Advancing to Monarch

[Lennier]

Also, get BUG mod. It will provide much handy information on the main screen that you would normally have to dig through many different screens to get to. And it allows "dot-mapping" for planning future city site. (Dot mapping allows you to put down the outline of a BFC with a big dot in the center where you would like to place a city. If you look through other players' forum games I'm sure you'll see what I mean.)

 

[Aje]

I agree with EnKages advice.

Barbs will bite you on Monarch but not eat you up

Sorry for asking all those questions, but it helps a lot to understand where you are going.
Oracling CS would be great but CoL or MC will also help you a lot. I would go with CoL.
GLH is a great wonder if you have many coastal cities. I would wait a few more turns before deciding on that one. You'll not be able to build all the good wonders and make a decent expansion. I always consider TGL and Parthenon, and they seem even more certain with marble.

Keep your fogbusting warriors at the places where you intend to place your next 3 cities. It can be tempting to send them exploring, resist! I read somewhere that barbs are unable to spawn in the BFC of the warriors position, and a close barb city will hurt you expansion in this game.
Another pointer: Why do you keep cityguards when you have this low population? They could be fogbusting until you need them for the 1 extra happiness.

Recommended workers are 1-2/city. My advice would be to Always have more workers than cities. In your current situation with 2 cities that would be 3 workers Before you build the next settler.
Choping up the forest close to your cap is a good early move to help getting even more workers/settlers faster

Regarding an early rush. Do you think you'll gain more by attacking now or later?
Do you have the resources and time for an axe or HA rush? What units and Resources does she have to counter you?

What is your plans for city specialization?
Cap = Hammers?
C2 = Commerce?
C3 = GP farm? (if cow/crab)

 

[Aje]

Wonders - Oracle would be nice, at least to get me to CoL but hoping for CS. It'd be a quick grab I think, with marble and all. GLH is also very attractive. It's my understanding that if I can get GLH and the Colossus in the same city, the cup will runneth over. I'd want to focus on building more coastal cities though. Temple of Artemis is also attractive, but a bit outside of my tech path - if I go for the GLH instead of the Oracle. (Mysticism -> Polytheism, too many turns!)

I don't have too much one-on-one experience with Boudica. If I'm slacking with my military, is the the kind of leader that attacks opportunistically? If that's the case, I should probably grab the copper first and work on the GLH/Colossus and/or Oracle slingshot second.

I don´t understand why GLH & Colossus in the same city would help eachother.
GLH gives 2 extra traderoutes. Colossus give you 1 extra Commerce/worked tile.

I would try to build Moai in the same city as Colossus as both makes working watertiles more rewarding. Colossus is especially interesting if you are FIN, and even more if you're playing WvO.

I would also try to build ToA in a city with high possible trade route yield. Which will be a big coastal city if you have allready built GLH.

 

[elitetroops]

I would try to build Moai in the same city as Colossus as both makes working watertiles more rewarding.

Why same city? Colossus gives bonus to all cities..

Colossus and GLH help each other if you are going for GM economy. Get both of those and ToA in the same city and you can spew out a ton of Great Merchants.

 

[Pangaea]

Much talk about wonders here... a normal advice for players stepping up to the more difficult settings is to forget about wonders for a few games, or at least be much more conservative. Even now I rarely build many wonders, at least until the end-game. Some wonders it's often worth going for (not necessarily all) is Oracle, the Great Library, the Great Lighthouse, Taj Mahal, Mausoleum of Mausollos (hopefully spelling wasn't too bad). If you have resources or attributes that make building wonders easier, then you can use it to get failgold, which will help you to research at 100% for longer. In my current game I managed to get marble in trade and then started building loads of wonders for failgold purposes. Got at least 1000 by the early ADs.

But enough about wonders. Forget about them for a while is my advice, and focus on tightening up other parts of your game, that is more important. Worker micro, city placement, tech choice, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar. As the game progresses, also focus on tech trades and diplomacy. Try not to research something the AIs are researching. Typicall Aesthetics is a 'safe' choice. You can then use it to trade for Alphabet (somebody else has to get it first though) and other techs. Especially when you move further up the difficulty ladder, it's less useful to tech Alphabet yourself, as the AIs will go for it. Try to trade for it instead. Tech trading is very powerful, almost to a gamebreaking degree. Use it well.

Not much concrete advice here I admit, but you've gotten plenty above. But try to focus on the more important parts of the game you need to improve, and less on wonders. They can be an addiction, so playing a few games without them (or with a select few) will show you that they're not THAT important, and you're better off not wonder-whoring. You can always capture them later

 

[Krondar]

I played forward another 20 turns to 1600 BC. Got ranked at 3rd place for largest civ, pretty good sign for expansion. Settled the 3rd city in between the cow and the crab, and have about 8 warriors around. The cities are all hooked up for trade. Even overtook Boudica in the power chart. Not alone, however - Rameses II is to the south. I'm thinking I should take out Boudica and spread Buddhism to Rameses for the short term.

Berlin's about to poop out Settler #4, so I should have some axemen building within 5 turns. Still need to get caught up regarding workers, I'll have Berlin (or maybe Hamburg) push some more out after it's done with the settler. I have the other 3 cities plotted out - but I'm not sure where to put #6. The coastal grasslands hill looks pretty alright, once the border pops and it can work the cows and gems. Any ideas? Everybody's city placement advice has been phenomenal.

Since I've got all the warriors I think I'll need for now I'm building granaries in the 2 new cities.

Spoiler :

Regarding wonders, I'll grab the Oracle and assess the situation after that. Maybe the Great Library would be better at Munich since it's gonna be a GP farm? ToA and Colossus sounds much better than GLH and Colossus - not sure where I read that. Hopefully I'll be able to build ToA in Hamburg though, since it'll probably be my main Commerce city.

Regarding techs, I'm about to start Priesthood and then grab Writing, then go back to fishing to work the crab. After that - Metal Casting? Colossus and forges sound pretty good. Another option would be Mathematics for the chop bonus, then Construction for cats to take out Boudica.

I'm thinking waiting for Boudica to develop a bit more, but I won't know for sure until I get open borders and see what resources she has.

City specialization thusly:
Berlin = Production
Hamburg = Commerce
Munich = GP farm
#4 = Commerce (on the coast, some grassland, and corn it can borrow) or Production
#5 = Commerce
#6 = Production/Commerce Hybrid

I read somewhere that a good way to specialize is 1 GP farm and 2 Pro/3 Commerce cities for every 5 after that. It's what I usually do and think it'll hold water on Monarch. I'm definitely behind in improving tiles though.

And I don't mind the questions! It's helping a lot just having to explain everything - not to mention all the awesome advice. I'm beginning to wonder about Victory Conditions and I'm leaning towards Space, but Con/Dom might be fun with Germany's UU.

 

[enKage]

Ok, looks not so bad.

Munich is working unimproved tile, while Berlin has 1 improved yile unworked. You should give rice to Munich - this will allow Munich to grow much faster and whip granary earlier, and will not delay settler so much. Swaping tiles betwen cities is very important!

Looking at the map: 4th city - copper. You have boudica here and her usual behaviour is to tech to IronWorking early, pomp up axes and gauls and pay a visit to a neighbour. The sooner you get axes, the better. Remember to keep ratio at least 3 workers per 2 cities.

You have place for 2 cities blocking Egypt: cow + fish and banana + silk. City south of Munich is not necessairy and not a priority as it has no food.

Too early to talk about specialisation, your lan is crap, so there is no clar commerce site. With such a land taking 1 neighbour early is neccesairy = Boudica as Egypt can be more usefull with trading purposes. My proposal would be settle copper, settle north weath and pump up/ whip axes for Boudica.

Do not bother about spreading any religion to Egypt. With Obelisk they will quickly get their own religion and spread it to you.

 

[Aje]

Once again I agree with enKage

I would like to know how you plan your axe rush.
Questions:
How long is your window for an axe attack?
How many axes do you think you need?
Which extra units will help you?
Do you plan to scout Boudica before the attack?

 

[Krondar]

Happy Holidays!

enKage and Aje, thank you so much for your advice. Terribly sorry about not posting earlier - busy season and all that. And Lennier - I thought I had responded, but unfortunately I'm on an older macbook and BUG is hard to get working on it due to the OS, not to mention the old hardware. I'm afraid it might melt my motherboard if I tried it! But it looks like a fantastic mod. Perhaps if I could get Civ4 to run on my linux desktop...

Anyway, started by giving the rice to Munich/C2 and renaming all the cities (C1, C2, etc.) to make it easier to refer to them. Settled C4 right next to the copper and hooked it up ASAP. I grabbed Fishing and AH on the way to Writing (for the CoL slingshot) and discovered horses just south of C1! In 1200 BC Boudica adopted slavery and a subsequent spike in the power graph is turning up the heat. My lead won't last for long. She dropped a city pretty close to the border too. I've been whipping - mostly granaries and axemen, but I admit my whipping strategy is pretty subpar. C3's already pissed and the others are approaching their happy cap very quickly. C1 is already there.

Spoiler :

In summary, pop growth is still outpacing tile improvement and a barb city just spawned to the south, where I'm planning on settling those cities to block Rameses. I'm leaning towards dropping the slingshot to focus on Boudica and producing settlers/workers. Chariots will be nice and I'm hoping that I'll be able to cut off her supply to iron/copper for the majority of the war.

I'm expecting that I'll need 9 axes per city, plus 4-8 chariots to pillage. Not to mention spears, if I need them. Waiting for Writing to scout is probably disadvantageous so I'm going to stretch my luck and invade blind. I only have about 25 turns til AD 1, and I'm short on cities. My window is shrinking fast. What I might do is send a weaker advance army to pillage improvements while building up a larger invasion force. C1 and C2 have barracks already. I'm going to aim for taking one city, 2 if I can pull it off, and hopefully steal her copper/iron.

Once that front cools down, I'll probably move some veterans down to take and/or raze the barb city. If I decide to go for all-out war, I'm going to research Horseback Riding next, then IW, Math -> Construction for cats. That will at least put CoS within reach... ish.

 

[barbertje]

You're busy going broke. You'll end up in a strike before you have your axe army ready.
Both Boudica and Ramses are much too far away for an axe rush.
Horse archers might work better, but you'll get the tech too late with your low science.
I wouldn't like teching construction here and going for catapults, the main reason is the total lack of happy resources, you'll need monarchy soon. A succesful catapult war really needs a couple of early happiness resources to combat the unhappiness of whipping.

Getting the Oracle is good, because you'll also get close to monarchy.
You really can't afford to get mediation and masonry, and then plan an axe rush.

9 beakers at 875 BC is bad. you should delete the warriors out of your borders, or use them as garrisons. No need for fog-busters once you get a few axes.

You've got 7 improved tiles in your size 3 capital, meanwhile C4 works 2 unimproved grasslands.

The best plan here is just to expand, adopt Boudica's religion ASAP, use the marble to get the great library, mausoleum, parthenon etc, and go for curassiers.
For now, you'll want some more cottages to get more beakers, and you can grab the barb city with axes. Teching Aesthetics and trading for alfabet might be possible, but is uncertain with only 2 AI's, I think I would go for monarchy myself here.

 

[Lennier]

And Lennier - I thought I had responded, but unfortunately I'm on an older macbook and BUG is hard to get working on it due to the OS, not to mention the old hardware. I'm afraid it might melt my motherboard if I tried it! But it looks like a fantastic mod. Perhaps if I could get Civ4 to run on my linux desktop...

I run Civ IV on a MacBook Pro. There's one line of Python in BUG that needs to be delete for BUG to run on a Mac--if you search the Mac forum here you can find instructions on finding and killing that line. Not sure if there is a Linux version of Civ IV, and if so, if it runs Python v. 2.3 (like PCs) or v. 2.2 (like Macs).

After installing BUG on my Mac, I noticed that load an quit times increased a bit, but otherwise performance was unchanged.

Edit: The instructions to delete the line are here.

 

[Gumbolt]

You can get OB with Egyptians. No reason not to??? Send scout to explore defences and for resources??

Yeah C4 is not doing great things. 2 unworked tiles. Better to work mine and marble over the copper tile. 6 hammers and 2 commerce vs 4 hammers. Could also work corn for growth???

C3. Could be working the sea resource. Not a fan of citizens for 1 hammer. You need that commerce.

C7 would need a border pop. Could take 10-20+ turns to become useful.

The overlap of your cities is not ideal. 2 cities close to the capital sharing 2 food resources? No granary in capital? Staunted growth at size 3? Why are you capping your capital's growth at size 3??? Perhaps you could of whipped capital more. Size 4-2 or 5-3 whips.

Agree about axe rush. The closest Ai is 10-12 tiles away from your capital. A lot of effort to rush an AI. You have loads of land to expand into. Would have been better to focus on Oracle and grab monarchy. Get writing and run some scientists and 1-2 cottage cities to push science.

I would not be deleting the units you have built. As long as you get Oracle and monarchy. Once you have Monarchy you can start expanding and building your economy. You can use the units built to help happiness in your cities with HR civic.

Yeah keep your tech plan focused. Don't go for every tech. E.g focus on BW for a rush or PH for Oracle. Choose 5-6 key techs you need. Normally 1 food tech, BW?? then towards Oracle or another tech.