[BTS] Need Help on Monarch

[lymond]

Looking at save.

Might as well put those hammers into LH in My City instead of Maoi. Or actually, a second WB.

worker and settler could have moved on land for now. You pay extra when their outside your borders.

Shame about the hammers in aqueducts. Might really have been better to tech Alpha sooner.

When making decisions on worker improvements, think about priorities vs. what a city can actually work. Like the mine in Thebes is pretty irrelevant compared to say that riverside grass tile in Coanda that remains unimproved....cottage or farm. (3F farms have more value in Rep and allow some chain farming for Gumbo) Same with a plains cottage in Gumbo..just not good. Gumbo can work forest PH for now which I think will let you whip forge before you switch back to Caste.

Here's another tip you may not be aware of but really helps with worker management. Workers have 2 movements. Sometimes you are moving a Worker from Tile A to Tile C which takes full 2 movement. However, what you can do is instead put 1t of an improvement on Tile B...like a partial road, farm or cottage. Same goes if a Worker is moving from Tile A to Tile D where tile D is a forest or hill (dead stop). Tile B can get partial improvement, then next turn worker moves onto the hill.

 

[crashmon]

Have Played several more turns now (300AD)

• Built HG in Thebes
  
• Teched Alpha (switched from optics), now back to optics. Zara just did not want to go alpha route
• Most cities now on research
• building cottages / couple of units as well
• Not build Colossus yet will do after I finish WB in Fippy, and get FG from Lymond
• Just built Fish Man (city 10)
• Aim now is to tech to optics => Cal => Bulb Astro, then CS onto music (should I dirvert to currency on the way?)

Spoiler Maps :

North east


North


North West


West


South West


South


South East

what to trade Zara I would really like Monarchy as I can hook up Wine... He is offering

• Monarchy for Alpha + Maths
• Monarchy / Mono for MC
• Monarchy / Mono for CoL
• Monarchy for Compass

Not sure I want to give him CoL or compass yes, but the other trades what do folks think ?

Save attached

 

[coanda]

Definitely self-tech Currency after optics; it'll pay for itself right quick. +1 trade routes per city will be very useful for you; also, being able to sell them techs ought to net you at least a couple hundred gold, and being able to build wealth instead of research would be a small but noticeable upgrade (building research does not benefit from libraries and academies, but building wealth lets you run a higher slider so you have more commerce going through your libraries and academy). Ideally it's a tech you'd be getting in trade. But since Zara Yaqob still hasn't even discovered Alphabet, I have zero confidence the AIs will have Currency and be willing to trade it to you.

Every leader has a limit on how many techs they're willing to see you receive in trade (from them, or from anyone else). This limit is waived if they are Friendly with you or your vassal, but otherwise once you reach that limit they will refuse to trade any more techs to you and give the message "We Fear You Are Becoming Too Advanced" (WFYABTA). However, this limit is initialized at 0 when you first meet the civ. Which means any techs you receive in trade from anyone else before meeting a leader will not increment your WFYABTA counter with that leader. So it is useful to get as many techs as you can out of Zara Yaqob before you start contacting all the other civs with Optics - even techs that don't seem all that useful at the moment. Although you do want to avoid Meditation of course because you need to keep the Great Scientists lined up for an Astronomy bulb, and Archery is worth exactly nothing to you - I guarantee all the AIs have it by now and won't want it in trade, it's not a prerequisite tech for any other techs, and you aren't planning on building archers, longbows, or horse archers.

If you get a settler and found a fairly useless city right on his borders - somewhere like, say, 4N2E of Aksum - then go into diplomacy and liberate that city to him, that will almost certainly give you a +3 or +4 "fair trade relations" relation bonus as well as a +1 "liberated our cities" relation bonus, and push you straight up to Friendly status. At that point (a) there's zero chance he'll start planning to attack you, so that's no longer a risk at all - although if he's already been planning it he may continue plotting. And (b) he's willing to trade any tech to you, even ones he still sees as monopoly techs (such as Horseback Riding or Hunting). 100 hammers for a settler to get that is a pretty good deal at this point in the game. Pass the copper to Thebes, the pigs to Krikav, and Thebes can build the settler in 5 turns which would let you found the city (and start getting monopoly techs off Zara Yaqob) in about 10 turns. That also gives Krikav 5 turns of fast growth, which is about what it needs to grow up to size.

It would be useful if you could give Zara Yaqob a chance of rolling up Currency after his current tech finishes, so you kind of want to trade him Mathematics for something in the next few turns. I wouldn't worry too much about avoiding giving him any particular techs; maybe steer away from Compass if given the choice just to hopefully delay his making contact with other civs. But if you give him, say, Code of Laws, maybe he'll build Chichen Itza for you. Then you'd get the failgold from your partial builds without needing to actually complete it yourself. So there's no reason to worry overmuch about that.

After Fippy generates that second Great Scientist, the balance will start tilting towards Great Merchants. An overseas trade route to whatever city has the Temple of Artemis will probably net you about as much gold as a Great Scientist bulb would net research, but the gold is far more versatile. And certainly you'd rather your non-Thebes cities were generating more gold, because that would let you run a higher slider so your high-commerce capital with an Academy can put more of that commerce into research and get extra beakers that way. The advantage of the Great Scientist is that it pays off immediately, no need to spend 10-15 turns moving the great person to the other city then another 10-20 turns spending the excess gold. If you're making a push for a Liberalism slingshot (which might still be in the cards), two more Great Scientists might be useful to increase your chances of getting there first - one to bulb Education and another to bulb Liberalism. Certainly any of your current cities except Fippy or Krikav, and maybe Fish Man, are never going to generate another Great Person again this game, so you might as well shift the scientists in cities like Jnebbe to merchants instead. You might do the same in Krikav if you'd rather generate a Great Merchant there.

You're about 4 turns from Optics. Then with 100-150 gold out for upgrading 2-3 triremes to caravels, probably another 4-5 turns to Calendar. Fippy's great scientist generation (which should happen in 12 turns I believe - 3 turns running 3 scientists now for 27 GPP, then 9 turns running 4 for 108, plus 165 already) is actually going to be the hold-up on Astronomy. You need to avoid Civil Service until that is done, because otherwise your Great Scientist will bulb Paper instead of Astronomy. If need be (not sure exactly how the timings will play out) you can simply go for Aesthetics, Literature, and/or Music before Civil Service while waiting on Fippy's Great Scientist.

 

[crashmon]

Just one question on Horse Archers..

On the assumption I will need to do a Cuirs rush later (or cav depending), as there will be a war at some point here... One option would be to build HA's then upgrade them with a GM sent to the ToA city, so you have an instant Cuirs army.... Or is it just better to build Cuirs if / when they are needed? I've seen different people take different approaches on this...

Other option might be knghts => Cuirs.... As will need Guilds on way to Steel I believe

 

[krikav]

If it's best to build HAs and upgrade them, or if it's better to go for cuirs direcly depends on alot of things.

Just consider the hammer/gold cost.
A cuir is 100 hammers, a HA is 50hammers+170g.
So you are paying 170g for 50 hammers.
And who in their right mind would build wealth with hammers, only to then exchange that wealth to hammers again shortly after via a upgrade?
So, on paper and in theory, unit upgrades are just madness.

So why do we do it so often then...?


It's the same old short term vs long term. Through GMerchant trade missions we are able to get a huge burst of gold and that gold can be put to use right away on the battlefield right now, instead of having to wait many turns to run deficit research, reaching some other good military tech and get an edge that way.

Another factor is that after you have reached gunpowder+MT, you can build cuirs with your hammers, but what to do with commerce...? One option is to continue to tech ofcourse, starting to make headway to rifling or something else.
But the other option is to just run 0% slider and continue to convert commerce into hammers through those unit upgrades.
(Or rushbuying for that matter).

 

[lymond]

Just a note: It would helpful if you checked all your cities and fix them before posting your report.

1) Thebes needs to be fixed. This has already been mentioned. Grass cottage and rive plains cottaged should be worked. Looks like Thebes whipped several turns ago...not sure what it was, but don't think that was necessary. Don't like to see those hammers into a unnecessary CH there.

2) Were you not able to whip that forge in Gumbo before caste switch.

3) NZ - run scientist instead of PH mine

4) Improve a tile first before roading (edit: oops.you don't have Monarchy yet)

5) Most of the cottages you are building are irrelevant here. A worker would been nice on the boat with the settler instead to start chopping asap instead of improvements up north that will not be used.

Most important right now is that My City is the quickest to a GP by far for the Astro double-bulb. After the new wb completes, I would consider putting My in starve mode to get it faster. Keep in mind that finishing Colossus there before the GS pops decreases odds of GS..and there is already some GE points in there. (In other words, once wb is done switch horse to scientist. You could also wait for growth in 3 turns - or 2 turns with one coast tile as well - and then switch all citizens to scientists but the food)

edit: Sampsa could take Pizza for a turn. Krik build research. Krik's copper could go to a scientist as well, so copper when not building anything.

Make sure FishMan wb in position to net the turn border pops

I might keep an engineer running in Thebes as well. Work all good cottage tiles as mentioned, but run an engi instead of a mine. A GE later might be nice at some point and it's pure GE point there.

 

[lymond]

If you make adjustments as mentioned above, you should be able to do 1 more turn of binary, then go 100% the next turn, then finish Optics at 0% the following turn.

Attached is a t130 save to show you where I think you should be in 3 turns. Notice tireme down south was upgrade this turn right on edge of borders. (I had 50g immediately due to being able to run 0% research on last turn of Optics)

Currency can basically be finished at 0% research (3 turns) while accumulating gold for 2nd caravel upgrade. (you only need two caravels..the other two remes can protect home waters)

My is starving now with an ~6 turn GS, but don't shrink city. Just use the stored food until you have to take a scientist away.

Astro will be double-bulbed. One thought is to start a couple of galleys before Astro is bulbed, for some galleons auto-updated in queue, but it is really not necessary since you'll still be some time away from any attacks.

(On another note, Curs are great and would work nicely against Sir Zara, but consider most attacks on this map will be from sea I would not be opposed to going the Rifle/Cannon route here. Lib>Steel and probably start attacking on this level with Musket/Cannon combo until Rifling. You could probably quick cap some AIs be taking a few coastal cities quickly)

...ugh..looks like Zara will get his religion

 

[crashmon]

Just a note: It would helpful if you checked all your cities and fix them before posting your report.
5) Most of the cottages you are building are irrelevant here. A worker would been nice on the boat with the settler instead to start chopping asap instead of improvements up north that will not be used.

Will make the adjustments but on point 5 , there was a worker on the boat... I dropped him off to pasture the horses below my city, will pick him up once done and take back to Fish Man to start chops

 

[lymond]

Will make the adjustments but on point 5 , there was a worker on the boat... I dropped him off to pasture the horses below my city, will pick him up once done and take back to Fish Man to start chops

My point was that there were other workers ...granted the galley was on its way south at the time.

But if there was another worker near My, then it could have stepped into the galley 1S of My while the other worker stepped out.

 

[crashmon]

Sorry got excited so played until Astro. Now I'll pause again for a bit as need to decide what next

Update

• Have Met Izzy, Burger King, Gigla
• They all have different religions
• Burger initially did not want to even open borders, but did so last turn
• Burger is to south, Gigla to SE, no idea where izzy is (met her WB)
• They are all behind, Burger is probably the farthest ahead.
• Have zara at friendly, but its only a matter of time before he switches to Christanity
• Have done multiple trade deals for gold and goods.
• Have done some tech trades, about only thing they have is Construction, which they won't trade
• Now I'm going CS, then thinking of heading to Music for GA, then pushing to Lib
• No reason why I should not reach Lib first, unless one of the two others I have not met are ahead of the ones I have

Questions

• Should I switch from GS to GM. I have in some cities but not sure
• Running an Eng in Thebes as mentioned
• What to do with my workers?
• I could build more settlers and expand south of Zara, lots of good spots, but then when I attack him I'd have to defend multiple fronts
• have one galley ready, and two more being built which should switch to galleons
• Currently either running Fail goal or wealth right now

This is by far the farthest I've been ahead on Monarch at this stage. In the games I have won at this level, I'm usually equal at this stage, so seeing a huge difference already... Did not expect the civ's on the other islands to be so far behind.. Poor Izzy is so far behind I'm tempted to give her a tech or two just so she is close to the others

Save attached... I can post maps but is a little more of a challenge now as there is so much land to screenshot

 

[lymond]

Ha..well, you coulda finished Colossus in Lymo before Astro bulb. It's now obsolete. Although it is in My's queue it would actually be wasted hammers this turn as you can't put hammers into a non-existent build.
(sorry meant to mention this fact in last posts)

I'd head to Music after CS. Switch to Bureau/OR and have Thebes pump some mishes. Head to Philosophy first. Use free GA for Golden Age and Pacifism.

GSs could still have value but not sure on timing for ...say..a bulb into Education. Merchants are fine, but can still run scientists too for now. As long as you got gold to run 100%, scientists are more beakers.

Harbor in jnebbe over LH makes no sense at all.

those barbs cities down there lookin' kinda nice too me.

(notice your trade route commerce now)

Keep an eye out for Zara with some gold. When he gets like 60+ gold do a beg for it. If you've not begged this whole time you can probably beg for up to 100g for sure, but 80g maybe to be safe. That is if he ever gets any gold. Once you see 60g+ at all here I'd go ahead and beg for it. Gives a peace treaty too.

Thebes should take gold now instead over other mine...with bureau that will be nice boost, and it slows grow there. Lymo can focus on growth more now for later golden age starving.

keep eye out for any happy trades. a city could be settled at some point as well to nab the silk and take clams.

keep most cities growing as much as possible for now

What is the southern Caraval thinking? Head West young man!

 

[crashmon]

oops forgot that colossus goes obselete.... Thats all my FG gone
At least I have a lot of FG into the Pizza, just need one of the others to build it

 

[coanda]

I'd take Theology off Zara Yaqob in trade. Theocracy when you start the military build-up will be nice, as will discounted research cost for Paper. And you could turn around and sell Theology to the other civs when they have something worth getting off it. On a similar note, after you pick up Theology from Zara Yaqob you could potentially leverage anarchy-free religion swaps from Spiritual to shift into No Religion for five turns and get Ivory in trade off Gilgamesh (you lose the 1 religion happiness, but gain 1 ivory happiness, so in the short term it's a wash; in the medium term after you've swapped back to Confucianism it's giving you +1 happy).

I might take a serious run at Museum of Maussollos in Thebes - take back the Copper from Krikav, go all-out on it. It'd finish about the same time you'd have Philosophy and be ready to kick off a Golden Age. Four more turns of golden age for this particular empire is probably gonna be worth about 200 commerce and 100 hammers. That by itself is worth it for an IND leader who has no other urgent priority, and another 4 turns of +100% GPP at a time when your high-food cities are heavily focused on that will push you along nicely too. Might mean getting your fifth or even sixth Great Person noticeably faster. And worst-case, if you fail because some other civ finishes it in the next 10 turns or so, better to have the capital be the one getting failgold off those limited turns rather than some other, lower-production city.

Switch into Organized Religion the same time you pick up Bureaucracy from Civil Service (don't switch now because the 5-turn civic switch limit would delay Bureaucracy). You're pretty rapidly closing in on being ready to kick off a military attack. Probably a bit under 30 turns to Gunpowder and either Military Tradition or Steel, kicking in Zara Yaqob's door somewhere around turn 175.

 

[lymond]

Ha..well now it's ONLY fail gold....you just have to wait for someone to build it. (you can always go back to that turn if you wish) Ofc, Colossus was meaningless here in terms of its bonus since that obsoletes as well with Astro, but the GM points from it would be nice at least.

(I'm assuming you still get fail gold from Colossus but I'm blanking right now on if you still do for obsolete wonders...anyone?)

Yeah, I was not totally explicit on the importance of the civic change as coanda was above...def wait to switch Bur/OR at the same time, cause you don't wanna delay Bureau at all.

MoM is nice. Kinda sad to put in Thebes with all those nice GE points, but you really don't have the hammer potential anywhere else and most cities should otherwise be focused on food/growth before the golden age.
...and well a GE is not all that important here

 

[crashmon]

So just to summarise, get Theo asap, switch into MoM in Thebes, switch into no religion to get Ivory....

Once I get CS, as soon as the five turns is up on the no religon switch, switch in Bur/OR/Conf, put out Missis to my non religous cities, build about 4 more WC to take southern barb cities while growing the smaller cities up.

Then continue to aim to Lib and Steel

 

[coanda]

Take the copper with Thebes as you begin working on MoM. Take the gold as well once you get Civil Service, you'll want that 8 commerce to be boosted 50% by Bureaucracy.

You're prepping for a big golden age in about ten turns, which means you want to be thinking about what cities will do during that golden age - especially high-food cities that are going to try to generate lots of GPP. Krikav wants to grow - ideally 10 turns from now it's size-12 with a nearly-full food bank. Take the corn from Sampsa for that. Fippy probably wants to get a lighthouse (working horses and the grass mine), then just focus on banking as much food as it can. Fish Man wants to grow - better to be working a 1F tile there than a specialist right now, since specialists will give 3x as many GPP in a dozen turns so you really want it to be size-5 or even size-6 if you can get there. Other than that, cut back a little on specialists in any city that is below happy cap and could be working 2F tiles instead, you want to grow now and work specialists later. Once you've got Bureaucracy adopted so you know exactly how many turns it will be until MoM finishes, you might juggle tiles a little to time out city growths happening the same turn as MoM finishing.

If you're going for the barb cities to the south, I'd build 6 more chariots (Krikav, Coanda, Sampsa, Lymond, Gumbolt, Jnebbe), add them to the 2 you have already, and send those 8 south. It'd certainly be enough to take Etruscan, and if you aren't unlucky in combat there's a decent chance you'd have enough survivors to take Phrygian afterwards.

 

[coanda]

Oh - and there are seperate timers for religion switch and civic switch. You can switch no-religion this turn, and organized religion + bureaucracy in two turns when civil service finishes, then Confucianism in 5 turns when the religion switch timer is up.

 

[crashmon]

Latest update, 660AD

• one turn from Music
• Found Rome (JC), he is farther behind than Izzy. Gave him Maths for 10G, he actually had nothing to trade
• Have build multiple WC's couple more on way then will attack Barbs
• Did not have anything I can trade for Ivory, so did not switch religions. Once I get gems hooked up from Barb city will have mor ethings to trade
• Zara has Philo, will trade for it next turn (he bulbed it)
  
• Zara going for Feudalism, so will have to deal with longbows when I take him. Others are farther behind
• Still waiting for sombody to build colossus
• once I get music, I will not start the GA until MOM is built (6 turns)
• in 6 turns
  • Thebes Size 13
    
  • Krikav will be size 12
  • Sampsa Size 11
  • Coanda Size 8
  • Fippy Size 8
  • Lymond 9
  • NZ 7
  • Gumbolt 6
  • Jenbbe 5
  • Fish Man 5
• Oh I messed up and built a fort near Krikav, must have misclicked and did not check what was happening, must learn to pay attention to all my workers in these games

So save attached, once I have enough WC's will take the two barb cities, taht will bring me to 12 cities...

Then onto next stage of training, how to run the Golden age correctly, will start it once I have MOM.

TBH I feel I have the game won now, but I want to learn how best to do a golden age, and how to do a proper mediavel war on different continents, so will be continuing on (plus I'm really enjoying this)
I also need to make more cities for the other folks who have helped in this game

 

[coanda]

Oh nice, Zara Yaqob bulbed Philosophy! That's 1200 beakers you can save. If you pull off the plains cottage and onto a mine in Thebes it'll finish MoM in 5 turns, so you'd be starting your golden age on turn 148. Krikav will get your first Great Person, and you're probably hoping for a Great Merchant there (Rome built Temple of Artemis, you haven't even found their capital yet and it's on the opposite side of the world, so you'd probably just send the Great Merchant to the much closer, faster Kish of Gilgamesh). Fippy will get your second GP. A Great Scientist would get Liberalism a bit faster, which would make it the "safer" play if you were at all worried about an AI beating you to it, but a Great Merchant would honestly be fine too in this case. Krikav will probably be close to a third GP by the end of the Golden Age, and you'd be aiming for another Great Merchant with that one.

Personally I'd go the Cuirassier route here, not the Cannon route. Either is fine; you're just so far ahead in tech that I don't think the slightly greater firepower of cannons is necessary, while the faster movement of Cuirassiers will save a significant number of turns gathering on Zara Yaqob's border, moving through his territory until he's capitulated, then gathering again on the coast to sail to the next continent. ~3 turns faster gathering on the border, another ~6 turns faster capitulating him probably, another ~6 turns faster gathering your troops up again on the coast; that's ~15 turns earlier to hit Gilgamesh or Charlemagne. Plus you have the option of upgrading leftover war chariots from the south after taking Etruscan and using them as a second front against Zara Yaqob to get an extra city or two pretty quick.

 

[lymond]

Only a couple of comments:

1) Mishes are your priority. Starting one in Krik was probably not a good idea since low on hammers. Sampsa can build one in 4t which is not bad. My City could probably do one after the LH.

2) Basic idea is to grow most cities as much as possible then work towards maximizing the food bar close to the golden age. You will use stored food to run as many specialists as possible going into starve mode in cites - though no shrinking.

...NZ should switch mine to coast tile to max growth and continue doing so up to golden age to gain pop and stored food.

3) My City - Instead of adjusting off the food to avoid growth due to happy issues, take the food back + mine and 3 scientists. Notice food bar (32/34) with +1 food surplus. Run this configuration for 2 turns but click avoid growth next turn to hold at 34/34. The turn before you lose the unhappy, turn growth back on, then max food. (edit: actually LH complete you can add scientist next turn to keep +1 food surplus next turn)

4) Worker hops off desert hill next to Krik and helps other worker to recover the farm there...and I do mean farm.

5) Worker under Sampsa could chop that forest next to him to speed up some mishes in Sampsa.

Again, remember based on prior input by coanda and myself, that the biggest priority was preparing for the upcoming golden age, i.e., missionary spread, MoM, growth and Pacifism. Barb cities are secondary to that right now.

oh...Philo will be a bit expensive to trade for since Zara has monopoly on it. I'm inclined to put one turn into it after music finishes at about 40% research slider. This should reduce the cost and allow a compass/aeths trade. (also, assumes you will switch most cities to scientists....merchants down in the island city ok though)

Played a couple of turns, and you should have some techs to trade for from other folks like Construction. Zara will have silk for you soon to trade for that with clams.

Monitor AI techs and gold. Check trade values against their gold. You can start to evaluate trades against their gold and other tech to identify if they are teching something or close to finishing something. If so, trade old tech for that gold. Very old techs that AI don't have now I would go ahead and trade for gold when they have some available. Things like Meditation and even Math (you will see this in a turn or so)