Hatty - Monarch Cookbook Mark II (IC concurrent)

So main points to consider to those that have played the round.

Spoiler :


Cities closer to Thebes are cheaper to run. building blockers by JC is costly unless you plan for a war soon. Don't be afraid to have 10-11 cities by 400ad. It is beakers per turn not the science slider you should be worrying about.

You need to build enough workers. Maybe 1.5 to each city built.

When you have literature do build national Epic and Heroic epic.

Great people farms. No one to date considered the pigs/clams/wheat city. Thebes only ever needed to work the cottages and grow.

Don't be afraid to run wealth in your cities to up science slider. Ulundi once farmed and mined could bring in 20 gold a turn.



 
Thanks for taking the time to offer criticism Gumbolt, its very appreciated.
Spoiler :
As a player new to Monarch (and Civilization in general) my biggest weakness seems to be focus. I am still learning the uses of different mechanics (ie. maintenance, trade routes and specialist economy this game). My lack of focus is best observed with my decision to build the temple of Artemis in Shaka's old capital (I had no idea what to build) and not working more cottages by Thebes or Scientists.

I feel in a strong position going forward with my economy starting to boom (Its easier with fewer cities X:rolleyes:) After my initial crash placing blocker cities against Charlie and JC. My army is mediocre and my cities are few, but I did found Confucianism in a city set up to be a great commerce city. My plan was to expand another 3-4 cities in the next few turns while pumping missionaries from Timbuktu to spread my religion. I'm very interested in seeing how other people played this round to compare styles and learn new strategies.


TLDR: Still learning, and I love the tips/criticism :)
 
Round 2 done.

Spoiler :

This round was tough. Alot of diplo to keep an eye on. None of the AIs teched
Alpha until Cathy finally put her words into sentences (in AD no less).
I normally tech alpha while building Oracle. I hate not being able to see the tech
situation. I can't remember what i traded her for it, but trade i did. I think i got
Mono and IW in the trade as well.

I decided to go a different route than most i suspect.
Initially, i let Priesthood finish, then started Oracle in Ulundi, while teching math.
Alot of MM later and Oracle finishes same turn as Math. I pick Currency as planned.

Next i go Sailing->Masonry->CoL->Mediation

I decided on Masonry for 3 reasons. It's relatively cheap, it opens the 'mids, and
none of the AIs seem to wanna build wonders in this game.

A massive deforestation effort takes place near Ulundi, i think i chopped 8 or 9
forests total to win the Pyramids. Even some out of Ulundi's BFC.

A turn or two after mids are done, CoL is in, and i switch to rep / caste, dump slider to 0% (where it has been for most of my round), and start running scientists.

I forgot to keep notes on the round, but it was more or less a "keep an eye on JC
who has his hands full, tech towards Lit and CS while keeping Cathy and Charly
happy" kind of thing.
Of course JC DoWs soon after the BCs becomes ADs. He has a tiny stack of
1 praet and 4 chariots, to my 4 WCs and 1 Axeman in Memphis. Another 2 praets
are coming towards Timbuktu from the south.

I bribe Charly into war with JC, in return for Currency (i think). I then finally have some luck
with the RNG, decimate JCs tiny stack, then just hide inside my cities and let JC
and Charly have at it. The war is still raging as my round finishes, with Charly
moving a stack through Egypt towards Rome.

I'm not really where i wan't to be tech wise. CS was done 2 turns prior to the
round ending, i pick Paper just to pick something.

During the round I've spawned 2 GS, for an academy in Thebes and one in Timbuktu.
I could have bulbed philo with the 2nd GS, but I'd rather secure the academies first. Thebes and Timbuktu are pulling the majority of the research for the empire,
they need all the help they can get.

The status is this:
8 cities, all growing
11 workers (yeah i know, not enough, JC ruined the roll i was on)
Thebes is building GL (6 turns left), will then start NE
Ulundi is building HE (5 turns left)
Timbuktu is building Forbidden Palace (dunno how long left.. alot?)
Barb city on Incense is building Parthenon (19 turns left)
Marble got hooked up last turn.

As it is now, :science: output is horrible, because most cities are in build mode
after landing CS.
In max specialist mode, the empire is turning out 124 :science: at 0% slider, and
a healthy 55 :gold: profit.

Strengths:
  • Economy is doing spectacularly well. Research is so-so.
  • Ulundi has a settled GG
  • Charly and JC are successfully blocked off. And at war with eachother :goodjob:
  • JC was buddhist for a while, then he went jew, and now he's hindu.
  • Cathy isn't friendly, but not completely hostile yet.
  • Asoka is pleased.
  • Charly is friendly, and to my surprise, teching pretty well, even with the tiny bit of land he has for himself.

Weaknesses:
  • Not enough cities.
  • Not enough workers.
  • Not enough military.
  • 3 turns left on the peace i bought with JC. I'm praying he'll be happy to just pound on Charly for a bit till Ulundi can start spitting out units.
  • Or even better, Charly's stack of 3 cats, 3 chariots and 1 sword will cause some mayhem in the roman lands.

Some screenies:
Civ4ScreenShot0027.JPGCiv4ScreenShot0028.JPGCiv4ScreenShot0029.JPG


The save: View attachment MC2 Round 2 Cenan AD-0400.CivBeyondSwordSave
 
Okay I played a round from last save. Won't count as i have viewed other saves and played 2nd round on IC cookbook. Just a shadow. :)

Spoiler :


Okay we had about 6 chariots at start. Took them to HRE capital and it fell quite easily. Made peace with him.

Spammed chariots for rest of game. JC had 6 cities but all weakly defended. Had to destroy him. I took Rome. Perhaps a mistake with costs so high.

Took monarchy with Oracle. Teched towards feudalism using razed gold.

I used a GS for a golden age.

Feudalism kicked in as I left Russians with one city. His spears were a pain. I liberated Moscow due to cost of cities. I was running -44 a turn. lol

I pretty much burned every city and pillaged every tile I found.

Indians had 4 cities when i reached them. Spears axes. Painful work but I had a constant flow of war chariots. Indians eventually capitulated. I burned all cities of theirs

The final AI to fall was HRE. He wouldn't vassel peacefully. Pretty much had to take him down to 2 cities. Since I captured his capital earlier he had not expanded at all. Still 4 cities and boxed in.

Overall a win is a win. 310ad. 31 turns off what Kossin said was possible. I think I could of roaded the route to India and back to make this a bit quicker.

I wonder if lymond can beat this date. ;)

Overall I am shocked no one even considered just going into all out war mode!



 

Attachments

Okay I played a round from last save. Won't count as i have viewed other saves and played 2nd round on IC cookbook. Just a shadow. :)

Spoiler @Gumbolt :
I considered it, but wasn't sure I could manage to pull it off economically, and I was pretty sure JC would have Praets which (at least based on my warring against him thus far) eat the WCs alive.

I'm surprised you were able to take HRC capitol with 6 chariots given protective + travel time + whipping defenders.
 
Spoiler @Gumbolt :
I considered it, but wasn't sure I could manage to pull it off economically, and I was pretty sure JC would have Praets which (at least based on my warring against him thus far) eat the WCs alive.

I'm surprised you were able to take HRC capitol with 6 chariots given protective + travel time + whipping defenders.

Spoiler :
I think he had 2 archers and may have whipped a third. His capital was the first city my war chariots reached. 2-1 superior units all with 10-20% extra strength. Not too hard really.
 
Okay I played a round from last save. Won't count as i have viewed other saves and played 2nd round on IC cookbook. Just a shadow. :)

Spoiler :


Okay we had about 6 chariots at start. Took them to HRE capital and it fell quite easily. Made peace with him.

Spammed chariots for rest of game. JC had 6 cities but all weakly defended. Had to destroy him. I took Rome. Perhaps a mistake with costs so high.

Took monarchy with Oracle. Teched towards feudalism using razed gold.

I used a GS for a golden age.

Feudalism kicked in as I left Russians with one city. His spears were a pain. I liberated Moscow due to cost of cities. I was running -44 a turn. lol

I pretty much burned every city and pillaged every tile I found.

Indians had 4 cities when i reached them. Spears axes. Painful work but I had a constant flow of war chariots. Indians eventually capitulated. I burned all cities of theirs

The final AI to fall was HRE. He wouldn't vassel peacefully. Pretty much had to take him down to 2 cities. Since I captured his capital earlier he had not expanded at all. Still 4 cities and boxed in.

Overall a win is a win. 310ad. 31 turns off what Kossin said was possible. I think I could of roaded the route to India and back to make this a bit quicker.

I wonder if lymond can beat this date. ;)

Overall I am shocked no one even considered just going into all out war mode!




Spoiler :

Just awesome. :goodjob:
I did consider just spamming WCs and go for conquest ridiculously early.
But then again, it's Monarch Cookbook 2, not Race-To-Conquest.

Just for fun, i think i'll go back and try your approach too. I've never done a
conquest this eary before.
 
Okay I played a round from last save. Won't count as i have viewed other saves and played 2nd round on IC cookbook. Just a shadow. :)

Spoiler :




Overall I am shocked no one even considered just going into all out war mode!




Spoiler :


I did strongly consider it as evident from what I wrote here. Afterall I thought that would learn and bring me nothing even if I would pull it out. And was never intention of the course as layed down from Kossin. It was enough to sustain the all rush 1st round.

But good job ;-) nice to see that can be done.
When I was thinking about the all out rush you did i initially though about stopping teching alltogether, just build WCs and raze everything with 3 cities as base...
Maybe will try to do the same after the game finishes...

 
@cripp7

Spoiler :

Very nice save you provide.
Dunno if it's ok to say, but my favourite (except mine of course :lol:)

But some questions I would have... why so late Great Library, so small happy cap, small cities! (the important ones). You have good ammount of workers I am surprised that some crucial things are not improved yet.

nice you got the shrine, it really helps you and nicely spread religion.

You didnt get CS that's a bit shame. Like the philosophy bulb, but no academy :-( was certainly very tough decision!
I am buffled with those 2 obelisks? for culture battle at borders?

Why build the market in cap? It doesnt bring that much income and not enough happy faces for the investment.

Nice amount of cities, to north is the winery unsettled though...

 
vranasm - Thoughts on round.

Spoiler :


Looks a much stronger round. Science up in the 170 area. Great library in Thebes. Lots of cottages around Timbuktu and Thebes.

Not sure why Unlundi is not using the Gold. Heroic epic site? Not built yet either.

Major let down is the GP farm or lack of. I built a GP farm using Pigs/2 clams and wheat next to Thebes. I was running 5-6 scientists by 400ad and had national epic set up too.

There is more you could of done.

The 2 GS you did have I would of bulbed for edu and lib.

You also need to chain irrigate the rice and wheat near Cherokee.

Be wary of HRE and what units he may have. You have no real stack to defend your empire with.



Spoiler :


I started to build defense, but as usual too late.
Ulundi...well you know i like to use those automate buttons and I wanted to grow it a bit with all those food.

Cherokee I plan to chain irrigate, there is 1 worker already chopping, another on the way, I teched CS 1 turn before so no chain irrigation available for long time...so I agree it will be chain irrigated in time. I am not sure what to do with that city... probably some scientists too? there is too many mountains/water and the city was taken from barbs primary for the incense.

GP farm... I know I sucked with this. The gp farm will be that spot south with 2x fish+deer. it already runs 3 scientists. next scientist will hopefully jump out of thebes thanks to GL. There was big maintenance problems and I just couldnt find city which could have consistently run 2 scientists, so i got one already and used him as Academy in Thebes. Will rethink it, but I already splitted a bit the north so in the future Giza should suffice, maybe place NE there.

HE noted, will be in Ulundi, but it built wealth for a long long time to fund the eco (with some more cities ofc. CS was big priority).

 
Spoiler :


I started to build defense, but as usual too late.
Ulundi...well you know i like to use those automate buttons and I wanted to grow it a bit with all those food.

Cherokee I plan to chain irrigate, there is 1 worker already chopping, another on the way, I teched CS 1 turn before so no chain irrigation available for long time...so I agree it will be chain irrigated in time. I am not sure what to do with that city... probably some scientists too? there is too many mountains/water and the city was taken from barbs primary for the incense.

GP farm... I know I sucked with this. The gp farm will be that spot south with 2x fish+deer. it already runs 3 scientists. next scientist will hopefully jump out of thebes thanks to GL. There was big maintenance problems and I just couldnt find city which could have consistently run 2 scientists, so i got one already and used him as Academy in Thebes. Will rethink it, but I already splitted a bit the north so in the future Giza should suffice, maybe place NE there.

HE noted, will be in Ulundi, but it built wealth for a long long time to fund the eco (with some more cities ofc. CS was big priority).


Spoiler :
I used wealth for a long time on my IC save. I have nothing against that. It is a very good tactic any players.

I don't think upkeep cost was a huge issue on the MC save. If you grabbed currency from oracle then this will have helped with wealth.

It still bugs me that the save you all picked did not have capital on the plains hills. You lost 2 flood plains due to this. One can be used by a city north of Thebes.

Stop using automate!!! Terrible idea.

Your save was one of the better ones so far. 170 science near break even is good.
 
@Trynthlas

Spoiler :

Well i am affraid you underdelivered this time. i am surprised with it, the 1st round was so well and it was your save afterall.

Positive is the blocking off Charle+JC, but negatives are bigger.

6 workers for soon 9 cities empire is low...too low, that lead to slow development of cities and generally too small cities. given the happy cap Thebes and Timbuktu should be much bigger.

Number of cities is low... I would like at least 2-3 more and the room is there.

I like that you got 2 GS. You didnt get the marble spot and no GL. You did get Pyramids but with the ammount of cottagable land i think it was mistake. Too many hammers without stone. Should have been used for workers and settlers.

As gumbolt said the ammount of WCs is impressive, but standing army only eats and doesnt deliver. rushing JC would really impress us and would be probably top 1 candidate.

 
@cripp7

Spoiler :

Very nice save you provide.
Dunno if it's ok to say, but my favourite (except mine of course :lol:)

But some questions I would have... why so late Great Library, so small happy cap, small cities! (the important ones). You have good ammount of workers I am surprised that some crucial things are not improved yet.

nice you got the shrine, it really helps you and nicely spread religion.

You didnt get CS that's a bit shame. Like the philosophy bulb, but no academy :-( was certainly very tough decision!
I am buffled with those 2 obelisks? for culture battle at borders?

Why build the market in cap? It doesnt bring that much income and not enough happy faces for the investment.

Nice amount of cities, to north is the winery unsettled though...


Spoiler :
I think I was a bit harsh in my review. I missed the shrine in Timbuktu. 15 gold a turn. woot.

I guess he whipped the market. Not a bad build really. On my IC save the science was at 10%. So it gave 25% on top of 39 gold.

If you up slider to 60% Cripps is soon up to 147 science. Run welath in Ulundi and he is closer to 158 science a turn. Alexandria could run 4 scientists.

An academy in his capital would of been nice.

He was working 2-3 decent commerce sites. He still had 2-3 high commerce resources left to use too. Cripps may well be in the top 3 in voting.

He needs to be wary of HRE stack. He has had close to three great people so far.

I still find Giza hard to swallow
 
Spoiler :
I used wealth for a long time on my IC save. I have nothing against that. It is a very good tactic any players.

I don't think upkeep cost was a huge issue on the MC save. If you grabbed currency from oracle then this will have helped with wealth.

It still bugs me that the save you all picked did not have capital on the plains hills. You lost 2 flood plains due to this. One can be used by a city north of Thebes.

Stop using automate!!! Terrible idea.

Your save was one of the better ones so far. 170 science near break even is good.

Spoiler :

I took CoL and didnt build courthouses soon enough...when i finally marked it saved just in Ulundi 7gpt...
Currency I teched in the ADs (got it 235AD from notes). The Ais really slowed me with 110BC Alpha...

I didnt consider currency too strong here, was getting math+calendar sooner... In retrospect dunno if I would change some things. I would probably take the CoL from Oracle again, but build courthouses sooner.

and to the automation...I cant bring myself to check every city every 1-3 turns...just cant...

and I think this save could have been near 200bpt at break even comfortably if someone (me...) played better! What I liked that I didnt totally missed the number of workers... just rechecked...14 workers is for my standards pretty good!
 
Spoiler :
I think I was a bit harsh in my review. I missed the shrine in Timbuktu. 15 gold a turn. woot.

I guess he whipped the market. Not a bad build really. On my IC save the science was at 10%. So it gave 25% on top of 39 gold.

If you up slider to 60% Cripps is soon up to 147 science. Run welath in Ulundi and he is closer to 158 science a turn. Alexandria could run 4 scientists.

An academy in his capital would of been nice.

He was working 2-3 decent commerce sites. He still had 2-3 high commerce resources left to use too. Cripps may well be in the top 3 in voting.

He needs to be wary of HRE stack. He has had close to three great people so far.

I still find Giza hard to swallow

Spoiler :


it IS strong save (my favourite as noted)...
i just checked ingame (with bug) the market...at 50% it gives 3.45 gold... dunno doesnt seem great, considering he could have built GL instead.

well I was surprised that cripps probably will use the same spot for GP farm as me... that i felt confirmed my thoughts.
 
@Trynthlas

Spoiler :

Well i am affraid you underdelivered this time. i am surprised with it, the 1st round was so well and it was your save afterall.

Positive is the blocking off Charle+JC, but negatives are bigger.

6 workers for soon 9 cities empire is low...too low, that lead to slow development of cities and generally too small cities. given the happy cap Thebes and Timbuktu should be much bigger.

Number of cities is low... I would like at least 2-3 more and the room is there.

I like that you got 2 GS. You didnt get the marble spot and no GL. You did get Pyramids but with the ammount of cottagable land i think it was mistake. Too many hammers without stone. Should have been used for workers and settlers.

As gumbolt said the ammount of WCs is impressive, but standing army only eats and doesnt deliver. rushing JC would really impress us and would be probably top 1 candidate.


Spoiler :
Yeah, slackin' on the workers for sure. I'm not that worried about the number of cities, and I didn't tech towards Great Library until near the end so it's in the plans, just not yet (literally just finished Literature tech 1 or 2 turns before end of set).

Marble site provided no real value prior to Literature tech in my eyes, although I suppose it would be a decent city spot. If running specialists (which I tried to be quite often), pyramids for rep can't be beat (and the +3 happy in 5 cities sure doesn't hurt). Besides, all those trees weren't doing anything else :p

WCs were spammed starting when JC declared and then somewhat past that point. After losing 6 or 7 taking out the two cities I did during the war (wimpy ones with no wall, low culture defense bonus) - which was most of my army at the time!! - I probably got a bit overly cautious in pushing the war further.

Either way I'm pretty happy with my save, it's a fair sight better than I'm usually sitting on Monarch at this point. As I said in a previous post, this mid-game area (T100-300 or so on epic) is where I usually get lost and give up any early advantage I gained. So, I'm already doing better than that :D
 
@cenan

Spoiler :

Interresting approach to the 1st save.

As I understand it you wanted to go with specialists economy and that motivated your choice of improvements, but I am affraid this map is not for running specialists. with all those fp and grass riverside it's primary cottage land.
Even then when you choosed this route, you should have grown cities to their happy caps first, then work specialists.

and even then you build cottages on nonriverside tiles around Heliopolis... This I dont understand.

Workers for the amount of cities seems fine. but I think here applies the same thing as to Trynthlas. The decision building Mids without stone costed you some settlers+workers that are needed.

I would like 2-3 cities more, the land is there. Especially what baffles me most why you didnt settle that silver spot with its commerce + happy soon.

The hindu block against your buddh block is a bit uncomfort, but it's very tough to avoid such thing. Maybe it was better to join hindu block and let Charle eat the cake.

 
@cripp7

Spoiler :

Very nice save you provide.
Dunno if it's ok to say, but my favourite (except mine of course :lol:)

But some questions I would have... why so late Great Library, so small happy cap, small cities! (the important ones). You have good ammount of workers I am surprised that some crucial things are not improved yet.

nice you got the shrine, it really helps you and nicely spread religion.

You didnt get CS that's a bit shame. Like the philosophy bulb, but no academy :-( was certainly very tough decision!
I am buffled with those 2 obelisks? for culture battle at borders?

Why build the market in cap? It doesnt bring that much income and not enough happy faces for the investment.

Nice amount of cities, to north is the winery unsettled though...

Spoiler :
TGL was late because I got Lit a little late, didn't get HE built though.
Cities are small due to :whipped:, was going to let them grow from here.
Workers, yeah I needed to micro a little better on them.
GS was a tough decision, I could have an academy adding about +34:science: or a good tech. Needed to run more scientists. I could've finished CS if I micro a little better. The obelisks were for :culture: battle. The market, probably wasn't needed until those cottages matured, jumped the gun there.


Spoiler :
I think I was a bit harsh in my review. I missed the shrine in Timbuktu. 15 gold a turn. woot.

I guess he whipped the market. Not a bad build really. On my IC save the science was at 10%. So it gave 25% on top of 39 gold.

If you up slider to 60% Cripps is soon up to 147 science. Run welath in Ulundi and he is closer to 158 science a turn. Alexandria could run 4 scientists.

An academy in his capital would of been nice.

He was working 2-3 decent commerce sites. He still had 2-3 high commerce resources left to use too. Cripps may well be in the top 3 in voting.

He needs to be wary of HRE stack. He has had close to three great people so far.

I still find Giza hard to swallow

Spoiler :
I was aware of that the whole time, I OB with him hoping he would go after JC. All my units build were going down to the blocker city.
 
Well, here's my round,
Spoiler :
Im not gonna lie, this round drove me mad. My techpath was: Priesthood>Math>Blubed Alphabet>COL>Aesthetics(For trade bait)>Literature>CivilService.
I traded for monarchy/Sailing/and Monthetisim.
I got two Great scientists from my cap. The first bulbed alphabet while the seccond was used for an acadmie in the cap. I also took Currency from the oracle.
So, my plan was to block off charlie and JC which worked and i denied each of them a Iron resource. I had to build wealth in a lot of my cities so i could continue to expand and build units to attack barb cities, i kept all but the first which was auto razed/ It was in the dyes site and i resettled it. At the moment, timbucktoo is at size 4 due to the fact that i still need at least 4 more cities (2 north of my cap and 2 to fill the land between Timbucktoo and Ulindi that i have not settled. I will be finished expansion once i get those cities online.
The diplo/ religious situation is intresting, JC is plotting war on somebody, he has enpugh on his hands. I don't think its me though because i made a 3 gold per turn peace deal and they usually cancle and DOW at the same time but JC didn't do that. He's cautious now and charlie is friendly because i accepted his religion. Thats another problem, Charlie and me are buddist, the rest are hindu, as soon as i get lib i'm switching to free religion or hindu if it spreads to me. I can't switch into it at the moment. My plan from here is to finish expansion, change my cap to the one of the calender resource heavy site's and to get the Great Library. I'm not sure if i should stay in slavery or switch to caste and get some GP's going. My beaker per turn rate is terrible and i know you'll be yelling at me for that;P I think i will also try to get rifling/Steel/SM/Democary and get emancapation going. Hopefully JC dows on somebody else, I'm building forces in my boarder cities just in case. I need some advice about those beakers per turn, i know they're terrible.
 

Attachments

@stevoh

Spoiler :


you actually have a lot of workers (that's good), but for some unknown reason you have a lot of unimproved land around some cities, that's reason 1.

Reason 2 (and bigger one) small size of important cities. timbuktu size 4 with cottages around - biggest mistake, that city should be size 10 at least.
Elephantine should be 2E1N there is much more riverside and bigger size of course.
Dye city another great cottage site, only size 1.

that barb city near wine north is 1 off coast, I razed it and resettled 1E, but it has no influence to your question.
Generally the first 2 things.

Ah and small reason 3... there is that silver spot NW from cap which would have bring you 1 happy (thebes for example wouldnt be unhappy).

Alexandria missed the fish...1S would be a lot better.

At the dye city you should make at least 1 farm (maybe 2)



edit:

Spoiler :

you are building GL and have not the marble connected...that's a mistake too btw.
 
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