My winning "monarchy" starting tactic

Monarchy diff, map w/ loots of forest and expansion room.

First stage:

(Mining) – Bronze work (Tree Chop) – Masonry (Pyramid)

Capital: Worker – Worker – (chop-rush) Settler – Pyramid (Get representation for happiness)

2nd City: Near stone resource:
Use 2 worker to chop-rush: Worker – Worker – Warrior – Settler
Quarry the stone resource

Second stage:

Animal (pastry) – Mysticism – Meditation – Priesthood (oracle) – Writing – Code Of Law (found Confucianism)

Capital: Start oracle build so it completes right after writing* is researched (Code Of Law)

2nd City: Worker – Worker – Settler (warrior) chop-rush combo (Use this once/city then build library) and repeat in city 3,4,5,6 and so on.

*Better yet: research code of law and use oracle for civl service– Byrocracy = super capital for wonder building. Hard to manage in monarchy difficulty setting.

Third stage:

Alphabet (Tech Trade) – Literature (Great Library – Music (Notre Dame) +(Great person) – Math (HangingG)

Capital: Great Library, Notre Dame (happiness)
2nd City: Hanging Garden

Fourth stage:

Now you’re of on a flying start… keep on breezing

OBS: Stone resoruce is very helpfull/perhaps vital in harder diff, Marble is not as vital but it helps alot! The Capital will need som producitivty boosters like grassland hills for mines.

The first great person should be eather a prophet(oracle) (build holy city), or engineer(pyramind) (rush a wonder). Both are good and perhaps engineer are better cuz you can get the prophet later.

this strategy is very good and works (often) well up to monrachy difficulty.

You can't get Civil Service before Code of Laws, so I think you probably meant you got Code of Laws with the oracle. Also, this founds Confucianism, not Taoism.

Sounds like this strategy works best with industrious civs.

oh you are right, missprinted in some places, wrote it from mind.

Played this strategy dozens of times so I know its valid.

Edited the mistakes in first page

You don't need that many wonders. IMO there are only 2 vital wonders and you only need to build one. Build pyramids and use the GE to build the Great Library. Use the hammers on military production.

I rarely play on Monarch because it's easy but you cannot build this many wonders on Emporer even if you are industrious. Also, I get beat on the pyramids pretty often (-2g means you research masonry very slowly) and end up with a ton of gold which can fund a large initial empire at 100% research for a long time.

Great Profit points are nice but it's better to steal the holy city w/ shrine of the dominant religion to keep the peace with your more powerful neighbors. I've rarely been successful in spreading my religion.

The hanging gardens isnt necesseray at all, I just pick it cuz I can...

Pyramid is essential for represenation (happiness)
Oracle for instant tech lead, and great prophet for holy city
Great library for research

I always play a peaceful early- mid game.

Hereditary rule is much, much better for happiness managament than representation is. You can customize where you want your happiness, and can always meet the limit exactly.

DementedAvenger said:

Hereditary rule is much, much better for happiness managament than representation is. You can customize where you want your happiness, and can always meet the limit exactly.

Click to expand...

To claim it to be "much, much" better is certainly not true.

IMO representation is better because:

You will not have more than 6 cities big enough to need happiness boost in the early game. When you’ll need even more happiness you reached a point where resources and buildings does the trick.

to gain the +3 happiness in the 6 biggest cities you’ll need 3x6 units! Takes time to build, time that could be used much wiser.

the +3 science per city specialist, boost reserach in GP farming cities. (farm/irritagtion city)

To have loots of units you´ll eventually have to keep paying higher maintainense (when youll start making an offensive army)

the first city based unit already gives 1 happiness.

There is a bunch of valide arguments to topple the use of Hereditary rule.

But with the pyramid you could use hereditary rule if you like so it will not change the strategy anyways.

Pete2006 said:

I rarely play on Monarch because it's easy but you cannot build this many wonders on Emporer even if you are industrious. Also, I get beat on the pyramids pretty often (-2g means you research masonry very slowly) and end up with a ton of gold which can fund a large initial empire at 100% research for a long time.

Click to expand...

The topic stated monarchy diff level for a reason you know.

I rarly play at monrachy level my self eather, wount say its easy (or brag about it) but I prefer emperor level.

Hereditary Rule will often give you better relations with neighbours because it's the most popular of favourite civics.
HR allows you to send units to the cities that need happiness. You state 3x6 units but that doesn't really mean anything. I won't put 3 units in a city that's already happy unless it's for defense. On higher difficulties (inc. Monarch) the extra happiness from HR can allow your cities to grow pretty big, thus allowing you to make use of more of your land, especially in cities with lots of food early on. Representation doesn't give you +6 happiness in your largest city - HR can, and more. In my opinion, HR is much more flexible and I'd only use Representation if I was or planned on using many specialists, which I usually don't. I generally go straight from HR to Universal Suffrage.

It seems to be 2 different schools, both seem to have valid points.

I still stand by representation cuz it fits better with my overall game plan. I very rarely engage in early wars and I always try my best to avoid wars against me. So I have very little use of units.

But I acknowledge there is alternative ways.

It think it partly depends on the leader. If you're Philosophical, you'll want representation since you'll be running boatloads of specialists anyway. If you're financial, you'll be generating most science from tiles and not find as much use for specialists.

Drogear said:

The hanging gardens isnt necesseray at all, I just pick it cuz I can...

Pyramid is essential for represenation (happiness)
Oracle for instant tech lead, and great prophet for holy city
Great library for research

I always play a peaceful early- mid game.

Click to expand...

But do AIs let you play your peaceful early-mid game?

Drogear said:

The topic stated monarchy diff level for a reason you know.

I rarly play at monrachy level my self eather, wount say its easy (or brag about it) but I prefer emperor level.

Click to expand...

Regardless, building all those wonders is a waste. All the hammers put into the hanging gardens, notre dame, etc is enough military to cripple or destroy a neighbor.

Wonder whoring isnt a bad tactic for a peacfull game, makes for alot of GP.
As you might see Im not a warmongoring civ player... Not really looking for trouble in the early game but Im prepered for successfull defensive wars against the AI.

who the heck needs to build so many wonders? Only one I ever build every time is stonehenge. On monarch I fight every civ that looks at me wrong, and i stay that way until 1000AD. The other civs have a hard time keeping up with me when i control 33% of the land mass, and 4 dead civs sit under me.