Asking for tips for Monarch play - The costs of war

[escream1]

Hello civfanatics!

So, you guys are so efficient at giving feedback and help that it's just too tempting to come and ask again! ;-)

I started a game yesterday with the following settings:
- Standard size
- Epic speed
- Shuffle map scripts (ended up Continents)
- Unrestricted leaders
- No Vassals

I ended up becoming Brennus of the Romans, which comes to this:
- Spiritual Charismatic (wow)
- UU Praetorians; UB Forum (wow again)

This game, I was able to stick to the plan of focusing much more on war (well, at least partially). The result is that I was able to conquer a lot of cities, but here I am in 1300 AD researching Education with no Music researched, no Great Library built and my science slider at 20%.

I don't have access to my other computer right now, but I'll try to keep my questions generic. My main issue here is to find out how you guys handle the high costs of warring and conquering new cities, while you're getting more and more behind in tech.

- Decision to go to war:
I had 3 other civs on my continent. I had plenty of good land to settle 7 decent to good cities. I had to get there first, but the closest neighbors weren't too close.
But 4 civs on one continent + Praetorians + Charismatic gotta mean war, right?
I teched IW pretty fast (double cow, double gold capitol) and started building Praetorians. As I had some time before that, I founded 4 cities total in the meantime. (including capitol).
There were still at least two good city spots left. But planning early warfare (before construction) must be a good plan here, right?
I declared to my closest neighbor when equipped with 6 Praets, 2 Axeman and 2 Horse Archers to counter enemy attacking axeman - tbh I declared with more Praets and no counter units first, got my stack attacked and significantly weakened by Axemen, then reloaded a save...

- Raze vs Govern:
In my first war I kept only the 2 best cities out of the 5 ones available.
I had 5 cities already before declaring (4 cities + captured a close barbarian city that took one of the good spots) and I wanted to continue my war to the second neighbor. It seemed like keeping more cities would have significantly crippled me!

Before my second war, I waited a little to recover and to get Construction to bombard those high defense cities of the second neighbor. Until then, I built mostly units and switched to building Catapults when my researchers got there.
By that time, it seemed that I would have such a superior position at the end of this war that I would be able to manage the maintenance costs. I also got Civil Service at some point.
So I decided to keep all the cities (some distant ones) and rush-build courthouses.

But the science slider was desperately low, still losing money (some reserve from conquests) and it wasn't really getting better.

Once the second civ was down, I declared on the third and last one on the continent. But this one started hurting! The opponent had strong longbows already at the start of the war, then started countering me with Macemen.
I razed a crappy city and conquered 3 more, but time was passing too fast and my opponent was close to getting Guilds. I took Aesthetics for peace 1 turn before he finished teching Guilds.

I guess I may still be able to win this game, but I am at such a different position than usually.
I have 18 cities now, but 20% science slider and a pis.ed off neighbor, who is still going strong. Usually, my science booms at that period, I get to Lib first, Rifling first and start declaring.

How do you decide whether it's best to raze or keep a city, given that you want to conquer the whole continent as fast as possible? My neighbors were not strong builders as the only wonder on my continent is a Great Wall from the capitol of the first civ I conquered, which means that no conquered city came with a nice bonus like Pyramids or something. Not even a holy city.


- Great People and Wonders
I think one of the mistakes I made this game was going for the Pyramids at some point. My cities were pumping out units at a very decent rate, my capitol was quite production heavy (but only a couple of forests left) and I thought that it would help take advantage of the Spiritual trait. Nevertheless, I was beaten to it by 10 turns (so not really close). Sure it got me some money, but I didn't have any stone nor high pop cities (for specialists) planned in the near future...

Nevertheless, it just seemed that this complete lack of Great People was really slowing down my development. No wonders, no music, a lot of whipping --> no GP.

Do you generally try to have 1 city generating GPPs, even when going for all-out war? My capitol was not perfect for that as it was a really good spot, but not very food-rich. But I had one city with 5 flood plains in the BFC which could have been a decent GP farm. I kept building units only in this city, whipping whenever possible, until the middle of the second war, where I built a library to pop the borders (going from 2 flood plains to 5).

- How to manage newly conquered cities:
I tend to whip a culture producing building (library or monument) to avoid "motherland=betterland" syndrome, or a Courthouse to reduce costs.
Is that a good call or do you just produce wealth and that's it? I tried producing a first building then units, but that just adds to the global maintenance I guess...

- War against superior units:
In lower difficulty levels, this should just never happen.
But here, it definitely can and it did in the third war.
Can we just continue pounding with inferior units but superior numbers? We get more and more losses, but maybe it's worth it?
When I saw that Knights were coming in and all I had were Praets and Cats, I got scared...

Well, that's it for today.
I guess you could help me more with a save, but maybe some of you can give some general tips on these kinds of situations.

Thanks!

 

[nate46]

Usually what i do is beeline currency immediately once i start rushing. With two gold mines it shouldn't be hard to get too.

Then you can build money everywhere and get extra trade routes.

Researching horseback riding is not a good idea on a praet rush -- you need that tech for your economy (currency, aesthetics, or maybe sailing for great lighthouse if you have a lot of coast). axes are only a soft counter to praets.

If you're getting killed by axemen on a monarch praet rush, esp with two gold mines, you're rushing too late and you need to work on your early development and getting your rush out sooner.

as for the later game...

If your economy is garbage, one thing you can do on spiritual is switch to caste system temporarily and run merchants everywhere. This is especially good if you conquered the pyramids.

Another problem -- I can't see your map, but if your econ is that bad by 1300 ad, you may just not be building enough workers. You're developing and cottaging up all of these cities you're conquering, right? It might just be a micro issue. you might be able to tweak out more commerce out of the cities you've conquered just by managing your workers and tiles and specialists better.

I don't recommend razing cities in most cases. Instead of razing the city, just ignore it and don't attack it, unless its giving you culture problems in the good cities you took. You don't actually have to conquer the whole continent in the ancient era, once you get 10 or 15 good cities you can stop warmongering and just go for liberalism or steel.

One thing that can help -- not sure if you have this option on your map -- if you find any islands near the mainland (sometimes they randomly appear even on pangaea) you can build a boat and settle the island for a 2 commerce trade route in all of your cites. This is really useful if you're warmongering heavily such that you don't have enough trading partners to fill out +2 routes in all your cities.

and just build a lot of cottages generally.

Also, with brennus (charismatic, mysticism) (edit: wait. i forgot, you don't actually have mysticism since you're the romans. but still something to consider..) on monarch you should probably be building the stonehenge So no need to whip monuments... although on higher difficulties this doesn't work, since stonehenge goes so early... but on monarch you can build it by 1800 bc in your 3rd city and be pretty safe, and if it doesn't go at least you get fail gold and lost almost nothing. If you happen get a great priest from the stonehenge (rather than a scientist or something), you can save it to make a holy city shrine which would also help your economy on warmongering games such as these.

 

[georgjorge]

Sadly, my long comment took too long and disappeared.

nate46 made some very good points already - you should rush earlier (and without waiting for horses) and get Currency early.

I rarely raze cities, unless they really don't have much food. Gotta keep the whip maching going!

There are some key economic techs you want to get within a decent timeframe. You shouldn't conquer so many cities that you can't reach the next economic tech fast enough. From the start:

Writing (traderoutes/Libraries)
Alphabet (building Research)
Currency (traderoutes / building Wealth)
Code of Laws (courthouses)
Civil Service (Bureaucracy)
Economics (traderoutes)

Focus on those and the techs needed to conquer someone else (Construction, Engineering). Nothing else. No unneeded wonders or techs.

You should have some cities which don't get whipped for units (much) but sustain your economy. Out of 18, at least 4 or 5. Cottage them heavily, especially the capital (you can move the palace) if the land allows. Run some specialists. You should at least get the first three or four Great Persons, which can be done just with Libraries + Scientists and with a couple of wonders. Even if you can't bulb something good, a golden age with 18 cities can give you quite some commerce.

As to your last question, on Monarch you CAN win against superior units through numbers if you have enough cities. I have won domination against 5 AIs just with Horse Archers, and Praets should be able to do it as well. The biggest problem is if too many AIs are on another continent and you need to tech all the way to Astronomy...but you could try Pangea for a start.

 

[escream1]

Hey!

I realize that I made a mistake in my game description: when I first declared war, I had 2 Chariots in my stack, not Horse Archers! This makes a big difference indeed! I didn't research Horseback Riding myself, I just traded it at some point.

 

[escream1]

Thanks nate and georgjorge for your constructive comments!

I will try to break down the different comments into "Yes, definitely", "Let's have a look" and "Not sure about this".

- Yes, definitely:
- No city razing: That's actually a very simple but very liberating feedback! I thought that when conquering a lot of cities, I would need to balance when to raze and when not to. But I'll just keep them all (except those crappy cities in the middle of the desert and no food that the AI just got there to get a resource I already have). Maybe keep some weak cities from weak AIs alive.
- Caste system and merchants: Well, that's something I haven't even considered that game. My food wasn't great in general, but still, there surely were ways to take advantage of that! Slavery was very useful throughout the game, but with Spiritual it really makes sense to use Caste to catch up during a few turns. Also would have gotten me a GM somewhere at some point, probably. I don't take advantage of Caste System much, ever.... So thanks for that!
- Have some cities (i.e. more than one...) sustain the big empire economy: Maybe I went all-out too much. There were a few potentially strong economy cities that got stuff like libraries only very very late, just because they were pumping units. But two less units from that city would probably have not mattered that much compared to what the city could bring with a library and one or two other commerce buildings.
- Sheer numbers can indeed win, but on continents it doesn't win the game outright as you need to conquer the other continent...
- Moving the palace: I never really consider that option, but this is a game where it may actually have helped! For example moving it to the first conquered AI capitol.

- Let's have a look:
- Worker micro: Well, I do think about building workers and enough of them and I do build cottages a lot. But there are probably improvements to be made in my game here! On the top of my head, two things come to mind:
1. Starting the improvements of conquered cities sooner. When you conquer a civ, at some point you will get their last workers. I usually bring in one or two workers earlier (depending on how big the empire is), but I confess that I do not rush things in that regards. Usually, some tiles are improved already, the cities tend to starve in the beginning due to culture (so not many tiles worked) and the workers are in danger of getting killed by the enemy so close to the borders. But I think I can manage to micro this better, escorting a worker with a good unit or two for example. Chopping those forests for example would be very helpful indeed in these cities.
2. Better worker micro-management after 5th city. While I do try to optimize worker management during the first 100 turns or so, especially in my core cities, I tend to get lazy in that regard at some point, especially in city number 10 or so. It's not that I do not think about it at all, but I glance at the worker, glance at the surroundings and just improve the best tile around. But it's very possible that I'm missing many opportunities here! For example, I clearly remember thinking a few times "what's this worker doing improving tier2 tiles for this city, he should be helping out the other worker in this other city?".

- Rush speed: I must say, I wasn't under the impression that I was that late on my rush in this game. But I still take the comment, because it is soo important indeed to get there as soon as possible. Nevertheless, I might have given a wrong impression here. Because I said that I had Horse Archers while they were Chariots to counter Axemen. And because I complained about enemy Axemen. My stack wasn't crushed by Axemen, but my first AI opponent was the kind that likes to attack you rather than stay on defense once you declare. And losing two CR Macemen to two attacks from a CombatI Axemen before you attack at all makes you rethink you warring strategy
But again, I will try to rush it even more (but Praets definitely take longer than Axe rush...)
- Economic techs: Well, this is almost a "Not sure about this", but not quite... I do prioritize Writing and Currency. I usually go for Alphabet later on now, getting Currency through Math. I also researched CoL pretty early as my early teching rate was really decent due to all the Gold (three Gold tiles in two first cities). But I have to say, I researched Civil Service really late. This may have been a mistake. I thought "my empire is big already and getting bigger, I might have more uses of other technologies than concentrating on capitol", but Bureaucracy is still such a good Civic, I should have gone for it much sooner, allowing me to get the other techs faster I guess.... Economics comes later anyways...

Not sure about this
- Cities on island: Well, it turns out this was not option. But I wouldn't have known anyway as even by the end of my gameplay I had only 5 or 6 coastal cities and literally no single seafood. So I didn't build any boats at all, all game... But I like the tip a lot in general!!
- Wonders: Stonehenge was never really an option, as pointed out because of being Roman Brennus.

Well, that's it! Thanks for your tips! I'll try to take some stuff into consideration in my next game!

 

[nate46]

>libraries

If your science slider is stuck at 20% average*, libraries aren't going to help you much. I mean, they can be a good move but, the 25% science isn't going to do anything with a science slider that low. You need to fix your economy and get your science slider up first.

Although definitely build at least one library somewhere to get a great scientist. You can use this on an academy -- but like the library, an academy isn't so good if your econ is crap, either.

Honestly I think your problem may just be simply not building enough cottages. Its hard to imagine an economy that crappy if you built cottages. The sooner you get a cottage and start working it, the sooner it turns into a village. So just cottage up all the grassland rivers in newly conquered cities ASAP, and then 45 turns later (epic, right?) you'll have a bunch of 2f/4c villages to work and your economy will be trucking along. You can also build mines and stuff and then just build money once you get currency.

(I think monarch is too low of a difficulty to benefit much from wonder fail gold, right? Although on higher difficulties, you can start building wonders expecting to miss them and then rack up the gold. Especially if you have marble or stone...)

 

[nate46]

another thing.. you might just have too many units. Past a certain point every military unit costs 1g/t. If you build more than you need, your economy will go to crap.

 

[Fippy]

Well with marble or stone you could build failgold (chops work best here, esp after maths), and complete them yourself it they are decent wonders.
I find Aestetics for example not just good for getting those wonders, but also fail golding.
Should not be too difficult with many cities, often AIs are also not chopping their trees before you capture them

If we also add IND, that gets really good lol..with that trait your economy should basically never be in really bad shape, if you also get marble and / or stone..
and well, if you captured many cities it's very likely you find those resis.

Oh and you could also give some AIs Aest, there are so many wonders here i am sure they would complete some in reasonable time, even on Monarch if gifted the techs. Or going even further, also the resis if you have double.

 

[nate46]

And losing two CR Praets to two attacks from a CombatI Axemen before you attack at all makes you rethink you warring strategy

You should give at least a couple of the praets combat promotions so the city raider ones aren't prioritized.

 

[escream1]

Yes libraries don't do much with the slider at 20%
But my science was really fine for a good while due to the gold and all. Building a library in my second city that had 2 flood plains in the first ring and five total in the second would have caused a much much earlier border pop in that city, allow me to cottage it all up early and make it a second economic powerhouse. This in turn allows me to get to later techs faster and snowball easier into good civics and so on. (While in my game I chose to farm these two inner flood plains to max the whip)
Combined with better worker mgmt (I did default to cottages quite fast later on) and "population mgmt" (hiring a few specialists instead of growing), it should help a lot!

 

[escream1]

> units
I was gonna ask about the unit count! I may have had too many at some point.

 

[escream1]

> failgold
I did catch some failgold with my attempt for pyramids. But as I wasn't ind and no stone and no marble in sight, it didn't make a lot of sense to go that route.

 

[rah]

You should give at least a couple of the praets combat promotions so the city raider ones aren't prioritized.

Or a couple of axes with shock that could have been built while researching IW (or waiting to trade for it)

 

[nate46]

another thing -- how soon are you teching pottery?

Usually when i do praet rushes i tech pottery before iron working to get some cottages up and running. With double gold you can probably get away with not doing this, but for long term it helps quite a bit...

the thing about cottages is that the way the math works--in the very very long term, every turn you don't work a river cottage costs you 5 commerce--since it will eventually turn into a town... working the cottage pushes up the date of hamlet, village, and town by 1 turn each. So the turn you work it now effectively gives you 2 commerce immediately, plus 1 commerce in 15 turns, 1 commerce in 45 turns, and 1 commerce in 95 turns, for +5 commerce total.

Of course if you get the cottage too late it won't grow in a reasonable amount of time but if you get it early you're really helping your mid-game economy by building a few cottages in the mid bcs.

 

[Lennier]

I think one of the mistakes I made this game was going for the Pyramids at some point.

> failgold
I did catch some failgold with my attempt for pyramids. But as I wasn't ind and no stone and no marble in sight, it didn't make a lot of sense to go that route.

Conventional wisdom is not to go for the Pyramids unless you either have stone or are industrious. Also, without a multiplier (IND or resource), failgold from a wonder is the same as you'd get by building wealth--and you have to wait for the gold to come (vs. building wealth when you get the gold immediately.)

My impression is that you could have some of your cities building wealth instead of units (once you have enough to conquer) to keep your economy out of the gutter until enough cottages are villages/towns to sustain it.

 

[elitetroops]

1. Starting the improvements of conquered cities sooner.

...

the cities tend to starve in the beginning due to culture (so not many tiles worked) and the workers are in danger of getting killed by the enemy so close to the borders.

This is an indication that your war is too slow. Most of the time the next AI city should have fallen before a city you conquered is out of revolt, getting rid of surrounding culture and anything threatening your workers. Why it is too slow is hard to say without more info. We'd need to know your attack date to say how early/late the rush was. You should bring enough units, and have reinforcements on the way, so that you can take the first few cities with minimum to no healing time. Often it makes sense to not heal to full strength, use promotions for healing and bring wounded units as backup when moving on the next city.

And losing two CR Macemen to two attacks from a CombatI Axemen before you attack at all makes you rethink you warring strategy

Never ever give a unit a CR promotion until right before it is about to attack a city. Save the XP until then. If your stack is attacked and the unit survives, you get healing from the promotion as well. Later, when you start having CR2 and CR3 praets in the stack, you want to make sure to have some Combat promoted Praets as well, so that the CR praets don't get chosen as top defenders.

 

[Jivilov]

Had a Warlords game on Emperor as Brennus recently that turned sour after the first war. Was ahead in techs but lost that advantage very quickly. Mistakes included:
1) Expanding too fast. Had 7 settlements (one barb) before attacking, probably too late. Like, who cares about city maintenance? Not me!
2) Poor reconnaissance. Did not scout enemy territory thoroughly enough beforehand.
3) Lack of resolve. Took one city, then shilly-shallied about the second (not the capital, since didn't have Cats). Had plenty of units but oh, better not, it's in desert, then sued for peace.Turned out it had flood plains w/hamlets or villages at that point. See 2 above.
4) Failure to mind economy. Spammed Axes and Gallic Swords with excessive whips and consequent burden of unit support, to the detriment of worked tiles by willing citizens.
5) Ignored religion. Had opportunity to spread and convert to Buddhism, then adopt Organized Religion, but was so intent on spamming obsolescent units the opportunity whistled through my skull.
6) Ignored wonder possibilities. Might've had Great Library but hey, gotta spam units, right? Wrong!
7) After suing for peace (just one fructifying city taken!), kept excessive units mustered while waiting for Construction and Cats. Great way to screw any positive gold flow and hand rivals the tech lead.
8) In general, failed to be alert to non-combat possibilities even while at war. Live and learn, eh?

Here's hoping this brief catalogue of error serves as a severe cautionary tale to rash warmonger wanna-bees.

 

[EnglishEdward]

escream1

How many of those 18 cities have courthouses and did you build a Forbidden?

 

[escream1]

@elitetroops: slow war
Yes, this is probably a valid point. I do try to proceed as fast as possible within a war, but there must be room for improvement.
For example, I always wait for most of my troops to be completely healed before proceeding to the next city. A super-medic helps a lot for that (da.n, how difficult wars were before I realised that "super-medics" were a thing) but I guess I can save one turn sometimes here. I'm just too chicken to attack a new city when my units are not in perfect shape Also good points about keeping promotions for later.
Nevertheless, conquering a neighbor city before revolt is over is not always enough to get rid of cultural pressure.
Anyway, I think I've been lazy with worker management in my remote cities. And I think it is true that I need to build a few more workers early in order to catch up with cottage building.

@EnglishEdward - Courthouses
9 cities had courthouses at the time of writing. I built the Forbidden Palace in the capitol of the second AI that I conquered. I think it was a nice spot for that. But still, I think it took me too long to get there (too few workers chopping nearby forests, and so on and so on)

 

[lunfa_reo]

As someone already said, having units in excess of a certain number makes you pay 1gpt in unit maintenance for each unit past that number. But there is also unit support: when units are outside your cultural borders you pay 1gpt extra per unit. It's a good idea to retreat units to your territory when not attacking, when healing (if not particularly in a hurry) or moving everything into the city you've just conquered (which has just become your territory) to save on unit support gold.