Second Monarch Help Game

[Tiepolo]

OK so having previously posted a game here to try and understand monarch, I am back with a new problem. I can pull my weight and survive, however, my tech pace is pretty awful, and I only manage to stay JUST behind the AI. So I will play as the Inca, who I have previously lost as (I'm that bad.) and post progress and ask for pointers and help.

Settings:
Huayna Capac: Ind, Fin
Difficulty: Monarch
Continents
Standard Size
Temperate
Medium Sea Level
Normal Speed


The start:


I'm thinking one south?
Possibly one north? Suggestions, cookies, help appreciated.

 

[civver_764]

Why one north? One south would be great. You gain gold and two extra hills, and barely lose anything useful(water and 1 grassland/plains).

 

[petey]

Ya, 1S looks like your best bet. Getting gold in your captitol's fat cross is an awesome initial boost and it would make for an great cottage city.

If you have a close neighbour, spam Quechas and eat his capitol. That looks like tundra to your north, so don't bother searching for anyone there, but do a circle to the south and west to see if there's anyone within range. You need to work quick to get a Quecha rush going because if someone hooks up metal or horses, they're useless.

 

[Tiepolo]

Alright I will settle south.

There is no tundra do the near north, it's a plains hill, and two grassland hills and it'd be way to close to the jungle to be tundra. I'm not going to bother with a quecha rush, they never work for me. By the time I have enough, the AI has two cities, guarded with more archers than I can kill and my research and expansion will have been stopped dead.

 

[civver_764]

Tech-wish start off Mining-AH, hopefully your worker will be done after AH, but if not the Gold mine would be great to hook up early.

As for building, Worker first. A quechua rush is probably too risky, like you said, especially for your first time on a new difficulty level.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'd go 1W for classic bur capitol and leave the corn to a 2nd city...pigs and FP should be plenty to get you to high enough pop.

 

[Tiepolo]

Update: Thanks for the advice petey and civer, I went with one south and attempted a quechua rush. I went mining, BW, wheel, pottery, AH and writing. Horses popped up in the capital.

Capital build was as follows: Quechua - Worker - Quechua (chopped) - Quechua (one turn overflow) - Quechua (chopped) - Quechua (one turn overflow) - Worker - Settler (chopped)

I sent six quechuas to brennus's capital to find that he was leaving his size 7 (!) capital with a settler. I kill the escorted settler with an cover promoted quechua (from an animal), lose very little health, and move on to the capital protected by one archer. Brennus sneaks one more archer in before I can attack (he didn't even whip? wth). Capital falls at the loss of two quechuas.

Upon capturing the city, a second is revealed. Ugh, I really hate how ridiculously fast the AI expands in Monarch. Move the cover and to fodder quecha to take the city. He sends an archer out to go towards Bibracte (turns out to be lucky in my case). The city is defended by two archers. First quechua dies and wounds the first archer, second quechua dies and wounds the second archer. The cover quechua kills one of the two, leaving the last heavily wounded.

Next turn the archer heals a bit, I attack with 67% odds (not quite favorable) get lucky and take the city. I now have three cities, one of which is the hindu holy city and Brennus is gone. First succesful quechua rush!

Pictures

Spoiler :

The save:


edit: Balls, crossposted with MIT.

 

[civver_764]

I can't see any of those .

Anyways, good job(although I thought you weren't gonna go for the rush, but it worked out great). I can't really comment that well w/o seeing the pics(can't play Warlords anymore =/). Personally I would've gotten AH before The Wheel/Pottery.

 

[Tiepolo]

I fixed the links, you should be able to see now

 

[petey]

Excellent work, and you've got yourself a religion now too. Focus on getting the cottages in your capitol, because maintenance costs are going to be high and grab Priesthood so you can build a temple and run priest specialists to get a shrine and start pumping out some income to pay for things.

You city placement ideas look good too.

 

[civver_764]

Woah, Brennus was farther away than I thought. I guess the super commerce capital can help w/ that though.

Maybe change IW to alphabet? You'll likely be able to get IW from someone(in my experience the AI never tends to cling onto IW as much as other early techs. I've had Polytheism in red but not IW before).

 

[Tiepolo]

Alright, alphabet it is, I'll backfill my way to CoL then.

 

[Volapyk]

Poor Brennus

Hmm did you consider razing the second city? I know it had a religion founded and a shrine could be built for good money, but is it really worth it? First you have to invest in getting a prophet, where you could instead have gotten a scientist. Second it will take a long time before the city pays it self off, especially with all that jungle around it.

While cities aren't that expensive to have on monarch, it is still 'only' a standard map, meaning it is very limited how much money you can get from the shrine.

If Bibcrate had hinduism spread to it I would have said raze it, but since razing Vienna will also mean loosing the religion completely, keeping it can be made worth it in the long run.

 

[Tiepolo]

Another update. This one involved quite a bit of disappointment but things are going well at the end. Alex is expanding into the jungle just south of cuzco quickly and a barbarian city one east of a proposed site took the option of settling there out of the picture (of course its the turn before my settler finishes). I manage to get stonehenge in bibracte and I found one more city. Get alphabet, backfill trade, research meditation-ph- and im now on Col

My next target i guess is Alex, swords and cats most likely, I'm afraid that he'll have longbows by then, however.

Pics:

Spoiler :

Edit: The screenshots of iron working in 7 are before I reloaded realizing I forgot to switch.

 

[Tiepolo]

Rudely bumping this