Monarch: Needing Help (First Online Game!)

[WhatMeNo]

So, after being in the easy levels of Noble and company, I realized I need to be able to play Immortal or Emperor to be able to defeat my uncle in multiplayer. So, as this is my first game on Monarch, I will need help. (I am Bismark)

Pics:

Spoiler :

4000 BC

The settler is on 1h1g1f, but moving it 1s to 2h1f seems like a good idea. Should I?

 

[kossin]

No, there's no plains hill so you'd only waste 1 turn and gain nothing.

You don't have a lot of food, move the scout and try to find more green tiles - likely to the north.
Post a new screenshot after moving the scout.

You can likely find more green land north so moving there will be a possibility.

 

[WhatMeNo]

Still no luck, with 2h1gf on all 3 tiles.

 

[WhatMeNo]

However, to NE there seems to be good land, but screenshots aren't working for some reason.

 

[WhatMeNo]

NVM.
Pics:

Spoiler :

Scout Move

 

[Leventis]

Either settle in place or go for a long trek with your settler to find better land altogether. 1SW will be a strategic resource though, so keep that in mind.

 

[admtanaka]

Holy moly that's a lousy start (assuming it is a routine mapscript).

Not to encourage bad habits, but I'd probably regenerate that one, especially if I were moving up a difficulty level. If not, settle in place and hope for some food hidden in the fog.

I can't remember ever seeing so many plains tiles in one start..

 

[vicawoo]

Can you use the [ img ] url [ /img ] bbcode?

Why regenerate, if the map is plains heavy the opponents also have to play plains heavy? Expand at size 2 with double cows, it's solid production.

 

[WhatMeNo]

I decided to settle in place for the cows. Hopefully the pop will be able to find better land.

Pic:

Spoiler :

Now, for my tech path:

Spoiler :

I have Hunting and Mining. Should I:
a) agri->AH for the cows?
b) BW->IW
c) Go straight for the Oracle?

 

[mfie]

I would go Agir->AH and then Bronze Working, so you can see bronze/horse, improve the cows, and go slavery. Then I would go mysticism for monuments and then to priesthood if you want oracle.
Going straight to oracle will stiffel your expansion, and oracle is not so usefull if you can't catch some expensive techs (civil service/metal casting). And ofcourse you need masonry otherwise you won't have the marble to speed Oracle .

 

[vicawoo]

Skip agriculture unless there's some wheat around. If you go worker first, which you should, it will finish before you tech agriculture/animal husbandry but after you tech just animal husbandry.

After that, since you can't improve forested tiles without bronze working, get bronze working or masonry->bronze working. A simple rule of thumb is to get the techs for special tiles first. In this case, I personally would rather go settler at size 2 rather than improve the marble, since you'll end up building almost 4 warriors if you try to grow to size 3.

Instead of getting into the habit of wanting to build wonders, even if you have the special resource, think first about expansion, with oracle as a luxury if you get it without sacrificing land (i.e. you have a good situation to block off your land early).

 

[mfie]

Skip agriculture unless there's some wheat around. If you go worker first, which you should, it will finish before you tech agriculture/animal husbandry but after you tech just animal husbandry.

After that, since you can't improve forested tiles without bronze working, get bronze working or masonry->bronze working. A simple rule of thumb is to get the techs for special tiles first. In this case, I personally would rather go settler at size 2 rather than improve the marble, since you'll end up building almost 4 warriors if you try to grow to size 3.

Instead of getting into the habit of wanting to build wonders, even if you have the special resource, think first about expansion, with oracle as a luxury if you get it without sacrificing land (i.e. you have a good situation to block off your land early).

Oh yeah, I didn't see he started with hunting.
And I agree Oracle is not that important (the last time I built it was when I still played noble, but thats also because Priesthood is a pas I don't normally take), but you can tech to priesthood and then get civil service by oracle.

 

[WhatMeNo]

Spoiler :

Please tell me how to improve.
http://s300.photobucket.com/albums/nn14/Ihatethisbs/?action=view&current=Civ4ScreenShot0006.jpg

 

[Ghpstage]

Looking at the 1180AD save,
Its catastrophic, too many problems to list, heres just some;

• You have far too few cities,
• They're far too small, Scientist specialists are choking growth
• You haven't taken the nice land to the East,
• Your military is really, really weak, and worse still they're all sitting in cities
• Your at war with Kublai
• There isn't even a road linking Munich to the other cities,
• Munichs Cows aren't improved
• Wheat to the north of Cologne isn't improved
• Workers running round improving things you can't (or don't want to be able to) work
• Massive unhealth in Cologne
• Your running Caste while at war, despite no city being able to run more than 2 Scientists
• Berlin, a size 4 capital, building a theatre while at war
• Size 1 Hamburg building a harbour...... AND running a scientist
• Not settling the Wheat and Sugar south west of Berlin

It looks like your in Africa on some kind of Earth script, I would say its too hard for a first game on Monarch, especially considering the catalogue of weaknesses in your empire

 

[DaveMcW]

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Click settler, Build City
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[vicawoo]

OR you could remove the extra ] character to have it post the screenshot correctly.

And you can edit your posts with the edit button in bottom right hand corner to display the image in the forum.

 

[admtanaka]

I'm going to preface all the following commentary by repeating my earlier statement that this is not the map to try moving up a difficulty level on.

So here's a look at your capital:

Spoiler :

Pyramids, well that's good. But you are stagnant at 5 below the happy cap and forcing two specialists. That's...not as good. As I noted earlier, this is a very, very low food capital, which limits what you can do in the first place. But at least grow it to the happy cap!

I mention the Pyramids to point out this:

Spoiler :

....why did you switch to Universal Suffrage? If you were playing Fredrick, I'd think you had AI autoplay enabled, because I can't for the life of me understand this. US boosts only towns, of which you have none. The reason people build the Pyramids is to switch to Representation early.

This is easily your city with the best terrain:

Spoiler :

But it's building wealth without any improvements! There also aren't any buildings. You've switched to CS to run scientists everywhere (which can make sense with Rep), but it's more important to whip infrastructure first in cities like this (very high food, very low hammers). I checked your units - you have 6 workers, which is exactly 1.5 per city, but what have they been doing? Your empire is full of unimproved tiles. Two workers are also sitting right next to Kublai's border...?

Finally, this city should be moved one tile SE to pick up the corn that is not in the shot:

Spoiler :

Also, you are again stagnating the city to work a scientist when you could be working both gems instead. This city obviously isn't going to farm great people (especially without the corn). As a general rule, do not found any cities without at least one food resource (or at least some floodplains). This city will never do much of anything.

I didn't take any more screenshots, but you also have an army consisting almost entirely of archers (i.e. passive defense). A few spears would help to repel Kublai's mounted units. On the other hand, none of your cities are producing any units in the first place.

Honestly, I'd suggest trying another map with more green tiles and going with an economy that generates beakers through cottage-commerce. It's easier to "set and forget" cottages while you work on some other aspects of the game.

 

[WhatMeNo]

One word: Barbs.

 

[vicawoo]

Your empire at 500 BC looks only one city worse than your 1180 AD empire. Will edit after I take a look.

Ok, this game is pretty unconventional. For instance, I often usually don't build wonders, but a monarch difficulty window, an industrious leader, a high production capital, the lack of high food sources for quick growth in the capital, and the nature of the map itself having very scattered food sources amidst plains/desert tiles... I built stonehenge after my first settler.

I usually never build stonehenge, but a lot of the northern tiles have no forests to chop monuments. A few cities later while growing to size 5, I build the great wall rather than a lot of chariots, for similar reasons. Again, you're industrious and there's so much open space to settle (so much that I have two sentry chariots running around).

Given that there's this huge desert between you and kublai, there's no point in prioritizing blocking off land, which is usually one of the important part of a rapid expansion. Having a high production capital and a low priority war target, you're best off massing commerce cities; your capital can produce more than enough workers/escorts for the rest of the empire.
Flood plains commerce cities should work cottaged flood plains, build a granary, library, and perhaps a garrison unit, then while you're still stuck at a happy cap of 4, use the excess food to build workers/settlers. You want enough workers so that they are always growing into improved tiles, and enough cities that when the workers are down with one city they move on to the next.

This all probably seems horribly unclear and confusing, so the simplest advice for now is to look at the setup of the cottage cities, and get happiness. A lot of the other stuff I did was pretty situational.

 

[Ghpstage]

One word: Barbs.

You have Horses in your Capitals BFC, and with all that desert and other flatland Chariots would have made barbs a non issue.
Oh and the 500 you wasted on the Pyramids could have bought 16 Chariots, and I doubt you'd need more than 6 till you got at least 6 cities.....