Early Game Help - Toku/Monarch

[kurl]

Hi all-

After reading a whole lot of the threads on here, winning pretty consistently in Noble, taking a game on Prince, I decided to try to make the leap to Monarch, and have been getting whupped pretty thoroughly in my first 4 or 5 attempts.

I think I'm suffering from a few core issues, but wanted to focus on one of the more fundamental ones: city choice/specialization.

I'm playing Toku on a Continents map and drew what I think is a pretty good starting position. Played a few turns to scout out the area, and mapped out where I think my first few cities should go. Joao is off to the west somewhere - I made contact with his warrior, but haven't found his borders yet.

Please find a screenie and a save- I'd love any help on city location and specialization, as well as any other comments.

Spoiler :

Thanks!

 

[Cam_H]

Saved game uses the BAT mod, and can't be opened by users without this mod installed (like moi!).

As far as what I can see from your screenshot, I agree ... great starting location. I'd grab that Elephants spot as a priority.

Tokugawa's an awkward leader to pick if trying a new level and finding it a struggle. Did you get him randomly or by design?

 

[kurl]

Re: the save, I'm happy to post in some other format if you have any ideas. Otherwise, please let me know what other screens would be helpful.

Went the random route this time around. My last game I went for a Praet rush and failed, so was hoping a random leader would force me to 'play the map' more.

Who would you recommend as a good starting leader?

 

[vranasm]

isnt the pigs+ivory location a bit too far away from cap? I know it's probably best second city, but the maintenance would be problematic, and making road back to cap will cost a lot of worker turns too.

 

[pollock]

Leader doesnt matter to learn the game Would be cool if leader with no starting techs or special units or buildings or traits hehe.
The pig ivory location is pretty far but pigs are great food and the gold will pay for it and the ivory helps. The concern would be getting there safely with workers

 

[Cam_H]

I think that what you've done on going with 'Random' is a commendable approach - I just wasn't sure why you picked him if you did indeed pick him. Everyone's got their own opinions on good leaders, and I won't hijack this thread by revisiting that 'old chestnut'!

On the BAT mod thing, it's fine. Just not everyone plays with this mod, so rather advise people than have some download your save only to find that they can't open it without downloading BAT. I thought that I'd just mention it to save time.

It look as though you've bee-lined Bronze Working and got to Writing via Pottery?

 

[Phyrio]

It's far away but that gold will sustain you for a long time. You'll need lots of workers, you may even consider getting sailing--if not for TGL then for trade routes without roading through a dozen squares of forest.

 

[obsolete]

I never looked at your save, but your dot mapping is showing a lot of inexperience. You filled every other spot up, except for the most important one... the marble. That's the most precious resource in the whole game right there.

Your planned city next to Jaoa is a pipe-dream. Unless Monarch is a lot more of a joke map than I remember. Joao is IMP + EXP IIRC, so it's impossible to beat him to that spot. Especially with non imp yourself, and you have to move a billion turns through the forest tiles. It's a pipe dream.

Same too, because if you COULD make it work, the optimum solution is to almost immediately DoW on him there, and kill billions of his units getting as many free GG's as you can get.

A lot of other problems I see too, but you'll find out one way or another...

 

[Durak]

Well, maybe a bit contrary to what most people here are saying, but i'd try to get a city next to joao. I'd go for 2N1E of your left most indicated city spot (that gets you both the clams and the copper, plus it's next to the river for fresh water and it also has alot of hills --> excellent production city). Yes, that is immensely far away. But you dont need to road there, just research sailing and scout that top part of your coastline to connect it to your capital. Still, even connected it will cost you a lot. But let's weigh the bad against the good.

bad stuff:
- very far --> lots of early maintenance (even when connected by sailing). This is THE negative point of this strategy.
- Joao is way closer to that spot, so he may go for it first. But even if he settles there before you get there you can still go for the elephants spot --> you lose basically nothing
- you didnt send out a warrior first to accompany the settler. However, most of the terrain you'll be travelling is forest --> the settler will be as slow as the warrior so you wont lose that many extra turns waiting for the warrior. (Hint: ALWAYS make atleast 1 warrior first to accompany your settler. Send it out already while you're making your settler so you wont lose time waiting for it.)

good stuff:
- If you manage to pull this off, you effectively block off Joao (with a border pop anyway so make sure you have mysticism).
- This means you're looking at 12+ cities by peacefull expansion. That should even be enough to last you the whole game.

So basically it comes down to this:
if Joao beats you to the spot --> lose nothing. If you make it, research will suffer (because of the maintenance). But you'll have TONS of land to make up for it. Which will give you a research boost later in the game, so it should be easy to catch up.

I'll be honest, on higher levels there's no way you could pull this off. But on prince i think you might pull it off, and get an easy win as a result.

 

[Durak]

Your planned city next to Jaoa is a pipe-dream. Unless Monarch is a lot more of a joke map than I remember. Joao is IMP + EXP IIRC, so it's impossible to beat him to that spot. Especially with non imp yourself, and you have to move a billion turns through the forest tiles. It's a pipe dream.

Might work if Joao decides to start settling the other way. Especially if there's no seafood in that unscouted bit at the bottom. I play vanilla though, and AI expansion is a lot different in BtS. Anyway it's worth a shot imo.

 

[vranasm]

I never looked at your save, but your dot mapping is showing a lot of inexperience. You filled every other spot up, except for the most important one... the marble. That's the most precious resource in the whole game right there.

Your planned city next to Jaoa is a pipe-dream. Unless Monarch is a lot more of a joke map than I remember. Joao is IMP + EXP IIRC, so it's impossible to beat him to that spot. Especially with non imp yourself, and you have to move a billion turns through the forest tiles. It's a pipe dream.

Same too, because if you COULD make it work, the optimum solution is to almost immediately DoW on him there, and kill billions of his units getting as many free GG's as you can get.

A lot of other problems I see too, but you'll find out one way or another...

I respect you as player and your skill, but can't respect the way you give advice. there is a lot of unclear in your post.
The third paragraph is a bit unclear, what you meant with 'same too'...?
Why marble (oracle+gl?)?
why the obsession with early war? and you would wait for getting up some archers and choke him, or you really meant to dow him with the first unit (can't remember if it's warrior or scout for toku)

 

[obsolete]

Sorry, i don't always proof read my writings. It's a typo, I meant "What a SHAME TOO..."

Marble = Oracle (possible to hook it up in time on this level maybe)... but what I really was referring to was...

Marble = Parthenon, TGL, Taj, and you can squeeze in ToA as well.

Obsession with early war? You have the #1 all round kick-ass leader, why the hell wouldn't you take advantage of your advantages? You can hold him off with just 1 super-archer until he gets knights, and even then you only need a few other longbows for backup.

 

[hexem3117]

I'd build a settler with a warrior and place him in the spot Durak said- 2N, 1E of the current western clams city. You'll be under such cultural pressure from Joao that it'd be a pain to keep that city, IMO. And that's if he doesn't beat you to it, which he probably will, because that's what Joao does: expand...expand again...repeat.

You'd have fresh water + clams, a little bit of production with the copper there, and you'd still block him from expanding with a border pop (unless he sends out a galley with a settler around the south there). It's more doable, in general.

So what I'd do is place a warrior there with a settler ready to build a city, but not until Joao is around and about to plant one himself (keep the warrior a little out there, maybe on one of those hills on the peninsula in order to spot him coming). This will keep you from running up lots of maintenance on a VERY distant first city before you have to. That city's use is only to block Joao from taking all that land, and you don't want to waste money--->research before you have to.

I'd then get a settler and warrior out to the Gold/Pig/Elephants site. That's a great city site. With the commerce from the Gold and Elephants you'll help your expansion a lot. From there, just fill out land closest to your capital first, and coast to a civtory.

One more thing; scout around a little more before you plan out all your city spots. There are a few areas, namely the Wheat and Fish site in the north, and SE of your current western-most planned city, where there could be good resources around but you don't know because complete scouting hasn't been done. Some seafood could be lurking around, and should be considered during city placement.

 

[obsolete]

If he could upload the 4000BC save, I could try to PUSH it with a really early super-duper settler rush and see if that block is do-able. But it wouldn't be wise in a normal game unless you only play maps you've already seen and played before, haha.

 

[kurl]

Thanks - fascinating to hear the different approaches. My idea was to settle that leftmost city, if possible (though I'll move it 2N1E thanks to your advice), then try to expand, so will give that a whirl. I guess I'll go for that elephant city if I can't. I'll post an update after some more turns.

Thanks again!

 

[Gwynnja]

yeah, you're not going to get the city next to Joao peacefully, but the pork/elephant/gold city is a possibility. I'd like to see what is west of Portugal and possibly build/chop/whip 10-12 axemen and take lisbon while Joao's busy building settlers.

 

[kurl]

Okay - took your guys' advice and rushed to the potential block spot, unescorted, while teching Mysticism (and switching to slavery) en route. Made it in time, though Joao had just founded Oporto nearby. Started a Monument, whipped to complete as soon as population hit 2, just barely culture popped in time.

I built a settler and warrior to take the phants city, but am now confused about how best to specialize. Do I build the Moai Statues in the initial city? In the blocking city? Also not sure hat my teching priorities should be - went down the long road to Metal Casting, but I'm not sure that's right, given that I probably don't need to be pumping out a military quite yet.

Interested in hearing any of your thoughts - this is all really helpful. I've posted a save of where I am now as well as the 4000 BC save for anyone who's interested. Screens follow.

Spoiler :

 

[kurl]

Apologies - just realized I messed up the images - updated above. Looking forward to your feedback.

Thanks!

 

[Sidney Magal]

Haven't checked the save, but I have a tip for you based on the pictures:

Don't start building a monument in the new cities as the first build, start with the granary. 1 turn before the city grows, change the build to the monument and whip it next turn. If you leave it building all the way from the 1st turn till it grows, you're wasting a lot of hammers that could be invested in the granary.

 

[Durak]

Haven't checked the save, but I have a tip for you based on the pictures:

Don't start building a monument in the new cities as the first build, start with the granary. 1 turn before the city grows, change the build to the monument and whip it next turn. If you leave it building all the way from the 1st turn till it grows, you're wasting a lot of hammers that could be invested in the granary.

Starting on a monument, whipping when you reach pop 2 and then putting the overflow in a granary has exactly the same effect as what you do:

suppose you can get 10 hammers invested before you grow
--> at pop 2 you have 9 hammers into a granary, and 1 hammer into a monument. Whipping = 30 hammers ==> 29 hammers into the monument, and 1 hammer of overflow. The next turn you finish your monument and have 1 hammer of overflow going into your granary ==> so at the end of the next turn you will have 10 hammers (= 9 already invested + 1 overflow) + [base production] into your granary.

Suppose you just work a monument from the start:
--> at pop 2 you have 10 hammers invested into the monument. Whipping = 30 hammers ==> 20 hammers into the monument, and 10 hammers of overflow going into the granary ==> so at the end of the next turn you will have 10 hammers (=10 overflow) + [base production] into your granary. In other words, the exact same amount.

Conclusion: starting on a monument is perfectly fine. It has the exact same effect as what you do, only with less tedious micro.