Tips for monarch difficulty

[obsolete]

Do you seriously avoid lightbulding as much as you say? Surely you must at least try to get great scientists for the ->paper->education slingshot, not to mention chemistry/printing press? (Ignoring bulbing worked well for me on low levels, but from what I gather you generally play Monarch+..)

Since I've returned to these forums this year, I have NOT lightbulbed even once. Not on monarch, not on emperor.

There are a lot of players who work their strategy in this area, and for them I guess it's ok. You are getting a boost real quick in the short run, and getting nothing from that GP in the long run. However, if those short term gains can still show profit down the road... then that's fine. Maybe you unlocked something, allowing you to get into something else just in time that normaly you wouldn't have been able to do, etc.

Myself, I have my own measures I go by. I don't NEED a short boost to get from A to B. I know down the road my steady stream is adding up. By the end of the game, I'm still holding the tech lead even with my science slider on 0. I'm making space ship parts in one turn, using just one city alone. What do I care about getting a tech faster earlier in the game, when I know I'm going to be dominating in the end with my true and tested method.

No matter how much bias an AI city has, I know it isn't possible it will be able to compete with my GP city. No chance in hell.

And no, I don't build silly cottages. Though if I have a leader like Romans, I may turn on autoworkers and away they go. Sometimes they build cottages but I'm too busy to pay attention to them all. If I have a delicate leader like Ramesses, I'll take over the workers manually. Only in rare cases when I can't possibly make something better, will I do cottages.

Food & hammers... Food & Hammers is what my game is all about. Unless you got a monster like Romans and Iron, then it really doesn't matter, does it?

 

[frob2900]

No matter how much bias an AI city has, I know it isn't possible it will be able to compete with my GP city. No chance in hell.

Yes, its possible to make one city really good, both hammerwise and beakerwise. That still doesn't make up for the research and production for an entire empire. No matter how you spin it.

Since I've returned to these forums this year, I have NOT lightbulbed even once. Not on monarch, not on emperor.

Ok, well that's probably not optimal gameplay.. but everyone to their own, I suppose

And no, I don't build silly cottages.
Food & hammers... Food & Hammers

Actually, on monarch I pull ahead in tech very early and hold it. There are a few exceptions

The fact that you state that you keep a tech lead in almost every game, without bulbing or cottages, convinces me that you are tailoring your custom games with opponent selection, Civ choice etc. or, for lack of a better phrase: Pulling things out of your hat.

It's one thing to keep saying such things in thread after thread without any argument except: "Look what I can do! Pwnage!", but it's another thing to convince people. And you certainly haven't convinced me (and probably not anyone else who has played Civ for a fair amount of time)

Oh yes, and everything I said above is imho

 

[obsolete]

The fact that you state that you keep a tech lead in almost every game, without bulbing or cottages, convinces me that you are tailoring your custom games with opponent selection, Civ choice etc. or, for lack of a better phrase: Pulling things out of your hat.

I had said before, if Ghandi is around and on another continent, then I will end up with problems holding the lead. Sometimes he is in my games, other times he isn't. I don't set up games for him or not, if he is picked randomly as an opponent then he's picked. That's just how it goes.

If I have a leader like Ramesses, it's very easy to hold the tech lead throughout the game. Starting alone on a continent or forced into the frying pan, he is very well rounded for monarch. If I start off with a Roman leader sometimes I may choose to go a different path. I may over extend myself on purpose (nasty habbit). If it happens, then it happens, at least I traded off for securing a huge grab land/cities in the process.

In any case, I like to play mostly builders on Monarch. They are my specialty, because I love food & hammers! Hammers is what makes the world go round. They make my armies.. they make my wonders.. they make my infrastructure, and they even make my techs.

Instead of runnings all scientists, try running all priests after you built ankor wat, and pour production into beakers, bet you'll be surprised what happens. And you don't even need CASTE to pull that one off!

 

[frob2900]

In any case, I like to play mostly builders on Monarch. They are my specialty, because I love food & hammers! Hammers is what makes the world go round. They make my armies.. they make my wonders.. they make my infrastructure, and they even make my techs.

I'm not debating whether you may or may not be able to get lots of food and hammers. I'm saying that your statements about teching don't make much sense (to me at least, imho etc. )

And btw. Gandhi < Mansa Musa when it comes to teching.

 

[yena]

Myself, I have my own measures I go by. I don't NEED a short boost to get from A to B. I know down the road my steady stream is adding up. By the end of the game, I'm still holding the tech lead even with my science slider on 0. I'm making space ship parts in one turn, using just one city alone. What do I care about getting a tech faster earlier in the game, when I know I'm going to be dominating in the end with my true and tested method.

I think it would be interesting for a lot of people here if you started a new thread with a write-up of one of your games. Discussion on the game play, some pictures, a few saves and so on. Having a detailed example to comment on would make for a more interesting discussion.

 

[pigswill]

I have no doubt that obselete does what he says he does. Uses settled specialists and wins monarch/emperor. A bureaucratic capital with half a dozen GS is going to churn out a reasonable amount of beakers; add some GMs and GPs and you've got a powerful city.

Obselete: have you played gotm/wotm using this strategy? If so, how did you compare? I think that you may well have a viable strategy but it would be nice to have it demonstrated to convice a sceptical public.

Edit: Its an interesting discussion but are we drifting too far off topic?

 

[frob2900]

I have no doubt that obselete does what he says he does. Uses settled specialists and wins monarch/emperor.

Well I'm not going to debate that such a strategy isn't viable to win. I have played a few monarch games settling GE/GS in the capital, just to see how good a city I can get and won in the process.. No problem with that.

but

The reason the discussion isn't off-topic is that obsolete also states that he gets a tech lead in the majority of his monarch games without bulbing or building any cottages..

First of all, that is rather hard to believe (which is what I was saying earlier), second: those aren't particularly good general "Tips for Monarch", which the thread is about..

 

[obsolete]

Yena, that sounds like a good idea. I'm tied up at the moment but the walkthrough sounds great. I'll try and get on this soon.

By the way, one thing I haven't remembered. What's the built in hotkey for taking screenshots in civ IV? I know I can do print-screen, then paste into a graphics program, but I know there's an easier way. It's just not mentioned in the civ index.
It would certainly help during that game.

 

[Dirk1302]

Indeed, i seem to rembemer that there is/was something like that but i can't find it anymore. Is it possible that it has been removed in the transition from Vanilla -> Warlords?

 

[JujuLautre]

Began my first monarch game yesterday, so I think I will follow this thread

(did this because all my Prince games, when I did not stop them because they were not fun, were won)

And thanks for your comments about diplomacy futurehermit; it confirms that my idea in that game (attacking Wang Kon who has a huuuge piece of land for himself and is starting to recover from overexpansion) was a good idea; can't wait to have these fish/banana/dye/sugar and gems/gems/other resource cities

But still, why do I have to play the builder since the beginning when I play Kublai?

 

[obsolete]

And btw. Gandhi < Mansa Musa when it comes to teching.

I know people have said before they have probs with Mansa. I never run into this issue. It is Ghandi that is always the problem, not Mansu. I haven't seen any numbers to prove who SHOULD be superior, but leader personality could have issues for this.

I'll much rather go against Mansu than Ghandi any time...

Obselete: have you played gotm/wotm using this strategy? If so, how did you compare? I think that you may well have a viable strategy but it would be nice to have it demonstrated to convice a sceptical public.

A few times I've tried to get into the GOTM but always some issue. The last one for example, had the game on marathon (or was it epic?) speed for example. I just can NOT STAND those types of games. Normal speed is already painfully slow for me, but epic and marathon speeds end up giving the human player such a rediculous advantage, I don't see the point of it. Any idiot can win domination/conquest with that, just like any idiot can win with early Que-rushes. That may be fun for some newbs, but it isn't for me...


As for the screen shot issue, I saw some people post shots from BTS with it. I can tell because the name of the screen shot appears (though it sorta sucks because it always blocks something). So I know it must be still around...

 

[Uncle E]

Not sure if everyone will agree with this but ... I'm playing a saved game over and over and learning from subtle adjustments that I'm making in order to improve my game while taking in what's being discussed here.

That way I can test a theory and immediately tell if it dramatically changes the course of the game. I suppose it makes things easier for me as well, but I'm still not winning, so I see it as good lessons in a controlled environment. Anyone else do this?

 

[Heeringas]

I haven&#180;t read what has said before, only some of the posts...
But I want to add my reacent experience.
I can win on immortal already, But inspired by Futurehermits ideas I went back to monarch and played as Mehmed.
I wanted to try farm economy. Key words: Hederitary rule, growth,civil service
I
&#180;m still playing the game. I&#180;m in 700AD. Settings are small,continents high water.
I started in continent with Isabella. I destroyed her 680AD and I own my continent. I got Civil service with Oracle and at the same time researchd monarchy. I build horde of axmen while waited for construction. Then whipped 10 catapults and city by city killed isabell.
My cities are now 14 capital then some 12 size cities and spanish ones now heavily whipped sized 1-5. I have 11 cities.
I&#180;m teching education now.
Big cities are amazingly productive. I have now only farms and mines (lots of resources also). I&#180;m already 1000 points ahead civs in other continent, wich is reachable with galleys eventhought playing with high sea level.
&#205; think my economy will fly away quite fast after I will get emacipation and will cottage all farms. My continent is mostly grassland

I think starting with growth is very strong strategy. I have usually build first cottages and slowly growing...Farms and hederitary rule (and expansive)...No more early cottages for me!

 

[Indiansmoke]

In my experience there no 1 single dominant way to go in warlords. You need some cottages, you need some specialists, you need to go to war, you need tech trading and most importantly you need to be focused to a specific win type from the beginning!
You cannot decide to go for cultural in the middle ages with only one religion, you cannot decide to go for diplomatic when you have gone to war with everyone etc.

Now on what obsolete says about not lighbulbing, I say try to win a cultural victory with no lightbulbing, he propably goes only for space race in which case the settling pays off later on when you need to tech fast, but still without any cottages I do not know, never won space race without building a single cottage!

 

[Charou]

I think it would be interesting for a lot of people here if you started a new thread with a write-up of one of your games. Discussion on the game play, some pictures, a few saves and so on. Having a detailed example to comment on would make for a more interesting discussion.

I remember Obsolete started a thread about roman on monarch. That was a month ago.
You played and posted very quickly. Hard to give some feedbacks
Strange feeling on this thread. Whatever, here is the link.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=225213

Not to put some more logs in the fire, but I happen to often disagree with you obsolete (but that´s fine)... but also not to be convinced by your explainations. I am with frob on this. Sorry

 

[hgthechinese]

The best stretegy for civ 4 is no set stretegy. Have a couple general ideas in mind, such as getting alphabet first to trade tech be4 AI start trading w/each other (and when they do, they do it so much that it is not humanly possible to catch up....and remember to trade everything BESIDES alphabet w/every AI that would trade w/you to maximize your tech), take adv of limited warfare and peace out w/your enemies (upon them paying you decent money) build the Great Wall so you get more GG w/o ever worrying about barbarians etc. The most important thing is adjust your stretegy (esp war Vs. peace) upon the map type, size, your location and resources etc. a set course of actions means doom.

btw, the betterAI w/handicap 1.0 is pretty good to ease in Monarch from Prince.

 

[futurehermit]

I am also skeptical of a lot of what obsolete says. However, I am certainly not opposed to the prospect of settling a bunch of great people. In fact, since I normally don't do that, I would love to see you play it out in a game on these forums to show us how you go about it. If the game is successful then I will take back my criticisms

 

[budweiser]

I think I can see how obsolete does it. He settles his great people under representation and keeps pushing pop to the max in all cities. If your empire has twice the land and twice the cites of the next biggest, then you are going to make a ton of beakers and skillful trading will keep you ahead.

A cottage comes at the expense of something else, either food or hammers. And cottage rich cities just dont grow very fast.

 

[futurehermit]

I started a game today with Ramesses (Monarch/Continents/Normal/Standard/Default).

Unfortunately, I was isolated, but I persevered instead of reloading like I often do because I had stone in my 3rd city.

I built the GW and Pyramids and ran representation. I had research on 0&#37; as I settled my island quickly. It was a pretty-high-food island, so I was able to run a lot of scientists under caste system to get a nice tech pace.

Besides philosophy (I needed a religion for pacificism) and education (I wanted to ensure liberalism 1st) I settled every great person I got (including a couple GEs and GMs, one of the latter from first to economics!) in my capital, which unfortunately was a coastal capital, but did have a fair amount of food.

I beelined banking before liberalism--for mercantilism!!!--and had to self-research a lot because I was isolated.

However, I was first to liberalism just after 1000AD, which was good. I managed to take astronomy, which also helped because I was limited with multiple of the same resource, but not a lot of variety (I think my only grain was rice, for example, and I was hurting for resources).

I SHOULD HAVE stayed in SE the whole game tbh, except for some cottages in my capital because the rest of the land was not great for cottages. I had a lot of high-production cities, some tundra, some desert, a LOT of coast.

However, I had a sweet late-game tech pace because post-computers my capital was pulling down around 750 beakers

I can definitely see the benefits of settling specialists, even without pyramids. Just beeline constitution after liberalism-nationalism. If you aren't isolated I figure you should be able to avoid having to lightbulb philosophy and education.

Also, I think if you have a lot of grassland that you can transition a bunch of your cities to commerce cities once you approach democracy.

I'm going to play with this strat a bit more and see how I can do. I don't think that pyramids are essential, although of course they are nice. A philosophical leader would be great imo.

EDIT: Forgot to say that I used one GS on an academy in my capital. Oh yeah, and I just remembered that I got a couple of extra GEs back-to-back in the early game and I used them on the GL and NE in my capital as well. I think it was worth it tbh.

 

[Roxlimn]

I think the way obsolete does it is by maxxing the GPP points with Pacifism and settling the GPs under Representation to give +9 beakers per GS plus whatever multipliers he can come up with.

Off the top of my head, the usual operative bonuses in the Renaissance would be +25% for Library and +25% for University, and +50% more for the Academy. Settling a GS would then reap in +18 beakers per turn or about 900 beakers in 50 turns. It certainly seems slightly anemic compared to the 1000+ beakers you can immediately get by lightbulbing even late Reanissance level techs, but it may be that the additional GPPs generated by the GSs contributes to even more GSs to snowball the thing along. The benefits also begin to get better once you get Observatory and Laboratory to push the bonuses even further along, for another +50% after Labs.

With Oxford University in the same city, you could have +27 beakers for every GS you settle, which works to about +1350 beakers every 50 turns. Plus the +1 Hammer you get for each GS, if the city is producing Research, it could break +1500 every 50 turns. +3000 in 100 turns. Plus the additional GPPs each GS generates.

It's certainly a good excuse for having at least one Scientist Specialist City well into the modern age.

In order to put it effectively into operation, I think that we need a stricter outline of the necessary resources.

For instance, inevitably, the limiting resource I have for growing nice big Specialist and especially Scientist Cities is health. Happies can be met with Hereditary Rule, but unless you're expansive, there's just a firm limit to that health that is hard to crack. Once you get to about 15 or 16, the increased food req for growing coupled with unhealthy penalties can grind growth to a standstill.

Against that is a post-Universal Suffrage and Free Speech Town, which on a Grassland can generate as much as +2 Food, +1 Hammer, + 7 Commerce, with commerce standing to benefit from Science Building multiplication and Hammer as well (if the City is set to produce Research).

750 beakers isn't all that unusual, though, futurehermit. I've had a GSettled city producing upwards of 800+ beakers even without setting it to produce Research.

It's not all that hard, really, to rework Specialist Cities into Commerce Cities under Emancipation. Grow them with farms, then work them with Towns, using the excess food as Specialists to prevent growth in the meantime. I don't see a definite advantage either way, although it IS faster to grow cities with farms, and Specialist Cities tend to be easier to manipulate in terms of what they can do.

However, I don't see the point in never using cottages. Before Civil Service, there's no way to make better use of tiles without fresh water, and even with Civil Service in the pic, you still have a health/happy limit anyway, and it can take some time for the necessary buildings to be put into place, to say nothing of the rework you'll have to do with the workers.

Even with Scientist Specialist Cities, you can easily put a couple Towns under the hood to maximize health/happy limitations, even while running Representation and GSs. Every Town is essentially a specialist that produces 7 commerce and 2 Food (under Representation/Free Speech).