Monarch - Please help with strategy tips.

[LincolnOfRome]

I started a custom game.

Monarch - I haven't been playing very long and Monarch level is about as tough as I have tried.
Unrestricted leaders - I could end up with any leader and any nation.
Shuffle - I have no idea whether I am isolated on a small island or a large continent.
Tiny - I have a slow computer and tiny world's work well for me.
Five civilizations - I added a couple extra AI civs because four opponents is a bit more challenging than two. The other civs could be very close because we are on a tiny maps. I could also be isolated because I have no idea what kind of map I have with shuffle.
Epic Speed - I like to slow things down a bit.

Here is the starting map:

Any comments? It doesn't look bad. I have two clams, a corn, and a stone. I am located on a plains hill to start. It is good for protection. I also get two hammers free on my city square. To me, it makes sense to settle right here.

My leader is Lincoln (Chr/Phi) and I am leading the Roman civilization. Yes I chose my username based on this game. I've never played the Romans before but I heard the praetorians are good early units. With a philosophical leader I would like to build at least one GP farm.

The Romans start with fishing and mining. I will need agriculture to work the corn, masonry to work the mine, and bronze working to chop down the forests. Another early priority is animal husbandry to find a source of horses.

 

[oppy]

I'm just going to give you general advice that's helped me greatly. I started playing a month ago and I won my first monarch game yesterday. I played civ2 for a long time on the highest levels and at first tried to play civ4 like it was civ2, which meant try to get a lot of cities, delay war unless cramped, keep tech up etc. etc. Then I watched some of themeinteam's youtube civ4 let's play videos.

He taught me something insanely important: the game is all about diplomacy.

Regardless of your starting cities (unless extremely good or bad) your game will be dictated by the people around you and as you go up in level the difference will become more of understanding the way they will react to you, what they will research, attacking tendencies etc.

When you watch TMIT videos or read the high level game walkthroughs posted here people talk about peaceweights and 80% chance to declare at friendly, or this guy won't declare at pleased unless I don't pay his demands, or this lady is a religious nut, you realize that the game is about memorizing stupid facts and percentages about leaders and exploiting the AI coding of the game rather than the smaller micro decisions you make. So worry more about your first AI than your first city. I really liked this:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=302016

I wish he would write all of them so I could play immortal+ sooner (kidding!)

 

[vicawoo]

Well the easiest way on the current settings is to build wonders or kill people with praetorians.

But if you want to play normally, agriculture, bronze working, improve tiles, expand. worker first, grow on a warrior, settler. Build one or two workboats after you finish your second settler if you decide not to rush.

It's painful to get a lot of cities on a tiny map, unfortunately.

 

[mariogreymist]

If you can get Prats on a tiny, crowded map at epic speed, you can win the game with them alone. If you want to play a longer game (into the modern era), that city site is an excellent one to build the glh, and if you can get 4+ coastal cities out early, it will pay off in nicely in the end. But you need to choose between those options by the time you're done researching bw, as you can't wait for sailing until after IW AND get the glh. I'd say you need to know exactly how much room you have before committing to a settlement/tech path beyond your worker techs.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

4000BC - Rome Founded
3825BC - I meet Frederick of the Vikings
3775BC - Bismark of the Incans walks up from the South.
3725BC - Agriculture techs and I select bronze working to be able to chop out some settlers.
3650BC - Boudica's (of France) scouts come from the Southeast.
3550BC - First worker is finished and Buddhism is founded in a distant land. I send the worker out tp the cornfields and begin making a warrior.
3450BC Truffle event
3350BC - herbalist event. Warrior killed by lions.
3300BC - bronze working comes. Begin reseaching AH. Warrior is finished. I start making another worker while I chop with the first. Rome reaches a population of two
3250BC - I send warrior looking for Bismark and I suffer a random -1 relations with Bismark event.
3075BC - worker finished - Start building settler. Workers are chopping.
2875BC - I have now learned AH and my settler is almost finished.

So, after a little time I have discovered enough of the map to make decisions about my first city.

Here is the view to the Northeast of Rome. This looks like a good city site. Unfortunately, I have to deal with the cultural pressures of being located next to another civs capital.

And to the South. Any city site that takes advantage of the copper would also have to deal with cultural pressures.

Oppy did say it was about the AI's. Any thoughts about the AI's around me? I know Boudica can be unpredictable but I haven't found her city yet. It sounds like prats are the way to go. I could make a near beeline to iron working.

I did have a thought that with stone, I could pop out Stonehenge with a few chops on my second city. The 12 culture per turn would provide a good counter against against another civ's capital.

I like the idea of conquereing the world before 1AD. How many cities should I pop out before I begin the killing spree?

I have a settler that is nearly finished. I could settle in the Northeast near the horses, clams, and cows. I could avoid the cultural pressures and settle to the North near the cows. I could settle to the South near the copper or even the Southeast near the rice.

 

[lymond]

I'm just going to give you general advice that's helped me greatly. I started playing a month ago and I won my first monarch game yesterday. I played civ2 for a long time on the highest levels and at first tried to play civ4 like it was civ2, which meant try to get a lot of cities, delay war unless cramped, keep tech up etc. etc. Then I watched some of themeinteam's youtube civ4 let's play videos.

He taught me something insanely important: the game is all about diplomacy.

Regardless of your starting cities (unless extremely good or bad) your game will be dictated by the people around you and as you go up in level the difference will become more of understanding the way they will react to you, what they will research, attacking tendencies etc.

When you watch TMIT videos or read the high level game walkthroughs posted here people talk about peaceweights and 80% chance to declare at friendly, or this guy won't declare at pleased unless I don't pay his demands, or this lady is a religious nut, you realize that the game is about memorizing stupid facts and percentages about leaders and exploiting the AI coding of the game rather than the smaller micro decisions you make. So worry more about your first AI than your first city. I really liked this:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=302016

I wish he would write all of them so I could play immortal+ sooner (kidding!)

While I agree with oppy's post about the importance of diplomacy in CIV4 - and it is important and, also, hard to master, I disagree significantly regarding small micro decisions. First, it's a bit too much of a generalization IMO. Second, micro decisions and action can be extremely important especially at higher levels - build orders, worker actions, etc. I just want to make this statement so that you don't de-emphasize other important areas of your game. In fact, you will often improve great in other areas than diplomacy long before diplomacy itself. With that in mind there are some basic things about diplomacy you can start looking at like religion.

 

[mariogreymist]

There is a lot of opportunity for some early conquest here. While the copper is accessible with less cultural pressure than the horses, it's not as great a site to build a city. And of course, copper has the hard counter to chariots. Whichever you settle, I'd be prepared to fight for the other right away. Epic speed allows for good early war opportunity, and being CHA and not fighting is like going to a bar and not drinking.

I would probably go after the copper, and take the horse site after the fact. Settle 1E* of the copper, hook up the cities and start building units. With a little luck, you'll roll into the second viking city right on the spot you have dotmapped (though 2e of that spot seems more likely for an AI) and it will be protected with a single archer.

*you will have to closely watch health in this city, but only if the game goes on for a while

 

[huerfanista]

I like the idea of conquereing the world before 1AD. How many cities should I pop out before I begin the killing spree?

You've already been sidetracked -- when playing Rome, your tech path should be be [a food tech], BW, IW. Find Iron and get it with your first settler. Then it's simply a matter of hooking up your cities and building praetorians. After IW, you need to make sure that you can recover your economy after conquering a lot of cities, so make sure you get writing before you start warring big time. After writing get alphabet so that you can build research towards currency. Once currency is done, build wealth in a couple of cities to get CoL. At that point, you should be on the verge of winning domination/conquest anyway on this small map.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

The Inca were fast at taking the copper site. I moved to the horsie site. Huerfanista, I liked the no nonsense advice you gave. Iron is everything if praetorians are that great. I decided to head straight to IW after your advice. I was fortunate to find iron in the fat cross of my capital.

Here is my tech tree so far:

While I was waiting for IW to be learned I formed two cities. I formed one at the horsie site and one at the rice site to the East. With the stone hooked up to the Horse City, I was able to get Stonehenge up with two chops.

First picture is at 2225BC:

Second is at 2100BC:

Here is a picture of my first three cities:

I have met the fifth civilization, Zara Yaqob of England, so we are all on the same continent. So far I have three cities, Bismark of the Incas (the civilization to the South), Frederick of the Vikings (my neighbor to the Northeast), and Zara Yaqob have two cities. Boudica of France has three cities as well.

Diplomacy-wise, all are cautious toward me except for Zara who is pleased wih me. Boudica founded Buddhism and Frederick founded Hinduism, so they already hate eachother. Religion has not entered any of my cities. Other than the founders, no one else has converted to any religion. I have no open borders or any agreements with anyone.

Rome has a population of five. Unhappiness will occur at eight. Antium (horse city) has a population of two, Cumae (rice city) has a population of one. Although the borders are closing in, I still have room to build one more city to the northwest. Rome has a barracks, and my other two cities are building theirs now. I have not built any workboat to exploit the clams. Also my scouting stuation (with no open borders) is rather pathetic. I may be able to sneak a chariot out to the southeast of Cumae to look for Boudica.

I now have IW and a mine being hooked up. I am thinking of building a city to the north of Rome so I have four cities to build my attack force. Currently, I have four workers. So far my entire army includes 5 warriors and a chariot. I have not learned Archery or Hunting yet. I do have IW and the mine will be hooked up in a couple of turns.

This is what I see to the South:

I am leaning toward attacking the Incas to the South. The Vikings to the Northeast should be distracted by religious bickering with France. I also think I should take a couple chariots to scout around. A workboat might also help me scout the coasts, but without open borders, that will be useless. Also, I am concerened that making any deal with the bickering civs will pull me into the religious conflict. It is also possible that the Incans will convert and draw me into a fight with another power.

 

[huerfanista]

Good job getting the iron. I think you're set. As for the northern city you're talking about, I don't see anything there to warrant another city (which will just be more maintenance). OFC, you haven't really scouted the water tiles there. But even with a seafood resource, I think you'll do much better just taking a neighboring capital for your next city. Scouting is really needed! If you can get open borders with any of your neighbors, do it now and send your chariot to scout them out. Prioritize those who have metals and take them out first. Wait until you have a big enough stack to take your first victim out completely before you DOW -- nothing makes a war more painful than just dribbling in a few units at a time (again - you need scouting to know how many you'll need). Good luck!

 

[LincolnOfRome]

I like to buld Stonehenge at the beginning of the game. It certainly is a bargain as a wonder, especially with stone. It really pays off when one has a charismatic leader like Lincoln as well.

Wait until you have a big enough stack to take your first victim out completely before you DOW -- nothing makes a war more painful than just dribbling in a few units at a time (again - you need scouting to know how many you'll need). Good luck!

By the time I have 10-12 praets, the competition may have 5-6 cities built. I have to fight my way out of the corner though. I plan to keep my religion undeclared until I decide who I am going to take on next after I defeat Bismark to the South. Tech-wise, I think I'll head right to Monarcy and defend myself with praets. Comments?

 

[huerfanista]

@ Lincoln:
10-12 sounds good, but scouting is really the key. Some AIs will get sidetracked with wonders, so you can sometimes get by with 6 or so. Get writing ASAP and open borders with everyone. 2 chariots for scouting will allow you to map out your opponents quickly. The Incas may not get that copper hooked up soon - they don't have a religion/stonehenge, and the AI is often bad at border pops without one of those. Stonehenge was a good idea, BTW, for a CHA leader. It's cheap and will save you down the road. On a limited map like this where you're somewhat boxed in, it doesn't really interfere with settling enough cities. Definitely don't adopt a religion until you grab a holy city or 2. By that point you'll probably be so strong that you can use middle-finger diplomacy anyway. Don't get sidetracked with wonders - let the AIs build them for you while you build praetorians. Make sure you have enough workers - I can't tell from the screenshots, but it looks like you could use some more (Cumae is not conected and its resources aren't developed). 1.5 workers per city should be the minimum. You want to be working improved tiles. You need to build a bunch of cottages once pottery is in.

 

[mariogreymist]

In situations like this, I build Prats and hold them back until their upkeep becomes an issue, then I send them out to bring tribute back to Rome. I also recommend using the whip aggressively between pop 4-6 to maximize the military output.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

@ Lincoln:
10-12 sounds good, but scouting is really the key. . . Make sure you have enough workers - I can't tell from the screenshots, but it looks like you could use some more (Cumae is not conected and its resources aren't developed). 1.5 workers per city should be the minimum.

I had just founded the city Cumae that turn. I had five workers for three cities (1.67 workers per city). Cumae was swarming with three workers within a couple of turns. The scouting comment was very helpful. I took my chariots down and looked at the Incan cities. I noticed that they didn't have the copper hooked up yet. The chariots also told me that both Incan cities were defended by two archers each.

Even though I had only two praets and three chariots at the the time, it seemed better to attack right way than to wait until they were defended by axemen. Rome was producing a praet every 2-3 turns. The praets waded through the archers. The Incans were history by 1125BC.

If you look to the east of the formerly Incan copper city, you will notice a city spot that includes horses, marble, and ivory. I may grab that spot. Those resources will add some health, and happiness to my cities while I scout out the Vikings. Any suggestions at this time? Economy will become concern. I need to carpet the floodplains with cottages. I may even need to add some more cottages to my other cities as well. It is too bad I don't see any gems or precious metals around.

I kind of played it by the seat of my pants, but it worked out. I remember reading somewhere that you should ask yourself, "could I have attacked this earlier and been successful?"

Oh, yes. I did find the French. If you look far to the East on the map, you will notice a copper mine in French territory.

I had a great prophet pop in Stonhenge/Horse town. Any thoughts about what to do with him?

 

[huerfanista]

Currency is the key tech for keeping your economy afloat: you can build wealth in cities, trade techs for gold, extort gold, and get an extra trade route in each city. The most reliable way to get there is via alphabet, since once you have that tech you can build wealth in cities to get to currency. You already have a pretty good happy cap with CHA/stonehenge, so monarchy is much less important IMO. Also, the beavers in Cuzco will give you another bump in happiness. You can try for the jumbo/marble spot if you want, although I think Boudica might beat you there. If it were me, I'd just let the AIs found cities for me. Scout out Fred and Boudi next. You might also consider promoting you praets up the combat line instead of CR. They're more versatile in the field, and less vulnerable to axes. Or you could build a couple of axes to accompany your stack. Think about what you want to do with your first GG - settle or super-medic chariot (BTW, if you can, promote a chariot up the medic line - C1M1 - it'll give you a level 6 unit with a GG attached). I'd go with the GG-superhealer - it'll allow your stack to keep moving faster. You should be able to wipe the map with praetorians.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

Huerfanista, do you think I should stop researching Monarchy then and learn Alphabet and Currency then? An economy meltdown at this point would be pretty devastating. I really don't have the carpet of cottages yet to keep me afloat financially.

I did get open borders with the Vikings in the North. I found a completed iron mine, but only two archers in the capital. Now may be the time to strike.

I also did some fogbusting down South:

My Units at this point:
Worker - 9 /5 cities or 1.8 per city
Praetorian - 5
Warrior - 4
Chariot - 2
Great Prophet - 1

My economy is beginnig to struggle. I can only run at 30% research and break even.

Here is my current tech situation. Am I heading for a meltdown?

This is a good point to look at my financial and tech situation. I don't want to have units disbanded. I am running at epic speed, but 36 turns until HR is a long time. At this rate, it is 48 turns to Alphabet, and another 76 to Currency. I may also consider building the Pyramids, or not even be concerned about switching from despotism as Huerfanista suggests. The Pyramids can be built in 19 turns by Roman masons, but I notice the Vikings have stone, so they may building them for me (I may try to build them for the money I get if I fail to build them first anyway). It may be easier to take the Pyramids from the Vikings than learning the Monarchy tech, but right now I feel desperate for Currency, Alphabet, and HR. The cost of conquest is steep. I need to support a large military and use production tiles rather than money tiles. In addition, each city I conquor or build may be the straw that breaks the camels back financially.

Every city (except the former Incan ) has some cottage tiles that aren't being worked. Of course that slows down my war machine. I seem to struggle with these issues in every game. At this point in the game I usually develop my CE a bit and slow down. I may drop my tech rate, build some libraries and create some science specialists in my largest cities so I can slow down growth to prevent unhappiness. By the time my CE develops, I lose the praet advantage. Is there another solution?

 

[mariogreymist]

A note on the idea of swithing off monarchy for writing/currency: Monarcy is a much more important development tech than currency. Monarchy means more tiles worked, including cottages. While the extra trade routes from currency and the ability to build wealth are important, they can wait until after monarchy. Just the one extra tile (assuming a cottage) you get with a single defender is worth as much as the trade route currency would yield...and you can build more soldiers to work more tiles in fewer cities paying less upkeep. The only exception to this is when your economy will completely crash before you get to monarchy and not before you get to currency. (that doesn't appear to be the case here)

I'd suggest you keep on the monarchy path. I had this problem as I moved from prince to monarch, and at emperor it's not even a close decision. From monarchy, then I prioritize currency, CoL and Civil Service...the three C's of economic development.

The exception is if you are capable of taking the pyramids right now. If you can get monarchy faster by researching it, do it and start working those extra tiles. I also think it's good to play without the 'mids as often as possible when mastering a level. As much help as they are, it's easy to let bad habits creep into your play that will punish you every time you don't get them. (speaking from experience)

So research monarchy and let Freddy build you another wonder or two while your cities pump out defenders and prats (use cheaper troops like archers/axes/spears for HR happiness). Then, when you take the GW and whatever else he kindly provides you, you will be able to use those large populations to maximum advantage.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

I did keep on the Monarchy path. I also built the Pyramids in my horsie city (I was hoping to get beaten and get the consolation prize of money). I ran my tech at 20%. I built libraries in three cities where I set aside science specialists to somewhat keep up on economy. I also carpeted the grasslands and floodplains with cottages and began to work them. By about 500BC my tech rate was back up to 50%. I hadn't built much army but I decided to attack Freddy and the Vikings.

As soon as I declared war, Freddy whipped up walls and swordsmen (although axemen might have been better against my praets). I did manage to destroy his mine with a chariot but it was too late. His iron troops behind walls and cultural protection wiped out my praets. I was beaten back at Neadros, the Viking capital, where a single praet stood guard on a wooded hill between the capital and the iron mine.

The Vikings had three cities, Nidaros, Uppsala, and a newly formed city to the East on the French border. I was more fortunate with attacking the Southern city, Uppsala. I was able to capture it with heavy losses. When the French saw my success there, they decided to attack the Vikings as well and quickly tok the newly formed city on their border. They marched to the capital and attacked as my single praetarian watched. They didn't kill all the defenders in the city with their large stack of swordsmen though. One archer remained with low health. I attacked the archer and moved into Nidaros. Nidaros is the home of the Great Wall, the Temple of Artemis, and a Scotland Yard.

Here is a picture of some of the cottages I have laid down to help develop my economy:

In the South I built one additional city to grab the marble and Ivory. The English came from a distance to conquer a Barbarian city:

Here is a picture of the Northern part of the Roman Empire:

I also have done some scouting of the French Empire:

I will have to continue carpeting my empire with cottages. Currency will be a big boost when it comes. I will also have to keep my military strong to avoid an attack from the French. England was friendly with the Vikings, as well as religiously allied, and didn't like when my forces and French forces divided it. Although everyone is cautious toward eachother, France and England's religious differences ay keep them distracted from me.I did keep on the Monarchy path. I also built the Pyramids in my horsie city (I was hoping to get beaten and get the consolation prize of money). I ran my tech at 20%. I built libraries in three cities where I set aside science specialists to somewhat keep up on economy. I also carpeted the grasslands and floodplains with cottages and began to work them. By about 500BC my tech rate was back up to 50%. I hadn't built much army but I decided to attack Freddy and the Vikings.

As soon as I declared war, Freddy whipped up walls and swordsmen (although axemen might have been better against my praets). I did manage to destroy his mine with a chariot but it was too late. His iron troops behind walls and cultural protection wiped out my praets. I was beaten back at Neadros, the Viking capital, where a single praet stood guard on a wooded hill between the capital and the iron mine.

The Vikings had three cities, Nidaros, Uppsala, and a newly formed city to the East on the French border. I was more fortunate with attacking the Southern city, Uppsala. I was able to capture it with heavy losses. When the French saw my success there, they decided to attack the Vikings as well and quickly tok the newly formed city on their border. They marched to the capital and attacked as my single praetarian watched. They didn't kill all the defenders in the city with their large stack of swordsmen though. One archer remained with low health. I attacked the archer and moved into Nidaros. Nidaros is the home of the Great Wall, the Temple of Artemis, and a Scotland Yard.

Here is a picture of some of the cottages I have laid down to help develop my economy:

In the South I built one additional city to grab the marble and Ivory. The English came from a distance to conquer a Barbarian city:

Here is a picture of the Northern part of the Roman Empire:

I also have done some scouting of the French Empire:

I will have to continue carpeting my empire with cottages. Currency will be a big boost when it comes. I will also have to keep my military strong to avoid an attack from the French. England was friendly with the Vikings, as well as religiously allied, and didn't like when my forces and French forces divided it. Although everyone is cautious toward eachother, France and England's religious differences may keep them distracted from me.

With the Pyramids, I may consider switching to republic, and loading my cities with specialists for that tech boost. I have been whipping my cities pretty hard for wars. They have a lot of room to grow. Rome's happy cap is something like 19 right now with only one soldier in it.

 

[huerfanista]

Well, you seem to be in good shape, but you made some conflicting moves there:
- Monarchy was researched to bump up your cap, but all of your cities are below what that cap was BEFORE monarchy. And it doesn't look like any of those pretty cottages are being worked.
- You built the mids, which gives you the ability to run monarchy if you want anyway.

I have to disagree with Mariogreymist about monarchy before alpha/currency in this case. First of all, if you're about to go to war with Fred, you're not going to be in city-growth-mode, you want to be in build-units-mode (emphasizing rather than ) so monarchy is not likely to have any immediate benefit. Monarchy is also easy to obtain in trade from the AIs (they tend to prioritize it) which you need alpha for. If you're going for a limited war with Fred, then alpha/currency is better for extorting and techs. And BTW, breaking even at 40% is nowhere close to crashing your economy. I often get to the point of losing 25-40 gpt at 0% with the romans. Instead of putting into the mids, you could have put them into praets and your war with Fred would have been much less painful. You can do a lot of teching on conquest . And if Fred had built them (he had stone, after all) then you would have them anyway. In addition, the primary benefit of currency to a crashing economy is not the extra trade route (that's just gravy), it's the ability to build wealth, which will get you out of almost any situation economically.

EDIT: You should think about adopting buddhism to keep Boudica happy. England is no threat at all in this game, and is likely to be DOWed by Boudica very soon. What's your plan for winning? Conquest/domination all go through France. I'd be building up as big an army as possible in preparation for a when Boudica DOWs England. With that in mind, after currency I'd go for construction (cats) and HBR (war ellies).

EDIT2: A shot of the tech trading screen would be helpful.

EDIT3: Why are you building the GLH in Cusco? It's not going to be of much benefit on this map.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

Doh, I forgot to turn off the "prevent growth" on Rome for a while. You are right, Monarchy might not have been the right path in this case. The cottages are being worked; it just takes a while to show it on epic speed.

Shortly after war ended with Frederick, I joined with Boudica in attacking England. They have one city left on the mainland and two island cities left to conquer.