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.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

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?

I would also welcome more details. As far as I understand it :

Spoiler :

Gunboat Diplomat tried to expand peacefully, as much as possible, which I find generally commendable. The issue, here, is that there is a large wasteland to the East, NE and North of the starting area.
Therefore, expanding into these positions is not an answer to the map (and it seems he eventually found out about this ).
The way to circumvent this difficulty would be to tech up and delay that expansion until Player is properly equiped to deal with that land.

Specifically, you would want 2-move units to cross the wasteland fast and hit the already developped land of some AIs. And then you could backfill at your convenience.
So, I think Sampsa is generally right in his estimation of the 5-6 cities starting area, at wich point the expansion should stop.
The commerce overload from the start should make it fairly easy to Oracle Civil Service. Starting with early Mathematics does, indeed, look like a good move.
After that is acquired, it wouldn't be too much of an investment to research HBR (or Guilds, if Player has cold feet) and invade a neighbour.

~~

Another way to punt the map would be to be working at a worker deficit.
It is sometimes hard to evaluate the need for a worker vs a settler but over-emphasizing settlers over workers is a way to punt because new cities will take too long to pay off without proper worker attention and older cities will be left without any.
Cities should have worker attention at every stage of the game.
Here, it should be apparent that the capital has very poor production. We're looking at 8hpt towards settlers at size 3. That is abysmal.
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

 

[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.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I think you are right about the better 2nd city.

It's a miracle !!!
Here, I give you my also-not-perfect speedplay to T50 :

Spoiler :

Settled 1W to secure 2 BFC gems. Missed out on the 3rd, which I would not be working atm if I had SIPed.
Capital grows to 4 to get the hammer bonus towards workers. (Could be to 3 if SIP ?) Gets 2nd Worker, starts settler.
There is a lot to do in the 2nd city so I ended up sending both workers over, while Capital would work on the 3rd worker.
Priority in city 2 goes : improve cows, chop workboat. I then went improve copper over chop granary and I suppose that is debatable (size 2 granary is better but city needs hammers for 2nd boat and a warrior). The granary is certainly better than the 2nd workboat.
So, tiles priority : cows, fish, copper, gems/2nd fish.

I am eyeing the riverside plains hills for 3rd city spot (I think getting food positive tiles is better than 3rd gems in this position) and I suppose my workers could be doing something else than roading to there (gains 1 turn travel time and prepare road for horses/gems city).
^ Both of those cities would require size 1 chop into Granary for optimal development, which should illustrate (again), the need to invest into early workers, before settlers.
I also have banked gold after writing because I was not playing past T50.
Didn't scout the south of our backyard, which is a little awkward. There certainly is an acceptable city on the western sugar.

 

[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.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I think the issue is that Gunboat Diplomat started chopping into his settler right after Bronze Working. His tech path and city locations are all sound. He did something like this :

Spoiler :

... And chopped settler, then ran worker over to city 2, leaving capital unattended, and then went to chop a third city, sinking deeper into a worker deficit (I'm not sure he has a 2nd worker at T50, perhaps on the copper tile).

There is a good argument to chop, here, since Bronze is unlocked so fast and, as SittinDown pointed out, going from one gems to the other with the first worker loses a lot of turns.
However, 'tis a worker that should be chopped so that the second gems can be improved. So this is a build order issue.

Once the second worker is out, there is no restriction on where you can settle.
You have acquired the worker turns to a) develop your BFC (starting on a settler before improving the BFC specials is the big mistake, here) and b) connect + develop your 2nd city.

Could be worth mentionning that SIP is actually the stronger play, here, at least long term, because it takes 1 less city to claim all 3 gems tiles. It saves a settler, maintenance costs and all the efforts to develop a 0-food city.
However, on T0, as SittinDown rightly remarked (again), there is an appeal to settle 1W because the two gems in sight can be improved more easily.
Short term, it is not irrelevant to EXP leader Sury that SIP can work a 2H gems tile, because it means the EXP bonus can be had at size 3 rather than 4. (So SIP should get the faster city 2.)

Bottom line : it's all about the tiles. Cities are only as valuable as the tiles they're working. Hence the workers.
Early cities are desirable, they will snowball and bring value as the game goes on. Same goes for workers, hence the workers. Sorry if this is a little redundant.

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.

Sure, yes. Diploing is how consistent players are consistent If Impis are trouble, Axemen can also be an answer. There is no reason why one should run defensive horses into spears, here.