Monarch Students game - climbing from Prince

[Ai Shizuka]

assass1n:

Spoiler :

Imo, cuirassiers+cannons, knights+cannons or even maces+cannons is way better than rifles+trebs. I always used to beeline the best infantry first, and then siege. Now, I always tech the other way around. Best possible siege unit first, and then the rest. City fights are so much easier this way.

 

[assass1n]

assass1n:

Spoiler :

Imo, cuirassiers+cannons, knights+cannons or even maces+cannons is way better than rifles+trebs. I always used to beeline the best infantry first, and then siege. Now, I always tech the other way around. Best possible siege unit first, and then the rest. City fights are so much easier this way.

I agree with you
Siege > all
thats why they nerfed it
getting those cannons which are being mass produced in some distant corner is a pain in the ass
its easier to replace those lost rifles compared to those trebs which require a support unit with them to reach the frontlines
I learnt it the hard way today

 

[Gumbolt]

My game does continue.

Spoiler :

Much happier this time. karakorum is my GP farm. Glib built there.

MM, parth, hanging gardens also nabbed.

My science at 655ad is around 180 a turn. A huge improvement. Scientists now being used in most cities. I have also hooked up most of the resources below Thebes. gems and plantations galore.

I built 6-7 catapults and these have taken down Romes 3 cities. Also just taken down Sitting bulls capital and his second city which i burned. My stack is ready to move on.

Rome has the HE built and is building units in 2 turns. I have somewhat left the spanish alone so far. Probably a mistake but i figure I will rush to lib now while I finish off SB in one go. He is a spent force. Protective and dog soldiers are no real defence against catapults.

 

[Gumbolt]

Spoiler :

Up to 1055ad. Won the liberalism race and took nationalism. Think i took the free tech far too early. Probably could of got steel.

Sitting bull is now gone.

Me and Izzy left on this Island. Started a small war with her taking 3-4 cities and then taking peace. Took monarchy off her and world map and some gold. Shes 10 turns off Feudalism. I am 14 turns off astronomy. Privateers are fun!!!

 

[JTMacc99]

From about 1000 AD to mid 1600's:

Spoiler :

When I last left off, I had played the game without starting a war on my own, but had twice been attacked by Rome. I captured Antium from him, and then took peace in order to build some more catapults and start work on X-bows. As JC is the only heathen on the continent, even when I went to peace, he was still fighiting off stacks from Izzy and Khan.

Since the time of the first Roman attack, the strategy has been to eliminate him first, which would move me from 5 cities to 10. Next would be Sitting Bull, and then it would be time to evaluate the situation.

By the way, despite being industrious, I only built Stonehenge early on. With the strategy to pretty much be fighting the whole game, I made sure to divert some hammers in Thebes to build the SoZ, which has been a really good thing to have on my side. I also built the SP, as any wonder that lets me change civics freely works really well with the Spiritual trait. I have spent a lot of time flopping back and forth between Theocracy and OR.

In order to pull off my military goals of Rome then Native America, I have been VERY friendly with Izzy and Khan, and cordial with Sitting Bull. I also needed to run a few specialists to help with research, as I've researched almost entirely along a path to win wars. I went Machinery, Engineering, Civil Service, Gunpowder, Guilds, Chemistry, Steel, Military Science. I think I researched a couple others, plus I bulbed a thing or two. Everything else I picked up in trades. I saw very early on that cannons would be the key to victory if I got them before Grens or Rifles hit the board.

Strategically, I was able to build a bunch of Trebs and with swords, axes, crossbows, a pike or two, and war chariots I attacked JC sometime before 1200 AD and took him off the board well before 1400. Wonderfully offsetting the expensive addition of several established cities, was the fact that Rome contained the Pyramids. I went DIRECTLY into representation and started running scientists. As soon as JC was dead, which went very smoothly once the trebs showed up, I flipped into Organized Religion and started building courthouses and tons of AP religion Buddhist temples and monestaries.

After that was done, I started building military again. In or around 1600AD, I discovered steel, and upgraded as many of my 15-20 trebs as I could in 3-4 turns. I moved them, along with a dozen each of muskets, maces, knights, as well as 15 assorted older units including some crossbows and a bunch of CRII or CRIII swords and axes (waiting for plunder to be upgraded to maces) up to the edge of Native American territory and launched my invasion.

Somehow, Sitting freakin' Bull had Steel as well, and as I was steamrolling through his first city and heading for the captial, he launched an impressive cannon heavy stack into my territory and actually captured Memphis from me. This was annoying, as Memphis was a nice commerce city and had a lot of culture generating from it as well. On the other hand, it took very little effort for 4-5 of my cannons and my temporarilly redirected stack of knights to recapture the city and pretty much destroy any chance of him recapturing any of his own cities. As we all know, cannons capture cities really well, but leaving ten of them in there to defend it is really stupid.

As of this update, Sitting Bull has three cities left, two of which will fall within the next three turns, and the last will be gone shortly thereafter.

The other two civs and I are Friendly. Technology is in pretty good shape with those two, although they are both pretty far along some lines I've completely ignored. Most importantly, I don't think the Mongols are anywhere near steel or Military Science, which means that I could probably do some serious damage to him right now, if I choose to do so. If I can figure out how to raise the gold, I could upgrade an awful lot of units to CR Grens, which would just slaughter longbows and muskets in combination with cannons.

As for the other continent, I just sent off my first caravel and ran into Justinian. He's middle of the pack score-wise, and since he has yet to meet anybody on my continent, I made a tech trade with him giving him something like gunpowder, paper and some scratch for Nationalism. This puts Military Tradition in play, and I should seriously consider it next. MT most of my knights are level four (Rome had three settled GGs, and has been building mostly 13XP knights for the last 70 turns) so they would all upgrade to very powerful units should my next target also have stacks of cannons.

So it hasn't been easy, and it probably will continue to be a slugfest, but an all-out war strategy seems to have been the best way for ME to get a victory on this map. There were simply too many other civs on this continent for any sort of peaceful expansion strategy to work efficiently. The existence of religion hoarders and warmongers made a cultural victory seem highly unlikely. As far as I can tell, my experiences with the prince level have pointed me to towards a military strategy, BUT with the notable differences of being willing to trade military techs to backfill and the conscious decision to build A LOT more units than I would have done at the lower level

 

[Gumbolt]

Up to 1295ad

Spoiler :

Okay made a second dow on Spanish. took madrid and she capitulated with 8 cities left.

I have met dutch and co on other island. I am building a fleet of galleon and plan to attack with a stack of mace, treb and xbowmen. I think the Dutch will capitulates after capital falls. Will leave one minor nation after this.

All my cities are now pumping out units for the win. Seems pointless building buildings now.

 

[Gumbolt]

1440ad and victory is mine. scored 188702.

Spoiler :

Okay i launched about 9-10 galleons. I paid for most of these. Dumped every troop i had in them. Landed a huge stack in Dutch land. he came at me with 4-5 knights. He soon capitulated after 3-4 cities fell.

Same for justin. I sent a huge stack at his capital. He suprised me with a stack of 8-9 catapults at a lower city i had taken from the dutch. Reinforcements took this city.

After Justin lost 3-4 cities he capitulated too.

I think this goes to show just how important those lil chariots are. Also the value of teching basic techs at the start.

One game off my list to complete.

 

[Loki Strikes]

1440ad and victory is mine. scored 188702.

Spoiler :

Okay i launched about 9-10 galleons. I paid for most of these. Dumped every troop i had in them. Landed a huge stack in Dutch land. he came at me with 4-5 knights. He soon capitulated after 3-4 cities fell.

Same for justin. I sent a huge stack at his capital. He suprised me with a stack of 8-9 catapults at a lower city i had taken from the dutch. Reinforcements took this city.

After Justin lost 3-4 cities he capitulated too.

I think this goes to show just how important those lil chariots are. Also the value of teching basic techs at the start.

One game off my list to complete.

Not a bad second game there
Good job on the retry, props for interncontinental invasion, I always end up in situation where I have something like 56% land first to astronomy other continent is backwards, but I just freaking can't get enough galleons(yes HE + moiai sometimes) before I get transports and I keep delaying my invasions (Yes I know galleons and transports is not much difference if you control seas, they carry troops just as good)

 

[Gumbolt]

Well I took the second game more seriously.

I didnt even have the HE on my coast. As i had mids I pretty much reduced science to 0% and bought a galleon or 2 a turn with US civic. I actually ended up with over 15 of them. Quite strange as normally I am rubbish at naval invasions.

 

[assass1n]

I am giving up on this one
its kind of a stalemate and I dont want to play it out to space so waiting for the next one

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Mmm, the next one.
Do we want to make this a serie, targeted at Monarch players?

No problem for me to upload a wb save every two weeks or so, but don't expect anything fancy. All I can do is play my first segment beforehand, just to be sure it isn't too hard (or too easy).

Anyway, anyone interested, submit your suggestions about map/leader for the next one. Or we can simply stick to the random approach.

 

[Gumbolt]

Mmm, the next one.
Do we want to make this a serie, targeted at Monarch players?

No problem for me to upload a wb save every two weeks or so, but don't expect anything fancy. All I can do is play my first segment beforehand, just to be sure it isn't too hard (or too easy).

Anyway, anyone interested, submit your suggestions about map/leader for the next one. Or we can simply stick to the random approach.

I think justin is a interesting choice. Perhaps Sury too.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Mmm, the next one.
Do we want to make this a serie, targeted at Monarch players?

No problem for me to upload a wb save every two weeks or so, but don't expect anything fancy. All I can do is play my first segment beforehand, just to be sure it isn't too hard (or too easy).

Anyway, anyone interested, submit your suggestions about map/leader for the next one. Or we can simply stick to the random approach.

Random is easier on the host than votes .

Good to see new series growing!

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Alright, I'll wait a couple days. Sury sounds interesting, not a lot of games featuring him and the last time I've played him was at Noble.

Still open to suggestions anyway.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

I just got my first Monarch win with my fav leader, Ramesses. The game ended in 1938, so I didn't really need a lot of advanced military tech. I was only attacked twice, and was able to hold them off with no damage. I had defensive pacts each time with strong military leaders, and they did most of the work.

One tip if you are just starting with Ramesses. Try to build the Oracle and at least be researching Iron Working so that you can choose Metal Casting as your free tech when you finish the Oracle. Then build forges quickly (we get bonus speed for building forges and temples) and once you have forge and organized religion (plus your 50% bonus for wonder building), you can build wonders faster than anybody. Then build Parthenon to add yet another multiplier to your wonder-building speed.

I try to build the culture multiplier wonders in the late game -- Broadway, Hollywood, E. Tower in my three cities growing to Legendary culture. Once I have their required culture techs, I stop research and put the culture slider to 100%. I scored a Great Merchant late in my commerce city for 1,200 gold, which sure helped finance the final push to the finish.

If any of you guys play Ramesses a lot, let me know what else works well. For example, do you skip Stonehenge and just build Monument in your early cities to generate priests >> Great Prophets. ?? I have gone both ways, and still not sure which is better. Thanks.

 

[assass1n]

SH is better it gives free monument + more Prophet points
why do you want to waste hammers on monuments
SH= 180 hammers (actually much cheaper as you are industrious)
Monument = 30 hammers
so SH pays for itself when you found 6 + cities
also captured cities get the monument too
Edit : Sury/Joao would be fine though I feel that the Baray far outclasses the Feitoria

 

[Gumbolt]

I just got my first Monarch win with my fav leader, Ramesses. The game ended in 1938, so I didn't really need a lot of advanced military tech. I was only attacked twice, and was able to hold them off with no damage. I had defensive pacts each time with strong military leaders, and they did most of the work.

One tip if you are just starting with Ramesses. Try to build the Oracle and at least be researching Iron Working so that you can choose Metal Casting as your free tech when you finish the Oracle. Then build forges quickly (we get bonus speed for building forges and temples) and once you have forge and organized religion (plus your 50% bonus for wonder building), you can build wonders faster than anybody. Then build Parthenon to add yet another multiplier to your wonder-building speed.

I try to build the culture multiplier wonders in the late game -- Broadway, Hollywood, E. Tower in my three cities growing to Legendary culture. Once I have their required culture techs, I stop research and put the culture slider to 100%. I scored a Great Merchant late in my commerce city for 1,200 gold, which sure helped finance the final push to the finish.

If any of you guys play Ramesses a lot, let me know what else works well. For example, do you skip Stonehenge and just build Monument in your early cities to generate priests >> Great Prophets. ?? I have gone both ways, and still not sure which is better. Thanks.

You seem to be forgetting that the Egyptians have a powerful UU. Strength 5 war chariot. 25% stronger than the normal one. Give them 20% chance of withdrawl and these can be lethal.

I generally find defending on monarch does not win you games. With monuments you can be producing great Priests early. If you add lots of these to a city you have a production powerhouse. Also lots of gold generated.

If you have the horse resourse you really should attack early if you are short on land.

As for the oracle. You dont need iron working for metal casting. If you do go metal casting route this cuts off the bulbing route to liberalism with Great scientists. For a warring economy I would go for currency or codes of law from the oracle.

The alternative route for the Egyptians is wonder spamming in your capital.

Lots of ways to play the Egyptians.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

Gumbolt, thanks for the reply. You two guys have made the pro and con cases for building Stonehenge vs. Monuments. Ramesses definitely must build one or the other, but I have mixed feelings about the choice. I used to build Stonehenge automatically after Mysticism. I used the time to search for my second city site and research Animal Husbandry to locate horses to build War Chariots. The trade-off is that Stonehenge takes 27 turns to build, and we can build Monuments in 10 turns, leaving the other 17 to crank workers/settlers. It is a close call.

I also have had mixed results with early wars. War Chariots/Axemen can easily crush cities defended only by archers, and you get that early vs. civs lacking metals/horses. If my neighbor has no powerful friends and a competing religion, I may take him out while I have the decisive advantage. Normally, I go light on military so long as I have favorable diplomatic allies and/or good geographical defensive position. I hate wars.

My experience is that if you have not at least started researching Iron Working by the time you build the Oracle, it will offer you Iron Working as a free tech, not Metal Casting. I have found that getting to Metal Casting quickly this way and then immediately building forges in production cities is a super advantage.

This forum is great!

 

[gcm4738]

Hey Ai Shiz - Glad to see that this turned into something good! There's probably a lot of people out there trying to jump from prince to monarch. I'm in if you want to keep it going as a series!

After I lost this game, I played offline as a random leader and I got Sury... and my first Monarch win. So he's a good luck charm to me. However as TMIT says (and I've learned through sad years of trying to organise my office Christmas party...) it's probably easier if you get the choice on leader, etc. otherwise you'll go crazy.

Looking forward to Monarch Students II

 

[Gumbolt]

Gumbolt, thanks for the reply. You two guys have made the pro and con cases for building Stonehenge vs. Monuments. Ramesses definitely must build one or the other, but I have mixed feelings about the choice. I used to build Stonehenge automatically after Mysticism. I used the time to search for my second city site and research Animal Husbandry to locate horses to build War Chariots. The trade-off is that Stonehenge takes 27 turns to build, and we can build Monuments in 10 turns, leaving the other 17 to crank workers/settlers. It is a close call.

I also have had mixed results with early wars. War Chariots/Axemen can easily crush cities defended only by archers, and you get that early vs. civs lacking metals/horses. If my neighbor has no powerful friends and a competing religion, I may take him out while I have the decisive advantage. Normally, I go light on military so long as I have favorable diplomatic allies and/or good geographical defensive position. I hate wars.

My experience is that if you have not at least started researching Iron Working by the time you build the Oracle, it will offer you Iron Working as a free tech, not Metal Casting. I have found that getting to Metal Casting quickly this way and then immediately building forges in production cities is a super advantage.

This forum is great!

As for building Stone henge. If you hook up stone and chop 1-2 forests you will build this in 3-4 turns. On my current game with joaII I built Stone Henge in no time. I just about had 4 cities by 1800bc or so.

Generally I build 3-4 cities before stone henge if I rex like mad bee lining bronze working asap. On higher levels you need to build it much earlier.

I tend to avoid MC early on as i like to beeline liberalism. The Ai will research MC for me. Same for monarchy and feudalism. I go the science route.

I have just beelined to liberalism on my current game. I was able to tech to Chemistry and get steel as a free tech by 1290ad.

You do need to treat each game and leader differently. I certainly would like to win some games before 1900ad. Its possible on a huge map to have a domination by 1550ad. Going light on military is a risky strategy as some Ai even at pleased will attack a weak neighbour. I will always try to have a military pump city.

A win is a win though.