Monarch Student XIV - Sitting Bull

[budweiser]

Tech rate alone is enough diference between levels where an aspiring monarchist won't learn from watching a high level walkthrough.

 

[Tempesta13]

Emperor/Normal to 1 AD

Spoiler :

Had an ok start, not too great. Don't think this will be nearly as easy as suggested (i know AI has already revoked that claim though. Went mining-bronze working-wheel-pottery-writing i think. My 7 cities are up and the economy isn't that great - tech is nothing special. Really skimped on early military, but even with little troop upkeep i'm not making too much gold at 0%. Don't have currency or code of laws yet. Getting the gems up soon - had some trouble tech trading already. Ghandi didn't tech iron working, so i couldn't trade alphabet for it since Cyrus wouldn't give it up. I had to tech it manually - only recently got it so gems aren't mined yet and neither is the iron that appeared. I think the only tech trade i've done so far was writing to ghandi for sailing. Ran 2 scientists ASAP in capital just long enough to get an academy there then took them off. I recently put them back on cause i'll need the one that will pop out in 13 turns to bulb philosophy. Hopefully i can get another in time for education.

Cyrus has pretty good land but is small enough i should be able to conquer him - question is when though. I'm probably not going to be ahead in tech this game, and production isn't great so i'll have to figure out a time where a war would work. Maybe after scouting Ghandi i'll decide he'd be an easier target since he builds less troops. I'd like to take more land soon to get more commerce/production going.

I realized too late that great lighthouse would help here being as 6 of 7 cities are coastal. I started it late in Poverty Point and missed it by 5 or 6 turns. I built temple of Artemis in mound city which helps a little but not much. I teched monarchy myself pretty early - i'll have to really try to make use of HR to grow my cities up fast.

Thinking about building great library in cap and then national epic - don't really see a better place for a GP farm. Production is good there so i can just switch off cottages to the hills and probably get it built. I'll probably just stay in slavery and just run the 4 scientists there. With national epic and philosophic trait i should get all the great scientists i need to bulb enough to get ahead.

I'd really like to get more land but i'll have to wait and see if a war will be possible anytime soon. Might have to wait until steel but hopefully not. Possibly i could aim to get steel from lib but we'll see.

 

[Lansky]

Immortal Epic
1100BC

Spoiler :

I made the mistake of reading AI's spoiler regarding why this map isn't actually a cakewalk. Cyrus is on the short list of leaders that I hate to play against and will aggressively cheese against if given the opportunity. This greatly affected my strategy. Started out looking for the closest AI and of course its Cyrus. I circled around his borders until...



Want to really cripple a high level AI? Worker steal then park yourself on a forested hill. Cyrus stagnates for a while until I get antsy and try to pillage his cows. He kills my warrior but I now have dog soldiers on the way. Poverty Point was settled to the NE grabbing copper/fish/elepahnts and a ton of hills. Already starting Moai here. Cyrus also interestingly enough builds Stonehenge during this time and only has 2 archers defending each city - well he had 3 in Persepolis but decided to escort a settler and archers with no cover are quite easy for well just about anything. Dog soldiers suck against archers in cities however no walls, no hills, and 1+ dog soldiers per archer does the trick with a bit of luck.




I guess I'll play this game out, but I really need to not read spoilers regarding map difficulty . I would have stolen a worker from Cyrus regardless given the opportunity (I hate this guy), but I certainly would not have gone hunting for him quite so aggressively. Would of mapped out my immediate area a bit better/sooner.

 

[Phil725]

Emperor - Epic - 10AD

Spoiler :

Settled in place, I got hostile villagers, a crappy ocean map and experience from huts. I find out pretty early that I was misled about the difficulty. Definitely above average on difficulty at least. Not much land before your boxed in by Cyrus, and to top it off, no horses near by. That leaves a dog soldier rush.

I settled a second city to the west and then started cranking out dogs. I declared war on Cyrus ~1200BC:



I got lucky on my attack. Cyrus was defending with 2 archers and an axe, but ended up whipping a sword and having that archer wander off somewhere. I still took some big losses though. I healed up my surviving dogs and went off to Pasargadae. I barely managed to take it, and had to reinforce before taking Tarsus, the city that he settled to block me in. My army was nonexistent after that, so I took peace. After getting screwed over by AIs not teching alphabet in a few games in a row, I self teched it early in this game, which was a good move.



I re built my army for a second war, and was ready to go 10 turns later.



I really messed up here. I kept that city to the right, and ended up razing the one on the left of Persepolis. Now I have to resettle the one I razed, and I blocked optimal city placement for another city by keeping the crappy one with no resources. Anyway, the war went OK. I lost a lot of dogs, but eventually was able to take out Cyrus:



My stats from this war aren't pretty:



I had to build almost twice as many dogs as I would have had to build with normal axes.

Just to comment on dog soldiers quickly, I have to disagree with them being good, or better than axe men in general. They're better by a small margin against melee, but a lot worse against the main unit that they're actually going to fight. They're basically chariots with an increased hammer cost and 1 move when going against archers. I would be in a much better position if I could have gotten horses with my second city. In hindsight, I probably should have just beelined iron working. Being resourceless is nice, but isn't a huge deal.

Anyway, after that I just limped to currency while building infrastructure to end the round.





There is a lot of good land there with Cyrus gone. I should be able to stay peaceful until cuirassiers. First thing I need to do is get some more libraries out to run some more scientists. Gandhi isn't doing much to help me with techs, but I do have him at friendly, so I'll be able to tech trade with him eventually. I feel like I'm doing really poorly, but hopefully enough land means I can win.

 

[Crusher1]

Monarch/Epic

@ PHIL

Spoiler :

I found the map to be strange but not difficult. On a scale of 1 being bad and 10 great I think it's a 6.

Thru 1000 AD

Spoiler :

I opted for a quick rush (w/out a barracks) since the UU is resourceless. My tech path was Mining - BW - AH - Writing and fast open borders (and scientist) to scout Cyrus, this also helped me scout past Gandhi. As you can see from the pictures Cyrus didn't have much of a chance. I took 2 of his cities and razed the 3rd. Bye Cyrus. I popped about 200g from huts.

After Writing I took Myst and then headed off to Alphabet. So I didnt have the wheel, pottery, hunting, fishing, masonry or sailing - all of which I needed for my land. After hitting Alphabet I eventually traded for all the above between Boudica and Ghandi. I did one trade with Boudi and 2 with Gandhi. I ended up getting sailing just in time to hook up all my cities for trade.

After seeing marble I immediately headed up Asthetics for GL and Drama for happiness. I am running a FE with no cottages and have been running 4-6 scientist to fuel research as needed. I also picked up the Mids and the Parthenon and have the NE in my capital which is bringing in 170 beakers at 100% with a University. I am able to run 7 scientist + the 2 from the GL so with PHILO, Pacifism, NE, and the Parthenon I am getting a sick amount of GS.

I also picked up Monarchy in a trade and was running HR until I got the Mids which at that point I was in Representation, Caste, and Pacifism. I almost forgot, earlier I traded for Monotheism and was in OR until caste became a better option.

I settled my 1st GS, 2nd - philo, 3rd - paper, 4th - education, 5th - education , 6th - GM trade mission, 7th - most of PP, 8th - most of Chemistry. Actually, re-reading this, I skipped on GS. The 2nd GS was actually an Academy in my Capital. My 9th was Chemistry.

I upgraded a bunch of catapults I had been making to Cannons at 1000 AD and have started to research Nationalism. Once I reach drafting I am going to pull all scientist off and switch to slavery and Draft/Whip a respectable Cannon/Mace Army while raising my culture slider pretty high to combat unhappiness.

I'm kinda bummed out that Gandhi is sucking so bad this game. Early I made the decision to not kill him in the hopes that he would actually expand and be a good trading partner. I have allocated every EP towards him and have been stealing techs but he is just bad this game.

So, I'm undecided. Should I just put him out of his misery and screw the EP I have on him or leave him be, continue to trade and steal, and simply kill Boudica? He has a decent amount of cottages and seeing how I have none I am thinking I might just kill him so I can use the commerce to help push my slider up during my War building phase. Not really sure. Suggestions?













Don't make fun of my name I think it's cute, lol. An Indian guy is standing on the corner and a fine lookin' woman walks by and he says:

Chance.

Another woman walks by and this time he says:

Chance.

A third lady walks by and once again we get:

Chance.

The lady responds, I don't get it? I thought Indians always said "HOW"? He responds:

Me Know How Just Want Chance

 

[gcm4738]

Monarch/Epic To 25 AD

Spoiler :

Pretty standard buildup of a 5 city layout on the available peninsula. Noteworthy choices: No religion, no wonders built (Moai stats built in northern fish/ivory city though) Standard tech path pretty much, although I went for Metal Casting early for the forges and with an idea that I might build the colossus - but I'm not sure on that yet. Either way I'll have to decide soon because I should be expanding again now.

Met Cyrus, Ghandi. We're all Jewish - although it looked as thought Cyrus might tip to WHEOOHRN at one point when he went Hindu, but right now everything's peaceful. techs even. I was able to keep up in techs with use of the river squares, cottages and so on, and by essentially not building a military. I have a couple of highly promoted archers, a couple of dog soldiers and a swordsman around and that's it. Haven't seen a barb (one galley actually) and don't expect to.

All resources hooked up. Did not settle particularly aggressively towards Cyrus, but got the iron site in the south. Although I'm currently teching currency - I think I'm going to switch to construction and horseback riding for shock jumbos and cats for Cyrus - that should be a pretty easy war by that point. One GS popped - used for academy in capital. Next one pops in one turn and will bulb philosophy.

Other thoughts: Wonders going verrrrry slowly in my game. No one wonder hogging I guess. Ghandi is on a totally pacifist track - has no military and is teching Aesthetics right now. Curious to see what the rest of the map looks like.

 

[budweiser]

Spoiler :

My normal difficulty now is Emporer and whenever I play a Monarch, I end up not trying as hard and not focussing. That's what happened here.

On this map, Mining-BW was the right move. I paid to upgrade my starting warrior to a doggie with hut cash and sent him south in hopes of stealing a worker off of Cyrus. That never happened but writing came in time for me to open borders and scout him out. Meanwhile I built the GW (popped masonry from a hut) and teched to writing and then alpha.

Cyrus expanded fast and planted a city on the desert isthmus separating our lands. I hit that with 6 dogs ad a spear, and raised it, losing about 3-4 dogs. It's good to have a set of ruins in you border, so I made another city down there.

My surviving troops kept moving south while my cities made more dogs. I was able to capture his next city and deny Cyrus elephants. And then I ran out of offense.

On the tech side, I was first to CoL, and have currency. I was able to backfil trade well with gandi. The general situation is its 25AD, and I have 6 cities and probably 12 doggies shuffling south. Cyrus is about to get HA online, so I have to make peace. But, like I said, it could have been much better if I had focussed. I could have eliminated him with dogs. I probably wont finish it.

 

[Crusher1]

Monarch/Epic to Victory..........Bah!

Somehow I deleted not only the screen shots but the game!? No clue. So, I've re-played to 1325 AD

Spoiler :

Basic FE build up for war. You can see the before and after pictures and see the nice production offered from whip/draft cycles. When I started the cycle I was in PS, Nationhood, Slavery, and Theocracy. Afterwards I went back to Representation, stayed in Nationhood to help happiness, Caste, OR.

 

[budweiser]

About this supposedly easy game, I got facestomped in the 500s,

Spoiler :

by Cyrus . He actually was after me and approached with a small stack (8 units) around 300 AD. Begged 10 gold for 10 turns of peace, built some more dogs and killed his stack. Then a few turns later he attacked with his real stack: 18 units with a healthy share of war elephants. Dogs doesn't quite cut it vs elephants, and my metals was still unconnected to build cheap warriors.

So ignore my advice and play at whatever level you want

Spoiler :

Ai, you made 2 mistakes that I can see. First all those warriors didn't count much for power in a situation where you were pretty much facing 1 AI. Second, aggressive settling into Cyrus on crappy desert tiles cost money and left you with poor production cities. I've done what you did before and lost.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

^

Spoiler :

Warriors was there as happy police to abuse HR in the capital, not to boost my power.

In this game you can totally ignore your army and start building units whenever you like, as long as you push Cyrus to pleased, wich should be trivial. He doesn't neglect his army (buildunitprob a tad lower than Monte or Genghis) but has the same peaceprob as Gandhi. Doesn't declare at pleased and more often than not doesn't declare at cautious.
So my rookie mistake was to assume diplo safety, but Cyrus was already planning vs me.

Not sure about those southern cities, but I think they are worth the manteinance. Fish is always worth settling and the second one is a necessary filler.

But I think I'll try a different approach this time.

 

[djvandrake]

I'm joining the conversation a bit late, but as an aspiring Monarchist I feel the need to chime in.

I do find these series games helpful.....to a point. It doesn't matter what difficulty level people play really (to me anyway). What would be an enormous improvement in my opinion wouild be greater levels of discussion on how players arrive where they do. I see players with size 10+ capitals and 100+ at 1 AD and it blows me away. How did you get there? What tech path? Specialists? I realize it's a two way street and I should ask more questions but I don't want to seem like a pest either.

I have learned quite a bit from these games even though I play too slow to participate regularly. I guess what I'm trying to say is if those participating care to elaborate on the why and how you manged to conquor the world, there are those like me who would be most interested in reading it.

Now back to our requalrly scheduled program......

 

[budweiser]

@Ai

^

Spoiler :

But I think I'll try a different approach this time.

Here is an approach I would try:

Spoiler :

SB is for war. 6-8 early dogs on Cyrus while building more. Possibly chop Stone Henge. Tech to Monarchy and then early Feudalism. Kill Cyrus with dogs and archers. Get iron early b/c of the jungle gems and sword access. Possible synergy here with GLH and a G Merchant. Maybe cash-in and a mass upgrade to longbows.

Finish with War Elephants. Move on to Gandhi with amphibious war elephants and just keep going.

What I am curious about is how a totem archer possibly with barracks would fair vs normal ai city archers. Dogs seem really weak against them but if a NA archer could hurt them, then the dogs could finish it.

 

[Crusher1]

@ bud

Spoiler :

I don't like the Feudalism Archer route at all. AI's prioritize that tech and you will lose beakers in trade because of it not to mention its pretty expensive for a dead end tech. I would prefer a normal Liberalism beeline towards superior tech and leverage your advantage for longer

Matter of fact, I cant remember ever researching Feudalism myself ^^. Even more than that, I haven't made a single Archer unit all game - nor will I at any point, lol.

 

[Jamuka]

Crusher has me convinced. If i played this game on immortal i would use a completely different strategy than on monarch. And many of the things you'd do on immortal wouldnt even make sense to do on monarch.

so, monarch/normal:

Spoiler :

Very interesting start. I opted not to rush cyrus on account of the start having so many amazing city spots surrounding the capital. I think I can fit 7 good cities not including the capital w/ practically no distance maintenance. For tech, production + stacking GS's in cahokia.
Gandhi has 2 holy cities. Not sure if i want to take him out first or cyrus.

btw, crusher. Civ stores saved games and screenshots in documents -> my games -> beyond the sword. Problem is you have multiple documents folders in the same place, which one you can see depends on the permission level. Since vista seems to handle this poorly, it deletes and overwrites those folders when, a) stuff gets moved, or b) it feels like it.
for instance: look in desktop -> crusher -> documents, and then c: ->. users -> crusher -> documents.

 

[budweiser]

@Crusher1

Spoiler :

On this map, the Elephants trump all and should have been a priority for me. On a general NA game, I would prioritze Feudalism, especially if I had Monarchy, to open vassals and unit XP, slso the LB promos. I have had luck with them before.

 

[Crusher1]

That's not the problem ^^.

- I tend to watch SC/ESPN while playing
- if you leave the game on for an extended time without playing you are eventually left with only 1 save that can be played
- when you always use the same exact save name for everygame the only save you'll have is the last one you actually remembered to save

- still a bit confused how it happens to me sometimes, lol! but quite frequently I end up losing my save and have to completely restart or if lucky, can restart from a previously saved point - of course, if I am playing a new game and have another save then OH WELL.

@ bud

Spoiler :

Fued is still expensive, takes you away from Liberalism/Cannons and loses a lot of beakers from loss of trade bait you would have from another tech. Theocracy still gives plenty of experience with the benefit of a better tech path. Elephants could be nice to throw in the mix but I cant draft them.

 

[budweiser]

@crusher1

Spoiler :

You are thinking late game in a European style. I take too many queues from history. In this case SB has 2 very early resourceless units and can strike faster than anyone. You should aim for a winning position well before liberalism and then use gunpowder to keep your lead. That's why I tend to think about Feudalism for SB, vassalizing to a dominant position.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

crusher:

Spoiler :

I've tried a very early rush myself and failed miserably.
No second city, worker first followed by *dogs. I've been able to capture pasargadae around 2100 but then Persepolis was simply impossible. Defended by 3 archers and 3-4 various melee units.

Care to share some details? 2 workers for more chopping? Persepolis first? How many dogs in the first wave?

 

[Kazile]

Good day folks.
First post here on civfanatics and first game on Monarch difficulty ever!

Enjoy!

Monarch/Epic

4000 BC to 1100 BC.

Spoiler :

4000 BC:
-Moved Warrior 1 SW and in the distance I saw the shore!
Had a hard time deciding where to settle, but in the end I didnt move the Settler and Cahokia was founded.
Worker.
Mining.




3850 BC:
-Hut popped Mysticism.




2850 BC:
-I meet Cyrus.




2575 BC:
-Cant get passed Cyrus
To rush or not to rush, thats the question.




2400 BC:
-Poverty Point is founded.
Starting to build for the rush.




1425 BC:
-After 6 Dog Soldiers I strart work on The Pyramids. Its probably too late, but as Ive said, its my first time at Monarch.




1400 BC:
-I DOW Cyrus.




1350 BC:
-Pasargadae (great name) is captured. One Dog Soldier died.




1250 BC:
-Persepolis is captured. Two Dog Soldiers died.




1150 BC:
-I meet Gandhi! Look at his cute big eyes!
(No, I dont DOW him. Cursor was just over WAR when I took the SS, sorry)




1100 BC:
-Since I dont have enough soldiers to take the city of Susa I make peace with Cyrus.. For now.
Also, I notic that Susa isnt his only city! The vile Persians spread like a plague!

So, Im guessing I should have started building for the rush earlyer to get more DS, also, I cant really see that not rushing is an option on this map.

Please comment, I need all the help I can get!

 

[Crusher1]

AI Shizuka

Spoiler :

I went worker (who was chopping Dog's), warrior, warrior, Dog, Dog, Dog, Dog, Dog, Dog, Dog, Dog, Library. I improved the Irrigated Rice then straight to Hills, then to chops. I didnt touch the Corn until much later as there was plenty of food to grow to my happy cap and work a lot of hills - not to mention this makes your rush earlier. I attacked Cyrus's capital at 20% culture with 4 DS and 1 warrior vs 2 Archers and only lost 1 DS. I attacked his closest city to me with 3 DS vs 2 Archers and lost 1 DS. I then razed the last city with 3 DS vs 1 Archer.

I did not make a barracks because that would allow Cyrus to get too much culture. I should have lost 2 more DS statistically but either way, I would have taken the first 2 cities on the same turn and his last city a few turns later.

Imo Bud is offering some very poor advice. Stay away from LB rushes - it's a waste of research, production, and loses you even more beakers in trade. Early war with the resourceless DS is very good. A regular archer rush needs additional tech and is very slow so don't be fooled. If you watched my game you saw that I had a pretty insane amount cannon/musket by 1300 ADish - over 60 actually, I still had about 8-9 stragglers coming up. This of course was set up by an immediate DS rush (Good!)

If someone is absolutely fixated on making good use of the protective trait before drafting I would suggest an alternative of building the Oracle, take MC, immediately whip a forge in a different city and run an engineer. With SB being Philo you will get a GE very quick and you use him to bulb Machinery after you have researched IW. It certainly won't be as quick as a DS rush but you will have some crazy strong Crossbows with all the modifiers.