[BTS] Help me get my first win on Monarch

[jnebbe]

Hello all, I can beat Prince so now I am trying Monarch. My early game is still unstable and not optimized so I'm looking for some advice on that.

Balanced map
Large
Random civ -> Qin Shi Huang
No huts, espionage, vassals, or random events

Here is my start:

Not a fan of the 2 traits, Protective and Industrious. I see Protective as basically useless until I get to mid/late game. I only see Industrious being particularly helpful if we find stone and/or marble, although maybe it means I could go for Pyramids or Oracle without stone/marble. We'll see.

However, big fan of starting with Agriculture and Mining, probably the best starting tech combo in the game. I think the plan is to build a worker first and tech BW first, then a warrior while Bejing grows to 2 pop, then chop a settler. After that I'm thinking I'll get Masonry and try for the Pyramids, tons of forest around to chop.

We start on a plains hill and are surrounded by forests so SIP seems like the obvious choice.

I don't know how many turns I should play before updating again.

Attaching T0 save

 

[Harv]

Subbed, because I have a monarch game going on. I might have a QSH game from years ago at Monarch. I’m curious what everybody else has to say.

All those trees and you don’t like Industrious?

 

[sampsa]

Seems pretty straightforward start. SIP, worker, BW, improve corn first.

 

[jnebbe]

T0-12

Spoiler :

T0
Settled in place, sending warrior to scout west

T12
Worker finished, BW finishes in 3 turns. Found some stone to the east so I will explore that some more

@sampsa Why should you improve corn first? Corn is 5 food, wheat is 4 food 1 hammer 1 commerce, I definitely think an extra commerce is more important in early game

 

[krikav]

Commerce is not important in the early game. Food is important.
Food and production!
The corn is 6F, the wheat is 5F1H1C.

And even if you think that commerce is more important, if you improve the corn first, your city will grow quicker and be able to work more tiles earlier, thereby yielding more commerce.

 

[Harv]

Why should you improve corn first? Corn is 5 food, wheat is 4 food 1 hammer 1 commerce, I definitely think an extra commerce is more important in early game

I'm interested in this as well. I ran a quick experiment and found that the city grows in six turns, whatever farm is built first. The difference amounts to:
2 extra food, or
2 extra hammers, plus 2 extra beakers

This is two turns of working 5 food, 1 hammer, 1 commerce versus two turns of working 6 food.

I did not check to see if the extra two food results in bigger city sizes in later turns.

 

[jnebbe]

T12-15

Spoiler :

Alright so I just finished BW and got slavery, and now I'm not sure what the best tech to get would be

Mysticism - I'll need it in the not so far future for obelisks, or if I want to go for like oracle or temple of artimus with Industrious
Fishing - Not important right now
The wheel - Not really important right now but I will definitely need it for pottery; I'm always unsure what the first thing I should build in a new city should be, a granary or obelisk, so I don't know how soon I should get pottery
Hunting - Good choice(?) I marked a tile for my 2nd or 3rd city, gets a sheep with 3 irrigated grasslands and also gets 3 beavers, going to get a huge research bonus if I can get those + raises happiness cap, I don't know if I should get it now though
Masonry - Will definitely get this eventually, nearby stone + industrious = guaranteed pyramids? But I don't think it's important now.
Animal Husbandry - My gut's telling me this is the best option, 2 cows and a sheep nearby and I'll need it if I want to settle near the beavers. Normally this would probably be the next natural tech to get but there's nothing in my borders right now.
Iron working - Not important unless I know I'm rushing but I haven't even met anyone yet

I kinda know what I want to do, but I think I do it in the wrong order. I generally know which techs I need and which I won't, but I don't know if it's important what order I get them in this early into the game

 

[sampsa]

I'm interested in this as well. I ran a quick experiment and found that the city grows in six turns, whatever farm is built first. The difference amounts to:
2 extra food, or
2 extra hammers, plus 2 extra beakers

This is two turns of working 5 food, 1 hammer, 1 commerce versus two turns of working 6 food.

I did not check to see if the extra two food results in bigger city sizes in later turns.

I think what matters is if improving corn first reaches the desired size to build a settler 1T faster or not. I'm not sure what that size is yet though. In general, it's very hard to go wrong by always improving the best food resource first!

Alright so I just finished BW and got slavery,

Do you mean that you switched into slavery? Often, the best time to switch is when 1st settler is out. I think here it happened to be a good time to switch since with there these tiles you can whip the first settler (probably size 4, though can even consider size 6). Switching now is better than switching just before the whip, because your -resources are not improved.

I'm not sure what the best tech to get would be

I think your scouting with the warrior was a bit ambitious. The most interesting area is always by the river and because your warrior went so far you don't know what else but stone is by the river. If this area was scouted, the next tech choice would be easier.

One thing. Zoom out with the mouse wheel and pick the trade icon in the bottom right, just over the mini-map. This will show you what tiles are connected to the same trade network with different colors. Is it all same light color or do you see many colors? I'm assuming the latter, since the river is not entirely connected, but it works in mysterious ways sometimes. This matters because if it is connected, you don't need wheel to connect your cities, the river does that for you. For example sheep-fur would be then insta-connected to your capital, giving both cities +1trade route.

Anyway I think your intuition is right, hard to go wrong with AH here, though if your next city is sheep-fur, I'd rather go hunting-AH.

 

[jnebbe]

T15-29

Spoiler :

My warrior was on the west side of my borders on T0, so I just scouted west since that was closer, am bringing him back SE, there's a couple barb animals around there so I have to be careful
Getting AH now


T17

Going to move warrior NE to dodge the bear, if it attacks me I have like 60% chance of surviving and I don't want to risk that. That reveals Brennus' borders which are a little close to mine.
Bejing finishes warrior and grows to 2 pop in 2 turns, started farming wheat

So there is a bear and a lion here, and another lion over by the desert, going to stay near Brennus' borders to try to avoid
Warrior finished in Bejing, sending him E

Starting a 2nd warrior in Bejing, finishes in 5 turns while it grows to 3 pop in 4 turns, then worker -> settler?

Met Hannibal who is likely north of Brennus, keeping my 1st warrior around his borders to try to worker steal


T27

2nd worker finished
Bejing grows to 4 pop in 2 turns, will start a settler then so I can whip 2 pop
Will start chopping next turn

Explored around the stone, settling on the stone is not a bad spot, and then I could build another city like 1S of deer in midgame? Or I could do 2S of stone and get both food but it will be a while before I can build an obelisk there. I could do 1SW of stone and share the corn, but I'll already be sharing farmland with the beaver city (sidenote I want to get that city early either 2nd or 3rd, going to be very slow to build markets in that city but that isn't needed since I'll get an immediate payoff this early in the game)

Expanding in early game is definitely a weak point for me, I always spread my cities out too much, expand too slow, and have questionable placement -> lots of resources in BFC but none in the small square

I played another 2 turns, and finishing AH revealed horses in my borders which could be shared with the beaver city. It did use up a freshwater grassland but that's not a huge deal.
Really liking that spot as a 2nd city now, and those horses will make it a bit easier to build markets there

Bejing grows to 4, settler will take 7 turns and forest will be chopped in 2 turns

Will probably research the wheel, hunting, or masonry, depending on where my first city will be

 

[sampsa]

Never build two workers before a settler. That 2nd city asap is very very important. Not sure what the point of these games are if you plan to just play, make a bunch of mistakes, write a report, and ignore what everyone says. This with all love.

 

[Fippy]

It's minor and mostly interesting for veterans (cos improve the best food first = good advice),
but here wheat first is actually slightly better. Since both tiles are worked at size 2, wheat beats not-river corn by 1 yield until size 2.

 

[krikav]

Guidelines tend to do that. Result in suboptimal results from time to time. It's because they are generally correct that they make good guidelines though.

 

[Fippy]

And hmmm, 2 workers are not a bad idea either imo..
no clear and strong 2nd city spot, but tons of forests. Can make an argument for 2 choppers / improvers.

 

[Harv]

It's minor and mostly interesting for veterans (cos improve the best food first = good advice),
but here wheat first is actually slightly better. Since both tiles are worked at size 2, wheat beats not-river corn by 1 yield until size 2.

May I ask what you mean? The difference I got was 2 food on one side and 2 hammers, plus 2 commerce on the other. This is based on the two turns growing from 1 to two. At size 2, the yields are equalized and then the other farm is complete. So then the question is if the two extra food is better or the two extra hammers.

 

[Fippy]

Yup my bad, i just looked at same food amount at size 2.
So i guess wheat is not better but about equal.

 

[sampsa]

Yup my bad, i just looked at same food amount at size 2.
So i guess wheat is not better but about equal.

Eh, it depends on if corn leads to 1T faster settler or not, like I already said.

Can make an argument for 2 choppers / improvers.

Are you suggesting that if we start looking at the numbers it could somehow compete with settling say fur/sheep asap?

 

[Fippy]

2 workers before a settler is not something new, back then we had players like Dirk who used that often.
I also do sometimes.

 

[krikav]

I go for two workers before first settler sometimes too, or not that seldom really. 10% of games perhaps...?

Some theory....
Settler is 100 hammer/food to start yielding at best 3F2H3C (settling on a PH, insta-connected working a floodplain.)
Then it's 8% interest on that investment.

If we settle in a location that is not connected, not on a PH and working say a grassland forest we get 2F2H1C, then it's 5% yield on our 100H investment.

A worker that has infinite forest to chop is yielding 5H/turn chopping non-stop, and cost 60H.
Thats 8.3% yield.

Ofcourse, if we discount commerce (which I think one should in these early game examples) the chopping worker wins out more.
Another thing about the worker is that it's cheaper, so the first hammers you start to put into the build is lying dormant for a shorter duration of time before it comes alive and starts yielding.

 

[sampsa]

2 workers before a settler is not something new, back then we had players like Dirk who used that often.
I also do sometimes.

That's not what I asked though.

 

[Fippy]

Also 2nd settler will probably be faster, unless no 2nd worker is built before but that seems counterproductive with so many forests.

That's not what I asked though.

Maybe not, but you said never build 2nd worker before a settler.