Prince strategies fails miserbaly on Monarch

[Mack_Jagger]

Jesus, Monarch! I took the step from Noble to prince a couple of months ago and found out that I could pretty much steam roll the AI as I used to on Noble. It got a little bit boring to butcher Longbows with cossacks, sooo... why not try Monarch? A little bit scary but I was tempted to join the league where the big boys play, he he. And how hard could it be? The transition from Noble to Prince was kind of a ehh no show. So I went for it. I went for it and the only thing I got in return was humiliation.

First atempt, playing as Mehmed. I was truly chocked how fast the AI expanded. My starting location was fantastic with four river plains and three (yes three!) gold mines. Well, well, when I got my first settler out the AI alredy had their second out, stealing that copper spot from me. Researched animal husbandary to try to find som horses, I had warriors defending my two citys and we cant have that, can we? Yes horses, just south of me! And there we had that sickening sight of Cyrus light greenish color. Okay Cyrus with immortals, me with archers and by that time I was boxed in.

So I thought it through. What went wrong? The expansion for sure was all to slow and the reason was my starting location. How great it may have been there was no trees to chop.

Second atempt with Caesar and his heavy lads, the praetorians. I'll show you who's boss around here!

I chopped like hell and got three citys up. And... no iron, no religion and my citys decayed in unhappines. Every one had a religion but me. I have never had that happen to me before. I was surronded by religion and didn't get one bit of it. Strange. I shut down the game in anger when Montezuma planted a nice stack o doom at my northern border.

In the two first atempts i really didn't get a chance. I didn't even get started. So in the third atempt I choose Agustus, doesn't wanna be with out them praets in the hard world of the Monarchs. It was a pangea map so I wouldn't have to bother with a trans continental invasion. I regenerated the map several times to get the perfect start, aiming for production. And i got started, built three citys and started mass producing praets, waiting for a religion to stear my way. Got judaism from Mansa but didn't convert. Alex and that chineese guy, Quin or whats his name is were both buddist and I wanted to tag along with thoose guys. Doesn't wanna upset Alex in the early game and I had my sights set for Mansas citys already.

Unhappines started to ravage my citys again but then a saw a lovley sight, a buddist monk entering my space, stering his bare feets to Antium. Thanks Alex, i accept the invitation to you'r privilieged buddist club. And for Mansa, eat some steel sucker. .

Well waring was a bit harder i found out. The AI hasn't ben enlightend with the basics of warfare yet but the enemies has a lot more troops. I took one city and all of a sudden, my neighbour to the north, that pompous gay guy, Luis of France declared war on me. I thought all was lost but obviously he was just an opportunist and only sent som stray axman and swords on me. I had no problem to ward them of. I extorted monoteism from Mansa for peace. Timbuktu was positioned on a hill and with out cats I couldn't take it. Monoteism was the only tech he was willing to part from. I had already researched it half way through but, oh well better than nothing. I went up north, razed two french citys and captured Paris and Reims and Luis wouldn't be a problem no more in this game.

Shaka and Quin planned to be though.

They didn't share religion, they were both cautios with me and the decided to go tag team. They jumped me and I had all the problems in the world to defend my self. I have never seen the AI be this aggresive and touchy. Jesus guys, have you just laid of the smokes or what's bugging you? After a while they got sick and tired of wasting troops on me. Still sending just a pair of attackers over the borders. I don't get why the AI does that? Actually it's behaving more idiotically on Monarch than on Prince as it seems. We were kind of even in power so me beeing weak wasn't the reason why they attacked me.

When I had som peace for once (I had been in war all most constantly) I built up my infrastructure. When I had catapults and maces it was pay back time. A sent my forces to Shakas borders and demande tribute. I knew he wouldn't give me anything but his rabid upset face, head and fists shaking, lips trembling with anger, it always makes me chuckle. Oh well you asked for it Shaka!

During this war i researched grenadiers and towards the end Shaka could throw some grenades him self but by then it was more or less over. I saw som stray cavalry as well but he only managed to cram out two of them before i plundered his last source of horse (hey that rhymes). When the war ended it was in early 1800. I've been lagging tech wise for the whole game, but this was the time I understood that the game was truly lost. Even Luis who I had decimated to two crappy citys was ahead of me in techs. The only one who was behind was Mansa with only one city. Shortly there after some one completed the Apollo program.

All the dominant forces of the world where Buddist and while I was fighting my wars thye reseached and tech traded with one another and I couldn't research anything juicy to trade with.

As I have learnt from the ALCs, beeing behind in tech on monarch isn't a big deal. Just conquer a big chunk of land and out tech the opposition. I followed that stigma through out the game but when I got my big chunk of land it was all to late. Domination wasn't an alternative either. Throwing cavalry against infantry could only spell disaster. On Prince my strategy would have taken me to the realms of Augustus but on Monarch I got my face shoved in the dirt.

Where did I go wrong? I initiated the first war and the last, the others was aggressions from the AI, so i can't see how I could have avoided them.

 

[Cam_H]

Diplomacy?

It seems that while you had a reasonable handle on joining a strong faith in Buddhism, you did not outline your trading allies and do things like bribe them into dogpiles of your own. You may have done, but I couldn't spot it in your overview. Remeber that favourite civics can be powerful choices like religious conversions can be in terms of appealing to 'friendlies'. I often never convert to a religion, but it's situation-dependant.

Great People?

How were your GPs used? Lightbulbing along 'pre-determined' technology paths is a popular strategy that is often embraced at the medium levels and wholeheartedly embraced at the higher levels, albeit seems pretty wasteful at the less challenging levels of play where technological leadership is easier to achieve. Did you slingshot at all? Liberalism?

Victory Target?

You mentioned that you felt Domination wasn't going to happen in the latter part of your game, but did you play with a target victory in mind?

Vassalage?

I've never been a big one for securing vassals, but played a couple of games where it's come in handy. Could you vassalise either Louis XIV or Mansa?

The dreaded posted game

Perhaps a posted game might help (mid game?), as despite your extensive narrative it's still a bit difficult to see where you're at an how you got there. I'm sure someone out there will offer some help unless you've selected strange map settings or have a weird mod.

I hope some of this might have helped.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

Sounds like you did alright in your last game except for remaining backward. You might want to look at the tech trade screen a little more often maybe, see what deals are available. Trading is the only way to keep up in tech if you don't have a huge expanse of land to cottage. Try staying on a beeline in the tech screen, that way you should usually have something to trade. Or just pick the right tech to research, knowing what the AI does and doesn't prioritize takes a bit of experience. If your aim is to war then don't research anything but military techs and hope to trade for the economic techs.
When trading on the higher levels be wary of the WFYABTA limit, the best way to do that is to minimise the amount of cheap techs you get in peace concessions or trades, for example if you offer up engineering and get offered Civil Service plue archery then remove archery from the trade, it should only take 1 turn by this stage of the game anyway.
And know what you have to research to get by oyu can leave quite a lot of techs unresearched.

 

[Mack_Jagger]

Well I didn't vassalize anyone because I havent really found it useful. By the time the enemy capitulate they are so weak that they are more or less useless. When playing as rome I usually don't spawn many GPs at all. I go by the tactis of conquering my wonders. I went at Mansa before he had built any usefull wonders. Shaka and Luis didn't contribute in that department either.

The target win was domination, for sure, but on prince I have no problem waring, expanding and keep up in the tech race as well. That didn't work on monarch an in hindsight I think I was to stressed up of the power graph. As it started, with war on three fronts I really didn't want to fall behind in power. My early wars, as allready mentioned, wasn't exactly succesfull, I got two citys of Mansa and to from Luis and it costed a lot, mainly time. I started with few citys and I still had to few to far in the game. If you don't have sucessfull early wars playing as Rome, hey then you got problems.

The Liberlism race wasn't even to think of, I was to far behind by that time. One thing that failed badly in this game was city specialisation. All my citys had to double as production citys and a threw in specialisation buildings between the units. I think that was the main misstake. I hadn't built any of the "power wonders" in the 1800s, meaning wall street and Oxford.

Phew, gonna take a deep breath and try again tomorrow.

50 dollar bag: Yes I really have to get better in the trading department. I try to be the first to alphabet. From there, playing as Rome I like to reserach code of laws to finance my expansion with them cheap cort houses. There after its mostly military techs, which I trade with my budies for civilian techs. But in this game my military techs, from feudalism an forward, was alreday discovered by my buddhist buddys. I was the attackdog who dealt with thos troublesome heathens, while they could tech away in orderly faschion. But hey, those heathens were right at my borders. It ended up with going from door to door as a beggar asking "Could you spare this for a good friend?" Well friendly or not, they gave me nothing. Ungratefull bastards.

 

[Strato]

You have a good attitude of keeping on trying. It's the way I kept on going with monarch myself, because along the way I would shake off any old habits and improve my skills with AI diplo and tech research.

I would try and get some of the other AI's to go to war with you (ally with you). Often times sharing a religion or a civ will get them to like you enough, plus you can also get the mutual military stuggle diplo bonus. I used to go as far as refuse to change religions outright, however I have since learnt of the value of having a good ally. There's no point going out and fighting the world alone you know.

Further to the point of religion, if you do found your own religion, try and get those missionaries out to convert a potential ally's city, so that he/she may convert to your state religion. The sooner the better in my opinion.

As far as finance goes, are you razing cities or letting them stand when you take them?

Finally, city specialisation is critical. The hammers you spend on building a bank that only gives a small amount of coin for your empire could just as easily be spent on research or more military. Focus on what your cities are for, build the improvements necessary (try and avoid working unimproved tiles)

Good luck with your next game.

 

[dragomaster]

try to play a finansial civ, Huayna is one of my favorites together with Elizabeth.
don't underestimate the power of greate people. try to get a greate scientist for an academy, that move is strong. if playing a finasial civ, I rearly build more than one wonder in early game and prority is the greate library. the greate people points from it will help you to light blub you way to liberalism. the GL it self is eight gp points prior scientific method, 16 if philo or pacifism, 24 if philo + pacifism and 28 if philo + pacifism + parthenon. then ad a scientist or two and you get even more. maybe you know that gl is a greate wonder and if you didn't just take a look on the numbers. (24 if philo + pacifism) that is a great reserch bost, isn't it? ad two scientists and you get 42 Greate people points/turn.

If you like to war alot, do it. but remember: the higher the level, the more importent science is.

 

[Mack_Jagger]

Thanks for the input every one. I started another game, after I wrote that last reply yesterda (four in the morning, hrmmm). It's a continents map and I play as my favorite Mehmed. I have found my ally in Hannibal, we're booth hindu. Ragnar and Brennus are jewis. The game has started of great and I have five of my own citys up. Ragnar is kind of annoyed with me and have harrased me with border attacks. Nothing troubblesome but I wasn't strong enough to take any of his citys.

But seeing that the only visible city of Brennus, was guarded with something like seven archers, gave me the understanding that the poor sod didn't have any metalls or horses. I steered my stack o domm to his borders and attacked. He finished feudalism the same turn and started upgrading to longbows. He also traded with Ragnar for metall and axemen started to show up. After I took that first border city, the coward vassalized himself to Ragnar. Well I had seen that coming and had beefed up my defenses.

Alla in all everything goes well. Before the war I was the tech leader and could only get penauts for the techs that i got. But Hannibal, that smuck, my brother in faith doesn't give anything up easy. If he cooperated a little we could've been masters of our continent allready. The trading situation bothers me. I loost the tech lead to Hannibal, whoch makes him even less inclined to trade away techs. Optics is high on the agenda to try to find that other continent.

I'll keep you updated how things turn out. I'm aiming for a space race win.

 

[yena]

It seems that you paid to much attention to the power graph in your first game. While it is important for AI relations, it really doesn't say much about the quality of your army or the strength of your position. Consider using peaceful periods to research (or trade for) key military technologies and growing your cities and infrastructure. Once it is time for war, turn off research temporary to get cash for upgrades and whip/draft new troops in a hurry. Works for me.

 

[pigswill]

When i first moved to monarch from prince I also found it a major struggle. I've been playing on monarch for a few months now and getting fairly comfortable. Only problem is, I can't remember what I've done different!!

Edit: I don't think it is a matter of doing anything different. It's more a matter of improving focus and playing more efficiently. Managing workers more effectively and improving tiles in the right sequence, specialising cities, cutting down on early wonders, early war to expand territory etc.

 

[Mack_Jagger]

Okay then, the previous game went down the drain. I was the tech leader on my own continent but wWhen I discovered the other continent, Wang Kon sat there with something like ten techs on me. But it's not just gloomy. Unable to accept defeat I started a new game which played out quit differently. Playing as Mehmed on a continents map, I founded hinduism, built stonehenge, the oracle and the partenon in my capital while my other citys were pumping out settlers and workers. Judaism was founded on the other continent and two missionaries was all that i took to make my continent all hindu. My neighbours is Mao, Washington and Cyrus. God lads, no nut jobs as far as the eye can see. I won the liberalism race and everything was on track for a space race win.

Now, things are starting to slip away. The main competitors to the space race win are Washingon and Mansa Musa. When I saw a great engineer spawn in New York I knew what would happen and sure enough, Washington finished the Space Elevator. I'll try to post the save game here and maybe some of the sharp minds in herre can find a way to win this game. Right now were kind of neck to neck. I got SS Life Support on Washington and he has finished the docking bay, I got 12 turns left on it. I haven't yet reserached fusion for the SS engine and i think that Washington will complete the research of that tech shortly. Right before that great engineere he spawned a great scientist. I don't know if a great scientist can help research fusion but I count on that possibility.

Well here's the save file. Is it still winable?

 

[Strato]

Alt-Tabbing screws my mouse up, so I'll just have to go with a few pointers:

1.You military, well the city garrisions especially are outdated. If I were an oppurtunistic opponent, I'd be sweeping in with tanks and causing all sorts of havoc to stop you from winning the space race. I'm quite suprised it didn't happen.

2. There are some unimproved tiles that are being worked. I remember a forest that could easily have done with a lumber mill. There's extra hammers right there. Make sure your cities are working the tiles to their full benefit.

3. Further on the point of cities, try and nail the idea of city specialisation. The article at the war academy (Specialisation of Cities) is a good run down of what to look for and what to do. As a minimum when I start my empire off, I always look for a city that can generate great people (GP farm) a city that will produce huge amounts of coin for research, and a city that can produce a lot of hammers. Circumstance will vary those priorities, (like my last game which was a monarch conquest, a lot of hammers were pumping out a lot of units) but for going with space race, a very balanced empire in my opinion is needed.

4. On that last point, it is wise to consider your winning options from the start, and try and stick to the plan. Not always possible, but that is a tip most of the experiance Civ gamers seem to say, and it's helped me out a lot.

5. Try going for a smaller map with monarch. Often times going from one difficulty to the next can be aided by dropping down the map size. This means less opponents, slower tech trading and faster contact with other civs. At monarch, the AI has an edge with research cost, so if there is a group of AI civs on another continent, they will happily tech trade away with each other, and can leave you well and truly in the stone age.

6. Be sure to sell your resources off if you feel inclined for GPT. Better off the money is in your hands and not theirs. I do tend to not sell strategic resources (eg: uranium) but having more money is always good to rush things.

Finally, I reckon this game is winnable. You have only three more components to get, and on your way to getting two from memory. Focus those cities on hammers, and try and get fission somehow for the final item. You do not need space elevator to win...

 

[Dnomal]

Firstly your game is winnable, your spaceship producton city is impressive, and should be able to win you the race.

A few weeks ago i also moved up to monarch, one of my own tactics i used was to keep up in gold by selling your resources. Even an annoyed opponent will give you 10 gold for a resource he/she dosen't have, in your game i managed to scrape 53 gold from other civs through trade, without giving up a single military resource.

Washington far from being your enemy is actually friendly, by giving up ecology I managed to gain fission and some gold, which isn't bad, anything to get you closer to fusion.

Btw- i recommend turning on Permanent alliances, in this game you could have already won by signing a PA with washington.

My own game style is to set a map up with raging babrs, then rush the great wall, that way the AI's struggle to expand and i get a free rain to settle were I want. If it works out it can pay up massively, giving you a huge adavantage before 0 A.D.

 

[Mack_Jagger]

Strato and Dnomal: Thanks a bunch for the pionters. . Well the GP farm, I rarley set one up because I feel it pretty much locks me to caste system mode for a majority of the game. But scince you haven won on monarch and i have not, I'm certianly going to try it. .

Dnomal, selling resources. Yes I'm terrible at that. My resource trades limits it self to say yes or no to the AI when they come with a proposal. I can certainly be a little more proactive there.

Cool, now I'm going flip on the game and try to get my first monarch win.

 

[HiroHito]

if you think the jump from prince to monarch is difficult, just wait until u see the one from monarch to emperor lol.

But I'm sure you'll get there soon enough, as you seem a capable player if lacking a bit of experience maybe.

 

[Strato]

Something I might add while I think of it is trading those strategic resources that are no longer of any use. The main one that comes to mind is iron, post renaissance (when everyone is using guns and stuff). Often times if I have any spare strategic resource going which isn't going to be used (except copper as it's for spaceship with one part) I'll gift it to a civ. I think it gives a diplo bonus to the "we appreciate the years you have supplied us with resources).

 

[cabert]

I had a hard time going from noble to prince, then a hard time going from prince to monarch and now I'm just lazy and play on emperor from time to time, winning some, losing more.

The trick on monarch is, as pigswill said, to focus harder on your goals.
That would mean having goals in the first place of course .

A few general comments :
- warlords 2.08 monarch level is hard! A lot harder than vanilla monarch. Some very good players don't feel the difference. It's probably because they could easily beat emperor anyway, so it's no big deal.
- there are options in the game you seem not to use. vassals for instance. Many diplomatic tricks. I heard nothing of wonders in any of your game descriptions. I don't say that any of those are going to win you the game, but I like to use the whole spectrum as much as possible. I think of it as my tool box, and I'm trying to use the best tool at any single moment. Of course, if you have only a cutter, you can use it to turn your screws into the wood, but you have a screwdriver, you don't use the cutter!
Maybe you don't understand why I say so, so here is a quote from you:

When playing as rome I usually don't spawn many GPs at all.

hum. really? I would look into the civilopedia for Rome's UB, and think twice!

So here are my conclusions :
- if you really want to win the game, you need to play with very well defined goals. Look at the ALCs you mentionned : each game is introduced with a pregame discussion, where some basic goals are determined and some options suggested. You should start each game with this level of information/plan before pressing the button to roll the start. You also need to assess very exactly the situation at any given moment and correct your plans/adapt your goals accordingly. A goal that doesn't lead to a victory condition is not a good enough goal (= building the great library is but what will the great library do for you exactly?)
- you could also go back to prince, and start playing different leaders, different victory conditions, different gambits, to get a better toolbox. Then come back with the screwdriver

 

[Kev]

I'm not the most accomplished player on Civ IV - I was big into Civ II way back when and enjoyed playing Deity+5 games. Still, I've been pretty comfortable with Civ IV Monarch lately, and I understand completely your frustration and bewilderment upon making the jump.

The biggest lesson I learned while making the jump to Monarch is that I could not perform in cookie-cutter style like in the lower levels (or like one could in Civ II). This is why I've come to appreciate this game more and more - it really forces the player to leverage advantages.

What I mean here is that one should play as much as possible to the strenghts of a particular civilization - as well as fully leverage the land, competition, etc presented throughout the game.

For example, while playing Augustus, one is particularly well set for a land-grabbing start. Being creative means quick border popping and organized will allow for more cities to be on board (cheap courthouses, lower civic costs). Not to mention a superior unique unit that can slice through early game defenters like a Ginsu. Here, it makes sense to get iron quickly (already having mining to start as Roman helps) and claim land by some early settling and then conquering as much as possilbe. With this, I won't worry so much about religion as I will usually capture a city with a religion in it and maybe even a holy city. Yes, you may be at 10%-30% on your slider by the time all is said and done, but most times the great swath of land you settled/took will put you in place to blow by the other civs later on (plus one might have also had the chance to bully some techs from others for peace).

Play a game as Ghandi (spiritual, philo) and you'd have to play differently to leverage the advantages. A specialized economy emphasizing great people would work to the advantage of this civilization - perhaps obtaining a religion or two and feeling free to make civic changes whenever it's deemed necessary.

This is not to say that in either game these are static strategies. Augustus will still have to farm, gain funds, and tech and Ghandi might have to fight some limited wars. One never knows, but in general there are better ways to play each civ to leverage their strenghts.

I found that diplomacy was another major factor in moving upwards, and it just takes time, experience, and frankly reading a great deal from these forums. There are people who have been great about posting thier entire games in threads complete with screen shots. These have been TREMENDOUS learning tools for me, and I encourage you to seek them out as well.

Basically, with diplomacy one has to learn strategic tech trading (very rare to get an even trade, so many a time you'll have to give up more that you are getting) along with the delicate balance of deterring people to war with you. One must first realize that it is impossible to please every one of your opponents, so I have found it handy to latch on to one or two powerful allies and ride the coattails if I have to. On Prince or Noble, if a civ came to me and told me they want me to cancel all trades with another civ, I'd basically say "Bite Me" and move along. Now, if one of my friends wants me to do so with a civ I'm not all that close with, you betcha! I need my powerful friend to stick with me more than I need open borders and 5 gold-per-turn with lame-o civ. Also, bribing friends to war with others means two civs that won't be coming after you in the short term, so don't overlook this excellent diplo maneuver. More interestingly, with experience you'll begin to see which civs make better friends overall and which ones will backstab you just for the giggles invovled. Fun.

There are other nuances and plenty of stuff I'm not even mentioning, but perhaps my 2 cents will help.

 

[alexandergreat]

It sounds as if technology is your major weakness. I think that going for a diplomatic victory here would be benifitial. Make a tech strong city early and get a caravel circumnavigating the globe asap. You can start trading techs which will make friends, and perhaps give a tech gift to the bigger ones to keep you safe. By know you should have a strong production city for your self and since you had a lot of tech you have stronger units. Ask your allies who they dont like and go for the consensus. Or go for a neighboring civ if the others are neutral. By doing this you won't have to worry about another civ declaring war on you, and you are getting points if they dislike them. Once you have a comftorable amount of land to have a good amount of beakers (and a few good commerce citys to fund it all) make a v-line for the defensive pact and then the UN wonder. Have an engineer waiting in the wings to quickly build it. By know, you should have waged warfare on only one civ, and hopfully aniallated it or made it so small it is not a factor in voting. Then trigger world wide elections and wait for the landslide.

 

[pigswill]

And of course with practice this dovetails in together. You produce GPs which lightbulb techs which you then trade for 2-3 slightly cheaper techs for a net advantage. You keep an eye on trades (never be afraid to renegotiate a cash-for-resource trade if they've got more gpt i.e. instead of silk for 4gpt change it to silk for 9gpt). You keep an eye on friends and foes, most of the time you're loyal to your friends unless a backstab gains you more than you lose diplomatically. On empty maps you rex vigorously, on crowded maps you build 2-3 cities then amass a stack and wipe out your nearest neighbour.
By the time you've tried out various tactics and strategies you'll suddenly discover that monarch ain't as bad as you first thought.

 

[Mack_Jagger]

Whooo a lot of answers here. Thank you very much everybody. I can't adress you all seperatly but I have read all your answers, which have been very helpfull, carefully.

And yes, my main weakness as it seems is tech trading and diplomacy. I'm not a total stinker but lacking some skills for monarchy level. My research take some hevay punishment during war and I'm not skilld enough to trade back up to the competition. I know that the strategi is to research a tech that the AI doesn't have and then shop around but I usually find my self in the situation that I have to research currency to help my reserach up, because no one wants to trade it to me. And after that there's another tech that I really need to research before I go for that fat tech that I can trade to the AI. And then I fall even further behind. Well training makes perfect or what you english speaking fellas say. .

And by the way, I didn't manage to win that last monarch game. I played the last game load three times, but Washington beat me to the Space Race everytime. In the last attempt I hovered the mouse pointer over the redded out tech of genetics in Washingtons trade bar and got the message; Thanks but we much rather win the game! Thats one of the many reasons I love this game, all those details.