Improving on Monarch level

[Pangaea]

It's no big deal with the gold, but you could have revealed a lot of tiles just by spending one turn to step onto the gold hill itself.

Not sure when barbs start invading cities on Monarch, but it probably takes a good while, and with coast on two sides and a good bunch of forests, it should be okay to fog bust with warriors in strategically located forest tiles. Don't think I see forested hills to your NE, but three warriors will take care of the area.

 

[Izuul]

I typically encourage players trying to learn the game to take a fairly safe and fundamentally sound approach. I think the goal for anyone should be Immortal level, and learning things now that are good on Immortal is never a bad idea. I think barbs enter when global city count = # of civs in the game / 3. This usually happens somewhere a little before 2000 BC on Immortal, but quite a bit sooner than that even on Deity where the AI have 2 cities by T5 and 3 cities before a human player can even settle a 2nd.

You can likely get away with some warriors here and delay BW a bit for Pottery if you fog bust well and place your warriors strategically on defensive terrain, but i would still recommend at least Mining next so that you have enough production to get a few warriors out.

The other thing about really early Pottery is that, in order to leverage it effectively, you need to settle at least one city close to your capitol early to share some tiles. Otherwise you just won't be able to work the strong tiles around your capitol and cottages at the same time because happiness in your capitol is going to be capped at 5. Sometimes rushing to Pottery really fast doesn't help as much as you might think.

 

[dutchfire]

@Pangaea: That gold city needs a border pop to get full potential. I might settle 1SE, and work farmed floodplain and gold. Since Mansa is close, getting this city early might be useful. Then a helper city 3E of the capital (cow + shared corn) and a production monster 3N1E of the capital.
Sea looks close on the west side, so no big hurry there. Would be nice to know if there is food there (border pop will show), an additional helper city there could be good.

 

[Anysense]

@Pangaea: That gold city needs a border pop to get full potential. I might settle 1SE, and work farmed floodplain and gold.

I believe he marked tiles for fogbusters rather than suggested to settle there.
Anyway I would never settle this way, that is without forests and hills in first ring, unless I play as creative leader.

 

[dutchfire]

Ah, sorry. When I see a dotmap, I think about settling immediately...

 

[Seraiel]

The great advantage of Mining > Pottery in this case is, that you're going to produce Settlers, and green riverside Mines are 4 yield tiles while Cottages would only be 2 yield and give only 1 more in the beginning.

 

[Pangaea]

Yeah, those dots were just suggestions for fogbusting. But I can see how it could be misunderstood as the third dot picks up cow and gold. Two others are a little questionable

Izuul makes a good point about learning for higher levels, and you want Mining anyway, so you can go that way if you wish. Often you want either AH or BW on the way to Alpha to protect against barbs. If you don't get them in BFC, at least you know where they are for better settling decisions.

Whatever you choose, hopefully there is more food nearby, as it looks pretty paltry so far.

e: Seraiel snuck in a reply too, I'm way too slow today.

 

[Todelotti]

The great advantage of Mining > Pottery in this case is, that you're going to produce Settlers, and green riverside Mines are 4 yield tiles while Cottages would only be 2 yield and give only 1 more in the beginning.

+2 more, because Ragnar is FIN, right? But I see your point...

 

[Todelotti]

Whatever you choose, hopefully there is more food nearby, as it looks pretty paltry so far.

Yes, indeed. I'm planning to go 1 or 2 tiles north and then to the region west of the capital. Then south of the capital, maybe there is food SW of the crabs. Then towards the gold again.

 

[Seraiel]

+2 more, because Ragnar is FIN, right? But I see your point...

Yes, 2 , but 2 more yields while Settler-building are still better than 2 .

 

[Todelotti]

...I might settle 1SE, and work farmed floodplain and gold. Since Mansa is close, getting this city early might be useful...

Did you really mean "1SE" of the gold? Not 1SW? 1SE means that the flood plains are in second ring. Anyway, interesting consideration to get the gold with such a priority. I probably hadn't chosen neither of the spots and basically only looked for food resources for the first cities.

Convincing arguments for researching Mining next after Agriculture! I went that path now:

Turn 15 - 3400 BC

- Agriculture finished
- Mining was next and is about to finish as well in one turn
- First Worker will finish next turn
- More exploration: A 3rd Corn tile and a Dye found in the north and a close Clam in the North-West ocean
- Gilgamesh met, his empire is NW of the new northern corn

My plan (and questions) for the next turns:

- Build a Warrior. Should I directly build 2 or even 3 Warriors in a row? Or better a Settler after the first Warrior?
- Move Worker to the West Corn (that's the irrigated corn, the East Corn is not) and farm, then move Worker to East Corn and farm, then move Worker to the green hill SW of the East Corn and mine. That should give the Worker to do for around 15 to 20 turns.
- Continue exploring the West and South territory.
- Research path now: BW->TW->Pottery. The long research for BW will possibly give the Worker time for even a second green hill mine (or a farm on a grassland instead?).

Tips and alternative suggestions are welcome!

 

[Gwynnja]

I would go for the worst,straight in at the deep end-Ragnar and Toku,both with horrible starting techs,both with UB and UUs that have limited time frame (macemen)and map dependant/victory condition buildings.If you can get these two civs to a comfortable monarch victory your sound for EMP level.I think I mentioned in another thread of yours,tough to play,but worth it when you get it right.

Ragnar has a saving grace with his FIN trait,toku otoh has PRO/AGG gunpowder units.The trick is getting those units quick enough to take advantage.Ragnars beserkers /tokus samurai facing archers for the 1st war is what your looking to achieve.

Toku doesn't have horrible starting techs...

 

[dutchfire]

Did you really mean "1SE" of the gold? Not 1SW?

I meant 1SE of the white dot, 1SW of the gold.
Clear as mud...

Anyway, a settler is still some turns away, so you can decide later.

 

[kevtrev]

My plan (and questions) for the next turns:

- Build a Warrior. Should I directly build 2 or even 3 Warriors in a row? Or better a Settler after the first Warrior?

If you work only food tiles the city will be size 4 by the time you finish the first warrior. You could then build another warrior, let the capital grow and then whip your first settler at size 6, or just go straight for the settler at size 4. Either way you'll probably want to whip to avoid working unimproved the tiles.

- Move Worker to the West Corn (that's the irrigated corn, the East Corn is not) and farm, then move Worker to East Corn and farm, then move Worker to the green hill SW of the East Corn and mine. That should give the Worker to do for around 15 to 20 turns.

I count 23 turns. It will only take 14 or so turns for the city to get to size 4. Call it 15 if you revolt to slavery. That's why you'll probably 2-whip something whilst the worker does the GH mines. Perhaps it's even worth doing a second worker before the first settler?

- Research path now: BW->TW->Pottery. The long research for BW will possibly give the Worker time for even a second green hill mine (or a farm on a grassland instead?).

After BW is in you should re-assess. Did you get copper? Where is your second city going? What's the land like to your SW? Are you building the cow city, the gold city, or some other city?

 

[Todelotti]

Turn 30 - 2800 BC

- Mining finished, Worker finished
- Charlemagne met. He is the Buddhism founder.
- Montezuma met (wanted to slaughter 50000 (!) slaves to celebrate our meeting, . I did nothing, but he is already annoyed with me. He is fairly close in the West.)
- Mansa Musa founded Hinduism.
- 4th Tribale Village found: Got a Warrior
- Turn 24 - Gilgamesh adopts Slavery (6 turns before I got BW)
- Scout survived Wolf (2 turns to heal)
- Worker has improved both corns, now building a mine on a grassland hill
- Warrior finished, second warrior (actually the third with the warrior from the huts) in production, 4 turns to go.
- Moving Warrior towards the Gold (supposed to reveal the dark tiles around the gold and then work as fogbuster 2W of the Gold as Pangaea proposed)
- Capital reached size 4, working the 2 Corn, the FP and the Stone. 3 turns to size 5, becoming unhappy then.
- BW finished

First screenshot is the complete map so far. In the second screenshot I have marked my candidates for the second city. My favorite is X1 getting copper, cow and the capital's east corn in first ring. The east corn could give food to the second city while AH for the cow is researched and the copper is mined. But strategically, is it perhaps the better plan to expand towards West (X2 or X3) to catch the resources before Montezuma gets them? X4 has the Ivory in mind but I think it's too far away at the moment. Or does the Gold have priority above all (with dutchfire's proposal to settle 1SW of the Gold)?

Before I end this turn I would revolt to Slavery or does it make any sense to wait? I selected The Wheel as next tech but can change before I end the turn. Could Animal Husbandry have higher priority now due to the cow and sheep tiles?

I could also interrupt the Warrior production and put a Settler instead into the queue and 2-pop-whip it before the city reaches size 5. What is the right procedure here?

 

[Seraiel]

I'd 2pop-whip the Settler and settle the Ivory + Corn if it's still available. WEs change the game, so they'd have the highest priority for me. I'd then settle the Gold if still available, and everything else can follow later.

I'd skip TW + AH and directly beeline Alpha. Map seems crowded, I'm sure you can fogbust enough with your Warriors for up until Alpha. After Alpha I'd go for Maths followed by Construction and HBR. I'd then go rampage, it's probably possible that you conquer the complete map or at least great parts of it only with Elepult.

I don't know, but do you have Pottery aleady? If not, get it before going Alpha, the Cottages you can build then will give more benefit than the skipped tech.

 

[Todelotti]

I'd 2pop-whip the Settler and settle the Ivory + Corn if it's still available. WEs change the game, so they'd have the highest priority for me. I'd then settle the Gold if still available, and everything else can follow later.

I'd skip TW + AH and directly beeline Alpha. Map seems crowded, I'm sure you can fogbust enough with your Warriors for up until Alpha. After Alpha I'd go for Maths followed by Construction and HBR. I'd then go rampage, it's probably possible that you conquer the complete map or at least great parts of it only with Elepult.

I don't know, but do you have Pottery aleady? If not, get it before going Alpha, the Cottages you can build then will give more benefit than the skipped tech.

No, don't have Pottery. (Ragnar start with Fishing/Hunting and I have only researched Agri, Mining and BW until now.) Pottery requires TW. So the path would be: TW->Pottery->Writing->Alpha, right? AH->Writing->Alpha is an alternative path that seems to need 5 turns less.

Hm, interesting choice to run for the elepults! I had certainly thought about going towards metal units as quickly as possible.

 

[Pangaea]

Agree about 2-popping the settler. Stop the warrior, you don't need more especially since you got one from a hut, and queue up the settler. Then 2-pop it.

Unless Monty has land to his north or west, he's not going to be pleased with you, isolated over there. But you should secure elephants (I'd settle it on the coast though, as I hate 1-off coast cities unless it's really, really necessary), and then you have an excellent weapon for both Monty and everybody else.

The capital will expand borders and cover the copper, so you don't need the copper city to have it in its first ring.

Don't recall how fast the AI expands on Monarch, but it would be nice to secure that gold site. Not as city 2 or 3 though.

Edit: This is just a quick suggestion.

Maybe switch 2 and 3 around if there is competition for gold, which there probably is. If Monty doesn't have more land, he'll settle towards you, so grabbing sites there plus the other will be hard unless the AI is really slow on Monarch. 6 will naturally depend on what else is down there.

There is tundra/ice to your south, so barbs will spawn there. Areas like that isn't so easy to spawn bust, because they tend to be big-ish, and the AI won't be roaming around as much.

 

[Seraiel]

Take the path via Pottery, you'll be faster because you'll have Cottage-commerce on top of only Palace Commerce. Also: Very early Granaries are very powerful if combined with BW.

Elepults are stronger than any unit of their era. They're often even better than Maces, because they cost less. It's difficult to conquer cities against Pikes with them, but even that works, because the AI builds too few Pikes and because Siege is so OP.

Don't settle too many cities btw., 3-4 is perfect for Elepult. This will also be the reason why you can delay Currency, because Currency with only few cities isn't very powerful.

 

[schadenfreude]

No, don't have Pottery. (Ragnar start with Fishing/Hunting and I have only researched Agri, Mining and BW until now.) Pottery requires TW. So the path would be: TW->Pottery->Writing->Alpha, right? AH->Writing->Alpha is an alternative path that seems to need 5 turns less.

Hm, interesting choice to run for the elepults! I had certainly thought about going towards metal units as quickly as possible.

I agree with your thought to cut off Monty's bronze at the sheep/wine location. He will be coming for you sooner rather than later, and he will be much less a pain in the butt if he has no metal. Make him tech sailing if he wants to expand beyond his capital (assuming he has no land to the west or north). I would settle the elephant city 3rd or 4th. You don't need the luxury just yet, I don't see anyone else taking them, and an elephant war is still a ways off.