First Monarch Game -- save included

[Taras Bulba]

Well... i got tired of playing at cheiftain, and i tried Regent, which i was doing fairly well at that, so i tried a game at Monarch...

Civ: Germany
Opponents:7 (i met 1, France)
Era: Ancient Age (France is in Middle Ages)

Ok... i feel that i expanded enough to go for the victory that i wan, which is Space Race/Diplomatic (leaning more toward Diplomatic right now)

Small Description: i have a small county, very little map explored, slow in the tech race, at least compared to the 1 person i met

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/109601/Germany-Monarch.SAV

industrializing is my next step, i put it off until i had the decent size country i wanted

PS-how can i get back into the tech race?

 

[Othniel]

PS-how can i get back into the tech race?

Get more contacts.

The higher the difficulty level, the more important it is to send out multiple early scouting units and find all contacts in the game. While doing so, trade like crazy.

 

[civverguy]

Try to explore more get some boats out and build more workers.

 

[Delphi456]

TB - I've seen you around this site many times, so I'm kinda shocked your civ is in such bad shape. You've violated many of the "101 level" guidelines that get repeated over and over. Here are a few that you can begin to use immediately.

1. stop building temples, use the lux slider instead.
2. connect that wine lux.
3. city placement should be CxxC, so your workers don't have to travel so far. your tiles are mostly unimproved because workers can't keep up - build more. put new cities as close to capital as possible - spreading out from there.
4. stop building spearmen, connect your horse to capital so you can at least build horsemen.
5. explore

work on these, then post another save.

 

[civverguy]

TB - I've seen you around this site many times, so I'm kinda shocked your civ is in such bad shape. You've violated many of the "101 level" guidelines that get repeated over and over. Here are a few that you can begin to use immediately.

1. stop building temples, use the lux slider instead.
2. connect that wine lux.
3. city placement should be CxxC, so your workers don't have to travel so far. your tiles are mostly unimproved because workers can't keep up - build more. put new cities as close to capital as possible - spreading out from there.
4. stop building spearmen, connect your horse to capital so you can at least build horsemen.
5. explore

work on these, then post another save.

What's 101 level?

 

[Ginger_Ale]

I echo all of what Delphi456 said. Here's some of my own comments:

I'll start with some statistics from CivAssist II:
19 Cities
14 Workers
.7 workers/city

You really need to get this higher. Especially with all the forest to clear and the big gaps between your cities, workers are crucial. City placement is also pretty poor. Take a city like Munich. To the NW there's a whale, but where the city is placed, it can't work that tile. It's not on the river. It's surrounded by tundra. It can't grow. Yet, you are building a granary? What for? Rather than building a temple in Stuttgart, if you placed a city between it and Brandenburg, one between Munich and Frankfurt, and one NW of Cologne, you wouldn't need one. That would save you a temple in 4 cities (240 shields!).

You seem to build roads, but never mines/chop a forest/etc. Why? All it means is that you are going to have to waste worker turns going back later to add them in. You also don't need spearmen in outlying cities like Stuttgart, and 2 in Munich/Heidelburg. That's 100 shields that won't ever be used. If nothing else, build warriors in place of spearmen - spend half the shields. Build some warriors to explore in the beginning of the game. You don't need more than 2 units/city to act as military police (make citizens content). 12 in Berlin is quite excessive.

Some more stats:
Tiles per city: 15.5
Tiles per worker: 16.2

These are also both really high, as I've said. Because of the lack of fresh water, it will take a while to get above size 6 for many cities, much less to size 12. Even still, that's wasting 3.5 tiles (not to mention tiles that can't be used around cities) before sanitation. 16.2 tiles is a big responsibility for a worker. If he has to spend 3 turns roading, and say 6 turns mining, that's 9*16 or 144 turns before all the tiles are improved! You never, ever, ever, want to work unimproved tiles. Right now, you have 27/54 tiles worked, or 50%, unimproved!

Other things of note: Berlin and Leipzig didn't need walls; rarely will they be attacked if ever. You have the science slider at 10% -- two beakers per turn. All techs will cost 50 turns, far too low. It should be around 15 turns. I would at least turn the science slider to 50%, losing 5 gpt (you have 360 gold, but techs will be way too expensive knowing only one civ to buy).

You have the more land and population in this game than France - there's no way they should be way ahead of you! You've got lots of room for improvement, but most of it is simple changes that will have a big result.


edit: Crosspost with civverguy (yes, it took me that long to write my post). Here's a reply:

What's 101 level?

101 level refers to "beginner/introductory" basics of the game. "101" is used because in a place like university, it refers to the intro course ("Economics 101" or whatever).

edit2: Another crosspost with Othniel! Okay, spent far too much time on this post...need a long break.

 

[Othniel]

"101" is basic, introductory level stuff. It's like in school with a freshman class called Math 101...Same deal.

 

[Taras Bulba]

yeah... sorry i have been caught up in my cheiftain game as this thread moved along... (just for fun, quick and easy, i am really dominating)

im going back to do some stuff about that Monarch game now...

i still think i am used to the cheiftain rules i made when i first got this game...
-City placement, not CxxC, but good cultural bounds away, that way when i get to it, each can have 20 people working the city

-As for me, i have gotten into this REALLY bad habbit of basically build anything anywhere, to save on time

-As for the spearman thing, the last like 5 games i played, someone declared war on me, and i don't want to lose my cities easily again

-As for the workers, i am once again in MY cheiftain mentality of EXPAND EXPAND EXPAND!!! then industrialize... i figure, it worked for Russia, why not me (real life, Russia expanded, but had poor industrilaztion at first, but it became to be a super power, still is)

im going RIGHT NOW to work on that Monarch game... feel free to post any time, i am hoping to have another save soon

edit-as for the money/techs, im going to stay at that low, until i get more contacts, and hopefully by then i will have saved up enough money to buy some

edit2-wow... i had something, and then i forgot completely what it was, but update, connected horses, building more workers, connecting wines, made 2nd contact (China)

edit3-ermm... big update, and save... i contacted a 3rd country, Korea, i traded for all the techs required for advancement, except construction, poped literature from an untaken goody hutand ended up declaring war on China (and i had a per turn deal going w/ them, which will kill my reputation now) so i got a Military Alliance w/ France against them...

found out France has AT LEAST up to Gunpowder on the military advancements side, and up to Navigation on the Science Advancement side

this should be the most recent save
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/109601/Germany-Monarch.SAV

PS-i am not taking any 101 classes this year (going into Freshman year)

 

[gmaharriet]

-As for the spearman thing, the last like 5 games i played, someone declared war on me, and i don't want to lose my cities easily again

The thing is... You don't protect your cities by building spears and hunkering down, just waiting to be attacked. You build offensive units, like horsemen, archers or swords, and you attack the enemy units as they enter your territory BEFORE they get to your cities. If you kill them first, they can't even get to your cities.

The AI rarely uses spears to attack. They use offensive units, which usually have low defense ratings. If you attack first, they are weak at defending and it's more likely that you will win those battles.

Have you ever heard the old expression, "The best defense is a good offense."? That's what I'm talking about and what most of the good players do.

 

[Taras Bulba]

Have you ever heard the old expression, "The best defense is a good offense."? That's what I'm talking about and what most of the good players do.

well... that is kind of what i am trying to do... first, i defend all my cities, and slowly build up an... after i have a good amount of archers/horsemen, i will send a few (probably 1 or 2, depending on the location) to the cities so if they attack, i will have a counter, but i am not building up to DECLARE war, i am defending so they don't! i figured if the cities are well defended, the AI will not declare war as easily

 

[gmaharriet]

i am not building up to DECLARE war, i am defending so they don't! i figured if the cities are well defended, the AI will not declare war as easily

That's fine, but you should still use almost only offensive units for that type of defense. When the AI rates how strong your military is, they consider an offensive unit to be 1.5 times as fearsome as a defensive unit. If you have 10 offensive units, they will be more afraid to attack you than if you have 10 spears.

 

[Aabraxan]

Just looked at the 170 BC save: Wow! 28 cities and 73 workers. I can't say that you built too few workers. But I also see that you built 27 spears. That's way too many. You're playing Germany. That means that you started with Warrior Code, but you've only got 12 archers.

Also, it's 170 BC and you're still in Despo. Time to change that.

Looks like accelerated production is on.

Berlin is about to riot and you're running 0% science and 0% lux. You've got 104 gold and +6 gpt.

Your economy is in shambles. Why?

Berlin:
The Palace
Barracks
Granary
Temple
Walls

Leipzig:
Barracks
Granary
Temple
Walls
Harbor

Hamburg:
Barracks
Granary
Temple

Konigsberg:
Barracks
Temple
Granary due in 3

Frankfurt:
Barracks
Granary
Temple

Munich:
Barracks
Temple
Harbor
And it's building a market, due in 24

You're only 17 units over the allowed units limit, but they're predominantly defensive units and all of the buildings are choking your economy.

12 archers
27 spearmen
12 horses
3 warriors
2 curraghs
0 settlers at the moment

Look at your worker assignments. You've got 73 workers, but 11 of them are working tundra. You've got 20 workers on hills and mountains. Any mines you build and those hills and mountains are subject to the despotism penalty. Use your worker turns more wisely.

This really looks like the result of poor management in the early game. You spent too much time building buildings and spearmen and too little time building offensive units and settlers.

The Chinese have Riders (Chivalry) and the French have Musketeers (Gunpowder). That means that you fell behind in the tech race a long time ago.

You could probably pull this one out, but you'll need to:

• make better use of workers
• make more contacts
• stop building temples
• build more offensive units
• fill that available land
• squeeze a few more cities in between the ones you've got

 

[bob rulz]

Why should he not build spearmen there? That makes no sense. Units for military police are a good idea, and why not have a good defensive unit there for your military police just in case?

 

[Aabraxan]

Why should he not build spearmen there? That makes no sense. Units for military police are a good idea, and why not have a good defensive unit there for your military police just in case?

It makes lots of sense, actually. He'd be better off building offensive units than defensive ones, for several reasons. For MP purposes, it doesn't matter if it's a spear, an archer, a warrior or a tank. Either a unit is an MP or it's not. But when the AI assess your military strength, it weighs offensive units more heavily than defensive units. So you can more easily deter the AI by building offensive units than defensive units. Also, the best defense in this game is a good offense. So the way to defend is to kill anything that comes in and threatens you. Stacks of horses, which have an attack of 2, can defend a much larger territory than spears, for example. If everything's nicely roaded, a stack of horses can hit any AI that comes within 6 tiles of them. Spears, on the other hand: (1) can only reach 3 roaded tiles out; and (2) only have an attack of 1. So their best bet is to wait for the enemy to come to them. You can't clear out territory by waiting for the AI to come to you. I think TB would have been better off building archers rather than spears from the beginning.

 

[bob rulz]

It makes lots of sense, actually. He'd be better off building offensive units than defensive ones, for several reasons. For MP purposes, it doesn't matter if it's a spear, an archer, a warrior or a tank. Either a unit is an MP or it's not. But when the AI assess your military strength, it weighs offensive units more heavily than defensive units. So you can more easily deter the AI by building offensive units than defensive units. Also, the best defense in this game is a good offense. So the way to defend is to kill anything that comes in and threatens you. Stacks of horses, which have an attack of 2, can defend a much larger territory than spears, for example. If everything's nicely roaded, a stack of horses can hit any AI that comes within 6 tiles of them. Spears, on the other hand: (1) can only reach 3 roaded tiles out; and (2) only have an attack of 1. So their best bet is to wait for the enemy to come to them. You can't clear out territory by waiting for the AI to come to you. I think TB would have been better off building archers rather than spears from the beginning.

But what if they do make it to your cities? Also, who says that you're going to be able to cover all of your territory and be able to strike everywhere with your offensive units? Yes, it's better to attack them before they reach you, but it's not always possible.

 

[Aabraxan]

I'm not saying that you should never, ever, ever build any spears anywhere. But he's got 28 cities, 27 spears and 12 archers, 12 horses, and 3 warriors. He's too heavy on the defensive side.

 

[bob rulz]

I'm not saying that you should never, ever, ever build any spears anywhere. But he's got 28 cities, 27 spears and 12 archers, 12 horses, and 3 warriors. He's too heavy on the defensive side.

Okay, I see what you're saying. But I usually get 1 defensive unit for every city, and I turn out fine. But I don't really go to war really early in the game unless I absolutely have to.

 

[Aabraxan]

Okay, I see what you're saying. But I usually get 1 defensive unit for every city, and I turn out fine. But I don't really go to war really early in the game unless I absolutely have to.

I rarely build more than a handful of defensive units, and I usually phase them out as the game progresses. But I suspect that the underlined part may be important here. Might depend on how you define "really early in the game," but I frequently fight AA wars.

 

[bob rulz]

I rarely build more than a handful of defensive units, and I usually phase them out as the game progresses. But I suspect that the underlined part may be important here. Might depend on how you define "really early in the game," but I frequently fight AA wars.

I rarely go to war until the late AA. Usually it's once I've built up a decent force of swordsmen.

This is unless I need iron and they have some, or if I'm boxed in and can't expand. There's a game I played recently where I wasn't able to hook up iron until I was almost to knights. Luckily, the civ next to me didn't have iron either; it was the only one on the entire continent (well, it wasn't a continent, it was Pangaea, but there was only a 1-tile landbridge to the rest of the continent).

 

[Aabraxan]

I rarely go to war until the late AA. Usually it's once I've built up a decent force of swordsmen.

Yeah, I fight lots of wars with swords. I fight quite a few with archers, too. From everything I've read around here, the AI values offensive units quite differently from defensive units, so even for a builder, it makes sense to build more offensive than defensive units, if only for the deterrent effect.