Heya, first post here. I love the GotM idea, just never got into it before. And I may be biased since this is my first, but I think this is a really awesome map, Nikis.
I normally just play on Prince, and occasionally lose games even on that difficulty. So Monarch was a step up for me, and I came into this expecting to die a horrible death at the hands of a madman.
And I did. But it was my own stupid mistake that caused it. Things actually went really well for me for the most part, and I had good luck with huts as well.
I went for writing first, then Trade. Through my trades, I found myself able to research OO before anyone else, and I took a gamble on it and won. So I founded OO and sent it out to Falamar and Einen Logos.
Acheron spawned in the central barbarian city (Straatus I think), and I used him to block off any possible invasion into my nation from the NW, while my second city was placed near the mountains to the West to block off any invasion from the SE.
I decided to attack Perpentech around the time I finished Stirrups as he was around 2nd on the list and I don't trust him, even though he adopted OO. Plus, with my West blocked off easily and Falamar friendly to the north, his lands would be easy to hold. I sent in about 8-10 horsemen, planning to use my Horse Archers as backup and a second wave, and easily took the first city. I got careless attacking the second, however, and my army was decimated. I was also unable to bring Falamar or Einen Logos into the war, as Falamar was friends with Perpentech and Einen didn't even know who he was! I should've checked first, eh? Then Perpentech entered my borders, and my Horse Archers couldn't keep him at bay.
I might actually have pulled through this, but it would've been tedious and likely have been a big waste of my resources to do so, making me plummet in the rankings and opening me up to attack from the Elves (who at this point disliked me greatly, after attacking their friend and adopting OO.) It was a fun map, though, and I did make saves in case this happened, so I reloaded from about 10 turns before the war.
For the purposes of the GotM, I lost. But I'll post a summary of what's happened after the reload, though, without giving away anything like mithril spawns, etc.
After my reload, I waited and attacked with more units, kicking Perpentech out of the south, then made peace. Next I attacked Falamar because he was #1 in the rankings and had some resources I wanted, but a small military. I took 5 cities and then finished off Perpentech by taking his two cities in the north.
At the end of this war the Dwarfs took Acheron's city and attacked me, but I fought them off and took Acheron's city from them, then made peace. I made defensive pacts with Falamar and Einen Logos, mostly for the reputation bonuses, but then Amelenchier declared war on Einen Logos so now I'm at war with the Elves.
I launched a sea invasion on his west border and a land invasion on his east, but both are going poorly. I've already lost my hero and two highly promoted war chariots, and his assassins have killed off all my mages, catapults and cultists. I guess they target weaker units in a stack first? I didn't know about that. I can still win the war because of my massive production, but it'll be tougher than I hoped for, and if the Dwarfs decide to attack again I may be in trouble.
Current rankings are:
3821 (me)
2281 (Einen)
2148 (Cassiel)
2030 (Amelenchier)
1654 (Falamar)
1280 (Kandros)--the low score can fool you, he has approximately 8
billion Trebuchets