Well I picked up civ 4 complete recently after not playing civ 4 for quite a while (i.e. pre-warlords) and played on prince for a while, since i remember playing on monarch and finding it challenging but winnable, so I figured I'd play one difficulty lower to get used to things again. Well I won 3-4 games in a row on prince with great ease, generally having the game "won" by rifling or earlier (meaning I had a very significant land/pop advantage as well as a tech advantage, significantly ahead of 2nd place in score), so I figured I was ready to play monarch again.
Anyway after like 9-10 games, I have yet to make it to rifling where in my mind I have more than a 0% chance of winning, often having given up on the game much earlier.
My biggest problem seems to be some issue finding the right balance of when to grow my empire through war and when not to. My first few games I gave up after warring too much early on and finding my economy totally crippled, finding myself having to run 0-10% science post-war or even on strike.
After adjusting and trying to take it slower, I instead find myself falling behind too much early on and finding one of my rivals has built a massive empire and my conquests are only good enough to get me a distant second and unable to challenge the hegemon and his vassals.
Here's a rundown of my most recent game, where I spend the entire game up to the renaissance era thinking I'll be a major threat for victory to the modern era until one turn it suddenly became impossible to catch the top dog.
(Settings are: Standard size continents, marathon speed, no tech brokering, everything else defaults I think. I pick random civ and end up as Genghis. And I couldn't tell you his second trait after aggressive, which is probably a problem... I tend to play the same general way regardless of the leader I am, which is a separate issue altogether.)
I spawn on the central western coast of my continent with Brennus in the north, Gilgamesh to the south, and Wang to the East. Brennus founds Buddhism and no other religions are founded on my continent, so we are all Buddhist brothers. As the continent fills out, I end up with a comfortable 7 cities (6 founded, one captured from barbs). I'm not the biggest or strongest or most advanced, but I'm definitely competitive and in the mix. I generally play very cottage heavy, in this case only utilizing farms outside of wheat/rice/corn in one city with a lot of hills and river squares as a major hammer city. I do some chopping, probably less than most though as I do have a bit of a likening for lumbermills. Through classical era, I'm running hereditary rule and slavery.
After land grab, I share borders with Brennus to the northeast and Gilgamesh to the southeast, with ocean to my west. Wang is kinda separate from me; I have to pass through gil or bren to get to his territory. Anyway, around like 800 BC or so maybe (swords, axes, archers, horse archers, no knights or longbows, and just before pults) Brennus and Gilgamesh declare on Wang. Wang was clearly the weakest of us four, definitely the smallest empire. I agree to declare on him too but don't have intentions of participating really. His cities are a bit far and would be cut off by gil or bren's territory (mostly brennus). I let them carve up his empire and instead begin planning to invade Brennus later on.
I control the only Ivory sources on the continent so I plan on hitting with a largely ele+pult force pre-engineering so he has no hard counter for the eles. Gilgamesh ends up with the majority of Wang's cities and emerges from the korean annihilation as the largest empire on the continent, so I plan on taking a good chunk of Brennus's cities first before going after him. My relations with Gilgamesh are really high due to religion + civics + mutual struggle, etc. so I'm not worried about him joining to save Brennus.
I declare on Brennus after I get like 8 pults and eles, as well as some other random units from older times. He moves his stack of doom to meet me and it dies pretty easily after some pults soften it up as he still has no hard counter for the elephants. I move into his territory and eventually take 3 cities before my costs get really high and I have to run a much lower science percent than I want so I accept his offer of a tech and some gold for peace.
I now have an empire comparable in size to Gil, though still smaller, and I'm falling behind a bit in the tech race. I figure I can recoup my economy for a little bit before running a lower cost war on Brennus again to take 2-3 more juicy targets and force a surrender before going after Gilgamesh. I find the other civs on the other continent (or rather, they find me) and judging by score none has taken a significant chunk of land from another as they all appear at or below my score so Gilgamesh appears to be the only real problem. After a brief rebuild time, I add some macemen, knights, and trebs to the mix as Brennus now has pikes/longbows available.
And then, before I can declare on Brennus, the game is over. Well not literally, but Brennus becomes a vassal of Gilgamesh, despite still having a reasonable empire (still has 6-7 cities). Though his army was routed, he still can muster enough troops to keep my attention if I decide to go after Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh is definitely bigger and stronger, but he could be manageable... but definitely not with Brennus pushing me from the north. The other continent is a different religion and far away, not likely to be a useful ally against the unholy alliance.
So, I sigh and close the game. Try again tomorrow I guess. Need to be more aggressive earlier I suppose, and can't let Gil carve up Wang that easily either I guess.
Anyway after like 9-10 games, I have yet to make it to rifling where in my mind I have more than a 0% chance of winning, often having given up on the game much earlier.
My biggest problem seems to be some issue finding the right balance of when to grow my empire through war and when not to. My first few games I gave up after warring too much early on and finding my economy totally crippled, finding myself having to run 0-10% science post-war or even on strike.
After adjusting and trying to take it slower, I instead find myself falling behind too much early on and finding one of my rivals has built a massive empire and my conquests are only good enough to get me a distant second and unable to challenge the hegemon and his vassals.
Here's a rundown of my most recent game, where I spend the entire game up to the renaissance era thinking I'll be a major threat for victory to the modern era until one turn it suddenly became impossible to catch the top dog.
(Settings are: Standard size continents, marathon speed, no tech brokering, everything else defaults I think. I pick random civ and end up as Genghis. And I couldn't tell you his second trait after aggressive, which is probably a problem... I tend to play the same general way regardless of the leader I am, which is a separate issue altogether.)
I spawn on the central western coast of my continent with Brennus in the north, Gilgamesh to the south, and Wang to the East. Brennus founds Buddhism and no other religions are founded on my continent, so we are all Buddhist brothers. As the continent fills out, I end up with a comfortable 7 cities (6 founded, one captured from barbs). I'm not the biggest or strongest or most advanced, but I'm definitely competitive and in the mix. I generally play very cottage heavy, in this case only utilizing farms outside of wheat/rice/corn in one city with a lot of hills and river squares as a major hammer city. I do some chopping, probably less than most though as I do have a bit of a likening for lumbermills. Through classical era, I'm running hereditary rule and slavery.
After land grab, I share borders with Brennus to the northeast and Gilgamesh to the southeast, with ocean to my west. Wang is kinda separate from me; I have to pass through gil or bren to get to his territory. Anyway, around like 800 BC or so maybe (swords, axes, archers, horse archers, no knights or longbows, and just before pults) Brennus and Gilgamesh declare on Wang. Wang was clearly the weakest of us four, definitely the smallest empire. I agree to declare on him too but don't have intentions of participating really. His cities are a bit far and would be cut off by gil or bren's territory (mostly brennus). I let them carve up his empire and instead begin planning to invade Brennus later on.
I control the only Ivory sources on the continent so I plan on hitting with a largely ele+pult force pre-engineering so he has no hard counter for the eles. Gilgamesh ends up with the majority of Wang's cities and emerges from the korean annihilation as the largest empire on the continent, so I plan on taking a good chunk of Brennus's cities first before going after him. My relations with Gilgamesh are really high due to religion + civics + mutual struggle, etc. so I'm not worried about him joining to save Brennus.
I declare on Brennus after I get like 8 pults and eles, as well as some other random units from older times. He moves his stack of doom to meet me and it dies pretty easily after some pults soften it up as he still has no hard counter for the elephants. I move into his territory and eventually take 3 cities before my costs get really high and I have to run a much lower science percent than I want so I accept his offer of a tech and some gold for peace.
I now have an empire comparable in size to Gil, though still smaller, and I'm falling behind a bit in the tech race. I figure I can recoup my economy for a little bit before running a lower cost war on Brennus again to take 2-3 more juicy targets and force a surrender before going after Gilgamesh. I find the other civs on the other continent (or rather, they find me) and judging by score none has taken a significant chunk of land from another as they all appear at or below my score so Gilgamesh appears to be the only real problem. After a brief rebuild time, I add some macemen, knights, and trebs to the mix as Brennus now has pikes/longbows available.
And then, before I can declare on Brennus, the game is over. Well not literally, but Brennus becomes a vassal of Gilgamesh, despite still having a reasonable empire (still has 6-7 cities). Though his army was routed, he still can muster enough troops to keep my attention if I decide to go after Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh is definitely bigger and stronger, but he could be manageable... but definitely not with Brennus pushing me from the north. The other continent is a different religion and far away, not likely to be a useful ally against the unholy alliance.
So, I sigh and close the game. Try again tomorrow I guess. Need to be more aggressive earlier I suppose, and can't let Gil carve up Wang that easily either I guess.
It's actually logical that a small nations led by Brennus asks for protection. If this weren't the case, there would be no small nations in the real world today.
