Having trouble on Moncarchy

[hoplite-1]

Hello this is my first post here at civ fanatics, though I've been reading since civ3

I'm having trouble on Monarch difficulty in BtS. I usually play as a "warmonger" and usually play a financial civ (Vikings, Persians, Carthage and the Dutch). Here are some things giving me trouble:

1. I can't figure out city specialization/GP farms. Are you supposed to pick the city with the most food and add scientists once the happiness cap is reached?
2. My cities seem smaller than everyone else, usually in the 6-10 range even by the Renaissance era
3. When going to war, I can never build enough units in time. Let's say I need 20 swordsmen and 20 catapults. By the time I build these, the enemy gets Longbows
4. Going to war almost always kills me in tech. I can gain 2-3 cities but I realize I'm behind a good 6-7 techs from everyone else

I can post a save later today, I don't have any at the moment. Just realized the title should be monarch difficulty as well

 

[mariogreymist]

 

[Ghpstage]

1. I can't figure out city specialization/GP farms. Are you supposed to pick the city with the most food and add scientists once the happiness cap is reached?

Very early a GP farm can be made out of any city capable of feeding 2 scientists, which is any city with a 4 or more resource. Later on you typically want just one GP farm, with the National Epic and plenty of food (2 or more 5+ resources), you don't want to be working grassland farms to run the specialists, just food resources!

2. My cities seem smaller than everyone else, usually in the 6-10 range even by the Renaissance era

This one is a big problem and could be down to a number of reasons. Try to be sure to settle food and get happiness, Hereditary Rule from the Monarchy tech basically removes the cap.

3. When going to war, I can never build enough units in time. Let's say I need 20 swordsmen and 20 catapults. By the time I build these, the enemy gets Longbows
4. Going to war almost always kills me in tech. I can gain 2-3 cities but I realize I'm behind a good 6-7 techs from everyone else

Thats a truly huge army, i'd say yiour probably building up too much before attacking. Apart from that head toward the core cities after declaring, after the Capital and some of the older cities fall AIs usually collapse entirely.

I can post a save later today, I don't have any at the moment. Just realized the title should be monarch difficulty as well

Monarchy might actually be the solution to a lot of your trouble . A save would be useful to find the real problems.

 

[vicawoo]

2. Did you trade for happiness resources?

3. Try for 8 catapults, and enough swords/axe to take the first city or two. Opening borders and sending a unit in to constantly monitor the target cities is very important.

4. If you go to war, and potentially double your land, isn't that worth 2-3 techs?

 

[hoplite-1]

Thanks for the tips so far.

I've uploaded a Viking game. Monarch, Big_and_small, Large, Normal speed

I started sort of isolated with Saladin to my south. Built the pyramids and switched to Hereditary Rule like ghp said and it helped a lot. Saladin had a coastal holy city so I decided to make it to Beserkers and then take it. I got two of his cities and fortified them with longbows. Was about to go into peace mode when Charlemagne and his 2 vassals + Zara declared war on me...

In hindsight I should have just settled the land mass I had. Pretty big amount of space. Declaring on Saladin seemed like the right idea though, as I got 2 good cities (one a holy city) in a short span of time. But I don't see how I can win the game when the entire world declares on me.

 

[Ghpstage]

Theres a lot going wrong here unfortunately.

Attacking someone on another landmass is very difficult early on, and as you already had loads of empty space to expand into there really was no need to waste effort attacking. Really, you could have had at least another 12 cities in all that land!
If you intend to attack you want to go in with the intention of wiping the civ off the map entirely, and with the troops to pull it off.

Another problem is the apparent lack of planning in much of the empire you have;

• Theres no GP farm (which is especially painful on an water heavy map!),
• You only have 5 Workers, which explains the unimproved land tiles being worked,
• There are 4 unimproved seafoods
• Worker management is very weak, farmed Plains are feeble tiles to begin with..... but building them outside the workable area of any city? Equally Workshops are weak at this point in the game. Ah I see they are automated.
• Divine Right is a terible, terible tech, did you research it yourself!?
• Building the Pyramids to run Hereditary Rule isn't a good move, Monarchy comes early enough to get without the Mids. Only build the Pyramids if you plan on using Representation and lots of specialists.

This map is very odd in that you have no access to resources at all. Faced with this, and the mass of food available I would be tempted to get the mids for Representation and use the culture slider with Drama for . With some more landgrabbing and not annoying Saladin you may have been able to trade for a few resources too.

 

[hoplite-1]

Thanks again for the reply.
-The seafood keeps getting pillaged by Charlemagne and Zara who have frigates, this applies to coastal tiles that are unimproved too
-I didn't research divine right but got it with another tech in a trade
You're totally right about invading Saladin. I could have doubled my land mass and stayed current in tech by just settling what I had. Not to mention everyone switched to Buddhism, making Mecca a lot less valuable

Some questions:
For happy resources, could this be a result of playing on big_and_small (maybe the resource balance is messed up compared to Pangaea/continents)
For a GP farm, is the idea to have a high food city with wonders/specialists?
Did everyone declare on me because of low score/religion?
For plains tiles, cottages then?

I played through for a while longer but I think I've messed up too badly. Going to go back to an older save and try again. Don't ask me how I made it to Monarch.

 

[Ghpstage]

You're totally right about invading Saladin. I could have doubled my land mass and stayed current in tech by just settling what I had. Not to mention everyone switched to Buddhism, making Mecca a lot less valuable

Without a Shrine Mecca had little value anyway.

For happy resources, could this be a result of playing on big_and_small (maybe the resource balance is messed up compared to Pangaea/continents)

Partly the map, but largely really bad luck. All the AIs got a few each....

For a GP farm, is the idea to have a high food city with wonders/specialists?

2 or more 5+ resources and enough to build the National Epic and specialist buildings you need preferably. Enough production to build wonders with good GPP types is nice too (Great Library!).

Did everyone declare on me because of low score/religion?

Not sure what the declaration was for, if you were Hindu though that was the most likely cause. Your tech position and small empire then made it impossible to defend yourself or pay for peace, which is what really mattered. the general rule on religion is if everyone haters you because of it then have no state religion.

For plains tiles, cottages then?

Plains are the last tile you want to work, much of the time its better to run specialists instead (especially with Representation). Farming them before Biology is only worth doing if its to irrigate a tile worth working, workshops are worth building when you have at least 2 of the +1 bonuses (Caste, Guilds, Chemistry).
Also unguided automated workers are incredibly stupid, manage them manually for the best results but if you must automate them make sure you pick govenor specialisations in the city screen.

I played through for a while longer but I think I've messed up too badly. Going to go back to an older save and try again. Don't ask me how I made it to Monarch.

I tried from there myself, getting peace crippled me for quite a while, but it was absolutely necessary, managed to bumpstart the economy a while after but by the time I got to settling much of the land had been taken

 

[hoplite-1]

Well I started over, same map and I think I've done a little bit better this time.

It's the modern era and I've got a tech lead over a few people. I also have a defensive pact with Kublai which helped me stay out of trouble. I'm itching to invade Saladin though. His colonies have only riflemen defending, and he has resources I don't (oil most importantly). Only problem is this would void my pact with Kublai and Saladin has a defensive pact with Zara... As for what victory condition, it comes down to space race or diplomatic.

If anyone wants to check out the save and give advice please do. Specifically whether I should take the 4-5 island cities Saladin has around me and what victory I should go for.

 

[cripp7]

also if you are having trouble on Monarch, don't try it on a large map! Just try a standard. at first it to, you get the hang of that

 

[hoplite-1]

Well I played it out and lost spacerace to Kublai Khan, came in 4th for score. Will try the Romans next I think, maybe normal map size/pangae will make it easier

 

[Ghpstage]

It did look a little better, but not great. I was wondering why you decided to give so much of your land to Justinian and Saladin so I checked the game log, turns out your expansion was incredibly slow.
4 cities at 1AD is problematically slow, especially with so much good land and islands nearby. And, to have one of those cities razed by barbs is a big screaming sign that your problems are biggest in the first 100 turns or so.

Do you have a 4000BC save you can post by the way?

 

[hoplite-1]

I don't have the 4000BC save because I overwrote it

However, I beat Monarch on Pangaea, normal speed/size. I played as the Romans and got a domination win.

Some more questions:
1. For a GP farm, how many turns should it take to generate a GP? My best GP farm was giving me one every 18 turns on normal speed, this is with the National Epic, 3 scientists, and 2-3 wonders. This was under an org/imp leader
2. What's the best way to use GP, should I lightbulb a technology right away? They seem to lose their value over time. I thought it would be smart to save a few scientists and lightbulb them all at once, but they didn't produce that many beakers after 20 turns or so
3. Can someone explain binary research or link to a guide? I think it's setting research to zero and then switching to 100, but I don't see how this helps.

 

[ithinkiamawesom]

i cant answer most of your questions, but i'll take a stab at some.

for GPs, early in the game, lightbulbing expensive technologies such as philosophy with great scientists is very beneficial, but settling or building academies also works very well. try to figure out the best use for each GP you get.

for 1, you had 3 scientists??? that seems really small. usually, in the middle game, i have cities that arent gp farms with 3 or 4 specialists. try chain irrigating or finding better spots for GP farms.

 

[Chronicles]

Binary research is simple (though I only used it as a learning tool):

You keep the science slider at either 0% or 100%. While at 0%, your goal is to utilize solely to get enough to cover the deficit you will encounter when you switch to 100%, for the duration it will take to get your next technology.

So if, at 100% your next desired tech will take 10 turns, and you'll be losing 20 per turn, you need to run at 0% until you have 200 saved up, then turn the slider to 100% . Rinse, and repeat.

Would this actually be helpful sometimes and if so, in what sort of times? Isn't it just as valid to set your research at a rate where you receive just a bit of plus or minus income and research at a steady rate? Seems that in the end the result would be the same?

 

[vicawoo]

Early game binary research gives you a small boost due to rounding errors (it's probably less than 10%).

However, let's say you're building a library/academy. You get the same gold conversion before or after your library/academy. But your science conversion jumps from 1 commerce to 1 beaker to 1.25 beakers (library) / 1.75 beakers (library/academy) at that city. So saving gold early = better conversion later. If the cities with libraries are producing a good chunk of your commerce, you can get a short term boost approaching that 25%.

 

[Abegweit]

There are two main benefits to binary science. First, because of Firaxis' inability to perform basic math, you'll gain about 1 beaker each turn this way. In the early game that's quite a lot, maybe as much as 10% of your science. The second benefit is that it delays your choice of tech until the last moment. Perhaps you'll change your mind and go for something else instead. And if your opponents research it in the interim, you'll get a discount on your research.

 

[Soirana]

I find it much easier to not use binary research (apart from perhaps running 0% while building libraries/universities). In most games, sustainable research rate will run between 30-80%, depending on a variety of factors. I find that running maximum is best, and allows for consistent return on investment for both and multipliers without all the hassle of binary.

I've been known to forget to switch back to 100%, for instance. Usually, it just means I research 2-3 techs in a row, but at some points in the game that might be the difference between surviving an invasion or not.

Early in the game, at Immortal and Deity difficulties, it's hard to let go of that tiny little rounding edge though, and binary is the way to go. I don't do it when I'm just having fun (as opposed to challenging myself).

Rounding is just one aspect. Anothe ris if some known civs finish that tech [let say writing or pottery] while you accumulate gold you burn it in more efficient fassion...

On other hand if you angry neighbour comes asking for that sum you saved on teching through music...

 

[richlong8]

I play as a warmonger also, and I have some problems when I get to Monarch difficulty using the Persians. I think the Egyptians are a little better with their war chariouts for quick early waging of war. Steal workers! Kill early! Keep the capitals! The big problem on the higher levels is when they start with archers- that is hard to beat with immortals or war chariots. That problem is alleviated on the higher levels if you play with the Praets as the Roman civilization. They are a match for archers early in the game, but you have to be committed to getting Iron Working early, and getting out that there as quick and persistently as you can.
I rarely build any wonder except the Oracle, and then only if I am sure that I can get it. I look to capture cities with wonders already built, and if I can get to the city that has Pyramids, I will try and go for that ASAP. I usually go for Currency for a free tech if I build Oracle. I find that is more valuable than Alphabet. I also make Mathematics a priority for chopping purposes, as well as allowing me to get Currency. That allows me to keep myself financially in the game, while I war, and usually gets me enough technology to build courthouses. I use slavery and chopping often because i am focused on killing them all. I find it harder to compete with the AI on the economic and research area at the higher levels, so I focus on war, because they are not as good as humans in this area.
I do want to develop further as a player by strictly focusing on other styles of winning, i.e; cultural, but I think you have to be committed to whatever style you play.

Hello this is my first post here at civ fanatics, though I've been reading since civ3

I'm having trouble on Monarch difficulty in BtS. I usually play as a "warmonger" and usually play a financial civ (Vikings, Persians, Carthage and the Dutch). Here are some things giving me trouble:

1. I can't figure out city specialization/GP farms. Are you supposed to pick the city with the most food and add scientists once the happiness cap is reached?
2. My cities seem smaller than everyone else, usually in the 6-10 range even by the Renaissance era
3. When going to war, I can never build enough units in time. Let's say I need 20 swordsmen and 20 catapults. By the time I build these, the enemy gets Longbows
4. Going to war almost always kills me in tech. I can gain 2-3 cities but I realize I'm behind a good 6-7 techs from everyone else

I can post a save later today, I don't have any at the moment. Just realized the title should be monarch difficulty as well

 

[Ghpstage]

The big problem on the higher levels is when they start with archers- that is hard to beat with immortals or war chariots. That problem is alleviated on the higher levels if you play with the Praets as the Roman civilization.

Immortals and War Chariots both shred Archers defending cities, even regular Chariots can rush very effectively.