Monarch mid-game and advanced concepts help

[AshMarshall]

Hello, I've recently returned to playing Civ IV BTS after a couple years away from the game. I have a lot of the fundamental ideas down pretty well, but I'm pretty weak in some of the more advanced and mid-game concepts.

I've always done OK on the easier levels, but I'm repeatedly having difficulty in the middle of the game on Monarch level, regardless of leaders or paths I choose.

I've read a lot of posts and advice on this forum, especially some of the posts by Seraeil, but I'm struggling to improve my game.

I typically play mammoth games on large maps, usually terra, big & small or continents and I tend to be one of the most technologically advanced civs through the first 200 turns. Then the rival civs start to eat into my score leads.

As an idea, I tend to build three early cities and, if the opportunity allows, I try to have a gold-producing capital with lots of cottages; a food-producing city that I can use to run specialists; and a production hammer-heavy city with lots of mines in hills to pump out units. If possible I'll build cities on the same river to make a trade route and sometimes I'll overlap tiles as helper cities to build up cottages early.

I connect my resources as early as possible and emphasize my research on what will allow me hook up these resources. I don't bother founding a religion, but I try to complete the Pyramids (so I can switch to representation or police state) and the Oracle. If I do go for the Oracle, I beeline to writing and get code of laws as my free tech. I'm also comfortable whipping and chop-rushing.

I tend to favor picking a creative civ for the early culture border pops, but I've also tried playing with the Dutch, Mongols, English and Romans.

I can usually take a couple cities if I start an early war and then I'll return after I've researched construction and built up a good size of catapults. I do have trouble getting other civs to like me enough to declare war on other AIs, outside of those like Montezuma with the aggressive traits. I'll give in to their demands if they're powerful and on my borders, but invariably civs will all ask me to declare wars on opponents or stop trading with them when I'm not ready to go to battle and then I'll get the -1 diplomacy hit.

After 7 or 8 cities, maintenance costs start to hurt my science. After that, it really cripples it, even with courthouses. I can raze cities, but after I make peace, civs tend to send settlers back out.

Any mid-game advanced concepts would be great.

Thanks

 

[timmy827]

You will probably get much better help from posting a game and some screenshots (maybe around ~1000BC and 0 AD), but will try to respond to some warning signs from your text.

Always going for the same wonders is generally not good. Generally they are always a bad idea if you don't have the doubling resource, and even if you do they sometimes are still not good plays. Oracle as a creative civ for CoL is kinda marginal payoff; you have research 3 otherwise not needed (for a long while) religious techs that are a significant fraction of the cost of the 'free' tech.

Tech isn't the end-all be all. your rating in food and production on the demographics screen are at least as important of your relative ranking. Also not sure how long 200 turns is (you didn't mention normal/epic/marathon speed I don't think).

7-8 cities shouldn't be that much maintenance on a large map/monarch. The 3 specialized cities you mention are well and good, but would have to see a game to figure out what you're doing with the rest of the cities. One thing to mention is that Currency is almost always better than Code of Laws for dealing with maintenance, unless you're Organized. suppose it is harder to oracle.

I'm not sure I understand your concerns about diplomacy. If you play large maps, there are a lot of AIs and they won't like each other and present you demands. but -1 needn't be crippling. Also, when you say you have trouble getting them to war each other, couple of questions
-you can't even get the option (they like the target too much, don't like you enough, etc?)
-or you don't have enough tech to bribe them?
but most importantly
-why is this important to your game? are you hoping to get the AI's to drag each other down, or just keep your neighbors busy so they don't DOW you?

 

[Seraiel]

Sounds to me like you need to improve your economy. 8 cities on a Large map are below normal, you should easily be able to pay for them. Unfortunately, my article on economy in CIV is still in production, but some important tips for now:

Connect your cities and connect to the other empires. Most easily done with Sailing, but sometimes roading is necessary early. Foreign Traderoutes let your cities sustain themselves once you got Currency. Reaching Currency should be one of your highest priorities in the early game, Currency is more important than Construction.

Use the land wisely. Your biggest problems probably are, that you build too few Cottages. It's possible to play with only cottaging the capital, but that city really should be cottaged and it should be large. Try to aim at size 10+ at 1 AD. Run Bureacracy once available and also generate a Great Scientist to found an Academy. More Great Scientists are always welcome.

Generate Failgold if you got any resource that speeds up a Wonder. Aesthetics is awesome for this, it unlocks the SoZ (Ivory) the Paya (Gold) and the Parthenon (Marble) . CoL (Chicken Pizza) is good if you have Stone. Also use National Wonders you can trigger yourself, like MOAI statues, which are even better for Stone.

Specialize your cities and use the land (also see CIV Illustrated #3) .

Tech Civil Service early. The beeline Alpha / Maths -> Currency -> Civil Service is really strong play, if you're not completely backwards and need Aesthetics as Tradegood.

Don't build too many units. In my really good games, I often have mostly undefended cities. To make diplomacy easier, trade enough techs to get the +4 from fair trade to every civ that's not worst enemy of somebody. Don't trade with civs that are WE, AI will always come to you and bug you to stop trading, so don't even open Borders with them. AIs asking you to join their war cannot be worked around, you just need to suck those up. It's a great tactic though, to concentrate 2-4 civs on attacking the same target, bestly one that even hasn't got the chance to reach you, then you can join the war and get +4-5 with everybody. Should you ever get attacked, whipping units is your friend. Also, if AI got a Catapult with its stack, whip Walls, AI will wait patiently 10-15T until the single Catapult has taken down the 50% defense ^^ .

Become a good tech-trader. Tech-trading is what enhances human teching speed the most. Try to get 2+ AIs on friendly so you can trade for their monopoly techs. Better trade more than less, it's easier to keep your tech-advantage then.


For more specific advice, you need to post a savegame.

 

[elitetroops]

After 7 or 8 cities, maintenance costs start to hurt my science. After that, it really cripples it, even with courthouses.

How do you define "hurt my science"? If you mean that you have to lower the slider to X%, then that's not hurting your science. More cities with a lower slider are often producing more beakers than fewer cities with a higher slider. Maintenance shouldn't be crippling yet with that few cities.

Trade routes alone pay for much of the new city upkeep, as long as you have currency and foreign traderoutes, preferrably offshore. Not many tiles need to be worked to make it a net gain. If you have the Great Lighthouse, new coastal cities are often net gains as soon as they are settled. Make sure you have open borders with as many AI as possible. To increase trade route income, you can also settle a couple of island cities yourself. That way even domestic traderoutes will be at least 2c.

To counter the effects of maintenance, you should acquire gold in all ways possible. Start by selling extra resources to the AI. At first they usually don't have much gold to offer, but the deals can be renegotiated every 10 turns if you see that they have more gold available. This also gives diplo bonuses over time. You should also sell old techs to the AI for gold. You might not get anything near the full beaker value of a tech, but it's still better than nothing (If you don't sell it, they might trade it to someone else for a larger gain, while this other civ also gains from that deal). Keep your eyes open whenever a wonder is completed. Then some AI often get a large chunk of failgold that you can get from them. You can also build failgold yourself. If you have the bonus resource for the wonder, it is twice as effective as building wealth. No shame in building wealth either. Then there are Great Merchant trade missions that can fund a lot of teching. And you can also get more gold by conquering more cities.

 

[GreatProfit]

The beeline Alpha / Maths -> Currency -> Civil Service is really strong play, if you're not completely backwards and need Aesthetics as Tradegood.

There's a CoL missing there, unless you're implying it'd be necessarily acquired via trade.

Also, Aesthetics + Poly -> Lit is also pretty good even without IND, PHIL, or marble. But my favorite opening so far has been to self-tech Math, bulb Alpha, and build research for teching to Lit. If it looks like no one else has Aesthetics, I'll continue on to Music for the free GA. Once GL is complete and Music is researched, CoL, Currency, and other techs may be backfilled with little benefit to the AI. Calendar would be a priority trade if I got the free GA, due to MoM. It may be built just in time for the switch for Bureau, using the free GA from Music for the GA. But the failgold can be just as nice.

 

[Kallikrates]

In my experience below Immortal alpha is almost always better than Aesthetics because the AI is too slow. Currency, and for me Civil Service usually is a higher priority than music. Depending on how much I want/need the Great library and might go aesthetics+ lit before CS and this also depends on how good and how far developed the capital is.

In a current game (Immortal, normal speed) I was first with alpha and currency and self-teched CoL (also first). (I wonder if the AI forego the later religions if they already founded and spread one pretty widely.)
I built/chopped a late Great Lighthouse in ca. 400 BC (this was lucky). I had CS self-teched in ca. 200 BC . By then Aesthetics took only 2-3 turns to research and I chopped the Great library in ca. 150 AD (I had contact with all the others by workboat, could trade for marble and knew they were somewhat behind, of course the Great library can go in 200 BC)
But I had Fin Pacal with fur and 3 or 4 floodplains in the Capital and gold in the second city (with gems or gold in the Capital it would probably have been faster, I also had to tech too many early food techs because mediocre map). Because lack of food I was late with great persons. The first scientist bulbed Phil in favor of an academy to make use of Pacifism. The second scientist around 0 AD built the academy, the third bulbed most of Education, the fourth (I went for music and the artist in the meanwhile and got a GA) bulbs liberalism so I can liberate Military Tradition between 500-600, research gunpowder and built cuirs (only I lack iron, I have to replay a few turns to find a solution for this...)

Even in a culture game I think I'd go Currency before Aesthetics/Music. Of course it again depends how much commerce you can generate anyway. On those two gold in the capital BFC maps, you can hardly fail to be the fastest in the relevant techs below Deity (unless you do a lot of conquering early)

If one is isolated or semi-isolated, maths (for better chops) -> currency -> CoL -> CS seems even more important in isolation to boost the Capital.

In former times I thought I HAD to get the great Library but this is of course not true. I think it is good practice to once in a while skip a certain wonder one thought one could not do without to explore different strategies.

 

[GreatProfit]

Absolutely, with a powerful commerce capital like that boosted with FIN, CS beeline would be better. In my current Darius game I skipped Aesthetics in favor of Currency -> CoL but also made a detour for HBR and Construction for War Elephants for defense (my neighbor was Zara, who can declare at pleased, lacked a religion, and had sizeable power). Then I continued on to CS.

But in general, Lit beeline + Music option is still a strong option in many circumstances. For example, a non-FIN civ with a seafood cap with lots of hills and a decent number of neighbors with something to trade. Not to mention the synergies from IND, PHIL, and marble.

 

[elitetroops]

On monarch level you should on most maps easily be able to go for CS first, then get the free artist from Music, regardless of leader.

@GP, Zara is one of the easiest AI leaders to get to friendly status thanks to his +2 base attitude. If he lacked a religion, it would have been a lot cheaper to send one missionary his way than to take a detour to 2 extra techs. Teching to Elephants and building them as a precautionary defensive measure is almost guaranteed to be a huge waste. If you're gonna get elephants, use them to kill Zara instead.

 

[GreatProfit]

elitetroops:
I guess it's been a long while since I played Monarch. I've always assumed it had to one or the other. Thanks for the tip on Zara; for some reason that never occurred to me. Though it doesn't matter now; I plan to invade him with cav soon.

 

[elitetroops]

In my experience it's not that hard to go CS first and get the Music artist later on immortal either. In the last SGOTM we even double bulbed astro before selfteching CS, then we got the free artist. That was immortal, no FIN leader and not a particularly strong commerce capital. The Music date was very late and lucky for immortal, but on monarch I think it wouldn't have been exceptionally lucky.

 

[Kallikrates]

Music can go fairly late (~500 AD) or so. But it is often very hard to tell, especially if you do not have contact with all AI civs. Same with wonders. In that game several wonders were gone early ('mids considerably before the GLH which is odd, also the Hanging gardens about the time I built GLH), some weren't

I do not know if one can make guesses from experience. Usually it is something like Stonehenge-Great-Wall-Oracle-ToA-GLH or so. I usually do not care about ToA but GLH can on IMM (or even Emperor, always normal speed) be gone as early as 1400 BC or as late as 0 AD (typical is 600-800 BC, I'd say). The pyramids range between before 1000 BC and early ADs or even later (I once built them on Emperor in 500 AD or so after trading for stone). Unless you know there is Ramesses with stone somewhere (then everything will be built really fast), it seems everyone's guess.

With techs it is obviously a big difference if one has contact to most/all AI civs and if there is Mansa or Willem or other fast techers who are also willing to trade. One can probably look lots of things up in the AI leader character sheets on this forum. I realized that Isabella apparently has a very low trade cap (We fear you are becoming to advanced).

 

[mdesy]

In a recent game on Monarch I took a chance on building the Stonehenge and big surprise, the AI finishes it 1 turn before I do.

I wasn't expecting that but I got a lot of gold for compensation. I was disappointed at first but then I realized I now had plenty gold to fuel my research at 100% for a long time while being able to afford a couple more new cities. This is even better then if I had completed the Stonehenge!

So apparrently I've accidentally discovered what seems to be referenced as "Wonder Economy" on this forum. We can convert food/hammers to gold long before researching currency, pretty handy. That would be my personal advice to help your game, it made a good difference for me!

 

[Pangaea]

In a recent game on Monarch I took a chance on building the Stonehenge and big surprise, the AI finishes it 1 turn before I do.

I wasn't expecting that but I got a lot of gold for compensation. I was disappointed at first but then I realized I now had plenty gold to fuel my research at 100% for a long time while being able to afford a couple more new cities. This is even better then if I had completed the Stonehenge!

So apparrently I've accidentally discovered what seems to be referenced as "Wonder Economy" on this forum. We can convert food/hammers to gold long before researching currency, pretty handy. That would be my personal advice to help your game, it made a good difference for me!

It's what is usually referred to as "failgold". You don't build the wonder to finish it, but to get when somebody else finishes it. Sometimes you can almost-complete it in different cities, and get a pile of money for it. Also works with national wonders btw, and naturally best with wonders that are sped up by a resource, such as marble or stone (and you have it).

 

[Seraiel]

Wonder economy is economy by Mids and the GLH mostly, sometimes also by Oracle and TGL + Parthenon. Sometimes it's also referred to when building every Wonder, that's quite bad then though, because many Wonders don't make sense.

 

[Seraiel]

Article about all economic options going online during the next few days. Visit the strategies subsection to read it, or take the link I'll integrate in my signature.

 

[mdesy]

Thanks Pangaea for clarifying that up! There's an old thread on the forum about Wonder Economy and the definition is "The basic concept of Wonder Economy is selling unfinished wonder to fuel a 100% tech rate in early game", I guess it's misleading.

Nevertheless failgold is a great tip as previously mentioned by Seraiel in this thread, it can definitely boost research.

Seraiel I look forward to read your article on economy! Cottages alone are not enough and on Monarch and above building wonders is very risky.

 

[Seraiel]

Economical guide finished.