny islands maps. May not be an obvious choice but Spiritual has a bunch of perks... like you can flipflop between caste and slavery to make maximum use of the high food, later nationhood is a big help.
Organized rocks for obvious reasons.
If Asoka gets a religion he can't be beat for tiny islands.

The #1 Wonder is without question The Great Lighthouse. Colossus is worth getting but bear in mind it's only until Astronomy. The GL lasts for nearly all the game.

I would think the best leaders are...
Washington Org/Fin... obvious.
Asoka Org/Spi... he's a good peaceful leader, very good.
Victoria Fin/Exp... really quite a good combo, cheap granaries, cheap harbors... easy growth.

[jscott457]

Give Cathy a try.

Creative is not that great (but not too bad), but you do get to be financial which is very nice.

For me the big deal is that cossacks are just coming online when I am finally in a position to make a major military move. With almost all the AI cities on the coast, dropping a few (or 10 lol) cossacks right next to a city usually does the trick.

This is only monarch though, perhaps on emperor the timing would be off.

Now I might have to go give that a try.

Goodluck,

GS

[AshenPlanet]

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Re: obsoletion of Great Lighthouse vs. Colossus.

The #1 Wonder is without question The Great Lighthouse. Colossus is worth getting but bear in mind it's only until Astronomy. The GL lasts for nearly all the game.

I usually have corporation before I have astronomy.

Colossus is most often still in play longer than great lighthouse for me.
Corporation and astronomy are about the same research cost if I remember correctly? ~3000ish?

I'll usually get optics early to go for the circumnavigation, but then work towards economy and production bonus techs.

I haven't played on tiny islands yet though.
I usually play continents since I like to warmonger early...

.

[One_more_turn]

This setting highly favors CS-Slingshot. With fewer cities, Bureaucracy rules.

I'm currently playing an Archipelago game at the Monarch level. I executed the CS-Slingshot effortlessly and got a huge tech lead very early on. It seems you need a much smaller military force to smack everyone around.

[One_more_turn]

Financial civs are great for this settings.

[AshenPlanet]

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I checked last night - Astronomy is 3000 rp, corporation is only 2400 rp.

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[enderw]

OK, I finally won with Qin, but it almost doesn't count because I had metal and the guy on the next island over did not.

Have you Tried a CS slingshot on Emperor? It is much harder to pull off. I was hoping to find a stratgey that works consistently, and on emperor I believe a CS Sling is a 50/50 prop at best. . Of course if you are industrious and start with marble it almost always works.

But I tend to be against industrious on higher difficulties as yo uget to buld so few wonders. However half price forges are fantastic on these settings as putting an engineer into your resource starved fishing village is fantastic.