Regent->Monarch

[undertoad]

I've finally made the step into the deep water...

C3C 1.22, Greeks, Large, Continents.
Allowed wins: Conquest, DIplo, Space. (Conquest is my aim).

So far, so good. Started off with a Wheat right by my starting position, which gave me a nice settler-factory in my capital. Loads of good land, enemies like this:

- Koreans (most threatening) miles away to the south
- Romans across a desert to south
- Byzzies across a desert to the SW
- Sumerians to the W across a mountain-range
- Germans squeezed between Sumerians and Byzzies to the WSW
- Eventually, Dutch way over in the W of the continent.

Unusually high number of same-continent rivals, I think! My Settler-factory allowed me to fill all the space quickly.

What I've noticed so far in the step from Regent:
a) Barbarians actually fight. I lost a few Warriors in the crucial early game where this matters. This never happens on Regent.
b) The tech pace is so much faster. Usually I've traded my way to being ahead by the end of the AA; by the time I get to Gunpowder I have a monopoly on it, and am scientifically independent: don't need to trade for techs, can "steer" AIs away from bad techs that they'd put to improper use (Gunpowder, Metallurgy, Mil Trad) by withholding from trade, and I'm researching in 5-7 turns.
c) The extra unhappy citizen wasn't a big problem for me as I was lucky enough to hook up 3 Luxuries (and then, soon, a 4th - Gems) early on. It's becoming a problem, so I've got JS Bach's in production.

At the moment I'm bashing the Sumerians to the West, hoping to gain the Pyramids in Ur (all those Granaries cost an arm and a leg). A fall-back position is to pointy-stick Astronomy out of them once I've taken a few more cities. I have Germans and Dutch as allies.

To the south, Korea is blitzkrieging through Roman lands. The Romans declared on me way back, I got Korea in as an ally, took a few cities, but made peace at the gates of Rome in exchange for Chivalry and various other goodies. The Koreans have just kept on going. I can see a flashpoint for war in Cumae (Roman), which I want for its Fur, and which the Koreans are approaching...

Tech-wise, I'm finding my research slower than I hoped. I need more towns to support my military - hence the wars. Unlike in my Regent games, I haven't managed to control the military shape of the world by withholding Gunpowder - and thanks to ROPs and Horseman-exploration, I now know that Korea, Byz and the Dutch all have Saltpetre in their territory. (The Germans have some near Frankfurt, but right on my border - a walk in the park to disconnect it when necessary).

I'm hoping I can become the standout military superpower by getting, holding and withholding Metallurgy and Mil Trad. My Regent tactic, but occurring later (usually it's with Gunpowder/Chivalry). Or maybe this tactic doesn't work so well at this level?

Thoughts so far:
a) Not enough Workers - I got into a GA through the first war (vs Romans), and took advantage by building tons of Barracks and mil units. I need a few more of these, especially for a military road to Cumae in the S. A GA makes Workers quite a decision to build, as they take no time to produce, but the GA doesn't boost food for growth.
b) My GA didn't get me a Wonder, as it happened at the wrong time tech-wise. I missed out on Sun Tzu's (Korean) and the Lighthouse (Dutch), the latter v. useful for exploring the other continent. I'll get the Lighthouse for myself in time - I'm a bit worried about Korea with Sun Tzu's though. All I've got for myself is Leonardo's, and I have JS Bach's (my all-time favourite) in production.
c) The GA gave me a huge military, which ended up crippling my tech for a while due to the high costs. Some Roman conquests improved this a bit.
d) The AI offers for my luxuries/resources have been PATHETIC (1-5 GPT). I get the impression the tech/gold pace has now slowed down for everyone. Apart from the Sumerians for some reason, which is why I'm attacking them.
e) I probably have too many Libraries in the boonies. My thinking here is that they're cheap to build as Greeks, and the most cost-effective way to fill in culture gaps.

Plans:
a) Take the 2nd Sumerian city in the far north. Take Kish. See if I can get Astronomy for peace; or carry on to Ur and the Pyramis.
b) In the south. Maybe should provoke Caesar into war and take Cumae before the Koreans get it. That Fur will be very important to keep order while JS Bach's completes. (Oh for a SGL!)
c) In the medium term Korea is the arch-enemy. Big, have Gunpowder and Sun Tzu's, and highly militarised. I have to take them on sooner or later. So I might leave off the Sumerian war soon and move more units south. I plan to cancel my ROP with Korea as soon as my Galley is out of their waters - I've found out all I need to know about their territory.
d) I've built loads and loads of Musketmen, as they're my comparative advantage, since I was first to Gunpowder. The AI simply refuses to attack defenders that are too strong, however, so the effect can only be to channel attacks, rather than making them lose units. Knights are now in production. I'm hoping a big stack of Musketmen will be able to tie up the Koreans and halt their advance until I can get more mil down there.

Any advice welcome!

 

[vmxa]

Barb bonus goes to 100 on Monarch from 200 on Regent, so they are twice as tough. It goes down by 1/2 from 800 on Chief to 25 on DG. It is 0 for Deity and Sid where I prefer not to fight them even with archers.

800 400 200 100 50 25 0 0

 

[Optional]

I haven't looked at everything in detail, but the first thing I see is that there's a lot of space between your towns. This means you end up with a lot of unused tiles. Just look at Thessalonica:

More unworked than worked tiles in the fat X, so that's a lot of unused potential.
Possibly you stopped your expansion phase too soon, and should have kept your settler factory and worker factory in business for a lot longer before switching to military.

 

[vmxa]

Yes the drive for 21 tiles is slowing another game. I did not look either, only loaded it and looked at the units (playing Diablo right now). A lot of defenders, makes it hard to carry a war to someone. iirc 37 hops and 22 muskets, with more in the queue.

PP was being researched, to what end I can only guess. Monarchies should not research PP or Demo or Free Artist. Astro would have been my choice, if you are not going to go for MT immediately.

 

[undertoad]

Good points.

Yep, after being practical about city placement in some places, I then got all 21-tile about it... It's easy to hear "don't insist on 21 tiles per city" again and again, and then forget about it - but the screenie Optional attached really brings the point home.

I did switch to military a bit too early. I was bumped into a GA by the Romans refusing to leave my territory, declaring, and inevitably losing against a Hoplite. Even worse, I was in the 2nd turn of anarchy on the switch to Monarchy! Apart from these minor points, it was a well-timed war...

I find building Workers very hard to do during a GA - my instinct is to avoid moving citz-power out onto the road, and keep it in the cities sucking up those double-shields; and Workers are so cheap to produce that a GA doesn't really feel like "hey, let's take advantage by building loads of Workers now!"

But actually, I didn't need every one of those units to get as far as I got with the Romans.

vmxa, I think you're right and I overdid the Muskets a bit. Maybe I'm too scared of the Koreans - my galley on its tour hardly saw a single tile without hordes of MDI moving through it. But the trouble with defenders, even good, ahead-of-their-time defenders, is that the AI is no longer stupid enough to bang its head repeatedly against them and lose unit after unit (this was a habit you could take advantage of in Civ II and especially I).

Also, Printing Press - why? It's my shout of protest that by this stage I'm not already dominating my own continent, in touch with a couple of antipodean civs, and looking to make extra money out of trading communications (that's the only reason I research it - I have not the slightest interest in Free Artistry or Democracy). It's not just generals who always fight the last war rather than the current one, but civ-players as well...

 

[vmxa]

iirc you were in good shape, so not the end of the world. The refusing to leave, was it an exploring unit or a settler combo? Either way you may have been able to just block them and herd them around.

If it was a settler, just fill in the spots they were interested in and avoid the war. If it was an exploring uint, you cannot tell them to leave, unless you are strong or at least average. They will just DOW, if you are weak.

Once you triggered, then it is a case by case discission on popping out workers. In the main, you can do it, if they are going to get up an improvement soon. You will grown back quickly.

 

[vmxa]

Trading PP around may not even pay off, remember you have to make up those turns of research, not just bring in some gold. If you can get a tech, then you get back the time, maybe come out ahead.

My position on "fat cross" or "OCP" is that I don't need it and in most games it does not pay. That does not mean you can't have some 21 tile places, just not every town you plant.

I suggest a compromise, CxxxC on some of the core towns (as long as not gong to be at war early). The first bunch is one thing, but after them I see no value at all in those 21 or more tile towns.

You just make a lot of travel in the key early game, more roads needing to be built. That at a time when you are hurting for worker turns. You get those borders down, without temples and that tends to keep wandering units from snooping.

 

[GamezRule]

I find that it gets even harder to jump to Emperor, I still haven't mastered it and I have put in many tries, almost won a couple times though.

 

[Snarkhunter]

I find that it gets even harder to jump to Emperor, I still haven't mastered it and I have put in many tries, almost won a couple times though.

I found the jump to emperor to be the biggest so far, even though I went essentially from warlord to monarch (1 game at regent, basically just another warlord). One of my monarch games had a neighboring AI pop at least 1, likely 2, settlers from huts; they had 5 cities to my 2 & the game seemed basically hopeless to me. That let me decide that I was not ready for DG, even before getting to emperor. I win most of my emperor games, but the struggles are always tense; the only "easy" win was a diplo-archipelago. I don't feel as if I have a handle on emperor as yet.

kk

 

[undertoad]

@gamezrule44 and Snarkhunter:
I've never tried Emperor, this first Monarch game is the highest I've been yet. Emperor sounds like a hefty challenge. Monarch is turning out to be a nice upset to some of my entrenched (and bad) playing habits, but not a life-and-death struggle. I think Monarch will turn into my favourite level for a while.

@vmxa: Yep, I took your advice, popped a few Settlers to fill in my city-gaps (well, not "gaps", just land that would be under-used for centuries given my OCP), and abandoned Printing Press in favour of Chemistry. I noticed an odd effect that my previous habits never revealed: you can sell communications to any civ who has Printing Press, even if you don't have it yourself.

In retrospect my demand for the Romans to leave was ill-timed - it was an Elite Warrior of their hanging about. I was thrown off-balance (and laughing a little) at the way they demanded gold immediately before: "That's a nice little civilisation you've got there... would be a shame if anything happened to it..."
When in fact that was a clear sign that they were on the knife-edge of declaring, and I could have waited a few turns.

It's going well now; a very different flavour from my Regent games, which is exactly what I was after. I feel I'm in control now, and eventual victory is pretty much certain. Victory will be due to the enormous population/land/cities advantage I've built up, along with a certain amount of tech-lead over the rest.

I messed up making peace with Sumeria (for Astronomy among other things) when an alliance with the Dutch still had turns to go. If I recall correctly I wasn't actually giving anything per-turn to the Dutch for the alliance, but the result is that no-one will take gpt from me any more.

An odd side-effect of this is that I am ridiculously rich - about 5000 in the treasury. No-one really has anything I want at the moment, so I'm just researching at max (but still making +c.100/turn) and saving the money for Leo's-aided upgrades: Muskets->Riflemen on this turn, Riflemen->Infantry and Cannon->Arty very soon (Infantry subject to having some Rubber, but given my empire size this will hopefully not be a problem).

Another difference between Regent and Monarch: trade can actually be extremely profitable, because the AIs actually have money. I got 102gpt or something from the Incas for a tech.

Maybe others who've played at this level or above can help with this question: who is setting the tech pace in this game? I have a suspicion it's Sumeria, which is strange given their tiny size. But they've consistently been in the tech-lead until very recently (when I displaced them), and always have tons of cash to give me for luxuries. An "investigate city" revealed that their tax rate is set to 0.10.0 (Tax/Sci/Lux). I think their entire economy has been based on tech-trading for centuries, which is why techs have spread so quickly. This was a reason I withheld Music Theory from everyone until I knew I had JS Bach's in the bag, and am currently withholding Mil Trad and the two "springboard" end-of-MA techs Magnetism and Theory of Gravity which get the AI onto Nationalism.

Is my guess about Sumeria likely correct? As soon as I've finished off Korea (actually, sooner, given that I'm overwhelming them already) I'm going to take out Sumeria, hoping that the world will be left without its prime tech-powerhouse, so that I can avoid facing Cavs, or at least Inf/Arty.

Another question: does the AI use Armies? I've had no luck with the MGL-gods so far, but Germany has popped two within my sight already (Militaristic trait...). I've never met an AI Army in my years of Regent-playing.

Just for interest I've also attached the spreadsheet I use to record intel I get from the initial Embassy setup and from Investigate City; originally I was only interested in the possibility of being beaten to a Wonder - but there is so much more you can get from that enemy-city screen. For example, I found out Incas were in a GA, and so gave them the hard-sell on all kinds of tat while holding them upside-down over a money-bucket.

 

[Optional]

Does the AI use armies?

They don't. That is, most players never see them. Some players get them. Here's a recent thread about the topic, from the Creation and Customization forum: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=357952.

 

[vmxa]

I cannot recall seeing an army in C3C at any level, even Sid. C3 was the last time I am sure I saw one outside of a mod. The reason is that they will rush something. They can even rush wonders with MGL.

In mods you can give them an army and once a unit is put into it, they seem to not add any. It appears as if they see the army speed and figure the unit does not have that speed and won't add it, not sure if that is the case.

Will try to get a look after lunch, got to go the clubhouse and play some 9 ball.

 

[vmxa]

It looks like Sumeria is about 10 times the research as Germany right now. Why are you researching Medince, before Electricity, just to get to ToE? I would prefer to head to RP and get so many things.

Artillery, Infantry, faster workers. Learn where rubber is located. Just one extra tech for a lot of stiff and peace of mind.

 

[undertoad]

It looks like Sumeria is about 10 times the research as Germany right now. Why are you researching Medince, before Electricity, just to get to ToE? I would prefer to head to RP and get so many things.

Artillery, Infantry, faster workers. Learn where rubber is located. Just one extra tech for a lot of stiff and peace of mind.

Researching Medicine was partly a brain-fart: because it's to the lower left of whatever that next tech is that leads to Replaceable Parts, I imagined it had a dependency line to it. And partly because I was a bit worried about the tech pace, and had a city nicely set up to do a Palace pre-build for Theory of Evolution and a 2-tech jump ahead.

How did you find out Sumeria's research output and compare it to Germany's? I've never found this out directly in a game, or through CAII.

 

[vmxa]

You need to run some turns and track the timing of their break throughs. You can also guesstimate the beakers in each town as a sanity check. My numbers could be all wet, but it is all I have. Had I played every turn from the start, I would have a pretty solid count. Still not foolproof.

I use to always go Elec and then Medicine, but all my AW games changed my ways.