A few thoughts on GP farms and Monarch difficulty

[Davetripd]

First off I would like to thank to TR team, I love this mod an appreciate all the work that has gone into it.

I have had a hard time moving from Prince to Monarch, a lot of the strategies include getting a GP farm and more specialization in your cities. On a normal prince game (I like ind/fin/spi leaders) I usually get 1 city, then stonehedge, and then an early landgrab war from my nearest neighbor. Most games I can get most/all of early wonders and a good tech lead using this strategy.

Ive tried 4 Monarch games, and each time I get attacked by 1-4 civs with massive stacks before I can win an early war, and left far behind in techs. Getting ancient wonders besides stonehedge is usually out of the question. Many times i have started next to monty and shaka which doesnt help. Ive even reloded to initial save and tried focusing on units and defense but the units drag my tech to under 40%, even with only 2-3 cities.

So, some general thoughts on moving to monarch from prince as well as how/if you guys utilize GP farms in TR would be appreciated.

 

[Anaztazioch]

Well. Noble is easy. Monarch difficulaty is not "harder" in its meaning, but "need better strategy".
On Noble you can easilly rush Oracle and get Feudalism and live well with it (I think Longbowman is still in Feudalism tech). So you have strongest army and dont need any improvement, or resource.
Now on Monarch its hard to get Oracle, even if you rush it. And even if you manage to get it and Feudalism, building longbowman will last too long to make the enough to defend.

In other words, on Noble you can take any tech regardless of its cost etc and never fell behind. On Monarch its often better to leave wonders to AI and concentrate on improvements and military possabilities (production, resources techs, not actually numbers).