Prince is too easy and Monarch is hard. I've won maybe one out of 12 games on Monarch and that win was in a no tech trade game. I typically end up in the middle of the pack and was just looking for some general tips as I have drawn from the pool of strategies mostly geared towards < Monarch.

Yeah, I'm moving up to Monarch too right about now. This is the difficulty level I got stuck on in Civ III for like four months, winning only half the time. After I discovered full-on chopping and cottage spamming, Prince was a breeze.

Hi, post a save game or two on monarch if you want constructive suggestions.

It would help if you tell us what size map, how many AIs, and what Civ you personally play with. All of above would effect the strategy to use.

I'm still waffling between Monarch and Emperor myself. The one thing that I really noticed I had do that I did not really do on Prince was war.

Try finding your weakest neighbor and wipe them out with swordsmen and axes. Thats the only thing I routinely do that I did not do on Prince and below that made a big difference.

Dear All,

I have tried my first Monarch game last night. (have to say I could do Emporer since Civ1)

I choose those HOF settings just for the fun of seeing what would happen. (Large 5 Civs), continents, no cheating, no random seed (no world builder).

Well I ended up being alone on an island, (even on continents) and the same goes for Egypt (Hats.) and the other 3 have been on a shared island. (Hing Qui, Arabia and Que.)

Now when I got the first contact (with my first caravel) I spotted out that I was second in points, and coul trade techs right away - I was not behind against 4 civs on Monarch having contact since the early stages? Found that quite surprising though.

Gotta finish this game tonight / over the weekend and getting quite excited as it is my first attempt on Monarch.


For your problems / question, maybe you could give us some more background on how you play, your settings and what struggles you face?

As in my case, it seems to be fine even without a war. (at least being on your own island) I played with Frederik.

Cheers,
Jack

At this point, monarch is just too easy for me. But I will tell you what caused me trouble in my days to break though it. Too many people playing settler mode think they have the best strategy in the world. They'll post them around as though they will work on higher levels (that is just wrong). Just because you can beat noble every time doesn't mean you have a winning strategy at all.

I know a lot of people insist on stonehenge and the oracle being a major priority. In my books this is just wrong. My play has drasticaly improved when I skipped over then and got to more important priorities... I know some people will probably attack this thread now stating how important these wonders are.... but what is their winning reccord? Even if they are say, 80% on monarch, what are you going to do when you go to diety and realize everything you tried to tweak to perfection was for nothing.

I have just moved up from prince to monarch and have found it to be a significant jump, but I am continually learning from my games and I think I have found a few things that might help other players make the transition.

The most important thing I've learned is to play slower and plan further ahead. Commit to using a playstyle that fits your leader's traits and stick with it the whole game. Try to maintain the initiative over the AI when possible. Even though the AI gets to cheat, you are still smarter than the machine, so use that advantage.

While choprushing is an extremely popular strategy, I have recently had great success with leaving most of my forests for lumbermills. The forest health bonus is better after the patch, and environmentalism is a more practical civic now, so you can more easily take advantage of big health and happiness bonuses to grow your cities as large as possible. Large cities are better at everything, and with lots of lumbermills your late game production will be dominating.

Keeping a good sized army is also very important. War is harder on higher difficulties because the AI is cheating. No matter how good your economy or anything else, if your army isn't big enough to hold off a full scale invasion you will be crushed.

Hopefully some of this will be helpful, and good luck in your adventures.

It would help if you tell us what size map, how many AIs, and what Civ you personally play with. All of above would effect the strategy to use.

I tend to use standard maps with 7 AI's (default) and play a random civ.

By the way, if I post a savegame can you actually see the game develop or just see it as it as at that save point?

At this point, monarch is just too easy for me. But I will tell you what caused me trouble in my days to break though it. Too many people playing settler mode think they have the best strategy in the world. They'll post them around as though they will work on higher levels (that is just wrong). Just because you can beat noble every time doesn't mean you have a winning strategy at all.

I know a lot of people insist on stonehenge and the oracle being a major priority. In my books this is just wrong. My play has drasticaly improved when I skipped over then and got to more important priorities... I know some people will probably attack this thread now stating how important these wonders are.... but what is their winning reccord? Even if they are say, 80% on monarch, what are you going to do when you go to diety and realize everything you tried to tweak to perfection was for nothing.

I think people sometimes confuse "Score" with tech level. Score seems like it's based on a lot of things, including culture, tech, military. That's very different than pure tech level.

Stonehenge and Oracle help culture and GPP, as well as provide some other benefits. However, there are better ways to build your civ, particularly if you want to get military and economic techs.

So I agree with you. :)

That's not to say that these aren't useful, just that they aren't "all that".

Wodan

I want to second the thought that being a passive builder becomes very hard on Monarch. Things go much more smoothly with some judicious warmongering. Pick your friends and enemies carefully. Frequently if you found a religon early do not convert to it until at least one of your neighbors does. Nothing sucks more than founding Hinduism and ending up isolated on the continent with 3-4 hostile civs all running under Buddism. If you don't found a religion it's not a total loss because you may capture the holy cities later on anyways.

If you go to war early in the game your economy frequently cannot handle additional cities and razing them becomes the best solution. Especially if you start on a continent with just one or two other civs it's often ideal to keep a few of the best cities and raze the rest. Once your economy recovers you can settle additional cities to fill up the rest of the continent before you get caravels/galleons to meet the other civs. Even if you cannot utterly destroy your neighbors a few key attacks to cripple them is not a bad idea.

My strategy is make open border agreements with all civs and scout out their territories. Then based on how the game is developing I'll decide which civ to go after first. Sometimes it's the pesky Indians half way across the map and sometimes it's a next door neighbor.

Beware of starting next to aggressive civs on higher difficulty levels. I've had Alexander declare war on me in 1780 BC on Monarch. If you start next to an aggressive civ build troops early and often so that when that civ gets a warmongering urge it will go after a weaker neighbor and not you. Be sure when you scout out the other civ territories that you take note of which civs have which resources. Iron + Romans = major pain in the ass. Horses + Mongols = build lots and lots of Spearmen. When these otherwise annoying civs lack their key resource they seem to play much more peacefully.

Certain civs seem to be highly religious. If you start next to Isabella or Saladin they will absolutely hate your guts if you are a heathen dog but they might be your best friend if you share their faith.

My goal in a Monarch game is to take out or cripple one opponent in the axeman/swordsman era and another in the elephant/catapult era. On a long length game like Marathon where you have many turns to enjoy each era's military the Romans can literally conquer/raze an entire standard size Pangea map before their Praetorians become obsolete.

If you're using Romans, you can still play in quick mode.... these units have the longest life out of anything.

I know a lot of people insist on stonehenge and the oracle being a major priority. In my books this is just wrong. My play has drasticaly improved when I skipped over then and got to more important priorities...

I refuse to build either anymore. They are both nice, but early wonders on higher levels are just going to put you behind the 8-ball.

Try building NO world wonders. Heck, skip the religions too. You'd be amazed how much better off you usually end up.