Sirp's Training Day Game for Aspiring Monarchs

This is a Training Day Game for players who can win on Warlord or Regent, but who start to find themselves struggling on levels above Regent. This game will be played on Monarch level, and hopefully by the end of it, participants will have developed the skills to win consistently on Monarch, and be ready to move up to Emperor.

I will aim to teach players good solid skills, but not to rely on any crutches, such as certain wonders, or civilization abilities. If you want to learn about ICS or RoP rapes, this isn't the place for you...

Anyone who has won on Warlord or Regent at least once, either solo or in a succession game, is ready for this game, and is welcome to join. Each player will play their round, giving a report of each turn, and then I will offer a critique on what they did and advice on how to do better. I will try not to be harsh, but obviously players will have to be willing to have their playing style hammered around a bit in order to play

This game will be played using Play the World.

The game stats are:

Monarch
Greeks
Continents
70% Water
Maximum rivals, random
EDIT: Barbarians will be restless.
All else random

We're being the Greeks because they are a solid civilization, but they don't have skills that I'm afraid will start becoming crutches. Hoplites are nice units, that'll help us out if we get attacked early on.

Variant rules: We may not build the Pyramids or the Great Library. We may capture them if we get the chance. What? Variant rules in a Training Day Game? Many players rely on one or both of these wonders, and so I want us to win without using either of them.

The first player will play 20 turns, and then 10 turns thereafter.

The game probably won't start for a few days, but signups are starting now. I will take up to five players, and Shaesha is going to play, so that leaves four slots.

Sirp
Shaehsa
Wetterlind
Matt_g
Stormrider
Renata

-Sirp.

I'm in and I hope someone joins us so I don't feel like the only moron on the planet

I'm NOT in, but good luck with this. How about running an Emperor training after this?

I'm in, (insert Roger Rabbit sound) please!

- I haven’t received my copy of PtW yet.. Hopefully I get it sometime next week.

- Random barb activity? I believe that there should have some barb activity but not very much nor non at all...

What sized map is this played on?

Wetterlind: welcome aboard. As long as you do receive PTW sometime next week, you should be right to play. Although....if I get everyone who wants to play happy with playing under 1.29f, I'd be happy to play the game under that too.

Good point about the barbarians; they'll probably be Restless. Although really, with hoplites even raging barbarians shouldn't give us too much trouble on monarch.

Roadrunna: Normal sized map.

Harleqin: Thanks I may do an emperor level TDG after this, although imo there isn't *that* much difference between emperor and monarch, and by the end of this game, participants will hopefully already have a very good chance at emperor.

-Sirp.

I'd like to play. My copy of PTW is still in the cellophane, but I'll be breaking it out this weekend. 1.29f would be fine, too, if that's the way you want to go. I've won twice on Regent and have another game all-but-won (probably won't have time to finish), but have also lost a recent game on that level (rotten English sneak-attacked me early, and I couldn't recover).

My playing time may be limited for the first few weeks of this -- too much RL! -- but I'll do my best to make my turns and once April rolls around time won't be an issue.

If you'll take me with all that, I'm in.

Renata

Hi Sirp,
I would like to join this game if a slot is open.

Matt

As I fortold, if you make a Monarch or Regent SG, they will come to you.
I'll keep an eye on this one for on-the-side training.

I too would like to play if there is an open spot. I have been winning on Regent and am playing to stalemates (or losing)before getting frustrated on Monarch.

Gerry

Renata: Welcome aboard! I'll put you last on the roster, and if your turn comes around and you're busy, just post a 'skip me' message.

Matt_G and Stormrider, welcome. And uhh....we're full! That didn't take long, you were right Cromagnon

The game is still going to take a couple of days to start, so be patient please.

-Sirp.

Great! TY and no worries on patience from this end.

Renata

I am looking forward to this.

I'm planning for this game to go at a fairly lesiurely pace, with lots of time for suggestions and strategic discussion. I want all players to have some input on the overall course of the game, as well as playing their turns.

If I go too fast or too slow, please let me know. Remember, no question is too silly to be asked.

After we've done some initial expansion, I'm also going to ask each player to submit a dotmap proposal. A dotmap is a screenshot, where colored dots are placed on tiles where cities are intended to go. You can do this using Microsoft Paint for instance. The dots are generally ranked by priority to settle.

(I'm not going to discuss technical issues like what program to use to draw a dotmap, how to upload it to the server etc, unless someone asks. But by all means, if you don't know how to do it, ask and I'll be more than happy to help you.)

Once everyone has posted their dotmaps, I'll comment and post my own dotmap.

I'm also going to have a few 'quizzes' during the game. Each quiz will consist of a few basic questions, followed by some more open ended questions on how we can use the information to our strategic advantage. Players should try to answer the questions without referring to the manual, game itself, or any other reference material. The questions I'm going to ask aren't going to be trivia questions; they're going to be questions I know the answer to myself off the top of my head, and which I think that one really should know to be able to play on the upper levels.

Don't be intimidated though; the questions aren't going to be too hard. If they got very hard I probably couldn't answer them myself!

The first quiz is happening uhh...now. We're going to discuss the opening of the game, and various strategies.

(1) We are the Greeks. What traits do the Greeks have? What do these traits do?

(2) (Harder) Which technologies do the Greeks start with? Of all the starting technologies, which is the most valuable? (I.e. the hardest to research; the most valued by the AI)

(3) What is the Greek Unique Unit? What are its statistics? What does it replace?

and the more subjective questions,

(4) How will our traits and unique unit affect the opening turns? In what ways might our strategy be different than with other civilizations?

(5) Which technology do we want to research first? What technologies do we want to consider researching after that? Why?

Not all players have to answer these questions, just as long as you read them, read the discussions, and understand the answers to them. All players are welcome to offer an answer if they want though. After players have had the opportunity to answer, lurkers are also welcome to offer comments or ask questions etc.

-Sirp.

Hey Sirp. I know that I'm too late to join this one, but could I at least answer these "quizzes", follow along, and maybe make a comment here or there? Hope you won't mind...

Anyway, I'll at least answer the quiz, it can't hurt, right?

1) Scientific and Commericial, IIRC. Scientific makes scientific improvements cheaper and gives you a free tech at every new age. Commericial gives an extra commerce on each squares or certain squares, IIRC.

2) Oh, crap. I have no idea. I'm going to guess Bronze Working and...Alphabet. I have no idea. And I think Alphabet is most favored by the AI.

3) Hoplite, 1 attack, 1 move, 3 defense. Replaces Spearmen, same price IIRC.

4) Because we have Bronze Working (IIRC) we can forget researching that early, leaving us with the more importent techs like Pottery and Iron Working to research early.

5) I'd say Pottery. Mostly because early granaries are VERY important, as CG4 and a little playtesting taught me.

Sorry if I'm intruding, tell me and I'll edit this post and leave again.

If you provide this wonderful service again in the future, Sirp, please hit me up...

As it turns out, the snowstorm is keeping me from driving south for Spring Break and so I'd've made it to CG5 and/or this.

I'm subscribing to this thread so I can learn dot maps etc.

Great job Sirp.

Cool, my first SG. I am looking forward to this.
Hmmmm, I'll take a shot at these questions.

1. Commercial and Scientific. Extra commerce from cities and all scientific improvements are half cost, i.e. Library's, Uni's, etc. When does the commerce bonus kick in? I think it's at size 13 but I'm not sure.
2. Alphabet and BW. Alphabet is the costliest starting Tech.
3. Hoplite. 1.3.1, replaces spearman. Basically you get pikes right from the get go.
4. The UU will be a big help with the Barb's. It would also make another Civ think twice about starting an early war with us. Starting with Alphabet will put us in a strong bargaining postion when making intial contact with other Civ's. Just don't 'give' it away!
5. With a low food start I would research pottery first for granarys. Then probably head for Lit. to build up culture with those cheap Librarys.

P.S. Does anyone know why the e-mail notification doesn't work most of the time??

Matt G- it could depend on your email provider- if you have stuff sent to trash or junkmail without notification. Or it is a site problem, post your concern in Site Feedback so they know about it and keep your fingers crossed.

Originally posted by Sultan Bhargash
Matt G- it could depend on your email provider- if you have stuff sent to trash or junkmail without notification. Or it is a site problem, post your concern in Site Feedback so they know about it and keep your fingers crossed.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip about the Site Feedback. I will post there as it is definitely a site problem. I am subscribed to a half dozen threads but only get e-mail on 1 of them, and have no filters running.

The only 'fact' of those above that I didn't know was Bronze Working. Do all commercial civs start with it? I'm just starting to pick these things up.

I agree with the others on researching pottery, only I tend to go for it even (maybe especially) with a good food start, as a granary can transform a nice steady expansion into an explosion of settlers. It's delayed, though, compared to going without, and I'm not sure which way is better in which situations.

I have no idea how to use the hoplite - I've only played Greece once, I think, and that was one of my first games. I've learned how to take advantage of early attacking UUs somewhat, but defensive ones not so much. On thinking about it, I suppose you could be a lot more aggressive in your settling, because there's really nothing the AI can throw at you early that would have a chance. (edit: Especially if you camp on their iron. )

What does a hoplite cost, by the way? 30?

Renata