I play games on marathon speed and am usually able to dominate the Prince difficulty level. I switched to Monarch and now 3 games later I am forced to go back to Prince.

In each game it has been the same story.
It seems like the AI is less friendly toward only me, +3green and they are cautious to me, but -3red and they are pleased with the other leaders. So I am being attacked by all my neighbors by 800AD and getting creamed. As they roll in with 20 crossbows and 20 horse archers, I am just getting swordsman and I can only support about 20 total units.
They expand at an unbelievable rate at the beginning, if I try to match with 4 or 5 cities my tech has to go down to 40%. Plus they have archers everywhere around their new cities before I even have a settler.
They are all friends with each other even when they aren't the same religion.
They have the calendar tech before I can even think about entering the classical era, so they build plantations everywhere and I am still struggling to get iron working to chop down the jungles and mine my gems.

I can't get techs fast enough, so I am stuck building nothing half the time, because I can't support any units. In Prince I don't have this problem even for a short time and it is only 5% faster research.

They do things that I had never seen before on Prince, like ask me to help them with a war then make peace with that country after I say yes and then attack me! The last 2 games this crap has happened.

Is the jump from Prince to Monarch supposed to be this big?

The only game I have ever played in Prince that was challenging was a domination game where the two strongest countries got a permanent alliance together and nobody would join me in a war against them because they were "afraid of their military might".

What are some strategies for a huge map marathon Monarch game?

I personally did not find the jump from Prince to Monarch overwhelming. For me, I did always dominate prince, and on maps smaller than standard, I would frequently win by domination after getting my lovely cossacks.

However, on monarch, I am rarely in the lead until the middle ages. The cause for this is that the AI's bonuses are more significant earlier in the game. For instance, the fact that the AI has a worker at the start means they can upgrade a food or, even worse, gold resource to literally quintuple my research. But later on, realize this... PICK YOUR FRIENDS and appease them. Whereas on prince I can easily get by being a tough mean guy with everyone reasonably pissed at me, I cannot pull of such stunts on monarch. Make sure you pick a non-warmongering leader, though, and this is essential, because certain leaders (most notably Monty) will attack as long as he feels he as an advantage, regardless of diplomatic disposition. Anyways, come the middle ages, you will have to have taken over at least one civ by the late middle ages, or else you will fall far behind.

You raised the point about how many units you could support. One thing you have to get comfortable with is paying unit support. It is by no means a very pretty expense, but it is essential. For me, the point at which I pay 0 unit support is barely enough to mount a successful defense. So get used to it. You will pay 70% support (as opposed to 50% at noble), not to mention longer waits for nearly everything.

Other than that, here are some very general tips of playing HUGE MONARCH GAMES.

1. Early expansion pays off big time in the long run. I like to get one good defensive unit in the form of archers, axemen or spearmen and send those out with, in front of, or after my settlers. Furthermore, I typically spam settlers. This inevitably leads to a point in the game where I am running close to 0% research funding. However, this expansion is necessary nonetheless because it is worth about 300gp per city, and it makes the difference of having an extra city in good land for the rest of the game.

2. Stop being afraid of costs. One thing I had to get used to is to get over an overly egalitarian play style, where everybody stays happy, well-funded, and rich. Some cities need to be whipped; some units will have to bring you over your support threshold; some times you need to run a massive deficit in order for long-term gain. Experiment with how this works and hopefully figure out how to use it to your advantage.

I play games on marathon speed and am usually able to dominate the Prince difficulty level.

See if you can beat it easy on quick speed, before you move up?

Don't worry about religion or wonders, just grow your cottages (and cities) and expand rapidly through conquest or settlers. Try to be the largest civ even before you discover Code of Laws, then when you do, build. The problem I have then is that I just build, and there are hardly any more wars for the rest of the game.

Thanks for the tips guys.

I do expand fairly rapidly. When I watch the timeline after I am defeated I have about 5 cities in the time they have 6 or 7, (obviously different if playing on Prince). Then I usually attack a weak neighbor and get a city or two. But then I am being attacked by everyone in the beginning of the classical era....my classical era. I played once as Alexander and twice as Montezuma, and I play with random AI personalities so I'm being attacked by Huayna Capac, Isabella, Germany, England, and the Mongols. I am being friendly to most, and giving them what they want and not dealing with who they don't want me to deal to. But all 3 games by best friend has attacked me. Maybe I have just been unlucky each time....

The only thing I am doing different is I'm going for a religion at the beginning which I usually ignore. Is this part of the problem?
Also if I expand too much I will find myself ages behind the rest, technologically, which happened one game


See if you can beat it easy on quick speed, before you move up?

Since my method of play is usually one offensive war, until the modern ages, the one time I played Prince on quick it was on a standard map and was fairly easy. Before I knew it I had built the necessary buildings and was in the modern ages and ready to dominate with my man Alexander.
....plus I like marathon. I'm not trying to boast, if anything I'm doing the opposite by pointing out that my method of play gets dominated at Monarch difficulty.

- diplomacy : always make a good friend - always take a religion shared with 1 other civ - create tensions between civ (give them techs in exchange with a war declaration ! this might seem expansive to you, but once they're at war they will be slower in tech, and they'll hate each other which is a good point to you) - sometime accept to give tributes, if the civ is far behind in score its not a problem.

- war/expansion : dont build cities (unless you find an exceptionnal spot), take them (this avoids building settlers ;) ) : raze most of the cities you take, only keep capitals/excellent spot ; and try to go on war as early as possible (as soon as you get a war ressource : horses/copper/iron... if none of them... you ll have to wait until catapults - catapults can take any city, you just need to sacrifice 3-4 of them)

- science : always exchange techs ! when you got a new one, try to exchange it with as many civs as you can (anyway they will exchange it with each other, its better when you're part of the exchange) --> focalize on easy-exchangeable techs (and dont research a tech one of your friend already have : you will probably be able to exchange it later)

Yeah, Quick speed is way too easy. I dominated everything on Prince at that speed. On Marathon you have to deal with the barbarians as they impede your expansion.

Playing Monarch/Marathon/Large Map/Continents/Default Settings

Try a financial civ, possibly Catherine with Creative so that you can place your cities optimally in the beginning and watch them grow. Research BW first so that you can chop out a settler (I use one chop to speed it along) and get your second city up and running circa 2800 BC. Other good civs would be Qin/Caesar/Manny/Elizabeth.

Next, build a worker in both cities. That gives you three workers working tiles for two cities. At this point you're going to have to decide whether or not to build Oracle for a slingshot of some type, Pyramids if stone is handy, or just move along and expand.

If you try for a CS slingshot, you're going to be weak for quite awhile. That's why you pay Monty and others tribute. As soon as you come out of the blackout period, especially if its a successful slingshot to either MC or CS (circa 1200-1000 BC), start building more military units and look to rush someone with axes or swords. You should have an army of 4 CR Swords or 6 CR2 Axes by 500 BC or so.

Two or three cities built should be enough. Capture the rest unless you really have a nice area to expand.

Pop rush granaries at size 2 with one hammer of production.

The barbarians on Monarach/Marathon are tough. Use them to earn CR promotions for your offensive city busters and C1/Shock for your defensive axes.

Be careful against whom you first attack. You're going to earn a -1 for attacking someone's friend.

Good luck.

Yeah, Quick speed is way too easy. I dominated everything on Prince at that speed. On Marathon you have to deal with the barbarians as they impede your expansion.

Not to mention that if you are sneak attacked on marathon you're screwed. On quick you can pop out some units before they reach a city, and keep popping them out as they attack. Played another quick game last night wasn't really challenged...but I was attacked right when I got Iron...and I was Rome.


Playing Monarch/Marathon/Large Map/Continents/Default Settings

Try a financial civ, possibly Catherine with Creative so that you can place your cities optimally in the beginning and watch them grow. Research BW first so that you can chop out a settler (I use one chop to speed it along) and get your second city up and running circa 2800 BC. Other good civs would be Qin/Caesar/Manny/Elizabeth.

Next, build a worker in both cities. That gives you three workers working tiles for two cities. At this point you're going to have to decide whether or not to build Oracle for a slingshot of some type, Pyramids if stone is handy, or just move along and expand.

If you try for a CS slingshot, you're going to be weak for quite awhile. That's why you pay Monty and others tribute. As soon as you come out of the blackout period, especially if its a successful slingshot to either MC or CS (circa 1200-1000 BC), start building more military units and look to rush someone with axes or swords. You should have an army of 4 CR Swords or 6 CR2 Axes by 500 BC or so.

Two or three cities built should be enough. Capture the rest unless you really have a nice area to expand.

Pop rush granaries at size 2 with one hammer of production.

The barbarians on Monarach/Marathon are tough. Use them to earn CR promotions for your offensive city busters and C1/Shock for your defensive axes.

Be careful against whom you first attack. You're going to earn a -1 for attacking someone's friend.

Good luck.

Thanks, I have yet to play as a financial civ, I'll give it a whirl.
Yes the barbarians are quite annoying, especially since they are cake for the AI to handle, but come in non stop waves at me.

I always choose random AI personalities, because I assume that this means Montezuma won't always be warmongering, but someone else will be. Is this a correct assumption, or is aggressivness unaffected by this option?

- diplomacy : always make a good friend - always take a religion shared with 1 other civ - create tensions between civ (give them techs in exchange with a war declaration ! this might seem expansive to you, but once they're at war they will be slower in tech, and they'll hate each other which is a good point to you) - sometime accept to give tributes, if the civ is far behind in score its not a problem.

This I definitely always do, I guess I have just been getting unlucky in the fact that I am getting attacked by the civ I am good friends with.
And trading a tech for war I always do on Prince, but by the time I get Alphabet I don't have any techs that no one else has, to do this on Monarch


- war/expansion : dont build cities (unless you find an exceptionnal spot), take them (this avoids building settlers ;) ) : raze most of the cities you take, only keep capitals/excellent spot ; and try to go on war as early as possible (as soon as you get a war ressource : horses/copper/iron... if none of them... you ll have to wait until catapults - catapults can take any city, you just need to sacrifice 3-4 of them)


I will try and implement this.


- science : always exchange techs ! when you got a new one, try to exchange it with as many civs as you can (anyway they will exchange it with each other, its better when you're part of the exchange) --> focalize on easy-exchangeable techs (and dont research a tech one of your friend already have : you will probably be able to exchange it later)

This I always do...if I have a tech that no one else does. I was at the point in one game where the comp was giving me techs because I was so far behind.

I was at the point in one game where the comp was giving me techs because I was so far behind.

That is not a good sign!

I had a post once where I collected links to threads for moving to Monarch. I'll see if I can dig those up.

EDIT: Okay, after a little searching, I found it. My post in this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=4031428#post4031428) contains the links.

I had a post once where I collected links to threads for moving to Monarch. I'll see if I can dig those up.

EDIT: Okay, after a little searching, I found it. My post in this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=4031428#post4031428) contains the links.


Thanks a bunch!
I also never realized how good the financial trait is.