Monarch game

[petarfelixx]

I'm able to win Prince games(huge map, Epic speed ) on a regularly basis playing with Bismarck, and winning by making all wonders.

I tried the same tactics on Monarch, and I fell into problems, I was too far back in technology around 1AD. Had 6 cities and Pyramids, but everyone was in front of me technologically, and i couldnt get my res. rate above 30%, and most of them had more cities than me.

So, I have a question, how should i play Monarch game?

Is Bismarck ok, or I should try some other leader?

How to avoid falling behind in technology?

I saw on forum everybody mentioning production cities, and economy cities, can u please explain where can i find a tutorial about making them, and a good explanation what are they?

 

[Fleme]

Any leader is ok. If Bismarck tickles your fancy, then he's your guy. Hogging all the wonders ceases to be a valid strategy once you reach the higher levels of the game and you can't even reliably get them once you advance to emperor and immortal - although you can still pretty much pick the ones you want if you dedicate to them.

Overall, land is power and simple land grab and cottaging will take you a long way. Just sprawl as much as you can to secure land for backfilling and cottage over it. Set your research goals on currency, monarchy, code of laws and alphabet (not necessarily in that order, also trade) and focus on setting the empire up rather than glorifying Berlin just because you can. I'm not saying that you can't win with a small WE/SSE empire but all in all it's good to deviate from your behavior and see what else the game has to offer.

And you shouldn't pay too much attention to the slider. For specialist economies it means very little in terms of actual output whereas for heavy cottage empires you should pay more focus to it.

A production city, simply put, a location which has enough food to support a large amount of hills. I personally prefer riverside locations for the later levee and also the health bonus but the most important part is pretty much just heavy raw production and the food to support it. You don't need a lot of these cities anyhow.

A city for "economy" I see as a cottage city. Pretty much consider everything that's green to serve as cottaging ground - especially if it's on the riverside. These cities will take you a long way eventhough they start very mediocre. These are often the backbone of any "regular" economy (although I'm sure people disagree and that's fine because there are alternatives) and can just be produced en masse. When in doubt, build cottages. If you cottaged over every green tile you have, you'd have a pretty solid economy going.

Set research goals on techs you can trade for backfilling. For example Aesthetics is an excellent trade bait as the AI values it highly. You can get Alpha with it and a lot of other techs you've neglected, should you opt for that path. Same thing with a whole bunch of other techs (Music, Philosophy come to mind)

Also, a good way to learn is just post your game (with lots of screenshots, people love screenshot analysis) and the initial save. Then listen to people's advice and post again in some 50 turns and go through the entire game like that. Good way to learn and get some insight.

 

[babybluepants]

Set research goals on techs you can trade for backfilling. For example Aesthetics is an excellent trade bait as the AI values it highly. You can get Alpha with it and a lot of other techs you've neglected, should you opt for that path.

Haven't played Monarch in a while, but I'm pretty sure this isn't such good advice below Imm or maybe Emp. Straight Alpha opens up Currency, too.

 

[joanne]

@babybluepants

Agreed, even at IMM sometimes the AI will not have Alphabet yet by the time you have Aesthetics thus delaying its usefulness as trade bait, but when I have to choose between the two I look at my techrate in relation to my rank in GNP in the demographics: If I have a good tech rate and am close to #1 in GNP I probably have a good shot at getting alpha first - it opens up currency like you said, and lets you get some of the crucial early techs like sailing or IW without teching them yourself, and lets you build spies for stealing the other techs. However if I'm short on gold due to RExing or blocking for example I go for aesthetics and wait for the others to trade for alpha - if you're lucky some civs will not have neither Aesth nor alpha by that time and allow you to trade both for the bigger techs like MC, calendar & construction. Another case is when doing an early rush; I often use pillage gold to research alpha to enable me to extort techs from the enemy civ.

 

[Fleme]

You're misunderstanding and exaggerating my statement. I do not recommend heading straight to Aesth but it's a way to secure Alphabet relatively easily if you absolutely want to beeline the Great Library. As a rule of thumb I almost always head down to Monarchy first, followed soon by Currency (either through Alpha or Math) and Code of Laws. I very seldom research Alpha myself as I find it to be something that can easily be attained from a trade and it has the early drawback of being subjected to requests. Be that as it may, the four economic techs should always be a priority in higher levels as they're the foundation of any larger empire.

 

[joanne]

Thanks for your clarification. I haven't thought about that one big drawback from getting alpha first & early trade demands and how it could screw with early diplomacy. And on monarchy first: If I have no other choice I almost always neglect the monarchy path for HR because some AI's tend to beeline it in most of my games anyway - once I get spies from alpha I use a combination of espionage/tech trading to get to monarchy, I almost never research it myself. But once I do get it I've found that HR helps a lot with growing cities and keeping up with the AI's, I can see the benefit of getting it first, I'll keep these in mind in my future games.

BTW are you the former JFleme?

 

[fathertuck]

As a rule of thumb I almost always head down to Monarchy first, followed soon by Currency (either through Alpha or Math) and Code of Laws.

I've never understood why Monarchy is such an important technology. Many have written that they go for it, but to me it only opens up the wine resourses. I always go for Currency and Code of Laws before Monarchy (immediate wealth and courthouses). Care to explain why Monarchy is so important? I'm only a monarch player so that's why I'm asking.

 

[Fleme]

@j0anne, yes I am. That J was ticking me off, this is my original nick.

@fathertuck: In your (or mine, atleast) average scenario the limiting factor to growth is happiness. Considering the fact that you're playing for a bureaucracy capital that needs to actualize sooner rather than later, there's no other way to push it to size 10-15 in the BC's if not for the help of monarchy. Granted, there are exceptions like the 2 happy start with the ottomans (which would warrant straight currency through math) or some other fortuitious combination like that but generally speaking, HR-happiness is reliable and allows you to actualize the potential of many capitals very early, which in turn means that those capitals will go a really long way in funding expansion. I just can't play with size 5 cities and paying the price of a warrior to grow one size is a small price to pay for the benefits it brings. Obviously this statement is completely neglecting the fact that you can still get the Pyramids on monarch every time you really want them and since that completely eliminates the need for monarchy, it changes the path.

It's not necessarily a bad thing to go to CoL and Currency before Monarchy as it is all very situational. If your terrain doesn't warrant building large cities but rather have lots of smaller ones, currency and col obviously take priority over monarchy.

Edit: Also to explain the logic behind the Aesthetics line after Monarchy. You can head to Monarchy through Polytheism which incidentally is also a prequisite for Literature. Researching Aesthetics alone is sometimes enough to net you Alphabet from a trade and even when it isn't, you can just put a turn or two of research into alpha and get it that way. It's probably the most common tech trade I do when I absolutely need to get Alphabet. The fact that it enables you for Literature is just gravy.

 

[fathertuck]

@Fleme: Ok, so it's a combination of many things. I'm not a really good bureaucracy player myself, but I've had some games where my capital was so strong that a went for it. I guess I should go more often since it seems to be a prefarable strategy among many here.

 

[CHEESE!]

Wonders become very different at Monarch-Emperor. You need to

1. Check the land, see if any wonders are necessary (floodplains everywhere? luxury resources? good cottage land? What wonders?)

2. Know the real effect of wonders. This may seem obvious but I mean in relation to the leader (Philosophical or Industrious might make you build wonders you wouldn't have with others) , civ (playing as the Romans? Do you really need to spend 500 on something that's not Praets?) and most importantly map (stone? marble?).

3. Exploit them fully if you do get them. No use building the Pyramids if you go into HR. No use building the Shwendagon Paya if you go into OR.

4. Know how they relate to your victory. If you're going for Domination, perhaps skip the Sistine Chapel. If you're going for Cultural, not much use in building Chichen Itza (not that there's much use in it anyway).

 

[i_imperator]

Play without wonders at first (unless your're going for UN or AP), and this will help you become a better player, when you learn to play without there benefit.When you do this, take note of when the AI completes certain wonders, Henge usually goes around 1500BC, Great wall, goes shortly after that and the mids can go as early as 380BC. You don't need to build wonders to win. I have done it many times.
You should play as different leaders, also, and work with the traits they have, choose random from custom game and play with what you get.If you play as only industrious leaders, you'll be missing on other aspects of the game and will get bored. If you really want wonders, try and get the resources for them early (unless stone/marble is 12 squares away then there's no point, coz an AI will get it first) or just rush somebody who has built the mids or the Great Wall, thats always fun, its even better than building those wonders yourself.

 

[jabberwalkee_]

Monarchy is very important early on as you go higher in level. Being stuck with all your cities at size 5 or 6 doesn't allow for much cottaging or heavy production.

 

[MuteWolf]

Another advantage to Monarchy is that when you take an enemy city all of your left over troops moving in can get rid of any unhappiness that may exist from conquering. Of course whipping this isn't a bad idea either especially if your troops are going to be marching on but none-the-less it's useful if you are going to be stopping for a bit.