[HELP] How to compete in monarch level

[PAnz3r]

I tried all things for , at least, compete for final victory with monarch difficulty level ,but i still losing.
I cant fill the tecnology gap between me and the others, i tried with built more wonder or expand the civilization faster but i fail...the enemy still too strong for me and at the first war the bring to me i lose all the small opportuny to advance in the game..
I need help! thanks

usually i start with one city, i search misticism and politeism and i built che stonehange chopping the forrest after the discover of bronze working...

 

[civvver]

Don't waste time getting religions unless your a civ that starts with mysticism, and even then, if you don't spread the religion it's not worth it. Reason is two fold- you need the share religions for good diplomacy, and if you don't start with mysticism you waste a lot of crucial time researching those techs when you could be getting stuff like pottery, bronze working, animal husbandry to get your economy off the ground.

Stonehenge is a good wonder, but at higher difficulties it's often a waste to build wonders and more crucial to build units and settlers since the AI expands fast.

 

[Zeestein]

build order should be worker first and then what else that fits, first techs should be something that lets you harness the best food resource you've got, ala agriculture if you see wheat, fishing if you see fish, animal husbandry if you see pig and then you can think about other techs like bronze working or masonry if you see stone/marble

and learn to war, peaceful building ain't gonna get it done

 

[schwartz]

Couple tips for the early game which will get you in position to win:
First build should be one of these:
Worker if you have a food resource in the fat cross which you will be able to improve before the worker is finished (Grains, Cows, Pigs)
Workboat if you don't have corn or pigs on land (other land-based food resources aren't as good as a seafood) and you start with fishing
Warrior if none of the above applies (often on seafood starts without fishing tech)

In 90% of your games, you'll want to begin by researching the worker techs necessary to hook up nearby resources (agri, AH, hunting, mining etc..) followed by bronze working for chopping and slavery.

Longer term goal is to get a couple scouts/fogbusters out with the first worker before making the settler at size 3-4. After this the goal is to grow to the happy cap, get out more settlers/workers and grab a good chunk of land (try to have 8 cities at the BC-AD crossover, that will give you a solid base for whatever victory you want)
DaveMcW recommends 1.5 workers per city, which is a good goal to shoot for.

Make sure one of the first 2 cities you settle will have good production and use that to make early military ONLY (First get barracks and maybe granary) to keep your power rating up.

As far as improvements go, you want to make sure at least a few of your cities can run the 2 scientists with the library, but also don't neglect some cottages/cottage cities Another DaveMcW rule of thumb for this (Sorry for shamelessly jacking your ideas here, Dave ): If the city can support 10 cottages, it's a commerce city.

Tech goals should be to writing and pottery after the early worker techs, after that, currency to help support the extra cities, aesthetics as trade bait and also on the path for the great library if you want it, and code of laws for courthouses and caste system are all good targets.

If you post a save, I can take a peek for you.

 

[PAnz3r]

good tricks, now i try a new game following your consel, my bigger problem was before the discover of code of law...in this period the funds lack and i gain the tecnology gap that vanish my strategy :\

Another problem was with the barbarian invasion after the second city founding :\..they force my to reserch the archery for defende the citys

i'll be back with some feedback after this game.

 

[kazapp]

Once you realize you can be much more aggressive in everything, Monarch level became much more manageable for me

 

[Sync]

Play as the Egyptians.

They start with The Wheel as one of their techs, so go straight for Animal Husbandry. Find a source of Horse then spam building War Chariots. A War Chariot rush is twice as fast as an Axe Rush and quicker to get to on the tech tree, so you're less likely to run into enemy Archers on your first rush.

After two failed games on Monarch with the Native Americans and Chinese respectively, I've been doing very well with the Egyptians. Despite crippling my economy early with a silly amount of War Chariots and high maintenance for the cities I was capturing, I've been making it up very quickly with 2 shrines I captured from my conquests.

 

[CLST]

The Egyptian UB is also really nice. Priests are meh on their own, but with the AW, priests are hott.

 

[PAnz3r]

i start a new game today...but i was very isolated on a huge island, i tried to follow your counsel for dont lose the tech rush...but, when the first civ approched me, it got at least 8 tech that i havent , i spare much time in searching the base tech for improve terrain and resources, i made 3 wonder : stonehage, oracle, and pensil garden ( i dont know if this is the right translation ) and i have 8 citys....but nothing....my game is lamed couse i cant never compete with the other civ.....

i wanna find a solution :\ anyone can explain to me a succesfull game at monarch level so i learn the right way to finish a wole game....im really hungry coz in civ2 and civ3 i won at monarch level and i tried the emperor...but seem that this civ4 is too hard

p.s. i tried with american and french....i thing roosvelt is a good leader with -50% civ cost and +50% wonder production

 

[schwartz]

i start a new game today...but i was very isolated on a huge island, i tried to follow your counsel for dont lose the tech rush...but, when the first civ approched me, it got at least 8 tech that i havent , i spare much time in searching the base tech for improve terrain and resources, i made 3 wonder : stonehage, oracle, and pensil garden ( i dont know if this is the right translation ) and i have 8 citys....but nothing....my game is lamed couse i cant never compete with the other civ.....

i wanna find a solution :\ anyone can explain to me a succesfull game at monarch level so i learn the right way to finish a wole game....im really hungry coz in civ2 and civ3 i won at monarch level and i tried the emperor...but seem that this civ4 is too hard

p.s. i tried with american and french....i thing roosvelt is a good leader with -50% civ cost and +50% wonder production

Isolation is a hard situation to learn. Give it another try in a non-isolated game and see how it goes.
Also see r_rolo's isolation guide in the strategy articles section, it's well worth the read.

 

[Winston Hughes]

i wanna find a solution :\ anyone can explain to me a succesfull game at monarch level so i learn the right way to finish a wole game....im really hungry coz in civ2 and civ3 i won at monarch level and i tried the emperor...but seem that this civ4 is too hard

Sounds like the Monarchist's Cookbook might be helpful to you:

MC1
MC2
MC3

There's not much in the way of late-game advice, but several posters include very detailed explanations of the early game. The variation between different strategies should also give you plenty of food for thought.

 

[dubrown]

Being a bit behind in tech early on isn't always as bad as it may look. If for instance you've expanded quite alot and are struggling with high city maintenance which certainly have forced you to drop the researchrate down to below 40% or something. This happens to me regularly in my Monarch games.

But there's ways to get back, once the early overexpansions starts to become productive, chances are that your researchrate will match and even outmatch most of the AIs. Check what techs the AI knows, research what they don't seem to focus on to get something to trade. Don't be afraid to trade yourself back to tech parity.

Another good tip, don't forget economy when expanding early, plant a few cottages, if you find a spot with gems, gold or silver, it'll help your research quite a bit early on.

About the wonders, the higher in level you go the less important the early wonders are, you can never get all of them on Monarch level, focus on a few that suits your strategy for the game. For instance a wonder like Hanging gardens isn't really worth it in my opinion, at the time it's available health is normally not that a big issue so it's a big waste of hammers (just my opinion)

 

[Gwynnja]

Play as the Egyptians.

They start with The Wheel as one of their techs, so go straight for Animal Husbandry. Find a source of Horse then spam building War Chariots. A War Chariot rush is twice as fast as an Axe Rush and quicker to get to on the tech tree, so you're less likely to run into enemy Archers on your first rush.

After two failed games on Monarch with the Native Americans and Chinese respectively, I've been doing very well with the Egyptians. Despite crippling my economy early with a silly amount of War Chariots and high maintenance for the cities I was capturing, I've been making it up very quickly with 2 shrines I captured from my conquests.

I pretty much pwn prince, but I struggle on monarch and I was going to suggest playing as rome. Praetorians are such an equalizer; there's no classical counter to them. My high score came using rome on monarch; 150k+

 

[PAnz3r]

today the games is finished, mongols got a diplomatic victory...i focused my match on growth and military power, the minimum for dont permit anyone to declare war upon me, and i reach a very powerfull reserch rate in the late times, i think i was faster than all AI players, but the objective was unmatched, i still too backward for compete for one of the victory conditions , when they built space ship module i had just discover the railways

i surely read the guide before open another long match on civ X)

 

[Bleys]

Sometimes its important to go to war with some AIs to stop them from being so powerful. You dont necessarily have to totally kill them off, but if you can conquer a few key cities, and take out a bunch of his troops, you will slow them down enough so you can catch up.

Also, at Monarch level, diplomacy starts becoming more important as well. Look for the AIs that dont like each other, and try to get them to go to war against each other. This can be done by bribing them with techs or cash. If the AIs are always at peace and dont fight amongst themselves, it can be difficult to keep up.

Also, with techs, its important to consider trading them to keep pace. If you research a tech that no one else has, quite often you can trade that tech to different AIs for different techs you are missing, which makes that tech you traded away worth a LOT more than the beakers you put in. This also works well when you use a Great Person to bulb a tech. Look at the trade screen often, see what the AIs have and dont have. When you do decide to trade techs away, trade it to everyone you can within one or two turns, before they get a chance to trade among themselves.

Monarch is a big step. The AIs start with a tech, and tech faster and build faster than you do, so you have to be careful not to let them get way out in front. You dont have to self-research EVERYTHING, head for certain bigger, more important techs, and trade them for the ones you skipped.

 

[Mack_Jagger]

First build should be one of these:
Worker if you have a food resource in the fat cross which you will be able to improve before the worker is finished (Grains, Cows, Pigs)

A lot of people say this but I've never understood the reason behind it. How could it be better to stagnate your city ay size 1 instead of buiding a warrior, which you'll want ASAP anyway for scouting. Let the city grow to size 2 and then build the worker. I know you're a comfortable Emperor player and I'm not so I'm not telling you that you're wrong, but I don't see the logic.

 

[Elandal]

I've calculated the worker vs warrior first in one thread or another, and my answer would be that if you have food resource and can improve it, you choose worker -> warrior instead of warrior -> worker if
1) you get expansive bonus for worker, or
2) you get worker faster than usual for having good tiles (eg. city on plains hill, or forested plains deer in first circle), or
3) the resource is irrigated corn or pig (ie 6F) [but you probably won't have AH in time for the pig if worker first]

Irrigated wheat is borderline - probably good for worker first.

If none of the above applies, then the number of exploration turns gained from warrior first is probably enough to warrant that.

 

[Mack_Jagger]

I've calculated the worker vs warrior first in one thread or another, and my answer would be that if you have food resource and can improve it, you choose worker -> warrior instead of warrior -> worker if
1) you get expansive bonus for worker, or
2) you get worker faster than usual for having good tiles (eg. city on plains hill, or forested plains deer in first circle), or
3) the resource is irrigated corn or pig (ie 6F) [but you probably won't have AH in time for the pig if worker first]

Irrigated wheat is borderline - probably good for worker first.

If none of the above applies, then the number of exploration turns gained from warrior first is probably enough to warrant that.

Hmm okay, I'll buy that. This is now officially a new rule of thumb.

 

[schwartz]

A lot of people say this but I've never understood the reason behind it. How could it be better to stagnate your city ay size 1 instead of buiding a warrior, which you'll want ASAP anyway for scouting. Let the city grow to size 2 and then build the worker. I know you're a comfortable Emperor player and I'm not so I'm not telling you that you're wrong, but I don't see the logic.

I'm not going to do the whole hammer/food counting calculations here, but in short, it comes out better to be working improved tiles (fewer of them early, but soon growth will be faster) rather than more tiles. Not to mention he can help chop the first settler earlier if you want to do that.

 

[Dirk1302]

^So much so that worker first is still best if it can only improve one cow and then has nothing to do for some 20 turns, i did a rough calculation in this thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7030186&postcount=24

Problem is, if you grow to for instance size 4 on unimproved tiles your city basically eats what it produces so it still takes forever to produce workers and settlers. OTH a city at size 2 working 2 improved resources can build them reasonably fast already.