Gigglethorpe tries to defeat Monarch difficulty

[Gigglethorpe]

I continued playing my Shaka game today, and made some more progress.

I'm still new to Espionage, so for right now, I'm dividing the points out. I didn't want to spend too much Espionage on one AI in case another one becomes a threat later. Is this a good idea?

So far, the only other leader near me is Huayna Capac in the southwest. From what I remember of him, he's less of a concern than more bellicose leaders like Montezuma, Napoleon and Alexander, though he can be a contender in a space race.

There is a copper site between Huayna Capac and my civ, but there's no food resource to support it. Besides, I have a city site to the northwest that I am considering picking up as well.


I need some more Workers in a bit. So far, I haven't seen many barbarians, but I may want to have some Chariots just in case.


I switched into Slavery and met João during the turn of anarchy. I don't know much about him other than that he expands rapidly. He founded a religion, so maybe he focuses more on religious technologies? Opening borders with everyone seemed like the best option as soon as I researched Writing. Except for Tokugawa. He's a jerk.

The next big question is: What is the best technology to research?

For now, there's enough room to expand, so I may not need to go to war right away. Many players research Aesthetics and then trade it with the AI, but this is Monarch. The AI tends to get Alphabet late at that level. That sounds like the best option to me.

I haven't bothered with Mysticism yet. If you are not a Creative leader, is it better to build Monuments or chop/whip Libraries if the food resource is within the initial borders of a new city?

Yes I have Marble, but wonders look like a luxury I cannot afford right now, so I skipped Masonry too.

 

[Gumbolt]

Agreed. Peaceful expansion here is fine. You have room for 8-9 cities here.

Ideally you want more fogbusters here. Nobamba does not need a defender here. Send him into the fog to fogbust.

You are short on workers. I would probably switch capital to a worker now. Maybe put a chop into the capital. Worker/granary and 3 pop whip settler at size 6 could be nice. You are running a lot of unworked tiles in your capital.

Your second city could whip a worker too. 4>2. That would give you 2 more workers. OF might complete chariot. Regrow and repeat if you want more workers. 5 for 4 cities is okay. 6 workers would be nice.

Ideally you want to get some cottages started on the rivers. Also settle the river sites that have food first. In theory you could settle the sheep to grab the copper but no rush here. Just watch what the Incans do for now.

I normally focus all EP on one AI. Sharing it out get's you nowhere. Incans are useful to see tech wise as financial AI.


You are in no rush for monuments. Your 2nd and 3rd city have no resources in the outter rings. Libraries with cottages will work well. You might get lucky with a religion spread.

With marble the Aest/ Lit line is very nice here. Glib would be nice. Early alphabet may offer some tech trades. You seem to have most basic techs anyway so Aeth looks better. I would try to stick to 100% science where possible.

 

[Gigglethorpe]

Shaka now has Literature, so I can build the Great Library. The problem is that my Zulus always whine about how crowded the cities are. Well, there are a few complaints about my "cruel oppression", but all I'm doing is sending the freeloaders off to do something constructive!

(You'd think that health would be a bigger restriction on city size than happiness. How many people in ancient Rome or Babylon rioted because the cities were "too crowded"?)

There's a barbarian city to the north with a food source that I want to capture in the future. Since Huayna Capac is still the only AI with visible borders and he's nowhere near me, I probably have enough time to do so.

My southernmost city has Judaism, but is it worth the anarchy and the effort of building missionaries to spread it in my cities?

Huayna Capac invited me to eat a hamster. Unfortunately, I couldn't point out that his subjects in real life ate guinea pigs instead. Know your rodents, Firaxis!

So what's the best move now? Apparently Civilization IV citizens are only happy when their leader wears an ermine cape, so Monarchy looks like a good choice.

 

[Gumbolt]

Wow I didn't realise how short on happiness resources you were. You could really use that ivory/wine.

Seems to me you need to beeline monarchy for HR. Your city sizes here are being crippled. 5 cities by 400bc is a bit low. 35 turns for Glib is too long.

 

[Gigglethorpe]

Wow I didn't realise how short on happiness resources you were. You could really use that ivory/wine.

Seems to me you need to beeline monarchy for HR. Your city sizes here are being crippled. 5 cities by 400bc is a bit low. 35 turns for Glib is too long.

It turns out that my Marble helped a lot. For some unfathomable reason, the AI did not build the Oracle yet. So I built it in my production city, and picked up Monarchy with it. I did not have the commerce to manually research it quickly, since my economy must be run by Nicolás Maduro. Currency is the obvious next choice for research.

The first Great Scientist built an academy in the capital, and the Great Library should give me a few more later. Maybe my production city could get the Parthenon as well?

Huayna Capac is plotting war, but he hates João more than me due to religious differences. Hereditary Rule gives me the incentive to build military units anyway, and I have designs on the two barbarian cities to the north.

Is it just my imagination, or did the AI get dumber in Beyond the Sword? The tech pace seems slower than it was in Warlords. How was the AI improved?

 

[Gumbolt]

Well on Monarchy the Ai don't tech that fast. They also expand quite slowly compared to immortal. Nice catch on oracle and Monarchy.

Things are looking better. Your capital needs to be running the cottages. Too many mines!

You might want 3-4 axes for those barb cities at some point. You have spare units to keep the copper city happy. No reason for the red faces. Chariots move quickly.

At some point you need to think about how you plan to win this game? Cuirs???

Currency seems okay next. You should have a free run on music too. A golden age at some point will help once you have G art from music. Then use GA to switch to Bureau. You have no great GP farm here but you should be fine tech wise. The Ai are backwards.

Bulawayo might make a nice production city later with a few farms.

If you want to reach higher levels you will need to work on diplomacy at some point. Trading resources helps. Gifting techs helps too. Toku at cautious will eventually attack you.

Still lots to do here.

 

[Gigglethorpe]

O, Huayna Capac! I studied Alfred Crosby's The Columbian Exchange for a whole semester of college, give you outdated technologies, and open borders with you, and this is how you repay me!

I know he was plotting war, but he was Annoyed with several other leaders and Pleased with me. Some AIs can declare war at Pleased, but I thought that they would place a higher priority on attacking the leaders that they hate more. It's not like I was neglecting my military either, since I built so many Axemen.

What influences the AIs' decisions to declare war?

I was able to capture the two barbarian cities to the north, and there may be another one up for grabs too. Huayna Capac needs to be punished for his insolence first.

 

[Gumbolt]

That is a huge over reaction to his DOW. Guessing he will show up with a small stack of 5-8 units at some point. Probably suicide them on one of your cities. You can move in a axe and impi to the border city. Overall just ignore the Incans. Not a war worth fighting right now. Impi from capital?

Overall now you need to focus on getting to cuirs. Once you hit Civil Service you can switch to Bureau. Do you use GS for golden age? I prefer using the Gart from music. Probably a better move. Be careful when making switch as you are at war.

You need to hook up ivory and silk. You are far too relaint on HR units. These are costing you gold.

Trade for the Romans free spice. You don't need the rice. Time to sell off monarchy?? 70 from Romans and 10-40 from other AI plus a tech.

You may want to delete some units. All those axes up north are not needed.

The thing with AI is they can go war mode if at any point they are not pleased. Some Ai can declare at friendly. Always be careful with Ai in war mode. Use chariots to check what they are up to.

This game is yours to throw away really.

Time to scout out Toku!! He is a warmonger so at any point he could go war mode. Trading/gifting him monarchy may help to get him pleased.

 

[Seraiel]

What influences the AIs' decisions to declare war?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6806299&postcount=391

If you have any answers after that, search for DanF and anything like war-mechanics or DoW-mechanics or similar.

 

[Seraiel]

You may want to delete some units. All those axes up north are not needed.

Never delete units unless you already are at the domination-limit and don't pursue a Dom or Conquest victory! Even an Axe can kill a Musket without problems, if a Cannon attacked before that ^^ .

The thing with AI is they can go war mode if at any point they are not pleased. Some Ai can declare at friendly.

This is no neatpicking, but all AIs can declare at friendly. Most cannot plot at pleased and none can plot at friendly.

 

[Gigglethorpe]

Huayna Capac declared war while I was busy capturing barbarian cities. The military units were intended for the barbarians and for Hereditary Rule happiness.

When I play Civilization IV next (I was doing some Minecraft projects today), I'll go for the border city. How do you tell if a captured city will be crushed by enemy culture, by the way? Is it ever worth it to give a worthless captured city to a faraway AI that Huayna Capac hates to make them fight each other later?

 

[Gumbolt]

Fair enough about not deleting units. In this instance Gigglethorpe is no way near domination. Personally I would rather have a few less units to reduce costs to increase science. I really doubt the Ai here will have any sizeable stack.

Fighting a war with just axes serves little value. By now most of Huayna cities will have 20-40%+ culture and he will have lots of roaming units. Better to use mace/trebs/pults or cuirs later on. As you have already pointed out, any city you capture will be swamped in Ai culture. It would take you many turns to build up a stack anyway.

As i said before you need a plan on how to win this. My view is there is a lot of land to cover here and you need 2mp units if you plan domination. You should be able to vassel all the AI by going for wars in which you quickly kill off the Ai stacks.

Of course galleons would work well on a donut map too. Quickly take out the Ai capitals by sea.

 

[Gigglethorpe]

The war turned out. . .almost exactly as Gumbolt predicted. I took a bad border city from Huayna Capac, he sent a subpar stack of Swordsmen to one of my border cities, and I gave him peace in exchange for him giving me Horseback Riding. I'm going for Education for the Great Scientist bonus and opening the path to Liberalism.

Augustus asked me to convert to Christianity or suffer the consequences, so I did. Without the anarchy penalty even, because I was in a Golden Age!

That should give me alliances with him and João in the future. Napoleon already dislikes me because I cancelled trade deals to satisfy Huayna Capac before the war[/I], and Lincoln hated me as soon as I met him long after the other AIs. Everyone else hates Lincoln too, so I don't trade with him.

Right now, I'm trying to cut down on maintenance costs with a combination of building Courthouses, spending production on Wealth, and binary research.

 

[Gumbolt]

Yeah the fight with Inca was pointless. It should of only ever been a defensive war. Never fight a battle unless you know you have the stack to deal with it. You had pretty much no stack and units which would never take a major city without catapults.

It looks like you have lost Music to the Incans. Shame! I would probably bulb edu with the GS.

The courthouse in the captured city is pointless. -4.68 costs is nothing. The capital courthouse was even worse build. It will save you about 1.3 gold a turn. I rarely ever build a court house in my capital. Waste of hammers.

Wealth or fail gold on wonders would of been better in the capital. Or run 2 scientists instead of mines. An extra GS is not a bad thing. 11 turns?

I see no value in that axe build either. You have a lot of out dated units already. You might as well use some of the axes to take out the remaining barb cities. If you can get a lvl 10 unit this would be helpful. You need Heroic epic.

Good luck playing on. Cuirs next. You will need music, gunpowder and nationalism. Hopefully you can bulb liberalism. Avoid machinery.

 

[Gigglethorpe]

So I finally have the capacity to build Curassiers. Good thing I had Iron near one of my captured barbarian cities or this game would have turned out much worse. I also have a Great Scientist and a Great Prophet to start a Golden Age when it's time to switch Civics.

The Apostolic Palace has been built for Christianity, but I have very few Christian cities, and it's getting late enough that it might not be worth bothering with temples and shrines for the production bonus.

How many Curassiers should I build before taking revenge on Huayna Capac? Or should I go after Tokugawa first, since he'll be a more dangerous opponent?

Napoleon declared war on João, and Augustus fought a brief skirmish with Huayna Capac.

Even with a few Courthouses and a lot of Cottages, it is difficult to keep my research at 100% for more than a few turns. Is this normal for Monarch and above?

 

[Seraiel]

Your cities are too big and you're working numerous unimproved tiles, why aren't you whipping Cuirrassiers? You should start with whipping them 1T after you get MT, now that you are 1T before MC though, you should whip Forges before them as they'll pay back fast with all those whips. Your city-builds look mostly good though. The Universities outside of your capital were unnecessary, but Granaries and Barracks are good buildings, all those Libraries were also not necessary though, but I understand that you built them, with having so many Cottages and they will pay back, it's more an optimization on Deity, where you get techs a lot earlier because the AIs are stronger teching-partners, in those games, there's no time for Libraries because one gets the military-techs so early.

Your biggest problems atm. are, that you have Open Borders with only 1 AI, therefore you only have few foreign and mostly internal TRs, that don't give much unless you got overseas cities. You also have no real GP-Farm and building the NE in the capital is a weak choice, because your capital needs to work a lot of Cottages due to the buro-bonus, therefore it cannot work many Specialists. Specialize 1 city to Farms next time and build the NE in it and always let it run Specialists. If you want to be even better: Switch to Caste + Pacifism in Golden Ages and run Specialists in all big cities and generate 3-5 GPs in 1 GA, use 2 to start the next GA, and again produce 3-4 GPs, take 3 again for the next GA and again produce 3 GPs. Take the rest for bulbing and create GMs to upgrade HAs to Cuirrassiers to have a huge Cuirrassier stack on the turn you reach Military Tradition (requires good coordination) . Another big problem is, that you still didn't take a religious civic. Religious civics are very strong, you should make use of them, even spread Religion to get the most out of them.

I won't give you direct advice on whom you should attack, because you need to learn how to decide that yourself. You want to 1. attack the most dangerous target first, if it is not too strong. If it is too strong, attack the weakest largest target first. The difference is, that if you attack the strongest one, you'll win the game, if that however is not possible, you yourself need to get stronger faster than he gets stronger, so you need to "outrace" him to victory.
2. Choose a target that has borders with you if possible, becaue moving far delays your attack date, and you should move the shortest distance possible, because moving is what takes the most time on non-Marathon-speeds. Sometimes you need to move far because of 1., but getting cities near your Palace also has an advantage in maintenance.
3. Judge "the juicyness" of your target. If someone has big cities that are probably well developed, he's a better candidate to go against.
4. Try to backstab your target. Fighting against an AIs stack can be very difficult, if you can simply conquer the AIs cities while its stack is in enemy territory where it gets farmed, better for you.
5. Bribe your target to Caste before war if possible, you don't want it to whip defenders.
6. Try to keep your friends, maybe you can peace-vassal them later for free, and still can use them ase trade-partners. Only attack friendly AIs if they're the most desirable target (take 1-5 to judge that) .

And regarding your research: Staying at 100% all the time is impossible, on Monarch, where the AIs have less especially. You should trade for those 250 that that one AI had though, better you sell him a useless tech that won't give him an advantage and get something for it, than get nothing.

If you got any questions, ask, and if you post screenshots next time, I maybe can give more specific advice.

 

[Seraiel]

I forgot. Build as many troops as needed and try to get the most out of your huge Cuirrassier advantage. Whipping down cities to size 3 or even 2 is absolutely ok, it only makes sense though, if your target is hard, or if you think that you can win the game with Cuirrs, otherwise, it'd be better to leave the cities larger and tech to Rifling (-> Cavalries) to again get stronger units. Cuirrassiers usually have odds between 40 and 70% against Longbows, so simply scout your target, and build troops accordingly. Common numbers to attack with lie between 15 and 40 Cuirrs, while 15 is for weak targets that have low defenses while 40 are more for a full-scale Cuirrassier target-stomp. In Deity-games that I won with Cavalries, I usually built between 100 and 250 of them over the whole game. I'd have needed much less to only win the game, but more units also lead to faster finish-dates because one can attack more cities simultaniously. The only city you should keep big is your capital, because that one is the main source of your economy.

 

[ikotomi]

Took a quick look at your game, and there's... a lot of room for improvement.

As an exercise, it would be good for you to take a look at all of your cities every time you post one of these saves, and make sure you're only working good tiles. This also means make sure that the specialist's you're running makes sense. Running a specialist is better than running an unimproved tile, but for most cities, you'll usually be better off whipping it away for a unit your civilization needs more (workers, missionaries, settlers, military), or possibly a building.

And especially pay attention to your capital, since it gets the most bonuses with good management. Your capital is currently working unimproved land. You wanted to have those cottaged up a long time ago (even before the many cottages you have for your other cities), but until those tiles are improved, take back the cottages that your helper cities are working as that will give you a bonus now. You're also missing a lighthouse in your capital. If you built this a lot earlier, that one extra food would have been quite useful in the earlier stages of the game where you could have used the whip more liberally.

Re-evaluate your trades. You're giving Marble to Caesar for gold - You want this Marble so you can build the Taj Mahal (I noticed you took nationalism with Liberalism. You're not in any danger of losing it, but it is a wonder you will probably want). Caesar also has spices which you do not have yet. You should hook up some of your other resources so that you can get a better trade for it (and can probably get the GPT from the marble trade back).

Joao is Pleased, and you get the bonus for having Hereditary Rule civic. You can easily get him to friendly if you get the fair trading diplomacy bonus (and you can get that 250 gold as well to help your research). At Friendly, you can get Theology from him, which will let you get Theocracy for your units and would normally be very useful for the army you will be building up. Also move your espionage to him, so you can find out what he's researching (so you can trade for it rather than research it yourself). You have way too much espionage right now on Huyana, and can even steal a technology from them.

Unfortunately...you have no Open Borders! In addition to missing out on easy diplomacy bonuses, this prevents the AI from spreading their religion in your cities, and since you haven't been building missionaries yourself, even if you civic changed to Theology, you would only get the bonus in a few cities. You're not running any religion civic right now, but if you think about it, you've been missing out on the advantages of Organized Religion for many turns now (in particular, your cities can create missionaries if the AI did too poorly at spreading religion without building expensive monasteries). I hope this gives you a better idea of how important it is to open your borders in the future.

Just a few more smaller notes.

Zulu's unique building is very good. You have some cities without one.

You want to take the Barb city Harappan out ASAP. You have a lot of axeman because you're too reliant on HR for happiness purposes (Part of this is because you're not whipping enough and your populations are too big). Harappan will give you access to dyes that you can trade for more luxuries, and also work those gems because Tartar is a terrible city (I would have razed it).

You can build a fishing boats to use either as trade leverage or for health in the future.

Some civs have extra GPT they're willing to trade for surplus resources you have (or can have if you connected them).

As far as who to attack, I agree that you need to learn this on your own, but my advice in this particular case that you'd probably not have realized is this. Huyana Capac just built the Mausolueum of Mausolos. You also just recently got Nationalism, so the Taj Mahal is in reach if you get your marble back. You should have at least one golden age coming up soon, and if you save your upcoming great people, possibly at least 3 or 4. If you can take the MoM from Capac before this happens, it would be like getting a free GA. Just improve your tiles though before you actually start the GA's.

I think in this case, building the National Epic in your capital was a mistake. It's running mostly cottages and you don't have the luxury to run a lot of specialists there. Also, because you got GL, you will get mostly Great Scientists, which while good will be very inflexible in the future when you need different GP for more Golden Ages. Either Bulawayu (since you have a few wonders there, or kwaDukuza with it's double food resource would have been a better choice.

 

[Gumbolt]

You have loads of advice here.

Really you wanted MC much sooner. Forges are one of the strongest buildings in the game. 6-7 forges gives you a 25% boost to production. That is pretty strong.

Right now you pretty much want to be whipping a cuirs in every city every other turn. 2-3 pop whips are fine. I would build your UB first. Combat 1 Cuirs can help. You should only be using cuirs now. I normally start with about 20 cuirs in 1-2 stacks pending on what opposing stack my first target has. Your aim is to kill large volumes of the Ai units so they chain vassel. You could gift them size one unguarded cities? This quickly ups your chances of a faster capitulation. Oh trade for feudalism asap.

You switched to xtianity?

Your game play is not perfect but this is your first game on BTS civ 4? As long as you learn from your mistakes that is fine. I make no comment on the NE as my current game is struggling for a GP farm.

Unworked tiles. 9 workers for 10 cities is not enough!! When you have that amount of jungle you need to whip more workers.

It's not been perfect play but I think you should win this. 1-2 wins on monarchy will boost your confidence.

 

[Gigglethorpe]

You have loads of advice here.

Really you wanted MC much sooner. Forges are one of the strongest buildings in the game. 6-7 forges gives you a 25% boost to production. That is pretty strong.

Right now you pretty much want to be whipping a cuirs in every city every other turn. 2-3 pop whips are fine. I would build your UB first. Combat 1 Cuirs can help. You should only be using cuirs now. I normally start with about 20 cuirs in 1-2 stacks pending on what opposing stack my first target has. Your aim is to kill large volumes of the Ai units so they chain vassel. You could gift them size one unguarded cities? This quickly ups your chances of a faster capitulation. Oh trade for feudalism asap.

You switched to xtianity?

Your game play is not perfect but this is your first game on BTS civ 4? As long as you learn from your mistakes that is fine. I make no comment on the NE as my current game is struggling for a GP farm.

Unworked tiles. 9 workers for 10 cities is not enough!! When you have that amount of jungle you need to whip more workers.

It's not been perfect play but I think you should win this. 1-2 wins on monarchy will boost your confidence.

This is the first somewhat successful attempt on Beyond The Sword. When I first joined the site, I was playing Warlords. I think the tech rate is faster on Warlords even though the AIs don't go for the new techs in BTS as much.

I switched to Christianity because Augustus demanded it and I was in a Golden Age, so there wasn't an anarchy penalty. After that backstab by Huayna Capac, I needed allies who hated the Incas.