Winning from an island

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Well this is sort of interesting question to me right now. In the last game I am just barely getting into the position to win, but would be interesting to see how are others dealing with this type of scenario. I still play Prince level, as it's easy enough to almost always win, but AI gives a fair resistance... I am not yet bored (or good enough ) to need a higher level fix, or higher losing vs winning ratio... I usualy play large fractal type maps epic speed, and they appeal to me as the size feels "right", and the maps are realtively varied. However the type of scenario where I end up with one more civ on an "isolated" continent, an the other 6-7 are together on the large one, is relatively frequent (maybe one in 4 ) so: How do you deal with the situation?

That kind of development makes the game on Prince level for me pretty challenging, let's say 50:50 and it's a scrap, the starting position in that small continent really makes all the difference IMO.

Two examples:

1. - where I lost:

I started on some sort of a peninsula with a bottleneck but in the middle of it so my capital did not have access to sea straight away. I think I was Chartaginian, and was on the island with the Aztecs. So first city was out of the "bottleneck" to secure the exit, and had to build a few cities on that peninsula to lower the expenses and try to get the science and army going for taking Aztecs out. (luckily at least I had one horse there, no bronze or iron)...

However before I managed to get my horseman going properly Aztecs declared war, (they had plenty of space to develop elswhere, but I guess the AI was thinking on the same lines as I did), they took my "bottleneck" city, and that lead to a looong scrap where I, managed to get to horseback riding in time still, cut all the forests for the army, and eventually beat the Aztecs...

But by the time I finished the conquest it was almost AD 1000 and I was waaayyyy back on the science. So I only got into the contact with other civs when they came to me. My science was so backward that I had no chance of catching up, for a long time, only towards the end of the game I caught up with the second worst civ tech wise, and managed to do some of the exchanges.

This is despite of having second largest civ once I got the whole continent under my control...

By the time they got to Astronomy and Combustioin I was of course raided by Bablyonians, and Romans, and etc... just got Rifleman in time to scrap a defense, but again science was further hit, and from that on the loss was inevitable... so that was scenario 1. In principle too weak start, early aggressive competitor civ and this was it. Looks like no way out to me. Perhaps an early worrior chop rush would have been a better choice, but I did not expect the Aztecs to go straight for my when they got their Jaguar Warriors.

One point here - how do I request to be someone elses vassal? I do get AI requesting protection from me that way - is there a way I can do the same to ask protection of another civ? I would be OK with gifting it cities if neccessary to get my size down, but did not manage to figure that option out in the game. That could be a route to possible spaceship/culture victory if you are unable to cath up on science/power side earlier.


Scenario 2:

--- looks like a sure win, but did not do it yet...

Again an island this time with the Dutch, but not only are the Dutch not so agressive as Aztecs, I got a great start as well with 3 clams + rice, and I was Native American, which meant I had both fishing and agriculture from the start. So "dream start" so to speak...

I went for Bronze/Iron working (had Iron nearby as well, my next city was there), got myself a fair number of swordsman (6-7) which was enough to take the three Dutch cities out and secure the land for myself. In the meantime I had enough workers too, and even though the whole continent was 90% jungle, had it cleared up and littered with hamlets to give me enough of an economic boost to be able to get to currency, and keep the science rate going. The continent was "luxurious resource" poor as well, so the choice was monarchy (with plenty of useless already discovered sciences) for happines or currency (science going and have someting to produce) and Optics for contact?

I went to the currency/optics route, with diversion for Calendar to get at least one more happy face (only sugar on the continent)... the conclusion was that I just managed to scrape by with Optics so when my caravels found the big continent (and it was bloody far away, took me almost 10 turn to find it) only one civ had all the sciences that I had discovered. One did not have Compass, and a few did not have Optics.

This was the gamesaver, and the rest is history so to say, with subsequently getting Monarchy in exchange, to get the happy people, and I think there was Gunpowder and Rifling that I got to first (together with 4th sized land size), I am now in the leading pack science wise, with Mining Inc being mine, and Sids Sushi on the horison (have the great merchant already)...


The rest will be done... but very very tight, even though I managed to get the Dutch as soon as possible, and they were kind enough to build the Great Lighthouse for me, which gave me two Great Merchants, one which I popped for 2+k and the other now waiting to grant me second corp... All this with a great start too...

Any other ways/routes/tips that you use in such "isolated continent" scenario for an easier win?

[rah]

My goal is to conquer the entire cont before the other civs get there. (to avoid "you attacked our friend" and all the other possible negative diplo pot holes.

Whether I'm playing tech trading or not will determine how much i want to focus on finding the other continent. Usually I play with it off so I don't rush. The intercontinental trade routes can wait a bit. Get a tech lead and see if you even need to invade. Control the sea.

[Lancer]

I get bored on islands, somy solution is to set up a custom game, large map, and add 4 civs. That decreases the odds of getting stuck nowhere with nobody.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

ah yes, if you play with tech trading off, than it becomes an easier game I imagine...and definitely - conquer the whole continent/island before the others get here... at least at this size it is not too difficult, as just in the last game I did it with only 9 well spread cities...

With tech trading on it is a struggle to keep up, I am just not sure if I am using the optimal approach. (this excludes the option of making sure you do not play an island/ big+small continent map )

[Supr49er]

I like playing the Dutch on water maps. Their UU and UB are terrific. Use no Tech Brokering, that way the other AIs can't give your tech to each other.

If possible, get the GL and Colossus.

Concentrate on lighthouses/harbors/dikes and build naval units.

[Fitz]

Bum rush Mercantalism. That's the reason the tech is there, and so low in the tech tree (relatively speaking). It's not like you were going to get any foreign trade routes going anyway ...

[Blake]

If you're completely alone it's just plain hard. You probably want to head straight to Optics, although you could also go up Philosophy ways and perhaps that'll cause the other AI's to ignore that branch (because once taoism is gone they largely ignore philosophy until needing it for liberalism). The idea with Philosophy of course is to run a powerful GPP economy with settled Great Scientists and lightbulbing key techs, when you can't fight this is one of the best ways to research quickly.


If you have a partner it's not bad and you can play largely normally.

It's often a good idea to try and befriend them. Two civs can tech faster than one. Of course you can wipe them out once optics is on the horizon - you don't need to research it yourself, the other AI's will send out caravels to greet you.

So unless you have a GOOD reason to invade your neighbor quickly, you can keep them around and let them develop their cities and land for you and also increase your tech rate through trade. It's not like you have anyone else you can kill until astronomy so you can take your time.

Bear in mind that for most civs you'll need to get them right up to friendly before they'll trade tech with you (a few leaders will trade techs they have a "local monopoly" on, but many wont). If you have a mule for a neighbor you need to do pointy-stick tech trading, in other words you beat techs out of them. But the idea here is to kill them slowly and wring them for as much tech as possible. Again, there's no need to hurry, taking over their entire empire at once just hurts your economy badly. The amount you can beat of of someone depends on how much hurt you've done to them, so you need to let them build more so you can hurt them more, they wont give you tech for peace just because you can beat them, it is the actual beatings which motivate them to cough up tech.

If you have a mule for a neighbor but you don't want to beat them (like you'd rather stay at peace and research using a pacifist strategy), you can also just wait for the others to come by with optics, your neighbor will still be backwards enough for you to trade with - your neighbor wont be able to trade with the big block either.

[Blake]

Now with difficult neighbors like monty.

There's something to bear in mind; When THEY declare war on YOU, it does not harm your relationships. So while they might inevitably declare one war before shared religion kicks in, that war wont actually hurt your relationships. So you can just "grin and bear it", forgive and forget.
The only way to piss someone off permanently in a war they started is to burn their cities, you can even go on an offense against them and take some of their cities and then declare peace, and they'll "forgive" you because you didn't start the war.

Most of the nutjobs get high shared religion bonus, so most are befriendable. The most troublesome ones are ones like Genghis Khan, who isn't the biggest nutjob, but he's also difficult to befriend, so he's a ticking timebomb.

Like Isabella is just guaranteed to declare war on you asap, but after that one war shared religion will make her all lovey-dovey towards you.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

now this is a refreshing strategy just trying to think why do I have this urge to conquer ASAP when I am alone with someone on a small continent??? Indeed two of us can tech faster, he does one tech and i do the other... so I will try this strategy next... Somewhere deep in me is the ingrained idea that I need to have at least 6-7 of my cities to have a shot at winning, so I think it was just natural for me to go and exterminate at the start on a map with not enough space. Plus that capital city #2 is always a temptation

I'll try this style next to see how it works out... plus thanks on the Philosophy tip, that would be great it is both a religion and a valuable tech I can trade (esp as AI should in the meantime get to Optics and find my small continent)

edit: btw Blake, is it possible to request to be a Vassal to the AI as a human player?

[joncnunn]

I'm pretty sure humans aren't allowed to request to be vassalized.