Monarch Student II - Climbing from Prince (Joao II)

[gcm4738]

Hi All,

Thanks to AI Shizuka for setting up the "Monarch Student" game last month. He and I had a good time on the "Noble Club - Tokugawa game" and decided to try a Monarch game in the forum together. A lot of others joined in which was great - even though I got eaten by Julius Caesar... There have been a number of people posting games after the holidays in the Prince - Emperor zone and some good posts on tactics in this range as well, so I thought I'd take a stab at keeping the "Monarch Student" theme alive for those of us that can't wait for the next Noble's Club. Besides it was like -7degC here yesterday and it's too cold to go out, so I'm staying in to play Civ!

The idea is that we'd have a pretty standard game, with what looked to be a pretty basic start and a "mid range" leader - not too powerful (not Financial, not Roman), and not one that would require a particularly unusual strategy to succeed. So with that in mind, I think I've got my ducks in a row for those that want to give Monarch another go...

Since it's part II I've gone with Joao II. He's a happy guy with a really cool hat.



Our UU:

Spoiler :

and our UB:

Spoiler :

It's a standard, fractal map - nothing weird. Random opponents. Everything else set at normal - barbs, huts, etc. All victory conditions enabled. I think I've got the World Builder save right so that you can choose your difficulty level and speed, and so that Joao is the only playable leader - not revealing the AI's, but let me know if it doesn't work for you.

Our starting position:



Format is copied from the great Noble's Club series now hosted by TheMeInTeam:

Update your progress at various points in the game, using the Spoiler feature of the boards.

Tentative posting updates are suggested at:

4000 BC (starting thoughts, no spoiler required for that discussion)
1000 BC or so (how you decided to progress up the early tech/build paths, which AIs you have met, etc)
500 AD or so (after establishing some cities and a possible plan of action)
1200 AD or so (mid-game, Lib race, wars or peace, or whichever happened or didnt, met other continent if applicable, etc)
1600 AD (or when you have decided on a course of action and a specific victory condition)
End of game (Victory!!! or defeat, no shame in losing, especially if you tried a higher level. Learning is what we focus on, not fastest win or biggest empire)

A special thanks to TMIT, Bleys and others who take the time to set up these games for us, and to all the more experienced players who post help and suggestions. It seems no question is ever too noob and there's always someone willing to help.

 

[nanomage]

hello.
i'm in, rpc may wait, after all)
i've changed speed to marathon.
regarding initial city placement, i'd first move warrior 1nw to see if we can get any nice tiles by settling 1nw(to gain banana and riverside grassland)

 

[vicawoo]

The rule of 3 says that there's a hidden resource, or that there's one lurking to the south. You waste a water tile, but 1W is the best gamble (unless copper is east), settle in place is safe and solid.

Map is grassland heavy and it looks like a small continent or a small, winding one.

Your early tiles: irrigated corn, farmed bananas (if you move), 2 grassland hills. Great, you aren't inclined to waste hammers on a warrior for happiness.

Agriculture-Bronze working, then depending on if you find bronze, pottery (you're expansive, so quick granary! High food, low production, double hammer bonus on workers/settlers means whipping is ideal, lots of grassland tiles to cottage)
otherwise risk animal husbandry or go archery, standard defensive teching.

Worker, grow to 4 on warrior, settler, if you have pottery 2 pop whip a worker then overflow to granary, grow while building escort, settler, etc

edit: i forgot you don't start with wheel, so after 2nd settler, you could make the worker and whip the settler and overflow to granary.

 

[nanomage]

erm would some one tell how to put screenies in spoilers? i don't want them to abuse other players, but spoiler tags seem only to envelope the text, not thumbnails.
edit: allready understood,

 

[nanomage]

umpf, i got it.
here is the report:

Spoiler :

as i intended, moved warrior 1nw to see if there are any bouunties. saw none, but no bad tiles too, so i decided to grab banana by settling 1nw.
researched BW while building worker and exploring surrounding land.
made contact with hanny and brenn
1-st screen (bronzeworking) after researched bw
View attachment 199448
swith research to wheel, build worker while choping forest
i regretted then for delaying agri, but i was horribly afraid of barbs and wanted copper asap.
made some nice shopping for cheap workers, screen (chpooers)
View attachment 199449
3340 brenny founds hinduism (target number one i guess)
research:wheel -> agri -> pottery -> AH
lisbon:worker -> worker -> filler barrack ->settler (whip) -> axe -> barr(whip) -> filler axe -> gran (whip) -> axe
workers: chop2E -> mine copper -> chop SE -> road ->farmed corn->farmed wheat near oporto-> farmed ban -> cottaged around a bit to stop jungle -> pastured cows
screeny (oporto) is oporto
View attachment 199450
oporto build order - filler barracks -> gran (whip) -> barra (whip)
2400 bc brenny found judaism (double holy city! definitely #1 todie)
starting warrior killed some animals and got woods 2. i sent him to steal and rampage celts who had no BW, but founded 2 rels.
screen (target) their capital
View attachment 199451
i whipped a few axe platoons and they headed sw )

started war by stealing worker and then invaded with axes (screen 2000bc)
View attachment 199452
vienne had an unpromoted hilltop archer with no cult.def. CR axe dies at 20%, next captures the city.
it survived attack and i kept it. much overlap with bibracte, but i have few cities, so who cares.
screen (vienne)
View attachment 199453
worldmap screen and my cities screen, and a save follow
View attachment 199454
View attachment 199455
View attachment 199456

and don't hurt me much i am but a monarch student

 

[Single Malt]

I'll run this. Foodwise an poor start, but great beaurocracy capital potential though. Never played JoaoII before, but hopefully plenty of room to REX and get max benefit from the worker and settler hammer bonuses.

 

[gcm4738]

Whew! Good - the save seems to work for you which was my big worry.

rpc may wait, after all

It doesn't *have* to wait. You can find a big floppy hat, stand up on a chair, have a few drinks (this will probably help) and shout: I am the lord of the lords not the servant of the serfs!

and

Foodwise an poor start

Oh it's not that bad. You've got corn and some floodplains which you can either farm or cottage. I'm a little more worried about the lack of trees and hills for mines. This will either be a commerce city or possible GP farm I guess - after calendar?

 

[nanomage]

some thoughts on later headbashing... erm, development! just of boredom

Spoiler :

5axes would barely be enough to finish celts, so i guess i need some more of them or just plain swordsmen.
after that we have a huge landmass for us and for us only, with some cities already kindly settled by barbs.

and that's hannibal too with hith numidian uu. we aren't likely to be running FM soon, and i am afraid shared religion will not be enough to feel safe (as i recall from history lessons, he didn't hesitate much defore putting his arms to proper use.) i have little experience playing civIV so do not know if he is truthworthy enough to rely upon pleased dip.state while peacefully RElaXing.

if he is a backstabber i guess i know where to put those jumbos with a barb city atopof them . His UU will regret they have reduced strength!
any thoughts?

 

[michmbk]

I'll give this a go later tonight (if work allows).

 

[Single Malt]

Monarch, Epic, no random events, to 950BC

Spoiler :

I decided to settle 1 NW, to maximise river tiles for a future beauracracy capital. My warrior goes north taking a map from a goody hut. Further along the way he finds

Hannibal. Shortly after we find this in our repositioned capitals bfc

Axe rush. The wheel was finished by the time the worker had the mine built and the axemen started flowing out of my two cities. This guy was also discovered

with about 12 axes I dow Hanni, taking the closest city with one casualty, and taking his cap shortly after. His last city was sub-optimally palced so was razed for resettling in a better position. Brennus had the good graces to spread his religion to me during the war. A GG was acquired and settled in Lisbon (Hannis cap would have been better, as it makes a better early production facility.

950BC the war ends, I have 4 cities. Time to rex without crashing economy further than I have. Workers and cottages first.

 

[Single Malt]

@nanomage

Spoiler :

Do you know where hannibal is? Why worry about barbs, a good tech path would have been agri=>BW, allowing your first worker something to do as soon as he is built. The barbs do not arrive till about 2000BC.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Umm yeah, didn't find the time to test/upload a new game, so thanks for hosting this.

No time to play civ at all lately...in and out from the hospital for a new surgery on this . .. .. .. .ing elbow and more physiotherapy.

 

[nanomage]

@ singlemalt

Spoiler :

well, all i know about hannibal is he is to the north

this and delaying agri for 26 marathon turns were - i admit it - serious errors

 

[gcm4738]

Umm yeah, didn't find the time to test/upload a new game, so thanks for hosting this.

No time to play civ at all lately...in and out from the hospital for a new surgery on this . .. .. .. .ing elbow and more physiotherapy.

Hey Ai Shizuka - Good to see you! Sorry to hear about the elbow. Didn't mean to step on your toes by jumping in and putting this up, but I'm sitting around a little bored, so I figured why not? Funny - I've got "frozen shoulder" at the moment and I'm doing some physio for it too. I didn't think it would work, but it does seem to help. Hurts like a bugger though. But I digress.

Brief report since I've got to run out tonight so no pics, and I went a little past 1000 BC for reasons below. So at 500 BC, monarch/epic...

Spoiler :

Was 2/3 of the way through building an army to attack Hannibal in 1000 BC. Got a few horse archers up as well with a city near the horse site SW of the capital. Hannibal is dead - he built the Oracle one turn after I attacked him, so I've got that now, as well as Carthage, which founded Buddhism.

The copper is in my BFC cause I moved 1 NW to settle Lisbon as well. Not sure about this map so far. The problem with posting a game you want to play is that you don't want to muck around with it too much and spoil it for yourself, but you want to make sure it's a playable game. Joao seems suited for an early peaceful REX, but I don't think that was ever on the cards with Hannibal boxed in up north (with copper and horses for his UU - yikes!) I think axe rushing him was an ok idea, but while I've done that Brennus has been filling in down south and I'll have to check his diplo habits, but my guess is that he'll be going for attack fairly soon, and I'll have to war soon to get some decent land I think. Not sure really, will have to think about the next step now.

 

[Diamondeye]

Not planning t play this, I am currently busy with lots of SGs and the new MTDG, but many players consider João a strong leader due to the traits combined with the mantra "Land is Power". Although with the hammer-poor start (and few forests for chopping), I suspect this might need modification...

 

[nanomage]

played up to 500 ad

Spoiler :

a very tough round, mostly to my haste and stupidity.
and strangely, not much to tell about:
the next turn after previous round ended i met this guy
View attachment 199488
after finishing off brenny i made OB with hanny and explored his land.
he had stone already hooked and began wonderspamming:
henge, GW, mids and HG in a rapid succession
i decided to take him off with cats after beelining constr, so i was glad to see him do all hard work.
but joao's lack of economical traits (or mb my lack of brains and planning) prevailed!
after planting 2 more cities along with 2 captured celtic (6 total, and quite far from lisbon) i found myself running slider at 30%.
View attachment 199493
libraries helped, although, specialist rule.
after the whpiing anger from the first celtic war dissappeared, those damned healers came in with their multiply cursed herbs! how could i refuse
every child knows that health is a bedrock of world domination
i decided to combine tech paths to arrive at both CoL and Constr so that my army, once built, could be supported.
i researched masonry -> myst -> medi -> priest -> CoL -> bulb Maths -> constr.
by the time cats came i had already whipped CH in all but the smallest cities and quite a stack of axe-moppers and spear-stack defenders.
then quickly whipped 7 cats and thought hanny is over, but not!
he managed to build quite a stack too, and i suddenly realised that spearmen are no particularly good against that bloody numidian cavalry, to say nothing about axemen - i would as well had no axemen at all.
during the war, btw, sold CoL to Suly for IW. He had a great bunch of techs over me, but mostly old ones. (alphabet, monarchy and IW were the only worthwhile)

i had to whip the whole portugal again and again and finally hanny was defeated - with all my cities beeing 1 or 2 and at happy caps.
slider was 0, beakers 7 and gpt -13. i thought the game is lost and i am to report my humilating defeat
but after i captured carthage itself the situation drastically changed!
it turned out that Rep-boosted scientist can hold research afloat even with 0% slider, and capturing a city once per 5-7 turns compensates very well for -13gpt.
i thought i'm quite proficient with monarch, but this game is truly a revelation.
when hanny was mostly over, zara yacob came bringing a huge heap of tech to trade (mostly same as Suly) i quickly sold CoL to him for alpha before he understood that he was trading with an infidel .
once i had alphabet i extorted 3 obsolete techs from hanny and let him live for a while.
representation was kind of salvation for the empire: specialists kept science afloat, and +2HF meant the cities can regrow a little after mad whipping.
i popped also a GS and burned him for Philosophy, founding Taoism in carthage. Now i'm almost equal at techs with turks and ethiopians, and, all in all, future seems quite optimistic. slider is 0, gpt is -17 even now, but research is quite fast and remaining Hanny's cities provide gold when captured. after all, i can always switch to CS and run Rep-merchants.
Game full of insights... - i guess it could be reffered to as
"Rep and pillage economy".
now building courthouses in newly conquered cities.
screen world map, domestic screen, tech screen, and save follow
View attachment 199499
View attachment 199498
View attachment 199500
View attachment 199502

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I could use a break from immortal U...

Signing in.

 

[Single Malt]

To 505AD, Monarch, epic, bug mod.

Spoiler :

After my axe rush my economy is in heaps, but my conquest gold helped me tech to Math, where I researched a few low beaker turns into Alphabet, then went on to currency, and hopefully be able to trade it for alpha and backfill. I also started a bid for the mids in carthage, my production site. As I figured, about halfway through the build the mis were built somewhere else, netting me c. 350 gold, which got me finished on alphabet in good time, giving me a monopoly. Hammy also made himself known. Sully gave me alpha for currency, brennus poly and IW. Next round I got Mono, priest foe alpha, and the following round I got monarchy off hammy. I revolted to OR and HR as soon as I had both.

My empire of 6 cities (a little room for more)



Lisbon


Carthage


And the tech situation


Now I really am clueless where to go from here, a war with Brennus is a must, as I am completely boxed in, my economy is fragile, I doubt I'll get a military tech advantage to Brennus. I'm thinking of building swordsmen, ans as soon as cats are online, whipping out a few and strike through to Brennus' cap. I fear he will have Longbow before I get that far though. What do others suggest?

 

[djvandrake]

Well I gave this a go.....

Spoiler :

And it was a disaster. I've never played Joao before, but know of his reputation for powerful REXing. So, I thought I'd make that the startegy. I settled in place, then built another city to the north (by jungle rice) to block Hannibal. I then place a city badly to the south (1 sw of wheat) When I should have placed it all the way to the coast south to get the second fish resource. I move to place another city by the small lake to the way southwest to block in Brennus (north of the cows). That was a big mistake as it crashed my ecomony. I then get a barb uprising of 4 spears and a few warriors that I fight off, but it was distracting.

I did everything wrong this game.

My tech path was Agriculture - Bronze Working - Wheel - Animal Husbandry - Mysticism - Horseback Riding - Masonry - Iron Working.

By this time I have 6 cities (20 AD) and my slider is at zero. (One city captured from the barbarians) I don't have iron working finished so I can't clear jungle and others are already at writing, metal casting, and someone just bulbed Theocracy to found Christianity.

I'm too embarassed to post screenshots, and it's a lost cause. I made way too many mistakes to begin with. This definitely was a learning experience and I suppose that made it worth doing. Good luck everyone! I'll be eager to see how you do.

 

[Single Malt]

@gcm (spoiler contains map information, don't look if you don't wanna know)

Spoiler :

What map script did you use? The whole map is explorable by workboat by the looks of it. Unusual map, I must say, and tough. Poor starting locations compared to Brennus or Hannibal.