Getting past Monarch (full game analysis)

[zaphod2016]

I'm not sure if this belong in "strategy & tips" or "stories & tales"; this is a hybrid of both. What follows is a full game, played to completion, on Monarch level. I would appreciate any tips or analysis you can offer. Help me improve my game.

The Babylonians

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Starting position looks good- two cows and irrigation available.

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I move the settler so I can take full advantage of the food bonus.

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To the east are the Zulu.

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Americans are to the north.

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I found the city of Ur near the Zulu border. My goal is to block Zulu expansion with culture, postponing the inevitable war until I can build an army of Swordsmen.

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The only local iron is located on the east coast, near Ashur. Ninevh is founded so I can lay claim to the ivory, and better contain the Zulu.

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South of the Zulu (yellow) are the Persians (green). Jungle lies between Babylon and America, so I expand southward, and prepare for war by building baracks.

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The Zulu have expanded rapidly; their nation is larger than mine, and they have already developed Map Making.

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By 230 B.C. the borders of Babylon have been established. My workers begin clearing a road between the iron of Ashur and the capital. Meanwhile, American and Zululand have allied against the Persians.

 

[zaphod2016]

Babylon @ Monarch, part II

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The city of Lagash is founded on the northwest island; we find the Iroquois (purple) have already settled there. After some strategic trading, I have reestablished tech parity, and everyone has been introduced to everyone else:

Red - Babylon
Yellow - Zululand
Light Blue - America
Neon Green - Persia
Purple - Iroquois
Green - Aztec
Orangle - English
Blue - German

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The war between the Zulu/Americans ends, and it is revealed that the Persians have been weakened, and lack iron (and immortals). Sensing opportunity, I make a move for Antioch.

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I lack the power needed to wage a full-fledged war, so I negotiate an early peace. Xerxes is already 4 techs ahead of me again, so I grab currency and reinforce Antioch with quick culture (a temple).

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Bismark senses my weakness, and demands tribute. I gladly pay him, and stay focused on the border of Persia, Zululand and Babylon.

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In 580 A.D. I wage another short war, and capture Bapedi from the Zulu. This gives me a clear border with both nations, and more importantly, secures a monopoly on ivory.

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In 800 A.D. I discover chivalry. I quickly upgrade a dozen horsemen, and prepare for a second war against the Zulu.

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I force my knights east across Zululand, carving a thin slice for Babylon. Zululand and Persia are now separated. The plan: divide and conquer.

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My forces exhausted, I make peace with the Zulu, and demand tribute of my own.

 

[zaphod2016]

Babylon @ Monarch, part III

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After the second Zulu War, a bit of good luck- the American city of St. Louis (north of Babylon) decides to flip in my favor.

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By 1290, my knights have become cavalry, and I am ready for the third (and final) Zulu War. Meanwhile, to the north, American troops have begun violating Babylonian sovereignty. Rather than risk an unwanted war, I ally with America against the Zulu.

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My cavalry make short work of them; by 1340 north and south Zululand have been reunited under the Babylonian flag. Only a single city remains: Ngome.

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The American knights arrive before my cavalry; it is the only territory gained by the Americans during the war. The nation of Zululand is no more.

Meanwhile, in the western hemisphere, Germany is conquering England while the Aztec subjugate the Iroquois.

 

[zaphod2016]

Babylon @ Monarch, part IV

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By 1535, I have amassed nearly two dozen cavalry. My target: Persia. Lacking iron, their offensive power is weak. However, they are mere turns away from upgrading their riflemen to infantry. The window of opportunity is closing.

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The war begins with a triumph. My cavalry ride past the metropolis of Bactra, and capture the small city of Tyre.

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From Tyre, westward to Sardis, which falls easily.

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Just as I make progress in Persia, the Germans invade the island of Lagash. My main offensive forces are 15 turns away- Bismark catches me with my pants down.

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I lack the forces necessary to fight a two-front war. I call on my old ally, the Americans.

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By 1685, the Persians are defended by infantry. I expect (and endure) heavy losses while capturing Bactra; I am forced to wait for reinforcements before attacking. Infantry are superior to cavalry; the only way to capture Persia will be with overwhelming force.

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In 1700, the Persian capital falls, and the momentum of victory carries us forward. It comes at a heavy price- nearly half of all cavalry are killed; those that remain are elite.

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1720: Pasargadae is captured.

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1735: Arbela, then Gordium.

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By 1754, the Persians have been thoroughly defeated. Babylon has nearly unified her continent; America has outlived its usefulness.

 

[zaphod2016]

Babylon @ Monarch, part V

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Following the Persian War, I end all alliances, and make peace with everyone (Bismark and Montezuma had both DOW on me several times, but then failed to actually send any troops of any consequence).

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1762: after suffering heavy cavalry losses, due to size 12 cities defended with infantry, I am hesitant to attack America straight away. It can be done, but I am losing tech parity yet again, and America will have tanks within 30 turns.

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I decide to focus of infrastructure; badly neglected after several centuries of constant war. My strategy: abandon the cavalry, build a modern army, and then blitzkrieg America.

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In order to maintain tech-parity, I plant spies, and begin stealing technologies.

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I'm not the only one; Germany catches an American spy, then allies with the Aztec to destroy Lincoln. Opportunity knocks.

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By the early 1800's, my modern army is ready for battle. I forge a Mutual Protection Pact with Bismark, who is already at war with America.

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In 1818 I prepare to capture Ngome; it has remained American until now.

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The blitzkrieg goes smoothly. First, my jets run recon missions, and patrol the sky for enemy bombers. Then, fleets of Babylonian B52s bomb vital resources and reduce city population. Once adequately softened, the city is captured by tank, then defended by mech infantry.

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1830: I advance to Philly, meanwhile, Bismark captures Seattle.

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1834: Atlanta

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1840: Miami

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1844: Chicago, then Houston

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1852: Washington is captured, meanwhile, Bismark begins raising the cities on the north island. Germany is fighting this war viking style.

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By 1854 America has been devastated.

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By 1856, America is gone.

 

[zaphod2016]

Babylon @ Monarch, part VI

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By the 1850's, even after destroying 3 other civilizations, I found myself struggling to maintain parity with the Germans. They were equal in tech, in size, and according to the advisor, equal in military strength.

Until this point, I had been trying to win via conquest or domination. By the 1860's, both Bismark and Montezuma were building spaceships.

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I won this game in 1886 via the Space Race. Had I attempted a full scale invasion of Germany, I expect I would have either lost the Space Race to the Aztec, or fought a prolonged WWIII until time ran out, with no clear winner. I may play again, just to see how well I might have done, but I have enough experience to know it would be an even match, decided by the random number generator.

The reason I posted this: some of you can win this game on deity; some of you make me look like a total amateur. I hope you will be intrigued by this thread, and see the potential for yourself. What would you have done differently? Which mistakes do you spot in retrospect? How can I take my game from Monarch to the next level? What separates good players from the great ones?

Thanks for reading, and I hope this is useful to other players who are still mastering this excellent, excellent game.

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[TheHaze]

Babylon @ Monarch, part VI
The reason I posted this: some of you can win this game on deity; some of you make me look like a total amateur. I hope you will be intrigued by this thread, and see the potential for yourself. What would you have done differently? Which mistakes do you spot in retrospect? How can I take my game from Monarch to the next level? What separates good players from the great ones?

Three things I noticed:
- You want to win by Conquest or Domination. So why build that many temples early on? For cultural expansion -> build more cities. For happiness -> conquer luxuries.
- Your cities are quite widespread. Your early cities are far away from the capital. That takes time for the settler to get there that is lost. I admit that the land close to your capital is not really tempting. Nevertheless I would try to found a close ring first.
- You are fighting infantry with cavalry and totally neglect bombard units. That makes you lose lots of troops. If you are behind in tech, you will have to adopt a combined arms strategy. There is a good article in the war academy.

Questions:
When did you have your golden age?
Did you build any wonders?
Did you get any leaders? What did you do with them?

 

[Spoonwood]

Thanks for all the pictures. I could say a lot really, here's a few ideas:

1. Try to not waste extra food when a city grows. If you have 19 food in the box, you only need 1 food on the next turn for a size 2 city to hit size 3... 2 food won't do you any good. This goes along with the idea of settler factories. Looks like you could have had one here. This applies to pretty much all VCs.

2. Where are the workers? It honestly looks like the AIs developed terrain faster than you did. Some of this doesn't apply to Conquests, but in general it's a good set of articles. This also pretty much applies to all VCs, though some differences in optimal strategy exist. Settler factories can become worker pumps later also.

3. As already pointed out, you spaced your cities quite a bit.
A. It's fine to space your cities widely, but in my opinion, it's most important to *not* have any tiles that won't end up in the fat X of a core/semi-core city at some point.
B. Space more on terrain than on city spacing schemes (unless playing a 100k).
C. In *this* game with so much jungle nearby it's almost worth considering going ICS (CxC) in the jungle area, since settling on a jungle square turns it into a usable grassland. Cracker's notes ooint this out.

4. It looks like you had defenders in every town. You only need defenders in towns that will get attacked.

5. Believe it or not some players find infantry *less* troubling than rifleman. Why? Artillery. In Conquests (I don't know about Vanilla), if you can get enough cash, buying several armies can also pulverize an opponent quite quickly, even at Sid level.

6. I saw 50/50 research earlier on. Many players go with all-out, or mostly all-out and some luxury research, or with minimum research while buying and trading techs. Learning to trade techs (perhaps with the assistance of a program like MapStat) significantly makes things easier. Picking the correct tech to research also helps a lot. That list doesn't work out as perfect, and some tribes have different tendencies than the norm (like religious tribes who research Music Theory), but that should get you started.

 

[vmxa]

The one big thing that struck me was the research as Spoonwood mentioned. It was 50%/50% almost the whole way. Even at a mere 50% you were only making 2gpt.

I am not sure about the idea of pushing out towns to grab resources or block expansion. I would surely not do that. First it is Monarch, so why sweat them? Second a lot of time was lost while those settlers wandered around.

Your expansion was very slow for having 2 cows in the capitol. I did not notice any armies? Even in vanilla armies are very useful, it is just a lot harder to make them. I say that due to the strong pull to use a leader in vanilla to rush a wonder.

Still you should have some opportunities to have a leader and no wonder available. I would say this could best in stories, but here is fine. You do tell a better than average tale.

 

[Aabraxan]

First of all, in spite of 2 cows, that isn't a great start. That might not have been clear from the first screenshot, but by the time your subcontinent was revealed, you can see lots & lots of jungle.

Whatever VC you choose, shoot for that beginning as early as possible. If you're going for conquest or domination, you don't need all those early temples. Also, I see some problems with city placement. I think sending that settler all the way to the chokepoint to found Ur was a mistake. By my count, it took that settler ~10 turns to get there. If you had sent him (for example) E-SE-SE and founded Ur, then Ur could have been working for ~7 turns in the same time it took the settler just to get to the chokepoint. I know that you wanted to block that chokepoint, but if you'd had to send reinforcements to Ur to defend it, that's a long, long way for spearmen to run.

I know that the iron was a long way off, but putting Akkad out in the jungle like that just meant that you had a relatively unproductive city & it was going to take lots and lots of worker turns to make it productive. And Ashur suffers the same problems as Ur. Ten plus turns (give or take) to get the settler into position.

I think a better expansion plan would have been to place cities closer together and expand almost directly towards the Zulu. Nobody's coming through that jungle, except for very, very slowly. And there were horses in your territory. You could have used those to go get the Zulu iron.

The Germans were still an overseas nation in 490 BC when they demanded stuff from you. The AI is thoroughly rotten at naval invasions, so don't fear demands from Monarch-level AIs at that stage of the game. Let them DOW & enjoy the War Happiness. They'll likely land 2 archers on your shores, and you can leader-fish off of them. They will occasionally land one in an unfortunate spot, and then you can try to make peace before they actually attack.

 

[vmxa]

If you place towns in a CxxC and some CxxxC and make plenty of workers, you do not even have to sweat a landing in any spot. What happens to a lot of players is that they spread CxxxxC and CxxxxxC and have too few workers.

Now they cannot deal with the landing Aabraxan was talking about, especially with spears, which is what they will likely have. I would in fact not expect to get demands at Monarch or at least only rarely.

 

[zaphod2016]

When did you have your golden age?

During one of the early wars, after attacking with Bowmen.

Did you build any wonders?

No. I didn't even try.

Did you get any leaders? What did you do with them?

Not a single one, which really annoyed me. I usually use them to rush wonders.

What happened to your workers?

I automated them (bad move).

Good lessons (summarized from your posts):

1. Always include a diverse army, including attackers, defenders, and bombard units (especially with Cav. v. Artillery)

2. A 50/50 tech/tax is foolish; either focus on learning techs first, or focus on gathering gold. At 50/50 tax revenues are small, and you are beaten to most techs anyway.

3. Defenders in every town are unnecessary, so long as your borders are secure.

>> Related question: is this still true if I am flipping between Communism and Democracy?

4. Forget temples; marketplaces + luxuries = happiness without wasting turns.

5. Resist the urge to flip workers on autopilot too early (they tend to run off to the jungle).

6. Avoid "strategically placing" cities, and stick to the ring method to reduce corruption.

Thanks to all for providing such excellent tips. I can't wait for my next game- I think I'll try Germany. I like the militaristic trait for early war, plus the scientific trait (free techs) is my favorite. Also: bonus for the Panzer tanks.

I am normally a "builder" by nature (I play it like an RPG), but clearly, to win this game at higher levels you must always be conquering something.

 

[undertoad]

I am normally a "builder" by nature (I play it like an RPG), but clearly, to win this game at higher levels you must always be conquering something.

Snap! Me too. Thanks for the great story - having pictures brings it to life.

Over on another thread (I'm on Regent for the 2nd time) I've found I've had to adjust my builder-instincts a bit after advice, so it was very interesting to see you playing in a similar way to me in this game.

Particularly on founding remote cities to block expansion (part of me misses the CivI/II Zone of Control whereby you can block a bottleneck with just 1 or two defending units) or to grab a resource. I love doing this, but in my more successful second Regent game I've tempered this with a bit of patience (and nail-biting in case the **** Romans/Hittites get there first!), close-spacing cities towards the desired location, and getting a city where I want it a little bit later.

I only just learned the other day that a Settler will auto-clear jungle when building a city. Made a great difference to how I handle jungle.

 

[Bartleby]

Nice story, well done. A good way to learn about the game is to get criticism of your efforts. Remember though, the main thing is to have fun playing.

3. Defenders in every town are unnecessary, so long as your borders are secure.

>> Related question: is this still true if I am flipping between Communism and Democracy?

Under communism you can get a little extra happiness in troublesome cities by virtue of military police so you might want to keeep some interior towns defended...but you can use junk units or cheap units for this.
I would advise you not to use democracy in the first place. Granted, as a religious civ, the switch isn't so painful, but if you do some experimentation you'll probably find that democracy has little to offer over republic. Most players prefer to switch governments only once, early in the game, to republic (for research-based games) or monarchy (for heavy warfare-based games).

 

[Spoonwood]

I am normally a "builder" by nature (I play it like an RPG), but clearly, to win this game at higher levels you must always be conquering something.

Oh, it's just Zaphod. Sorry, I didn't mean to insult you... well maybe the other brain.

I actually usually play as a builder myself. People have won (and set records) without fighting any wars whatsoever. I don't think you're quite ready to do what's suggested there, but you might enjoy Drakan's article.

What do you mean by playing it like an RPG? I'd think that would play as a very aggressive game... and what's the analog of psi (the EarthBound analog of magic) spells?

 

[zaphod2016]

Vote Zaphod in 2012!

When I say "play it like an RPG" I mean I pretend as if the AI civs have feelings, and as if I myself were king. This means promoting literacy and economic development, offering trades out of pity, and fighting war only in self defense.

It is fun, for me at least, but it is not the right way to "win" this game as best as I can tell. Civ3 rewards a certain degree of Machiavellian politics.

 

[The Professor]

As several people have mentioned, you really need to think about where you place your cities. I recommend reading some of the games in the Succession Game Forum, especially the Training Day Games, where there is often a great deal of discussion about city placement, and the rationale for placing cities. There is also a lot of analysis of what a city should be building, and players are expected to write detailed turnlogs where they not only say what they did, but why they did it. I think this might be helpful for you.

 

[vmxa]

Vote Zaphod in 2012!

When I say "play it like an RPG" I mean I pretend as if the AI civs have feelings, and as if I myself were king. This means promoting literacy and economic development, offering trades out of pity, and fighting war only in self defense.

It is fun, for me at least, but it is not the right way to "win" this game as best as I can tell. Civ3 rewards a certain degree of Machiavellian politics.

You still do all those things, just not without limits. Think of it as you cannot promote anything, if you die. So making everything everywhere could be compromised some.

Fighting only when attack is not a problem, you just have to win the war. It would also be good to annex some land for your troubles.

To those ends, just incorporate some of what has been talked about. You still will have the same "RPG" flavor, but with more success.

BTW could you slap the hide spoiler tags on the screenies? The page loads very slow and we have already seen them. The hide will let them load faster and then they can elect to view them or not.

 

[vmxa]

"The reason I posted this: some of you can win this game on deity; some of you make me look like a total amateur. I hope you will be intrigued by this thread, and see the potential for yourself. What would you have done differently? Which mistakes do you spot in retrospect? How can I take my game from Monarch to the next level? What separates good players from the great ones?"

You would have to post a 4000BC save for someone to see what may be done differently. You mentioned Deity, so I presume this Vannilla or PTW. I forget if the world seed was only added in Conquest or not.

You could replay from the start and try out some of the ideas tossed out and see how it compares. It will be a bit off as you already know the map, but I don't think that has to be a huge item.

 

[zaphod2016]

BTW could you slap the hide spoiler tags on the screenies? The page loads very slow and we have already seen them. The hide will let them load faster and then they can elect to view them or not.

Sorry about that. I will be sure to do that in the future also.

You would have to post a 4000BC save for someone to see what may be done differently. ...You could replay from the start and try out some of the ideas tossed out and see how it compares.

I wish I had the save, but alas, it was an auto-save and it was overwritten. I decided to try a new game as Germany, but I like to complete the game in full before I post (so I don't leave anyone hanging). Keep an eye out for me on the Stories & Tales board.

FYI: this is Civ3 1.29f Vanilla.