Gigglethorpe tries to defeat Monarch difficulty

[Gigglethorpe]

The capital should basically always be a commerce city (cottages), because you want to run bureaucracy there. This location looks fantastic for that Riverside grassland is ideal for cottages, and you also have a gem for early commerce, plus a wet corn and some floodplains. Looks grand. Best of luck

Correct to start with agriculture while building a worker.

A little unfortunate with jungle so near (usually a side effect of gems), so you'll probably want to expand north. Depends a bit on what scouting reveals.

So I've researched Agriculture, and the Worker is not complete yet. The southern area has a lot of Dye, though that's useless to me until Calendar. Ivory is available in the northeast, so I may build a city on the riverside tile next to it. It can take advantage of the floodplain cottages that way too.

No AIs have greeted me yet.

Filthy jungle has grown over my gems! Now I can't use them until Iron Working!

I don't think "slash and burn" societies needed iron to cause deforestation in real life.

Maybe the tech path should go The Wheel->Pottery next?

 

[Gumbolt]

If you want cottages that tech path is fine. BW never hurts if you want to whip.

Again you seem to keep picking up saves with very little food resources in site. Wow!!

Don't be afraid to enter the huts. I think on Monarch level you are safe.

It does seem a game where you want to get IW asap. Then calendar for the dye. You could beeline alphabet here skipping all other techs and focus on cottages. See how game goes but being a pangea the Ai should all appear sooner than later.

You may want 1-2 cities to help the capitals cottages. I just hope you have not been nerfed with 1 food resource. A city up north could grow on a 3f flood plains. You could even farm 1 for growth?

Certainly for now focus on growth once worker is built and farm the corn.

 

[Gigglethorpe]

If you want cottages that tech path is fine. BW never hurts if you want to whip.

Again you seem to keep picking up saves with very little food resources in site. Wow!!

Don't be afraid to enter the huts. I think on Monarch level you are safe.

It does seem a game where you want to get IW asap. Then calendar for the dye. You could beeline alphabet here skipping all other techs and focus on cottages. See how game goes but being a pangea the Ai should all appear sooner than later.

You may want 1-2 cities to help the capitals cottages. I just hope you have not been nerfed with 1 food resource. A city up north could grow on a 3f flood plains. You could even farm 1 for growth?

Certainly for now focus on growth once worker is built and farm the corn.

I wonder if I still have the save file for the worst Pangaea ever. I randomly drew Tokugawa, and my capital was on a narrow strip of land with only one way out, and that was blocked by several AIs.

Inland Sea is a better map script than Pangaea if you ask me, though it can get repetitive after a while. What are some other good alternatives if you want a land-heavy map?

By focus on growth, do you mean "build Warriors until size 4-5"?

 

[Pangaea]

Size 3 is usually a good point to start the first settler.

Other usually good mapscripts are fractal and terra. Fractal can give very different results, including total isolation until astronomy. Terra is big, and there is a totally free continent, unsettled by AIs early. Basically you start in Eurasia and the Americas are free for settling later.

Surprisingly I like Pangaea maps Though my username doesn't come from this game. I've used it in all sorts of places since long before I knew civ games existed.

 

[Gumbolt]

Usually size 3 then start a settler. As you don't have many great tiles for food in capital size 4 may take too long. Whipping will also be tougher with a lack of food. It may mean more farms on grassland in new cities. Certainly scout round capital for now. The AI will show up soon enough.

I normally aim to have a settler out around 2600-2800bc. Pends on map. Normally for a philosophical leader you might focus on food and great people during game. You need to find some food here first. The land here is perfect for cottages.

Corn and mine seem logical first tiles for worker. Obviously flood plains offer quicker growth to size 3 once you reach size 2. You really need to play around with the capital city tiles to decide what is best. Personally in early game I like fast growth to size 3. Sometimes I may use a mine if I need a warrior to fog bust city locations. Once you start the settler mines will offer 4 hammers vs flood plains 3. So this is why some mines will help before cottages.

I would pause once you have finished the settler.

 

[Gigglethorpe]

Usually size 3 then start a settler. As you don't have many great tiles for food in capital size 4 may take too long. Whipping will also be tougher with a lack of food. It may mean more farms on grassland in new cities. Certainly scout round capital for now. The AI will show up soon enough.

I normally aim to have a settler out around 2600-2800bc. Pends on map. Normally for a philosophical leader you might focus on food and great people during game. You need to find some food here first. The land here is perfect for cottages.

Corn and mine seem logical first tiles for worker. Obviously flood plains offer quicker growth to size 3 once you reach size 2. You really need to play around with the capital city tiles to decide what is best. Personally in early game I like fast growth to size 3. Sometimes I may use a mine if I need a warrior to fog bust city locations. Once you start the settler mines will offer 4 hammers vs flood plains 3. So this is why some mines will help before cottages.

I would pause once you have finished the settler.

I farmed the corn and built a mine with my Fast Worker, and Cottages are next.

The land to the north and east looks bad. There was another topic where the OP thought that the Pangaea map script eventually gives worse and worse maps; I'm going to agree!

Frederick and Peter both came from the south, which makes sense given the map.

What should I do next now that more information is available? Is Bronze Working or Writing a better choice? I don't have all that many trees to chop down yet, but I want Iron Working eventually, and it enables the Slavery civic.

 

[Gumbolt]

Tough call techwise. BW would be nice to chop granary and library. Where going direct for Alphabet is about giving up other techs. I think BW is a must really for these 2 buildings. It will be a while before you have cottages up and running. Chopping a second worker/granary and library will be nice too. Whipping will be tough with limited food on this map.

I don't understand why you are avoiding all the huts. Why have them enabled if you don't plan on using them?

You really wanted your warrior closer to home to fog bust.

Capital can work flood plain for one turn and switch to mine the following turn to complete the warrior and grow to size 3.

 

[Gigglethorpe]

So here I am now. Barbarian Archers have built a city to the northwest, and I didn't have enough Warriors. I have no copper in my area, and I don't have Animal Husbandry yet because I didn't have any food resources that needed it. I chopped out a Granary for my capital, and am doing the same for my second city. I built Cottages on the floodplains, since those tiles were the most profitable.

Was Epic meant to be the "Normal" speed at some point in development? It seems much more logical to me.

The only promising land around is far to the southeast, with pigs and copper.

Iron Working sounds good to me to get the gems, and to hopefully get iron on one of my hills.

Is the player normally expected to research Archery on Monarch or above? All of the AIs start with Archery at that level, and I didn't want to fall behind in the tech race.

 

[Gigglethorpe]

I played some more and tried to do an Elephant and Catapult rush against Saladin to the south. The problem was that I did it too late, and the enemy got Macemen. What is the best way to accomplish it in time on Normal speed? How big is a good attack stack? Should I bother rushing with one movement units at all, or is it a better strategy to use mounted units?

I ordered the complete version of Civilization IV (cheaper than BTS by itself) and I should get it by Monday, so this experiment will probably be my last Warlords game. Since this is an advice thread, I will likely reload this save file and try different things until I get BTS.

 

[Qactus]

...
Is the player normally expected to research Archery on Monarch or above? All of the AIs start with Archery at that level, and I didn't want to fall behind in the tech race.

The reason for falling behind in the tech race is exactly that: Researching all of these small techs yourself. Instead, aim for something big that nobody else has and trade it around for everything you skipped.

 

[Gigglethorpe]

I just got Beyond the Sword today, and it's as good a time as any for a fresh start.

Mansa Musa is my randomly generated leader, and I'm on the coast of a Donut map. The coastal commerce combined with seafood tempting for a Financial civilization, but I have Corn, so Agriculture is a better move here? That would allow me to pursue the ever-popular "Worker first" strategy.

 

[Gumbolt]

My gut would be agriculture, AH, BW, fishing. Quicker to chop out the workboats here. They only offer 4 food before light house. The 3 commerce is sweet.

I guess settling in place here was best but always move the scout/warrior first to be sure. Especially when trying to improve your game.

Chance to share the crabs with a second city. May not be a bad start for GLH. If you mess this up you are in trouble as that is a great start.

 

[Gigglethorpe]

Never underestimate my ability to mess up even the best starts, Gumbolt!

Okay, so I'm turning tribal villages off for good after THAT one. Losing your first Warrior to goody hut barbarians is never a good omen. . .

No random events too, because they're annoying, and I forgot to remove them the first time.

I rolled another Donut and got Shaka this time. The starting location was another good coastal area. Is Donut the best script, or have I just gotten lucky with the past two maps?

I already have Agriculture as the Zulu, so what now?

 

[ikotomi]

It's only Monarch, so it's not going to be the end of the world to lose your first warrior, especially if you rolled a really nice capitol. You have to build some more warriors anyways before building settlers.

Starting over too many times is not productive imo. The key things to work on is efficiently managing your worker improvements and cities so you are working the best available tiles, expanding to the best locations, and winning the race to liberalism (timing your great scientists). The loss of hammers sucks, but it's definitely not worth tossing out a great start.

As for tech choices, as a rule of thumb, I would self tech the most critical techs and then get the ones I don't need as much with alphabet. Usually agriculture and AH are always teched, but whether I get bronze working, fishing, TW, or even sailing depends on the map. If your expanding, you usually don't run out of worker actions before alphabet, as you move your worker from city to city.

Of course, this also depends on the number of AIs you meet. Only one AI, and you get nothing out of alphabet, since they don't trade monopoly techs until you reach friendly.

 

[civfanchambers]

@Gigglethorpe - I've never played a donut map for a normal game, but for a first time Always war games the donut map with mountains is a good choice. Controls the direction that the Ai armies come from.

 

[Jivilov]

Game Settings

Expansion-Warlords

Leader-Catherine of Russia

Creative is my favorite trait. Without it, you have to waste time building Monuments or Stonehenge, and lose out on tiles in border cities. Imperialistic may not be the best, but at least you get out the Settlers quicker. Cossacks are superior Cavalry, and Research Institutes can give you the edge in a Space Race.

Speed-Epic

Whenever I try to build an army on Normal speed, the units become obsolete too quickly.

Yeah I like Warlords too. Never did like the other versions' inability to have great military leaders. Plus BTS is just too complex for a peabrain like me .

Ditto creative leaders. I prefer Augustus and the butt-whomping Praetorian. No need to build culture buildings right off to fight for cultural space so those cheap Roman Courthouses go up pronto to save gold (if not all the enslaved citizens).

You've got a point about Normal speed but once you start a war time slows down to a snail's pace. In my current game I'd love to attack Mehmet but Ragnar's on the other side of him and they're good buddies. So the prudent course is sit tight, build up infrastructure and "modernize" the army while hoping they fall out eventually. (This is Monarch just like yours.)

Good luck and happy gaming!

 

[Gumbolt]

Never underestimate my ability to mess up even the best starts, Gumbolt!

Is that the only reason you quit?? People will stop following this thread if you keep quitting. Not good.

Seriously when you post games don't settle the capital! One lost fish resource is a big blow. No way to get that back unless there is more hidden land near it. Seems unlikely on a donut map.

 

[Gigglethorpe]

Is that the only reason you quit?? People will stop following this thread if you keep quitting. Not good.

Seriously when you post games don't settle the capital! One lost fish resource is a big blow. No way to get that back unless there is more hidden land near it. Seems unlikely on a donut map.

I also played very badly in that previous game. The goody hut was just the first of many problems. I'm much more confident in games other than Civilization.

The Shaka game will be much better. I'm starting to think that Hunting is underrated as a starting technology; you get a Scout, and fewer beakers are required for Archery if you have no strategic resource.

I have a few potential city sites along the long river where I start. Donut maps seem to be food-rich if nothing else. Riverside locations also open up cottages, levees, and waterwheels if I need them.

No AIs yet. Mining was the first technology I researched, because the hills would be a priority after working the Corn. I have marble in my capital, but that can come later.

So I have several choices here, but I'm leaning towards Bronze Working and Animal Husbandry. Probably Bronze Working first.

 

[Gumbolt]

Your city choice near your border is not great!! It needs to include the sheep in the inner ring. Doing anything else is a big mistake. Oh you started with hunting. Misread your post.

For me this start wanted BW and AH. BW for slavery and to chop a workboat. Ah for horse and to work the sheep.

You have a lot of good land to cottage here. So pottery will be a good 4th tech. Masonry if you want fail gold later on.

Scout should complete circle of capital.

 

[Gigglethorpe]

Why tech hunting? Are you really likely to build a scout?? You have no ivory or deers to work either? Your city choice near your border is not great!! It needs to include the sheep in the inner ring. Doing anything else is a big mistake.

For me this start wanted BW and AH. BW for slavery and to chop a workboat. Ah for horse and to work the sheep.

You have a lot of good land to cottage here. So pottery will be a good 4th tech. Masonry if you want fail gold later on.

Scout should complete circle of capital.

I'm playing as Shaka. The Zulus start with Hunting!

Thanks for the advice about the city site with the sheep.

I had a change of plans when I discovered Animal Husbandry. There was a site with Horses and Corn, so how could I pass that up? Especially with Augustus and Huayna Capac coming from the south. Currently building a few Warriors for fogbusting and to guard future city sites.

Tokugawa is somewhere to the north.

I have Choose Religions on, in case any readers are wondering why Christianity has been founded so early.