Monarch Student^ XVI Saladin

[Inso]

Emperor/Normal

-> 1AD

Spoiler :

Settled the obvious 1NE for hill start and another corn, capital looks like an excellent production city. Some dangerous neighbours here, boudica and ragnar have ruined many a past game for me, ragnar always seems to declare out of nowhere. There was quite a bit of land to settle so I opted to expand into it all quick as possible so was pumping workers/settlers constantly from the capital once it got to size 5.

Got the double gold/floodplains site first followed by a nice cottage city next to ragnar with irrigated wheat, then a nice hammers city with clam/cow next to mehmed. He snuck a city in below my capital but with those lovely madrassas I should be able to culture pressure it no problem. Somehow no one declared on me early, instead 4 (!) AI DOW on poor wang kon, not sure what he did to deserve that! Managed to expand to 8 cities by 1AD claiming marble and stone also, the 3 goldmines helped to pay for it all. Took buddhism to get hannibal, boudica and ragnar on my side. Now I am going to get as many wonders as possible while building a fair bit of military just in case.

Pics of empire:

->1795 Diplo

Spoiler :

I first of all grabbed the mids and parthenon in the hammers city next to mehmed, should be good for culture borders there. Along with the large amount of happy resources here this made for a very high early happy cap. Then got GL+NE in the capital and farmed over the cottages I had there to make it pure GP farm and to to irrigate both the corns come CS. Should be very powerful come biology later.

I moved the capital to the cottage city next to ragner for the CS bonus, also put an academy there with my first GS since this is where oxford will go later. Kept spamming military expecting a dow but thankfully one never came allowing me to keep my techrate humming along nicely (had just under 500 beakers by 1000AD). Boudica was pleased through religion so no problems there, however at this point ragnar decided to go confu so suddenly was looking a thread therefore all my military was stacked in my city bordering him just in case. Did everything possible for hannibal/boudica positive diplo points which really paid off in the end.

Ragnar was my target so I got nationalism from lib then beelined MT/Gunpowder and started spamming curassiers which were upgraded to cavalry via a GM and a few turns of 0% research. Once I had about 15-20 I declared on ragnar:

He went down far too easily in about 10 turns, I kept all his cities bar the crappy tundra one. Looking back I could easily have carried on to hannibal and probably should have done that.

Mehmed offered a vassal state just before I declared here, and with Boudica/Hannibal both being friendly I was smelling a diplomatic victory so I ran some favourite civics and went straight for Mass Media to build the UN. Everyone kept declaring on hatty and I kept joining in the wars and sending no military but accruing a large amount of diplo with boud/hannibal.

This ensured they stayed at friendly and I got the UN then sure enough a few turns later:

Some ending pictures:

My fastest ever victory so far here at 2 hours 40 minutes, everything seemed to go right for once. Had a lot of luck with no early DOW I think, my military was a bit lacking before 1AD. Don't understand what made all the AIs bordering me declare on wang kon who was on the other side of the world. Be interesting to do a replay and see if that happens again.

Was a fun game, not often I go for UN based mainly on diplomacy without vassaling the entire world.

 

[Grashopa]

Hank - Barb cities can spawn on any non visible tile. So unless you are on a hill it won't be the 5x5.

 

[BigTime]

Emperor/normal to Liberalism (1410 AD )

Spoiler :

I've never been more glad to have Protective as a trait. I managed to hold off Ragnar and gave him monarchy for peace.

Suck that Pro you horn hat ghey!

I managed to the Great Libarary + NE in capital, which fueled my lib race. But, then:

Oh man.. You don't have longbows or catapults.... I capture two of his cities and take peace. He only has two cities left and is at pleased:

Yeah, now you stay that way. I now make a trek to Liberalism, picking up MoM, Parthenon, and the Sistine. No major wonder builders on this map, so wonders go late.

This will be helpful if I decide to go for a later culture win:

I also joined in on a fake war against Wang, getting Boudica to friendly and Ragnar to pleased. My borders are more or less secure now.
Computers decide they don't want to try for lib at all, so I get a nice little treat:

With this many cottages, it makes sense.

Tech Situation:

Hatty was the only person who even had Education

And the empire:

The plan is to either smash the neighbors with cavalry, or go and cheese culture. The problem is Ragnar has a DP with Boudica and Hannibal, but than should be easily bypassable by bribing him or demanding like 10 things from him to MAKE him declare on me. By then I will have assembled like 200 cavalry to wreck his day

 

[SilentConfusion]

Monarch/Normal, from 850BC-1AD

Spoiler :

I went Hunt>Arch immediately after Writing>Fish>AH because my defenses were low and I was afraid that some AI (probably Ragnar) would attack me before I had them. I hooked up the horses too so I built lots of protective archers for border cities.

I OBed with everyone except WKong as everyone hated him.

Boudica is pleased because of Buddhism and she's spamming missionaries. I was hoping she'd get one to Ragnar.

I don't have copper, but will have to make do with pro. archers and chariots. I teched Aesth after Archery to trade for some of the techs I was behind with.

Hann is just to the SW beyond the gold site. A stone city there would block him and help with wonders.

Soon Buddhism had spread to Ragnar and Mehmed, who I had built roads to for trade routes but it also helps with religion spread I think. I think I still have to worry about Ragnar when pleased, but not the other two.

I gifted my only clam to Ragnar in the hope that that would make him reluctant to attack me, but as I didn't need the health that early it was alright. I chopped archers in my city bordering Ragnar, especially the forests bordering my city in his direction.

Hanny settled the stone site so once I take the gold site from the barbs he'll be my neighbor.

Hanny founds "Confusionism" and now he won't like me much so I better reinforce that side, but maybe it will take Ragnar's attention away from me.

I settled the wheat/wine spot W of capitol right before Ragnar got there, so he kept going to the Marble tundra spot up north.


I teched Aesth:

When I got Aesth (using some scientists) I traded it Hann (because he wasn't anyone's worst enemy yet) for IW, Poly. I teched Alpha for a few turns and then traded Aesth to Boudica for Alpha. And since she was so pleased she gave me Masonry as a gift. Aesth to Mehmed for Math, and once Ragnar "liked me enough" I traded Aesth to him for Sail, PH. So I got 6 techs for Aesth, plus Masonry as a gift. That is why trading is so important in keeping up with the AI.

He sent a HArcher and a Sword and few chariots to take the barb gold city, so I rushed my chariots over there. I only had a couple at this time, and could only get two there fast enough. Ragnar threw his troops against the 3 archers on in that hill city and killed 2 and weakened the other. Fortunately for me he didn't take the city. I took it with one chariot, and promptly whipped a monument.

Another barb city had popped up so I went for that with my chariots that were now coming out before he could get it. I took it and it autorazed which was just as well as it wasn't in the best spot.

I have about as much power as Mehmed, and my power ratio towards Ragnar is improving with the archers I'm making.

At 1 AD Rag now has enough on his hands, but he's pleased with me (he could still attack), but he's annoyed with WKong and they've been worst enemies the whole game so hopefully he's going to attack him. Rag has HArchers and WElephants. With my iron now hooked up I guess I should builds some spears just in case.

I got my first GS at 50AD and built an Acad in my capitol. I also finished teching Lit. I was going to build the GLib, but maybe that's not best for my culture city because I'll get GSs? I think I'll do it anyway. In my normal games I never get any wonders, except maybe SH if my UB is a monument replacement. I don't want to get so wonder dependent that I can't compete on higher levels, but maybe I ignore them too much.

Right now my threats are Hannibal and possibly Ragnar. I think there's still one AI I haven't met though I'm scouting out everyone's land now. Monarchy is a priority, a couple of the AI have it but won't trade it. I'm going to go for Currency first and then hope to trade it, possibly with Lit, for Monarchy and whatever else. I'll just keep cottaging my land and trade for any resources that raise my caps and when I get Monarchy I'll grow all my cottages. Mehmed's only got the two cities, but he won't declare on me.

Here's the world in 1 AD:

HOF Mod Save attached.

 

[BigTime]

Emperor/normal to 1904 AD Culture

Spoiler :

Yeah, I decided to go the easy way out an go culture. Didn't feel like warring today. Boudi went in war mode so I had to cancel the DP with her, she declare on Rag (she must have a death wish) and there was no hope of everybody declaring on me. I also gifted a flipped city back to Rag to increase my disposition, and disbanded another I flipped from him. I finally OB with Hatty and she spread Hindu, which gave me another religion. I had 3 cathedrals in each of the 3 culture cities.

Which means:

The Big three:

Which leads to crappy culture score, yay!

That was a tough map. Next to very competent warmongerers, it was hard to defend myself early-game, which slowed down my tech rate a good deal, reflected in the lib date. After hatreds got started, they never stopped.

I believe it's time for me to dip my toes in Immortal waters. I feel pretty comfortable on emperor now, but hey, maybe I'll get slapped back to reality in Immortal.

 

[tmd171]

Managed my second win since moving up emperor, both have been culture though, I need to defintely get some more variety in.

1855 Cultural Victory on Emperor/Epic

Spoiler :

Interesting map, kinda crammed in there with a bunch of ai's. I noticed mehmed had a pretty weak power rating early on and was starting to build cities up north so I figured he didn't have anymore land down there so I could rush him with chariots. Either, I could kill him now and take his capital which might be good or let him attack me later because I would be his only neighbor/blocking him. I took a city near the gold and horses were in the bfc as well as horses popped up in the capitals culture borders as well.

Mehmed's demise

This might not have been the best of choice because it not only hurt my economy with far away cities but I missed out of a lot of good sites that I could have settled around my start peacefully. I got very lucky because my 3 neighbours, hannibal,boudica, and ragnar all went buddhist so I of course did as well. This helped a lot in diplo and they were constantly declaring on hatty and wang kon and I joined in fake assistance when they asked. I think I had only 1 declare against me semi early on with hannibal and I hold off with pro archers and walls. Economy started off slowly but eventually imrpoved after currency/calendar/monarchy.

Empire around 1AD

I ran some scientists, bulbed philo, and found myself in a tech lead. I probably could have gone diplo or conquest but why mess up my good relations with neighbours I thought. AI's did not tech fast this game, I was able to tech through music for sistine as well as first to get Lib.

Late Lib but atleast I still got it

I took nationalism with Lib and turned off research after printing press. Only 2 religions, another religion came at the end and helped a little but for a long time there were only 2. Mehmed's capital turned into a decent Great Artist farm because of all the special food tiles. Think I got maybe 7 or 8 GA out of it and used them all on great works at the end to even my cities culture out. Ragnar/Boudica both became friendly with me and I eventually signed def pacts with both.

Final land view

3 Cities

First is GP farm

1855 Cultural Victory

Thanks for hosting and next time hopefully I can get something other than a culture win on emperor heh.

 

[Nothingontv]

Monarch-normal.

i'm not going to post a long story here (or pics) because i don't really need advice. It seems i'm looking at a easy domination victory here.
I haven't lost a Monarch game for some time now, even when i mess things up. I will probably play on Emperor the next game.

I do have some observations.

Spoiler :

The Ottomans were boxed in very quickly. They only had room for 3 cities. What completely surprised me though was that they offered me their 3rd city! it wasn't even a bad city. I wasn't stronger then him at that time either since it was in the bc's and i was still expanding.
I didn't take it btw. I have never had this in any of my games, and i have been playing for 7 or 8 months now.

It took a long while before anyone started building any wonders. The pyramids were eventually build in (i think) 1420 ad.
Since i didn't have stone and i wanted to play a warmonger game this time i never bothered with them myself.

Hannibal had the A.Palace and he constantly tried to assign cities back to either their "rightfull" owner or himself. I defied the resolutions a few times but it didn't affect the relationships with the other leaders. Does this only happen with the U.N. ?

 

[madviking]

1AD View, Monarch

Spoiler :

Seems like I was the only person to go for the block on Mehmed...


The annoying Viking city north of me is gonna flip any minute now... It's up to 90 something percent Arab...

 

[madviking]

Monarch-normal.

Spoiler :

The Ottomans were boxed in very quickly. They only had room for 3 cities. What completely surprised me though was that they offered me their 3rd city! it wasn't even a bad city. I wasn't stronger then him at that time either since it was in the bc's and i was still expanding.
I didn't take it btw. I have never had this in any of my games, and i have been playing for 7 or 8 months now.

It took a long while before anyone started building any wonders. The pyramids were eventually build in (i think) 1420 ad.
Since i didn't have stone and i wanted to play a warmonger game this time i never bothered with them myself.

Hannibal had the A.Palace and he constantly tried to assign cities back to either their "rightfull" owner or himself. I defied the resolutions a few times but it didn't affect the relationships with the other leaders. Does this only happen with the U.N. ?

Spoiler :

I was able to make them play OCC! I plopped my first city in the sugar field north of (presumably) Istanbul.

 

[budweiser]

600AD

Spoiler :

I must admit I got crushed by a certain smelly purple barbarian.

My opening went fine. I built SH a city to the west then Oracle>Monarchy. Then I nabbed the stone with a coastal city and settled a NWish city on the plains hill on a river.

The problem was I was playing on the kitchen table just after dinner and the kids were running around. My biggest mistake was trying to build wonders, work cottages and run 2 priests in the cap. I just never found a rythm. At one point 3 cities were each building wonders painfully slowly. No focus.

 

[vicawoo]

To Aesthetics, on immortal. Beat my peaceful expansion!

Spoiler :

Early analysis: mehmed's too far, and it's not worth the maintenance improving the jungle cities. If you take his land, we lose land to ragnar and boudica. So, worker steal mehmed to slow him down and speed me up, and expand.
Second city was the pig/corn/fish/clam city to the north of boudica. It's absurd not to take it. 3rd of course was the double gold. I gifted a settle(d)r to mehmed to pay him back for the worker.
Strategy: There's almost no way to lose this as long as ragnar doesn't attack. He's worst enemies with wang kon, and is the worst enemy of hatshepsut.
Hannibal alone has alphabet. Will trade for aesthetics, do the usual alphabet trades, (particularly iron!) then try to bribe ragnar against wang kon. If I do that, and say bribe boudica against hatshepseut, tech superiority is assured. Also should gift a settle(d)r to Ragnar to seal the deal.

 

[Grashopa]

Vicawoo - Does this count?

Immortal/Normal 1 AD

Spoiler :

Start was Ag - mining - oracle techs - writing. Found the super GP site north of Boudica early and settled there first. Second city I settled next to the double gold in case I needed the commerce post oracle which I did. Optimally it goes 1W (barb city was already 3N of that spot) but that would have delayed the hookup too long. Oracle'd CoL for caste and with the missionary I got Ragnar into Confuscianism.

After that I went fishing AH masonry and hooked up the stone for the pyramids. Ragnar was pleased with me, but I think he can still attack and he was gearing up so I built 5 archers before finishing the 'mids and put them in the flip'd barb city on the hill. Ran a 0% slider until I could trade for math then took CS. Now I'm grabbing Lit hoping I unlock the HE. Probably should have grabbed construction though as no one will trade it to me.

Mehmed is dead shortly since the barb city blocked him off, after that I need catapults to take out Hannibal. He already has longbows, but he got blocked off into 3 cities. Capital + HE city is enough. I assume Hannibal is attacking me anyway. Ragnar is probably going to declare on WK shortly.

I have no cottages which is giving me the shakes. I missed a GE with ~25% odds... mining inc is ridiculous with all the marble metals and gold. Though I let Boudica settle one of my irons.

 

[madviking]

Spoiler :

Ugh, fighting a war with Ragnar is reeeeeeeeeeeeeally tough. My game is not going in a good direction right now either. It's 1903AD. The Celts vassalized Egypt, Korea and the Ottomans. Carthage vassalized dying Scandinavia (this was during my war... so I have to fight Hannibal now too ) And I'm kinda reeling from all the WW. Really reeling. I don't know where my game is going at all . The Celts are prolly gonna win UN and I don't feel like nuking her either. I mean it was fun seeing everyone play the same map and saw people's openings. But Saladin is middle/low tier leader with a middle/low tier civ. The best use of protective is the Drill 1. It is for intents and purposes exactly like Combat 1, in the way it always you to access shock, pinch, medic, etc. It was also difficult starting in the middle of the pangea like that too. Had I been in Hanny's place, fighting the Vikings would have been a lot easier.

But I was still able to get Liberalism first (~1440AD, pretty late actually...) and build the Kremlin. It's just Ragnar beelined for AL, Fascism and Radio . So he had the early quality advantage. Good thing my Heroic Epic city randomly had 25 muskets laying around . But it's freaking expensive to upgrade all of them to infantry; 5000 bucks! I managed to captured five of his cities, including his capital, but the lack of happiness resources and health resources really made my cities unhappy and unhealthy. Mehmed was playing wonder hog (no reason not too, he had one city ) and the AP shredded Wangy and Hatty (AP was Buddhist, founded by the Celts; me, Boob-icea, Ragnar, Mehmed were the members)

Good job to those of you who won!

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Monarch, Marathon played to around 1300ad then gave up It was BAD

Spoiler :

How bad? by 1000 I was just BARELY into medieval age, hadnt even gotten my first GP yet, was trying to get engineering while everybody else had rifles. How bad? So bad that my arch enemy rags who LITERALLY in game after game goes out of his way to attack me was giving me pity techs. How bad? I joined in a dow dogpile on hatie and after Rags was stomping on her cities she refused to accept peace even after she did with Rags--yeah hattie felt she was stronger MILITARILY than me HATTIE. :/

It was just pitiful. By time I quit Rags steamrolled EVERBODY except me and BootyCall and after he vassalized evrybody else he went into wheooh mode again. I wasnt worried bout dow both BootyCall and Rags were friendly with me but I didnt see any way out of what would happen next. Rags Dow BC and rags vassalizes her meaning EVERYBODY but me is his vassal and if he doesnt get enuff for dom win with bootycalls land it just matter of time before SOME diplo win vote comes up and all his vassals vote for him.

And thats IF neither of them ask for help. If rags asks and I say no I drop below friendly and he WILL attack me if bootycall doesnt kill me off in meantime. Or bootycall asks me and I say no and then if Rags doesnt kill her off/cap her then she targets me. (and ALL this is assuming Rags doesnt decide to go FR or leave HR in which case again he drops below friendly and Im dead)

Two mistakes I made. My first city I planted right up in Meh's face blocking him off and that held him to just one city whole game but I never followed up. I SHOULD have just hit his cap with chariots but with rags AND bootycall so near I was paranoid about moving my army off to attack plus he had copper and waited just till it was too late.

And second I mismanaged everything BIGTIME for pretty much ALL of BC's my beaker rate was like 3 bpt. I TRIED working cottages (so much so that I hardly rany ANY specialists and hence no gp until the ad's) but I needed to do a better job.

I got 9 cities but since my tech rate was sooo slow the AI's just started pulling ahead and I had no way to keep up Alphabet was like 140 plus turn trudge and by time I got it ai was so far ahead they all had it so couldnt trade it. They were so far ahead at that point IW was a pity gift from rags :/. So this game for me was just one pitiful mess grrr.

Kaytie

 

[vicawoo]

Grashopa: very nice, although that's a little odd about the slow expansion of two of your enemies.

 

[Grashopa]

Vicawoo - that was the barbs if you saw my first screen shot :O

 

[Xoxsen]

Hooray! Finally got my first win at Monarch. Special thanks to the CivFanatic forums in general and to TMIT, in particular. (The youtube series was incredibly helpful to learn what information higher level players are looking for at all points during the game...)

Spoiler :

Nothing weird in my game that hasn't already been mentioned so far in this thread. Had the same fun with Ragnar as most people. Basically got to Rifling and destroyed/capitulated my half of the world and basically worked by way through Boudica to WK and, eventually, Hattie. (Was up to tanks and planes, by then.)

The key learning points that got me here
1) Whip. Whip. Then whip again.
2) Work only good/improved tiles. If someone is working crap, I'm not whipping enough...
3) Infrastructure is optional. (It's kinda disappointing that this is true. You'd think there would be more value placed on building up your cities vs. food-granary-barracks military makers, but not really. Got the key national wonders (Oxford, HE) up and going to learn and churn (military). But no religious buildings at all and darn few cash buildings...)
4) Drafting is good. Really, really good. I'm quite sure I was far from optimal on how I did everything, but once my expansion was done and I slungshot (is that a word?) to Nationalism off of Liberalism and started drafting rifles, it was mostly over. The fact that I ended up WAY behind WK and Hattie in tech didn't matter since they don't really build militaries and 10 riflemen > 1 infantry
5)Tech watching. Learned this from TMIT's youtube series. Just actually <gasp!> paying attention to what the AI is teching and planning my teching according to that and to current circumstances makes so much difference. I used to tech my own way and occasionally see what the AI had to trade. This game, I planned everything around my starting resources and eventually on what the AI's had and were doing. (Kossin's DR series has also been really good at showing this to me.)

Looking forward to knocking off a whole bunch more Monarch-level games and eventually moving up to Emperor...

See screen shots for completely gratuitous self-congratulations...

- X

EDIT: Or not. I'm having trouble with getting the screenies to show directly here.
RE-EDIT: Fixed.

 

[champinoman]

Being new to the Monarch difficulty I decided playing a forum game would be the best way to get advice. I have played most of my games on Noble to this point so I'm hoping I can handle the jump. All advice welcome

Alive and well(?) at 1AD.

Spoiler :

State of the world:

Mecca:

Medina:

Medina was meant to be founded in the location to the west near the duel gold however barb pressure and awol warriors forced the settler to run east delaying the gold city for a few turns.
Still trying to figure out the governor as well so didn't realise I had priests in the city. I guess I need to hope for a GS now.

Damascus:

Baghdad was founded to apply a block however didn't quite go to plan. However stealing the pigs was quite nice and Tolosa will suffer. Basra was founded purely for the Iron as I was the weakest nation without the ability to produce stronger units than the chariot.

Tech Situation:

I wasted a bunch of turns on Alphabet before switching to Aesthetics however I was still able to trade it around to catch up on all the techs I had missed. Could have been further in front but never mind.

Diplo:

No love but no hate. I was hoping to get Buddhism to join the mini love fest but sadly it has been spread everywhere except me.

My current plans are to tech to my UU and head down south to eliminate Mehmed.

 

[Sadadar]

This is my second one of these, it seems like a difficult map and I'm at a major decision point in my game, here we go so far:

Spoiler :

Early on I have some bad luck with my scouts and ended up feeling the need to rush out my second city, I founded Medina on just the other side of the hills. I wanted to get those two gold and horses early, I had no idea when I'd get to bronze working so I wanted some chariots to explore and help fog bust. I figured this was a good quick spot.

A good bit into the future the situation is quite interesting.

I've expanded peacefully and managed diplomacy between all the locals carefully. I founded confusionism and am spreading it like mad for some money. I am thinking of going music and pushing for a cultural victory but I don't love my cities for it. I've got ragnar and hannibal at pleased, but they both seem to like bodica and mehmed also, so I'm not sure where to go if I war, I have some good production cities. I'm not excited to tangle with ragnar or hannibal and have the other up in my face....

 

[BigTime]

@ Xoxsen

Can you please put all that in spoilers? Typically, you will want your report like this:

Difficulty/speed to X BC/AD

Spoiler :

Game info here

Congrats on your first monarch win, though TMIT's youtube videos were very helpful to me as well.