[BTS] Need Help on Monarch

[sampsa]

• come back south east then east in scouting (so we see around horses)

• Build a 2nd warrior once worker is finished

• First job for worker is to pasture pigs

I'd keep the warrior in the west, maybe even trying to move it to the river hill. Safer play is to fortify to a forest. I think I'd save some workerT by starting from a weaker tile, cows. Gains a few but more importantly, gets warriors out faster. Not really sure though if this is better than Krikav's suggestion.

 

[Fippy]

I would mine gold asap after Pigs, lots of value in making progress towards BW and i might even push towards maths too on Monarch (not Alpha).
There are so many forests for better chops. Might want fishing in between, and Pottery speeds up Writing so something like BW - Fish - Pot - Writing - Maths.
Those cows are a bit of distraction imo, on Monarch warriors are just semi-important..you can see most of what you need for city placements already.

 

[sampsa]

Those cows are a bit of distraction imo, on Monarch warriors are just semi-important

Yep, this is a good point. Could perhaps even make a case for going 2nd worker before settler as so many forests to chop.

 

[krikav]

If working a PH-mine, two forested PH, cows, gold and pigs at pop6 (starving down 1F/turn), thats a 6 turn oracle.
Could be an option to get it pretty safe if going myst->med->PH after mining.

MC has good synnergy due to IND, CoL has good synnergy due to SPI.

 

[coanda]

This is some really nice land. And since it's turn 11 and you still haven't even met an AI, you probably don't have any really close neighbors.

Your warrior has a lot to do where he is now. Something like S (check coast tiles in case of seafood), NW, NW (big vision radius from hilltop, some defense bonus, scout a lot of important land). Then if you don't see any barb animals around you could try going something like N, NE. By the time it's done all that and move back to your capital, it wouldn't be getting out to scout the horses much faster than simply waiting for your second warrior to be built and sending that one out to do it. Once it's poked around the west a bit it can either feel adventurous and keep exploring, or it can find a nice safe spot to settle down where it will not die and will prevent barbs from spawning in a 5x5 box centered on it - hopefully pushing more spawns away from you and towards other AIs instead.

I'm liking the worker - warrior - worker - settler suggestion here; there's a lot of forest to clear, and this is not a situation where you're worried about being choked out of any good cities. Your capital is great, you've got a nice pocket site to the south, you've got two spots to the west and probably somewhere to the east, and you're Egypt with fairly accessible horses and tons of forests which means if there is a nearby AI who starts taking your preferred city sites you just chop out some war chariots and conquer them. You want to get that second city out fast because you want it contributing fast, not because you're worried the land will all be gone; the second worker will also be contributing fast so you can delay the city.

But if you're thinking second worker before settler, I don't think you want to skip the cows entirely. That's putting a significant production burden on you for getting out your settler, and delaying the cow pasture until after that's all done is going to slow you down more than it helps.

I'm not sure about cows - pigs - gold or pigs - cows - gold; the former saves 2 worker-turns, which is very nice, but at the cost of delaying your city hitting size-3 by a few turns and thus delaying your second worker a little (net-neutral on worker turns at best). It lets you get out some more early warriors as "freebies," but as @Fippy noted you don't really need more than 2 warriors early on Monarch so they'll basically just be sitting around doing nothing for the next 15-20 turns. My inclination is to avoid trying to be too elegant and just do what's natural: improve pigs, then cows, then gold.

 

[sampsa]

I think the last few posts reveal what kind of choices there are in the early game. Intuitively it's not easy to see which one is best: cow-pigs-gold, pigs-cow-gold or pigs-gold-cow. I didn't even register the last one as a possibility until Fippy mentioned it, but I like it. It's not easy even for experienced players to immediately feel which one is best because it depends on many things. Timing of the warriors (not so important here on monarch), timing of techs (important here as you can't start chopping without BW), timing of growth to size 3 (you should start worker/settler immediately after growth to 3). The only way to find out is to try all of them. I guess you can just pick one and just go with it though.

 

[crashmon]

This brings an Interesting question, if once the warrior is built, I'm still size 2, do we head for worker (we won't have teched BW by then), or pump the production into fail gold (Stonehenge) until size 3 then switch to worker. Also we need to have both pigs and cow / gold done (pigs is first, we can have a call on whether we go gold or cow,once we have pigs). Watching Lain, reading other threads here I get the impression you should only grow if you have a good tile to use, which means if we get to size 3 before the cow or gold is improved, would the fact we are using an unimproved tile cost us. At Monarch probably not, but trying to understand concepts as if this was Immortal as well.

Will play a few more turns a little later (at least until the worker is built), unless my scouting finds a stop point. That would be another 4-5 turns and I will post the map.

I'm actually liking this start now as we do have options and its not clear.. In a lot of maps its very obviouos what you need to do first, here not so clear.

Also if we have copper on that unforested PH, would that chnage any of our plan here? Probably not as I am egypt so horses more important than axes but choices / choices

 

[krikav]

It's good practice to grow to the desired target population even before the tiles that you plan to use are already done.
Growing to pop3, even if it means working forested grassland (2F1H) will be a gain, no matter what difficulty level you are playing on. The reason it's shunned is because the cost involved to gain that population. You spend those 30 or so food to unlock that 2F1H tile, thats what "cost" you.
If a fairy would magically give you a pop6 city here to allow you to work alot of unimproved tiles, then that would be a bargain. There is no hidden upkeep cost that would cost you more than you gain. At worst it's neutral.

A trick I like to use, when I have enough warriors and just want to grow one more pop is to remove the warrior from the queue instead placing SH (or barracks here since you don't have myst).
The last turn before growth, I place the warrior there again, and possibly rearrange tiles abit along the way, so make sure I end up at pop3 the fastest possible, but also with the maximum overflow from the warrior.
Sometimes, that practice can gain a turn on the settler/worker.

 

[crashmon]

So we are at turn 15, and worker is built, I am still to move worker but will move him to pigs probably. Have started a warrior, who I will use to scout S and E.

Spoiler :

So, scouting 1S did not show any seafood, but a PH, so have moved NW, will move onto River PH, then back to fogbust, don;'t want to go any farther west until I have more units

So what tile to work in the city until we have Pigs improved (2 turns to get to tile, 2 turns to improve it). As I see it we have 6 options (listing all just for completness)

• We can put on pigs :- Grow to size 2 is 8 turns, warrior is 15 turns
• We can put on forested PH :- we don't grow,warrior is 4 turns
• We can put on gold :- we don't grow,warrior is 5 turns, 2 extra commerce
• We can put on cow :- Grow 11 turns, warrior is 8 turns
• We can put on Plains forest :- Grow 22 turns, warrior is 5 turns
• We can put on grass forest :- Grow 11, warrior is 8 turns

I know we are only talking 4 turns here until pigs are improved and we will work that tile, but I know on levels like immortal every turn counts, hence why asking these questions.

My thinking is we need growth more than an immediate warrior, so I would use the pigs tile for growth, but again what are posters advice here. Also if this was Immortal instead of Monach would you do something different in that case (ie get the warrior out first). If I am asking for very micromanaging questions apologies, but I feel its these little questions which I get wrong which comes back later to bite me.

 

[krikav]

In the majority of cases, it's correct to simply work maximum food unless you have a very specific reason not to.
I think this it's correct to work the 3F tile here, and then the 6F tile once it's improved.

The goal now is almost certainly to get a second worker, or a settler out as early as possible.
This is probaly achieved by getting to pop3 as soon as possible, ideally finishing a warrior the same turn you reach pop3 with some hammer overflow.
This tile shifting is trying to trade overflowing food for hammer overflow, so that you rather get hammers into the worker/settler, rather than food that will lie dormant in the food bar for a long time.

However, you will most likely now start with tile-micro to reach this goal until you are up at pop2. How you do now _might_ have an effect for how things will turn out closer to pop3.
But even me, who is rather obsessed with micro, very rarely think that far ahead.

 

[sampsa]

This brings an Interesting question, if once the warrior is built, I'm still size 2, do we head for worker (we won't have teched BW by then), or pump the production into fail gold (Stonehenge) until size 3 then switch to worker.

After warrior I'd go warrior, until size 3, then switch to worker/settler immediately. It's important to grow to 3 to work all three strong tiles.

So what tile to work in the city until we have Pigs improved

Yep like Krikav said, work 3, the main aim now is to grow to 3 as fast as you can.

 

[sampsa]

This tile shifting is trying to trade overflowing food for hammer overflow, so that you rather get hammers into the worker/settler, rather than food that will lie dormant in the food bar for a long time.

The reason why I rarely bother maxing out overflow 1T before starting a worker/settler is that it's moot unless you get that worker/settler 1T earlier, and it takes a lot of work to figure out whether it is the case or not. It's better to have lying around in the -bar than having overflow that have zero impact, simply because >, most of the time.

 

[krikav]

Yeah, it's alot of work and only for the very interested ones.
It's sort of the micro around granaries.
"Get a granary asap because they are good" gives you 90%.
"Get the granary asap, but also try to get it when the food bar is half full." gives you 99%
Stop growth etc is the last 1%.

This tile micro and warrior overflow is equivalent to that last % here.
But it's good to know the reason behind why some people even bother.

 

[crashmon]

Turn 18 (now I will stop for a while to let US folks catch up)

Spoiler Turn 18 :

Moved onto River Hill, some really nice tiles over there, then back to forest and have fortified as lions are nearby. Worker is working on the pigs, and we are about to get Mining, so can start BW.

• BW has to be correct play here, I can't see any other tech I should beeline right now, but let me know if this is not correct
• After Pigs are finished then thinking of moving to gold next to mine it
  
  • question, should I road tile 1S of cap. This will link up both pigs and Gold. We have 5 turns before we are size 2 and will work the pigs anyway, so I don't think we will lose much by spending 2 turns on roading that tile

 

[lymond]

Personally, I'd target the cow first after pigs and grow to size 4 and 2pop the settler first thing. I think there is good growth here for that.

There is some merit in roading 1S of thebes if you target cows first, but not for connection. Rather you can move on cow to improve immediately and then move back directly to the gold in 1 turn. But others may disagree. Generally you are going to focus on the key improvements first. If going to gold first, I would head straight there. (I should note that the road may speed up a chop there as well, though it will lessen regrowth chance)

Since no AI met or apparently nearby, horses don't seem a priority. I like first city 1E of that wet corn. If copper is on that PH, that will be a really nice city with super early production.

First forest to chop is 1s of Thebes. Nice spot for regrowth with 3 adjacent forests. 1E as well.

ha...I think I'm the only Murican in this thread so far. Most here are actually East of you.

 

[crashmon]

Is the thinking to go to a 2nd worker first before settler as others have mentioned, and in that case would we still look at cow over gold. First worker has not yet moved off pigs so we have time to decide which is better move.

So I think really we have two specific decision points right now

• Cow or Gold
• 2nd Worker or Settler.

 

[lymond]

I'm just noting my preference. I'd go with the consensus which seems to be second worker and gold first. Though I'd whip into a second worker with a chop ready for that. It's also a timing thing too. Not sure if BW would be ready for what I propose.

 

[Fippy]

One of those decisions where even deity players will play differently, so no need to bang your head here
Ran a quick test and Krikav's suggestion (Pigs - road - cows - gold) gives BW nicely in time, considering he found the most creative way and was first you could go with that ~~

 

[coanda]

Certainly what you want next is to improve cow and gold in some order (I'd lean cow-first, but either is fine), then chop some forests. Build a worker and a settler (I'd lean worker first, but again either is fine). For a shadow game on Monarch I think it's honestly fine to just pick one and go with it; there's not an order of doing things that seems obviously superior. A lot will depend on the exact timing you finish bronze working, exactly how many hammers and food you're getting on the way to size-3, and so forth. If you're curious, you could go ahead and make a save, try several and just play each one out about 20 turns and just see which one looks better then; I wouldn't think it'd take very long since all you'd be doing is giving 2-3 instructions to the worker, 2-3 build instructions to the city, and hitting the "end turn" button a bunch of times.

 

[krikav]

Second worker is dependant on deciding to go BW. The whole point with a second worker is that it's good because there are so much to chop.
If you opt for the oracle gambit (I would for sure go that route given this map, even if it was deity), then going for a second worker doesn't make any sense at all.

Ofcourse, oracle gambit is perhaps not that good for learning, but the key components I look for are present here. (Ind leader+Gold).