Founding of EU. All random monarch - am I ready to move up?

[Nicol.Bolas]

Hi guys,

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About me:

I started ages ago on civ2 which was great fun.
2 yrs ago i started on vanilla civ3, i won any monarch game then, tried empereror. I came back to civ3 conqests, after about a year of not playing.
I am a uni student from prague.

I rushed few games through regent just to make sure, and could easily win any monarch game too - on tiny or small map.

But i am having trouble on normal size (3/3 losses, played till last city). Maybe it was just bad luck, but maybe not. I want at least 3 wins on random monarch normal size before i go at emperor.

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My rules:

monarch,
everything random (only size set to normal, i own the smaller sizes at monarch) max opponents,
my race: random

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IMPORTANT: in all my games i take the 1st: (FIRST) start, and i NEVER reload
(i like to be challenged)
I try not to abuse AI, artillery and army is as far as i would go. (although i swear i saw AI army in vanilla)

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I welcome any feeback on my play, or on the story (hope its correct forum)
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The story:

Comrade Gunter Verheugen of the Europeans of the EU tribe, as a leader (non elected) of the EU, you aim to settle the world and try to stand to the test of time (longer then nazis, romans and other "forever-lasting empires". Convince everyone to join the EU
by military, cultural, or diplomatic means, or just demonstrate EU superiority by launching a spaceship.

 

[Nicol.Bolas]

Gunter, we just found some tabbacoo, why not settle right here and have a dope, there is a river and good grasslands too.

And EU Brussels was founded.

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-I am not sure whether i killed the tabbaco bonus by settling? Did not want to move south, seems like jungle there
-Color is light green, commercial + scientific, bronze + alphabet, cannot remember what race it is (all my games so far this year were vs native americans, WTH is going on "with random")

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Ok, we europeans have antic roots! (random race is based on greeks!)
how could i not remeber lol ! when i played as Romans, i always fought against dreaded hoplites!

Commander, Illiurian tribes near brussels! Do not let it end like this!
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-Lol, on this new pc i never opened another thing than angry barbarians ! another proof of rigged RNG lol, why do i even bother
-this will be a little setback (he stole 10 gold)

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Commander, we found intelligent people deep in the jungle, but they are very angry and wont discuss joining to the EU, we have to eliminate them before Brussels is rampaged again!
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I went for pottery, then writing, building granary,

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-European Union expands ! Check new map for details!
Proud people of Augustodurum refuse to smoke tabbaco, and worship healthy way of life, eating bananas!

- Commander! We can see whales far away from the coast! Wait, theres some people in pink clothes across the sea! (I hope its not the dreaded Inca, i had natives in all my random games)

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In 1990 BC. The EU commisions meets, and plans new city cites - numbered cites are priority in that order, dots are other possible sites.

-site 3 is underway, and should become productive city and securing dyes - unfortunately not enough productive terain near capital.
- site 4 - productive + hold away inca/france, if it is the only landbridge - at this point i bet all of my gold (6 gold) that the map is wet, young and pangea
sites 5 6 7 will need some mining first before any good production
- i hate pangea becouse ais trade like mad, and its impossible to catch up even when i check them each turn.

-This will be the job for people of Brussels, and maybe Augustodurum too.
But military advisor insist on building barracks and squad of archers.

-if pink is france, Augustodurum will go for granary, if pink is Inca, and they will be agressive, then only Brussels will produce settlers

Verheugen commands, if nothing unexpected happens - Augustodurum and Brussels will send out new colonists, while new colonies will build up divisions archers and some hoplites.

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All my monarch games are war from start untill end... i fail at plaing civ3 peacefully, its too hard to get technologically ahead while having enough territory and military.

 

[megistatos]

Hooray, another story to follow.

Funnily enough, my first Monarch win was with the Greeks. I'd reccommend against building too many Hoplites. Have a couple around to defend your invading armies, but make sure you have a lot more archers/swords/horses than Hoplites.

Hmm, the start position isn't all that great. Try and make the most of the grasslands you've got.

I may be wrong, but I think there's a bug that when "Culturally Linked Start Positions" is on, you always end up with the American civs as your neighbours. This is not good as they are all Agricultural and have early UUs(save for USA of course).

 

[Nicol.Bolas]

Hooray, another story to follow.

Funnily enough, my first Monarch win was with the Greeks. I'd reccommend against building too many Hoplites. Have a couple around to defend your invading armies, but make sure you have a lot more archers/swords/horses than Hoplites.

Hmm, the start position isn't all that great. Try and make the most of the grasslands you've got.

I may be wrong, but I think there's a bug that when "Culturally Linked Start Positions" is on, you always end up with the American civs as your neighbours. This is not good as they are all Agricultural and have early UUs(save for USA of course).

Oh, thanks - this explains a lot this is my last game with culturally linked on - i started to hate those inca

yea, i am aware that offensive scares the AI
lets hope i can take the natives, they are the hardest

 

[Tasslehoff]

Yes, culturally linked ALWAYS gets you the American groups.

Yes, you did kill the tobacco bonus by settling on it. A better bet would have been move 1SE, and settle on the grassland. You'd have the Tobacco, River, and 5 BGs after first culture growth- very nice, if you could cut the jungle.

 

[The Professor]

One comment on your dot map: The dot for city 5 appears to be on a forest tile. If you move one N or NE, it would be a jungle, and when you have a settler build a city on jungle (or forest), the jungle (or forest) is automatically cleared. This makes it more advantageous to build cities on jungle, and clear them magically in one turn, as opposed to building on forest, which means that you can't clear the forest at a time of your choosing, and get the 10 shields from it. On that site, there are plenty of forests to chop, so that may not be a big issue, but clearing jungle automatically is still worth it.

 

[Nicol.Bolas]

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Chapter 2, the founding of Tyr´s Bay

A warrior named Tyr aproached towards enemy territory to the south, and run not only into dreaded Inca settlement, but also into a dreaded American Scout.
The natives already traded heavily, and they are advanced both in masonry, wheel, Iron working and mysticism.
They have only 1 more city, which does not scare the EU.

(just detailed trade screens in spoil)

Spoiler :

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The founding of Prague

In the hills northwest of Brussels, Prague is founded. After training a group of archers, people of Prague will start containing the hostile land by hard Work. Prague was founded closer then planned, so that the People of Prague don't feel too independed on EU goverment, and won't start wasting or stealing resources. Road is a top priority.

Commander! Intruder Alarm!
Verdammnded! Again those tribes, luckily a brave brigade of archers from Brussels was just ready to step in! Spare noone, but only after they tell where their encampment is!

This is how we treat enemies of EU"

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The trades

Soon we will teach those barbarians calling themselfs Inca and America, how to be civilised:

To the Incan leader we traded writing for mysticism and gold, hope it helps them be civilised, else they shalt be dispatched as the ,members of Phrygian tribe

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Tyr´s adventures @ site 4

Blasted! Enemy colonists approaching OUR territory! How they dare! We must do, something!

Tyr is our only hope, shall he attack?

Tyr is a hero!!

See you in next chapter!

Bad news comrade, no iron was found anywhere, but at least we found some wild horses near Prague. "New cities will pay their tax in form of catapults as soon as possible, blast those natives into pieces" And there is a lot of exploring to be done still

 

[ecuwins]

It took me awhile to get a hang of emp -- In fact, I am still working on it . Start by using the Maya and find a good start -- this should give you a decent handicap. Now you can play and hang w/ the AI in order to learn the nuances of Emporer play. Eventually you should be ok playing as a "lesser civ" w/ a good start(this is where I am at now). Where I would like to get is: Emp, all random, and kill all civs no sweat.

 

[killerkid]

I agree. Monarch to Emperor is probably the hardest level switch to make in the C3C game. (DG helps the jump to Deity)

Ision wrote an article about it in the war academy fittingly titled, "Monarch to Emperor, the Great Leap."

Greece is an average civ to play as. With a good start, and enough motivation, I could probably win some victory with them.

My first Emperor victory was with the Russians.
Although many people say they are crappy, and I did too until I played them, they are actually quite good. The Blitz Cavalry unit helps A LOT when fighting muskets and pikes. Take a 80% Pang map, and well, you get WORLD DOMINATION! The blitz was added in C3C, so since that's what you have, I'd definitely give them a shot.

 

[Nicol.Bolas]

I am not worried about bad starts, since AI gets bad starts too (look at tiwanaku) and its more fun. I just play what I get.
Also thanks to proffesor, site 5 is on a jungle, but the screenshot is not good.

I find even monarch hard!, i must suck a lot, since AIs always expand very fast, build all wonders in ancient age (i dont even try), are very advanced in tech, and have a military.
I only manage to keep up with military and expansion, give up on tech and wonders until MA, or IA.
Do they cheat? when i check their wonder cities, its like all irrigrated grassland 5-6 shields....... 0,9 bonus cant be the only answer. What am, i missing?

Lol, 8-10 yrs ago, when i played civ2 , i would ALWAYS build pyramids, Great library, I thought its impossible to win without these.
I struggle with food and science management until now lol - former wonder addict. I would even build all wonders, and in editor make them never become obsolete lol

Now I don´t give a damn about wonders, but what worries me is the cultural dominations and many flips in favour of wonder civilisation

 

[killerkid]

You don't usually have to worry about culture flips-If you build Temples, Libraries, and Cathedrals, your cities will have plenty of culture. AI's generally start building non-wonder culture in the early Middle Ages, and by the time that happens, your cities will already be cultured.

As for the wonders, the AI usually works a long time on them. They build them in crappy cities just for the fun of it. But they have a shield discount that is even more pronounced on Emperor. Also, the AI's tend to build wonders in cascade's, which let the shields from one wonder go towards another.

 

[Aabraxan]

I find even monarch hard!, i must suck a lot, since AIs always expand very fast, build all wonders in ancient age (i dont even try), are very advanced in tech, and have a military.
I only manage to keep up with military and expansion, give up on tech and wonders until MA, or IA.
Do they cheat? when i check their wonder cities, its like all irrigrated grassland 5-6 shields....... 0,9 bonus cant be the only answer. What am, i missing?

You don't necessarily suck a lot. The AI starts getting a build bonus at Monarch. It's not a huge bonus at Monarch, but it is still a bonus. Also, the AIs trade techs among themselves cheaper than they'll trade them to you, IIUC. So tech trading becomes a big deal. If you're not trading techs, then it's basically your research against all of the AIs working together. Monopoly techs and suicide galleys go a long way towards keeping you in the tech race.

Also, even in C3C, the AI can rush Great Wonders using MGLs. You cannot. That's the bad news. The good news is that the AI has the worst case of Wonder Addiction you'll ever encounter. I've seen a 3-City-Civ under attack start wonders in 2 of its 3 cities!

Now I don´t give a damn about wonders, but what worries me is the cultural dominations and many flips in favour of wonder civilisation

Flips are a pain, no question. I'm not great with culture flips, but I think that one of your cities has to share one or more tiles with the offending civ's city, or maybe their cultural borders have to overlap your city's tiles. Not sure which. Anyway, my solution is to move the AI's cultural borders for them. Build enough cavalry and flips cease to be a problem.