[BTS] Pacal Monarch- Getting over the hump

[M60A3TTS]

Iron Working is very rarely a tech you want to self-research early in the game.

Jungle takes too many worker-turns to improve early in the game, swords are either inferior horse archers or very delayed axes, and as trade-bait it's pretty worthless because the AIs love to research Iron Working - you can't trade it to them often, and can usually get it from them fairly easily after Alphabet. I don't think this game is an exception. Iron Working is not the play here. Not 100% sure what techs you currently have, but I think Writing or Horseback Riding would be the next priority depending on how you want to play it out.

Points taken. I've advanced this quite a bit, here is turn 85.



I went the writing/alphabet path. With that done, I am seeing there are still a few civs out there without IW so I'm teching most of it with the plan to be a little short beakers and then get the rest in a trade to Churchill for mysticism. Then I can trade IW for the religious tech group.



Seven other civs here. England, France, Inca are or seem to be east. Portugal north. Zulu and Celts not visible but are almost certainly west. Arabs I think may be west as well.

With 6 cities there are five civs with only 3 so I think the growth rate is good. I'm thinking maybe two more cities and then take a breather in expanding to let the economy catch up.

The new cities all have a food resource in the BFC. That includes a pig for Uxmal, wheat for Mayapan, cow in Chichen Itza. City Z will probably be next although it will not have a food source. But that will complete the first ring for the most part.

Mayapan and Uxmal aren't in perfect locations as neither is on a river but again there is a food source for each and there isn't anyone to the south apparently.

 

[sampsa]

Why are you teching IW then? You could just trade for it. I would've just gone towards monarchy, it's the most useful thing for your empire, because then you can grow.

The cities in the south are not very well placed. Try to either share strong tiles or claim new ones to the 1st ring. Building monuments and waiting for border pops takes way too long, thus is inefficient.

 

[M60A3TTS]

Why are you teching IW then? You could just trade for it. I would've just gone towards monarchy, it's the most useful thing for your empire, because then you can grow.

The cities in the south are not very well placed. Try to either share strong tiles or claim new ones to the 1st ring. Building monuments and waiting for border pops takes way too long, thus is inefficient.

Let's tackle this. I'll accept the discussion points that were laid out, but with these caveats.

HA rush better than swords. OK, but we already seemed to have a consensus that England should be our friend and that they were too risky to rush. So what immediate use would I have for horse archers?

Everyone researches IW. Fair enough, but not everyone has IW so it remains a tradable commodity.

Do I really want to trade alphabet for it? I think the generally accepted answer is no because that will just kick off an increased rate of collective AI research.

I see this then as a matter of economics.



In white is the beaker tech cost. At 322, iron working will be tradable for 4-5 religious techs. The AI will cling to sailing and masonry for a while because of the relative number of things they unlock. That leaves HBR as potentially the only tradable tech that will do basically the same thing as IW from a trade standpoint, except that with the added research time carries the added risk there will be more civs getting the IW tech and making it worth less. So the only argument which I can come up with is that in getting HBR I could get all the same religious techs and IW. I don't know that there is a compelling case to make for that since I then also have to come up with archery that I am certainly not dealing alpha for.

The city locs, I get it. But on the other hand this is a large map, not a regular size so aside from England there is no risk that I will be quickly hemmed in. Uxmal can share a couple cottage tiles with the capital but I'm also weighing the additional city maintenance costs if I am going a tight build even if I don't have to. Waiting for border pops and monuments inefficient, in this case I agree. Of course to the earlier point if I had espionage on, things would go a bit quicker with only 10 culture needed for expansion.

 

[sampsa]

So what immediate use would I have for horse archers?

If you are not attacking with them, none.

Do I really want to trade alphabet for it? I think the generally accepted answer is no because that will just kick off an increased rate of collective AI research.

Oh, you should definitely not worry about that. Actually I see it more of a bonus that you can increase the tech rate of some of the AIs, because that means that you can get more trade value from them.

If you want to trade for the entire religious line, tech maths or aesth.

The city locs, I get it. But on the other hand this is a large map, not a regular size so aside from England there is no risk that I will be quickly hemmed in.

It has nothing to do with being hemmed in. It has to do with the speed that the city will make a meaningful contribution.

 

[M60A3TTS]

Oh, you should definitely not worry about that. Actually I see it more of a bonus that you can increase the tech rate of some of the AIs, because that means that you can get more trade value from them.

If you want to trade for the entire religious line, tech maths or aesth.


It has nothing to do with being hemmed in. It has to do with the speed that the city will make a meaningful contribution.

So now we get to the good stuff.

Can you help me understand how I get more trade value when they are teching better?

Math would be better than HBR because they are both 401. I guess I need to look at what a beeline to aesthetics will provide. By then, will the AI be clinging less to sailing and masonry? I guess then it's just a matter of having a monopoly tech at 473 beakers and what will that yield in trade.

 

[sampsa]

Can you help me understand how I get more trade value when they are teching better?

Well, simply that the more they tech the more techs you get via trade. Best situation is when your first war victims are behind in tech and your friends are far away, teching on par with you. In general I'd expect to outtech monarch AI so heavily that I'd try to accelerate the tech speed early on by giving some of them alpha and so on.

I guess I need to look at what a beeline to aesthetics will provide. By then, will the AI be clinging less to sailing and masonry?

Aesth is pretty good trade bait in general as the AIs tend to ignore that line. Marble wonders are good, but to me winning music is the biggest prize of that line. Free great person to start a golden age with.

 

[M60A3TTS]

I committed to the IW tech and I did manage to at least do what I intended. Churchill lopped a turn off the tech in exchange for a cheap 79 beaker mysticism. Then I swung a second trade Boudica's way.



Took those two techs and then passed them to Churchill for two more.



Then over to the Incas to round out the early religious pack.



Met Zara and then threw one of the religious techs his way for masonry.



So for better or worse, this is how the iron working move has played out. Maybe not nearly good enough for deity/immortal but maybe ok at monarch? Will keep this all in mind for the next game.

 

[M60A3TTS]

Turn 98

Found where the Celts are.

I really can't complain about the progress thus far despite the many questionable moves on my part. #1 in score, military on par except for the Zulu. 7 cities rates the top spot for the moment. In the past I've been far more middle of the pack as previously mentioned.

Going the aesthetics route now. The trading has dried up for the moment as the AI civs are holding onto their techs.



Three of my cities are Jewish and three other eastern civs have that as their state religion. Dare I convert and risk the wrath of others?

Now that I'm on top I need to understand how to stay there.

 

[M60A3TTS]

Nine workers for seven cities. I know I need more with plenty of land to develop.

 

[sampsa]

So for better or worse, this is how the iron working move has played out. Maybe not nearly good enough for deity/immortal but maybe ok at monarch? Will keep this all in mind for the next game.

Yeah, you were able to backfill all the old stuff, but you would've gotten them anyway. Thus everything you achieved was not accelerating AI tech. I'd consider all towards IW as wasted, as you were able to get it anyway, for free. So maybe you were able to do what you wanted to do, but I don't think the plan itself was sound.

I really can't complain about the progress thus far despite the many questionable moves on my part. #1 in score, military on par except for the Zulu. 7 cities rates the top spot for the moment. In the past I've been far more middle of the pack as previously mentioned.

I think +24 for this date with FIN rivers is quite underwhelming, I'd expect at least double of that.

Three of my cities are Jewish and three other eastern civs have that as their state religion. Dare I convert and risk the wrath of others?

Yes, assuming you want to remain peaceful with Churchill, convert.

Nine workers for seven cities. I know I need more with plenty of land to develop.

If you don't need to clear jungle, 9 workers should be enough. I wouldn't have built any mines, just chop and cottage.

Wow, 8 axes and a holkan. I don't think you do much with them, maybe 3-4 was ok for safety. Warriors are great because they are cheap military police.

 

[coanda]

It's not a huge deal, but I guess I'll mention an optimization you might consider in the future.

There's an odd little game mechanic sometimes abbreviated WFYABTA: We Fear You Are Becoming Too Advanced. There's a very detailed explanation of how exactly it works here, but the short summary is that AIs who are not at Friendly relations with you can potentially start refusing to trade any more technologies to you if they've seen you gain too many techs in trade (from any player, not just from them). The exact limit depends on leader; it goes as high as 20 for Mansa Musa, but a bunch of leaders have limits as low as 5 (in your current game, Huayan Capac and Shaka have WFYABTA limits of 5). Each turn, for each AI leader, there's a 5% chance your WFYABTA counter will drop by 1 down to a minimum of 0.

So while getting techs in trade is generally a very good thing that you absolutely want to do, you should put a little bit of thought into taking very cheap techs - because sometimes simply having the tech isn't worth incrementing that WFYABTA counter; it might lock you out of getting a more useful tech in trade at some point in the future.

Look at your recent wave of tech trades. You got Meditation and Polytheism from Boudica, Archery and Sailing from Churchill, Priesthood from Huayna Capac, and Masonry from Zara Yaqob. That means every leader you've met so far has your WFYABTA counter at 6, unless you got lucky with the 5% chance per turn decrease by one random roll. Some of them - like Huayna Capac - may now refuse to trade you any further technology until you either reach Friendly relations with them, or their WFYABTA counter towards you drops back below 5 - which would take on average 40 turns, although you could get really lucky and have it happen in 2 turns or really unlucky and have it never happen for the rest of the game.

Now think about that Churchill trade, specifically. What's the value of Archery? You don't want to actually build archers. If you want a cheap placeholder unit, warriors are better. If you want an actual combat unit, axes are better. There's no situation this game where you're going to want to build Archers. You aren't planning on horse archer rushing, so there's no value there. It's not a prerequisite technology for any further research. It does nothing for you. And if you do eventually decide, at some point in the future, that you must have crossbows or longbows (or a very late horse archer rush), you could always either quickly and cheaply research Archery yourself, or get it in trade then; it's not like you had to decide now and forever whether it was worth getting. You have archery now - which does nothing for you - and as a result might at some point in the future be unable to get, say, Monarchy in trade from Huayna Capac - which would hurt a lot.

I would have outright removed Archery from Churchill's offer; give him less in exchange if possible, but just shake on the same deal minus Archery if necessary.

 

[sampsa]

Some comments based on the screenshots on how I think you could improve your game.

You seem to start with a monument in new cities. I close to never build monuments, only if absolutely necessary. If you place your cities better, you don't need border pops for a while. Later border pops are easy to achieve in many ways: library, religion, access to build (music), caste. It's much much better to always start with a granary, especially for an EXP leader. Granary doubles food, it's insanely powerful.

Workers and mines. I often don't build mines, unless you need to out a wonder. Here with access to FIN river tiles, mines go down in value even more. What you should do with workers is 1.improve food 2.chop 3.cottage 4.connect, in this order.

I played to 425BC to show how much room there is for improvement. I don't think there is anything spoily really, but you can also check this after you've finished your game.

Spoiler :

It's important to work all the green river cottages asap. That's why cities should be packed close to each other. -issue needs to be solved in some way, I chose to go construction for ball courts, but monarchy would be a more typical way. Captured a barb city with the help of catapults.

I did go for alpha first, but I'm so much ahead in tech that can't get trades really. Haven't even bothered to take IW yet. Barbs gave zero trouble even if I didn't really fog bust. 3 axes, 2 cats. Have academy.

Zero monuments, zero non-resource mines.

1AD screenshot (decent techrate)

Spoiler :

 

[Gumbolt]

Big gap from Sampsa to your save. +124gpt at 0% science and that will only increase with Civil Service. +143 gold at 0% science wuth CS? 240+ science at 0% tax with CS? Sampsa only has 2 foreign trade routes too. So you wonder if his numbers could of been improved?

That being said no one would expect someone improving at monarch to match Sampsa who likely plays deity for fun. You can see how spamming river cottages really pays off on financial.

I suspect his micro and decision making makes up a lot of that difference. Posting saves might of helped your advice too.

 

[sampsa]

Sampsa only has 2 foreign trade routes too.

True, didn't even notice that! Thanks. I traded for fishing+sailing to solve the issue, but should've done that ages ago of course.

That being said no one would expect someone improving at monarch to match Sampsa who likely plays deity for fun. You can see how spamming river cottages really pays off on financial.

I suspect his micro and decision making makes up a lot of that difference. Posting saves might of helped your advice too.

True, it takes some experience. The doctrine is very simple - expand as fast as you can, get granaries and cottages.

 

[konata_LS]

What you should do with workers is 1.improve food 2.chop 3.cottage 4.connect, in this order.

I played to 425BC to show how much room there is for improvement. I don't think there is anything spoily really, but you can also check this after you've finished your game.

Spoiler :

It's important to work all the green river cottages asap. That's why cities should be packed close to each other. -issue needs to be solved in some way, I chose to go construction for ball courts, but monarchy would be a more typical way. Captured a barb city with the help of catapults.

I did go for alpha first, but I'm so much ahead in tech that can't get trades really. Haven't even bothered to take IW yet. Barbs gave zero trouble even if I didn't really fog bust. 3 axes, 2 cats. Have academy.

Zero monuments, zero non-resource mines.

View attachment 631560

1AD screenshot (decent techrate)

Spoiler :

View attachment 631575

Very educational gameplay for newbies . The priority list of workers' tasks is indeed helpful, both for OP and other people who are still learning the game.

I have a question about your choice of state religion: why did you convert to self-founded Confu when Buddhist Boudica is your neighbour? And why did you decide to "irritate" the Hindu zealot Saladin?
Usually if Boudica or Brennus is my neighbour, I'll convert to their religion. Nappy and Churchill are not very religious, plus Boudica doesn't plot at Pleased. I doubt if converting to Boudica's religion is safer than sharing a religion with Churchill.

Admittedly the religions in OP's game is more subtle than in sampsa's: Zara also converted to Saladin's religion in OP's game, while Zara got random spread of Judaism in sampsa's game. I guess in sampsa's game Zara might found Christianity.

 

[sampsa]

I have a question about your choice of state religion: why did you convert to self-founded Confu when Buddhist Boudica is your neighbour? And why did you decide to "irritate" the Hindu zealot Saladin?
Usually if Boudica or Brennus is my neighbour, I'll convert to their religion. Nappy and Churchill are not very religious, plus Boudica doesn't plot at Pleased. I doubt if converting to Boudica's religion is safer than sharing a religion with Churchill.

Well, I just saw value in immediate +1 from religion and being already so far ahead in tech I don't think monarch AI can hurt me. Getting declared on is a minor inconvenience, nothing more.

 

[Gumbolt]

True, didn't even notice that! Thanks. I traded for fishing+sailing to solve the issue, but should've done that ages ago of course.
.

I tried that on your save and you still had cities with 1c trade routes. You need 18 cities to trade with? Or island cities. Then you need x turns of peace? You get 5% bonus for each pop size above size 10. Same for the AI city. So if both cities size 15 you will have 3c trade routes assuming 150% peace bonus. And 25% connection to capital. I think it's foreign trade routes on islands that help you breach 3-4c a turn. Not sure you had a costal city. Barb cities likely blocking that anyway. Trade routes won't work with barb cities on coast.

Same approach works for great merchants. Having a 16-18 pop city can get you 1700 gold on merchant missions. Especially if AI city is just as big.

 

[sampsa]

I tried that on your save and you still had cities with 1c trade routes. You need 18 cities to trade with? Or island cities

Yep, I also finished the road towards Boudica... then it's all 2 trs.

 

[M60A3TTS]

It's not a huge deal, but I guess I'll mention an optimization you might consider in the future.

There's an odd little game mechanic sometimes abbreviated WFYABTA: We Fear You Are Becoming Too Advanced. There's a very detailed explanation of how exactly it works here, but the short summary is that AIs who are not at Friendly relations with you can potentially start refusing to trade any more technologies to you if they've seen you gain too many techs in trade (from any player, not just from them). The exact limit depends on leader; it goes as high as 20 for Mansa Musa, but a bunch of leaders have limits as low as 5 (in your current game, Huayan Capac and Shaka have WFYABTA limits of 5). Each turn, for each AI leader, there's a 5% chance your WFYABTA counter will drop by 1 down to a minimum of 0.

So while getting techs in trade is generally a very good thing that you absolutely want to do, you should put a little bit of thought into taking very cheap techs - because sometimes simply having the tech isn't worth incrementing that WFYABTA counter; it might lock you out of getting a more useful tech in trade at some point in the future.

Look at your recent wave of tech trades. You got Meditation and Polytheism from Boudica, Archery and Sailing from Churchill, Priesthood from Huayna Capac, and Masonry from Zara Yaqob. That means every leader you've met so far has your WFYABTA counter at 6, unless you got lucky with the 5% chance per turn decrease by one random roll. Some of them - like Huayna Capac - may now refuse to trade you any further technology until you either reach Friendly relations with them, or their WFYABTA counter towards you drops back below 5 - which would take on average 40 turns, although you could get really lucky and have it happen in 2 turns or really unlucky and have it never happen for the rest of the game.

Now think about that Churchill trade, specifically. What's the value of Archery? You don't want to actually build archers. If you want a cheap placeholder unit, warriors are better. If you want an actual combat unit, axes are better. There's no situation this game where you're going to want to build Archers. You aren't planning on horse archer rushing, so there's no value there. It's not a prerequisite technology for any further research. It does nothing for you. And if you do eventually decide, at some point in the future, that you must have crossbows or longbows (or a very late horse archer rush), you could always either quickly and cheaply research Archery yourself, or get it in trade then; it's not like you had to decide now and forever whether it was worth getting. You have archery now - which does nothing for you - and as a result might at some point in the future be unable to get, say, Monarchy in trade from Huayna Capac - which would hurt a lot.

I would have outright removed Archery from Churchill's offer; give him less in exchange if possible, but just shake on the same deal minus Archery if necessary.

In that case, which techs would you self-reseach at a later time to backfill those that would otherwise count against your totals if you conversely traded for them?