Monarch large map problems

Hi, just signed up to the forums as i am having problems playing Monarch on large maps. Standard pangea for example is a win most of the time with Inca civ and the 3 victory conditions: conquest, domination and time.
But since trying out the larger pangea map, it really has taken it up a notch, i just can't seem to compete with the AI's expansion rate, they just seem to be able to build city after city, wheareas i'm carefully trying to keep my economy in check.
So anyway hoping to able to crack my Monarch large map issues, thanks.

I play MON diff as well, but usually modded and with a variety of custom settings. If you provide some more details concerning your games, we might be able to assist youn in your games. Alternatively, you could also post in the S&T forums ( or even read a few strat guides ) and gain additional insight into your games.

If you are getting outexpanded it probably has to do with a few things, all of which boil down to the same issue, building/researching/improving unnecessary things. Another common mistake is people being afraid to expand early because they have to drop the slider. This is not something you should be afraid of, judge your economy by /turn instead of slider %.

I recommend you try one of the Noble's Club games in S&T, for example this one:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=533957

There you can compare your own game with other people's ganes and read about what kind of strategies are used. The map can be played at any difficulty, so you can also read about strategies that have been used to win it on higher difficulties. I haven't played that game myself, but it seems a lot of people have got their first victory on a higher difficulty with that map, so it shouldn't be spectacularly hard. It's not a large pangaea map, but once you learn a few tips and tricks by playing it and posting updates/questions in the thread, you will be ready to tackle large pangaea maps as well.

Scottm said:

Hi, just signed up to the forums as i am having problems playing Monarch on large maps. Standard pangea for example is a win most of the time with Inca civ and the 3 victory conditions: conquest, domination and time.
But since trying out the larger pangea map, it really has taken it up a notch, i just can't seem to compete with the AI's expansion rate, they just seem to be able to build city after city, wheareas i'm carefully trying to keep my economy in check.
So anyway hoping to able to crack my Monarch large map issues, thanks.

Click to expand...

You have already received great advice from the 2 posters before me but there maybe another minor aspect you overlook. Civ4 features several AI's that focus on rapid expansion if given room, and peaceful opportunity to spam cities. Your problems could very well be just a situation such as that. In addition to following the advice of the previous posts, try another large Pangaea map and identifying your AI rivals. Post here on your thread with the civs/leaders you're facing and players can give you more specific advice for confronting the AI's.

Also, if you are playing as the Incans....

Quechua rush a a couple of poor SoBs. That will give you a couple extra capital-class city locations, or at the very least plunder gold + space and time to REX/develop your cities, not to mention the free captured workers.

(Hope you don't spawn next to sitting bull though... Totem pole + archers + doggies = if you're not fast enough)

I usually concentrate on the quality of the cities instead of the quantity. If I can get 2 production cities (whipping counts early on) and 3 decent to strong economy cities out there, I'm usually in a good position. On monarch, if the AI rapidly expands too quickly, it often damages their economy (and many of the REXing AI do not have strong economic traits). So you can build a solid core of 5-6 cities and conquer their 10-12 (mostly weak) cities if you choose good tech paths and whip/chop units. Then you can recover your economy with more good tech choices/city specialization, and repeat the process (if you want domination).

Though, the higher you go in level, the faster a REXing AI can recover their economy (or possibly not need to recover at all).

Thanks for the replies. I have now had a couple of large Pangea victorys, after the replies here and a quick scout on the forum, my problem was being to cautious in expanding. It's about trying to find that balance. Another thing i have started doing is placing settlers where i want to build a city, as long as you have line of sight to look out for AI settlers i found this works quite well.

I'm just trying out different civ's now as i feel inca is cheating abit with the starting unit and agg/fin traits. It was much harder playing with a few other civs. I'm now using Tokaguwa as agg trait is extremly useful, not having fin is a pain but i find agg very useful to get a good start. Not only that a small army of pikes and axeman with 25% melee pre feud can go a long way in keeping citys very well defended.