This is another post for people who, like me, still find Monarch a challenge.
I asked for "continents" rather than "Pangaea," but to my surprise I got four other civs on the same continent. By 10 BC I have 20 cities and am way out in first place among the five on my continent. Here's the strategy -- see if it works for you.
1. Keep every city going back to size 1 until you have filled up all available space. This solves happiness problems. You rush-build many of your settlers, barracks, and temples.
2. Keep science at the 32-turn level and buy all your technology.
3. Be sure to grab resources and luxuries. Getting iron and incense takes a bit of stretching. But once you have three luxuries people stay pretty happy.
4. Use your workers mainly to connect up all your cities. Develop a couple of good tiles near each of the productive cities near your capital.
5. Explore with warriors to meet everyone ASAP.
6. As you get barracks, crank out War Chariots. They are really cheap. Far from your capital, rush-build them as soon as population reaches 2. But get the barracks first, because you want one of these chariots to become elite and produce a great leader.
7. Don't stop to build Wonders, libraries, archers, or galleys. Your goal is to have an enormous territory with two dozen size-2 cities cranking out chariots.
8. Once you have about 20 chariots, start taking out your neighbors, one at a time. You should be able to take 3 cities from a new enemy on the turn when you declare war, and the rest is then easy.
9. One you fill up your territory, switch workers to building irrigation from a river up to your capital, concentrating on plains (since you're in despotism and irrigating grass is useless). You have to irrigate around the cities that will be producing science when you have eliminated the nice people who sold it to you.
Although I have researched Republic and bought Monarchy, I'm going to stay a despot until I have conquered the continent, since most of my cities produce only one shield and I need to rush-build everything. Once the conquest is complete, I will switch to Republic and develop technology, with the plan of getting all the way to Computers and then conquering the other continents with conscript Mech Infantry.
I'm hoping to get a great leader from one of my elite chariots so that I can build the forbidden palace before switching to Republic.
The limit to growth with this strategy is jungles. Chariots cannot enter them.
So far, in 10BC, I'm about to start on wiping out my second neighbor. I'd be interested in comparing notes with others who try the same map. Things are going so well that I wish I had tried at higher difficulty.
I asked for "continents" rather than "Pangaea," but to my surprise I got four other civs on the same continent. By 10 BC I have 20 cities and am way out in first place among the five on my continent. Here's the strategy -- see if it works for you.
1. Keep every city going back to size 1 until you have filled up all available space. This solves happiness problems. You rush-build many of your settlers, barracks, and temples.
2. Keep science at the 32-turn level and buy all your technology.
3. Be sure to grab resources and luxuries. Getting iron and incense takes a bit of stretching. But once you have three luxuries people stay pretty happy.
4. Use your workers mainly to connect up all your cities. Develop a couple of good tiles near each of the productive cities near your capital.
5. Explore with warriors to meet everyone ASAP.
6. As you get barracks, crank out War Chariots. They are really cheap. Far from your capital, rush-build them as soon as population reaches 2. But get the barracks first, because you want one of these chariots to become elite and produce a great leader.
7. Don't stop to build Wonders, libraries, archers, or galleys. Your goal is to have an enormous territory with two dozen size-2 cities cranking out chariots.
8. Once you have about 20 chariots, start taking out your neighbors, one at a time. You should be able to take 3 cities from a new enemy on the turn when you declare war, and the rest is then easy.
9. One you fill up your territory, switch workers to building irrigation from a river up to your capital, concentrating on plains (since you're in despotism and irrigating grass is useless). You have to irrigate around the cities that will be producing science when you have eliminated the nice people who sold it to you.
Although I have researched Republic and bought Monarchy, I'm going to stay a despot until I have conquered the continent, since most of my cities produce only one shield and I need to rush-build everything. Once the conquest is complete, I will switch to Republic and develop technology, with the plan of getting all the way to Computers and then conquering the other continents with conscript Mech Infantry.
I'm hoping to get a great leader from one of my elite chariots so that I can build the forbidden palace before switching to Republic.
The limit to growth with this strategy is jungles. Chariots cannot enter them.
So far, in 10BC, I'm about to start on wiping out my second neighbor. I'd be interested in comparing notes with others who try the same map. Things are going so well that I wish I had tried at higher difficulty.
