Loss of early game tricks, how to win now on Monarch and above

[DarkSchneider]

Actually, I think I could probably still beat Monarch using reloads until I have a truely excellent starting spot, but in general, the upper difficulties seem much more difficult now that the two best starting tricks, worker steal and chop rush have been patched to be less effective. What can you do at the start of the game to prevent the other Civilizations from out expanding you? What is a viable early game strategy?

 

[Sjaramei]

[thread]218395[/thread]

See this thread for some variants for starting strategies. At monarch+ you need to micromanage much more from the start to keep up with AI. Trying to get CoL/Currency as fast as possible usually helps. (without crippling you of course )

The answer you are looking for is warfare. You need to kill AI's for land. Conquer wonders instead of building them. In my games i rarely build early wonders, and late wonders only if i have time. (which i rarely do)

Early axe rush one neighbour or cata/sword rush later if you got some land to grab first usually works.

What can you do at the start of the game to prevent the other Civilizations from out expanding you?

At higher difficulties you haven't got a rats chance in hell keeping up with AI expanding. It might be possible at Monarch, but later on you almost always have to kill AI's early for land.

 

[Uncle E]

Expansion through war really worked for me on my current prince game. I killed off Hannibal w/ an axeman rush to secure my corner of the world and then built up maces and cats to hit mansa for 4 cities on my front lines - capturing cities at a good pace also gave me lots of gold to run 70% research while rebuilding the captured cities. Now stockpiling Redcoats and Trebs to finish off Mansa.

I got a lucky start w/ liz and a gem mine nearby for a good boost while quickly cottage spamming all the riverside tiles in London.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Not completely what you wanted, but you could just play huge maps with around a dozen ai civs, plenty of room for all generally at the start.

 

[Ozbenno]

Also Highlands map has much more space to expand.

In Monarch and Emporer you should be able to peacefully expand to 6 cities. Try settling your 2nd and 3rd cities towards the AI with room to fill in the gaps. Will increase your maintenence short term but allow more room in the long term.