Then again, if the AI was improved, they wouldn't need the free worker. The point of the crazy bonuses they get on higher levels is to make up for their stupidity.
Tips for monarch difficulty
- Thread starter afa2000
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Then again, if the AI was improved, they wouldn't need the free worker. The point of the crazy bonuses they get on higher levels is to make up for their stupidity.
I've seen you make comments about settling specialists vs. lightbulbing in a few contexts. 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+..)
???
Sorry, but unless I misunderstood something, this has got to be the single strangest comment ever.
Do you feel its problematic to get e.g. civil service or chemistry early too, due to the lack of development at that point?
As far as city development goes, whipping/chopping can easily net you at least a 15+ cav stack in no time as long as you have around 5-10 cities with average size 10. If you are facing longbows/maces/muskets then you can eat the AI for breakfast.
You have a dilemma: you don't like early wars or specialists, but you want to play on Monarch.
Look at it this way. In a straight-up tech race, the computer will always beat the human at Monarch and above. You have to make up the deficit somehow. There are two basic ways to do that. The most common is to prioritize Bronze Working and take over a neighbor's cities, jump-starting your economy while crippling theirs.
Making up the deficit peacefully is the more difficult option; it requires light-bulbing techs, which means wonders and/or specialists.
Of course, the two aren't exclusive, and the people who play at the really high levels have perfected both. If you want to play at Monarch, you're going to have to use some tricks to catch up to the AI, because you're behind from turn 1.
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Just read all the replies. As for the lightbulbing debate, I don't think it's necessary in every game, especially Pangaea or Terra where you are bound to have many trading options. But if you only have 1 or 2 neighbors and they're not that friendly, or if you're isolated, I don't see how you can win on Monarch+ without lightbubling.
Like everything else in the game, I think the situation dictates how you should use great people. It's just that lighbulbing is most commonly the best choice.
Look at it this way. In a straight-up tech race, the computer will always beat the human at Monarch and above. You have to make up the deficit somehow. There are two basic ways to do that. The most common is to prioritize Bronze Working and take over a neighbor's cities, jump-starting your economy while crippling theirs.
Making up the deficit peacefully is the more difficult option; it requires light-bulbing techs, which means wonders and/or specialists.
Of course, the two aren't exclusive, and the people who play at the really high levels have perfected both. If you want to play at Monarch, you're going to have to use some tricks to catch up to the AI, because you're behind from turn 1.
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Just read all the replies. As for the lightbulbing debate, I don't think it's necessary in every game, especially Pangaea or Terra where you are bound to have many trading options. But if you only have 1 or 2 neighbors and they're not that friendly, or if you're isolated, I don't see how you can win on Monarch+ without lightbubling.
Like everything else in the game, I think the situation dictates how you should use great people. It's just that lighbulbing is most commonly the best choice.
obsolete
Deity
Actually, on monarch I pull ahead in tech very early and hold it. There are a few exceptions, like when Ghandi is alone on a giant continent all by himself. In that case, I'm pretty much going to have to settle for second.
On Emperor, I lose the race fast and that's just how it goes.
On Emperor, I lose the race fast and that's just how it goes.
Melchizedek
Prince
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I think this is a problem. You need more cities than that not only for appropriate city specialization, but also to hook up needed resources. If you are so encumbered that you can't get six or seven decent cities, an early war with your nearest neighbor is highly advisable. I'm not the expert that some people here are, but unless you are playing a duel map or something I don't think you can win a peaceful game with three major cities on Monarch.
That's a very general statement. How do you accomplish this exactly without lightbulbing? Cottage spamming?
futurehermit
Deity
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Gandhi alone on a continent? That means he has no trading opportunities for 1/2 the game. He also is not financial. How can you lose the tech race to him???
TM Moot
King
Afa2000, your initial post could of been copy and pasted from one I wrote a few months back.....
I'd won at prince a good few times, so moved up to Monarch and repeatedly got my rear kicked.
Also, I played as H.C., built lots of wonders and founded religions, and say even if i managed to be ahead in Culture, I would get tanks rolling into my land when I had pikemen!!
The best advice I was given was FOCUS. Only build what you need to build, don't build every building/improvement in every city. Specialise you're cities. Oh, and start early wars, followed by more wars (as a builder I always struggled with this). Also, attack the strongest Civ, rather then a weak one (still not sure about that!).
Good luck.
I'd won at prince a good few times, so moved up to Monarch and repeatedly got my rear kicked.
Also, I played as H.C., built lots of wonders and founded religions, and say even if i managed to be ahead in Culture, I would get tanks rolling into my land when I had pikemen!!
The best advice I was given was FOCUS. Only build what you need to build, don't build every building/improvement in every city. Specialise you're cities. Oh, and start early wars, followed by more wars (as a builder I always struggled with this). Also, attack the strongest Civ, rather then a weak one (still not sure about that!).
Good luck.
futurehermit
Deity
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Attack the strongest civ???
Seems like bad advice to me.
I only attack potential strong civs (Napoleon, Shaka, Monty) early on before they get going. Otherwise, I follow the Mantra: Attack builders early (before they get a tech lead) and attack aggressors late (after they fall behind in tech).
Befriend aggressors early, starting by gifting them alphabet on the turn you discover it. This can be hard to swallow, but it can pay major dividends. Having an attack dog on YOUR side instead of being on the receiving end is just huge. Adopt their religion, give in to their demands, go to war with them, get them to friendly and they'll attack where you point, for cheap.
Later, once you zoom past them in tech you can stick the knife in, if you want and take them out fairly easily. Recently I've been going for space though and it's fun sicking Monty/Shaka on the tech leader while I am happily building space parts
Seems like bad advice to me.
I only attack potential strong civs (Napoleon, Shaka, Monty) early on before they get going. Otherwise, I follow the Mantra: Attack builders early (before they get a tech lead) and attack aggressors late (after they fall behind in tech).
Befriend aggressors early, starting by gifting them alphabet on the turn you discover it. This can be hard to swallow, but it can pay major dividends. Having an attack dog on YOUR side instead of being on the receiving end is just huge. Adopt their religion, give in to their demands, go to war with them, get them to friendly and they'll attack where you point, for cheap.
Later, once you zoom past them in tech you can stick the knife in, if you want and take them out fairly easily. Recently I've been going for space though and it's fun sicking Monty/Shaka on the tech leader while I am happily building space parts
TM Moot
King
I guess the advice meant don't waste your time and resources duffing up any weak Civs whilst allowing the stronger ones to stretch their lead. I suppose at the end of the game, if you haven't beaten the best AI Civ then how you got on against the rest don't mean a thing!
Something I reguraly do wrong is try to befriend all Civs, I need to choose my friends better and gang up on others more often.
futurehermit
Deity
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Yes, you can't please everyone. Pick your allies and enemies. Wipe out your enemies through divide and conquer with your allies.
Obviously, you don't want the tech leader to win the game while you are at war with lesser civs.
Instead, you want to take out builder-civs early (they are the biggest threat to later have a large tech lead). Candidates are HC, Gandhi, Mansa (he can be hard to take out pre-construction), etc.
Then LEVERAGE your larger empire to get a bunch of tech yourself while bribing your aggressive allies to go to war with the tech leader to slow him/her down (why do the dirty work all by yourself???).
Attacking the tech/power leader yourself seems like a bad idea to me because you will lose a lot of the time, or at the very least get into a drawn-out, protracted war.
Obviously, you don't want the tech leader to win the game while you are at war with lesser civs.
Instead, you want to take out builder-civs early (they are the biggest threat to later have a large tech lead). Candidates are HC, Gandhi, Mansa (he can be hard to take out pre-construction), etc.
Then LEVERAGE your larger empire to get a bunch of tech yourself while bribing your aggressive allies to go to war with the tech leader to slow him/her down (why do the dirty work all by yourself???).
Attacking the tech/power leader yourself seems like a bad idea to me because you will lose a lot of the time, or at the very least get into a drawn-out, protracted war.
Agent Cooper
Lynch's Creation
... I usually choose Metal Casting as my free tech, unless my economy is already bleeding when I build The Oracle (then I choose CoL). Those early forges are pretty good to have in your core production/military cities + they are cheap to build if you are industrious.
Depending on circumstances and resources available to me, I go for the Pyramids as well - especially when playing a SE. I almost always try to build/chop/use a GP to get The Great Library.
Depending on circumstances and resources available to me, I go for the Pyramids as well - especially when playing a SE. I almost always try to build/chop/use a GP to get The Great Library.
futurehermit
Deity
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Oracle is unnecessary. If you have marble in your capital or 2nd city then, sure, grab it. Same goes for pyramids and stone. But overall, you are much better putting hammers into an axe-rush if at all possible. GL can be built one way or another after your axerush is over (don't overexpand crippling your economy)
afa2000
Time to die
After have been following your advices, I'm starting to win consistently at monarch, so I have concluded that the largest and well managed empire are unbeatable, at least in civ IV warlords, thats why early wars are so essential. That goes against what we see in real life, small "civs" like Japan were way more successfull than USSR for example. That happens because the larger is the empire, the harder is to manage. Revolts let small provinces ask for independence, so you have the choice to fight against it or let they leave your empire and become a new civ. I really would like to see that in CIV, maybe we get that in BTS. Firaxis tried to make people avoid managing huge empires like we used to do at civ III, because now thats expensive, but its still the best way in the long run, specially in higher difficult levels, when AI bonuses are amazing. I really want to see also only AIs being improved at higher lvls, but no additional bonuses, like at Noble difficult.
Guys, its really hard to discuss that in a foreign language, sorry if its hard to understand what I say.
Guys, its really hard to discuss that in a foreign language, sorry if its hard to understand what I say.
(EDIT: afa, there is a mod that adds revolutions into the game, so that your cities may revolt, and new civilizations may appear after the game has started. I can't remember what it's called though.)
I haven't read the replies, but off the top of my head:
1. Forget all the early religions and unnecessary wonders. All those hammers and beakers could be used in much more effective ways. (Unless you are going for some sort of gambit with one of the first 3 wonders. But building the Oracle just to get a 3rd religion doesn't count.)
2. There's something missing from your starting strategy: the part where you take your neighbor's cities. You found 2 or 3, and then...? You can never stop expanding; 3 cities is a good start, but what do you do after that?
If you're isolated Monarch can be hard. I've had the most success by running a SE in this situation and light-bulbing my way to Liberalism. AI Caravels will probably show up before you get there, and then you can decide which techs to pursue as trade bait.
3. Shrines are a nice income boost, but they are roughly at the bottom of my list for how to use a great person. (Ok, artists are also pretty useless in the early game.) Using an engineer for the GL or a scientist for Philosophy will pay much greater dividends than the 5-10 gold your shrine is going to get you at this stage. Then when you consider you have to invest hammers in missionaries to grow that income, in my view shrines give a poor return on investment.
Overall, to me it seems you are focusing way too much on religion and not enough on military. I'm also a builder at heart, but after employing the Early Axe Rush in enough games I've come to realize that it's the best option 95% of the time, regardless of what type of game you're going to play. There's simply no substitute for simultaneously grabbing several cities and setting your opponents back that early in the game.
I haven't read the replies, but off the top of my head:
1. Forget all the early religions and unnecessary wonders. All those hammers and beakers could be used in much more effective ways. (Unless you are going for some sort of gambit with one of the first 3 wonders. But building the Oracle just to get a 3rd religion doesn't count.)
2. There's something missing from your starting strategy: the part where you take your neighbor's cities. You found 2 or 3, and then...? You can never stop expanding; 3 cities is a good start, but what do you do after that?
If you're isolated Monarch can be hard. I've had the most success by running a SE in this situation and light-bulbing my way to Liberalism. AI Caravels will probably show up before you get there, and then you can decide which techs to pursue as trade bait.
3. Shrines are a nice income boost, but they are roughly at the bottom of my list for how to use a great person. (Ok, artists are also pretty useless in the early game.) Using an engineer for the GL or a scientist for Philosophy will pay much greater dividends than the 5-10 gold your shrine is going to get you at this stage. Then when you consider you have to invest hammers in missionaries to grow that income, in my view shrines give a poor return on investment.
Overall, to me it seems you are focusing way too much on religion and not enough on military. I'm also a builder at heart, but after employing the Early Axe Rush in enough games I've come to realize that it's the best option 95% of the time, regardless of what type of game you're going to play. There's simply no substitute for simultaneously grabbing several cities and setting your opponents back that early in the game.
futurehermit
Deity
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- Apr 3, 2006
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- 5,724
The thing is the AI gets production and research bonuses. The only way to turn that negative into a positive is to claim the cities that they are mass-producing. That is an unfortunate consquence of playing vs. an "AI" since it is "dumb" it needs bonuses, which essentially alter the nature of the game.
Hopefully BtS will be better with better decision making and less bonuses
Hopefully BtS will be better with better decision making and less bonuses
Agent Cooper
Lynch's Creation
Sure, it's unnecessary, but sometimes it's so easy to grab I just can't hold back.
If you're gonna try a Oracle->MC/forge->Pyramids slingshot it's necessary though...I'm usually able to get 2 or all of these wonders without having to delay my first war too much, but sometimes I'll shoot myself in the foot with this strategy - granted.
Agree with what is being said about the religions - no need to found so many. It's best to steal a Holy City. If I happen to catch a religion first, it's usually when discovering Civil Service or Philosophy - the late ones.
A very useful advice for higher levels is: let the AI build cities for you. You really need an early war, not only to increase your area, but to cripple AI. If you think about it, taking a city or two, will put your neighbor in enough of a disadvantage, that you'll be able to claim his entire territory in the near future.
I'm a player who can always beat monarch, sometimes beats emperor, and rarely beats immortal. There is one exception to this, i can beat any difficulty level hundreds of years earlier, including deity, if I am playing as the Incas. Get my point? If you you said you have had success with quechua rushes.....who hasn't? The quechua changes the whole face of the early game. If you are quechua rushing and grabbing 2-3 good AI capitals early game, then the game is no longer a reasonable indicator of monarch difficulty. Having 18 civs on a medium sized continent makes things even easier, as you have far, far more land than any of your AI competitors.
I don't want to seem overly critical here, but winning with Huayna Capac on Monarch with a medium continent and 18 civs is not a reflection of winning on Monarch difficulty. My suggestion to you is to stop playing monarch and start playing prince difficulty with a random leader, and the default number of Civs on a normal continents map. Promise yourself that in the game you won't build any wonders, found any religions, or build any buildings other than granaries, courthouses, forges, libraries and lighthouses. All of your left-over production should go to building military units. Build only one additional city; to grab the nearest military resource. Figure out how to use these units to smash through AI after AI. Trust me, do this on prince and you will find winning to be ridiculously easy, although it might not be as quick as you are used to.
Now do the same thing in a monarch game, except build wonders/extra buildings that you really really need. Monarch will start to get easy for you when you figure out the natural rhythm of warmongering.
I know, wall of text and all that. But for god's sake stop playing Huayna. Beat prince with Bismark before you move up to monarch with your favorite leader.
I don't want to seem overly critical here, but winning with Huayna Capac on Monarch with a medium continent and 18 civs is not a reflection of winning on Monarch difficulty. My suggestion to you is to stop playing monarch and start playing prince difficulty with a random leader, and the default number of Civs on a normal continents map. Promise yourself that in the game you won't build any wonders, found any religions, or build any buildings other than granaries, courthouses, forges, libraries and lighthouses. All of your left-over production should go to building military units. Build only one additional city; to grab the nearest military resource. Figure out how to use these units to smash through AI after AI. Trust me, do this on prince and you will find winning to be ridiculously easy, although it might not be as quick as you are used to.
Now do the same thing in a monarch game, except build wonders/extra buildings that you really really need. Monarch will start to get easy for you when you figure out the natural rhythm of warmongering.
I know, wall of text and all that. But for god's sake stop playing Huayna. Beat prince with Bismark before you move up to monarch with your favorite leader.
afa2000
Time to die
I do agree with you about it, but isnt that what most players do ? I already had some success on monarch at WOTM10 playing as Churchill, but AI beatted me at industrialism, I guess I would be succesfull if it wasnt aggressive AI.
Trust me, I already did that. Prince is easy to me with any leader or settings, there's no more challenge. Maybe I'll try BetterAI mod, but I usually like to play the game like it is, without mods, thats why I tried to change my gameplay and started doing some early wars. Today I won with Hannibal too, but I'm sure I would lose game if I couldnt find copper/iron/horses nearby. Thats not just strategy, thats luck. I have just read about BTS changes and they changed almost everything I had criticized here, thats amazing. Game will be a lot better than already is.
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Only if I find copper or iron or horses :sad. Otherwise, by the time I have discovered gunpowder they will be already OP.
He is my favorite, but I dont play only with him. I just play his strenghts, once he is industrious/financial and starts with mysticism. Isnt that the way game is supposed to be played ? Monarch should be designed in order to play each leader with his strenghts, not playing always the same way: early wars and lightbulbing. That makes Philosophic and aggressive/charismatic OP traits, which means that leaders like Lincoln ( Phi/Cha ) in BTS would be the most chosen in higher lvls. That seems not true if you take a look at new BTS features, that AI will be improved with less bonuses at higher lvls and managing big empires will be even harder to do.
