Ragnar First Monarch Run - Tips for Newb

[Zergil]

Hey, guys!

Playing this game since 2004 and still trying to git gud. With the help of youtube (shoutout to Henrik) and this forum, Noble and Prince are almost always wins, but I want more power. Seeing such a helpful forum is inspired me to ask an advice here.

Started my first game on Monarch as Ragnar. Easy game so far. Settled 6 cities by 175 AD. Built GLH.

With Construction rush took 6 cities of willem by 800 AD.

Sitting Bull got a plenty of territory for free and settled 11 cities.

Now I have a dilemma:

1. Disband surplus troops (if it is viable at all) and go pacifism/caste system/GA to generate GPs and beeline education for Oxford. Then win Lib race, go Steel and kill Sitting Bull.

The problem is that I haven't got marble for Mausollos and building it for full price seems painful.

Other wonders in consideration: Colossus (not a fan, but I have seen a lot of praise of it), GL (skipped literature, so unlikely) and Taj. Lack of marble sucks.

2. DoW Sitting Bull and get marble. He has it in border city.

I will have a momentum including CR3 catas but I am afraid that even without Feudalism his archers will make my buns look like a hedgehog. And he has Monarchy, so Feudalism is pretty close.

Second consideration is that even being successful at war I probably won't wipe him out or force capitulation, making an early enemy instead of tech trading partner.

Redirecting production from wonders to military may also punish me in long run, so Mausollos, Taj and other stuff may be failed as well.

The questions are:

1. Should I go for Mausollos and Taj without marble?
2. Should I try to get marble in a war?
3. When should I DoW Sitting Bull and with which techs (Cannon Rush or Cuir Rush)?

Current save is attached. Only BUFFY is used. Any other criticism/suggestions and ideas would be highly appreciated.

 

[jnebbe]

Welcome!
Game looks good, there are some micro mistakes like an unimproved cow near a size 4 city, an unworked wet corn, and an idle worker, but nothing that looks disasterous.

You can keep warring and attack sitting bull if you want, catapults and elephants will wreck everything he has and you have a lot of forests that you can chop.
Also, it's perfectly ok to attack someone just to take a few cities at a time. Say you only take 4 cities from him and make peace, so what, now you have double his cities and a still have a big tech lead.

Wonders and Oxford are nice but not required, should focus more on getting cottages up asap, especially on river tiles, and growing your cities to double digit size.

Looks like you already got 1 great person, what was it used for?

 

[floydmcw]

Welcome!
Game looks good, there are some micro mistakes like an unimproved cow near a size 4 city, an unworked wet corn, and an idle worker, but nothing that looks disasterous.

You can keep warring and attack sitting bull if you want, catapults and elephants will wreck everything he has and you have a lot of forests that you can chop.
Also, it's perfectly ok to attack someone just to take a few cities at a time. Say you only take 4 cities from him and make peace, so what, now you have double his cities and a still have a big tech lead.

Wonders and Oxford are nice but not required, should focus more on getting cottages up asap, especially on river tiles, and growing your cities to double digit size.

Looks like you already got 1 great person, what was it used for?

Hi @Zergil do you have the starting (4000 BC) save? It may be in your autosave directory.

 

[sampsa]

Oxford you can safely ignore IMO, it's for space games. And space games are games that you cannot win by force. And you can always win by force up until at least immortal. Same goes for nearly all wonders - it's better to mostly ignore them. You certainly don't need any wonders and they might be more of a distraction. GLH and Mids are nice of course.

Unfortunately you have an old version of BUFFY so I can't open the save. But I'd trust jnebbe's word. Monarch AI without longbows has zero chance against cats, let alone ones with cr3.

 

[Zergil]

Welcome!
Game looks good, there are some micro mistakes like an unimproved cow near a size 4 city, an unworked wet corn, and an idle worker, but nothing that looks disasterous.

You can keep warring and attack sitting bull if you want, catapults and elephants will wreck everything he has and you have a lot of forests that you can chop.
Also, it's perfectly ok to attack someone just to take a few cities at a time. Say you only take 4 cities from him and make peace, so what, now you have double his cities and a still have a big tech lead.

Wonders and Oxford are nice but not required, should focus more on getting cottages up asap, especially on river tiles, and growing your cities to double digit size.

Looks like you already got 1 great person, what was it used for?

Much thanks!

1. The city with a cow was conquered and I used workers for chopping through woods and building roads for reinforcements instead of improvements. I guess I just needed more workers. Anyway instead of current chopping nearby I could just improve the cow.
2. Wet corn was a problem because I had not enough happiness and whipping made the problem worse. The happiness problems are solved now (just traded for gems with Stalin) so I will definitely fix this asap.
3. Regarding further attack - noted. Will try doing it. Hope that maintenance won't kill me. Courthouses are on the way, but still.
4. Regarding wonders - always trying to minmax in the long run even if that means later win. I know that in higher difficulties it may not work, but still do it.
5. GP (GM) was used for lightbulbing CS. I wanted GE, but GLH spoiled it. Trade mission during war did not look viable and golden age would be too early (race for mausollos did not end+I want more worked tiles to increase effect of GA).

 

[Zergil]

Hi @Zergil do you have the starting (4000 BC) save? It may be in your autosave directory.

Hi! I just can't load any autosave, strangely.

However my game (Steam version) acts bizzare in respect of saves. Making a starting save is a good habit, but I still don't have it.

BUFFY has this function, but the game keeps screwing me over by restoring default settings each launch. Probably it's all fixable, will make some search for it.

Here is the earliest save available (50th turn). Named it after HA rush because thought that it is good idea under those circumstances but changed my mind later.

 

[Zergil]

Oxford you can safely ignore IMO, it's for space games. And space games are games that you cannot win by force. And you can always win by force up until at least immortal. Same goes for nearly all wonders - it's better to mostly ignore them. You certainly don't need any wonders and they might be more of a distraction. GLH and Mids are nice of course.

Unfortunately you have an old version of BUFFY so I can't open the save. But I'd trust jnebbe's word. Monarch AI without longbows has zero chance against cats, let alone ones with cr3.

Thank you for the insight!

Wins by force were always too exhaustive for me, but I am trying my best to change it. This forum definitely helps. Space or Cultural always made an illusion of fast victory types because there is much less micromanagement.

Big tech lead is my usual strategy (kill those longbows with my cannons), however it is too slow and higher difficulties may kill the idea.

AI may research feudalism soon because he has it as available tech. Still have good chances if I go for berserkers, i guess.

 

[Gumbolt]

Nope don't have that version of Buffy. Time to update your mods to latest versions or run without?

You started a war to grab marble? Just let the ai build the wonders then capture the cities.

 

[Zergil]

Nope don't have that version of Buffy. Time to update your mods to latest versions or run without?

You started a war to grab marble? Just let the ai build the wonders then capture the cities.

The game is painful without BUFFY. Will find and update to the latest version next time. Thank you for the info!

No, I just considered a war to grab marble. After .@jnebbe and .@sampsaa advice I went to war just to wipe SB out.

The map is fractal so I even do not even know remaining three guys and who may build the wonders.

 

[Zergil]

Hi, guys.

Took your advice and went to war again. Waited until captured cities become pacified, while building some elephants and researching Machinery to get Bersies as reinforcements.

Gifted CoL to Stalin to improve relations, then DoWed Bull and bribed Stalin into the same war by Civil Service. Stalin has got Feudalism, so I didn't want him to trade it with SB under any circumstances.

SB's archers as expected were pretty annoying (a ton of promotions). My CR3 cats had like 50% odds with them, and both encounters were lost. Hopefully Bersies and Elephants will replace them as effective assault force. For now I have like 1 CR3 cat and 2 CR3 swords which should be enough for city or two. GG will also emerge soon, and I probably will assign him to axe to get free super Bersy and share experience to promote some CR3 cats.

Took 2 border cities. Medic heals really fast, so I am snowballing with minimum losses. Also it looks like SB doesn't have copper or iron, because I am encountering only archers and dog soldiers. Meeting longbows may force me to peace out, but bersies are still my hope.

The main problem is maintenance. Now I am paying like 20 gold a turn just for military. City maintenance adds up too. Teching is still possible only because of looting (only 20% slider gives positive income). Of course I am building lots of cottages, but they need plenty of time to grow. Growth of cities is somewhat hampered too by happiness cap and war weariness also begins to matter.

The tech path. Thinking about Engineering instead of Philosophy. Road movement bonus is nice, trebs may be good too. Then trade with Stalin for Feudalism and go Guilds.

Strategically I am not comfortable with slow teching and also afraid that my economy will burn out because of maintenance. Yes, I am financial and it is almost cheating, but still.

I know that the save is not helpful for most people here but still attaching it just in case if someone has the same version of BUFFY (looking pretty old for sure https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/buffy-mod-released.329283/).

Forum discussion makes Civ4 experience much more enjoyable and interesting.

Thank you!

 

[jnebbe]

It's completely fine trust me

I played some turns quickly. Captured 4 more cities using pretty much the army you already had. Ended up fighting 5 longbows I think. You're right that catapults aren't very good against protective longbows but if you have enough catapults it's not an issue. I then made peace with sitting bull and got both aesthetics+philosophy in the process. Your economy can be recovered by regrowing captured cities but also by getting tech trades when making peace.

After that, I used the next great person I got which was a prophet and started a golden age, switched into caste+pacifism, and got some more great people out.

At a certain point I finally got a trade route with stalin and traded all my excess resources for whatever I didn't have, got +2 health and +2 happiness from that.

Have a big tech lead and should be able to lib steel in the next 20 turns.

I saw a lot of buildings being built, generally the only required building is a granary which should be built in every city. Barracks/Libraries are good, monuments if you need a border pop fast, and then courthouses are ok too, every other building is pretty bad or situational which will take a long time to pay off, build research instead.

There was 1 very big problem I saw. You weren't in HR, so I'm guessing since you couldn't grow your cities you whipped them instead, so now you have a lot of forests left over. A golden age is much much stronger the bigger your cities are, and only a couple were double digits by the time I started mine. Instead you should;ve gone into HR earlier and used all the forests for your army, and then continue to grow your city's pop.

 

[Zergil]

It's completely fine trust me

I played some turns quickly. Captured 4 more cities using pretty much the army you already had. Ended up fighting 5 longbows I think. You're right that catapults aren't very good against protective longbows but if you have enough catapults it's not an issue. I then made peace with sitting bull and got both aesthetics+philosophy in the process. Your economy can be recovered by regrowing captured cities but also by getting tech trades when making peace.

After that, I used the next great person I got which was a prophet and started a golden age, switched into caste+pacifism, and got some more great people out.

At a certain point I finally got a trade route with stalin and traded all my excess resources for whatever I didn't have, got +2 health and +2 happiness from that.

Have a big tech lead and should be able to lib steel in the next 20 turns.

I saw a lot of buildings being built, generally the only required building is a granary which should be built in every city. Barracks/Libraries are good, monuments if you need a border pop fast, and then courthouses are ok too, every other building is pretty bad or situational which will take a long time to pay off, build research instead.

There was 1 very big problem I saw. You weren't in HR, so I'm guessing since you couldn't grow your cities you whipped them instead, so now you have a lot of forests left over. A golden age is much much stronger the bigger your cities are, and only a couple were double digits by the time I started mine. Instead you should;ve gone into HR earlier and used all the forests for your army, and then continue to grow your city's pop.

So far I captured 6? cities including capital. Met only 3 longbows. Possibly because of Stalin intervention.

Trebs and berserks are reinforcing the army, so the war is still going pretty smooth despite some losses.

The main problem is that war weariness kicks in (+2 unhappiness now) and SB is as usual resistant to capitulation.

I want a border with Stalin to exchange resourses so the peace treaty is not an option for me now.

Started suboptimal golden age with second GP. Went engineering to exhange for Aesthetics and feudalism. Then picked up paper, and philosophy just to mess up AI in lib race (still opened Tao).

My play is more aggressive and may be less optimal than yours but I hate having a rival who blocks my trade.

I've also met Pacal, who unsurprisingly has a tech lead. Still able to catch up, but anyway he is more dangerous than Stalin, so I will try find a way to reach him fast enough.

At the end of GA (and the war, hopefully) I am planning a switch to pacifism/caste for GPs. Will try going Taj for the second GA, or just use spawned GPs. Anyway it will be slower than your strategy, but more comfortable for me.

However, your approach is refreshing and looks cool, so I can't wait to try it in my next run.

Some questions:

1. HR. Do you expand garrison to boost growth? Didn't want to spend a whole turn for just a +1. After your post I made an immediate switch and built some archers as placeholders, but still not sure if that it is a way to go.

2. Buildings. Yes, I love hoarding them. Trying to build only granaries, libs, barracks and courthouses just to test. Isn't a forge (and lighthouse if the land tiles are crap) also ok? +25% hammers from whips and chops look tempting.

3. Whipping and chopping. I whipped a lot because of happiness caps. Sometimes I even stopped working food tiles because of angry timer. Teching Calendar and killing Willem helped a lot, but I delayed HR despite that I traded with Stalin for Monarchy. The map was flooded by forests which is obviously good. Tried to chop faster but probably should have built more workers. Is there any rule of thumb (like 2 workers/1 city)?

Thank you!