[BTS] ✌ [COMPLETED T237/500 WIN] Monarch Shadow Game - Washington | Help a Noble/Prince Player Level Up

Nice work!

Music is the right play here. But sometimes if the race is in the bag (like this) it can be good to pick up drama on the way. Drama is a cheap tech, and also provides a 20% discount to music, making its ‘net’ cost even lower. It also opens up the philosophy bulb (more on this later).

Have you thought about what you would do with the music great artist? Generally the answer is ‘Golden Age’ so good to prepare for this.

The main point of a golden age is often to generate great people. Here pacifism and caste system are your friends. Swapping civics is anarchy free in a golden age.

So next scientist, save for philosophy bulb. In your case, after music, to open up the bulb you’ll have to tech meditation -> code of laws. You have two good cities for GP generation. Your capital and Ulundi. With the National epic and great library in the capital I don’t think anything else will come close (this is the downside to this approach).

You want the same religion in these two cities to make use of pacifism. Easiest way to do this is to change to get mediation now (should only be one turn), whip and monastery and a missionary for Washington. Do this whilst teching music. You also want a lighthouse in ulundi for max food. Chop the forest into this to avoid whipping and farm the banana. Then just grow!

Once philosophy bulb is done, trigger the golden age. Switch into Hinduism, caste system (do any whips you need to before) and pacifism. Run as many scientist in Washington as possible (use only 4food + tiles) and merchants in ulundi.
 
Progress looks excellent . I'm unable to look at the save at this point but from your write-up and screenshots I have some observations.

I'd focus on hammering home your advantage and winning game ASAP.

Nobody has longbows and you have elephants. Rather than getting any buildings I'd suggest whipping some more catapults and elephants and, in the words of Lain, keeping the pain train rolling. Look at your power ratios!

If going imminent golden age go easy on the whipping in 1-3 cities so they can pump out 3 great scientists in the golden age - would be nice if these cities could get the same religion so as to maximise pacifism benefit in the golden age. Purpose of these GS would be to bulb towards liberalism.

I would suggest less buildings - market in Ulundi won't pay off this side of the end of the game and I suspect libraries in cities with non-developed non-riverside cottages and without representation are just expensive monuments. You're about to get caste system so can use some artists to expand borders in your new cities shortly.

National epic might be good for failgold but I think you'd get the necessary number of great people to win the game without it and hammers might be better saved for military units...

Tech probably code of laws, civil service after music. Drama could have been good and would have opened philosophy bulb without code of laws but less benefit when you're this close to music.
 
Correction - if going elephants, next tech is definitely horseback riding!!

Edit: Might be fun to bribe Zara to attack someone just to start getting a feel for diplomacy. If he attacked Egypt whilst you eliminated Inca that could work.
 
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Thanks @Nick723 much appreciated, just a few follow-up questions.

So next scientist, save for philosophy bulb. In your case, after music, to open up the bulb you’ll have to tech meditation -> code of laws.

I'm a little confused about this bulbing pathway. how do you know what the GScientist is capable of bulbing next? is there a flowchart to this? seems to me this is a must-know CIV4 knowledge. wish to learn more.

You want the same religion in these two cities to make use of pacifism. Easiest way to do this is to change to get mediation now (should only be one turn), whip and monastery and a missionary for Washington. Do this whilst teching music. You also want a lighthouse in ulundi for max food. Chop the forest into this to avoid whipping and farm the banana. Then just grow!

On the Religion Advisor screen, Washington and Ulundi are both already running Hinduism. Is that a correct read?



Once philosophy bulb is done, trigger the golden age. Switch into Hinduism, caste system (do any whips you need to before) and pacifism. Run as many scientist in Washington as possible (use only 4food + tiles) and merchants in ulundi.

Thanks for this tip!
 

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I have some questions about how to manage the tiles in CIV4. Taking the examples on the current save...

How do you improve these tiles in Washington?

Spoiler Washington Tiles :


How about these tiles in New York? What do you do with them?

Spoiler New York Plain Tiles :


... and the tundra tiles

Spoiler Seattle Tundra Tiles :


Apologies for the questions spam... still very much learning the ropes.
 

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Wow, @5tephen thanks for the message. I watched your youtube guide for beginning players and it was really informative!

Nobody has longbows and you have elephants. Rather than getting any buildings I'd suggest whipping some more catapults and elephants and, in the words of Lain, keeping the pain train rolling. Look at your power ratios!
.

More units and more expansion? I usually stop and recover my economy after one war. I'm worried about my economy grinding to a halt (see pic attached). how would you actually keep the war momentum without crashing the economy? very keen to hear your thinking and decision process.



I would suggest less buildings - market in Ulundi won't pay off this side of the end of the game and I suspect libraries in cities with non-developed non-riverside cottages and without representation are just expensive monuments. You're about to get caste system so can use some artists to expand borders in your new cities shortly.

Thanks for the tip, I agree Libraries are expensive. So in order to be able to use Artists, I'll have to tech Drama on the way to Music like what @Nick723 suggested, right?

Drama could have been good and would have opened philosophy bulb without code of laws but less benefit when you're this close to music.

this is a little befuddling. can you point me to an easy guide to bulbing to philosophy and bulbing to liberalism?

thanks for taking the time to comment.
 

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more questions about how to manage cities, I really struggle with slow cities with little production and culture.

take this example:

this newly captured coastal city has zero culture, only has 3 :hammers:, what would you build here? as @5tephen said, libraries may not be worthwhile. so how do you manage this kinda city?

Spoiler kwaDukuza :


... and this city has no food bonus on first ring. zero culture, what to build then?

Spoiler Bulawayo :
 

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As far as I remember you need meditation and either meditation or code of laws to bulb philosophy. Drama gives 20% discount on music but it costs 600 or so beakers and you've only got a few beakers left to get music so you'd be spending roughly 600 beakers to save 20% of 200 or so. Whereas you recoup a big chunk of the drama beakers from music if getting it before researching music. Still makes reasonable tradebait but this doesn't seem enough of a reason alone to tech it.

Switching to the caste system civic enables you to run a couple of artists for a couple of turns to get border pop if you need to. No need for drama for this.

You're spending 25 gold per turn on units. You're almost obliged to use them otherwise you may as well delete them and speed up your tech pace. Worst case scenario is all your cities have to build wealth to stop you losing money but whilst you have excess units and tech advantage/parity I'd keep going. You get good money for taking a city and can always pillage some cottages whilst on the attack. Once you have currency and near civil service (for farms) almost any new city is profitable.

Kwadukuza can whip units. Bulawayo is junk without a border pop and needs to get the library or a monument out. Not sure which is best with several hammers already into the library. Any city can always build wealth worst case scenario.

Bulbing lib requires a long post. If I have time later I'll give it a go.
 
Meditation is required for Philo. Drama also opens up Philo in lieu of CoL.
 
Meditation is required for Philo. Drama also opens up Philo in lieu of CoL.
What I meant to write!

Good bulb options with great scientists are philosophy, education and liberalism. I'm not a top level player but my understanding is bulbing with other great people is less efficient.

Given you're about to pop a great scientist and get the music great artist, it would be pretty standard to bulb philosophy with the great scientist which is good tradebait and opens the, often excellent, pacifism civic.

Each specialist is effectively a 2:food: negative tile for the benefit of 3:gp: points. A city needs to generate 100:gp: points to pop a great person. If all of the :gp: have been from say scientists there is 100% chance of great scientist, if for example 20% came from merchants and the rest from scientists, it would be 80% chance for great scientist, 20% great merchant.

Golden age doubles great person point generation i.e. 6:gp: points per specialist. Pacifism also doubles great person point generation in cities running state religion. In a golden age with pacifism 12:gp: per turn per specialist.

Caste system civic enables you to run unlimited scientist, merchant or artist specialists in any city.

First great person costs 100:gp:, second costs 200:gp:, and so on. This is empire wide, so if two cities get to 100:gp: points on the same turn, only one will pop a great person, the other will need to keep collecting :gp: until 200:gp: (still assuming it's the next city to pop a great person.)

:food: negative tiles are generally bad as larger city size enables working all the good tiles, growing cottages, whipping, better trade routes, etc.

Given the :food: cost of running specialists it's often worth growing a city as big as possible before golden age and then getting out as many great people as possible during golden age and if necessary allowing city to starve down in the process.

So (assuming your first great scientist has already bulbed philosophy) if you want to get 3 great people out in a golden age you have to work out how to generate 200:gp: +300:gp:+400:gp: in one city and the other 2 great scientists in other cities before this (could be the first is produced in the same city as the third.)

For your game I would recommend 2 great scientists bulb education and you avoid metal casting until the third great scientist has part bulbed liberalism. As per Coanda's link researching metal casting complicates the liberalism bulb.

In terms of liberalism tech, I can't recall if you have marble. If so, nationalism is good for Taj Mahal. If not, self-tech nationalism and go for military tradition. Either way cuirraissiers should be the end of your tech tree on monarch.
 
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Golden age doubles great person point generation i.e. 6:gp: points per specialist. Pacifism also doubles great person point generation in cities running state religion. In a golden age with pacifism 12:gp: per turn per specialist.
That would be a multiplicative bonus for the golden age, but it is all additive. So each of PHI, golden age, pacifism, National Epic adds another +100%. So in your example (GA and Paci) that would be 3 +200% = 9, which is of course still great and totally worth it
...
For your game I would recommend 2 great scientists bulb education and you avoid metal casting until the third great scientist has part bulbed liberalism. As per Coanda's link researching metal casting complicates the liberalism bulb.
And here it would not be Metal Casting but rather Machinery which you have to avoid, because that would open up an Engineering bulb.
 
And here it would not be Metal Casting but rather Machinery which you have to avoid, because that would open up an Engineering bulb.
Correct. It's Machinery you avoid, but it opens PP rather. (One has to avoid all kinds of earlier stuff to get an Engi bulb)
 
Poor food cities. I doubt you will be using many of those 1f tiles. In which case I would not be improving unless I was sure I could use the tiles.

1f tiles without rivers are poor for cottages. Better for workshops Ai like to settle on military resources. Makes for some bad city choices at times.

Unless your farming 1f tiles for irrigation with civil service it's rarely worth it. I would of cottaged the river tile near Washington.

LH in Ulundi you have 3 sea resources. With bananas it's a great National Epic city. Mistake to build it in Washington?
Not sure about scientist in Washington when you can use the fur.
Chicago 6 wealth vs 4f and 4 commerce for growth?

HC and Wang have 2 gold per turn to trade for resources.

I wonder if Egyptians might be better target here. Going golden age any time soon seems bad as you have 25 upkeep cost a turn for units. You can reach Egyptians in 6 turns. You have quite a lot of cities with 2 defenders. Move the swords to help form next attack. Spain is just a lot of effort to initially take down size 1-2 cities that might be auto razed. Jungle too.

Really not a big fan of spamming markets. 150H is big investment in low production cities.

Tech wise Calendar or HBR next pending how you plan to go. Phants vs happiness resources.
 
Thanks @Nick723 much appreciated, just a few follow-up questions.
!

Others have answered these well…just a couple of outstanding points.

1. Indeed the drama advice was something to consider for next time, once you’ve started to tech music it doesn’t really make sense.

2. You’re right about Hinduism in Washington, I think I was looking at a slightly older screenshot where it hadn’t yet spread.
 
Thanks for all your advice and pointers.

Played to Turn 148
  1. Decided to focus on grabbing more territories (seizing the military advantage); Egypt did seem to be a more susceptible target (cities garrisoned only with archers and axemen)
  2. Didn't go for HBR (since Egypt still weak militarily - is this correct thinking?), even though Egypt has HBR (see attached screenshot), I don't see any mounted units.
Spoiler Ramesses has HBR :

  1. So while warring, I kept on teching Music > CoL
  2. Started whipping +/- chopping out units again with the exception of Washington and Ulundi
  3. Took out Egypt with stacks of Swordsmen, Axemen, Chariots and Catapults, albeit at the cost of suffering a couple of turns of units strike and wartime unhappiness; btw what will happen when units strike?
  4. Parking a small stack of military units at Memphis (for fear of revolt since it's so close to Pyongyang)
  5. So next turns I will do: GScientist to bulb Philosophy, GArtist to start Golden Age
  6. Start teching Civil Service towards Liberalism

Spoiler RIP Ramesses :


what are the experts' assessment of this latest progress?
in terms of trades + diplo, what do you think I should do?
 

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You have Music so you can build culture where you haven't had a border pop like Bulawayo.
You're building libraries in places that need granaries (Thebes). Markets are a pretty rare build due to their high :hammers: requirement. Often better to build wealth and just take the 150 :gold: right away instead.
I'd send a few of your units to scout the rest of your opponents territory, it's pretty good to know what's going on in their borders.
May as well trade something for silk to Isabella while you don't have Calendar. She also has 6 gold per turn and you have a tonne of spare resources. Trade resources to the AI, it's not like they're efficient at using them.
Seattle needs a work boat for the Crab. I assume it got destroyed in a war?
Don't be afraid to raze cities. Pi-Ramesses and Alexandria kinda suck and are mainly going to increase your maintenance.

This position is even better than before, no way you could possibly lose.
 
thank you @Araius.

I'll pause here a bit and asked some questions on my next few entries.

first, a question on wartime tactical play:

I went back and re-examined the last few turns and wondered if I could get a better deal out of warring with Ramesses.

Instead of killing Ramesses outright, what do you think of signing a 10-turn peace treaty and leaving him with just 1 city in return of getting all these goodies. After 10 turns, kill him.

Is this a viable tactic?

 

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Next, about high maintenance cities...

I like to bring up this screen (F1) and see the column that lists the maintenance cost of my cities.



As you can see, the ones in red rectangle indicate cost of maintenance in number of :gold: ( i only marquee the ones in double digits). Eg: Ulundi eats up 13 :gold: per turn, Nobamba 11:gold: per turn in maintenance.

So early post-war period, build Wealth or build Courthouses in these double-digit maintenance cities?
 

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Memphis has the Mids.

So, switch to Representation civic during first Golden Age? Because I need more Happiness to make sure Representation works well, hook up all the plantation resources (I have Spice, Incense and Sugar) before triggering Golden Age?

About Golden Age, when would be best to trigger it in the post-war time frame?

BTW Memphis also boasts the Temple of Artemis - how should i take advantage of this Wonder?

Spoiler mids in memphis :
 

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