I do OK playing Prince but have been unable to get traction at Monarch. Are there any good strategy guides I should be looking at? Looking at the attached save-game, you can see that I got pinched in the opening and managed to cobble together a win over Hannibal, but my economy is in ruins and my research has really suffered for it. Gilgamesh is normally a soft target but in this case I can't hope to catch him technologically. Are there some starting positions that are just unplayable? I tried this one three times and this is the best I was able to do so far.
Monarch help please!
- Thread starter jmrathbun
- Start date
I've started to play this one. The start is pretty junky. I wasted 8 worker turns running south to hook up the wheat, then north the cow, then south again to mine the marble.
Scouting I did pretty good, getting 3 gold huts and 2 xp huts. Unlocking the HE. This allowed me to expand rapidly while researching to alphabet to play the trade game with the 3 other AI I've met.
I chopped up two cities very quickly, claiming the gold and rice north. 3rd I slow built and claimed the wine, 4th will be far SW to claim the tundra fish from hanibal. That seals off the craptastic land. I could wedge another far NW city between giggles and hani, but the maint cost would be high for only silk as the reward. It would give me a doorway into the jungle to claim some more resources and greener land though.
I didn't look at your save yet though as I didn't want to spoil it for how I would play it legit. I'll post how I'm doing at 1AD and you can judge for yourself.
I don't know of any guides that can help ya, I'm a price / monarch player myself. But of the games I've played this start looked rough. I could have gone Axe rush on one of them, but I'm pretty good at early peaceful expansion.
Scouting I did pretty good, getting 3 gold huts and 2 xp huts. Unlocking the HE. This allowed me to expand rapidly while researching to alphabet to play the trade game with the 3 other AI I've met.
I chopped up two cities very quickly, claiming the gold and rice north. 3rd I slow built and claimed the wine, 4th will be far SW to claim the tundra fish from hanibal. That seals off the craptastic land. I could wedge another far NW city between giggles and hani, but the maint cost would be high for only silk as the reward. It would give me a doorway into the jungle to claim some more resources and greener land though.
I didn't look at your save yet though as I didn't want to spoil it for how I would play it legit. I'll post how I'm doing at 1AD and you can judge for yourself.
I don't know of any guides that can help ya, I'm a price / monarch player myself. But of the games I've played this start looked rough. I could have gone Axe rush on one of them, but I'm pretty good at early peaceful expansion.
Ghpstage
Deity
I think i've seen one game that was pretty much unwinnable, but it was an extreme case. This is definately not one of those games!
There are a few things you did in your game that really crippled you.
As Bezurns playing your 4000BC save i'll post my thoughts in spoilers
Spoiler :
building Stables in cities unlikely to ever produce a Horse units and Aqueducts are being built in cities at or near the 
anyway. Building research directly would have been a far better investment than wasting 
I've found that on monarch a pretty solid tech path is to go straight for alphabet after getting the necessary worker techs, then if you've been expanding fast and your economy is slowing down, build research to currency, then build wealth until you've stabilized.
Alternatively you can go for aesthetics/literature if you have marble and get parthenon/great library to get some GPPs going. Great library in a city with some surplus food can run 2 scientists as well for a total of 4 outside caste system, pretty soon you'll have some great scientists rolling in to bulb your way back up to a tech lead or at least catch up.
After currency you can usually get your economy out of just about any terrible situation, just don't build wealth everywhere. You'll probably need more workers as well to get your land in shape and your food heavy cities are better off producing workers/settlers than building wealth.
Alternatively you can go for aesthetics/literature if you have marble and get parthenon/great library to get some GPPs going. Great library in a city with some surplus food can run 2 scientists as well for a total of 4 outside caste system, pretty soon you'll have some great scientists rolling in to bulb your way back up to a tech lead or at least catch up.
After currency you can usually get your economy out of just about any terrible situation, just don't build wealth everywhere. You'll probably need more workers as well to get your land in shape and your food heavy cities are better off producing workers/settlers than building wealth.
Played to 1AD - plan is go for culture win. Early war would have been feasible with the cap and starting position, but the early war target is protective. Hannibal's land is not as good to invade than the land north. I suspect that invading hannibal allowed Giggles to expand and clear the jungle, giving him plenty of time to make best use of the superior land.
Looked at your save, it seems you were bent on going to war from the outset given the way early cities were placed. Early war is good sometimes, but the map for where the strategic resources were makes the first few city sites pretty crappy.
In my game I went for a commerce city first. My warrior saw that 8 floodplain + gold site - and it just screamed SETTLE ME FIRST!!! Throwing down early cottages in a city like that can really help keep your empire afloat during the crucial city site rush. I pulled mine off pretty well, getting all the cities I could resonably peacefully settle.
Had I gotten IW from a hut, or was crazy enough to figure Iron (or a late coal / uranium type resource
) had to be in my capitol BFC early war would have been a lot easier.
If you had settled Copper hill 2W of where it is, you could have gone with a 3-4 city axe / spear against giggles and taken his superior horse site (his cap
). The seaside horse spot is pretty junky, with no source of food. I put a city there, but it is inland on the river as my last block against giggles. The horse saved for the triple seafood / desert and mountains site as my Moai city.
Putting the floodplains city on the hill would have allowed you easy access to his only source of metal. Hindsight is always 20/20 though.
Also looking at your capitol, there is no possible way you can work all of those plains tiles for a very long time. Cottages are good and everything, but sometimes building farms along the river early on is better than cottages if it allows you to work more tiles. Farms also help in a food poor start with the early whipping you are sure to do. Having cities better suited to working cottages (plenty of food surplus based on the terrain) is better empire wide than just cottaging every tile in your capitol, even though you'll not be able to work half those tiles.
In my game I went for a commerce city first. My warrior saw that 8 floodplain + gold site - and it just screamed SETTLE ME FIRST!!! Throwing down early cottages in a city like that can really help keep your empire afloat during the crucial city site rush. I pulled mine off pretty well, getting all the cities I could resonably peacefully settle.
Had I gotten IW from a hut, or was crazy enough to figure Iron (or a late coal / uranium type resource
) had to be in my capitol BFC early war would have been a lot easier. If you had settled Copper hill 2W of where it is, you could have gone with a 3-4 city axe / spear against giggles and taken his superior horse site (his cap
). The seaside horse spot is pretty junky, with no source of food. I put a city there, but it is inland on the river as my last block against giggles. The horse saved for the triple seafood / desert and mountains site as my Moai city.Putting the floodplains city on the hill would have allowed you easy access to his only source of metal. Hindsight is always 20/20 though.
Also looking at your capitol, there is no possible way you can work all of those plains tiles for a very long time. Cottages are good and everything, but sometimes building farms along the river early on is better than cottages if it allows you to work more tiles. Farms also help in a food poor start with the early whipping you are sure to do. Having cities better suited to working cottages (plenty of food surplus based on the terrain) is better empire wide than just cottaging every tile in your capitol, even though you'll not be able to work half those tiles.
Bezrun - thanks for taking time to help me on this one. You are WAY ahead of me in the Year One: Pop 229v150, Land 173v130, Tech 161v95, Wonders 16v16, total 579v391. Obviously I need to learn more about city specialization and making intelligent choices about siting and development.
As far as the choice of whom to assault first, I figured Gilgamesh would sit quietly and build culture until I came for him, while Hannibal was the type to hit me from behind while I was otherwise engaged. Also Winnie came asking for my help with Hannibal when I was poised to invade and I thought a two-front war would be easier. Turns out Winnie didn't have much force that far south and Hannibal had a lot more reserves than I expected. Also I was running seriously out of gold when the war started and didn't understand that I could maintain a bigger army if I fielded fewer workers. Doh!
Overall, the domination victory seems easier for me to understand and execute, but that may reflect my own lack of experience rather than anything built into the game. This morning I'm wondering if my horse archers could peel a slice off Gilgamesh and whether he would be very aggressive in getting it back.... Definitely I want to look at the first 100 moves some more, though!
As far as the choice of whom to assault first, I figured Gilgamesh would sit quietly and build culture until I came for him, while Hannibal was the type to hit me from behind while I was otherwise engaged. Also Winnie came asking for my help with Hannibal when I was poised to invade and I thought a two-front war would be easier. Turns out Winnie didn't have much force that far south and Hannibal had a lot more reserves than I expected. Also I was running seriously out of gold when the war started and didn't understand that I could maintain a bigger army if I fielded fewer workers. Doh!
Overall, the domination victory seems easier for me to understand and execute, but that may reflect my own lack of experience rather than anything built into the game. This morning I'm wondering if my horse archers could peel a slice off Gilgamesh and whether he would be very aggressive in getting it back.... Definitely I want to look at the first 100 moves some more, though!
Hope you learned some things from this game. What I'd say is before you go to war you need to establish an economy, otherwise even if you are victorious it will be an uphill battle to regain tech parity. Unless the capitol has a shrine you have to weigh the pros and cons of war carefully.
I played some more last night and into the morning (culture stabs are fun on higher levels)
It's been going well for me, though I am trying to keep tech parity while still pumping out large culture. It was nervous there for a moment when I saw giggles go into war mode right after friendly vassaling hany. My HE city was spitting out muskets and pikes non-stop and I begged for gold to buy some time to build up a defensive force. I also teched Military tradition (lol what military tradition??, my Woodsman III warrior with leadership lol) and during the sued peace I signed a defensive pact.
I then saw giggles move his SoD north, but then he dropped it as he didn't want to take on England.
I've won every race except the Commy and Economics race, so if it comes to space I'm well set up. I have a good spread on the national wonders.
Washington - IW / Hemertige
New York - Oxford / NE
Boston - Wall Street / National Park (Double shrined and 8 trees saved yuuuumy merchants!)
Chicago - Moai / Globe
Here's my 1600 save. Sometimes smaller is better
I played some more last night and into the morning (culture stabs are fun on higher levels
)It's been going well for me, though I am trying to keep tech parity while still pumping out large culture. It was nervous there for a moment when I saw giggles go into war mode right after friendly vassaling hany. My HE city was spitting out muskets and pikes non-stop and I begged for gold to buy some time to build up a defensive force. I also teched Military tradition (lol what military tradition??, my Woodsman III warrior with leadership lol) and during the sued peace I signed a defensive pact.
I then saw giggles move his SoD north, but then he dropped it as he didn't want to take on England.
I've won every race except the Commy and Economics race, so if it comes to space I'm well set up. I have a good spread on the national wonders.
Washington - IW / Hemertige
New York - Oxford / NE
Boston - Wall Street / National Park (Double shrined and 8 trees saved yuuuumy merchants!)
Chicago - Moai / Globe
Here's my 1600 save. Sometimes smaller is better
JTMacc99
That's a paddlin'
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2008
- Messages
- 898
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.
City specialization needs to get more focused. This is not just a matter of picking commerce and science cities. It is a matter of just NOT BUILDING things in cities until they REALLY need them.
Lastly, although this is something that you probably started doing at Prince, set goals and time-lines for your wars. If you can get steel (see my first point) before your neighbor can get gunpowder, you better damn well be ready to go to war the second you can upgrade a big stack of trebs into cannons. You really can't lose a war that is cannons versus longbows, so don't ever lose that opportunity. If you think it can happen, you need to focus ALL of your energy to make it happen. That's the way these games are won sometimes.
NOW, having said that, go and look at Ghpstage said about your specific game.
You definitely need to focus your city specialization. Don't build walls and aqueducts in cities that don't have granaries or libraries. Granaries should be built in all cities. They give you health and they enable efficient whipping. Once I got to Monarch, Aqueducts became buildings I normally didn't build until after I had put up factories in my cities. His advice on Stables was dead-on. DON'T build a stable in a city that is, at most, going to build 2 or 3 mounted units. If it's a low production city, then it's probably a high commerce city and should be building commerce multiplying buildings.
Also, please look at what he said about civics. If you're going to build the pyramids, you HAVE to switch into either Monarch or Representation.
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.
City specialization needs to get more focused. This is not just a matter of picking commerce and science cities. It is a matter of just NOT BUILDING things in cities until they REALLY need them.
Lastly, although this is something that you probably started doing at Prince, set goals and time-lines for your wars. If you can get steel (see my first point) before your neighbor can get gunpowder, you better damn well be ready to go to war the second you can upgrade a big stack of trebs into cannons. You really can't lose a war that is cannons versus longbows, so don't ever lose that opportunity. If you think it can happen, you need to focus ALL of your energy to make it happen. That's the way these games are won sometimes.
NOW, having said that, go and look at Ghpstage said about your specific game.
You definitely need to focus your city specialization. Don't build walls and aqueducts in cities that don't have granaries or libraries. Granaries should be built in all cities. They give you health and they enable efficient whipping. Once I got to Monarch, Aqueducts became buildings I normally didn't build until after I had put up factories in my cities. His advice on Stables was dead-on. DON'T build a stable in a city that is, at most, going to build 2 or 3 mounted units. If it's a low production city, then it's probably a high commerce city and should be building commerce multiplying buildings.
Also, please look at what he said about civics. If you're going to build the pyramids, you HAVE to switch into either Monarch or Representation.
I really need to learn how to use specialization! The upside of staying generalized is that when I get to a new tech that's really important to me... Cavalry, for example... I can have eight or twelve cities turning out cavalry and then arrive at my neighbor's house with 24 cavalry (or 48 Modern Armor) before he dreams there can be that much hurt in the world. But I can see that getting to the best tech in time is going to be a nasty challenge the way things are going now, and is there also an issue that keeping hundreds of units in the field just costs a whole lot more in Monarch?
Unit costs do hurt quite a bit. Try to do your military build up quickly through whipping/chopping/drafting, then go to war, when you're done use the front line units to defend your newly captured cities IE, don't build new archers and longbows, just stick the city raiders axes and maces in the new cities. When you are building up for your next war then build some defenders, as they are usually cheaper than building new maces anyway. Anyway, that's what I do and it seems to work and keep me from having large standing armies eat away at my economy.
Also, I didn't look at your save cus I am away from home but in general on monarch your wars have to have a purpose and be well timed. When you get key techs is an easy way to plan a war but you can look for other things too, like when your target is weaker from another war for example. My key warpoints are:
Axe rush- early rush against non protective opponent with 1-3 cities. Once they get more than that it's hard to finish them off and they'll start building tons of culture and you will just be wasting axes.
Construction- if you have ivory beeline for this. Remember you'll need horseback riding also. Otherwise catapults still do great damage, just bring lots of them. Works great until fuedalism.
Engineering- trebs kill all those nasty longbows. Works fine with axes, better with maces.
Steel- cannons kill everything!
Military tradition + gunpowder- A seperate route if you go for liberalism instead of the lower half of the tech tree. With currasiers you don't need seige to take down longbows. Just promote a few to flanking 2 and you'll be set.
Then obviously rifling, assembly line, industralism, flight- those are all other key ones but by the time I get those the game is usually decided. Rifiling can decide a game for you but I find cannons are much easier to get earlier and can make a bigger dent. Also be wary if you get a bunch of rifles/cavalry and find your opponent is researching railroad... Enemy civs do that to me all the time, they'll have longbows, muskets and freakin machine guns. Once I see that writing on the wall I beeline artillery asap.
Also, I didn't look at your save cus I am away from home but in general on monarch your wars have to have a purpose and be well timed. When you get key techs is an easy way to plan a war but you can look for other things too, like when your target is weaker from another war for example. My key warpoints are:
Axe rush- early rush against non protective opponent with 1-3 cities. Once they get more than that it's hard to finish them off and they'll start building tons of culture and you will just be wasting axes.
Construction- if you have ivory beeline for this. Remember you'll need horseback riding also. Otherwise catapults still do great damage, just bring lots of them. Works great until fuedalism.
Engineering- trebs kill all those nasty longbows. Works fine with axes, better with maces.
Steel- cannons kill everything!
Military tradition + gunpowder- A seperate route if you go for liberalism instead of the lower half of the tech tree. With currasiers you don't need seige to take down longbows. Just promote a few to flanking 2 and you'll be set.
Then obviously rifling, assembly line, industralism, flight- those are all other key ones but by the time I get those the game is usually decided. Rifiling can decide a game for you but I find cannons are much easier to get earlier and can make a bigger dent. Also be wary if you get a bunch of rifles/cavalry and find your opponent is researching railroad... Enemy civs do that to me all the time, they'll have longbows, muskets and freakin machine guns. Once I see that writing on the wall I beeline artillery asap.
Ghpstage
Deity
I played a few turns, and decided that iyour 1600AD save is definately winnable but it will be an uphill battle. Catching up in tech with Giggles and Churchill won't be as big a problem as you may believe, i'd be far more worried about the tech situation overseas 
The pics don't say it all, but it does show the trebling of the tech rate and swap to researching Currency
.
To get that I just did a little fiddling with your economy;
I adopted Taoism first for the and diplo benefits, this was my first turn.
Second turn I swapped to Hereditary Rule, Slavery and begged for a bit of gold and some Bananas from both AIs who were pleased at this point
Then I disbanded all those Horse Archers, to free up a load of gold. My gamble here is that war is by far more likely between Giggles and Churchill as they are worst enemies.
169
/turn, while it is a big improvement, is still very low at this point in the game compared to what i'm used to getting, especially with no GP farm but on Monarch you may be able to get away with it.
Played a little more after (think it was till around 1700) ) but forgot to take any more pics and unfortunately didn't save.
Spoiler :
The pics don't say it all, but it does show the trebling of the tech rate and swap to researching Currency
.To get that I just did a little fiddling with your economy;
I adopted Taoism first for the
and diplo benefits, this was my first turn.Second turn I swapped to Hereditary Rule, Slavery and begged for a bit of gold and some Bananas from both AIs who were pleased at this point
Then I disbanded all those Horse Archers, to free up a load of gold. My gamble here is that war is by far more likely between Giggles and Churchill as they are worst enemies.
169
/turn, while it is a big improvement, is still very low at this point in the game compared to what i'm used to getting, especially with no GP farm but on Monarch you may be able to get away with it.Played a little more after (think it was till around 1700) ) but forgot to take any more pics and unfortunately didn't save.
Spoiler :
I obviously haven't learned my lesson about the first 100 moves! This afternoon I played to 1 AD using a more aggressive placement of cities and my economy is holding up OK but my overall score is no better and now I have Hannibal down on my butt. It's not a formidable invasion and if he fools around with cats I'll have time to upgrade my warrior and bring some axes in to help, but I'm disappointed that I can't beat my earlier score!
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2008
- Messages
- 27,995
I think i've seen one game that was pretty much unwinnable, but it was an extreme case. This is definately not one of those games!
There are a few things you did in your game that really crippled you.
As Bezurns playing your 4000BC save i'll post my thoughts in spoilers
Spoiler :
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. If you have uranium, you can at least nuke stuff, but if you don't then what? Paras w/o oil vs fighters?
But if one picks techs/buildings properly the 4000 BC start here isn't too stiff.
learner gamer
King
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2009
- Messages
- 657
@jmrathbun: saw your save and thought Id try a different approach to show you just how aggressive you can really be at monarch.
Attached below are a few saves covering the period from 4000BC to 500AD, during which Ive managed to eliminate Hannibal and have just sued for peace with Gilgamesh having taken his capital Uruk, cottage site Eridu and a couple of fringe cities.
To get to this point, the initial tech path went AH > mining > TW > mysticism > BW > pottery > IW > sailing > writing > hunting > maths. The notable absentee was masonry for the marble I decided in this instance to mine it rather than quarry it (and save the turns needed to research masonry) since the close proximity of the neighbours meant I was unlikely to use the marble to build any of the early wonders. The initial builds meanwhile were worker, 2 warriors and a setter. All I did then was use Wasinghton to put out a warrior, settler and worker for each new city to get a total of four cities in the civ to claim as many of those floodplains as I could. By contrast to Bezurn, I elected to split the floodplains between a couple of cities so that I could then farm a number of the floodplains, work some mines and whip military in as many cities as my economy would handle...all with the sole objective of warring to obtain more land. (In the process, you may notice from the 450BC save that I missed settling the fish to the SW because I hadnt seen them, but, thems the breaks I guess.) Once the workers and settlers were built, all cities then just whipped in monuments, granaries, barracks and troops.
Thanks to the scouting Id done following OB, you can see in the 450BC save that I knew where Hannibals metal source was located. As a result, I sent two stacks of axes / swords / spears his way. The first took his iron city...so from turn two of the war he was no longer able to produce melee defenders that wouldve eaten my swords for breakfast. The second stack you can see in the 450BC save meanwhile hit his capital. Both stacks then converged and, with more sword and spear (since he could still counter with chariots) reinforcements, they mopped up his empire in 175BC.
As mentioned, to get those stacks, all I did was to build, chop and whip as much military as I could (after building the bare minimum infrastructure). The key, as Ive mentioned in other threads, was to be willing to stack some whip weariness (up to my happy cap) in my cities as I went. This is evident in the whip weariness accumulated across Americas cities as at 450BC. Of course, this presented the problem of how to deal with all that whip weariness after the war with Hannibal ended. The key to this, as you can see in the 175BC and 100BC saves, was to settle a banana / gem site to the west (which also provided some much needed commerce). In addition, to help repair the economy, (which was at one point losing GPT at zero slider) I used war booty to fund research to currency and, once currency was in, had several cities (which you can see in the 100BC save) build wealth to help get to calendar. Once calendar was in, plantations were put on the available silk and incense (and banana for that matter) resources to raise the happy cap further and provide some more much needed commerce. To help steady the economy further, I also built some libraries and markets to add to the empires sole library in New York where I also chopped in the palace to make it the new capital, just ripe for bureaucracy. As the buildings came online and calendar was teched, I weaned the cities off building wealth and slowly back onto building swords...since my scouting revealed that Gilgamesh had no iron or copper for his vultures, and was therefore only defending with archers and the odd chariot in his cities until feudalism.
Although I had intended at that point to play more peacefully and in fact teched masonry and polytheism after calendar, intending for literature and the GL, I found Gilgameshs culture starting to be a pain. He only added to the pressure when he settled Nibru in a very nasty position, its cutlture pressing hard against Hannibals ex-city, Thapsus. At that point, I abandoned my plan to build swords with a view to upgrade them to maces later and simply went back to building, whipping and chopping more swords in a number of cities. As a result, I managed to have two stacks assembled in the 400AD save, one again destined for his capital, another for a very nice cottage city site (Eridu). Having captured them both and sent further troops to take some fringe cities (whilst I used war booty to tech CoL to help with the post war economy rebuild), Gilgamesh eventually offered alphabet and construction for peace.
As a result, we arrive at the 540AD save where, once again, there is a need to rebuild the economy. As before, this will involve building libraries, markets and working as many cottage tiles as possible. In addition of course, alphabet means that I can now trade techs with Churchill to get pre-requisites for monarchy and maybe even monarchy itself. Just to protect against any retaliation from Gilgamesh meanwhile, building some axes and catas might be in order. Tech at this point could be civil service > paper or maybe up the metal casting > machinery > engineering line if X-bows and trebs are wanted.
I hope this helps. As mentioned, if you look at the saves, the key to playing this aggressively was really nothing more than being willing to chop and whip in military units stacking whip weariness in the process. As Ive mentioned in other threads, stacking whip weariness is absolutely fine provided (i) you can afford to pay the price of not being able to work tiles later whilst hip weariness wears off (eg. by building workers, settlers or running specialists to slow regrowth) or (ii) be able to raise the happy cap after the war and so be able to still grow you cities which in this case was very possible by teching to calendar and bringing on board all those happy resources.
Looking forward to seeing you nab you first victory at monarch.
Attached below are a few saves covering the period from 4000BC to 500AD, during which Ive managed to eliminate Hannibal and have just sued for peace with Gilgamesh having taken his capital Uruk, cottage site Eridu and a couple of fringe cities.
To get to this point, the initial tech path went AH > mining > TW > mysticism > BW > pottery > IW > sailing > writing > hunting > maths. The notable absentee was masonry for the marble I decided in this instance to mine it rather than quarry it (and save the turns needed to research masonry) since the close proximity of the neighbours meant I was unlikely to use the marble to build any of the early wonders. The initial builds meanwhile were worker, 2 warriors and a setter. All I did then was use Wasinghton to put out a warrior, settler and worker for each new city to get a total of four cities in the civ to claim as many of those floodplains as I could. By contrast to Bezurn, I elected to split the floodplains between a couple of cities so that I could then farm a number of the floodplains, work some mines and whip military in as many cities as my economy would handle...all with the sole objective of warring to obtain more land. (In the process, you may notice from the 450BC save that I missed settling the fish to the SW because I hadnt seen them, but, thems the breaks I guess.) Once the workers and settlers were built, all cities then just whipped in monuments, granaries, barracks and troops.
Thanks to the scouting Id done following OB, you can see in the 450BC save that I knew where Hannibals metal source was located. As a result, I sent two stacks of axes / swords / spears his way. The first took his iron city...so from turn two of the war he was no longer able to produce melee defenders that wouldve eaten my swords for breakfast. The second stack you can see in the 450BC save meanwhile hit his capital. Both stacks then converged and, with more sword and spear (since he could still counter with chariots) reinforcements, they mopped up his empire in 175BC.
As mentioned, to get those stacks, all I did was to build, chop and whip as much military as I could (after building the bare minimum infrastructure). The key, as Ive mentioned in other threads, was to be willing to stack some whip weariness (up to my happy cap) in my cities as I went. This is evident in the whip weariness accumulated across Americas cities as at 450BC. Of course, this presented the problem of how to deal with all that whip weariness after the war with Hannibal ended. The key to this, as you can see in the 175BC and 100BC saves, was to settle a banana / gem site to the west (which also provided some much needed commerce). In addition, to help repair the economy, (which was at one point losing GPT at zero slider) I used war booty to fund research to currency and, once currency was in, had several cities (which you can see in the 100BC save) build wealth to help get to calendar. Once calendar was in, plantations were put on the available silk and incense (and banana for that matter) resources to raise the happy cap further and provide some more much needed commerce. To help steady the economy further, I also built some libraries and markets to add to the empires sole library in New York where I also chopped in the palace to make it the new capital, just ripe for bureaucracy. As the buildings came online and calendar was teched, I weaned the cities off building wealth and slowly back onto building swords...since my scouting revealed that Gilgamesh had no iron or copper for his vultures, and was therefore only defending with archers and the odd chariot in his cities until feudalism.
Although I had intended at that point to play more peacefully and in fact teched masonry and polytheism after calendar, intending for literature and the GL, I found Gilgameshs culture starting to be a pain. He only added to the pressure when he settled Nibru in a very nasty position, its cutlture pressing hard against Hannibals ex-city, Thapsus. At that point, I abandoned my plan to build swords with a view to upgrade them to maces later and simply went back to building, whipping and chopping more swords in a number of cities. As a result, I managed to have two stacks assembled in the 400AD save, one again destined for his capital, another for a very nice cottage city site (Eridu). Having captured them both and sent further troops to take some fringe cities (whilst I used war booty to tech CoL to help with the post war economy rebuild), Gilgamesh eventually offered alphabet and construction for peace.
As a result, we arrive at the 540AD save where, once again, there is a need to rebuild the economy. As before, this will involve building libraries, markets and working as many cottage tiles as possible. In addition of course, alphabet means that I can now trade techs with Churchill to get pre-requisites for monarchy and maybe even monarchy itself. Just to protect against any retaliation from Gilgamesh meanwhile, building some axes and catas might be in order. Tech at this point could be civil service > paper or maybe up the metal casting > machinery > engineering line if X-bows and trebs are wanted.
I hope this helps. As mentioned, if you look at the saves, the key to playing this aggressively was really nothing more than being willing to chop and whip in military units stacking whip weariness in the process. As Ive mentioned in other threads, stacking whip weariness is absolutely fine provided (i) you can afford to pay the price of not being able to work tiles later whilst hip weariness wears off (eg. by building workers, settlers or running specialists to slow regrowth) or (ii) be able to raise the happy cap after the war and so be able to still grow you cities which in this case was very possible by teching to calendar and bringing on board all those happy resources.
Looking forward to seeing you nab you first victory at monarch.
funny, i chose a totally different approach to this map. sorry in advance, didn't keep my saves as i played it yesterday in a quick rush and then had to go.. today, starting a new game - autosaves gone. oh well. here's what i did:
startposition seemed to be somewhat mediocre, chosed to settle in place, scouting showed my first city (gold, floodplains - nice commerce) and met the other leaders ... teched AH, mining, bronze working and realised that the wonders and religions fell rather slow, so that's when i chosed to grab oracle. after all it's monarch, expansive leader (more workers for chopping) alot of wood for even more chops in capitols BFC, none of the leaders on my continent beeing wonder-spamming-es and ... well, it's monarch after all =) it's rather easy to grab the wonder if you do it right, pre-chops and such. took monarchy. meanwhile settled 5 cities (gold/floodplains, second wheat, bronze+cow, horse/doublefish/clam(?) -> that's a hell of a GP farm, even has a floodplains tile in the BFC. but ye, beyond GP farming the city can't contribute too much ) and teched towards construction, planing to take out gilga. ignored ironworking as well as alphabet, headet strictly towards construction while i built 15 or so axes and a few spears, whipped some cats and DoW'ed gilga. why gilga you may ask .. well, the englishman was on the same half as hannibal, and gilga is a city spammer if left alone, so i expected hannibal to be rather small, and first of all: i hate gilgamesh and expected him to have the far better land than hannibal. pretty much steam-rolled him, took 3 cities, took peace for iron working plus something, DoW'ed again after 10 turns and took another 2 or 3 cities and let him live for metal casting or so.. can't remember. thanks to hereditary rule and shared religion he's still cautious after two wars and trades technologies with me
after that i pretty much went into wonder-spamming, got mausoleom, great lib, pantheon, sistine chapel, swedagon paya, angkor wat, was first on music and burnt the GA for a golden age (which lasted 12 turns, thanks to mauso) and switched to caste/pacifism/bureaucracy (thanks to swedagon paya) and got like 4 or 5 GPs out of the golden age ... that was the time the game was more or less over, could have founded taoism (which i missed because i got sloppy and didn't use my set-to-sleep great scientist..) and was the first to lib when hannibal and churchill wanted paper ~ took nationalism, build taj mahal, teched towards democracy meanwhile, switched to emancipation/free speech/unniversal suffrage/ in the golden age, got the statue of liberty, afterwards the first to communism + the kremlin, rushbought ~80 cavalery and steamrolled my continent. but i'm sorry, i'm getting of the point..
imo, in this game there was no real "need" to rush any of the AIs with swords or anything, it's easy enough to be fast to construction and bash the other leaders with cats on highly favorable odds. protective means nothing if you have enough siege, and gilga is just pure-annoying if he's able to build in so much land, so in my oppinion it's best to take him out instead of hannibal who has much less land to claim, boxed in between three civs. ye, i know, hannibal is a serious threat if left alone, but after all it's a religious lovefest (atleast in my game), so taking out the AI with the highest most-likely-to-run-away-factor (or atleast crippling it so it won't be a threat, like i did) is the best approach. might be completely wrong here.
just make sure your economy keeps going, but that shouldn't be too hard with gold/flooplains until you have construction. priorize cottages and especially chops, chops are something you just can't do enough in the early game in my experience, and with a charismatic leader with early gold you can also whip like crazy and still be able to work ~5-6 tiles afterwards. plus, you don't really need swords if you have cats, axes+spears do just fine. i've found it to be more clever to tech towards construction and to build a few cats if you can have 4-5 quality early cities.. that way you have the time to build up a decent economy and especially can receive techs for peace =) and the chance to grab wonders/infrastructure/tile improvements is much higher.
but after all that's a emperor player's point of view, on monarch i early-axe/charriot-rushed in like 50 percent of my games.
startposition seemed to be somewhat mediocre, chosed to settle in place, scouting showed my first city (gold, floodplains - nice commerce) and met the other leaders ... teched AH, mining, bronze working and realised that the wonders and religions fell rather slow, so that's when i chosed to grab oracle. after all it's monarch, expansive leader (more workers for chopping) alot of wood for even more chops in capitols BFC, none of the leaders on my continent beeing wonder-spamming-
es and ... well, it's monarch after all =) it's rather easy to grab the wonder if you do it right, pre-chops and such. took monarchy. meanwhile settled 5 cities (gold/floodplains, second wheat, bronze+cow, horse/doublefish/clam(?) -> that's a hell of a GP farm, even has a floodplains tile in the BFC. but ye, beyond GP farming the city can't contribute too much ) and teched towards construction, planing to take out gilga. ignored ironworking as well as alphabet, headet strictly towards construction while i built 15 or so axes and a few spears, whipped some cats and DoW'ed gilga. why gilga you may ask .. well, the englishman was on the same half as hannibal, and gilga is a city spammer if left alone, so i expected hannibal to be rather small, and first of all: i hate gilgamesh and expected him to have the far better land than hannibal. pretty much steam-rolled him, took 3 cities, took peace for iron working plus something, DoW'ed again after 10 turns and took another 2 or 3 cities and let him live for metal casting or so.. can't remember. thanks to hereditary rule and shared religion he's still cautious after two wars and trades technologies with me after that i pretty much went into wonder-spamming, got mausoleom, great lib, pantheon, sistine chapel, swedagon paya, angkor wat, was first on music and burnt the GA for a golden age (which lasted 12 turns, thanks to mauso) and switched to caste/pacifism/bureaucracy (thanks to swedagon paya) and got like 4 or 5 GPs out of the golden age ... that was the time the game was more or less over, could have founded taoism (which i missed because i got sloppy and didn't use my set-to-sleep great scientist..) and was the first to lib when hannibal and churchill wanted paper ~ took nationalism, build taj mahal, teched towards democracy meanwhile, switched to emancipation/free speech/unniversal suffrage/ in the golden age, got the statue of liberty, afterwards the first to communism + the kremlin, rushbought ~80 cavalery and steamrolled my continent. but i'm sorry, i'm getting of the point..
imo, in this game there was no real "need" to rush any of the AIs with swords or anything, it's easy enough to be fast to construction and bash the other leaders with cats on highly favorable odds. protective means nothing if you have enough siege, and gilga is just pure-annoying if he's able to build in so much land, so in my oppinion it's best to take him out instead of hannibal who has much less land to claim, boxed in between three civs. ye, i know, hannibal is a serious threat if left alone, but after all it's a religious lovefest (atleast in my game), so taking out the AI with the highest most-likely-to-run-away-factor (or atleast crippling it so it won't be a threat, like i did) is the best approach. might be completely wrong here.
just make sure your economy keeps going, but that shouldn't be too hard with gold/flooplains until you have construction. priorize cottages and especially chops, chops are something you just can't do enough in the early game in my experience, and with a charismatic leader with early gold you can also whip like crazy and still be able to work ~5-6 tiles afterwards. plus, you don't really need swords if you have cats, axes+spears do just fine. i've found it to be more clever to tech towards construction and to build a few cats if you can have 4-5 quality early cities.. that way you have the time to build up a decent economy and especially can receive techs for peace =) and the chance to grab wonders/infrastructure/tile improvements is much higher.
but after all that's a emperor player's point of view, on monarch i early-axe/charriot-rushed in like 50 percent of my games.
While studying the many helpful comments posted so far, I considered the advice about my 1600 save, to disband my beautiful horse archers so as to save some dough. 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? I gave it a try and then made peace as quickly as he would let me. Don't know if I'll bother to play this one out, but what do you think?
several things
1. civics: you have angry citizens and gilgamesh whoms fav. civic is hereditary rule - still you're in ALL the default civics - no slavery, no vassalage although you went to war, you even have the pyramids and do not use any of those powerful civics. remember, the main reason to build the 'mids is to abuse the representation civic early with alot of scientist specialists.
immediately switch to hereditary rule+slavery, afterwards tech to code of laws, settle doublefish/clams at the very east of your empire, let the city grow and then farm some great scientists there as soon as the city has grown into the three waterfood tiles and has whipped granary/lighthouse - that's all you need in your GP farm as long as you stay in hereditary rule.
2. cities: way too much infrastructure - you're building a taoist temple in a stagnant city, you have aqueducts in cities not even close to the health-cap, barracks+stable in the most of your cities (remember: you only need barracks in the main production cities, ricebowl for example need neither of those buildings - it simply hasn't enough production capability to contribute to military production, rather focus on the really needed buildings - a library should've come much earlier here)
3. tiles: your cities do not work their optimal tiles. e.g. your capital: rather work the farm so the city can grow into the not-worked grassland cottage, afterwards the city could also grow into another two plains cottages. after bureaucracy you could chain-irrigate to the wheat in the south so you can work another plains-cottage. to be honest, the capitol isnt such a great commerce city because it's food-poor, but nonetheless you should make the most out of it.
copperhill is awful regarding tiles: the city could work all the grassland tiles and the hill tiles aswell - just switch to the grassland tiles until the city has grown to this size. this way the city is far beyond its capability
4. techs: you've teched aestetics without building any of those buildings, neither did you went up the path towards literature or music ... wasted beakers, especially as you didn't unluck national- and heroic epic yet.. you haven't teched currency, why? it's a powerful tech and very helpful, one of the most useful techs early on. you haven't teched code of laws, and the ex-carthagian city in the far west has a maintenance of 11 per turn - you could cut you city maintenance by a huge amount with curthouses.
5: religion: why didn't you convert to taoism? and you havent teched any of the religious civics by now, not even monotheism.. that way you lost alot of happiness and alot of bonuses the religious civics provide, and especially the diplomatic benefit it could have provided in this map (all other leaders on your continents are taoists themselves..)
i played a few turns, 20 or so, just to discover that it was too late - gilgamesh declared because of the lousy military, lousy techs... declaring on him was not very clever, to be honest with shared religion and shared fav. civics you could easily befriend him, i even gifted back the city you took in order to befriend him but no chance... essentially he has grens and steamrolles through the the empire, taking one big city every three turns beginning with "ricebowl". the game is pretty much lost.
1. civics: you have angry citizens and gilgamesh whoms fav. civic is hereditary rule - still you're in ALL the default civics - no slavery, no vassalage although you went to war, you even have the pyramids and do not use any of those powerful civics. remember, the main reason to build the 'mids is to abuse the representation civic early with alot of scientist specialists.
immediately switch to hereditary rule+slavery, afterwards tech to code of laws, settle doublefish/clams at the very east of your empire, let the city grow and then farm some great scientists there as soon as the city has grown into the three waterfood tiles and has whipped granary/lighthouse - that's all you need in your GP farm as long as you stay in hereditary rule.
2. cities: way too much infrastructure - you're building a taoist temple in a stagnant city, you have aqueducts in cities not even close to the health-cap, barracks+stable in the most of your cities (remember: you only need barracks in the main production cities, ricebowl for example need neither of those buildings - it simply hasn't enough production capability to contribute to military production, rather focus on the really needed buildings - a library should've come much earlier here)
3. tiles: your cities do not work their optimal tiles. e.g. your capital: rather work the farm so the city can grow into the not-worked grassland cottage, afterwards the city could also grow into another two plains cottages. after bureaucracy you could chain-irrigate to the wheat in the south so you can work another plains-cottage. to be honest, the capitol isnt such a great commerce city because it's food-poor, but nonetheless you should make the most out of it.
copperhill is awful regarding tiles: the city could work all the grassland tiles and the hill tiles aswell - just switch to the grassland tiles until the city has grown to this size. this way the city is far beyond its capability
4. techs: you've teched aestetics without building any of those buildings, neither did you went up the path towards literature or music ... wasted beakers, especially as you didn't unluck national- and heroic epic yet.. you haven't teched currency, why? it's a powerful tech and very helpful, one of the most useful techs early on. you haven't teched code of laws, and the ex-carthagian city in the far west has a maintenance of 11 per turn - you could cut you city maintenance by a huge amount with curthouses.
5: religion: why didn't you convert to taoism? and you havent teched any of the religious civics by now, not even monotheism.. that way you lost alot of happiness and alot of bonuses the religious civics provide, and especially the diplomatic benefit it could have provided in this map (all other leaders on your continents are taoists themselves..)
i played a few turns, 20 or so, just to discover that it was too late - gilgamesh declared because of the lousy military, lousy techs... declaring on him was not very clever, to be honest
with shared religion and shared fav. civics you could easily befriend him, i even gifted back the city you took in order to befriend him but no chance... essentially he has grens and steamrolles through the the empire, taking one big city every three turns beginning with "ricebowl". the game is pretty much lost.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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Monarch is still a little early for that though. AI tech rate isn't so fast. Possibly monarchy, alpha, or if you can get there currency are better. Aesthetics only has a draw on that level if there are a LOT of AI met (so likelihood of alpha in AI hands early is decent) or you can get some wonders like great library.
