Monarch Students game - climbing from Prince

[Sian]

going to takea stab at this ... just got my computer back from repair and was somewhere between Prince and Monarch before

 

[Sian]

to 1000 BC

Spoiler :

started out searching in the north quickly running into JC ... looks like a feastable rush target, unless he's placed on a hill ... turned eastwards and ran into Sitting bull, urgh ... maybe not that expansive or aggasive but a hell to get loose if he got time to stick

got event ... +2 health in all cities thebes is still that small that it couldn't get -pop and it'll take to much time for it to get high enough (even with the food heavy titles) for the Whip faces to be a matter)

rushed a few settlers to try to block JC, choosing against a rush at him, chopping Stonehenge in the progress in Thebes, and continueing to trying to block off people so i can have a nice area for my self.

while i'm rushing settlers around i notice something running around in the neighborhood ... JC got Preats, seems like i'm going to play kissy kissy towards his rear end for some time hoping i can get him to look more towards the Bull.

overview per 1000bc

as you can see the continent is at the moment about to be Buddist, Isabella mailed me a Missionary which arrived and set up shop in Elephantine in 1075bc ...

I got room for 3, if lucky 4 cities more not counting Arretium which is currently 97% egyptian (was built by rome 2 turns before border pop), and when i've built those cities i'm going to get out an army and depending on how it looks attacking either Rome or Mongolia

to do:
get the last settlers out getting the last few cities placed.
build Axes enough to convince JC and to a lesser extend Kubai that its proberly a bad idea to jump me
build an army

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Hello all.

I've played up to 10 AD but I need to eat/take care of some things so I'll play the rest later:

Spoiler :

I decided, since I'm ram and all, to open up with just a tiny hint of obsolete. This means I teched straight to masonry while building a worker, started the great wall, teched bronzworking then mysticism, then chopped out stonehenge. Stonehenge might have been a bit frivolous, but I find the wall pretty valuable in most games. With more chopping first city was not delayed too badly:

And, well, we get a gay event. I hate events. Turn them off please! I came THIS close to getting a free city from sitting bull due to this...

I use war chariots to rush BARB cities:

I grab an important gems for city:

And more barb cities:

More uprisings!

Once I'd settled or captured most of the possible sites I was really hurting for tech. I closed out the segment by starting the cottage spam. I'm teching to aesthetics (usually don't on monarch) to trade back into the race.

On the bright side, I have more cities than many of my neighbors, a decent military, and am part of a buddhist love fest.

I'm feeling a medieval war on JC. JC and Kublai declare at pleased, but KK likes bureaucracy so I can get him to friendly. Sitting Bull is pretty peaceful and I'll just give him stuff when he asks. This should allow me to dow and kill JC with only minimal diplo repercussions and no .

Theology based CR II maces should do the trick. I'll just throw in a HA or two to deal with the xbows.

View attachment 197629

 

[KingMorgan]

4000BC to 10 AD

Spoiler :

Settle 1S for river frontage. Leeves + plains hills = lots of tanks. worker goes NE and spys a hut. Hut gives AH. Worker first build, Mining then BW.

3750bc Hut pops for a scout.
3400bc meet Kubli. Scout pops hut for experience. promtly get skilled by lion.
3250bc pop Pottery from hut.
3175bc meet caesar arrives from west. I'm not overjoyed, early war chariots?
3125bc BW in, MYS next, might chop S/H - free UB in all cities.
2995bc meet Izzy down south near K Kahn,
2850bc Native American Civ has been destroyed!! Protective and starts with Archery, and he is dead
2600bc pop hostiles from hut.

2550 stonehenge completes start settler
2300 i decide to take a shot at oracle, tech MED then PRE, i will probably take CoL if Izzy doesn't find relegion, none of the AI has a founded one yet. Judaism has gone so i should be able to dominate the continent with Confu. Spread it, shrine it for easy money.
2225 open borders with izzy, have a quick explore round madrid, Kubli o/b few years later

1700 teched MAS, now maths, i may chop the Mids if there is time. Settling 3 cities is my next priorty. also need troops.

1650 took CoL from Oracle, will convert to Confu. Was tempted to take Mon for HR, vertical growth around now is always good. A few calender resources availble, usually it's easy to trade for calender a little later.

1600 caesar settles 1N of my Bronze spot, i'm not too happy. He also has Paets.

1325 Sandwiched between Paets and Keshnis. Great.

1300 Strange barb beheviour, deserting the city, autoraise the city.
1325 settle GP in Capital, slider returns to 100%

1075 i meet what is left of shtting bull!! as it was a captial i bet there is loads of seafood in the fog, i'll build a few war chariots and see if i can take, should be a good city and worth the maintenance this early,

470 take Cahkioa, just before romes stack. Nic3e city, has iron, pigs,rice and 2 seafood, GPP farm!!

was going to settle the spot marked 'here' but there is a barb city just spawned, will save me a settler, stack will heal then head SW.

335 we are united continent, i pray we are anyhow i don;t fancy a DOW just now.

290 Bad placement by Kublai, usually when a city is built that close there will be DOw justs round the corner. hopefuly he just wants to culture war the gems.

275 city ruins event, +151 for Mcast, 50 gold wins me 151 more! always worth keeping ruins in the bfc if possible.

245 Kublai DOWs, 5 Keshnis captapult, axe, raise my undefended city in the dyes, i whip, chop, whip and chop 4 spears, stack is sent to doubel gems city as garrison, spears are whiped. cos the Ai is stupid it spent 3 turns chipping away at the culture defence. Kublia attacked and lost every unit, 2nd stack at double gems did no better, more capaults by less keshnis.
5bc mope up a few units and gain a GG


pretty happy overall, need more workers, better improvements. happy with the city sites, could have had a lot more if KK hadn;t popped in. need to take the barb city in the center and resettle the dyes, add a city south of cahkioa and then the empire should be set. KK will see the error of his ways shortly.

World

Techs

My sadly abused capital, still mine though!

 

[gcm4738]

I'm up to 40 AD now. For anyone who's wondering whether to join or not based on the fact that it's a game-created map I'll say this - it seems fair to me. It's a good challenge. Not too tough, not too easy. (Maybe someone would disagree with me!) But it has been a fun game so far.

And having read through the saves posted so far... Wow - quite a bit of difference in strategy and approach to this game - as well as what's happened between the AI's! Wild stuff!

Spoiler :

Oh boy would I give my left arm for some marble tho. And if one of the AI's goes militant on me I think it's game over.

King Morgan quote: "Sandwiched between Kesiks and Praets. Great." I know the feeling!

Full report tomorrow.

Good job Ai Shikuza!

 

[Single Malt]

I didn't do the edits Bleys mentioned. Thanx for the info BTW. Shizuka the turns and speed need to be edited. I'll edit my original attachment.

On another note I made a stab at it earlier, but have trouble when it comes to war. Is a warrior rush possible on Monarch? And if I try a warrior rush should a worker come first to improve food?

 

[Single Malt]

gcm

Spoiler :

I've tried twice at this. My first attempt a neighbour got militant at 1600BC with praets Suffice to say that was quickly abandoned.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I didn't do the edits Bleys mentioned. Thanx for the info BTW. Shizuka the turns and speed need to be edited. I'll edit my original attachment.

On another note I made a stab at it earlier, but have trouble when it comes to war. Is a warrior rush possible on Monarch? And if I try a warrior rush should a worker come first to improve food?

If you aren't inca, a warrior rush is out after prince.

Granted, with aggressive civs I've spammed out 10-11 warriors and hit someone ASAP, but the cost of doing this outweighs the benefit greatly. You even get owned by barbs and have zero tech power .

Speaking of barbs, I like the kind of luck different games are getting with them .

As usual, I lost a building to a hurricane too. I hate events so much lol.

 

[MkLh]

OK, I played the to 1250BC. I normally play on Emperor and should have a decent winning rate on Monarch, but let's see...

Spoiler :

War Chariot rush may be efficient here but it's always some kind of a risk and I don't like early rushes. There is not that much land for peaceful building either. Instead I founded just 4 cities and try to execute a catapult-axe -war with them. It's interesting to see how difficult Bull or Caesar (he has Iron..) is to kill with cats (just hope that Bull has no Feudalism by then..).

Capital build order was worker, warrior, warrior (growing to size 5), worker, settler, worker.. Other cities connected Bronze and Gold and Gems and Horses. Tech order was AH, Mining, Bronze, Mysticism (to pop Memphis's borders), Iron Working (because of 2 jungle gems south), Pottery, Writing, Mathematics (prereq. of Construction).

View attachment 197636
View attachment 197638
View attachment 197639
View attachment 197640

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Shizuka the turns and speed need to be edited. I'll edit my original attachment.

Ouch. May be too late to edit the save. Is it working properly on epic speed only?

 

[nanomage]

nice idea to do such a game guys. i think i'l download a save and play "one more turn"

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Here we go with the first segment to 10 AD. It didn't feel very different from a Prince game and it's going pretty well so far. I don't think the map is too easy, so I'm going to ego-boost myself and say I'm doing it right. I guess .

Spoiler :

Started with Animal Husbandry to locate horses early and make good use of those war chariots, if possible.

Tech path: AH - mining - BW - mysticism - hunting - archery - pottery - masonry - IW - writing - alphabet - metal casting - currency

4000 - Thebes founded in place. I like the extra hammer and can't see any reason not to settle in place. Starts on a worker.

3875 - 55 gold from a hut.

3825 - 87 gold from a hut.

3675 - Scout from a hut. Warrior heads back to Thebes. Buddhism FIDL.

3250 - Worker-->warrior.

3525 - AH-->mining. Horses are very close to the NW.

3425 - Hinduism FIDL.

3300 - Scout gets exp from the last hut.

3275 - Warrior-->settler.

3250 - Mining-->BW.

3125 - First AI is Julius Caesar. I'm not comfortable with this guy next door. His praetorians have a pretty large window of domination. So he needs to be taken care of early or kissed up until medieval units. I'll consider a war chariot rush if he's too close. I mean, look at his eyes. He's crazy like a coconut:

3100 - Forest event. I have the cash, so the forest is saved:

2925 - Next AI. Not a psycho like his grandpa, but still dangerous. And I hate creative neighbors:

2875 - Settler-->worker-->barracks

2800 - Memphis is founded and starts building barracks. It claims horses in the first ring and can use Thebes' pigs to grow. Moai statues will go here:

2700 - BW-->mysticism. Copper is not far to the east, but I'm going to focus on chariots.

2575 - Next AI, founder of Buddhism. I hope she will act as usual and make this continent a big happy buddhist family:

2500 - Mysticism-->hunting

2450 - Barracks completed in Thebes, wich starts spamming war chariots.

2425 - Judaism FIDL.

2375 - Next AI is the Sitting Turtle. 5 of us on this continent. I hope the other continent isn't too big, or we may face some very overpowered friends post astro:

2350 - Hunting-->archery.

2300 - Barracks completed in Memphis. War Chariot spamming starts here as well. I will switch in and out from slavery to whip some chariots in both cities.

2175 - Archery-->pottery.

1900 - Pottery-->masonry.

1875 - Finally ready to DoW on JC. He doesn't look amused:

1850 - Ouch. He has praetorians. A single one yet, but more of them can royally screw our plans. In the worst case, I may stop after capturing Rome. The rest of his land doesn't look very good and he will be crippled and useless.
Anyway, on Rome.
First 2 chariots do some damage to the praetorian. The first dies, the second retreats. 3rd chariot damages a spear and dies. 4th chariot doesn't inflict any damage and dies. 5th damages an archer and dies. 6th kills praet. 7th kills archer. 8th kills spear and Rome falls:

1800 - A lone praet arrives at Rome, kills a chariot and fortify on a hill.

1750 - Lone war chariot kills an archer at Antium.

1725 - A chariot from Rome damages that praet and dies, the second chariot kills it. An extra chariot at Antium kills another archer. Antium down to 1 pop, so no more archer whipping. At this point Thebes and Memphis are still spamming chariots.

1700 - Masonry-->IW. Chariot damages archer at Antium and retreats.

1650 - Antium razed, bad spot. 2 free workers are added to the egyptian empire:

1600 - The first GG becomes a medic chariot.

1575 - Enough chariots to complete the job. Thebes starts building an archer for its own defense.

1550 - Same in Memphis. Stonehenge BIDL.

1500 - Thebes starts building the Great Wall. Late, but it's 10 turns only and will be helped with some chopping. It looks like the other civs aren't in a building mood anyway.

1475 - Memphis archer-->obelisk. It's still claiming the first ring only. Good news and a nice change for Ramesses, wich usually is dead last in this hit parade:

1450 - Ready to take JC's last hideout:

1st chariot kills an archer. 2nd damages and dies. 3rd kills the last Roman archer. Cumae, a bad tundra city, is burned to the ground and Julius Caesar is no more:

1350 - GW completed. Thebes switch to archer+settlere. Time to expand.
Memphis obelisk-->granary.

1175 - IW-->writing. We have iron in Thebes BFC. And look where JC was getting his iron. Just on Rome's doorstep. A few turns later and our chariots wouldn't have been so triumphant:

1175 - Barb city auto-razed:

1050 - Thebes settler-->granary.

975 - Another barb city auto-razed. And Heliopolis:

800 - Confucianism FIDL.

775 - Writing-->Alphabet. For some reason the Bull and Kubilai are annoyed at each other, so I open borders to Isabella only.

725 - Gold pops near Rome and our research rate is instantly raised from 30 to 60:

675 - Looks like the Great Wall wasn't a bad investment, after all:

With our chariot brigade busy kicking barbs around the continent, Attila could have done some serious damage:

525 - Library done in Thebes and 2 scientists are immediately hired to boost our pathetic research.

500 - Sitting Bull convert to Buddhism.

425 - Taoism FIDL. Oracle BIDL. Was about time. A barb city is captured. It's settled on copper, but still a decent spot:

And Elephantine:

365 - Kubilai converts to Buddhism.

350 - Alphabet-->Metal casting. First Great Scientist builds an academy in Thebes.

335 - Now something odd. I was building the Pyramids in Rome, basically for the cash, as I started very late. But, as said above, our friends aren't in building mood. So, when I realized there was only 10 turns left I chopped a couple forests and starved Rome to work some high production tiles. Result:

And switch to Representation.

320 - OB with Kubilai.

230 - Christianity FIDL and Buddhist finally spreads to us. I don't convert yet. Waiting for someone to request it and gain an easy diplo bonus.

200 - Kubilai comes begging. It's dirt cheap, so I agree:

And immediately get Mathematics and Fishing for Alphabet.

110 - MC-->currency

65 - Food event with the Bull. I pick the +3 option:

Images limit is close, state of the world coming soon.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

And the state of the world at 10 AD:

Spoiler :

Tech situation. Not bad, MC has very high value:

Glance. Buddha Buddha lovefest. I'm still in no state religion, so no bonus yet:

South. Kubilai is already pushing on Heliopolis' border:

Core:

Old Rome. That barb city is on a hill and I don't want to waste too many war chariots. Will build a couple CR swords to capture it:

Demographics, not bad. But the GNP leader looks quite scary:

Our chariots' statistics. They killed 2 praetorians as well.
And before TMIT gets a heart attack, that's not the real time. I alt-tab a lot to do other things and the game keeps running. Currently at 4:19 hours:

And the cities:

I'm happy with this game so far. JC out of the equation means no risk of multiple fronts dogpiling. And this way I avoided a very long era of praetorians-induced terror.
If I remember correctly, Sitting Bull is one of the most peaceful leaders and will be quiet if I don't do anything really horrible.
Isabella is busy down there with her missionaries.
Kubilai is going to be an annoyance with his culture pressure and he's the most likely target. We are in Keshik zone already and, sadly, there are no jumbos on this continent. So I'm thinking about medieval war here, with trebs, maces and pikes stack protection. Those chariots will be upgraded to knights for pillaging/harassing purposes.

Short term goals:
- Beat Sitting Bull to Shangian.
- Research CoL after currency and get those courthouses
- Refine some cities. Rome and Memphis will focus on production. I think Memphis will grab some mines from Thebes, wich will start working some more cottages. Heliopolis will be a nice commerce site, but I need to fix the culture issue, maybe running an artist there.

Medium term:
- When the economy is in good shape, get more land. As said above, Kubilai looks like a good candidate.

Overall, this game isn't much more difficult than a Prince game so far. But there is still the other continent to consider.
And all the people on this continent greatly reduced the barbarian activity.

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

I might get time to play this one a little bit tonight, but work is screwing me over. I'll probably play it tomorrow night instead.

Start looks good enough. I don't think I've ever used Ramses except for OCC, where I use him a majority of the time. I Wonder if a WE/SSE is possible here...I'm getting better at doing them since I have followed quite a few of Obsolete's games...on the other hand, jumping to monarch AND trying an economy I have only won with once other than OCC is probably not the brightest idea.

Oh, and spiritual ROCKS as long as you actually remember you have the trait. I forget to abuse it as much as I should. I love how everyone has their own evaluation of the traits. I saw a thread recently where someone had charismatic as the 2nd worst trait in the game! How is that even possible?

 

[Single Malt]

Shizuka, the one attached to my post will work for all speeds properly.

Till 200 something BC, my 3rd attempt.

Spoiler :

my tech path went mining=>AH=>BW, build was worker=>warrior=>warrior, then start barracks and at size 4 settler was started. I saved at finishing settler.

Now cesar put a city near a spot I had in mind for rice and two spices. I wouldn't mind a few useful comments regarding the dotmap. Also which would be good for using this settler? I was thinking getting the rice/gold/horse/incense site. A lot of desert there. Or should I park the settler till copper is revealed? Also regarding techpath I was thinking Myst=>Hunting=>Archery=>pottery. Another consideration I have made is to settle horse asap and chariot rush Cesar, but at 2775 it may be a little late for that.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Ok, thanks again and found out wich line needed to be edited.

About the game:

Spoiler :

I'd say go for the horse/gold site first. I'm not sure about my horse city placement. It claimed horses in the first ring, but it's not so great long-term. A monument and all those turns for the border pop are definitely going to make a chariot rush impossible, at least vs JC. Long-term, your site is way better. Other people have settled that site, too.

About chariot rushing JC, I think you are too late. I started spamming barracks-promoted chariots from 2 cities in 2400-2300, and still...not sure if you want it spoiled, just check my game if interested about a chariot rush.

Anyway, don't park the settler. Land competition will be fierce.

 

[Single Malt]

Cheers for the tips, I'll stick with my tech path and see where it leads

 

[TheMeInTeam]

This map is...kind of unkind. A cruel exercise for people making the jump to monarch...I'd say it's a better training ground for monarch players looking to jump to emperor!

I played an ugly game to 1871 where I won a UN victory. I'll try and break my spoilers into 2 sections so that people can view them earlier than beating the game themselves.

To 1445 AD

Spoiler :

I didn't have a peaceful game long. Despite my power rating, caesar dow'd me. What really sucks is once he does that, other AIs that are WEAKER than me will take dogpile bribes, since they consider him part of their power then. By the way, he insta bribes them, too .

Now, thanks to city walls and a stack o axe, these guys actually don't hurt me too much (this time anyway). However, thanks to gayprats I can't take any cities of JC's, either. Izzy forces me to whip some spears and horse archers in the south to keep a cottage city. Grrr.

Since everyone dows at pleased except super mass cg III archer cow, why not?

I then buy peace with JC using aesthetics, which sucks because I wanted to use that for useful techs.

Not too much later he dows KK. Hoo boy.

Eventually everyone is at peace, and now I'm falling behind in tech as all my trade monopoly routes got slowed down, and worse yet I have far less people who will trade. Desperate, I decide to catpush JC before he gets maces:

My reward for this? KK drops 1 point, to pleased, where JC immediately bribes BOTH him AND Izzy on me. Jesus. Surrounded on all sides by buddha love gone bad. I came close to giving up but I didn't. I fought my way into rome, then took peace. I paid everyone techs or gold for peace.

Then, I get some luck for a change:

Haha! Let's see KK declare on me now! Izzy and caesar both distracted by attacking him, I opt for revenge:

I take one city, then the war goes sour. JC shows up with a stack including knights and I have no counter. He will take peace thankfully due to him being at war with KK too.

1365 techs:

Ouch. Thankfully I've been growing cottages all this time at least.

And, in 1445, Caesar is coming for me again...

To 1871/end

Spoiler :

I pre-empt idiot salad man. I declare on him (not fearing the 2 idiots south as they're at war). I completely eradicate his entire stack using cats/maces/etc. I have pikes now too, so knights are no longer going to kill me.

I then push onto now defenseless and spent JC. I'm hurting myself, painful WW.

Somehow, lib hadn't gone yet so I used some reserve cash to push it hard:

Astro will net me some nice trade routes.

In 1560, JC breaths his last.

Izzy makes up with KK shortly after. This yields a surprise:

??? Very well. I'll take it.

Tech picture looks better:

So since she doesn't have rifles yet I head for izzy. Since she shares a border with KK she's more likely to vassal. Seriously, that's how the mechanic works.

BUT, the game refuses to be easy on me:

I got careless and SB dropped to cautious. Apparently he thought his power was enough, too.

Well, since my pants were down he has some initial success:

Not for long though. I make up with izzy, then shift my main stack up to SB. Rifles from my HE capitol are racing forth also. They're only 9 xp. Why? I attached most of my GGs. Specifically, I repeatedly bled 10 GG xp into my supermedic after making him. Some of the xp gimped GGs turned out to be pretty good CR III combat III rifles though. Anyway, the tables were turned:

Hey wow, magic rifles:

Gotta love ridiculous upgrade discounts. Without them the AI would suck unimaginably bad.

Not good enough to save him, though:

And now my tech rate is good. I get infantry, while izzy is nowhere near infantry, and head back:

That's more like it:

Blah blah blah tech to mass media blah blah blah build UN blah blah win.

View attachment 197666

View attachment 197667

 

[Single Malt]

TMIT is right, the map is unkind. Lots of dangerous neighbours in a small place. To AD275 ish

Spoiler :

I don't know where to go with this. I wanna invade Kahn but cesar and SB may pile up on me. My tech rate is atrocious, despite having monoply on Currency, I cannot get a trade.

Here is thebes, its the only possible GP farm I may have, until I get this:

but Kahn is technologically advanced, as he has construction.

but I have a power edge

I want to invade Kahn, should I stop on CoL and go construction? I have a power advantage, but fear a dogpile from two dangerous powers. Its all a love fest so anythings a possibility. What do do, what to do?

 

[vicawoo]

War chariot rushed caesar and somewhat later kublai khan. What's that other trait again? And who are those dangerous neighbors?

I'm in a funny situation where I have too many workers, I'm hurting economically, yet I need more cities (for more cottages). Hopefully someone has monarchy I can trade for.