Finally, my first Monarch win

[StrandedonEarth]

Finally, after trying about a dozen maps in vanilla and now Warlords, I eked out a victory on Monarch, with minimal reloading too. All the tips I read on here definitely helped, especially the diplomacy part.

I tend to play Large / Continents / epic, this time as Carthage. Popping BW, IW, and Ag from huts got me off to a good start, along with having marble, stone, and gold handy. I missed the 'mids and the GW, but was able to easily hold off the barbs and get the Oracle and Lib for MC and, um, I forget. I never did get any early conquests going, in fact, I only took a couple of barb cities in the whole game .

With 3 other civs on my continent, we were happily trading techs back and forth. I luckily didn't get invited to any wars, and whenever I was wanting to pick a fight my target was vassaled to mighty France, so I didn't. I only had to reload when all three civs on the other continent gangbanged me for dissing them . I fought off the first attacker, but the other two overwhelmed me.

After going back a bit and being more diplomatic to the other continent, I let my power get too low and couldn't hold off even one attacker . So after one more reload, I beelined combustion and built a destroyer screen to keep the enemy off my shores. Only one fleet got through the screen, but the troops were destroyed as soon as they landed. Then I buttoned down and outraced Louis to the stars , who was too busy getting ganged by the other continent at that point.

Overall, it was an unusually peaceful game for me, as my games on lower difficulties usually end with my air force pounding everyone into dust. This time I didn't even bother with air as I raced for space. Looking at the final stats, I only built 9 cities, captured two more and razed one. I only lost 10 units, including two warriors and two scouts early on, while my six destroyers sank 40+ frigates and 20+ galleons. Most of the game after I was done expanding was at 80% research, until all my buildings were built and I started building some wealth to run 100% research. Then I built some research on top of that

The tips that helped the most: Diplomacy to prevent attacks and grease tech trading, more cottages, and more workshops. I never got a proper GP farm going, but most cities popped at least one GP. Of course, my wonder cities popped several.

 

[solvero]

Congratulation!
I just won my first game on prince- a tiny map aimed at conquest. Won pretty easily, but I regenerated for a good start and the map size helped a lot. I will now move to a small continents game on prince.
I too learned a lot from here, and I find that just reading a thread teaches you more than playing a game yourself!

 

[Verge]

Congratulations!

The tips that helped the most: Diplomacy to prevent attacks and grease tech trading, more cottages, and more workshops.

These are good lessons for anyone looking to win the average high-level game. Best of luck with your next!

 

[KMadCandy]

welcome to CFC

and grats

diplomacy is so very helpful imo. it has been vital to me the higher i go. moreso than for most people because i'm terrible at wars. it can such a powerful tool to avoid wars, control the timing of a war when you do want one, or to get help when you need it during one you didn't want but couldn't avoid. and a big factor in games where life is peaceful forever too.

Overall, it was an unusually peaceful game for me, as my games on lower difficulties usually end with my air force pounding everyone into dust....

The tips that helped the most: Diplomacy to prevent attacks and grease tech trading

some folks pretty much ignore the diplomacy part of the game for a while because they get used to wins by crushing everyone. then they try to move up and it can be really frustrating trying to concentrate on that in a new way while adjusting to the new pace of everything else at the higher level. you got that "rude awakening" out of the way already, sort of, which is very cool!

 

[Verge]

I've made it a habit to always get at least 2 AI players to be "Friendly" with me each game. It's a huge boost and helps with any victory condition.

 

[StrandedonEarth]

I've made it a habit to always get at least 2 AI players to be "Friendly" with me each game. It's a huge boost and helps with any victory condition.

Yes, I had the two like religions on my continent friendly, while treating the outcast Asoka like dirt. I'm surprised he survived to the end, in fact, no civs got eliminated.

That was my other problem in previous games, founding my own religion but not being able to get anyone to convert. Not good for diplomacy. This time I let a religion spread to me.

 

[xanadux]

Congratulations!!! You just won a game after reloading several times after making huge mistakes!!!


Now learn from it and play a good game without cheating.

 

[xanadux]

Yeah, I can be a jack-ass sometimes, but tell me I didn't tell the truth.

 

[KMadCandy]

i'll tell you that you can define "good game" for yourself, but it's certainly not up to you to define for somebody else what they feel was a good, fun game that they enjoyed. and it ain't on the sweetness-and-light side of the donkey scale to come into their own personal thread to do it.

 

[StrandedonEarth]

True, but hey, that's how I (and probably everyone) learns. And I only reloaded twice, unlike other hopeless games where I reload tens of times and still lose.

 

[iamnleth]

I never reload. If I'm doing poorly, I force myself to continue and try to pull through. More times than not, I surprise myself and gain the lead.

 

[TRJS]

I sometimes reload. Only after saying, now I wouldn't normally do this but want to see what happens and will reload afterwards.

Don't have a problem with people doing it to improve a game.

Personally, I have gone several turns ahead and realise I should have done something different some time ago I can't be bothered reloading and just regen.

Case in point is a recent game where I popped Mining and BW from huts as Cyrus only to completely stuff up diplomacy and let Alexander and Peter wipe me off the map.

 

[futurehermit]

Congrats.

To win consistently on Monarch I would recommend focusing much more on your military and setting up a proper gpfarm.

The two also go in hand because usually a captured AI capital makes a nice gpfarm.

You don't have to war super early unless you have a neighbour right on your doorstep, but once the land runs out war should be on your mind. Also, if you don't build enough military your power will drop and you WILL get attacked. There is only so much diplomacy can do without a big stick to back it up.

Consider this as a benchmark: 15-20 cities by 1500AD normal speed/standard sized maps. I'm not sure how that would translate to epic/large, but I hope you get a sense of what I am asking here--expand your empire!!

To win comfortably (space race) you want to have around 25% larger empire than the next most powerful (tech-wise) AI. And you want to have this land by mid-game so you can settle down to teching the rest of the game. When you're at war the hurts your economy and you don't want that later in the game.

 

[martin026]

True, but hey, that's how I (and probably everyone) learns. And I only reloaded twice, unlike other hopeless games where I reload tens of times and still lose.

See, that is improvement. I too use to wear the scarlet "R" of the reloader on my chest. It was the quickest way to learn when time is limited. It is like a personal walk through where you can instantly learn from your mistakes. Now, I do not need to do that as much. Now if I make a mistake, I figure I should have known better.
On a side note: I find myself chuckle when the computer dogpiles me. I think to myself "Sure, you might destroy me, but your game will be over also"

 

[futurehermit]

Learning from your own mistakes is important because they will be unique.

 

[Squarg]

I too got my first monarch win as carthage on an continent-like fractal map (me and peter on my continent) I ended up reloading once because i hadn't realized that peter had become a vassal of my friend which i was friendly with when I sent my stack of 33 cavalry against his horde of swordsmen(I now quicksave before every war just in case)

Anyways congrats

 

[Leodavinci]

I too got my first monarch win as carthage on an continent-like fractal map (me and peter on my continent) I ended up reloading once because i hadn't realized that peter had become a vassal of my friend which i was friendly with when I sent my stack of 33 cavalry against his horde of swordsmen(I now quicksave before every war just in case)

Anyways congrats

I save the game before starting a war as well, but I never reload except if I wan t two different types of victory (like building UN, going for diplo, winning it, and reloading to get my domination finished)

 

[xanadux]

Aside from my harsh comment earlier, reloading is an excellent way to learn the game. It gives a good perspective on what will improve your game, better than just playing game over game getting beat and not figuring out what you did wrong. Hopefully you learned a lot and will soon be able to beat Monarch regularly without reloading.

 

[control740]

I recently won my first Monarch game as well, and as a matter of fact it was the first Monarch game I played also. Not that I'm amazing or anything, I've flubbed several monarch games since, but it's definitely more delicate then Prince is, in my current game I've been stuck in a war vs. Brennus who just won't back down no matter how many of his units I push back from his failed attempts to capture my cities, and even after having razed most of the cities he colonized on my lonely continent. I guess I probably messed up Quechua rushing ALL of the civs on my own continent(3 others) and leaving only the Buddhist alliance on the other continent. Oh well, play & learn.

 

[lukep]

I recently won my first Monarch game as well, and as a matter of fact it was the first Monarch game I played also. Not that I'm amazing or anything, I've flubbed several monarch games since, but it's definitely more delicate then Prince is, in my current game I've been stuck in a war vs. Brennus who just won't back down no matter how many of his units I push back from his failed attempts to capture my cities, and even after having razed most of the cities he colonized on my lonely continent. I guess I probably messed up Quechua rushing ALL of the civs on my own continent(3 others) and leaving only the Buddhist alliance on the other continent. Oh well, play & learn.

Nothing wrong with cleaning your own continent.

I once had to sunk more than 100 frigates & galleon of Monty while i was colonizing my cleaned continent. When I was running out of destroyers, i would use transports. One of them ended something like level 8 !