Any hints for new Monarch player?

[Grayarea]

Hi all,

I have just moved up from Regent to Monarch and am finding the going difficult.

I am playing a standard map with 8 oponents and have allready dispatched France.

However I find myself in the situation I often find myself when playing GOTM etc, I have 24 cities, and find myself in a tech hole that from this point on only gets worse.

If you look at the save you will see that no-one will trade techs for GPT to me, as one was broken at the outset of war when Russia declared on me. I thought this should lead to a hit against Russia and not me.

Also I cannot get gpt for luxuaries as my trade route was broken by russia when they declared.

Currently I am planning on taking out the Celts next, but that is looking less and less possible due to my tech position.

Any hints on avoiding gpt problems would be really appreciated, along with any other obsevations on my current possition, and hints for moving forward.

Thanks,

Grayarea.

 

[predesad]

I can't believe nobody else has offered advice yet, but I do have a few pointers:

1) you can still trade lux for lux and the AI will trade you gpt for resources in some cases, some AI won't

2) trade silks to Celts for dyes, meaning 20 turns of no war with Celts, but i think you have other matters to take care of before another war (Celts are now gracious)

3) trade silks, world map, amd 52 gold to England for Ivory (spices would cost you more)

4) after trading world map to England, you might as well trade it to other civs for whatever you can get (Arabs - 15 gold (Arabs now gracious), even exchange of WM for others, maybe a couple gold here or there)

5) since Russia is reduced to just a few cities that you really cannot reach without Astronomy or even Navigation / Magnetism get peace, you have two options:

a) peace for Rostov, which is just a little city on an island in the middle of nowhere and may not help you at all

b) peace + 174 gold + 11gpt for Military Tradition (you can get gpt deals in peace negotiations, that is important to remember)

6) I went with option b, then traded Mil Trad to Ottomans for Astronomy + 26 G + World Map

7) finish your research on Economics at min, then try to trade it to the Ottomans, hoping they don't have it yet, but do have a tech you don't, everyone else has it already so I would take whatever I could get for it.

8) since gpt deals are basically over, you must self research or extort the AI, i don't really think you are in a position to extort, build libraries, unis, markets (which you seem to have anyways) and banks in that order

9) after the lux trades, eliminate the lux slider (0%), i don't think any city has a happiness problem there might be one but i think i just starved it using specialists, since i tried various things though I could be wrong and that cities happiness might have been okay after the lux trades.

10) i don't want to say anything that might ruin the game for you, but try your best to keep the lux deals going with the celts and england for the full 20 turns, if another civ would happen to make a demand on you and you don;t have any deals with it tell them to bug off and hope they do declare war on you, in this way you can negotiate peace a few turns later and get a gpt for tech

11) since you have sistine chapel you should make use of it and build cathedrals to cambat unhappiness in the future, but these are not a priority unless happiness gets to be a problem. a switch to republic migh tbe in order and then those cathedrals generating 6 content citizens would be handy

12) you need more workers, i hope at one time you had more and you added them to cities, because 2 simply is not enough despite your slaves. some grass needs to be irrigated and hills mined, this is more productive because 1 mined hill + 1 irrigated grass = same food as 2 mined grass and gets 1 more shield than 2 mined grass. Irrigation has to come all the way from that lake though and you need a lot of workers to get it done and maximize effieciency. think workers workers workers, everytime one of your size 12 cities reaches max food or near max, build a worker, plus throw in a few more here and there, you are going to enter the industrial ages in this game and you will nedd the workers to railroad provided yuou can get the coal.

13) it's a little late to be getting infrastructure in place, but do it, then think about a war with the Celts and grab that Ivory from them first thing to get an extra lux

14) try to get Navigation / Magnetism and open trade routes with other civs even if that means giving them the world map so that maybe you can trade a resource for gpt or swap luxuries, AI will still sometimes give GPT for resources with a bad rep

hope something here helps

 

[Grayarea]

Hi predesad,

Thanks for your help

I have a few questions on your points;

1-4: I have just finished with the last Russian city and saved so this would be the next thing to do.

5: I did not know you could still get tech for GPT in a peace deal, is this always or only if you don't redeclare within 20 turns?

7: OK

8: Is it inevitable that you find yourself with this problem if you go for a military win?

9: OK

10:OK

11: I have built a couple of cathedrals, but Russia declared during the build process and I had to switch back to war footing

12: As you probably guessed I had a load of workers before on my Island, but as I built Aquaducts I joined the naitive workers. I also joined alot to the wonder city.

13-14: I had planned on a longer period of pease when Russia declared, serves me right for dispanding all of my swords without waiting for MD to replace them! You live and learn

Many thanks for your help.

 

[predesad]

5) getting tech for gpt when agreeing to peace is almost always an option, you might even be able to redeclare on them immediately and a few turns later get another tech for gpt, i think the key here for you would be making sure you have a stronger military than they do so they want peace

8) i usually manage to keep my rep intact, but sometimes, like your case, it is not your fault and unexpected things can happen. to be honest i dont have much experience in playing with a trashed rep.

11) keep in mind that cathedral's need to be low on the priority list and i only suggest it because you have sistine and i would also combine that with a change to republic or democracy (depending upon how much warring you are going to do)

12)

a) scrap the wonder city, i dont mean abandon it, just stop using it as a wonder city, i dont think you are in a position for a cultural win (if my memory is wrong then ignore what i am saying) and use that city for something else, like units / workers. If you are not too late getting to the industrial age make a serious try for ToE using a prebuild, but only if you have a good chance of actually getting it. if you get ToE, claim atomic theory and electronics as your free techs and immediately start building hoover dam (good idea to have a prebuild in place for this also in anticipation of getting ToE.

b) not usually a good idea to join workers to cities at that piont in the game simply because worers are your lifeblood. in an emporer level game i am working on right now i had about 47 cities and 102 workers (about 30 were slaves) at about the time I entered the industrial age and i never never never added one to a city. if i build a hospital and have really really really good infrastructure then i add workers occassionally, but often times i actually have a few settlers built for this purpose by building a settler when pop maxes out, but i only do that if i have many many many workers already.

13-14) never disband units without replacements unless you have just finished a war and have a very large surplus that is really putting a stress on your economy, but in that circumstance it is probably better to go to war against someone else since you have a lot invested in units

 

[Corkmaster]

(,,,) start building hoover dam (good idea to have a prebuild in place for this also in anticipation of getting ToE.
(,,,)

Great idea: but dont do what I once did (well OK twice); pre-build for Hoovers in a city not on a river; Hoovers will only build by running water; You have probably thought of this but it can be overlooked. There are not many other Wonders to switch to at that time either.

 

[predesad]

Great idea: but dont do what I once did (well OK twice); pre-build for Hoovers in a city not on a river; Hoovers will only build by running water; You have probably thought of this but it can be overlooked. There are not many other Wonders to switch to at that time either.

yes, very important and easily overlooked, thanks for pointing that out since i forgot to mention it

 

[gunnerxtr]

great thread i recently started playing again (used to play warlord/regent) but in my regent game as byzantines its been a pretty easy game and i will soon step up to monarch right now im playing one monarch game but its a tiny map so i dono i dont exactly consider that a true monarch game (besides im way behind in tech anyways, pretty much same problems as Grayarea)

 

[Zakharov]

Great idea: but dont do what I once did (well OK twice); pre-build for Hoovers in a city not on a river; Hoovers will only build by running water.

The city doesn't have to be on a river, it just needs a river within the 21 tile city radius.

 

[Corkmaster]

The city doesn't have to be on a river, it just needs a river within the 21 tile city radius.

Quite right