Please help with this Monarch start?

Eunomiac

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Sep 27, 2007
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Toronto, Canada
I've decided to try out Monarch with Suleiman of the Ottomans (Philosophical, Imperialistic). I'm playing at Marathon speed with Aggressive AI, Raging Barbarians and No Tech Brokering options set, and I'm shamelessly cheating with 500 autosaves running once a turn (... hey, it's my first time on Monarch! :cry:). I'm playing on the Hemispheres map set to three continents and six Civs, total. Since this is my first time at this level, not to mention my first time with Raging Barbarians and Aggressive AI, I want to run my thinking by the CivFanatics brain trust :D

My long-term strategy is to run a warmongering Specialist Economy, taking advantage of both of Suleiman's traits. I've made the move up to Monarch so that I can finally engage in some competitive naval warfare with the AI (at lower levels I always seem to have a vastly un-fun naval tech advantage).

Here's my start (it's sick, I know, because I shamelessly Regenerated; see aforementioned whining explanation re: autosaves :goodjob:):



Counting the Plains-Cows and the Stone, there are eight (!) "mines" to work with 3-4 Hammers each, making this a shoe-in for an epic Production capital post-Bureaucracy. Since Pyramids is a given with the Stone and the SE, I hope to nab the other Great Engineer wonders (Hanging Gardens, Haga Sophia, etc.) and run Ironworks + National Epic. This should give me tons of Great Engineers to settle in my military production cities once the appeal of Great Scientists wears thin, accelerating the war effort and helping me rush any wonders I might need to.

Defense vs. Wonders vs. Expansion: Ah, the big dilemma (trilemma?). At Prince, I was always able to neglect military until I beelined Bronze Working and settled a Copper city for Axemen. I suspect that this will be too risky at Monarch with Raging Barbarians, so I figure I have two choices. The first is to delay everything to grab Hunting --> Archery, but I don't think my delicate soul could handle the misery of sitting on my hands till I have Archers. I'm more excited about the second possibility, which is to grab the Great Wall.

I have stone, and I'm going to need Masonry for the Pyramids anyways, so I could go Mining --> Masonry --> Bronze Working and build the Great Wall ASAP. I see a host of benefits to this strategy: I don't need to waste time going for a dead-end tech, I can develop the mines in my capital earlier, I reach Bronze Working that much sooner, I get to cackle madly while the raging barbarians go after the AI, I pop even more Great Generals when the Aggressive AI invades past the Great Wall, I might get a Great Spy that I can use to steal techs from the AI, I'll be all set to build the Pyramids and, most importantly, I get to watch the Great Wall knock over an ink pot in its mad dash off a table.

A third choice, given that I already have The Wheel, would be to grab Animal Husbandry and settle near Horses for Chariots. While AH is never unimportant, I still like the Great Wall idea better since it doesn't force me to delay BW for too long (and I'm uncomfortable betting everything on hooking up nearby Horses since I don't know how soon I'll be marauded).

Since I know I can be a n00b Wonder junkie, I'm consciously restricting myself to Great Wall, Pyramids, Great Library and Hanging Gardens in the early game (hah! See? Told you I'm a n00b Wonder junkie). Seriously though, I have the strategic resource for three of the four, and Great Library is peachy in the Super Science city. Also, the Ottoman UB, an Aqueduct that gives +2 happy, is the prereq building for the Hanging Gardens and is at the same tech, so I'd be driving right past it anyways.

As for expansion, I'll quickly set up a military city near Copper so my military doesn't suffer for Wonders in the capital, and my third city will be the Super Science city near a ton of food resources. Fourth will be a cottage farm for gold to fuel further expansion, later running Merchant specialists, serving as corporate headquarters for Sid's Sushi and building Wall Street. I'll prioritize blocking off land from the AI for later back-filling, but I'm not sure how effective I'll be at that on a wide-open Hemispheres continent.

Regarding Slavery, am I right in assuming that slavery would be counter-productive in a high-production city like this? I figure it would be better to develop it to the happy-cap as soon as possible to take advantage of the many mines. Same might be true of Copper city, but definitely not true of Super Science so I'll switch into Slavery long before then.

As a completely unrelated question (that hearkens back to a previous game I played recently): If you start off on the coast with Fishing and a few seafood resources, how do you decide whether to build a Workboat first or a Worker? Is it always one or the other? If not, what factors decide?

I apologize if I rambled; I drank a lot of coffee on an empty stomach. ;-) Thanks in advance for any advice you have!
 
being on Monarch is really no big step in terms of raging barbs, if you've ever played that setting before.
Having stone makes getting the Great Wall a no-brainer here for me. Plus you have hammers from the cow.

Mining --> Animal Husbandry --> Masonry --> Bronze Working and you can wash away your barb worries for the rest of the game :) In fact I would build the Wall even before a first Settler. Then if you have horses nearby, get it hooked up and pump out 3-4 settlers guarded by chariots (they move just as fast as the settlers) for a rapid expansion phase.
 
Hmm, I played for a bit following your strategy and found that the only other AI on my island (Gilgamesh) expanded aggressively toward me while I was forced to "waste" a city settling behind me to grab horses (it's a fantastic production/military city, but it cost me a Settler I'd rather have used expanding toward Sumeria). By the time I'd assembled my first Chariot/Settler party, Gilgamesh had already blocked off a formidable chunk of our island.

I wonder how much of this is due to the particulars of this game -- Gilgamesh is Protective/Creative, which I imagine is quite convenient for a rapid expansion strategy in a game of raging barbarians :p Also, the island is long and rather narrow, meaning I couldn't get around his cities (with their fast Creative border popping). I stopped around 1600 BC just before settling my third city. I think I'm going to start again (same map) but try and get a few settlers out earlier.
 
You're playing raging barbarians and have stone and are philosophical. You might as well go for wonders. You can probably grab stonehenge and chop oracle while you're at it. Worker first, beeline masonry, etc.
 
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