Gigglethorpe tries to defeat Monarch difficulty

[Gigglethorpe]

Not as bad as first thought. Still going to be a weak capital.

You want hunting and Ag first. Then almost certainly BW with all that forest.

SIP looks best. 1NE might get a plains hill but it looks like you have some coast up there. Should have a nice run to oracle with all the forest. No happiness resources in sight.

With imperialist leaders you normally want some early mines. Not sure how this will time with techs here. Chopping with Imp will be nice for 30H chops to settler.

I think try the original map. A double gold start won't help you learn emperor level. Long as you follow advice you should be okay.

The learning experience is the most important part here, so good thing I kept my old save!

I'll post again when I've researched the initial techs.

When does the AI build the Oracle at different difficulty levels, by the way?

 

[Gumbolt]

Pends on map. Can be really late or sometimes really early like 2000bc. Normally 1400-1500bc should be safe. See what happiness resources you find when you explore. Remember to scout around your capital first.

You may also want to deselect your tech for first 5 turns. It helps research if you meet an AI in first five turns. Just click on tech you select on top bar across screen and it should remove the tech. After 5 turns it automatically selects cheapest tech.

 

[Gigglethorpe]

So I've researched Hunting, Agriculture, Mining, and Bronze Working.

My opponents so far are Pacal and Zara Yaqob. I don't know much about them, but Pacal at least seems to love religion, because he founded Hinduism. I've heard Zara Yaqob is a zealot, but I haven't had personal experience with him.

Space might be cramped on this continent. Zara Yaqob is expanding towards me, and to get good land, I may have to send legions of axe murderers to his territory. Fortunately, I just discovered Copper in my territory!

Expanding south might be an option for a more peaceful route.

Pottery and the Settler are just placeholders for right now. I haven't spent a turn researching or building them.

 

[Seraiel]

Screenshots with resource-bubbles turned on plz!

 

[Gumbolt]

I normally don't like early roads. I guess you had no other useful builds for the workers.

Why are both the warriors in your capital??? They should of been scouting/ fog busting.

Guessing you should be able to 2 pop whip settler with Imp at S4. You are working 2 dead tiles anyway.

Second city site?? Cows/flood plains?
Pigs/gold to head towards Zara?

There is some very nice land south of you too.

Axe rush should be good here with 2 cities. You'll need another worker to help to chop.

Some screenies would of been nice.

 

[Gigglethorpe]

The roads were busy-work for the Worker. I couldn't build any mines until Bronze Working. It looks like he should rush over and mine the Copper.

The reason there are two Warriors in the capital is that one is for happiness and protection and the other was just built for scouting or fogbusting. Perhaps I should have moved one of them out sooner.

I want to expand towards Zara if possible. I have Copper available, and Ethiopia is expanding quickly. This can also help me learn how to do an early rush. The Shaka game was mostly peaceful expansion (with the odd barbarian city) until Cuirassiers.

I have no idea where Pacal is right now. Probably not close by if I haven't seen him yet.

Screenshots for Seraiel are attached.

 

[ikotomi]

One of the most important things in the early game is to spend your resources on the most useful thing now.

You only need to prioritize happiness when your unhappiness is going to be higher than your happiness. Until then, there is no effect on what tiles you can work. This should be around size 4 or 5.

Here, the tradeoff ia obvious since scouting information is more valuable than nothing, but even if you're hitting unhappiness, if the tiles you are working are junk, it isn't going to be as important to keep the city happy (this is why whipping cities smaller is so effective). You'll want more warriors eventually, but maybe not now.

Anyways, having 2 warriors in your capitol doesn't give you extra happiness until you research Monarchy and switch to HR.

 

[Gigglethorpe]

I founded my second city and started cranking out Axemen by chopping down lots of trees. Is this the right thing to do here to take out Zara Yaqob? Unfortunately, most of my Warriors died to wild animals and barbarian Archers.

Now that I think about it, I should edit this post later and add a few screenshots for Seraiel.

EDIT: And here's the screenshot of my empire so far.

 

[Gumbolt]

Sorry been away for a few days. I will try and look at this later.

Against a creative Ai and you opt for no barracks??? Epic fail.

I would of preferred at least 3 workers to speed up all these axes. Shame you could not of stolen 2-3 workers.

Your axes have a long trek too to reach him. Ideally second city could of been towards the target. The pigs is a nice resource.

Will think about this more later.