Monarch Students game - climbing from Prince

[Single Malt]

I think I need to junk my pre-Monarch style of play. I have always founded 3 or 4 religions. It gives you money, culture, production speed (with OR), and diplomatic leverage/flexibility. However, I am sure that ignoring religion early allows for faster expansion. In my current game, I have other civs jammed up against me, and I will have to go to war with somebody just to have space to lay out my six cities. I do not like to have to play that way.

Judging by what your saying you dont like to war all that much. My advice is to prepare for war at all times, and if a window of opportunity opens, take it. Land is power.

 

[nanomage]

founding multiple religions is very useful under some circumstances.after all, it gives you +happy faces, +beakers, +culture and +gold. if you have no chance that opponents having found new religions will split Great AI's Buddha/Hindu Bloc (and for late religions it's generally true) then IMHO it's more beneficial to found it yourself. and that's not at all that difficult (at emperor at least) - CoL, Phi, Theo are all "bulbable" and quite a priority. you will need these techs anyway, so why not bulb and grab a religion as bonus? (again aside from possibility of breaking the Buddha bloc) )DR is useless though.

 

[Single Malt]

founding multiple religions is very useful under some circumstances.after all, it gives you +happy faces, +beakers, +culture and +gold. if you have no chance that opponents having found new religions will split Great AI's Buddha/Hindu Bloc (and for late religions it's generally true) then IMHO it's more beneficial to found it yourself. and that's not at all that difficult (at emperor at least) - CoL, Phi, Theo are all "bulbable" and quite a priority. you will need these techs anyway, so why not bulb and grab a religion as bonus? (again aside from possibility of breaking the Buddha bloc) )DR is useless though.

I disagree, divine right is one of the best - if you have ai contact. Its highly prioritised, and hence trade dynamite. Even with both wonders built.

 

[Trynthlas]

Played this game, and ended up finishing it first of the 3 Monarch learning games posted so far.

Did some decent early expansion, knew mr. Caesar would be causing issues so I built up military and whacked him good (took 2 wars, both of which HE started )

After that I was buddy-buddy with Isabella and SB for a good while thanks to a shared religion, but eventually a certain religious fanatic decided to go into FR, putting her at Cautious with me...well, soon enough the demands came, and I prepped for war again. Izzy got whacked good in a pretty long war, then vassalized to SB after I gave her peace (but not vassalized, I planned to finish the job after the 10 turn break).

Well, that put a wrench in things, and as SB was pissing me off by stealing techs and such other nasty espionage things, I just went with a big military buildup (by this time I'm cranking artillery, tanks, and infantry/marines, plus some air support). Declared on him, and was in the process of steamrolling both SB and Izzy when Willem built the UN, I got elected leader, and on a whim picked Diplo victory.

Well, thanks to my very friendly relations with Justinian, his votes plus my 50% population-worth of votes = diplo win before the domination win came to fruition. This felt more like a prince level game than a monarch one, to me. I wasn't aiming for a specific victory, but ended up heading towards military just due to the AI actions.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

Congratulations. You are a great player. I love playing Ramesses. You have inspired me to polish up my warring skills. I am having a hard time winning at Monarch without making wars. At the lower difficulty levels, I can win without making wars, and I HATE wars, because I get "war weary" myself after awhile and start making silly (and sometimes fatal) strategic errors.

Is there a good instructional article here on battle strategy and methods?

 

[Gumbolt]

Judging by what your saying you dont like to war all that much. My advice is to prepare for war at all times, and if a window of opportunity opens, take it. Land is power.

I pretty mutch ignore the first 3 religions. I prefer to capture one through combat. Lot easier esp on Emp level. Oracle and Conf is a more easier first religion. Philosophy if you bulb it or use GS right.

Nice diplomatic victory above. )

 

[Single Malt]

Congratulations. You are a great player. I love playing Ramesses. You have inspired me to polish up my warring skills. I am having a hard time winning at Monarch without making wars. At the lower difficulty levels, I can win without making wars, and I HATE wars, because I get "war weary" myself after awhile and start making silly (and sometimes fatal) strategic errors.

Is there a good instructional article here on battle strategy and methods?

Browse the War Academy, and read/participate in the various succession games that run on these forums. Thats the only reason I am playing monarch level. Learn to war without a decisive tech lead, instead push every small advantage. I have not won a game/war on monarch where I was decisively ahead in tech.

 

[fugazi]

I gave this game a try and was way too slow with taking out Julius. At 1500BC he already was sporting a few praetorians along my border, and not much later declared war on me. I managed to take my city that he took back and razed one of his cities and killed more of his troops before declaring peace.

I tried to work on my spy game and managed to steal tons of techs from Sitting Bull who so happened to be a crazy techer. I stole optics, drama, music, fuedalism, guilds, banking, gunpowder, chemistry and military science so far and compass and astronomy are going to follow. Thanks to all that stealing I got a nice techlead and once infantry are online my continent will suffer the consequences for letting this god-king live.

I'll try posting some screenies later once I finished it

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

Gumbolt, you would be proud of me. The Japanese were crowding me at the beginning, so as soon as I made my first War Chariot, I went on the attack. He had 4 cities but no functioning metal mines, so I had clear military advantage (War Chariots and Axes versus Archers. I took out three of his cities, but his main city cranked out Archers as fast as I could kill them. By 500 AD, he had 10 archers in the city even though I wiped out all his food and mines immediately. I did research all the way up to Catapults, and would have eventually got him, but by 500 AD, I was 400 points behind the leaders and quit in frustration. What did I do wrong, or is this just what to expect at Monarch?