What am I doing wrong? I just don't get it.

[CGQ]

I've played this map at least 5 times now, and I don't know what other way to approach this. Every time I try to play it I get out-teched by Portugal. My latest attempt, I killed off the Celtic guy, but now my gold is very low and I can't research to catch up and trade stuff. My units went on strike again and I lost horse archers. I know it's from over-expansion, but if I only keep a few cities then Portugal will settle my spots and he'll runaway and have like 13 cities. Each game Portugal just runs away and settles cities left and right! How's he able to sustain himself while I can barely keep 10 cities?

I'm at wits end with this. Here's my game start:
https://i.imgur.com/UemLYAE.jpg
I always build a worker first, then I'll get 100-200 gold through goody-huts with my scouts and even Bronze working and I STILL struggle!

Here's the empire right before I declared on Brennus:
https://i.imgur.com/rI1agST.jpg

Here's my game around 1090 AD from last attempt:
https://i.imgur.com/xK2r70n.jpg
Sorta quit after that. I'm not sure if the game is salvageable.

So usually with my BW advantage, I immediately go for a horse/axe rush. Please help me out here. Any input is appreciated! I attached the saves below from my latest attempt.

 

[OldDude]

@CGQ, as a guy who posted a very similar question some months ago, I would suggest you start a new Shadow Game. You will get a lot of help from the civ savants on the board and you will learn a lot. You might want to check out my last one as an example if you're not sure how to go about it. It's definitely worth it.

Cheers, and good luck.

 

[Wrathful]

I played this one out to turn 50. Summary of my game:

Spoiler T50 Summary :

Rather than settling in place, I move my settler to the plains hill 1 NW of its initial position. This will let me build the first worker in 10 turns instead of 12, ultimately resulting in the wheat being improved 1 turn faster. I also gain some riverside tiles while not losing very many forests. This also has the advantage of moving the capital further inland, which helps with grabbing land and dealing with barbarians. On monarch level neither of these are a big problem, but on higher levels they are extremely important.

This move does deprive my capital of two of the clams, but this isn't really an issue in the early game (the most important phase of the game). Three clams and one wheat is far too much food for one city to effectively use early on, so it's best to share the clams with a city to the east.

So, I move the settler and begin to play out the early turns. I send my scout northward to investigate the river. Along the way I meet Brennus and spotted the borders of his capital. I pop 3 tribal villages and got some gold, a scout, Fishing, and Masonry. Fishing is a huge boost, Masonry not so much.

Research goes Agriculture > Bronze Working. Worker first in the capital, then warriors. My worker improves the wheat, then builds a mine on the unforested plains hill. Note that my worker would have had nothing to do after improving the wheat if I had not settled on the plains hill. As soon as my capital reaches size three I switch production from a warrior to a settler.

Here's my position at Turn 23. My worker is in position to begin chopping next turn. I choose to chop the forest northeast of my capital because it will allow my settler to reach my second city location one turn faster. I plan to settle the cows to the north unless Brennus gets them first.

Next turn I finish bronze working, revealing copper to the north. I also get the horticulture event. I choose to ignore it rather than risk unhappiness and loss of population. The permanent health boost is not very attractive because health is not an issue in this particular game. I'm expansive, have plenty of forest, have fresh water, and also plenty of health resources.

I also choose to delay the switch to slavery. Now is not the time. It would only delay my settler without providing any benefit.

Animal Husbandry is my next tech. It is needed for the cows.

I finish the settler on turn 31. He immediately moved to the north. The worker came along as well, preparing to improve the cows. My capital started on another worker. Thanks to overflow it will be done in just 3 turns.

At this point I revolt into slavery. Revolting now won't delay the settler (since it's already been produced) and it won't halt production in my new city (since it hasn't been settled yet.) In general, this is the best time to revolt into slavery: after your capital produces its first settler but before the second city is settled.

Hamburg is settled on Turn 33. Here is the current situation:

I choose to build a warrior in Hamburg. This is mainly because I want the city to grow, so I don't really have any other option. The warrior will probably go south and sit in Berlin to prevent unhappiness. Note that the switch to slavery cost me one turn of research. As a result, my worker was not able to immediately start improving the cows. Instead of leaving him idle, however, I had him farm the tile 1 north of Hamburg for one turn. Though that farm will probably never be completed, it's best practice to avoid wasting worker turns.

Animal Husbandry revealed horses 2 tiles southwest of my capital. I will settle a city between the cows and the horses later on. My next tech choice is The Wheel. I want to establish a trade route between my two cities. More importantly, this will open up Pottery. Since I'm Expansive, I definitely want to get granaries up and running soon. I also have some riverside tiles to cottage.

My capital finished the worker and will now finish the warrior in queue. I stop working the plains mine and instead work the clam tile. I want to reach size 4 and then 2-pop whip another settler.

The worker near Hamburg finishes the cow pasture. Now he will head to the flood plain to farm it. Meanwhile, the new worker chops a forest while waiting for The Wheel. The hammers from the chop go into a settler.

On Turn 40 I meet Joao. I also finish The Wheel, heading straight for Pottery next. Hamburg finishes the warrior and starts putting hammers into The Great Wall. I have no intention of finishing this wonder, but when an AI completes it all the hammers I have invested into it will be converted to gold. This technique (known as "failgold") is very useful for generating gold, especially for Industrious leaders. Of course, it wouldn't have been possible if I hadn't obtained Masonry from a hut.

When Pottery finishes I set my research to Writing. This will let me open borders with Brennus, providing lucrative trade routes. It will also let me build libraries to expand my borders in my new cities, boost my research, and hire scientists eventually produce a Great Scientist.

I settled my third city, Munich, in the southeast to claim the clams and ocean fish. It immediately starts on a work boat, which will be finished in just three turns. This was made possible by a chop and working the plains hill forest. Note that I have started on granaries in my cities.

And that brings us to turn 50. I plan to whip another settler in Berlin for the cow/horse spot. Hamburg is getting out another worker. Munich will focus on work boats, then build a granary. Note that both Berlin and Hamburg already have a granary finished.

Now, this was by no means a perfect playthough. I made plenty of mistakes. For example, the plains cottage near Hamburg was definitely a poor use of my worker's time. However, I think that this is a good position. From here, I could tech to construction and attack Brennus, or I could peacefully fill out my land and go for a later attack or maybe even a cultural victory.

Regarding your game at 225 BC:

Spoiler :

I think that your main problem in this game was city placement. This is a very difficult aspect of civ and one that I struggle with a lot. One rule of thumb that helps is to always aim to settle cities with food in the first cultural ring. Cities can't do much of anything without food. In your game, Hamburg has only a single flood plain and some grassland tiles for food. This isn't much, especially for a second city. In my game, I claimed the cows and the flood plain with Hamburg; it has a lot more food to work with.

Another example: Cologne should certainly have been settled 1 south of its current position. This would allow it to work the oasis immediately, rather than waiting centuries for a border pop.

I also notice some problems with your city management. Cologne stands out to me in this regard: you should absolutely work the gold mine instead of the plains hill mine. Berlin is another example: you're building an aqueduct here, but there is no need to do so. Take a look at your health and unhealthiness in the city screen. A work boat to improve the clam would be much better.

Finally, let me offer some advice regarding your war plans. There are a few tried-and-true strategies for early warfare. These include the axeman rush, horse archer rush, unique unit rushes, and construction attack. In general, if you want to attack someone early, you'll want to stick with one of these strategies. In this game, your army consists of both axemen and horse archers. This is not advisable. By mixing these unit types, you negate the main advantages of them both. I'll try to explain why as best I can.

The primary advantage of axemen is that they can be built very early in the game, are relatively strong, and are relatively cheap. It's possible to chop and whip out an army of axemen very quickly and attack the AI before they have a chance to build up their defenses. On the other hand, horse archers benefit mainly from their speed. With 2 movement points as opposed to 1, they can strike deep into the AI very quickly and efficiently. You can employ many advanced tactics in horse archer rushes, such as threatening multiple cities at once, confusing the AI, or pillaging their source of metal, preventing them from building spearmen.

By including both axemen and horse archers in your army, you've lost the main advantages of both units. Your horse archers will only be able to move one tile at a time so that the axemen can keep up, and you couldn't launch the attack early because you had to wait for Horseback Riding to build horse archers.

So what do I recommend? For this map, I would have gone for a construction attack. You have ivory nearby and can peacefully expand to 4 cities. Settle your cities, tech construction and horseback riding, build up some catapults and war elephants, and lay waste to the Celts. After that you'll have enough land to conquer your neighbors or tech peacefully as you please.

 

[pigswill]

Had a go at this up to 125bc.

Spoiler :

I think SIP is a good option: the capital has a lot of production (5 hills) but needs food and commerce. I researched fishing before BW and knocked out a couple of workboats asap. Gotta agree with Wrathful regarding Hamburg, 2 food in first ring, copper and ivory in second ring. Third city was horse/cows. Noting this was a continents map I thought I'd grab Great Lighthouse while it was available then went for a HA rush (also have to agree that a hybrid melee/mounted attack is sub-optimal). Just peaced out with Brennus after taking his capital.
Probably aim to backfill the south, go for optics then see where to go from there.

I'd agree with OldDude that a shadow game is worth your while if you're looking to improve sooner rather than later.

 

[floydmcw]

Played 50 turns:

Spoiler :

Most maps default to worker first. Because there are huts and events I think the best opening is to build a second scout in 4 turns while teching fishing, then 8 turns for a work boat, then a worker.

If you build worker first I'd expect a lot of wasted worker turns (unless you go BW after Ag but that still wastes about 5 turns and you don't get the benefit of the clams).

I don't like ignoring the seafood. Berlin has no other way to get commerce.

Next city will go next to oasis/gold, for stone, for Pyramids.

(edit - forgot the save)

 

[floydmcw]

By the way CGQ thanks for posting this, it's a very interesting map with many possibilities. Haven't had such a "one more turn" rush in a long time.

 

[floydmcw]

Played 50 turns:

Spoiler :

The two scouts collected lots of gold but the rest of my opening was not well thought out. Wrathful did a much better job than me of expanding (I don't know where pigswill was at T50 but I'm sure his save was better too).

I went back to T28, just after BW, and played more carefully. I wanted to chop settlers or workers but didn't want to hinder Berlin's growth, so instead I chopped a WB at T33, just in time for Berlin to grow to size 3. Berlin 2-whipped a settler with a chop and the overflow went to a worker.

This T50 save is better and set me up nicely for this T76 save -- stone city is almost done with its monument, settler for 5th city is out and a WB will follow it.

I don't see any reason to stop at 4 cities. I should be able to get 7-8 cities peacefully and there's a barb city to the west to snag. Then I can elepult Brennus.

 

[CGQ]

Spoiler My latest attempt :

Thanks for the input everyone! I took Wrathful's advice and played the map again. I tried the elephant/catapult rush on the Celts but my economy went down the toilet whenever I did. So a reload later, I peacefully went for Liberalism instead and got it around 1000 AD, took printing press, went for rifling and got steel for cannons. I changed to Nationhood during the first Gold age, drafted riflemen like crazy, then declared on the Celts with a huge-gantic stack of mostly rifle-men (about 21 of them), 15 cannons, and 6 Calvary to clean them out. I planned it all out and did a Y-split invasion, took two cities in one turn, went for the capital, took another two cities. He only had mostly long-bowmen and elephants. He had no chance. I wiped him out and continued growing. I later got physics after bulbing scientific method, got a free GS and used him to bulb another tech.

Later on, Degaulle declares on Portugal, and tried to vassal him. I teched to artillery, built and upgraded a whole bunch of them, then declared on Portugal seeing he had riflemen (Degaulle already had infantry!) and of course Degaulle vassals him. A couple reloads later, being the first to electricity, I give Degaulle electricity and bribe him to declare peace on Portugal. Despite both of us having riflemen, my artillery and airship blimps gave me a huge edge over him given he still only had catapults. I took two cities in one turn at one point. With 3 cities left, he offered capitulation, but after I saw -7 "we wish to join our motherland" on all his cities I just wiped him out instead, and took all his cities, becoming the biggest empire, even bigger than the Kmher and Ottoman vassal. I now had the highest score in the game. Shortly after wiping Joao out, I used two great people to start a second gold age and was the first CIV to get rocketry, so I began the Apollo Project in my Capital since it had the most hammers and later traded aluminium with the Ottoman guy to speed it up. I finished it first and started building the first parts shortly after. My economy was booming with over 1000 gold per turn on no research and using some cities for research, I had over 2000 beakers per turn on 100%!

Unfortunately, things started to go south from that point on. Most of the other civs like sury and somehow the ottoman despite having few cities had techs I didn't have. Degaulle somehow started catching up and by 1940 AD he was ahead of me! How??? He had no aluminum (he came to me and asked me for some which in a trade, which I said no). His military was also one whole level above me, and way more powerful than mine. Then out of the blue the Aztec delcared war on me, and I fended his destroyers off, though there wasn't much he could do since he was the furthest behind in tech. I later declared peace with him after bribing him (he asked for a whooping 43 gold.) Degaulle launched his spaceship, and I still had two parts left to build, one which I didn't have the tech for yet! How did he do it? He had half the cities I have. Where did I go wrong? Was it the first 100 turns? What could I have done? What am I missing here?

One victory that's possibly achievable is diplomatic. Since Degaulle was my only true ally, he voted for me but I missed diplomatic victory by 4 votes! I could possibly vassal the Aztec guy (which I did once on prince with Japan to win dipomatic) so I reloaded the game and tried that but it's a struggle. I attached two saves, one where I went for space (the 1940 one) and the 1950s one where I invaded the aztec right when I'm about to take his capital.

Are these lost causes? I'm hoping someone on here can take a look at these saves and try to see if it's possible to win them. If not, then where did I go wrong? I literally can't see what I could've done better. I don't want to go back and reload to 50 different saves and try different things and just waste more time. This was the best I've ever done on a Monarch game at least, now I just wanna win haha.

 

[CGQ]

Here's the two files, I forgot to add them previous post and I can't find the option

 

[Wrathful]

I don't think very many people will examine those late game saves. I did take a look at the 1943 one. I got De Gaulle to friendly by switching into Nationalism, bribing him into Nationalism (shared civic bonus), and bribing him to attack Monty. Still need 50 votes or so to win. It might be possible to farm all the land and get enough population to win before De Gaulle wins space. Maybe settle some new cities as well. Or build up an army and attack Monty.

But none of this really matters that much in the grand scheme of things. Here on the forums you'll find that most people are interested mainly in the early game. It is the most important part of the game after all. With that in mind I think we should probably focus on this particular sentence from your post:

I tried the elephant/catapult rush on the Celts but my economy went down the toilet whenever I did.

If you have any saves from your construction rush it would be good to post them. It sounds like you successfully took out the Celts but then had trouble recovering from the war. As a matter of fact, maintaining a good economy is arguably the hardest aspect of early warfare. I for one struggle with it a lot. It's not that hard to whip and chop out an army, and the fighting itself isn't terribly complex in a construction rush (bombard defenses, suicide catapults, mop up defenders, repeat). So, how does one prevent their economy from tanking during an early war? Well, a lot of it comes down to the basics. Building the right things in your cities, managing workers properly, and working the right tiles are all very important. There are more advanced tactics as well, such as bulbing Philosophy to trade with other AIs and investing hammers into wonders for failgold. You might tech Currency and build wealth until your captured cities become more productive. It's also important to improve your happiness cap. Your rival might have happiness resources for the taking, or you could trade some from other AIs. Teching or trading for Monarchy and switching into Hereditary Rule can help. You could write entire strategy guides dedicated to economy management in early rushes, honestly.

It's probably best to learn by example. If we could see the state of your empire before, during, and after the rush, we could offer suggestions regarding your economy.

I decided to continue my playthrough.

Spoiler To T94 :

Finished Writing on T55, I'll tech Horseback Riding next. At this point I'm not sure whether to go for Horse Archers or Elepult. Both paths require Horseback Riding. My general plan at the moment is to research Horseback Riding then build up a gold supply while generating a Great Scientist to bulb Mathematics.

Settled Cologne on T59 between horse and cow.

I used a warrior to scout out Brennus' land. It's important to know which of his cities are on flatland, what kind of troops he has, where his metal is, etc. In this scenario, I've learned that Brennus' capital is a prime target, being poorly defended and not on a hill. His land is very good by the way. Lots of food and plenty of riverside tiles to cottage.

Horseback Riding finished on Turn 66. At this point I've pretty much decided to do the horse archer rush. I still need to research Archery before I can build Horse Archers. So I went for Archery, finishing it on T69. Buildup of Horse Archers soon followed.

Alphabet is my next tech. I want to trade for Sailing, Iron Working, the religious line, etc. It also leads to Currency.

Gifted Joao a clam to start building up relations.

With Alphabet finished on T79 I continue on to Currency. There aren't any good tech trades available yet. Would be different on Immortal.

Finally, at T82 I'm ready to attack.

I'm going in with 9 horse archers in total. They all have 3xp and some have 5 thanks to the stable I built in Berlin. His capital will be my first target. It has very high cultural defense, so I want to capture it before he gets too many troops in there. Note that attacking Camulodunum, his newest city, would be a mistake because it would auto-raze upon being captured. Any city that has never grown past size 1 will do this.

I also made this trade:

This will give me trade routes with the other leaders. I will need to explore the coastline first, however.

Finally, on Turn 84, the time has come to strike at his capital. The axe and spear were there when I declared last turn. He reinforced his city with a chariot, basically the worst unit he could reinforce with.

There's not much strategy for what follows. I take my shock horse archers and pray for good combat rolls.

The result:

I lost just 1 horse archer. Got lucky. Still, I don't think I would have lost more than 3 or 4 here, even with poor rolls.

Here we see the power of horse archers. 1 turn after I declared I have already taken his capital. I have acquired a very good city and also got around 100 gold from the capture. Now I can immediately start teching Currency.

Of course, this victory did take its toll on my homeland. The citizenry has been whipped heavily and now many people are refusing to work. Don't worry, we can fix that.

Being an Industrious leader, De Gaulle built the Oracle and picked Monarchy for his free tech. And so I have obtained some more happiness.

There wasn't much resistance after that. Tolosa was defended by a single archer and also had a worker for me to steal.

I lost that fight, by the way, so I feel slightly better about my good luck previously.

Vienne had a well-promoted archer and a spearman defending it. With 5 horse archers I was reasonably confident that I could take the city.

My good luck continued. I lost only 1 horse archer. But still, I am confident that I had enough units to take it even if I was less lucky.

During this time I converted to Buddhism. It will help stabilize my new cities which are starting to come online. The religion has spread to Hamburg and hopefully will soon spread to the rest of my empire.

8 horse archers faced off against the 2 archers and axeman defending Gergovia...and I didn't lose anyone this time. But again, and I know I'm repeating myself here, I would have taken the city either way. Honestly, I probably built too many units here. This just proves that Monarch AI is very easy to defeat in warfare early on.

At this point, he has only 1 city left. I still can't take it because it hasn't grown past size 1 yet.

But on T91, it finally grows to size 2. It's time to end this. Not even worth taking a screenshot. There's only 1 archer there. I take it without any losses...Hooray! Brennus is de..wait what? He's still alive?

So yes, it turns out he had one more city out in the jungle. I didn't see it. It's a complete piece of garbage though, definitely not worth keeping.

Got Currency on T92, not sure what to tech next. I suppose I'll go for Mathematics.

I decided to trade to De Gaulle Horseback Riding for Iron Working, Mysticism, and 30 gold. I want Iron Working to clear out the jungle. The gold is nice too.

At long last, the Celtic civilization is destroyed on turn 94. Lost 1 horse archer in the final battle.

I now have 9 good cities and plenty of green grassland to cottage. Though I chopped away most of my forest in my homeland, I've gained vast tracks of new woodland to deforest later on. My economy has suffered somewhat but I'm getting it back on track now. Cottages are being built and whip anger is cooling off. There's more land to settle in the west as well. My first priority will be the gold. I'm also getting a great scientist in two turns. He will most likely bulb Philosophy. Long term I will likely tech to Cuirassiers to take over my continent. Munich and Bibracte are excellent Great Person farms and can supply Great Scientists for bulbing and Great Merchants to upgrade my veteran horse archers.

 

[Wrathful]

Hit the file upload limit in my previous post so...saves attached here.

 

[Gumbolt]

@CGQ. You are going to lose that game. Degaulle is close to space launch. Another Ai has 2 vassals and is pretty much controlling the seas. Never seen so many aircraft carriers.

Agreed with others too much wrong here to give any practical advice come 1953ad. You need to watch what others have done here. Lose the builder mentality and fhave a strategy to secure land early on.

This is not a good map to learn the game.

 

[pigswill]

Wrathful: it will be interesting to see how you rebuild your economy after your HA rush while stopping Joao/De Gaulle settling the western half of the continent. As you said its not that difficult to chop/whip out an army and go on a rampage, the tricky bit is recovering afterwards.

I also played on from my last save (up to 1000ad):

Spoiler :

I'd just peaced out with Brennus in exchange for Maths and Poly. I used the peace to capture a barb city and settle a blocking city on the west coast to stop my neighbours spreading south. Meanwhile I teched MC and built Colossus in Berlin. After ten turns I re-declared on Brennus and finished him off. I got a GM in Berlin from Glite/Colossus and sent him north for 1100g TM which subsidised research for calendar, music and Col. Built MoM in Berlin, Glib in Bibracte, music GA launched a 12turn GA, researching towards lib, built courthouses up north and FP in Bibracte. GS from Glib bulbed a chunk of Education while I researched philosophy and discovered Taoism in 1000ad!

 

[CGQ]

Question, what's FP, MoM and Glib?

 

[lymond]

Question, what's FP, MoM and Glib?

Forbidden Palace, Mausoleum Of Mausolus, Great Library

 

[sampsa]

Wrathful: it will be interesting to see how you rebuild your economy after your HA rush while stopping Joao/De Gaulle settling the western half of the continent. As you said its not that difficult to chop/whip out an army and go on a rampage, the tricky bit is recovering afterwards.

Honestly there isn't much recovering in that save, I mean with the ability to build wealth and work green cottages on this difficulty level... Just don't fall into the trap of building too many buildings (like weak courthouses, or mediocre wonders). Build wealth and failgold, build more units if necessary to capture more mature cities. Cuirassiers are often an overkill, but continents require astro to conquer all, so that'd be the way for fastest conquest date.

 

[CGQ]

I don't think very many people will examine those late game saves. I did take a look at the 1943 one. I got De Gaulle to friendly by switching into Nationalism, bribing him into Nationalism (shared civic bonus), and bribing him to attack Monty. Still need 50 votes or so to win. It might be possible to farm all the land and get enough population to win before De Gaulle wins space. Maybe settle some new cities as well. Or build up an army and attack Monty.

But none of this really matters that much in the grand scheme of things. Here on the forums you'll find that most people are interested mainly in the early game. It is the most important part of the game after all. With that in mind I think we should probably focus on this particular sentence from your post:



If you have any saves from your construction rush it would be good to post them. It sounds like you successfully took out the Celts but then had trouble recovering from the war. As a matter of fact, maintaining a good economy is arguably the hardest aspect of early warfare. I for one struggle with it a lot. It's not that hard to whip and chop out an army, and the fighting itself isn't terribly complex in a construction rush (bombard defenses, suicide catapults, mop up defenders, repeat). So, how does one prevent their economy from tanking during an early war? Well, a lot of it comes down to the basics. Building the right things in your cities, managing workers properly, and working the right tiles are all very important. There are more advanced tactics as well, such as bulbing Philosophy to trade with other AIs and investing hammers into wonders for failgold. You might tech Currency and build wealth until your captured cities become more productive. It's also important to improve your happiness cap. Your rival might have happiness resources for the taking, or you could trade some from other AIs. Teching or trading for Monarchy and switching into Hereditary Rule can help. You could write entire strategy guides dedicated to economy management in early rushes, honestly.

It's probably best to learn by example. If we could see the state of your empire before, during, and after the rush, we could offer suggestions regarding your economy.

I decided to continue my playthrough.

Spoiler To T94 :

Finished Writing on T55, I'll tech Horseback Riding next. At this point I'm not sure whether to go for Horse Archers or Elepult. Both paths require Horseback Riding. My general plan at the moment is to research Horseback Riding then build up a gold supply while generating a Great Scientist to bulb Mathematics.

Settled Cologne on T59 between horse and cow.

I used a warrior to scout out Brennus' land. It's important to know which of his cities are on flatland, what kind of troops he has, where his metal is, etc. In this scenario, I've learned that Brennus' capital is a prime target, being poorly defended and not on a hill. His land is very good by the way. Lots of food and plenty of riverside tiles to cottage.
View attachment 533982

Horseback Riding finished on Turn 66. At this point I've pretty much decided to do the horse archer rush. I still need to research Archery before I can build Horse Archers. So I went for Archery, finishing it on T69. Buildup of Horse Archers soon followed.

Alphabet is my next tech. I want to trade for Sailing, Iron Working, the religious line, etc. It also leads to Currency.

Gifted Joao a clam to start building up relations.

With Alphabet finished on T79 I continue on to Currency. There aren't any good tech trades available yet. Would be different on Immortal.

Finally, at T82 I'm ready to attack.
View attachment 533985

I'm going in with 9 horse archers in total. They all have 3xp and some have 5 thanks to the stable I built in Berlin. His capital will be my first target. It has very high cultural defense, so I want to capture it before he gets too many troops in there. Note that attacking Camulodunum, his newest city, would be a mistake because it would auto-raze upon being captured. Any city that has never grown past size 1 will do this.

I also made this trade:
View attachment 533986

This will give me trade routes with the other leaders. I will need to explore the coastline first, however.

Finally, on Turn 84, the time has come to strike at his capital. The axe and spear were there when I declared last turn. He reinforced his city with a chariot, basically the worst unit he could reinforce with.
View attachment 533987

There's not much strategy for what follows. I take my shock horse archers and pray for good combat rolls.

The result:
View attachment 533988
I lost just 1 horse archer. Got lucky. Still, I don't think I would have lost more than 3 or 4 here, even with poor rolls.

Here we see the power of horse archers. 1 turn after I declared I have already taken his capital. I have acquired a very good city and also got around 100 gold from the capture. Now I can immediately start teching Currency.

Of course, this victory did take its toll on my homeland. The citizenry has been whipped heavily and now many people are refusing to work. Don't worry, we can fix that.
View attachment 533989
Being an Industrious leader, De Gaulle built the Oracle and picked Monarchy for his free tech. And so I have obtained some more happiness.

There wasn't much resistance after that. Tolosa was defended by a single archer and also had a worker for me to steal.
View attachment 533990

I lost that fight, by the way, so I feel slightly better about my good luck previously.

Vienne had a well-promoted archer and a spearman defending it. With 5 horse archers I was reasonably confident that I could take the city.

My good luck continued. I lost only 1 horse archer. But still, I am confident that I had enough units to take it even if I was less lucky.
View attachment 533991

During this time I converted to Buddhism. It will help stabilize my new cities which are starting to come online. The religion has spread to Hamburg and hopefully will soon spread to the rest of my empire.

8 horse archers faced off against the 2 archers and axeman defending Gergovia...and I didn't lose anyone this time. But again, and I know I'm repeating myself here, I would have taken the city either way. Honestly, I probably built too many units here. This just proves that Monarch AI is very easy to defeat in warfare early on.
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At this point, he has only 1 city left. I still can't take it because it hasn't grown past size 1 yet.

But on T91, it finally grows to size 2. It's time to end this. Not even worth taking a screenshot. There's only 1 archer there. I take it without any losses...Hooray! Brennus is de..wait what? He's still alive?

So yes, it turns out he had one more city out in the jungle. I didn't see it. It's a complete piece of garbage though, definitely not worth keeping.
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Got Currency on T92, not sure what to tech next. I suppose I'll go for Mathematics.

I decided to trade to De Gaulle Horseback Riding for Iron Working, Mysticism, and 30 gold. I want Iron Working to clear out the jungle. The gold is nice too.

At long last, the Celtic civilization is destroyed on turn 94. Lost 1 horse archer in the final battle.

I now have 9 good cities and plenty of green grassland to cottage. Though I chopped away most of my forest in my homeland, I've gained vast tracks of new woodland to deforest later on. My economy has suffered somewhat but I'm getting it back on track now. Cottages are being built and whip anger is cooling off. There's more land to settle in the west as well. My first priority will be the gold. I'm also getting a great scientist in two turns. He will most likely bulb Philosophy. Long term I will likely tech to Cuirassiers to take over my continent. Munich and Bibracte are excellent Great Person farms and can supply Great Scientists for bulbing and Great Merchants to upgrade my veteran horse archers.

I went back and started from the very beginning again, and followed your steps. This time however, I sent my scout much further up north, and built a scout in Berlin after the first worker instead of of a warrior and had him go west to get the other huts. My first scout popped a whole bunch of huts, one of them (Just east of the Celtic capital) gave me BW. Then I sent the scout west north of the Celtic, and got Iron Working from a hut! In the end, I ended up with 200-ish gold from huts and iron working. Unfortunately I didn't get masonry or fishing from them, so I researched fishing after pottery.

Because of getting early BW, I was able to chop a settler and settled Hamburg earlier at T28.I then chopped/whipped my third settler after building my barracks at T43. I attacked Brennus with 10 horse archers (for precaution) at 800 BC. He had Gallic warriors stationed in some cities, but my HA's with their Melee bonuses destroyed them. I lost about 3-4 of them. Not too bad. I wiped Brennus out at the same time, at T94. I also ran scientists and got my first Great Scientist around turn 80-ish.

Depsite my headstart with the techs however, after comparing my save to yours, you seem to be in a way better position. Since I coudn't get mansory from a hut, I couldn't build any wonders for fail gold (I have a habit of doing this a lot with industrious leaders) and I didn't get any religions. France has Budhdism but it won't spread to me

What do you think so far? I played to T103, and I also attached my 525 BC so you can compare.

I'd send you my elephult rush from my past attempts but I've gotten a lot better since then. Now I just need to improve my early game further.

Also quick question, why is early game so important? Would I be able to make up any mistakes from the past? I kind of understand why it's important but does it really determine the outcome of the game by that much? (like my 1952 losing games?)

Thank you all so much for the help!

 

[lymond]

Also quick question, why is early game so important? Would I be able to make up any mistakes from the past? I kind of understand why it's important but does it really determine the outcome of the game by that much? (like my 1952 losing games?)

I'll speak from a general perspective, as I've not really looked at your games other than a glance at a couple of screenshots (by the way you can paste the BBCode text directly into your post from Imgur). The first point here is that this complex game has much to do with the snowball effect. The more stuff you do early game, and the better you do that stuff, the better things will be for you later. Ofc, that is a very broad statement, but it deals with quite a few concepts and mechanics. Things like worker management, tech choices, diplomacy, builds, using the whip, settling decisions, use of great folks, tech trading and so no. We can paint broad strokes for you now regarding this based on what you have posted so far, but really you have not actually focused much at all on the early game. And when I say that, I mean from Turn 0.

So for perspective, yeah, experienced players would not even consider losing at 1952 on Monarch, but furthermore 1952 would be far later than we'd ever expect to achieve victory.

oh..and most here don't play with huts and events....nor do we build scouts

There's a lot to learn here, amigo, and the best place to start is a shadow game.

 

[Gumbolt]

I really dislike huts. Your forcing yourself to build scouts in hope of picking up free techs. You really don't need that advantage on monarch level.

Spoiler Spoilers :

If your chopping forest you need to trade for maths. Gives 30H per chop instead of 20.
Berlin - Why is it running 2x citizens? It should be working tiles. That grassland cottage is not even being worked. Ideally you want your capital to grow. Please cancel the farming of that plains.
Hamburg should be running cows/cottage. It won't grow if you use a mine.
Munich - I would be using the fish. It is the best food tile the city has. I would grow city. Maybe whip lighthouse at size 7? Keep 2x scientists.
Cologne - You could whip the settler in Cologne. It's working 3 unimproved tiles.. It should of been running 2x scientists. The market is not worth it. Wait for heriditary rule from monarchy.

The grassland river tiles near Celt capital could all be cottaged. That jungle hides a lot of good land. Have 3-4 workers focus on chopping that jungle and building cottages on the grassland rivers.

Don't waste time on markets. Both your fellow Ai have monarchy. Trade for maths and med, Use scientists to get priesthood in 3 turns and trade for monarchy. Then switch to the Hereditary Rule civic. That will solve your happiness issues. You could settle for the gold site.

There are likely barb cities to be attacked for gold. It might be nice to capture Paris (Pyramids). You have 8 HA. Otherwise avoid building units for now. If you can get construction that would allow elephants and catapults. You have loads of forest to chop. France looks pretty weak here..

Right now your economy is tanked and you really wanted cottages on those grassland rivers much sooner. Plains river cottages are a low priority.They will slow down growth. 1-2 is okay but focus on the cities that can be great here.

That double fish city up north needs that library. 2 chops and a whip? Then run 2 scientists once size 4.

You should probably roll back to 525bc save and consider improving what you did before.

Seems to me you are not micro working the city tiles. You can't ignore the game basics.

You won't beat monarchy over night but you really do need to focus on some of the basics. Do look at Wraithful city tile improvements.

 

[Wrathful]

I'll add to the huts discussion...you can play with them if you want, but it will only make things harder as you move up to higher difficulty levels. The AI starts with several units on Immortal and Deity and will grab all the huts very quickly. With that in mind, you shouldn't get into the habit of building a scout first with the intent of looking for huts or going after huts at all for that matter. It might have helped you in this particular game, but on higher levels you just won't be able to get very many huts before the AI snags them all. Also, your first unit has more important jobs to do early on: scouting out your starting area and later on defending against barbarians. Just keep this in mind if you want to move up to Emperor.

Anyway, I've examined your 525BC save in depth. Here's what I think:

Spoiler :

My first impression is that it's a lot better than your original 225 BC save. You've captured some good land which will soon start contributing to your economy. You also got out a Great Scientist.

I got luckier with AI behavior in my save. Brennus founded the religion, De Gaulle had wine and Sailing to trade. None of these things happened in your save. So, you'll have to adapt your approach here. You have to think about other sources of happiness. You have a few options:

• Get out a settler and claim the gold
• Hereditary Rule
• Try to get Buddhism from De Gaulle

Option 3 probably won't work out so well. De Gaulle is not the kind of leader who spams missionaries and tries to convert everyone. You would have to establish a trade route somehow (maybe with Sailing?) and hope for auto-spread.

Option 2 is a good choice. You have many horse archers left over that can serve as military police in your cities. To get Monarchy, I think your best bet is to trade for Mysticism + 50 gold from De Gaulle for Writing, self-tech Meditation and Priesthood, then trade for Monarchy.

Option 1 is also a good play. I'm going to talk more about this one later in this post.

So with that out of the way, let's move on. We know what our overarching goals are in this save: get economy back on track and secure more happiness. It's important to have these goals in mind while playing, but it's equally important to think about how exactly you will accomplish these goals in game. It all comes down to city management and worker management. These are the building blocks of the game.

We'll start with worker management. Right now your workers need to be helping your economy recover from the war. Cottaging the river tiles is an obvious move here. But you also need production in some of your cities: Gergovia needs the granary, 2 work boats, and a building to generate culture. If you trade for mysticism you can build a monument there. It will take this city a very long time to build all these things if it is not assisted by chops.

So, let's take a look at each of your workers, determine whether they are contributing to economic recovery, and consider alternatives for their current actions.

To start, we have a worker in Hamburg building a plains hill mine. Hamburg already has a plains mine; in fact, Hamburg has quite a few improved tiles surrounding it. This plains mine that your worker is building won't be used for a very long time. The cottages have higher priority, especially the ones that can be shared with your capital. So, we conclude that this worker is not being very productive. What should he be doing instead? I would cancel his current action and move him 1 northwest to chop the forest there. This will help finish the worker currently being produced in Hamburg.

We also have two workers that have just finished mining and roading the desert copper in Hamburg. This is not a good use of your workers. Desert copper is a weak tile, equivalent to a non-riverside plains hill mine. It does provide you with the copper resource, but you already have that in Vienne from the grassland copper mine (which is a far better tile by the way). And of course you have iron in Gergovia. But even if you didn't have other sources of metal this desert mine would still be a waste because there is no immediate need for metal here. Your neighbors aren't going to attack you any time soon (and you could fend them off if they did), and you have more than enough units to deal with barbarians (which aren't a big deal on Monarch). To top it all off, desert tiles take longer to improve than plains or grassland. In summary, you have invested 8 worker turns into improving desert copper and gotten absolutely nothing for it!

There is also a fourth worker near Hamburg that has just finished a riverside plains cottage. This is a perfectly valid choice. As I mentioned earlier we want to be laying down cottages to improve our economy. However, there are two points I would like to make here. First, I notice that, while you have taken the time to cottage several tiles around Hamburg, the silk tile remains uncottaged. A very common mistake new players make is to not improve tiles with Calendar resources on them until they are able to build plantations. In reality, it is often quite useful to build cottages or farms on these tiles. Think about it: with a cottage the silk tile gives 3 commerce for the same investment of worker turns as a standard cottage.

With all these considerations in mind, I will present my second point. Your empire has 9 cities and 6 workers. 4 of those workers are clustered around Hamburg, leaving just 2 workers to improve 8 cities. This is a poor distribution of your workers. We can clearly see the effects of this distribution: Hamburg is oversaturated with more improvements than it can work, while other cities like Cologne are working very bad tiles.

So, I think the next step is to send the worker that just finished the plains cottage southwest to Cologne. That city desperately needs improvements to work. I would cottage the grassland tiles there. Meanwhile, chop out another worker in Hamburg and send one of the desert mine workers to cottage the grassland near Munich. The other desert mine worker can head north to improve your new cities. Trade for Sailing as soon as you can to connect the two sections of your empire. If that trade doesn't pan out you might have to build a road between the two sections.

Before I move on to city management, there's one last worker to address: the one near Bibracte that just finished the grassland farm. Bibracte has plenty of food, so a cottage would have been better here. This worker build a cottage there or chop the granary in Gergovia.

And that finishes my discussion on your worker management. Always have a purpose in mind when managing your workers. Ask yourself: do I really need this improvement right now? Will I be able to work this cottage any time soon? Does desert copper really help me, or is it a distraction? It's easy to lose track of your goals when managing workers. I definitely have a hard time with it. But it really is one of the most important aspects of this game.

So now we can transition to city management. When I say "city management", I am referring mainly to the tiles your citizens are working and your current city builds. Of course, city management and worker management are inextricably linked together, so I've already touched on this a little bit. But now I would like to examine each of your cities in detail and consider how well each is being managed. Using a bulleted list, we have:

• Berlin: A couple issues immediately come to mind. First, that clam should definitely be improved by now. This was Munich's job, so I'll address it again when we get to that city. Second, working the coast (1F 2C) is not good here. Work the cottages instead. I would also avoid working the lake now that cottages are available. In general you want to start growing your capital and working many cottages as the early game ends and midgame begins. That time has come now. Happiness is an issue here; I've already addressed how to fix that and will go into more detail soon. Lastly, building research is good but I would switch to wealth now that Currency is online.

• Hamburg: The first issue that catches my eye is that the cow is not being worked. Cow is a 6-yield tile: it should absolutely be worked at all times. Moving on, you've already gotten a Great Scientist from here, so it's time to stop working scientists here. You have other cities with much better food resources that can take over that job. Hamburg's goal should be to finish that worker with a chop then start growing while working cottages for the capital. Build wealth/failgold after the worker is finished.

• Munich: This one needs a lot of work. It's admirable that you're getting out a Great Scientist here, but you have to work the food! Food is king in this game. With 3 seafood and a granary this city will grow extremely quickly. Aside from this, don't build an archer here. In fact, don't build archers anywhere. There's no need for it. This city needs to get out a work boat for Berlin's clam. With all the forests gone I guess you'll want to build a grassland mine for that. You could also whip the boat, but I'm not very enthusiastic about that option.

• Cologne: This city is crying out for mercy. It desperately needs tile improvements. I would 3-pop whip a settler here for the gold spot. After that, build wealth and lay down some cottages for this place. Your worker in Camulodunum can road to the new gold city and build the gold mine.

• Bibracte: No problems here. Just make sure you station a horse archer here for happiness. Work good tiles and whip if none are available. You'll probably want to whip that library to get the culture flowing.

• Tolosa: Archer is no good here. Get started on a library. It's unfortunate that the rice is jungled.

• Gergovia: You haven't done anything wrong here. But this city needs a lot of work to become productive. Chop the granary and whip a monument (trade for mysticism like I mentioned earlier). Chop out the work boats, whip + chop library + lighthouse, then finally run scientists. This city can be an excellent Great Person Farm if you play your cards right.

• Vienne: Whip a monument when the city comes out of anarchy. This place could be a nice Heroic Epic city someday. Lots of jungle to cut down though.

• Camulodunum: Improve wheat, chop granary, and lay down some cottages. This city isn't great but it can still help out. I see this city as a future "whipping pit" for Cuirs/Rifles/Cannons/whatever you go to war with.

You're learning, and this save is much better than your original save. But you still need to focus on the essential aspects of the game. You did very well in taking out Brennus, but during the war I think you slacked off a bit when managing your homeland. The game is far from lost however; I am very confident you can rebuild your economy and lay waste to the other AI here.

I'm uploading a revised version of your 525BC save which includes the changes I recommended.