[BTS] Need Help on Monarch

[sampsa]

Oh one thing, some of the images seem to be gone?! For example the one in this post: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/need-help-on-monarch.668629/page-2#post-16060118

I don't see any reason to use image hosting sites. Just upload them from "Upload a File" and insert as "Full Image".

This is the map I am thinking of playing next, never played Rome so should be interesting. But will be in a few days...
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/monarch-student-ii-augustus-caesar.333938/

Pangaea, monarch, super strong early UU... Again, my advice would be to not make it a complete walk in the park. My opinion is that if you choose to play something along with those settings, the aim should be ~1AD conquest.

 

[crashmon]

Oh one thing, some of the images seem to be gone?! For example the one in this post: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/need-help-on-monarch.668629/page-2#post-16060118

I don't see any reason to use image hosting sites. Just upload them from "Upload a File" and insert as "Full Image".

Looks like just that Image is missing, I have not touched the images... I still have screen shots so will look to fix

Pangaea, monarch, super strong early UU... Again, my advice would be to not make it a complete walk in the park. My opinion is that if you choose to play something along with those settings, the aim should be ~1AD conquest.

The game I did in this thread was semi-iso with a nice neighbour, so we did not have any early wars to divert from Tech path to Astro, then Lib, before a Cuirs crush...

For the 2nd game I want to touch on a early war Pangea type approach, as this part of the game was not covered in this first thread.. I am open to playing it on Emperor however, and I've never played as Rome, or as an Imp leader, so thats why was attracted to this.

 

[sampsa]

Played this map until T50 https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/monarch-student-ii-augustus-caesar.333938/ and read the posts in the thread. I can say that we've come a long way from that. I still wouldn't recommend you to play it as it's way too easy (assuming you are getting a lot of high quality help), but I am hoping we can use it as some kind of study material. Of course, you can still play it whether or not you participate in this "quiz". Everyone is free to comment of course.

1: What are your thoughts on what to do on T0? It's Augustus, so IMP/IND and the starting techs are fishing+mining. Starting screenshot and nothing else in spoilers.

Spoiler :

 

[coanda]

Might be a fun map to play, but the fact that events and huts are turned on will shift priorities from more "standard" settings. Huts are especially problematic for someone on Monarch aspiring to move up to Immortal because they teach bad habits. Huts behave very differently at high difficulty than lower because the AI explores land so much faster when it starts with a bunch of free units. So if you've learned strategies to maximize how many huts you collect, and to leverage hut rewards to the fullest, those simply stop being rewarding on Immortal and you need to relearn things.

If you want to have fun with Praetorians on Pangaea, from a quick glance at that worldbuilder save I doubt you could find a better map for it if you rolled up a hundred. Go for it, have a blast. But if you also want to improve at the same time, maybe try to find one that doesn't have huts.

 

[crashmon]

I think I would settle 1SE here so I get corn, cow, pigs and I flood plain 2 N. I would move warrior I NE onto Pigs to see if we have anything norh of river... Only issue with going 1SE is that one of the hills to north could have copper or Iron..

Would tech Agi, then BW, as I think AH can wait as we have the corn + Flood Plain for early growth

 

[crashmon]

OK I have not downloaded it yet, but if I can't turn huts off then its a non-starter

I'll roll a random, just want to get a map which has near neighbours so we have early war, but happy to do a random.

 

[sampsa]

Yes, huts are a distraction, so a minor problem. Perhaps even bigger problem is that it's monarch. It won't give you any feedback really, as you can do some nonsensical things and still cruise your way to a crushing victory. Praetorian strategy is also quite niche, I mean I had almost never self-teched IW before this game. So you'll learn how to do that, but that in itself is not very useful.

 

[crashmon]

So the jury is in

Tomorrow I'm going to create a random Emperor Pangea map, with Churchill. I've picked Churchill soley on the point he is the current nobles club choice, and his UU is a Industral one (red coats), so won't impact the game....

This should be a better choice for game 2.

I will start a new thread for it however

 

[sampsa]

OK I have not downloaded it yet, but if I can't turn huts off then its a non-starter

Yes, I don't think there is a way to turn huts/events off.

I think I would settle 1SE here so I get corn, cow, pigs and I flood plain 2 N. I would move warrior I NE onto Pigs to see if we have anything norh of river... Only issue with going 1SE is that one of the hills to north could have copper or Iron..

Would tech Agi, then BW, as I think AH can wait as we have the corn + Flood Plain for early growth

My answer:

Spoiler :

I think there are several somewhat reasonable plays, but to me two spots are better than 1SE - the plains hills 1NE and 1SE-E. It seems that time and speed were not very highly valued 12 years ago as nearly everyone went 1E which I wouldn't seriously consider, just way too slow and kills a forest, loses a turn with zero short term gains.

I went NE, worker first, BW! Might feel a bit surprising, but a few things make it reasonable. Hill pigs so you can mine them which halts growth anyway and IMP for fast settlers. Thus, after worker straight to settler, after mining pigs worker chops. There is already a reasonable city site spotted T0 (wheat+cow) and on monarch barbs won't harass you in a loong time.

I wouldn't worry about moving away from copper/iron. You can settle a city later to grab it, most likely on top of it to again gain those city center .

 

[lymond]

Yep, 1NE is practically a no-brainer there. BW first cause of Rome (starting techs), otherwise would def go AH if I could tech it outta the gate.

Another way to look at at, crash. I understand the desire to grab all these resources in one shot. But further analysis can adjust one's perspective. First, the best visible tile here is Pigs by far, so that is basically my focus for settling based on the known info. Ofc, there is cow there too which is a nice tile but not really a power "food" tile. Second, the wheat is dry so while not necessarily "bad" per se, I'm not opposed to moving away from a lower food special, if I feel I can improve my overall starting situation.

Next I look for bonus tiles that I can settle one. The PH 1SE1E will work. it gets all the visible specials, though loses 1 FP, and you get the bonus hammers. What concerns me a bit in that position is the coast over there..may be killing seafood there, but it's not the end of the world. Why I like 1NE better is that it gets the bonus hammer, pigs + cow is stronk, keeps FP, and appears to have a lot of river tiles - plus the city will be healthier though that is a minor concern. So 1NE has the benefit of a) a fast/strong start b) bureau potential

 

[coanda]

I don't think there is a way to turn huts/events off.

No way in-game of doing it. WorldBuilder saves are actually in plain text so if you want, you can edit them with something like Notepad++ (or just notepad, or your text editor of choice). One of the things you can do with that fairly easily is remove all the goody huts on a save. Just open the save ("Monarch Student^ || (Augustus).CivBeyondSwordWBSave" in this case), find every line that reads " ImprovementType=IMPROVEMENT_GOODY_HUT", and delete those lines. That'd remove all the goody huts. Depending on the text editor you choose, that might be as simple as a find-and-replace-all taking mere seconds and without even needing to look at any of the other lines - although I think fairly few people would find maps badly spoiled by briefly seeing stuff like

BeginPlot

x=12,y=13
TerrainType=TERRAIN_DESERT
PlotType=2​

EndPlot​

 

[sampsa]

No way in-game of doing it.

Ah of course! Should have figured out there is a way, as those NC games have both "huts" and "no huts" saves.