Taking the leap from Prince to Monarch, I NEED HELP!

[inevitable7]

i can consistently win on prince now usually with a space victory so i decided to move up to monarch

i've played about 4 games on monarch now and i keep epically failing, i would fall behind in tech so much, i have problems with mass spawning barbarians, and the maintenance of cities royally screw me, i'm at a complete loss as to why it's so much harder

only 1 game was i even anywhere close to winning and everything was going right for me that game except for the fact that i lost lol

on prince, i usually went for first settler by 2500bc, second by 1500, third by 1000 and i would pretty much be in the lead at this point but now it's so dependent on finding a source of horses or copper / iron early enough with my first settler so i can build some anti barbarian units (i'm trying to accomplish this without the great wall)

i can't even expand at the rate i usually do because i'll soon be at 0% on the research bar

please help me, give me tips, guidelines, etc

 

[kossin]

A lot of the time, people don't build enough workers. A good rule of thumb is 1.5/city.

Maintenance does indeed increase quite a bit on Monarch (all the way up to Deity) so you'll have to generate some commerce earlier (beeline Pottery/Writing before your slider falls to 0% so you can recover).

If there are no sources of copper/horses nearby, then you'll most likely need archery to keep the barbs at bay. You may want to spawnbust with warriors (every unit on the map prevents the appearance of any barb unit in a 5x5 square centered on that unit) to eliminate some of the barbs that would otherwise spawn.

Trading techs starts being important. Unless you have a gold-start, it's difficult to stay ahead tech-wise. Getting Alphabet early is a good way to get a bunch of early techs. Using Great Scientists to bulb techs will help here as well.

Binary research (where you put the slider to 0% research to accumulate gold as you wait for a science booster, usually library in capital or an Academy) is a nifty trick early game.

City specialization. Not every city needs a Barrack. Is the city geared towards Commerce, Production, Food? etc..

It's hard to help you directly without seeing screenshots/savegames to point you towards improvement. If you have the patience, start your own walkthrough playing short rounds, posting it up and getting advice.

I would also suggest having a read at some of the walkthroughs posted. The ALC series range from Prince level all the way to Deity. The second thread from the top also has a great deal of excellent walkthroughs (where you can also find the ALCs).

 

[Sawney Bean]

As stated above, posting a save would make it much easier.

Kossin raises some good points, in addition, your opening post suggests that you are not being aggressive enough. You might be able to get away with that at Prince, but less so on Monarch. If you can regularly get a tech advantage at Prince why not use it to obliterate your neighbours instead of teching all the way to space?

 

[JTMacc99]

I can offer you a few tips:

1. Go back to Prince and practice winning games through Domination and UN Diplomatic (preferably after conquering an overwhelming portion of the world so that you almost control the entire vote.

I suggest this as a tip, because learning to really press your military advantage and not sit back and win the Space Race is a very important skill. For me, Prince was the level to learn how to do it, and Monarch is the level where it suddenly became a key strategy to staying ahead in things like the tech race. (For example, frequently the best way to stay ahead of Pacal in a tech race is to just overrun his longbows and macemen with your cannons and muskets.)

2. Monarch requires you to trade technologies more than you are used to on Prince. As you will see if you read a lot of the sample games, it usually pays to focus your own research on a specific goal. Once you reach that goal, you will usually find yourself in a position to trade your way back into the tech race.

3. (Really an extension of #2.) For the first time, you really need to focus your research on specific goals. For example, if you're Organized, on a continent with three other civs and none of them grabbed an early religion, drop everything and go for Code of Laws. Not only will you get a technology that works with your trait, but you also get to own and spread the continent's first religion. You end up influencing diplomacy, get yourself a really rich holy city, and you get a tech that will fetch you some really nice techs in return.

4. You probably need to put just a tiny bit more effort into fog-busting.

 

[Rameau's Nephew]

1. Go back to Prince and practice winning games through Domination and UN Diplomatic (preferably after conquering an overwhelming portion of the world so that you almost control the entire vote.

I suggest this as a tip, because learning to really press your military advantage and not sit back and win the Space Race is a very important skill. For me, Prince was the level to learn how to do it, and Monarch is the level where it suddenly became a key strategy to staying ahead in things like the tech race. (For example, frequently the best way to stay ahead of Pacal in a tech race is to just overrun his longbows and macemen with your cannons and muskets.)

I really like this idea. My experience was similar in that Monarch was the level where I couldn't achieve consistent success without some aggressive warmaking. And I found that I really didn't have a good sense of how to pull this off without having practiced it at the lower levels. I was good at the early early Axe/Chariot rush, and wiping out cornered or resource-less enemies was pretty easy. But I lacked the experience with planning and executing the larger wars against non-pitiful opponents. I would catch myself fighting half-assed defensive wars, or always coming up with a reason to delay starting the serious buildup until I had just one more tech finished.

 

[inevitable7]

1. Go back to Prince and practice winning games through Domination and UN Diplomatic (preferably after conquering an overwhelming portion of the world so that you almost control the entire vote.

i can do this with ease except i choose not to because turns end up taking many minutes, in prince i usually wipe out 1 to 2 AIs to permanently establish my lead for the game and then i don't bother going for the conquest/domination goal because of how long it would take

i usually go for space race because i can just keep pressing enter and the turns end really fast this way and then i won't have to tediously keep building military units and sending them to the enemies and then sieging the bases and then rebuilding the city after taking it over (if its worthy) etc etc

here's a game i just played and was 2nd to last place

i did the fog busting and it worked out pretty well but still had a pretty big problem early because i didn't have horses or iron/copper and the barbarians were spawning axemen which was a pain in the butt

and i'm playing an old patched warlords so don't know if you'll be able to load it


also i just realized i was going to swap to representation / emancipation / pacifism but i think i forgot to in the save

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

See the link in my civ for ideas about getting advice....

here's a game i just played and was 2nd to last place

and i'm playing an old patched warlords so don't know if you'll be able to load it

There are some fairly important dates between 4000 BC and 1700AD. A look at things at 1000BC would be instructive.


General points, based only on the comments you have made. (1) 0% research is not something to be afraid of - it's very playable. Just ending up in that state without preparing for it is very uncomfortable, though, so maybe you could play a few games where you do that on purpose, and learn how to dig out of the hole - there's a 10 letter exclamation that covers this.

It also sounds as though your settler rate is slow. Concentrate on units - settlers, workers, fog busters, and defense.

 

[dirtyparrot]

I haven't looked at your save, but I'll offer some advice:

1) Be willing to trade techs with others (while more experienced players will be able to get by without doing this if they choose to, you probably won't)

2) Understand how to keep your research afloat from expanding (you need at the bare minimum Writing, and ideally some combination of Alphabet, Currency, and CoL)

3) Prioritize you techs properly

4) Spawn/fog bust properly. The trick to have the barbs spawn closer to the AI than yourself.

5) Win by other victory conditions. Space probably takes longer to win than just chaining capitulations together. For one thing, you'll have to tech close to the end of the tech tree before you can win.

6) Learn to manage your diplomacy properly. It can save you from having to build a whole bunch of extra troops if you can get a particular AI pleased who won't plan to DOW under that disposition. Those hammers saved could be used to build infrastructure. Also, you need to be more willing to give into AI demands for cheap techs.

 

[inevitable7]

what happens if i was on an isolated island like the game i just played, save file in the 6th post

i don think i met the AIs until around 1000 AD so no tech trading and the barbarians were only coming for me because of that =\

 

[dirtyparrot]

There is a whole series devoted to just that called Lonely Hearts by rolo. My standard strategy is to wonderspam. So, I'll aim for GLH, TGL, Parthenon, etc. You can afford to skimp on defenses (at least early on). And I should note that while you may seem to be far behind in techs when you initially meet the AI, you just need a few tech trades to catch up.

 

[inevitable7]

just started another monarch game that i'm not going to finish...

i decided to try the great wall out and then hannibal declared war in 1280 BC and took me out with 3 archers and 2 chariots...

out of nowhere...

 

[inevitable7]

here's a game i'm working on now, tell me how i'm doing

 

[Bigv32]

I do not mean to insult you here, but you should get BTS. There are so many things that are new in it, you will findsomething to help. Also, the changes make it easier, at least for me.

OVerall, without looking at warlord saves, I would say that you need to do one of two things.

1. Play a small map on monarch and rush. Rush until there is no tommorrow. You will lose, but the lessons learned on how to try to keep your economy running are invaluable as well as miltary lessons. The goal for this game is not to win, but to expand militarily as quickly as possible and try to keep your economy afloat.

2. THis one is far easier, but I found it helped me move to monarch. Change your initial build order. sounds simple, but it does make a huge difference.

 

[banson]

the great wall with rageing barb trik will greatly slow down the other civs for u, you shuld use it

 

[QuixotesGhost]

Early game your economic priority is working as many improved tiles as possible. This means several things:

1. Enough workers to improve those tiles in a decent time frame.

2. Enough citizens to work those tiles

- this can mean holding off on a worker or settler if it allows your city to grow and work a special, even if it means building a warrior or accumulating towards a wonder you don't intend on completing if only to get the wonder gold when someone else completes it.

- You need to have a plan for improving your happiness cap, either by trading for luxury resources, building improvements that double the effect of your current luxuries (such as forges or markets), calendar, monarchy, pyramids, drama, or religion.

3. Techs that allow workers to build improvements

- This is why going early religion is often such a crippling economic blow, because you are often delaying the ability of your workers to build pastures, farms, mines, cottages and chop down forests which can often steamroll into you getting very far behind.


Basically from your post I got "Settlers are a #1 priority for me" which made me think that you aren't expanding vertically enough (in in you are tilted a bit too much towards more cities instead of better cities). Allow those cities to grow a bit before expanding, and make sure they are working decent tiles. Don't forget that science specialists are an option with writing. There's no problem with having the slider at %20 if you are still getting a decent tech rate with scientists (plus on Monarch you really should have a plan as to how and what type of great people you want to accumulate).

Also as far as early war is concerned, if you plan on rushing a neighbor, you do not need to settle that much. One extra city (for resoruces on a good production site), maybe two max, capture the rest.

 

[inevitable7]

i have no problem improving my tiles

played another game, i had a huge stack of axemen elephants and catapults and some idiot declared war on me, i was in the process of wiping him out when another ai declared on me

i just can't win

right now my strategy has been 3 pop in main, get worker, 4 pop, get 2 settlers, bee lining to alphabet, trade for techs i don't have, and then it varies from there depending on what resources i have

i haven't had a rush type opportunity game yet but i have a feeling that game will be a lot easier

 

[KeloGBites]

3 pop till a worker? Seems a bit too late, 9/10 cases worker first is the better move. In fact i tend to go 2 workers, then a warrior/scout/archer/chariot/etc... then a settler. While true you grow at the rate of a snail at first, having two workers lets you quickly farm/mine/chop your city(ies) to being far ahead of the AI. If you get Copper/Horses in your capitals BFC, you may try a 3-4 man Axe Rush on the AI. Besides early rushes, I tend to avoid wars till Rifling. and then wrap them up before MA comes into play.
Tanks, Bombers, and intercontinental transportation requires a ridiculous amount of logistics to work as you intend, but it's best to practice this on Prince, also try a few Cultural victories, they can teach you how to best specialize your cities.

 

[Shafi]

3 pop before worker is way too late, in fact worker first is probably the best move most times, unless coastal of course.

Since i play on Monarch as well, i'll try to see if i can play a bit of one of the saves you have posted - no promises though as playing on warlords is not the most appealing thing ...

You should seriously consider BTS, it's way better and really cool with the BUG mode.

 

[wertyu70]

I moved recently from Prince to Monarch, about 10 games so far,
1 victory (with Hatty), 4 defeat, 4-5 practice games (I tried different early game approach) and 1 easy victory (with Victoria).

I learned a lot from these games, these are my suggestions for you,
they seems to work for me now.

1) Early game is hard, but If you manage to survive when you are the first to get rifle the game is won (draft/whip to get an army fast!).
So don't be afraid to be backward for a while, keep your neighbours friendly sharing religion and trading with them and try to accept their requests.

2) Early expansion is very vital, according to leader and map you can try a peaceful rex (I did it in my game with Victoria) or an early rush (Hatty) but remember you can't do it both of them.
It's very important not to overexpand too early, or you will need too much time to recover.

3) About research: forget religious branch, focus on improvement techs,
Pottery is very important for cottages, then Alphabet (tech trading is very important,
even for diplomacy), then Currency and Code of Laws for your Economy.
Then your empire will be up and running and you can focus on your main goal: try to get rifle before your enemies.

4) Diplomacy is the key to avoid DOW or to delay them. I can't give you advice, because I stil need to improve on this side.

 

[NonPrayinMantis]

Diplomacy sounds like it might be a problem. Remember these tips:

1) Don't research an early religion: Not only can you focus early on worker and military techs (road, BW, etc.) but you also will usually have a computer AI research a religion for you and he will spread it towards your cities with no effort on your part.

2) Don't switch religions so quickly: Keeping religously neutral has two benefits: a) you can get culture off any religion in a city, not just your state one, and b) your diplomacy will improve because religious zealots like Hatty and Izzy won't hate you if you are a different religion. Switch when it benefits you to switch.

3) Avoid trading with the religious Odd Man Out: Usually someone will research a different religion than your neighbors and that AI will be hated amongst the other AIs - that is unless you trade with him extensively, then they might hate you more!

NPM