First, i must warning you cause my english is Realy BAD! But there is very few, or none, serious Swedish Civ-forums so i do my best mow:)

Now to my subject.

I have read many times on this forum about chopping, and i tried it out myself. It works nice, but just in the beginning.

My strategy is worker/worker/settler in the beginning on Monarch difficulty and epic gamespeed. (first worker cut second worker then both of my workers cut my first settler)

I finish BW exctly when my first worker is ready. So far, very nice!

But quite early in the game, my commerce start to suffer. If you know what i mean? I try to tech Pottery as fast as I can to build cottage and bring som wealth to my nation. But my cities just get angry and unhealthy. And my production dont have a chanse when all focus are on wealth.

After my third city, the economy is really bad. I want 100 percent on tech all the time, but soon it becomes impossible as well. All AI nations put me down to puny status and it seems impossible to match them into the future:mad:

I hope you understand my problem:sad:

I tend to go worker, worker, settler as well, but what about after that?

IMO the score doesn't matter much early on.

If you think you are behind in techs after going BW you are wrong. BW takes more time to develop than a lot of other techs.

The AI is given an early advantage on Monarch.

First, i must warning you cause my english is Realy BAD! But there is very few, or none, serious Swedish Civ-forums so i do my best mow:)

Now to my subject.

I have read many times on this forum about chopping, and i tried it out myself. It works nice, but just in the beginning.

My strategy is worker/worker/settler in the beginning on Monarch difficulty and epic gamespeed. (first worker cut second worker then both of my workers cut my first settler)

I finish BW exctly when my first worker is ready. So far, very nice!

But quite early in the game, my commerce start to suffer. If you know what i mean? I try to tech Pottery as fast as I can to build cottage and bring som wealth to my nation. But my cities just get angry and unhealthy. And my production dont have a chanse when all focus are on wealth.

After my third city, the economy is really bad. I want 100 percent on tech all the time, but soon it becomes impossible as well. All AI nations put me down to puny status and it seems impossible to match them into the future:mad:

I hope you understand my problem:sad:

Yep, I understand your problem, and your English is not as bad as some of my American college freshmen.

Your problem doesn't sound so much the result of chopping as it is the result of your game difficulty being on Monarch. On Monarch, the allowed growth size of your cities is lower than on easier difficulties. You have to balance everything delicately and realize that you're not going to be able to expand very quickly compared to easier difficulties.

To keep health a bit higher, try saving a couple forests within the "fat cross" of your cities. That will give you an additional population point. For working tile purposes, I chop only forests adjacent to the city site, plus the ones on wooded hills and river valley tiles.

You can also chop well outside the city radius and still receive some benefit from the chops.

You are also not going to be able to keep your science at 100% and survive on Monarch. You probably could not even do that on Noble and have any chance at all. It's going to drop off drastically as you expand.

Do not expand any faster than you need to. On Monarch, the AI Civs are going to have more cities--you cannot outrace them on this. Just get as powerful as you can and take them away from them at the first opportunity. There are going to be times on Epic Speed when you cannot build any more city buildings. When that happens, make an army and send it against a neighbor on a road that you've built to their civilization's edge. On a normal map, with a non-Organized or non-Financial Civ, you probably will not be able to put out more than 4 additional cities just outside your initial fat cross without bottoming out your economy.

Do NOT automate anything. With the small number of cities and workers that you will have, you can take the time to issue orders to your workers and other units and select which tiles your cities work. When your cities reach a population equal to their max happiness or health, move the tiles worked to increase your production, coins, research or GP points instead of emphasizing food.

Tom

Hey, welcome to the Civfanatics forums. For what it's worth, your English is pretty good.

One thing you might consider is altering your starting build order. If you're beginning with worker-worker-settler, you're slowing down your initial city growth rate. This is because whenever you build a worker or a settler, any extra food production goes into making the worker, instead of growing your city.
This means that you have less citizens to do things like work commerce tiles, and thus you're not generating any gold.

Try waiting to build your first worker until city size is two. In the meantime, build a warrior, and send him to do some nearby scouting (not too far, or you'll leave your city completely undefended). You can usually get away with this when playing against the AI, but don't even think about trying it in multiplayer with other human players around.
Or, if you're on the coast and there is water-based food in your fat cross, go for a workboat. Nearly as good as an early worker, but with the bonus that no food goes into production of the workboat, and so you don't lose out on city-growth while it is being built

Generally speaking, you probably don't need two workers right off the start, unless you get a good start position and have tonnes of resources to hook up. Your city simply won't grow fast enough to keep up with tile improvements.

Are you exploring early? Those goody huts with gold in them are great, because they'll allow you to keep 100% research for a few turns longer. Just don't get greedy. This is why that warrior until city-size two can be useful.

Chop-rushing definitely has benefits, especially for early workers and settlers. Chopping help keep the slowed growth to a minimun, and allows for earlier expansion, but you've got to be sure you can support that new city before you build it.

Tnx for helping everyone, and im glad to finaly be a civfanatics-member. Btw, Saw I made two threads by mistake. Hope you have patient with that.

You said much intresting stuff. I want to learn effective chopping-methods because i think it is quite effective when you want to achivie (spelling? haha!) a culture-victory. With chopping you can compleate early wonders like the oracle, pyramids and stonhenge quite fast. But i cant hang on into the future...yet^^
´
Im going to restart a new game now and try to do what im really good at...kill my oponents. But I always win by domination or conquest. I want to try something new:)

How many levels above Noble is Monarch? If it's only one, then here's my suggestion:

Don't worry about the science rate droping with the placement of your second city. Unless it's placed far away, the second city will give more benefits (gold, production and commerce for research) than it will draw away through lowering your research rate. For example:

1 city generating 10 commerce with a 100% science = 10 beakers (right?)
2 cities generating a total of 15 commerce with a 70% science rate = 10.5 beakers.

That difference will increase as the cities grow, and when you eventually get courthouses, then you really improve the numbers.

(If it's 2 levels higher than Noble, I don't know since I never played that level...).

Tnx for helping everyone, and im glad to finaly be a civfanatics-member. Btw, Saw I made two threads by mistake. Hope you have patient with that.

You said much intresting stuff. I want to learn effective chopping-methods because i think it is quite effective when you want to achivie (spelling? haha!) a culture-victory. With chopping you can compleate early wonders like the oracle, pyramids and stonhenge quite fast. But i cant hang on into the future...yet^^
´
Im going to restart a new game now and try to do what im really good at...kill my oponents. But I always win by domination or conquest. I want to try something new:)

Ok, culture win on Monarch. That can be interesting. First of all, forget the Pyramids. You're not going to get them, and if you try, you're going to stunt your development. You don't really need them and they're really expensive for what they do. If you've got an Industrious Civ and can hook up stone, you can try it, but I would not otherwise.

You don't need a lot of cities for a cultural win. What you do need is religions--the more, the better. Odds are, you're not going to be able to found one yourself unless you're a Civ that starts with Mysticism, and perhaps even not then. Isabella has the best chance of this if she starts next to a lake because of the boost from fishing of being able to work the lake tile for the extra commerce.

Each time you get a religion (from yourself or another Civ) build a monastary and spread the religion to all of your other cities. You will then use the temples that you build there to raise those cities' culture and enable you to build cathedrals later in the game. To get these religions, you need to have open borders early and often.

If you are going to go for Stonehenge and the Oracle and chop them on Monarch, it will be easier with a Civ with Mining and Mysticism to begin with. India would be a good one for this, especially with its fast worker. In this case, go for Bronzeworking first and spread acquired religions.

Tom

Mordraken, your name on Swedish means like "The murderdragoon" (dont remember if dragoon is with two "o" or just one...

Only as you know=)

The order of difficulty goes;

Settler
Chieftain
Warlord
Noble
Prince
Monarch
Emperor
Immortal
Diety

I have won domination and conquest games up to Monarch, but want to win some "culturegames".

I think i must start musch lower than Monarch if i will succeed with that...

Mordraken, your name on Swedish means like "The murderdragoon" (dont remember if dragoon is with two "o" or just one...

Only as you know=)

The order of difficulty goes;

Settler
Chieftain
Warlord
Noble
Prince
Monarch
Emperor
Immortal
Diety

I have won domination and conquest games up to Monarch, but want to win some "culturegames".

I think i must start musch lower than Monarch if i will succeed with that...

Good idea. Drop back to Noble and try for a culture win there. The difficulty of a cultural win goes up much more quickly than the difficulty for a domination or conquest victory.

Tom

Bad economy does not equal to < 100% in tech.
Bad economy is you lag in tech compared to other civs.

It is ok to put the research bar down to as low as it needs to be, as long as your city size and income catches up later on. The early expansion kills the research bar, but the gain later on is much higher. In one of my Immortal games I expanded until I had to run 0% research, but that was the game I won the fastest with the highest score (even better than Deity).

Tom, thank you. Yes i played with India when i got stucked by low commerce and puny science. But i made a lot of dumb mistakes.

I will now play on lower difficuty and follow you advices.

Jakob

Tom, thank you. Yes i played with India when i got stucked by low commerce and puny science. But i made a lot of dumb mistakes.

I will now play on lower difficuty and follow you advices.

Jakob

If you are playing on Noble, it becomes much more likely that you'll be able to found a few religions. Try for Hinduism and Judaism, *then* switch to Bronzeworking. You'll also have a much easier time getting Stonehenge and the Oracle.

The spread of religion is critical for a Cultural win, don't delay. The sooner you get buildings that pump culture into your three culture-producers, the longer you'll be getting points adding up. The time up to 1000 AD is critical.

Do NOT get hung up on 100% science if you're going for a cultural win. After Drama, you're going to start trading off science for culture to boost your cities' scores. After Education, you'll probably be running at no more than 50% science, rest culture.

Tom

Mordraken, your name on Swedish means like "The murderdragoon" (dont remember if dragoon is with two "o" or just one...

Only as you know=)

I actually didn't know :). It's an alias I've been using for a few decades. That's nice to know.

One question about the advice: For culture wins, you are supposed to found religions & spread them to all your cities. The objective is obvious - build ALL religious (cultural) buildings in ALL cities. But do you also want to spread all religions far & abroad? While that would give you gold bonuses (from the shrines that you probably have) that would also allow foreign nations to also build religious buildings.... Thoughts?

I actually didn't know :). It's an alias I've been using for a few decades. That's nice to know.

One question about the advice: For culture wins, you are supposed to found religions & spread them to all your cities. The objective is obvious - build ALL religious (cultural) buildings in ALL cities. But do you also want to spread all religions far & abroad? While that would give you gold bonuses (from the shrines that you probably have) that would also allow foreign nations to also build religious buildings.... Thoughts?

It would allow them to build them. However, they're not going to be concentrating on a cultural win like you are, but on a military, or failing that, Space Race victory. The AI is really bad on cultural victory, so they're much less danger than benefit. In addition, any rival city that has the same religion as your state religion with a shrine can be examined, thus giving you military and economic intelligence you could not otherwise gain for most of the game.

In addition, if you want to switch religions for political reasons, it becomes much more likely that they'll have one that is compatible with yours. Keep those borders open!

Tom

Once multiple religions spread to my civ in a cultural game, I like to move to organized religion eliminating the need for monasteries to make missionaries. In my opinion, it's the towns, not the buildings that will be generating your culture when you go for the win. You'll need the temples to build cathedrals, but I try to skip the monasteries. Throw in the complication of using the pacifism civic, and we've got a whole new thread. Apologies for going a little OT.

On topic, I think it's already been said to keep forests around for the cultural victory. They don't need to be chopped, but I usually chop them to build cathedrals and/or national wonders (national epic, heroic epic, globe theatre). Depending on the number of forests you have in your first city, it may be worth your while to chop the first workers and/or settlers, but I don't chop everything. Again, target forests outside of your 'fat cross'.

Regarding religion, I also do not found any religions for a cultural victory. I give all the AI's whatever they ask for and keep my borders open to everyone if possible.

If you go for it, you can found more than one religion at Monarch level. I got two last time I tried. I researched one (hindu) and got the other (christian) from a great prophet. I think more would have been possible, if you just concentrate on research, as I only missed confucianism and taoism by a couple of turns. There is a trade-off to be made between going for maximum commerce so you can get faster research, and maximising production for building early wonders. On balance maybe the early wonders are the better option. Stonehenge is worth 16 and Parthenon 20 culture every turn by the end of the game, so the city with those two didn't have to build much else all game.

i would like to encourage you to decide a strategy and follow it. that is, don't try to do too many things at one time.
you budget is tight. what do you want to achieve? do you want to research quickly and expand slowly? or do you want to give up researching at 100% and expand quickly? at high difficulties, i use the 2nd one in early game. in fact, i drop it to 0% after BW and spam settlers/workers until my economy really cannot bear it anymore.
of course there are millions of other things you can do.