Advice on Monarch game

[WTBCzero]

So i started my first game on Monarch today. I found myself on one landmass, with hammurabi as my neighbour. Was able to block his expansion southwards, leaving him with only poor quality land to settle. I build the Great Wall, and used a great spy to steal a load of techs of hammurabi.

The problem was that my tech rate was really bad until very recently (due to having no AIs to trade with) and so i've only recently emerged out of backwardness.

A group of AIs on the main continent have a tech lead on me. My plan to catch up is to switch to free religion to keep the other AIs happy while i invade a wipe out hammurabi, then sit back and prepare for a space race win.

Anyway, I'm looking for advice as I'm not sure if i can win. Even with Hammurabi's land, I'm not sure if i'm going to be able to catch up tech wise. There are some unclaimed islands throughout the map; should I claim them? Is my city placement dodgy? (I've got quite a few wasted tiles, but I think I've made the best use of the land as I can).


Thanks in advance. Save attached.

 

[Cam_H]

WTBCzero,

I certainly think that the game is salvagable, but your lagging technology position is of clear concern.

Unfortunately I can't tell what has been stolen from the Babylonians and what has been researched by you, so am reluctant to make too many points about your technology tree, although I think that the Astronomy bee-line is something that's worked well for you.

So, here goes ...

• You are unable to attack Babylon at this point. Your SoD sitting in Utica should be dispersed to other cities so they can grow with Hereditary Rule's happiness.

• Your research should be directed to finishing Education, possibly Guilds next if you want Grocers to address your 'borderline' health issues as well as giving a discount on your next tech'; Gunpowder, then Chemistry for Military Science and Steel. I think that you should eventually aim to take out Babylon with Grenadiers and Cannons.
  
  Finish off Observatories in your big three science centres (or start in Utica!), and follow these with Universities. Indeed Utica is missing a Forge, so this could be your immediate build.
  
  Astronomy is a desirable technology, so keep your eye open for trades with the less advanced tribes where you could pick up Guilds or Gunpowder and save yourself some time. This might improve some relations too with some, but you're bound to hit 'you traded with our worst enemy' sooner or later. These deals aren't fair, but they will act to draw you closer to the technology leaders, which is really a priority.

• Some problem with the Granary improvement? Many of your cities are growing slowly and well under their caps. Given your Rice, you'll also get a free health point. I suspect slow growth has not helped your early game development.

• Resource trades incl. trades for /turn - use them.

• The jungle island ... it's sure tempting, but it's at a mid-point between Montezuma and Shaka. Too likely to get invaded, too hard to defend, and possibly too expensive at this point in the game. If you had already secured the Babylonian empire's land then I'd be more inclined to say 'yes', but I think that there's a gamble in settling it.

• Note the Barbarian Axes about to eat your Workers!

• Look at the use of Farms. Carthage is stagnant at 11, although I acknowledge that it can grow to 13 with rearrangement. Aside from Hadrumetum, the only Farms in your empire are on your Rice resources. The lack of Granaries and chain-irrigation has led to very slow population growth, despite Charismatic + Hereditary Rule addressing prospective happiness issues.

From here your science haul should be propelled along with Observatories and Universities in your commerce centres, and prospectively Oxford University too - Utica rather than Carthage perhaps?

Take Babylon out with Industrial Age units, and start firming up your coastal cities with some respectable defenders (Montezuma and Shaka ... need we say more?). You can start by working on Macemen and giving them City Raider I promotion while you're waiting for Military Science to come in for Grenadier upgrades (maybe keep some Maces for cleaning up the last Babylonian defenders so they can get further City Raider promotions, although loads of City Raiders may not be all that important if it's just Babylon that you're going to invade before 'turtling').

Afterwards, consider Superconductors through Biology then Refrigeration that will go some way to offsetting further health difficulties, and you should be able to catch up with early Laboratories. Again, look for trade deals for technologies that will edge you towards Rifling and maybe pick up Liberalism for Free Religion as you suggested (and Free Speech in light of your emphasis on Cottages).

Hope this is of help, and best of luck with it!

 

[WTBCzero]

stuff

A played it through to 1700 before i saw your post, but your advice will be helpful for future games.

* You are unable to attack Babylon at this point. Your SoD sitting in Utica should be dispersed to other cities so they can grow with Hereditary Rule's happiness.

I was expecting a attack and so had a SoD parked in the city i thought would be assaulted. It seems it wasn't needed, he hasn't attacked me yet.

Some problem with the Granary improvement? Many of your cities are growing slowly and well under their caps. Given your Rice, you'll also get a free health point. I suspect slow growth has not helped your early game development.

How early should i build granaries? I usually like the build research buildings before i build the granary.

Note the Barbarian Axes about to eat your Workers!

I have the Great Wall, so the workers have nothing to worry about

Resource trades incl. trades for /turn - use them.

I did this when i played through, and boasted my research rate by 20% or so. Looks like this could be a good strategy on monarch.

Look at the use of Farms. Carthage is stagnant at 11, although I acknowledge that it can grow to 13 with rearrangement. Aside from Hadrumetum, the only Farms in your empire are on your Rice resources. The lack of Granaries and chain-irrigation has led to very slow population growth, despite Charismatic + Hereditary Rule addressing prospective happiness issues.

Surely the best strategy is to cottage spam? I don't really bother growing cities with farms, since I make less money in the short term.


Anyway, I've been tech trading like mad and now no one will trade with me because of WFYHBTA

Still, I'm okay techwise, still three or four techs behind, but I should be able to beeline to computers and build the internet (does the AI build this?).

 

[Cam_H]

WTBCzero,

I've just played to 1700AD just for comparison's sake if you were interested, but I'm not sure if my attempts are anything to write home about.

Largely pressed on with development - although still haven't got the 7 Uni's up for Oxford yet!

I've got together a mediocre army of 4 Cannons and 16 Grenadiers that have literally just invaded Babylon and taken Opis. Frankly I was intending to get this invasion force together a lot earlier, but there seemed to be so many good required buildings (Granaries, Cothons, Customs Houses, Universities, and now Levees) that it did slow things down in the military department a bit.

I got two Great Scientists - the first was used for an Academy in Kerkouane, while the second triggered a Golden Age in 1670AD (sacralige?) as I wanted to ramp up the pace a bit as well as switch Civics (now Universal Suffrage, Free Speech, Emancipation, Free Market, Free Religion). Moving out of The Caste System to Emancipation has nerfed the Great Scientist Farm, but I think overall a fair trade-off. I just had a volcano destroy some improvements to the west of Kerkouane.

We haven't got Coal (haven't got Railroad yet either, so no biggie), but Hammurabi does.

Like yourself, did a lot of technology trading, and there's nothing left on offer right now. Currently researching Refrigeration with a view to Superconductors.

One thing - just keep half an eye on Arabia trying to get a Cultural win.

Anyway - this may or may not be of interest to you.

On some of your questions;

I rate Granaries very highly - especially when going a bit whip happy in the first third of the game. The capacity to quickly rebuild population and get more tiles worked is an important 'tool in the toolbox'. Furthermore, if you are 'Cottage spamming', unless there are a few food resources in the fat-X, the city can at times grow pretty slowly, so speeding population up means more tiles worked and faster developing 'Cottages to Towns' transitions. It's common to have access to at least one of Wheat, Corn or Rice, so the health bonus is usually welcome, especially amongst Flood Plains or Jungle sites where you'll be wanting to build Cottages.

Chain irrigation may or may not be useful to your empire, but you will find some areas that just are not going to get to their full population potential because they will run out of food well before reaching their happiness cap. I've seen several games where players have 'Cottage spammed' a whole heap of Plains tiles, where the population is stuck on something like 6 with nowhere to go and only a few of the Cottages are being worked and therefore of any use. Carthage in your game played a crucial role as the capital in Bureaucracy, and would really benefit from getting as large a population as practicable given the +50% to and , so Farms to push that population number up would be beneficial. Be particularly mindful of irrigating over to Wheat, Corn and Rice Farms, as these will get +1 from access to fresh water.

On The Great Wall ... !

On The Internet - I can't recall having an AI tribe build it in my single player games, but it has been reported in these forums that occasionally they do.

 

[WTBCzero]

Looks like my game is going down the toliet

It's now 1930AD ish, and two big problems have tripped me up:

(1) When i tried to attack Hammurabi, he capitulated to the Khmer, which he had been bribed into going into war with. This means that attacking him is now impossible, since the Khmer have the largest army and the Aztecs and Shaka as vassals.


(2) I was beaten to the internet a turn before I was due to complete it.


Result: 8 cities for the space race, behind on tech, all other AIs ahead of me in the space race, and the Khmer seem to be planning to attack someone (probably me).





Save attached if anyone wants to looks at it.

 

[Cam_H]

WTBCzero,

Certainly winnable.

While you haven't got all space ship technologies, your research is running ahead of your capacity to produce the spaceship parts. As such, swing your focus to production and you can turn down the rate a fair amount so you can pay for cash-rushing:

• You can trigger off two more Golden Ages from here with a switch to Pacifism. You can get two Great People out of Hadrumetum, and one each out of Thapus and Utica, plus use your Great Engineer that's currently sleeping to trigger your next one.

• State Property is the other civic switch you want for a big push on production.

• You might have one or two cities not producing spaceship parts; Sicca and Hadrumetum spring to mind. Other than city improvement buildings, also consider getting some Spies out of these cities to reside in other cities, and run a counter-esionage mission against Babylon.

• Before getting completely focussed on spaceship parts - ensure your cities are at an optimum position to build them quickly. Utica is (still!) missing a Forge, while Leptis is missing a Laboratory (as is Sicca if you want to build a cheaper part such as a Casing or a Thruster there). Use Universal Suffrage and your big bank balance to hurry these improvements along. Hurrying the construction of Industrial Parks is another tactic to consider.

• I'd suggest reviewing Hadrumetum - continue to run Specialists out of it with a view to popping two Great People, but it can be transformed into a reasonably useful support city for churning out some Spies as suggested just above. This means changes such as the Levee improvement, and replacing Farms with Watermills and Workshops. Consider hurrying appropriate improvements (e.g. Market) so it can run more Specialists.

• Ironworks!

• Delete obsolete units such as Axes and Warriors as they're costing money and too costly to upgrade.

• Review terrain improvements to maximise haul; Workshops, Watermills, and Mines.

• When you're getting 'down to the wire', chop forests to shave a turn off your last part(s). There are lots of forests that are outside any fat-X, let alone chopping down your Lumbermill tiles for Workshops. Also run down cities' food supplies if you can improve the time it takes to build the final parts.

A late-1950's launch should be well within reach.

Again, I hope this is of help!

 

[WTBCzero]

Hmmm, Frederick won a space race victory five turns before i was due to



This was a pretty difficult first Monarch game- are most monarch level games like this?

 

[Munch]

Hmmm, Frederick won a space race victory five turns before i was due to



This was a pretty difficult first Monarch game- are most monarch level games like this?

Harsh.
First-attempt Monarch games are like this, or at least mine was a real struggle throughout, and I learnt a lot. If you were to play this exact game again, I'm sure you'd win. It is rare to see an AI player with so many vassals though.

You had a tough start being on the smaller landmass; generally I've found that as you move up the difficulties, you are less likely to get one of the best available capitals. I might be imagining this, though; I still get the occasional double gold/gems start on monarch.