Beginner's Beginner Strategy

[jafink]

@ThousandYoung... thanks, I have got to say that Mitch Hedberg has some of the best quotes in the world. search in google and you will find pages of them. What a funny guy!

About the worker, settler, settler build: what difficulty are you playing on with that!?!? I never even build one settler without first building at least one warrior for protection.

 

[Sjaramei]

@ThousandYoung... thanks, I have got to say that Mitch Hedberg has some of the best quotes in the world. search in google and you will find pages of them. What a funny guy!

About the worker, settler, settler build: what difficulty are you playing on with that!?!? I never even build one settler without first building at least one warrior for protection.

It works fine with just your starting warrior really, just have him fogbust the way to the 2nd city site. (preferably on top of a hill so you can spot animals far away) The trick is getting barb defense out quick, so 2nd city should always claim copper/horse and be in close proximity. I've ended up with just my first warrior (Woodsman 2 from animals of course) for protection early on sometimes, and this is at emperor level. You don't need a warrior to "babysit" your settler, just have him scout the way, works fine for me

If you have lots of room to expand in it's a whole another deal. Then the fogbusting gets more important so you'll need more warriors early on. (Fog of war spawns barbs, less fog of war = less barbs. So if you or AI have vision of the area you will see less barbs/animals)

(My build is worker - warrior (grow to pop 2) - settler - finish warrior/start barracks (grow to pop 3) - worker - settler)

 

[jafink]

oh thats really surprising to me! thanks for the detail, i will have to try that in my long struggle to master monarch. I usually dont have early settlers or workers. I try to get my capital to pop 3 before, but maybe it is a mistake.

 

[Sjaramei]

oh thats really surprising to me! thanks for the detail, i will have to try that in my long struggle to master monarch. I usually dont have early settlers or workers. I try to get my capital to pop 3 before, but maybe it is a mistake.

Well, my build evolves around getting good improvements ready to use when city grows. (So no working unimproved tiles if i can get away with it)
As you see i get lots of workers fast, so i can use them to chop some defense quick. (2nd city's first build is also worker)
Research the right techs for your starting resources too so the worker isn't idling at start. (Corn means agriculture, animals AH etc)

Oh and i try to save the forests in my capital for wonders/libraries etc so i usually chop defense/axes in 2nd and 3rd cities.

 

[jafink]

I just won a domination victory (small pangae) on Monarch! The main thing that helped me was Quechua rushing. I would really suggest it for anyone who is trying to move up a difficuly level. I immediately attacked my nearest neighbor's capital with my first Quechua, and thankfully I won. Unfortunately I forgot to let it grow to size 2 so I was forced to raze it. I still captured his worker, and it allowed me a lot more room to expand. I then did some very rapid expansion, getting down about 6 cities really fast, but my economy was dying and i hadn't gotten to CoL yet. I spammed cottages everywhere, and since Hyuana Capac is finacial, I wsa able to pull ahead. I then waited for Cavalry and just destroyed everyone in my path. My next goal is to win a space victory on monarch, but I don't have any idea how really.

 

[madscientist]

Congrats on the vistory. You do the space victory the same way, just keep razing a pillaging to keep the AIs backwards and out of space. Do't get too much land so you avoid an accidental domination. Sort of tough for the AI to get a spaceship built if you keep them from even discovering or using oil!!!

 

[jafink]

Okay thanks for the quick reply, I have only really been good at winning space on Noble, which is so simple that you dont really need a strategy. So from what you are saying it sounds like a lot of warfare will still be involved in achieving a space victory on monarch.