Moving up to Monarch

[jguy100]

Well, I'm finally making the move from Prince to Monarch. I figure one of my weakest spots is my planning and execution. Therefore, I thought it would be helpful if I posted my game as I played along to get comments from you guys. Much thanks in advance for any help or comments from you guys, I really appreciate it.

The settings:
Vannila 1.61 with HOF modpack (also my first game with the modpack lol), Fractal, Huge, Temperate, Medium, Ancient, Marathon, Random Civs, all victory conditions, Monarch.

The Civilization:

Genghis!

I really like Kublai, Aggressive and Creative. I have never really played with Genghis before, this should be interesting. Agg should be good for an early axe rush, followed by maybe a late keshik blitz to keep enemy economies down instead of fighting. Exp shall allow me to grow larger cities; should I go for a cottage economy?
The Wheel gives a clean path to Animal Husbandry and Pottery, while Hunting allows a nice shot at archery for keshiks. Not my favorite two starting techs, but we can make it work.

The start:

Yup, those are cows the scout is standing on. It looks like I might have quite a few flood plains in my big fat cross - good for whipping and getting a good CE going?
(I'm not that skilled at whipping, I usually tend not to do it. Poor people. But hopefully I can effectively use it in this game.)

I'm thinking:
Move scout W-W to see if anything better is revealed. I'm leaning towards settling on spot, just because that's what I like to do. Research Mining -> BW -> AH to take advantage of my start. Should I research Agri after that, or beeline for Pottery?
Production wise, build a scout and maybe a warrior, trying to time a worker with Bronze working. Use the worker to chop a settler, and go from there. I'm exp, so I shouldn't have to worry about the health from forests going bye-bye.

Long term:
I'd like to get a quick axe rush in, maybe kill one neighbor off. If I have a few pesky/smart neigbors, build a few keshiks and engage one in guerilla warfare, just enough to cripple their economy. Should I keep pushing the axe rush as far as I can, or build up my economy and wait for more advanced units for longer warfare? This is Huge, so I'm going to need to own a lot of land.
I'd like help in building up a CE and leveraing it towards a Diplomatic or Domination victory. Those are the only two victories I haven't done yet.

So, what do you guys think? Any comments on my thoughts/starting position/whatever? Much thanks!

Also, obligatory save:

 

[yena]

Good luck with the game.

The start looks acceptable with floodplains for food and commerce, but you may have a problem with low production. With the Mongols you often expand quickly, so you need a strong economy. I suggest a worker and AH first to locate the horses and improve production, followed by mining-bw-wheel-pottery (not necessarily in that order) to get both bronze connected and some early cottages.

 

[jguy100]

Good thoughts, I'll keep them in mind.

If I build a worker first, won't I run out of things for it to do? Especially since I don't have Mining, Agri, or BW, there's not much for a worker to do early on. After I research AH it could work the cows and start roading everywhere, but wouldn't that be a waste of time?

 

[ABigCivFan]

I would settle in place before moving the scout. The city spot looks good, it acutally has decent production: 2 hills+cow+1->11 already seen.

Tech: AH, Mining, BW, Pottery or Agriculture

Build: worker, scout, worrior (grow to size 2), worker, size 3 or settler

You want to pasture the cow ASAP cause it is the best early tile. Also locate horse early.

Map is huge, so a early 2nd scout will help pop some huts and locate more good city sites. First scout bust fog in a circle around the capital. Try locate some good coastal citie sites too.

mine that riverside hill right after cow to help production.

Locate good city sites, your worker can always build roads leading to them between other improvements. Remember to guard them with a worrior though.

 

[yena]

your worker will be done at the same time you get AH, and while you improve the cows you will get mining. Then you soon have pottery and some cottages to build. So no, building a worker first is not a waste of time.

 

[jguy100]

Founded in place, started exploring with scout. 30 turns to worker and 40 turns to Animal Husbandry on 3F 1G Flood Plain. Popped four goody huts; two gave gold, a third gave experience, and the fourth gave me a tech (mining, 3685 BC). Scout got into three animal fights; promoted him with Woodsman 1 and Woodsman 2. Scout met death in 3595 BC to a lion , only 1 square away from a goody hut.

Finished worker in 3555 BC, had him start roading the cows. 10 turns to AH. 4 turns to AH left after road is built - sent worker to hill 1 east of capital and started building a mine. Once AH is 1 turn from completion, I'll pull him off so I have a 2 turn head start on a mine there. Finished AH in 3400 BC; changed research to BW (since I got mining for free ). It will be done in 48 turns.

In 3280 BC, I changed the lonesome population to work the (unpasturized) cows, so my capital grows and builds the scout on the same turn. 43 turns to BW, 4 turns to finish pasture. Finished pasture in 3235 BC, 2 turns left to growth and scout production. Played one more turn, and here is where I'm at.

Here's the latest screenie. I drew two fat crosses where I could potentially build new cities. City A would get cows, wheat, and horses. City B would get three spices and cows.

I was going to play a little longer, but I ran into a dilemma: what to do with my worker. I pasturized the cows and built a road to them; but I'm still far away from Bronzeworking. I don't have much to do with the worker, like I thought. I could run around building roads with my worker to a new potential city, but I've seen lots of barb animals running around and my scout was killed. I could build mines on the two hill tiles in my capital and road everywhere, but that doesn't seem like a good use of 39 turns for my worker.

 

[yena]

Sorry, didn't notice that you are running at marathon speed. It obviously behaves differently from epic, which I normally use.

With horses nearby maybe you should wait with BW, and build a settler for site A asap after growing the city a little (your mines will help, so those worker turns are not wasted at all), while getting mysticism so that you can build culture for a border pop and get the horses online asap. Just my 2c.

 

[cabert]

your A city isn't good. you're not creative!
put it so that horses are in the first ring best would be to totally forget it and settle east, between the cow and horse (less maintenance, less roads to build).
Your B city is useless for the next 20 centuries at least, except if you chop all your units, but really there are better cities to build now.
I'd settle on the stone if you want to use a SE, for the pyramids or on the desert hill just E of the stone if you want to run a CE.Loads of flood plains + expansive = perfect cottage city.
There is also a nice production city site to the south (food from the pigs and oasis, hills = ). I'd put it on the hill south of the pigs.

edit : roading the cow was useless. you should have mined the hill.

 

[jguy100]

Wow, I see I have lots to learn. Thank you for the advice. I'll be playing some more tonight, hopefully that goes better.

 

[Harbourboy]

Yes, some very good advice in this thread so far! Early city placement advice is always enlightening.