Monarch game. Help me to win one

[cabert]

You're right about scores. Most of mine are in the 15000-25000 bracket. Domination & conquest usually score higher, into the 30000-40000, and cultural wins lower because I'm not very good at them. Anyway, as long as I enjoy the game I won't worry about the score.

most of my games, including cultural, are between 30k and 40k.
That's a question of population and finish time, mostly.

But my "best" games are usually much lower. Because what I see as best are those unusual games, where you have to find a way out of the hole.
Sometimes those can give a quite high score (I remember my fist monarch game with warlords, playing churchill. I started on a remote peninsula, with very little quality land. I abused the vassal system, in some very british way. 4 vassals, = stallin, mansa musa, alexander and J Caesar gave me a high enough score),
but mostly, you need to draft, whip (= lose population)
and give up on wonders and techs (building and paying for troops, pushing the cultural slider to remain happy=no time for wonders and no commerce for science) to win those.
10K is high enough when the game was good.

 

[pigswill]

Scoring system reflects mainly pop and finishing time which is why the high scoring games are early domination. I suspect that most people on the forum pay as much (or more) attention to leadership rating as an indicator of quality play. Might be nice if Firaxis (or a keen member of the modding community) could add a few levels above Augustus Ceaser.

 

[cabert]

Scoring system reflects mainly pop and finishing time which is why the high scoring games are early domination. I suspect that most people on the forum pay as much (or more) attention to leadership rating as an indicator of quality play. Might be nice if Firaxis (or a keen member of the modding community) could add a few levels above Augustus Ceaser.

The level just above Augustus Caesar could be Pigswill .

 

[Alarik]

Hi folks!
Very interesting dialogue. I have also switched to playing monarch recently. It seems one has to have a great start first. Are there anyone who thinks some starting trait like Financial/Expansive is better than others. I am playing China or Rome usually. If you play financial, then it seems you will have advantage of this later on but not early. Isnt organised better than financial? Organised gives cheap Courthouse and cheaper civics? I am confused that the latest patch erased the bonus of building bank for financial. Would be thankful for comments.

Best, Alarik

 

[cabert]

Hi folks!
Very interesting dialogue. I have also switched to playing monarch recently. It seems one has to have a great start first. Are there anyone who thinks some starting trait like Financial/Expansive is better than others. I am playing China or Rome usually. If you play financial, then it seems you will have advantage of this later on but not early. Isnt organised better than financial? Organised gives cheap Courthouse and cheaper civics? I am confused that the latest patch erased the bonus of building bank for financial. Would be thankful for comments.

Best, Alarik

monarch level isn't a totally biased game
You need to focus on your victory goal (selecting a victory goal suiting your traits is also good ), and that's it.
Good trading tech and either good army or good diplomacy is enough.

 

[Alarik]

Thanks for your reply. So biased means there is no special strategy to win on monarch? I think the trait financial has lost its meaning. Expansive /organised is better. My original strategy is expanding fast in the beginning - then stop and stabilize. Get friends, expand slowly efterwards. Now, in civ IV they seems to have killed the ICS-strategy once and for all - I cant build more than 15 cities before 1500 AD unless I wanna go bankrupt.
Keep in touch,
Alarik

 

[cabert]

Thanks for your reply. So biased means there is no special strategy to win on monarch? I think the trait financial has lost its meaning. Expansive /organised is better. My original strategy is expanding fast in the beginning - then stop and stabilize. Get friends, expand slowly efterwards. Now, in civ IV they seems to have killed the ICS-strategy once and for all - I cant build more than 15 cities before 1500 AD unless I wanna go bankrupt.
Keep in touch,
Alarik

On monarch and above, you shouldn't build more than 4 cities before CoL or currency. Only do it if you have one of the above :
- shrine
- very high commerce city (early, this means 2 gold mines or more)
- good plunder perspectives (= already at war, with a small army vs a cottage spammer)

 

[Alarik]

Alright - good. I will give it a try. Another question: How does one alter the civilizations: say if i want to change traits on an existing civ - like chaning traits for China for instance?

What are the score for? Is it always the one with higest score that wins?
Alarik

 

[Carnage04]

I agree, cabert. I have read alot about moving starting settler lately, and will give it a try soon. No bad results from settler popping goodie huts?

Some time back...possible when Civ III came out, I thought someone extrapolated generic falling behind in a game by moving your Starting Settler instead of founding immediately. Is that not commonly thought of anymore? I NEVER move my starting Settler because I am worried about falling behind two turns in techs and production off the bat.

 

[lukep]

Scoring system reflects mainly pop and finishing time which is why the high scoring games are early domination. I suspect that most people on the forum pay as much (or more) attention to leadership rating as an indicator of quality play. Might be nice if Firaxis (or a keen member of the modding community) could add a few levels above Augustus Ceaser.

well, neither of the 2 scoring really reflet the quality of playing, as the leadership rating seems to be strongly coupled to the normalized score.

My latest monarch game was very unusual (a totally peace space win with Augustus is quite weird, but i had no real choice), and the scoring was average rightly so, but the leadership was in the middle too, when it was one of my most satisfying games.