Better off restarting or is runaway AIs a normal thing at Monarch?

[Unmei]

First of all, congrats on release v.38 and thank you for your hard work!

Now, I first found out about this mod quite a few years ago, but didn't really get into it until last year, when I put a good hundred hours or so into a v.37 game that lasted all the way into the modern (industrial?) age. Since I did pretty well in that game playing on Prince, I decided to turn up the difficulty a notch and go with Monarch for my v.38 game. However, a couple of hours in and having just entered the Classical age, I'm starting to wonder if I'm not better off just restarting since the AI is just that far ahead of me.

The game is a Monarch difficulty one on a Large map and Epic speed mostly with default options, but with "Tech Diffusion" off and "Beeline Stings" on. I actually had a really nice (I think) starting location with a lot of water resources around me, so I figured I'd research techs that would let me take advantage of that first, so I could grab a lot of food and quickly grow my capital.
By the time I got there though, AIs were already hitting Sedentary Lifestyle, and now that I'm early on in the Classical Age, they're already more than halfway through that tier.
They also have double the cities I do, even though I keep expanding as soon as I have enough financial leeway, they completely eclipse my espionage output and have an army 3-4 times my size.

Am I just doing something horrendously wrong, or is this a normal occurrence on Monarch difficulty? I could try pushing on, but I'm pretty sure the AI has such an advantage over me already that it'll just end up in a snowball situation where I'll never be able to catch up and just get crushed a dozen or so hours later.

I am a player that likes to turtle; preferring a robust infrastructure over aggressive expansion. Could that be the issue? Do I need to go on a murderous rampage ASAP to keep the AI in check right out of the gate? Or do I need to ignore any tech that doesn't lead straight into Sedentary Lifestyle?

I have quite a bit of experience with 4X games, or so I'd like to think, but I'm honestly at a bit of a loss here. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[raxo2222]

Well AI got better now.
First try to play on your old difficulty.
If you played on V37 without patches, then in mean time a lot of AI related bugs got fixed.

 

[Faustmouse]

Sounds like a pretty cool game so far
As mentioned, AI got better by quite a lot now. But being behind for 1/2 era is not that much and for me, it would make up a great challange. If I were you, I'd keep playing and try to catch up. Normally, the further down the road, the worse the AI get and you can catch up.

 

[JosEPh_II]

As Faustmouse says Keep playing! You have a good challenge going. And when you do get faced with adversity you will grow from it.

Overall this v38 version is a much much better version than v37 was.

A key to play now is keeping your Education levels above 0 and having a +/turn. Getting to far in the Negative range will bite you.

Keep at it, and enjoy the challenge.

 

[Unmei]

Fortunately, being so gung-ho about having robust infrastructure means I don't think I've ever seen education go anything but up, significantly so, heh.

Alright then, I'll give it a shot. Hopefully this isn't one of those cases where the game has essentially already been decided. I don't mind losing, but not even having a chance is neither fun nor interesting. Guess we'll find out.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Fortunately, being so gung-ho about having robust infrastructure means I don't think I've ever seen education go anything but up, significantly so, heh.

Alright then, I'll give it a shot. Hopefully this isn't one of those cases where the game has essentially already been decided. I don't mind losing, but not even having a chance is neither fun nor interesting. Guess we'll find out.

Your not that far behind especially only being in the Classical era. I have a game up in Modern Era (Immortal) and I'm still almost an Era behind the tech leader. And it's far from over.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Fortunately, being so gung-ho about having robust infrastructure means I don't think I've ever seen education go anything but up, significantly so, heh.

Alright then, I'll give it a shot. Hopefully this isn't one of those cases where the game has essentially already been decided. I don't mind losing, but not even having a chance is neither fun nor interesting. Guess we'll find out.

The AI may have been greatly improved and a lot of their 'chasing their own tails' syndrome has been found and eliminated. So they are probably making much better decisions in general and may well be a lot better at war. But there's still a whole lot of player exploits the AI isn't well trained to work with or do much about. Particularly in warfare strategy. Take advantage of it now. Every version the AI will get tougher still.

I gotta admit, my wife and I are in the middle of a very challenging game ourselves. We're not used to it either (except through PVP play in the MP games.)

 

[Unmei]

Guess I'm too used to other strategy games where such gaps are almost insurmountable. But you're definitely giving me hope I have a fighting chance, so thanks!