[BTS] help! monarch level

[slamurai]

So I cant win on monarch

help/advice is welcome

monarch/continents/normal speed/ no huts/no events

Starting location

 

[yyeah]

Wow you generated nice spot .
Warrior 1N or 1S. There are 2 unforested tiles 2N from warrior and 2S1E from warrior maybe or something.
I wouldnt settle on FP rather move settler 1SW to gain more river tiles.
One can c taht theres allso more Flood Plains 2W and 1N2W.

 

[slamurai]

Turn 0
move warrior 1S founf some jungle moved settler 1W found Wet Corn then moved 1S found Banana
Turn 1
Settled Kyoto started in a worker then Research pottery
Turn 8
Met Darius I
Turn 11
Finished Pottery started Mining
Turn 16
Finished Worker Started Warrior

Planning on settling 2nd city there is it a good spot? building settler at 4pop?3pop

 

[yyeah]

Our Cap is great.

You playing safe thats ok however i would play it a bit diferent. Instand of makeing worker i would bulid warrior or 2 and go find some1 to steal a worker.
Someone like Darius is perfect. Then bulid worker on size 2.
Anyway
One doesnt need like quick Pottery if one is starting with gold. Allso makeing cottage on FP takes a long time.
I rather go here Agc->BW to uncover Copper.

But its ok we got what we got. Wiht 2nd city placemant wait until BW and get strat res. Yea you can start bulding settler at s4, maybe put 1 choop in to it.
Then 2 pop whip 2nd worker.

Edit. maybe better to 2 pop whip settler, start it at s4 put 1 choop in to it and 2 pop whip it.

Consider finding Darius, if we have metal somewhere we can start to "choop" him maybe, you know takeing workers and this kind of stuff.
Maybe you can get this warrior to wm2 promo i would gamble on attacking animals, on Monarch one have preety nice odds.

Edit2.
After Bw go for Oracle, with gold its a good option, and it will speeds up Samurai rush .

 

[slamurai]

First thanks @yyeah for the replies

oh yeah corn+gold is better than FP cottage in my first thoughts the FPcottage is needed cuz of turns it being work

now on the 2nd city problem i finish BW and

Red city is Definitely better Right?
Pros: Riverside so no roads for now, closer to Darius

Yellow city
Pros: could work Clam for Gold and Bronze,capital could work other FP
Cons:Needs Roading

Currently researching to Myst --> Medi --> Pries --> Writing?

 

[yyeah]

Red city is definitely way to go.
I rather go Poli then Medi with gold we have enough to go this route.
And look at this green tile in Darius Capitol it yields 21 this meens he got strat res there ( either horses or metal) dont let him improove that.
It allso meens that worker will try to improove this and you can take him out.
Probably you need 1 more warrior there, doing this kind of stuff with only 1 warrior is kind of risky.
Allso warrior would be needed to escort worker to your teritory
He can take him out and improove hes res.
And you can have a problem then.

Oh 1 more thing you dont need to sw in to slavery like right away, allways wait until you need to whip.

Edit.
I add here 1 more tip. Athing with this early kind of chopping ai.
If there are horses offcourse now its not good if he will improove thoose. but later on, pps let the ai imprrove horses beocsue then ai starts to spam chariots rather then archers.
And yea base idead is better to deal with chariots then archers beosue they dont recive def bonuses, this is not a case with immortals. But Spear vs Immortal is allways better then axe vs archer.

 

[slamurai]

Wow!! didnt notice that but yeah it is Horses
I go with Medi--> Priest--> Writing -- >COL-->Math-->oracledCS-->MC or Construction?
Turn 85
Researched Math and built Oracle in Kyoto then Oracled CS Nice!!

also built Henge on Kyoto
have 6Axe and 1warrior 3turns later at the doorstep of Persepolis with 4 Archers and a Settler pillaged Sheep,Stone and Horses at Perse , I'll just block it right??

Random Q us your Picture From M&B Warband???

 

[yyeah]

Good Job with Oracling CS.
Sh wasnt needed you put a lot of in to it, and now you lack in expansions i rather have 4 cities right now then a SH. Allso you miss Lib and Granary in cap.
Sh was mistake.
On monarch dif one can do warfare and expand. One just have to have quite good overflow mechanics.
Allso if you have like 2 more cities around your capitol, you could start to grow your cottages. Thats how one is makeing good Bureau Capitol
2 more cities whitch i would have right now (i think), is 3S1E from Capitol, and probably 3N1E its not great spot but have and can work on Capitols FP's cottages.
One can call it a help city.

Back to Darius i c you went allout for him. It wasnt nessesery i meen its ok you can start takeing cities from him but dont take him out compleatly.
Let him settle cities for you, and try to steal as much workers as you can from him.
Now i would rather attack hes 2nd city then Capitol. Let him use hes settler, Ai will go and settle a city if you stop threat hes capitol. So simply go for 2nd city instand in meen time he will settle 3th for you.

Your Capitol is at size 7 3 pop whip 2 settlers there and let osaka bulid the troops. You can allso 2 pop whip another worker in Osaka put overflow in to axe or granary you should definetly focus on getting this up.
In Capitol 3pop whip settler and put over flow inb to granary then work on granary and at size 6 again 3 pop whip settler and put overflow to finish granary. then Lib is a must.

You got Math you can start Chooping things. Osaka is working on unimprooved tiles if your city starting to work on unimprooved tile best thing what one can do to deal with it is just whip.

 

[Fippy]

I think your problems come from building random stuff (and plans ).

SH..why? Your 2nd city not even needed an early border pop.
Oracle..sure it's nice, but so are more cities and those cannot be lost (you only can afford oracling CS cos of monarch diff.)

Those wonders are a huge distraction, and are blocking you from learning more basics.
Sure there are times when you want Oracle on higher diffs too, but this would not be one of those starts.
There's so much land and an easy way to win below immortal is settling & improving your cities, while staying away from most other options.

No barracks when trying to rush and AI, as aggressive
Now your axes sit in front of his city with 20% odds.
Sums up the wrong directions you take early game.

 

[slamurai]

this is Osaka after anachy

some turns later Kyoto got captured by barbarian Archer my bad ,capital now is Osaka should I build the Palace again in Kyoto

Turn 107

Captured Persepolis with Great Wall


Should i let him live or ill kill him to avoid negative diplo to other civs later

 

[slamurai]

@Fippy SH because im afraid of the turns needed for monuments and ai settling in my face haha i thought darius would settle next to osaka because in his right is the ocean

the rush is somewhat a change of plans because i dont want him hooking up the horse
no barracks because it take 8+turns i think?? and i need a unit at that time because a bear killed my initial warrior at the persian borders

 

[yyeah]

I played it fast to 750BC you can c the diference in a land developing. I wasnt in a hurry to take him out but just haras.
Maybe this kind of strattegy isnt good for learning basics hmm however tactic with chooping 1 ai slow him down to take him out later on is preety good to IMM and IMM.
Deity is diferent kind of story. Thats why deity players value so high Huayna Capac fo example. So i have to disagree here with @Fippy.
But yea maybe you should start to learn more abouot peacfull expanding developing land etc it will be better for you if you want to move up in dificulties.

Oracle with this kind of start is doable on Deity and i would heavly consider it if i would play it on deity.

Anyway.
Answering your question now you can take him out hes compleatly useless he wont expanding and yea theres no reason to leave him like that.

Loosing such a great capitol is a disaster you should move it back 100%.
I remeber there was couple of moveis on YT how develop good cottage Cap and with this kind of tactic which iam trying to explain to you.
I try to find them.

Edit.
But yea no barracks no granary no lib lack of expansions overall its not a way to play this game.
If you want to rly improove you need to you start great you post a game in forums but play it slower.
You went to like 1AD to fast and this is moust importand time in the game.
For sure you can win it with help but only beocuse its monarch, and like i dont think that you will improove plaing it so fast.

 

[Fippy]

Samurai, it's all connected

Please remember, i am not saying SH or Oracle are bad.
There's one major problem..they come early, and so they assist other distractions in stopping you from improving.

SH are 120h, Oracle 150 which combined are probably ~4 settlers cos food counts for them & they can be whipped.
Agg. barracks are only 25h in contrast, and should always be used when rushing with agg Civs. No exception, for not getting them before units like Axes.

Ideally you restart here without wonders, and let peoples like Lymond (who enjoy guiding players) help you.

(sorry Yyeah but i disagree on Oracle, would not even come to my mind here on deity. Why burden yourself with it while having fp cottages & gold, enuf commerce to keep up with teching can easily be gained without. For me it's an expansion map, with eventually rushing Darius and taking his good Cap & surrounding land).

 

[yyeah]

Yea probably iam not a good techer if you rly want to improove your game . I just wanted to show you how one can ezy roll over map on Monarch dif.
If you are interested on improoving your game to beat like immortal in a lets say couple of months maybe quicker try to post a new game and go through it slowly.
Here are a lot of great players who can shere they knowlage about civ 4 mechanics. You can continue this one but go through another step by step.

 

[elmurcis]

Well, one will see Monarch, other will see "improve gameplay" (and forget about level).
Going for certain Wonder(s) can be "Huge" move but... player has to know value of it - what is alternative for that? Maybe its better this time to forget about it? Maybe there is IND leader near that might build SH for me... Or even GW (have seen same city building both ) Or near religion so just can "cross fingers" for auto-spread.. 2 or 3 different religions? stay neutral until can figure out who would be "best" side of map - sometimes no-side is good-side.
"Read map" for chance to do something - sometimes even "All-in" Archer rush (not Skirmish) can be best choise up to IMM (did few games ago when got Ragnar next to me with Copper in BFC but.. he took some other techs early and was few turns too late to ever improve it after that it was "easy to control" game), but I would never suggest it as general strategy. Any rush has limits (PRO/Hills/CRE/diplo/maintence/barbs/forests ) and downside (what IF I was too optimistic and it fails? Do I have plan B in mind - if answer is yes - no problem, if answer is no - we got some problems...)
Sorry for this "text wall"

 

[lymond]

SH is a bad move

when attacking a city look for the shortest path to the city. It appears you attack straight on instead of an angle, which added an extra turn before you could attack city. This allows AI to whip more defenders. (Trying to reconcile how I see @750BC you sending units into Persian borders and @200BC the city looks just captured)

You get a sufficient stack of units together, march stack in shortest path to city, take it..boom boom

I see you at 750BC with two cities..good cities mind you. Ignore Henge and attack Darius much earlier...or expand faster. 2 cities by this date is bad...very bad

Losing your cap should never happen on this level..heck whip an Axe quickly.

Barracks do not take eight turn if you whip or chop it.

Killing an AI does not give you a diplo malus in Civ IV. (I assume you are coming from Civ V) Declarations of War will give diplo malus with AIs that are Pleased or better with the target. It's a permanent malus, but not that bad. You will increase that malus though if you DOW multiple times, and again only with the targets' friends...not everyone. V diplomacy is beyond bonkers.

I like Tokyo placement as a helper city to Kyoto, but CH is an horribly useless build for this city, and there is not worker addressing the city.

 

[slamurai]

Wow I could easily understand the explanations and the reason behind it
I tried Restarting the Game w/o the Wonders and its like you said guys i expanded to cities then captured 2nd and 3rd City of Darius AT turn 98 then Quit

So heres a New Start
same settings Continents/Normal Speed/Standard Size/No huts/No Events
Starting Thoughts: Warrior 1SE SIP

 

[lymond]

Ha..you love your Toku. Funny that he is considered by many the worst leader in the game, although I secretly think him a bit underrated. However, he's a good leader for learning simply as he's very generic. (now that I think of it I seem to recall you coming here before for help or some other guy who really loves Toku or Japan)

I assume you are still on Monarch here as well.

hmm..looks like pretty good start ..can't go wrong with gold and FPs.

Marble is such good tile to settle on but you lose the pigs. Anyway, you are on a PH so will get a city center hammer bonus of +1 regardless (Marble gives +2 for 3H city center which is so good early game).

Warrior move. - I don't think 1SE does anything for you since we can see in the fog the tiles have forest (very unlikely a resource) - otherwise it would be best move if area open to reveal 2 tiles S. I don't think 1N will reveal the tile across the lake (3N1W of settler), but appears to be a grass hill, which could be pigs or something. So I don't think warrior move adds much either way since SIP seems obvious here...settle on marble has no chance at food except possible no lighthouse seafood in fog, plus FPs..maybe an argument could be made for deity level play. So anyway, I'd move warrior 1 SW (or 1NW) to start scouting coastal area and possible seafood for later marble city and SIP, of course.

Teching here is a little tricky. Toku's starting techs are not great, although wheel is nice to have. Pigs are obviously the focus here so AH a must. However, one needs to tech either Hunt or AG then AH. Hunt>AH is shortest path since Hunt is cheaper. My guestimate though is that your worker will finish before AH finishes leaving him some idle turns..although you do have wheel. Regardless it is probably the best play. (not your worker builds faster settling on a PH..I think 12 turns)

The kicker here for me - as an alternate approach - is I kinda rather have Ag over Hunt simply as AG+TW+Fishing (toku starts with TW+Fish) all provide bonus to Pottery, which is a nice tech here for the FP cottages. Toku can actually tech Pot at the start which most leaders can't except the French, Sumerian and Babylon I think. However, I think Ag+POt should time about right for first worker, then with AG you can start AH. Meanwhile get started on a couple of cottages. Probably a slower food/production start but a bit faster teching, but on Monarch could work okay.

Only thing is you have Gold, so that gives hella commerce early on. Even with the first approach straight to AH via Hunt, you can still tech Pottery soon and ignore Ag.

Lastly, if teching Hunt>AH approach check your time of finishing AH to you worker. Again, I think your worker would finish a few turns before with really nothing to do. What you can do is start a warrior such that you finish worker at 2 turns left on AH,i.e. queue back worker at 2t left on AH (so it finishes 1t before AH completes giving it a turn to move onto pig hill). Or queue back worker with 4 turns on AH and you can put a road down on pigs, although it is not necessary due to river...but it is still something and could be a road to a future city.

I'm sure all that was not confusing in the slightest

 

[yyeah]

@lymond great explained to you this start, and yea its tricky, and tech path is changeing with dif lvl.
On Monarch i would go Agc->AH basicly becouse like mentioned Agc speeds up pottery, and we can bulid like 2 additional warriors when we are waiting for AH you know for what purpouse . At size 2 i would start on worker.
Hunting on monarch isnt way to go imo beocuse one doesnt need archery barbs comes v late but on higher dif like immortal this would be something to consider.
barbs enter borders a lot sooner and since we are starting with gold going archery isnt a big waste. In generall going Hunting only to speeds up AH isnt beneficial. Diferent thing like i said if we plannning to go archery for barb def.
And deity is a compleatly diferent story one could see that every player approach it diferently i for example would probably go Pottery like right away .

 

[Fippy]

I did some testing with such starts a while ago, result was that farming 1 floodplains works best
(agri - AH) Pigs + gold are 2 strong early tiles, but you will be glad about another +4 food tile.
Happy cap is higher, gold slows down growth so it's very useful.

I would not be bothered too much about 7 worker turns for that farm, if you consider that a mine takes 5t (4+1 for moving on hills) and it's timing well with waiting for AH.
FPs are usually connected with cottages, but there are plenty situations where at least 1 farm helps a lot and here it's the gold.