Is It Possible To Lose a Triple Gem Start on Monarch?

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Not to brag or anything, but yes. Yes it is possible. In fact, it is possible to completely fail 7 attempts on the same map.

After a few games here on immortal some months ago, where I got some awesome (and much appreciated) help, I tried several games on my own and was soundly defeated every time. I took a bit of a break, then tried again. And failed. So, in an attempt to rebuild my self esteem, I decided to drop back to Monarch with Suryavarman II for an easy win.

Well, that didn't work out. I swear I'm getting worse at this game.

Anyway, I'm posting now, because I finally beat the infernal map on attempt number 8. As near as I can tell, the trick was to secure a few key cities but not overexpand and to really get more food than I thought I'd need, as early as possible. The games where I focused on early techs and rapid expansion, my lack of growth and hammers killed me fairly swiftly.

If anyone wants a laugh and to tell me how they beat the game in the BCs, here's a BUG save.
For the record, it took me until T317 (1896AD) to win. I'm sure I could learn a bit from studying this game further, but it's tired, and I'm late.

Spoiler Settings and start :

 

[sampsa]

Can't open BUG-save. Someone make a worldbuilder or BUFFY-save?

 

[skarpa]

I'm sure I could lose long before 1896

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Can't open BUG-save. Someone make a worldbuilder or BUFFY-save?

Sorry. Should have remembered. WB Save attached.

 

[sampsa]

T50

Spoiler :

I don't think it should be a very hard map... OK there is Shaka though.

Went SIP just to play it safe. Probably below par play by me but still it seems reasonable. Get these 5 cities and you should be fine. Calendar if you want to just take it slow. Of course construction is an option. I think maths is a nice way to use the - better chops help a lot.

 

[jorissimo]

I feel like we need to know more about what went wrong though. From your story it doesn't seem like it was Shaka. Do you remember your early tech order and settlement dates of your first cities? Did your economy crash at any point? When and how did you realize the games were lost?

 

[jorissimo]

Btw the phenomenon you describe is tilting. It happens when one mistake snowballs into several mistakes due to increasing frustration. It can happen within a single game or across multiple games. It happens in many different games, and can be particularly bad in chess I can say from experience. The best way to handle it is just to take a break and come back later.

 

[pigswill]

Easy enough to lose a three gem start if you have no strategic resources and you're surrounded by warmongers.

 

[sampsa]

Hmm... is city gifting considered somehow shameful? It's only 100 for +5 diplo.

 

[sampsa]

Spoiler :

Given the forest spam, the first step should be to build a second worker before settler (be it at size 3 or 4) and then a third worker before the second settler.
^ This is the way a worker can accompany your first settler, while avoiding to leave the capital unattended and see its production crumble. Rince and repeat for the second settler.
The key is to invest into workers, which does not cost maintenance, and speed up the development of any city.

I think ignoring the S tier city site between copper and cows and going 2nd settler before 3rd worker are criminal moves in Sampsa's play but that is just a standing disagreement between us, at least he's consistent with it

Ah yes, forgot to mention I went 2nd worker before settler! I think you are right about the better 2nd city. Need to get the cow+copper running asap because need those . Not happy with my play at all.

 

[pigswill]

Spoiler :

Settled 1W from start to get second gem in BFC, worker, worker settler, late city between copper and bronze, unintended advantage of settling 1W is getting copper after second border pop and improving it before settler arrives tho still needs roads. Nice neighbours.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Wow. This got a bigger response than I expected. I set autosave to every turn, and kept them all, so I'm happy to provide any info (I'll restrict it to my winning game unless otherwise stated).

Spoiler My T50 :

Tech order was:
Ag, BW, Wheel, AH, Fishing, Pottery, Writing

I did end up grabbing land to the North and East. These cities secured Ivory and Horses, respectively, and both ended up being my main source of hammers throughout the game. The latter one really picked up after CS and I was able to farm all that grassland around the hills, but even with Calendar, it was reasonable. Completely useless before IW though, so it did alter my tech choice at one point. In this game, I settled it later than in any of the others.

I honestly wouldn't know how to play without either of those two cities.


In more than one of my games (most of them in fact) Shaka killed me. His Impi just tore through my Elephants, and were too mobile for my axes. When I focused on massing a defensive army, my economy crashed.

You'll notice that by this stage, I had only mined one of the gems. My workers were just too busy chopping everything and getting food/production resources up. Points made about more/earlier workers is well received. I can see how that would have made a difference.

I ended up with three cities sharing those flood plains to the south. In the games where I cottaged them all, I lost. In the end I tried farming several of them, which seemed ridiculous to me, but worked out better for some reason.

In hindsight, this win can probably be attributed more to good luck than good management. This time around, the barbs were very kind to me, and Shaka waited until I was more or less ready for him. Yes, I'm calling it a win, but it was precarious enough that it could easily have gone the other way at several points. I feel that a triple gem start on Monarch shouldn't be that precarious. *sigh*

 

[chinemol]

gave it a try

Spoiler :

settled 1W Agg, BW, Archery (no metal in BFC, 2nd spot was to go on flood plains SE), wheel, pott.... capital always worked corn and 2 gems, plus forests + chops

(
Shaka went great wall, so that allowed me to grab a lot, including a buffer with Boudica, elephants, copper(s). Despite that, the commerce in the capital and second city allowed to beeline construction without much issue.
Plan is to wipe shaka, unless he goes for hatty in which case I might go for Boudica first, not convinced of this. Someone will be elepulted.
Techwise, think I'll go for currency first (they don't have alpha yet, it will take a lot to get it otherwise), trade monotheism and monarchy to please hatty and Joao. Hatty plots at pleased, but Shaka or Boudica can't bribe her in. Unless they get their own elephants, think I can crush Bou and Shaka even of combined

 

[SittinDown]

the phenomenon you describe is tilting

that's how casinos get you too.

 

[SittinDown]

I'm a bit rusty, but looking over the different options people posted, it looks like settling site choices have some big implications early on here.

Consider also how settling sites affect worker turns and tech paths. If you settle the Fish->Copper rather than the Cow->Copper, you can avoid animal husbandry for a bit, get fishing sooner, and chop or use the copper mine to get the workboat out faster, then that saves you the worker-turns of building the pasture. the diagonal to the fish->copper also lets you put a city down south of the cow to still get the cow in the first ring for a 3rd or 4th city with wheat and fish in the 2nd ring, which is no big deal cause you're creative. not sure that's really better... but it quite a bit of a different opening from Cow->Copper.

should open up more worker-turns. not having the flat gems mined by turn 50 seems like something went wrong. maybe getting the hill gems burned up too much time walking around in 1-move-per-turn-land, or something like that.

 

[sampsa]

While I think the first 50T is very important, this map is so strong that even if your play is sub-par it's not the reason why you lose the game.

Again, city gifting? Settle a fortress city on a hill (and get more than one archer in )? Just find a way to protect yourself and with this land it's a breeze.

 

[jorissimo]

Wow. This got a bigger response than I expected. I set autosave to every turn, and kept them all, so I'm happy to provide any info (I'll restrict it to my winning game unless otherwise stated).

Spoiler My T50 :

Tech order was:
Ag, BW, Wheel, AH, Fishing, Pottery, Writing

I did end up grabbing land to the North and East. These cities secured Ivory and Horses, respectively, and both ended up being my main source of hammers throughout the game. The latter one really picked up after CS and I was able to farm all that grassland around the hills, but even with Calendar, it was reasonable. Completely useless before IW though, so it did alter my tech choice at one point. In this game, I settled it later than in any of the others.

I honestly wouldn't know how to play without either of those two cities.


In more than one of my games (most of them in fact) Shaka killed me. His Impi just tore through my Elephants, and were too mobile for my axes. When I focused on massing a defensive army, my economy crashed.

View attachment 711129

You'll notice that by this stage, I had only mined one of the gems. My workers were just too busy chopping everything and getting food/production resources up. Points made about more/earlier workers is well received. I can see how that would have made a difference.

I ended up with three cities sharing those flood plains to the south. In the games where I cottaged them all, I lost. In the end I tried farming several of them, which seemed ridiculous to me, but worked out better for some reason.

In hindsight, this win can probably be attributed more to good luck than good management. This time around, the barbs were very kind to me, and Shaka waited until I was more or less ready for him. Yes, I'm calling it a win, but it was precarious enough that it could easily have gone the other way at several points. I feel that a triple gem start on Monarch shouldn't be that precarious. *sigh*

Not saying it's the reason you lost, but I noticed your second city wasn't connected even on T50. As a rule, I would never settle an unconnected second city. Meaning Thom should have come second, also because it can share a gems. If you don't start with the wheel and can't settle along a river or coast for instant connection, the wheel should be researched very early, right after you get access to food in the capital. But that's not the case here.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Not saying it's the reason you lost, but I noticed your second city wasn't connected even on T50. As a rule, I would never settle an unconnected second city. Meaning Thom should have come second, also because it can share a gems. If you don't start with the wheel and can't settle along a river or coast for instant connection, the wheel should be researched very early, right after you get access to food in the capital. But that's not the case here.

Not connecting the second city was deliberate. I wanted the food and the site looked like the strongest nearby city, but didn't want to lose the ability to churn out fast warriors if needed. The barbs had given me trouble in the past. T50 may be too late to be worrying about that, but since I still hadn't fogbusted the East, I felt I still needed the warriors.

I'm not trying to say it was a good decision, just help you to understand my reasoning.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

He did something like this :

Actually, that's exactly what I did.

 

[jorissimo]

Not connecting the second city was deliberate. I wanted the food and the site looked like the strongest nearby city, but didn't want to lose the ability to churn out fast warriors if needed. The barbs had given me trouble in the past. T50 may be too late to be worrying about that, but since I still hadn't fogbusted the East, I felt I still needed the warriors.

I'm not trying to say it was a good decision, just help you to understand my reasoning.

But the copper was still unhooked. So even if the city had been connected, you'd still have been able to build warriors. Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying?