Learning Monarch

[Mantic0re]

I'm fighting the urge to retreat to WoW for mindless entertainment. I like the thinking aspect of Civ but I have so many holes in my game that I get more frustration than enjoyment from a game.

I'd like to copy Kossin and submit daily sessions for advice and critique (and hopefully work my way to Immortal). Watching Letsplays are great but as a passive participant I don't think I learn as much as I could in open discussion. Partly because the video makers have a deep understanding that can only be communicated by vague statements ("Early" anything for example assumes the reader has some general idea of the games timing that I can't seem to grasp. "Good" / "Terrible" land is another example). I'm hoping information in these threads works to shine light on what for me is still wrapped in the fog of war.

Settings: Pangaea, Standard, no hut/event. Randomness.
Leader: Hannibal

I'll post every 10-15 turns and any time I have specific questions or feel like I'm stuck.

Spoiler :

Settle in place, for no other reason I think this is a question for higher level players. I'll move if something just screams at me but that is rare. Maybe as I improve I'll hear this call more often.

Spoiler :

No real plan here yet. I went Agriculture for the corn. I've only got one AH resource so that didn't appeal to me. I picked BW without really thinking it through, could be talked into a different path easily. I could go AH and hope for horses-->UU but to be honest I can't decide if I like or hate the Numidian Cavalry. I know I have a lot of room for improvement with 2 movement warfare. I would like to know where copper is before I put city 2 down. I generally go BW and build worker, warrior, warrior so that once slavery is available I can whip another worker / settler. I'm not sure that is the best opener but it is a familiar one. BW serves as a defensive and economic tech so I tend to prefer that to what I feel is a minor gambit with horses.

With Jungle to the south and Furs (typically near tundra) near my north border I'm not sure which direction to explore. East could be coast or just a river, west is most definitely more land. I've learned the hard way to avoid settling jungle if possible.

That is it so far, I'm out of ideas for this one. Input is welcome, I'll read up and then play another round tomorrow.


I am running the BULL mod which not everyone uses. Saved game is attached, feel free to shadow and post in spoilers.

Thanks,
Mantic0re

 

[Gwynnja]

I'd settle in place and research Agriculture then Animal Husbandry.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

No real plan here yet. I went Agriculture for the corn. I've only got one AH resource so that didn't appeal to me. I picked BW without really thinking it through, could be talked into a different path easily. I could go AH and hope for horses-->UU but to be honest I can't decide if I like or hate the Numidian Cavalry. I know I have a lot of room for improvement with 2 movement warfare. I would like to know where copper is before I put city 2 down. I generally go BW and build worker, warrior, warrior so that once slavery is available I can whip another worker / settler. I'm not sure that is the best opener but it is a familiar one. BW serves as a defensive and economic tech so I tend to prefer that to what I feel is a minor gambit with horses.

Not unreasonable - the thing that makes it more than a minor gambit is the riverside cows in the fat cross. That's an awesome tile, and a BW first approach just leaves it sitting there.

I think you have three plans that are worth looking at...

Agri->Bronze Working ->Animal Husbandry
Agri->AH -> BW
Agri->BW-> something else.

My feeling is that deferring chopping and whipping for 11 turns is a better choice than boycotting the cows for an extra 11 turns (13 turns of research less two turns to improve it with an extra worker). After all, you still have hills to mine while you wait for bronze working to come in.

One thing you might do is look at when you want to start training the first settler, and work backwards from there.

Edit: a clarification -- I don't think you necessarily need to go through this exercise every start. But doing it once or twice to get a broad basis for the tradeoffs is probably somewhere along the path to wisdom.

 

[tdy99]

I'm a monarch player myself, so I'm probably not any more knowledgeable than you are. If it was me, I would have moved my settler onto that forest to your SE. None of those tiles to the west or north that you'd be losing is anything special, and with financial the prospect of gaining some more river tiles would be very appealing.

 

[lymond]

I'm a monarch player myself, so I'm probably not any more knowledgeable than you are. If it was me, I would have moved my settler onto that forest to your SE. None of those tiles to the west or north that you'd be losing is anything special, and with financial the prospect of gaining some more river tiles would be very appealing.

Based on what I see in his screenshot, I would not recommend moving the settler. Losing 1t for no reasonable gain of any kind, based on what is known vs. unknown, is not wise. Furthermore there are some tiles not yet revealed to the west that might prove to be a resource and moving SE might lose a 3rd hill. Granted the OP probably should have moved the warrior up on the PH hill instead, if it has in fact been moved already.

I generally would never lose a turn on the start if not getting some kind of bonus or clearly grabbing better land that is "known". This start is pretty solid as-is.

To the OP, I would shoot for AH first as well. The cows are too strong a tile and there's a good chance of horse near-by anyway. It might be different if just about every improvable tile was forested.

edit: OP - it appears that you are using the BUFFY mod, not BULL. Further more, it is an old version of BUFFY. I highly recommend that you update BUFFY, and unless playing HOF/GOTMs, I recommend using BAT instead. Regardless, it's unlikely many folks will be able to load your game.

 

[Mantic0re]

Thanks for the responses. I think I'll take all the mods out and put in BUG as a custom asset so everyone can play my games. I'm not really sure what the difference is in all the BXXX mods but I like how WHEEOHRN mode and city counts show on the BUG scoreboard. This is a must have feature in my opinion. I vaguely remember this information being too far out of sight and out of mind with the default UI.


The first screenshot is taken before any moves. I'm not sure why I can see so far west but that is the initial view. The second shot is a duplicate, I'll fix that when I get home from work. I'm not sure what happened there. This is all a big (re)learning process for me.

 

[s.bernbaum]

The first screenshot is taken before any moves. I'm not sure why I can see so far west but that is the initial view.

Your warrior can see the adjacent tiles. Since hills can be seen from two tiles away, unless blocked by something, the two tiles to the west and the one to the northwest are visible because they are hills.

 

[Radio Noer]

I'd say Agr-->AH-->BW so if horses are near you can nab them and if all else fails you could get copper. I'm not too familiar with Numidian Cavalry but from my understanding they are 2 move axes, which could theoretically nice rush. Then again I'm not the most experienced player here so take what I say with a little grain of salt.

 

[AbsoluteZero]

1st, your first move for the warrior should have been 1n because it's on a hill and shows visable tiles that are within the big fat cross ( BFC ) of your resources. There really was no other move for the warrior then 1n.

Sooo.... you should have seen that other wet corn and should have settled 1 north west and got 2 wet corn + cows + 3 hills.

Then you should have gone AG ( no brainer ). And then you'd have a choice to go either BW or AH ( both would take too long and your tech would suffer ). I would have gone AH -> wheel -> writing and started building a library and setting up trade routes with my neighbors ( probably after setting another town ).

 

[Mantic0re]

Round 2: T10 - T32
Techs: AH -> BW. Wheel as a safe filler until I play next set.
Builds: worker completed. 2x Warriors while growing to size 4. Worker next 1/2 done.
I've not revolted into slavery yet. This is the turn immediately after BW, worker can still move. I'm parked on a forest but have not chopped yet.

Spoiler :

T11: RAgnar scout appeared 2 tiles outside of my SW border. (two tiles straight west from the empty corner of the BFC) A two-move scout traveling straight to me would mean his borders are 10-20 tiles away somewhere west or south of me. I'm not sure they really move that way. Near the end of this turn set I have a warrior pushing west to find Ragnar.

At this point my warrior was already NE so I continued eastward to find Cyrus. The BFC of our capitals is seperated by five tiles.

While in the area, AH revealed Horses NE as well. I put markers for the two sites I'm considering to claim this resource. The closer site allows me to grow two cottages for the capital so I'm leaning toward it. The other option is on a plains hill which will give me a little better production and defense if Cyrus pushes on this city.

Copper is revealed due north of the capital.

Plan:

1. Settle Horse city and Find Ragnar (and others for that matter)
2. Cottage capital, use Horse city for production??????
3. Wait and see.

Cyrus is close enough I'm considering taking him with Numdian Cav. I'm not sure I can pull this off because there isn't much commerce here yet and HBR is fairly expensive. Turn 50 seems a little late for some chariot action. It looks like I could expand peacefully westward, or even South into the jungle if needed. I've had bad experiences with jungle so prefer other options.

There are 13 non-special flatland (only 2-3 are riverside though :-( ) tiles in the capital. If I cottage them all I have enough food to work them if I only use mines when needed. I did a rough food count and don't think I'll be able to work both mines and cottages all at once but it doesn't look like a terrible Bureaucracy cap. I'll pick up Wheel and Pottery so I can start growing cottages. I'm financial and would like to see that work for me.

Edit: I'm never sure when to revolt. I can chop my first settler and revolt after, or revolt now and chop/whip. No idea which is best here, or even as a general rule. I think I'd prefer chops to go into military units or even buildings. I want to settle that city pretty quickly so Cyrus doesn't take it and I have a military option.

 

[OneLeggedRhino]

In general, best time to revolt to Slavery is as early as possible once your initial worker(s) are out. That way, you get the benefit of worker turns improving tiles. Since you'd usually wind up working unimproved tiles for a few turns anyway (cities often grow faster than workers can improve), you're losing a turn of unimproved tile rather than improved tile. Exception is if your workers are waiting on a tech, then you should revolt after that tech comes in.

 

[Gwynnja]

Revolt to slavery after your settler is done unless you want to whip him out. I don't understand why you built a second worker before your first settler. If you want numids, research writing first and power through HBR with scientists. I hate non-riverside cottages. I'd rather just farm everything in the capital and whip the crap out of it and find a better spot for your palace later.

 

[krikav]

Settle in place, for no other reason I think this is a question for higher level players. I'll move if something just screams at me but that is rare. Maybe as I improve I'll hear this call more often.

No real plan here yet. I went Agriculture for the corn. I've only got one AH resource so that didn't appeal to me. I picked BW without really thinking it through, could be talked into a different path easily. I could go AH and hope for horses-->UU but to be honest I can't decide if I like or hate the Numidian Cavalry. I know I have a lot of room for improvement with 2 movement warfare. I would like to know where copper is before I put city 2 down. I generally go BW and build worker, warrior, warrior so that once slavery is available I can whip another worker / settler. I'm not sure that is the best opener but it is a familiar one. BW serves as a defensive and economic tech so I tend to prefer that to what I feel is a minor gambit with horses.

Thanks,
Mantic0re

General guidelines about land.
"Terrible land" is land which has little or no food resources.
Cities in such places grow to slow to be of significance.
Generally a city must have at least one food resource, or at least some floodplains.
Growing a city on grassland farms is often not a good idea.
If a site has food, you can make it work, if it lacks food, you can't do much.

I get the feeling that many see BW as a "must have", I don't agree at all. And if the map shows me that I don't urgently need BW, I often postpone it.

In your case, you have a crassland riverside cow.
Now that is one of the best tiles in the game and with such a tile, AH should have priority over BW any day. Getting the food resources in your new cities is very important. If they can't grow, they can't contribute.

Going archery is something that you will need to do, if not at monarch, but sooner or later at high levels.
You don't have time to go for both AH and BW, and if you can't easily hook the resources up, you are in trouble.
The barbarians will knock at your door sooner than you think. And having archers in place when that happens makes you safe and sound.


The only time I rush for BW, is when my starting area is heavily forested, so that I need to clear some land to work it. But in your starting location, you do have some hills that are allready naked and ready to mine.

 

[krikav]

Comments on round 2:

Your capital is not well suited for a commercial centre.
I would suspect that your capital has iron hidden. And a source of iron, cows and 3 hills, make your capital well suited for production.

I would want more scouting around the horses and around the copper, to determine city locations. But I would prefer going for the safe bet coppertown with wet corn, above the rice-horse town.

Imo, your placement of the horse-rice-city, could be improved by moving it 1S, so that it can share the cows, that will get it up to speed much faster.

 

[krikav]

I don't understand why you built a second worker before your first settler. .

In almost all of my games, I build two workers before a settler.
There is little point settling a new city, if you don't have workers available to improve it.

If you only have one worker, that worker will have his hands full improving the first city.
Then you need to connect the two cities for +2 commerce, and you need to improve the food resource of the second city asap.

Having two workers makes this possible, while only one worker will make your second city sit and do basically nothing, while costing you abit.

If there is not a extreme urgency, such as space limits, and competition for a location close to some other civ, then 2 workers is best.

 

[jdros13]

I get the feeling that many see BW as a "must have", I don't agree at all. And if the map shows me that I don't urgently need BW, I often postpone it.

I think this is a great point. I'm only recently through Monarch and now comfortably playing on Emperor (started playing this past christmas), but as you move up you need to learn how to "play the map" a little bit better and this can be a part of it. At the levels below Monarch it is often most important to get early copper or horses because the fastest way to take control of the map is to capture another capital. Starting at Monarch and then moving up it becomes harder to successfully pull off an early rush that doesn't slow your progress down - it becomes much more situational then.

If you have a high food start (like coastal with 2-3 seafood and even possibly wet rice or corn) then BW might be needed for whipping. Or as Krikav said, in a heavily forested situation you might need to clear trees to build production from mines. It is very possible to do without BW for quite a while though if you have enough for a worker to do without it and you might advance quicker by skipping this step - not in every game, but often enough that you need to consider what to do before automatically teching Mining --> BW like many do.

 

[krikav]

I'm never sure when to revolt. I can chop my first settler and revolt after, or revolt now and chop/whip. No idea which is best here, or even as a general rule. I think I'd prefer chops to go into military units or even buildings. I want to settle that city pretty quickly so Cyrus doesn't take it and I have a military option.

Guidelines when to revolt:
* As soon as possible.
But OneLeggedRhinos information pretty much sums it up, if you have something in the build queue that will benefit you, wait untill that is finished before you revolt.

What to chop/whip?

I find this depend on the city. If the city has a abundance of food, but little production. You want to whip/chop buildings/militar, since you need to put the "breaks" on, while building workers/settlers.

The opposite is true, if you have a city you want to grow, whip/chop settlers/workers, and let the city recover/grow while building buildings/military.

If in doubt, whip settlers/workers, since if the city is growing to fast, you can generally micromanage the tiles the city are working, to slow it down.

Exception to the rule is granary, which you most of the time want up and running asap, whip and chop it asap.
Granary makes all your food resouces almost twice as good.

 

[Regas]

hm, BW gives so much flexibility imo. Of course it may not be needed in 3000BC yet, but whipping+chopping it gives are very important. I usually go for it fast if there are no AH resources nearby and at least 5-6 forests.
havent made my mind yet on when to go for writing asap ;p

to OP: scout a bit more to decide where to settle cities. there might be some sea food i.e.

 

[Cheps]

Keep in mind that you need to defend vs barbs as well, which is another reason to get fast BW (and send your first settler to grab copper). You will usually want to avoid archery early as it's a dead end, and chariots require horses and will only work until a couple spearmen show up and screw you. Axemen are the best (and most reliable) anti-barb defenders early game, unless you can easily spawn bust.

And of course chopping is vital to get these workers/settlers faster, and have a better chance at early wonders (oracle, pyramids, stonehenge).

Personally, I think I always have BW before writing. Then it depends on your map and settings (no barbs for example).

 

[krikav]

Keep in mind that you need to defend vs barbs as well, which is another reason to get fast BW (and send your first settler to grab copper). You will usually want to avoid archery early as it's a dead end, and chariots require horses and will only work until a couple spearmen show up and screw you. Axemen are the best (and most reliable) anti-barb defenders early game, unless you can easily spawn bust.

And of course chopping is vital to get these workers/settlers faster, and have a better chance at early wonders (oracle, pyramids, stonehenge).

Personally, I think I always have BW before writing. Then it depends on your map and settings (no barbs for example).

For barbarian defense, archers are a good idea. You can get them both faster and quicker than settling a copper city and get it up and running, and you can do it all while your economy continues to grow quickly.
To say that axemen are more reliable is only true when you allready have the axemens built. Then they are reliable. But finding copper, setteling on commer and hooking it up with roads, and building them. This takes alot of time, and it is not fast enough to be considered "reliable".
Axemens for defense is to be considered a gambit.

Chopping is good, but you can get it in good time for when you need some extra speed to grab a essential wonder, you might even find yourself keeping most of your trees untill you have maths.

Whipping is pretty weak before you have a granary, and should only be done with extreme care.