How unhappy can you get?

[couerdelion]

Running with quite an interesting problem at the moment. I had considered starting a new game after I realised the following

a) I was on my own on an island
b) My available resources were Pigs, Fish, Clams, Sheep, Horses, Copper, Iron and a reasonable number of flood plains. Also a few inland lakes that work as oases with a lighthouse
c) I almost forgot, I’ve got one gold tile

I am Ragnar so have no charisma and neither am I very good at the religion thing.

Now I don’t know about you but the idea that I can work with only 2 happiness bonuses before Astronomy is pretty scary. The health side of things is also pretty low with bonuses running as follows

Resources +4
Harbour +2
Aqueduct +2

I’m probably onto a loser here but thought I would see if I could do something with this mess. Having grabbed Great Lighthouse, I’ve got a little bonus for the future so think a big bee-line to Astronomy looks on the cards.

But should be fun. Has anyone else seen something similar.

p.s. I cheated a bit and there is one other continent. I can only hope that they don’t end up being best of friends or else I’m in for a tough battle.

[The Priest]

Hi. Yes these make very interesting games, and are a real challenge if like me you tend to leaverage your progress by some early wars here or there.

The big thing you didn't mention thought is monarchy. With it,you can be as happy as you want, though if does cost you units, which is a shame since otherwise you wouldn't need many.

The tricky thing will be that the others are all on one continent. If you are very lucky it will mean that they are fighting each other all the time, but its unlikely. They will inevitably trade with each other and so help each other so it will be hard for you not to fall behind. I would start to think towards going for a peaceful victory - invading and keeping land on the far continent is goin to be very hard, but defending yours while you build the culture might work well.

[wodan11]

I don't understand the problem. Beeline Hereditary Rule or build the Pyramids. No worries.

Wodan

[couerdelion]

Already beelined Monarchy. I side-tracked first to Sailing and Masonry for G. Lighthouse because the map told me to.

Pyramids was never really a credible option. Of the wonders to be finished, it was one that got completed "ahead of time". Don't forget that I have no wonder resources.

So for now, my main strike force is the dreaded cottage. That and a fine band of travelling entertainers whose job is to move from city to city joking about how much fun slavery is.

Hmmm. Think perhaps that Caste System might not be such a bad idea now. I shall ponder this one for a bit cos the cottages are nice too.

[wodan11]

Okay, so you're just asking for advice in general, not so much how to deal with happiness. Because you've already done that. Right?

Wodan

[snoopy369]

Fortunately warriors are pretty fast builds

[Supr49er]

At least Ragnar is a good leader to have for an isolated island game.

[Krill]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Fortunately warriors are pretty fast builds

up, disconnect metal and use warriors for happiness and to uncover FoW so you don't have to deal with barbs.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Krill


up, disconnect metal and use warriors for happiness and to uncover FoW so you don't have to deal with barbs.

Early stage that wasn't an option really. The island was long so I would need quite a few warriors to uncover FOW. Better would have been scouts though. It would have cost me a lot in upkeep when I needed those units in the cities.

Not sure that removing the link to metal would have been much better than chariots though. The extra mobility of the chariots allows them to move to a rapidly growing city when others are still growing back from the latest whip. When your working cottages and food tiles, you don't get a lot of core production.

Actually I was really asking if anyone else has played a similar game with almost no decent resources for happiness or health and being totally isolated from all other nations.

Nearly reached Optics now and with Colossus and Currency finances and happiness are pretty stable. Health is now a bit of a problem but nothing I tend to worry about too much. It just means that I need to build Aqueducts far sooner than I normally would. But I'm now ahead on gold which can't be a bad thing. I need to catch up on techs.

I now need to get the boats out for a rapid circumnavigation and to meet some friends. Perhaps they might trade me Archery for Sailing . I just hope they have already researched Alphabet.

But I suppose I have another question now. If I am in this position, I am assuming that my harbour-fuelled cities will churn out a LOT of trade commerce when I get Astronomy. But getting this will lose me the benefits of Colossus. Aside from the fact that I want to trade resources – reason enough for Astronomy – does anyone have experience of the relative gains and losses from these two wonders?

[wodan11]

Colossus and a cottage economy are counter-productive.

Wodan

[couerdelion]

Not entirely. But colossus will help me for a time and in that period my tech rate will be significantly higher. It just means that I won’t be working many new cottages until I get to Astronomy.

Let’s say my timeframe now is 50 turns to Astronomy (Epic speed) and I have the choice of working a basic cottage tile 2/0/1 and a coastal tile 2/0/4. Before Astronomy I might choose to work the coastal tile but after I choose to work the cottage.

By working the coastal tile for 50 turns I’ve gained 3 commerce for 15 turns and 1 commerce for 30 turns relative to the cottage tile. The remaining 5 turns the cottage would have been a village so they would be the same. After that time, I lose 3 commerce for 15 turns (cottage vs village), 1 commerce for 30 turns(hamlet vs village) , 0 commerce for 10 turns (both villages) and 1 commerce for 50 turns (village vs town). Although the total output from the pure cottage approach is higher, the value of the earlier boost is greater is present value turns so I will still prefer to work the coastal tile of the cottage.

The situation is confused a little with free speech and printing press favouring a more direct approach to the cottages. But with these some time away I can largely discount their affects as being a little too distant to affect the results.

Another considerations would be that these tiles are actually marginal ones that fund the empire while I’m waiting to whip. But with limit happiness and health, my populations have to be whipped to keep them happy and with low production they also need the whip to produce buildings. Either way, these “marginal” tiles will be worked infrequently so I will not be growing those cottages permanently.

This is also assuming that I can build cottages within the city limits. If the option is a plains hill then 2/0/4 is far better than 0/4/0.

So even if I am working cottages, Colossus can still be a very strong build for a civ with lots of coastal cities.

[couerdelion]

I should also add that the 6-8 seafood specials and five tiles inland lakes (3/0/3 for financial civ with lighthouse) mean that the colossus gives an instant +11 commerce per turn. Compared to the hammers 210 hammers to build with the copper resource that's a very decent return for this stage of the game.

So I've met everyone now and had to trade my way back into the game. I'm not at the bottom of the pile techwise but some are still ahead. Rameses is sitting pretty with over half a dozen techs that I haven't got and I'm only 75% of the way to Astronomy. When I met Elizabeth shortly after sending out the Caravels, I had only two techs that she needed while she had Alphabet, Construction, Philosophy, Archery, Polytheism, Monotheism, Theology(?), Horseback Riding and Feudalism. Not too different from everyone else there so I'm guessing that they've been trading happily for a long time.

And of course, they're quite happy with each other but dislike the fact that I trade with some of them. Add to this the fact that Tokugawa is there and I'm going to struggle to maintain 5 trading partner for the Great Lighthouse to bring the big bonuses. I'm only hoping that I can get some decent resources (Grains and Precious metals) for all that fish I've got to spare. There's not a lot of chance of that happening. But still hoping that Astronomy will put me back in the game.