Comments wanted on Monarch-try with Alex

[LarzJG]

Hey all,

I've always been playing on Noble or Prince in Civ4, but after spending hours watching a ton of TMIT-videos on Youtube, I am trying my hand at Monarch. I've played about 5 games over the last three days, and I do pretty decently at most of them - but I get my ass handed to me around the middle of the game, and I'm not quite sure why.

So here's my start - Pangea, 7 random opponents on monarch, No huts and No events:

Spoiler :

I'm thinking that Athens is going to be a commerce city, with load of cottages all around. Secondary city is the red dot for now, but I could see that changing depending on where my opponents are and what the land looks like.

Build order is Worker-Warrior-Settler.

I'm teching Agri now, so the worker has something to do for about 14 turns. Afterwards, I am thinking Pottery before Bronze Working as it's unlikely I have Copper within my first city, making mining pretty useless for me. But both Animal Husbandry and BW would help me plan my second city better, so I'm doubting this a bit...

Any input?

 

[Killroyan]

First thought is, did you settle in place? Settling one tile of the river is not my preference, even if that nets in another corn.
Second, your capital is incredible hammer poor. It has 1 grassland hill. 1E would have given you another 2 hills to work, the fresh water bonus and the possibility to connect to another city by the river. It would also free up the second corn for another city.
Third I would move the red dot 1NE otherwise you get another city with absolutely no hammers. This way you get at least 2 grassland hills to mine.
Fourth, I would grow my capital a bit before starting on a settler, so maybe build 2 warriors to size 3/4 before getting the settler out. Your capital is going to be your commerce center for sure. It is the only viable thing you can do with it.
Fifth: Tech path agri/mining/pottery/BW/AH or switch AH and BW.

Good luck with the game. The first screenshot doesn't look to promising yet. Will be following this.

 

[OneThingIKnow]

I'm a relatively new Monarch player as well, who is also seeking advice in a thread here, so consider what I say in that light...

Anyways, I'd probably still tech BW next. You might get copper, but even if you don't, it will allow your worker to chop out more workers, settlers, or wonders, whatever path you decide to take. Plus, correct me if I'm wrong (I don't play much with the Greeks), but isn't your UU an axeman?

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I'm thinking that Athens is going to be a commerce city, with load of cottages all around. Secondary city is the red dot for now, but I could see that changing depending on where my opponents are and what the land looks like.

Red dot comes later - you aren't racing the AI for the coast, but for the center. Besides - you've got bacon to the north west.

Build order is Worker-Warrior-Settler.

Seems reasonable - you have time to get the warrior done, and no great encouragement to grow further right now.

I'm teching Agri now, so the worker has something to do for about 14 turns. Afterwards, I am thinking Pottery before Bronze Working as it's unlikely I have Copper within my first city, making mining pretty useless for me. But both Animal Husbandry and BW would help me plan my second city better, so I'm doubting this a bit..

You already know you want AH for the pigs....

I'm not so keen on Pottery here, as (a) I'm not a big fan of working cottages when pumping out settlers, and (b) the tiles that I want to put cottages on are covered by trees right now.

So my preference would be the more pedestrian Agri-Mining-Animal Lovin'

 

[LarzJG]

Thanks for the fast feedback, much appreciated. I'll keep it going and try not to be discouraged by mistakes I might make along the way, I'm here to learn, and I figure that posting about what I do will also make me slow it down a bit - something I struggle to do otherwise, leading to many more mistakes.

Yeah, I moved my settler. Original spot was 1E, where I did have more hills but barely missed out on the second corn. You're right that I'll probably regret the lack of hammers - so I'm prioritizing those a little higher for the second city, I guess. (I also do get lucky with resources, see further down)

Is my capital better suited as a GP farm or commerce city? River makes me think commerce, but there is a lot of food in the BFC...

I like Bacon to the NE, so let's head there. I kept my scout going to the east first, and met Saladin:

Spoiler :

I always consider Saladin a warmongering bastard, but I realize there is a set of values that determines his behaviour now. I've seen it referenced a ton of times here, both in the Kossin Succession Games I lurked and in TMIT's videos, anyone have a link to an article with a list of hidden leader attributes and their effect?

So as I explore towards the Pigs, I find jungle, some Gems and a Lion that takes out my scout.

Spoiler :

I am not eager to settle anything outside the first circle of the piglets, especially since I don't even have mysticism for a border pop in 20 turns. That means more exploring.

I did settle on a tech path, tho. AG-mining-AH-BW - improving the one tile of Corn, mining a hill and then back to the second corn around the time that AH is done, hoping that there's a horse in my BFC.

Bismarck showed up at 3200BC, followed by Genghis the next turn:

Spoiler :

And as I tech AH, I realize the truth in "it's better to be lucky than good":

Spoiler :

My settler is out 4 turns before bronze working, and I'm thinking of placing my city here:

Spoiler :

Only concern is the 7 floodplains in that BFC, that would give me 3 unhealthiness in the city. Going 1N with the city, so it is 1W of Pigs, would only give me 5 FP, and that reduces it to 2 unhealth.

With this amount of food in second city, it would grow to size 4 or 5 before going unhealthy. I guess I could use that for settler whips?

I'll micro my capital so the warrior I'm building comes out at the same time as it grows to max before unhealth. Then build another worker, tech wheel and connect so I get pig health.

Thoughts?

 

[Fleme]

Riverside gives +2 health, it's a good spot. I dunno why you moved your capital away from the river, losing said bonus.

 

[Aoxomoxoa]

Next city(the 3rd one, 2nd site is fine) should lean towards production and I would also be scouting for a new capitol site. While you did get nice resources, the land your capitol is on isn't strong and I think you will find better terrain elsewhere. Maybe another CIV's capitol when you CONQUER it!

 

[LarzJG]

Riverside gives +2 health, it's a good spot. I dunno why you moved your capital away from the river, losing said bonus.

Mainly cause I'm an idiot who had no clue about that bonus - not sure how I missed that. :S

So my second city is a no-brainer, isn't it?

 

[vranasm]

2nd city is spot on in my book, with that many riverside tiles it's your main commerce center, too bad there is not enough hills...moving capital there seems a bit problematic :-(

too bad you moved your capital... you would have 2 very good commerce sites from the beginning (or eventually great production center if you eventually moved capital). ironically enough moving 1S from the start and settling on forrest would bring you plains hill, leaving horses in bfc and getting that 2nd corn

now I would look around for some production and scout more the gems

 

[LarzJG]

So I settle on the river with Ivory and Pigs.

Spoiler :

I got BW, and Copper is SE of my Capital, outside the BFC but in a place I'll definitely own with time. I've built a worker in my capital and another is almost done, giving me 3 total.

I'll revolt to Slavery as soon as the worker is done, then start whipping settlers. This is the map as we know it:

Spoiler :

After wheel, I was planning on Pottery over Myst or IW. Alternatively I could go for those gems, but it means Iron Working - and it would take a long time to clear the jungle and make that area viable, wouldn't it? On the other hand, Bismarck is just to the north of the gems.

For now I'm inclined to think I go pottery, build a few cottages on the floodplains, and hope further exploring finds me a more obvious spot to settle. Alternatively there's NNW of the copper-fish to include both copper and fish, but both of those also requires a border pop that I don't really have any way of getting yet.

 

[Saxif]

I used to be a big fan of Worker - Worker - Settler. This needs BW though because you chop the 2nd worker and the settler. I am enjoying letting my city grow to size 4 or 5 whikst heading for cottages though to significantly boost research, whilst building some wonders in my capital. This keeps the empire smaller but you end up with fast early tech rate. I think this works best if you settle 2 - 3 hammer rich areas because your going to need to take land off the AI as it'll fill in alot of the gaps, this means goign to war but at least you'll do that with a tech advantage

Given where you are currently, I'd settle gems first and get Horse-tech for defense and then settle the marble and copper. Your now in a good position to put out wonders and the gems will give you an early research boost, as you ahve horse I think you can postpone the copper, though I'd get Ironworking early to see where the iron is.

Covering both those sites in cottages will do fine but your going to need production, games can be lost without strong production cities.

Sax.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Yeah, I moved my settler. Original spot was 1E, where I did have more hills but barely missed out on the second corn.

It happens. 1S would have been much luckier, though.

I did settle on a tech path, tho. AG-mining-AH-BW - improving the one tile of Corn, mining a hill and then back to the second corn

That's a weird choice - why not improve the second corn right away? It's the better tile, it's the stronger play for growth, you don't need the extra hammers yet (soon, but not yet), and improving the second corn at once save a worker turn.

Only concern is the 7 floodplains in that BFC, that would give me 3 unhealthiness in the city.

Does it? Check your rounding.

 

[LarzJG]

You're right, I'm only getting 2 unhealth there. But I thought it was a 0,4*7=2,8 rounded up to 3, but I guess it only rounds down?

So, here's where I'm at now. I played a few rounds and lost a warrior near the gems to a Barb archer. There are a ton of barbs all over the place right now, and my warriors are getting creamed - I've lost every coin-flip so far.

Spoiler :

Yeah, dead warrior.

Teched Pottery, Archery (getting scared of the barbs, probably should have just gone with chariots), and finally Mysticism for some border pops in new cities. After that I'm on my way towards Writing and I'm thinking of Aesthetics after that for trade bait, but that could change.

My Settler got built - but at this point barbs had taken out every warrior I had except one(!!!).

So while I crank out some units for protection into the jungle, I'm placing the new city down south. I'll need two more workers too for the gems.

In terms of placement, I chose the spot that gave me fish. I had the option to get it with the sheep, but that would ruin the fish for anything other than a commerce city. I think I can settle the sheep afterwards in a city with 5 hills and incense:

Spoiler :

Not very happy about this start, but those could be two decent production cities? I think a lot of my problems relate to city specialization, so any feedback here would be appreciated.

 

[LarzJG]

I kept playing, settled two cities - the gems to the north and the copper to my south.

Gems:

Spoiler :

Copper:

Spoiler :

Teching went a little wrong, I partially researched Aesthetics for trade bait, but that requires the AI to have Alphabet soon. That wasn't really the case here, so I went and switched to Iron Working. I hope to salvage the Aest research by trading it away instead of alphabet, and keeping Monopoly on Alph as long as possible. Might be a pipe dream?

I have started building Libraries in my main commerce cities, I assume the time will come soon enough that I don't get Slider-research anymore. I'm planning on settling three more cities now, here they are:

Spoiler :

They're both commerce-cities. Blue/cyan gives me marble, which might be nice if I want Great Library in my GP farm - I could move it 1SW for the Corn, and to have the fish in the inner ring, but that would remove its only hill. Is that worth it?

Yellow is really nasty. If it weren't for the Floodplains, I would not like its potential much.

I might be inclined to start out with the red one here:

Spoiler :

 

[LarzJG]

I'm playing a lot here, feel free to jump in at any point with a pointer to something I'm doing wrong - even if I've played many more turns since then, I'm here to learn.

So - I have just about cleaned up the gem city.

Spoiler :

I have a hard time deciding what I want to do with this city. Gems say commerce, but there are four hills here and I have some pretty good commerce cities elsewhere - and not so many production cities. If I want it to be commerce, I'll put cottages on the river and as many farms as needed to grow to max around the lake. I'm REALLY not sure WTH to do with this city.

Ramesses really doesn't like me. He's the first AI to Alphabet, and he just hated me from the first second we met:

Spoiler :

There's no way I can avoid this, is there?

Aaaand I'm in war trouble!

Saladin is my neighbor, and the little tard is in WHEOOHRN while annoyed at me. He got Confucianism from Code of Laws, and I took the dominant Hindu religion when I had the shot, figuring that I needed religion to increase my happy cap.

Spoiler :

So, he's plotting war and I'm the only guy he's annoyed with, plus we share a border. I know I have 70% of his force-level, so I'm not that far behind - but I need to gear up, and fast, so I can repel him. He's probably headed for Knossos here:

Spoiler :

I don't even know what he's going to be attacking me with. His nearest city is still fortified only with archers, so he's probably not much further than horses at worst.

 

[LarzJG]

While I'm gearing up for war, Isabella gives me my first option to trade for alphabet. I'm 6 turns of research away from it, and she'll toss in meditation as well.

Taking that trade:

Spoiler :

I switch my research to masonry, which I'll get in three turns. I'm figuring I'll need walls in at least my border city soon. There's a forest there I can chop for it, but I don't have stone.

I settled another city in the south, and I have settler I don't know what to do with. These were queued before I saw the war coming, so nothing to do about it.

Spoiler :

Yellow spot is where I want to settle, hoping my culture can grab the pigs.

I get a look at his techs now, and he doesn't have Horseback Riding. I have my Esp focused on Saladin now, but I doubt I'll see benefits of that before then.

Since Saladin is protective, he has archers upgrades to defense - and since I don't have any siege weapons, I don't really see how I can take the guy's cities if he declares and I hold enough to counterattack.

At this point my first GS is out of Athens, with the option of bulbing Mathematics. I have enough libraries to make construction a 10-15 turn endeavor with specialists, since my slider is now at 0%.

I do a quick round of trades, bulb Mathematics, and get some of the filler tech I missed. I keep building units to prepare my defense of the upcoming attack, and rightly enough, it comes:

Spoiler :

Pathetic showing, I'll finish that off fairly fast and then find a good spot to keep killing units until he'll give me peace. I don't really have much to gain from taking his cities yet, I'm stretched to the max with maintenance as it is.

 

[LarzJG]

Wartime

Saladin's initial forces were quite pathetic. I moved my forces out of the town by one square to make sure he wouldn't just camp out and pillage in places where he had defensive bonus, and it went as planned - he killed 1 or 2 of my units, while suiciding his SoD of about 8-10. My first GG was joined to a Spearman who know has triple-healing and heal-while-moving.

So I healed up in my city, then moved towards his - in two turns of combat I bombarded him to 0% and took the city, losing 1 Catapult. Only downside was a lonely Chariot of his that took two of my workers. Stupid move on my part.

Now Saladin's willing to sue for peace and give me Code of Laws. However, I'm not really inclined to give it to him - my units are built for the forces he's coming with - phalanx (axe replacement) give defense bonus against chariots, and he has a ton of those and no longbowmen yet.

This is the situation:

Spoiler :

I want to pillage the road next to the city, so I can leave 2 units to garrison while I move on to Baghdad.

I do this, and it works well - I lose about 4 catapults, but kill a massive stack of his:

Spoiler :

Ultimate goal is to get Feudalism and vassal him. That's about 10 turns away, even with some serious specialist action and research building going on. I need to replenish my Capult collection too, now.

Civilian Situation

Some of my later cities are going well.

Spoiler :

Very happy to have gotten the pigs, I'm not sure I can count on the copper permanently but I'll take it for now.

Gem-city is not really panning out for me here. I'm confused on what to do for maximum impact of the site. A few farms on the grass, otherwise cottages - but I shouldn't have placed the farms on the river... or does that not matter in the end?

 

[LarzJG]

Victory over Saladin

Saladin Cap'ed. I took Baghdad, spent 5-7 turns healing and bombarding Mecca, until it finally surrendered too. My stack was 4-8 catapults, 5-7 phalanx, 5-7 chariots and 3-4 spearmen. Eventually I was too low on spearmen, but sheer numbers decided the thing.

Spoiler :

Should I give back his capital? I can carry the other two cities I took, but I'm not sure I can carry them if he gets the capital with the same culture as before. I've looked at this site, searched - but there's no real way of finding

Techwise I'm still right up there.

Spoiler :

I'm sure most of them are going for Great Library, and I really want that too - is that wrong? I need to do long-term planning now, and designate a GP farm and further develop some commerce cities. (didn't matter, it went before I even got Lit)

 

[LarzJG]

So, one vassal down - and I make it first to Liberalism and pick Nationhood. I go straight for Democracy after that, and I'm 2 turns from Constitution when I put down the game for the night.

Here's where I am:

Saladin is vassaled, but he really doesn't like me. I'd like to get him out of theocracy so we can fix similar religion, but it isn't really possible with him loving that civic so much.

I spent a lot of time on infrastructure, and I feel my cities are nicely organized now. Universities, Oxford, and my great people farm is doing decently. My workers have been busy, and I placed workshops on a few plains tiles - with guilds and caste system, that's not so bad production. I will try to micro out a great engineer to use for either Kremlin or Statue of Liberty.

Screens below:

Spoiler :

This looks very nice.

I'm thinking I can get a Domination win, so I'm thinking I'll head for Infantry and either Artillery or Fighters? Would love to get your input on that.

Here's my tech screen:

Spoiler :

I want to set my target for a certain tech-level where I can stop and just rush-buy units for world conquest. What would be a smart level to go for? Cannons and Cavalry? Infantry? Infantry and flight?

Goodnight - feeling pretty good about this game now.

 

[vranasm]

well if you want advice you should let it come and not skip like 200 turns expecting that we nod how good it went.

At this point of game I would question a bit your choices of improvements at some cities...
for example I dont understand why Sparta is not fully cottaged...I counted there 5FP farm at main commerce site instead of 5FP riverside cottages...for me big mistake

at Argos you built 2 nonriverside cottages (1 at lake) and made 2 farms at river, I understand you had there problem with growth, since that city has no food resource on itself, but 1 of those farms should be at lake and the farm should cottaged.

At knossos why the cottages? you build there a lot of production...farm them over...

At athens working 2 forrests? at 1500AD? and oxford not whipped long ago? Such things you should whip asap (unis and oxford) and since you choosed athens as your primary commerce city the plains riverside should have been cottaged not workshopped and the farm 1E too... you have there 2 corns...

you dont know enough on the world...should have traded some world maps

how far are you from cavalry? you got military tech lead, as it seems bismark doesnt have rifles (he even doesnt have gunpowder yet) could be good target if you manage something like 25+ cavalries, makes quick wars.
from SS it seems like GK has medieval defense in cities too.
from my experience cavalries have pretty high chances against LBs defense up to 80% cultural without bombardment, but on superior LBs (like 3x garrison or something) i have to sacrifice 1-2 cavalries to weaken the defense a bit.
usually after lib->nat I go directly cavalries trying to stomp AIs in their medieval defense. Cavalries with pinch are great even against muskets (which has higher base str)
I think if you already have cavalries and made reasonable stack you should quickly cap all your western neighbors.