Monarch Student^ XXXIX Julius Caesar

[MeowZeDung]

Wow. Some of you guys make this look easy.

I win almost all games at Prince/Noble but Monarch is giving me a run for my money. I've only got two Monarch victories under my belt, both culture (Louis and Ramses) and I've lost countless attempts at Monarch. Thought I'd give this one a try and break away from my peacemonger tendencies with a strong UU.

Didn't happen.

I tried though, honestly.

Spoiler :

Praet "rushed" Asoka (Pacal and I shared a religion and even though he was a better target due to proximity I wanted to keep at least one ally for a while) and eliminated him with relative ease.

Then I turned to Frederick and took him from 7-8 cities to 4 before taking peace. At that point I reverted to my old ways of peaceful building. I maintained a military but never surpassed Pacal in power rankings so I got cold feet and never invaded.

Decided to go for a Space Victory. Had a commanding tech lead most of the game (like 4-5 ahead of Pacal, 7-8 ahead of other continents civs) right up until around Robotics. Somehow, and I don't know how, that rat bastid Pacal finally overtook me at Fiber Optics (I built internet, so that's not it, and I didn't give him any useful techs).

I still thought I had it due to space elevator/aluminum/and 4-5 insanely productive cities. In fact I would have won. . . had my cockpit not been sabotaged about 6 turns before my engines were done. I was livid. As a result Pacal launched about 4 turns before me. I was hoping his launch would fail because he only had one engine. Nope. Frustrating loss due to espionage of all things.

I seriously need to break away from my builder play style and learn to properly warmonger. Gonna go through all the old bullpens and work on it. Advice?

 

[Um the Muse]

@MeowZeDung:

Spoiler :

That's weird that Pacal was able to keep up in military, but you shouldn't let that stop you. Siege really is the great equalizer.

On the other hand, I find wars tedious and don't do them often. So, what I'd do is either use diplomacy to get someone to take Pacal down a notch or two or use my own espionage against Pacal. Late-game espionage is very powerful and fairly efficient. You could either destroy his engine or get him to change civics every couple of turns. That many turns of anarchy should stop him cold

By the way, it's usually a bad idea to go for the elevator. It's not too hard to build, but getting the techs is too expensive

.

 

[pigswill]

@MeowZeDung. Advice? Start war earlier. If you war early and get a huge bunch of land you can indulge your builder tendencies as much as you like.

 

[MesSer]

@MeowZeDung:

I'm kinda crap at war. I've learned a few things that are good to know though when it comes to getting a leverage. Just rush these things and then get into war for pure ownage.

Cannons + something works wonderful
Cannons + rifles are even better

An alternative to the cannon rush is a cavalry rush, if you have lots of grassland/towns and flat ground you can pursue Communism + kremlin and rushbuild cavalries with 0% on slider.

Another way of gaining an edge is to get Artillery, Infantry and Fighters. That setup will work wonders against everything.

If you need to take over an enemy on another continent you don't really need anything except, carriers, destroyers, transports, infantry (marines) and fighters.

That means you can virtually turn off your slider after getting those things and then rush buying stuff. Works good enough against everything even at the very end.

 

[MeowZeDung]

Thanks for the advice you guys. I will definitely need to experiment with rushbuying in mid-game wars.

@pigswill, you're definitely right. I'm faring much better in this regard with the game I just started, MSXXXIII Victoria. One rival eliminated by 1,000BC and on my way to eliminate/weaken the next closest neighbor with a stack of axes and a GG The early DOW (via worker steal, which I didn't even think was viable on Monarch!) was definitely the key. Sticking with just two cities focusing on nothing else but Barracks > Axes was what made it work. I didn't do that in this thread's game.

My plan is to wage this second war, maybe take peace for some techs and then REX > Redcoat spam for later wars. . . but that's a post for a different thread

 

[i_imperator]

@MeowZeDung:

Cannons + something works wonderful
Cannons + rifles are even better

An alternative to the cannon rush is a cavalry rush, if you have lots of grassland/towns and flat ground you can pursue Communism + kremlin and rushbuild cavalries with 0% on slider.

Another way of gaining an edge is to get Artillery, Infantry and Fighters. That setup will work wonders against everything.

If you need to take over an enemy on another continent you don't really need anything except, carriers, destroyers, transports, infantry (marines) and fighters.

That means you can virtually turn off your slider after getting those things and then rush buying stuff. Works good enough against everything even at the very end.

Good points but i've found that going calvery early is a better and faster option, if your enemy dose'nt have rifles you can overrun them. Calvery can also threaten multiple cities, something the AI fails completly to counter attack (to be fair though, humans have trouble with that in multiplayer aswell).
The AI then goes into a protective shell and gets crushed if you keep it up. This is what i did in my game.

 

[Um the Muse]

Good points but i've found that going calvery early is a better and faster option, if your enemy dose'nt have rifles you can overrun them. Calvery can also threaten multiple cities, something the AI fails completly to counter attack (to be fair though, humans have trouble with that in multiplayer aswell).
The AI then goes into a protective shell and gets crushed if you keep it up. This is what i did in my game.

I think I get what you're saying here, but I'd like to see it if you happen to still have an example.

From what I read on this site, cuirasairs are actually the more effective unit, btw.

 

[pigswill]

You can get cuirassiers fairly early by combining lit>music beeline with standard lib beeline and ignoring bottom path (MC, machinery etc) except in trade.