Monarch help please!

[jmrathbun]

@AHCOS Thanks! Very clear and easy to follow.

 

[Ghpstage]

The only un-winnable sub-emperor game I've ever seen with standard settings is that start where someone settled in place and wound up 1-off coast on a peninsula, blocked from settling another city due to a peak. Basically, that person was stuck with a very average capitol until fascism/flight and nothing else. That's much worse than OCC because you 1) can't build most of the national wonders and 2) can't really interfere with AI VCs easily.

Yup thats the one I was referencing .

But why not spend some of those beasties to pick up a nice Sumerian city cheap, thereby depriving Gilgamesh of his Iron mine and possibly getting some of his territory in the bargain?

Simple reasons,

1) Your economy isn't even capable of carrying the weak cities you already have, adding another totally unproductive one won't help matters.
2) Gilgamesh is miles ahead in tech and power and is one of the more dangerous AIs in civ 4, pushing yourself further behind to making him an enemy isn't smart.
3) You will still need to generate a significant amount of culture in that city before you take either the gold or Iron tiles.
4) More war now will put you even further behind the rest of the world and for the sake of 1 city is really not worth it....

I am also wondering however why you only picked the disband HA advce out, everything else except the build Reasearch idea seems to have been ignored too!
You still took Construction but not Currency and went after Engineering right after . Also still in default civics and still building pointless buildings....

Don't know if I'll bother to play this one out, but what do you think?

If you had gone with building up an economic recovery at 1600AD you may have stood a chance, but now with the virtual certainty of a very lopsided war soon i'd say you'd probably be best off not bothering

 

[vicawoo]

rushing (see so and so's chariot rushing guide, and add a 3rd worker if your axe rushing).


Then since it was an impossible position, I did a peaceful expansion variant.

 

[jmrathbun]

Thanks! I'm still trying to integrate all the advice I'm getting about specialization, techs, civics, etc. Today I plan to try the 1600 save again and see what I can salvage from it. One day I'll try again to go all the way back and do the early game better. I can't absorb all your ideas simultaneously but I am trainable over time LOL.

 

[jmrathbun]

OK, I did the best I could to implement some suggestions that I understood. Gilgamesh has edged ahead by 3% over the past 10 moves. Am I missing anything substantial? When it comes to deploying specialists and micromanaging what squares a given city works, I need a lot of help!

Part of my strategy in case it's not obvious is to squeeze Winnie's enclave culturally so it will peacefully join my empire. My only major strategic plan is to work hard teching up so I can eventually get the war machine into gear again. This will only work if I can stop Gilgamesh from pulling ahead of me over the next few centuries.

Is it worth building Taoist missionaries now?

 

[jmrathbun]

Here's another attempt to develop this starting position. After fifty moves, I'm in last place again. It appears I was keeping up until the last ten moves or so. I grabbed the area with the floodplains and am building farms around my first town to push the population growth. I've done some chopping around my first town and was planning to develop the pasture next. I'm thinking about the plains north of the copper mine for my next town so I can get the south bank of the river into my bfc. I lost a warrior due to being mauled by a bear and am starting to build archers. I didn't switch to slavery because it doesn't look as though I will have surplus population any time soon.

What am I missing?

 

[Nkat]

Okay, here's my thoughts on moving from Prince to Monarch.

You need to actually research in straight lines now. That means, set a goal on the tech tree and go directly for it.

You need to trade techs in most games now. It's a lot harder to just research everything yourself now. This is also something that works really well in conjunction with my first point. Try to set that straight line on things you can then turn around and trade to everybody for all of the other techs you skipped.

You need to pay attention to diplomacy. Because you need to trade, and because the other civs can actually build enough units to be a real threat, you need to choose sides and make friends wisely.

Thanks for these tips as I am moving up to Monarch, well right now actually. First Monarch game in 10 minutes, should be fun.

 

[Ghpstage]

What am I missing?

This new save is early enough to highlight the two big problems underpinning all others, that is tech and tiles priorities.

You started with Agriculture and you other strong food tile is Plains Cow (not the best but reasonable). As a result Animal Husbandry should have been the first tech you researched, but instead you took Mining, Masonry, Bronze Working, Hunting and Archery (in that order) before Animal Husbandry .

Hunting and Archery were pretty much utter wastes of , you already knew you had Copper nearby and therfore Archers were not needed at all and without Deer/Furs/Ivory nearby you didn't need hunting. Food resources are also more important than Mining, and BW and why Masonry? No wonders looked like a good plan this early and simply mining the Marble would have provided 1 more than a Quarry.

At the very start the priority is to improve your food specials, so getting the necessary techs and getting Workers to them is key.
In this case your two resources (best tiles) are the Wheat and Cows, you already have Agriculture so you just need Animal Husbandry. Out of the two, Cows are the stronger so should be improved first. Both being Plains means this isn't the greatest capital site, but worse ones have been posted here

 

[Sportyatuncw06]

Forget about the score. On noble I watch it closely and Try to keep a tech advantage throughout the game (often running 80% or better science). I am just now moving up to monarch myself but one thing I have noticed on games I track posted by higher level players on here is that the score is not that important. The bug mod offers a power ranking and this is perhaps more important. I used to chase high scores and would have lapses in military and be overrun by smaller stronger although backwards neighbors. On noble is is easy to gain a tech lead or catch up after a war. This is more difficult on monarch and several people have given great tips for how to manage science on monarch. I have also found that momentum changes more quickly on monarch so the AI will make gains in score and science very quickly. The tips about getting into and out of wars quickly are good points but I have to admit I have a problem with this myself. AI is far more stubborn on monarch. Any have tips for how to end a war with an AI who is being difficult to work with?

 

[ahcos]

well, pretty much depends on the special AI, the age you're in, the religious situation, the techs, the neighbours, the land, your civics ...

usually the easiest way to end a war when you've been the one who was attacked is either to

a) sue for peace, although many of the AI leaders tend to ask for a laughable price - for example tokugawa, even when he's techwise backwards and only has a slightly higher power rating (means: war with you would lead to nothing for him, only incredible amounts of lost troops and losing the techrace etc.) he still asks you to give him your best commerce city which has walls, castle, LBs for peace. still, there are several situation in which the leaders will refuse to talk for quite a long time, and therefor making fast peace this way impossible. note that sometimes AIs will ask for a laughable price for peace, but will give in another trade anyway - for example, you could buy yourself peace if you give the AI currency or another high-valuable-tech if your plan is to take him out anyway as soon as you've moved your troops to his/her border and especially as the enemies troops aren't on your capitals doorstep anymore

b) bribe neighbours into attacking the AI that attacked you. in most cases this will lead to a quick peacetreaty. maybe you've experienced this yourself: you're backstabbing a AI that's in war with another neighbour - the AI tends to make peace pretty quick even with it's worst enemy just to take care of the backstabber, means: you. still, be aware that bribed AIs may be not as good prepared, leading to a rather quick peace between the two nations - and then the backstabbed leader may come back to smack you.

c) just do enough damage to the attacker. sounds trivial, and you might think "oh, thank you mr. brilliant, that's something i'd have never thought of..." but quite some players tend to sit behind their city walls and let the enemy attack them. well, actually this makes quite some sense if you've citygarrison2 Longbows in a city on a hill, but note that you'll give up the chance for a) collateral damage b) flanking c) more experience (attacking gives more XP than defending) leading to more GG points especially as you fight on your land d) favorable odds, since cityraider promotions are completely useless if you attack THEM instead let them attack you in your city. defending mounted units dont receive defensive bonuses, suiciding them into the enemy just for flanking purposes might buy yourself time and / or might hurt the attackers significant.
also note: the AI wont take peace as long as it has the "feeling" (means: the numbers) it might take that city it's going for. the sooner you bring a horrible loss to the attacking SoD, the less time is needed for peace and, most important, the less time there is for the AI to build and send reinforcements and therefor "improving" their numbers regarding the "lust for war".


overall, the most important thing with "AIs hard to deal with" is to always be prepared... and don't rely on defense too much. rather use the citydefense to guard the offense troops you use to attack the enemys SoD, means: attack from the save city position and use the city defense as a "super stack defender".
another trick, if you're expecting the enemys attack on a specific city, not only amass defenders/offensive units there but also build a little stack to attack a city a little offside, maybe use your naval units for this - get like ~10 units into your boats, as as the enemy attacks, quickmove to a coastal city, take it instant and sue for peace, maybe even gift back the city instant - as you didn't declare, a rather save way to improve diplomatics and get a very quick peace. of course this only works in certain situations, but it'll get you at least some safety especially vs. backstabbers or AIs being bribed.

but, after all, it pretty much depends on the game situation, the leaders and everything.