Hey everyone,
I've recently moved up from Prince to Monarch difficulty and it has certainly been an adjustment. Whereas I used to dominate the AI in tech, wonder building, religion founding and pretty much whatever I wanted, I've found Monarch a struggle. Both of the wins I have picked up have been SS wins, and my launch date is improving (from 1984 in my first win to 1909 in this one, though that was normal speed and this is epic). Anyways, I wanted to share this start because I found it interesting, as it was very difficult to keep up in the tech race for me. I eventually eeked out a space race just before India in 1909...India had Apollo done almost 40 turns before me! Phew.
Check it out and tell me how you would have played it, I have a rough sketch of my strategy in the spoiler below.
Difficulty: Monarch
Size: Stardard
Speed: Epic
All standard settings (play now)
Map: Continents, temperate, low sea level
Civ: Qin Shi Huangdi
I've recently moved up from Prince to Monarch difficulty and it has certainly been an adjustment. Whereas I used to dominate the AI in tech, wonder building, religion founding and pretty much whatever I wanted, I've found Monarch a struggle. Both of the wins I have picked up have been SS wins, and my launch date is improving (from 1984 in my first win to 1909 in this one, though that was normal speed and this is epic). Anyways, I wanted to share this start because I found it interesting, as it was very difficult to keep up in the tech race for me. I eventually eeked out a space race just before India in 1909...India had Apollo done almost 40 turns before me! Phew.
Check it out and tell me how you would have played it, I have a rough sketch of my strategy in the spoiler below.
Difficulty: Monarch
Size: Stardard
Speed: Epic
All standard settings (play now)
Map: Continents, temperate, low sea level
Civ: Qin Shi Huangdi
Spoiler :
So the reason I had problems with this game was because the continent I started on was empty but for me. I'm trying to get my tech trading game up to scratch so not meeting any other civs until almost 1000 AD with the discovery of optics made me rather backward compared to France, Mongolia and the powerful India. In the end, I was never able to fully catch India in the tech race until I built the Internet (though I was able to more effectively choose my space-race techs to slip by Asoka). The strangest thing is this is only the third continents game I have played, but the second time I have been alone. How common is this?
I followed my normal strategy of choprushing. Warrior-->Worker-->Settler IIRC. Took BW and got Shanghai up in 2440 BC just down the coast to the southeast, Guangzhou up the coast to the northwest in 1600. Knew by that point that I was alone so I rushed through to the Oracle and got Confucianism in 1100 (For some reason I also built Stonehenge in Shanghai because I could and didn't have much else to do). Took some time to consolidate, then built Nanjing by the floodplains to the north in 640 BC, the Parthenon around 300 BC and built both Xian and Chengdu around the same time at 350 AD. Those would be my main cities for the game, though I ended up with about 5 or 6 more to cover the continent.
Was late in getting my copper hooked up and suffered at the hands of limitless barbarian hordes for a long while because of it; they even captured a border city of mine for a turn. I've always played Pangaea maps so prioritzing Optics was weird for me, but I was the first one with Caravels to sail around the world and meet everyone, and realized when I did I was not in good shape. Made friends with Asoka and Kublai, and managed to leverage a few techs from them. At that point I was 3rd or 4th in score.
Both Japan and France would declare war on me during the course but never make more than one or two galleons worth of landings. I had to buy off France to keep my coastal cities safe, but Democracy wasn't that big a loss.
Eventually, with cottage spam around most of my core cities, two shrines in Shanghai with Wall Street and the other +gp buildings, I was able to run at 90% for most of the game. With later diligence in spreading Confucianism I was able to push that to 100% without a serious damper on my treasury (ie one turn of 90% would get enough revenue to run 8 turns of 100%). I was able to slowly crawl back up into the tech race. My Apollo program came in about 40 turns late because I didn't get the aluminum tech until halfway through. Thankfully though, I got fusion first and another great engineer and was able to rush through the space elevator and launch the ship in style in 1909 (Asoka was completing casings and a thruster before my Apollo finished, but I never saw her get engine, life support or stasis).
Anyways have fun playing this one if you go for it and tell me what you think the best way to approach the game is. I really don't know how to win any other victory but SS, and would love to hear how a warmonger or cultural/diplo would go about it.
Final score by the way: 13541, rating of Abe Lincoln
I followed my normal strategy of choprushing. Warrior-->Worker-->Settler IIRC. Took BW and got Shanghai up in 2440 BC just down the coast to the southeast, Guangzhou up the coast to the northwest in 1600. Knew by that point that I was alone so I rushed through to the Oracle and got Confucianism in 1100 (For some reason I also built Stonehenge in Shanghai because I could and didn't have much else to do). Took some time to consolidate, then built Nanjing by the floodplains to the north in 640 BC, the Parthenon around 300 BC and built both Xian and Chengdu around the same time at 350 AD. Those would be my main cities for the game, though I ended up with about 5 or 6 more to cover the continent.
Was late in getting my copper hooked up and suffered at the hands of limitless barbarian hordes for a long while because of it; they even captured a border city of mine for a turn. I've always played Pangaea maps so prioritzing Optics was weird for me, but I was the first one with Caravels to sail around the world and meet everyone, and realized when I did I was not in good shape. Made friends with Asoka and Kublai, and managed to leverage a few techs from them. At that point I was 3rd or 4th in score.
Both Japan and France would declare war on me during the course but never make more than one or two galleons worth of landings. I had to buy off France to keep my coastal cities safe, but Democracy wasn't that big a loss.
Eventually, with cottage spam around most of my core cities, two shrines in Shanghai with Wall Street and the other +gp buildings, I was able to run at 90% for most of the game. With later diligence in spreading Confucianism I was able to push that to 100% without a serious damper on my treasury (ie one turn of 90% would get enough revenue to run 8 turns of 100%). I was able to slowly crawl back up into the tech race. My Apollo program came in about 40 turns late because I didn't get the aluminum tech until halfway through. Thankfully though, I got fusion first and another great engineer and was able to rush through the space elevator and launch the ship in style in 1909 (Asoka was completing casings and a thruster before my Apollo finished, but I never saw her get engine, life support or stasis).
Anyways have fun playing this one if you go for it and tell me what you think the best way to approach the game is. I really don't know how to win any other victory but SS, and would love to hear how a warmonger or cultural/diplo would go about it.
Final score by the way: 13541, rating of Abe Lincoln