Why cant I win on this map?

[Squarg]

I've loaded up this map and I don't understand why I cant win.
I'm playing as Elizabeth on Monarch and I was given the best possible start for it. There are bagillions of flood plains around for CE or SE which I can go either way. But for some reason I always lose to something be it AP crusades or barbs I don't understand what I'm doing wrong.

Usual Tech Path:
Wheel -> Pottery -> writing -> Alphabet -> trade for BW/basic worker techs

If anybody has some suggestions I would appreciate it.

You start 2N, 1W of my usual city placement.

 

[MestreLion]

What are the settings? (Difficulty, map size and type, speed)

 

[MestreLion]

Sorry, didnt see the difficulty. I play on Monarch too, its a challenge to me actually, so i cant be much of a help.

But, can you post a screenshot a lil more zoomed out, perhaps with grid and
resources enabled? Its hard to see hills this way (you dont seem to have many, if any), and you dont seem to have any resource nearby. So besides the floodplains, its not such a great start. And you also need to keep the forests for the health and production, so no chopping for a long time.

Also, you cant go SE until you have the right buildings for the slots you need. And with the pop cap on Emperor being so low, i guess the floodplains are only useful for massive whipping.

 

[Ruler]

Why you've lost, It's impossible to say from your starting location but your Capital is very simple, cottage everything, build only what's necessary, grannies, libs, and health/happiness building but what you need is something to compensate your capitals low production. I could actually get two full production city for wonders if you want and units and you need to build lib somewhere so you can get academy to your capital.

You need to get settler out asap so your capital can start to live it's own boring life but it's going to rock later. Don't whip anything.

 

[mrchadt]

I would research all the basic techs myself, with bts ai teching slower maybe try getting yourself some good military technology with all your cottages in the capital.

 

[Bhruic]

Well, it's a pretty vague question. Sure, the starting location is decent enough, but you're talking about losing the game down the road - that depends on a lot more factors than just your capital. Give us an example of what happened that caused you to lose a game, and we can probably give some tips to avoid that.

Bh

 

[Sjaramei]

I'm not too impressed with that start. Low production and a crappy special resource (Rice without fresh water is worse than the floodplains)

You won't have any 6 (Food+Production) tiles to work, and the flood plain power will come slow. Sure the capital will be a commercial powerhouse if you cottage up, but thats long away still. This capital will be slower pumping the starting workers/settlers than a desert capital with Pigs and a couple of grassland hills.

The problems you listed though is more to general strategy than the starting position. I'm a warmonger myself so i prefer growth/production in the beginning over commerce and will play catch up later. The teching path is as mentioned before not optimal, with all those flood plains you should be using the whip sooner. (Though it's not entirely bad either given your crappy start) The AP thingie is somewhat counterable, just build it or spread that religion like mad to yourself. You have enough time to do this, the diplomatic victory option is slow to appear and i have yet to be declared on by it actually. (How do you guys manage to piss off the religion block that much? )

 

[bazola]

I play on Monarch also. I usually go for BW first because if it's not in the capital fat cross, it's got to be city 2 or 3. Then I get all the worker techs I need, then I get to Priesthood, build oracle while researching writing, then you can take monarchy, metal casting, or CoL. I haven't failed to get oracle with this strategy.

I used to use the strategy that you use, hurrying alphabet and trading it, but I'm not so sure this is always the best thing. The BTS AI does tech slowly, so I've been able to consistently get oracle and liberalism with self teching, and thats with both SE and CE.

 

[carl corey]

Usual Tech Path:
Wheel -> Pottery -> writing -> Alphabet -> trade for BW/basic worker techs

That's the biggest problem right there. You say you have barb problems, yet you do nothing about it until Alphabet. In BtS the AI techs slower early on, meaning Alphabet is less useful even on Monarch. You can delay it while grabbing some war-resource techs: either BW for copper of AH for horses are your priority. Then build a few units to protect your cities. Only then should you go for Writing -> Alphabet. You'll need both AH and Pottery (cottages on floodplains and granaries to combat floodplains unhealthiness), which gives you a reduction on the price you pay for Writing. So grab them both early.

As for AP problems, that's a tough one. Try not to antagonize the AP owner, or his religious buddies. That might mean not adopting a religion, or adopting theirs even if you originally have it in only a few cities. Don't be afraid to join them in wars if the enemy is far away from you, since you won't be attacked anyway and all you have to do is send some troops, pillage a little and then sign peace.

 

[carl corey]

How do you guys manage to piss off the religion block that much?

Because the AI can be pretty stupid. Example: me and 4 other AIs are all Buddhists, all buddies. There are two Jewish AIs, one is getting their ass kicked, the other is holding up ok. 3 of the 4 Buddhists have Jewish cities.

So the beaten down Jewish AI calls for a war against the infidels, his buddy that had the most votes votes yes, and all the three Buddhists vote 'No' but not 'Defy' with only a few votes. Next thing I know I'm at war with 5 AIs. It's pretty stupid since I was trading lots of resources to the Buddhists, so it hurt them a lot too. And one of them was already at war with one of the Jewish AIs (lucky me, 'cause both couldn't send much troops my way). The problem is, since I wasn't really fighting some of them I couldn't even sign peace early on and thus could not resume trades. That's the stupidest thing I've seen with the AP and there was little I could do about it since I didn't think they'd be so stupid as to risk going to war. Just for that war I ended up with a conquest victory.

 

[Ruler]

I like your tech-path I try to minimize everything if possible and grab alphatech and currency but it makes sense though such a low productive capital and if you start in the middle of continent once the barbs start to come out of their shelters I can imagine they come from every direction not so good start after all. I could gamble with settler first, and find a good place to pump out archeries then build a worker in both cities, start to cottage capital and make second city more productive and when you've enough archeries for fogbusting, chop third settler and worker.

 

[carl corey]

Why settler first and archers when you could go warrior -> worker -> settler and BW first to uncover copper?! When you have lots of incoming barbs and you're not Protective the answer is definitely not Archers. Axemen, Chariots or the Great Wall, but not Archers. Also, going for Alphabet with an aggressive AI nearby guarantees you a quick death. I've had Monty declare war on me with Archers since I was building wonders instead of going for units. Don't make the same mistake; you can't afford it if you want to win on Monarch and above.

 

[Ruler]

You can't be sure about copper. I've played many many games on Immortal I haven't had any problems with archeries and actually when they get experience from barbs they are good addition for your first war as defenders and if you can succeed all way to Alphatech and Currency without any unneseccary researching you can start to breath normally, all the gold you can trade should keep you up for many turns to come of course if you have contacts.

About Monty/Ragnar/Warmongers this's so true as can be. No doubt go for BW if you see of these guys.

 

[carl corey]

Well, he's played the same start over again, he should know if he has copper. Ok, that's not really fair, but I'd rather go for either copper or horses first, you're bound to find one of them somewhere and BW is good for other things too. On Monarch it's not really worth it to pick Archery just for the sake of Archery. You won't get barb problems that early, but you will get them if you delay BW & AH too much. I guess it's different on higher levels where Archery becomes a better tech.

 

[Florian]

Carl Corey,

Wow, Buddhist nations launching an anti-Buddhist jihad against another Buddhist nation. The Apostolic Palace needs some SERIOUS revision. It's a cool idea in general, but I don't know what the developers were smoking when they came up with that voting model.

 

[Squarg]

This Is a mediocre save. I forgot to make Farms around my second city but one of my cities got taken by bismark in a blitz but it was small and unimportant.
One problem might be that I didn't expand enough.

Caution Large save

 

[Ruler]

Save files aren't very popular among the community as far I know so a few screenshot could give you better chance to be answered/helped ie screenshot of your empire.

 

[popejubal]

This Is a mediocre save. I forgot to make Farms around my second city but one of my cities got taken by bismark in a blitz but it was small and unimportant.
One problem might be that I didn't expand enough.

Caution Large save

I'd be more interested in the save file from 4000BC. This looks like an interesting start, but with 11 Flood Plains, you're looking at 4.4 unhealthy points right there. Thankfully, you have trees as well. You have 6 forests, so that will give you 3 health to make up for the Flood Plains. Don't chop those trees unless you are truly desperate.

Additionally, I might suggest farming the southernmost flood plain. That will irrigate the Rice once you hit Civil Service for an extra +1 food and a 4 food tile will increase your growth rate substantially, allowing you to whip the very few buildings that you need for this city.

Other than that, Cottage the Flood Plains, mine the one unforested hill and leave the rest as beautiful, pristine, untouched forest (until the eventual railroads and Lumber Mills).

As for the rest... well, we don't know the rest of the map and we don't know where the resources are (obviously, no resources will appear on the Flood Plains), we don't know the neighbors, so any other advice is doomed to mediocrity.

 

[Squarg]

oh Here's a screen shot

 

[Ruler]

Thanks, some of us aren't at the computer.

Once one hit Liberalism I usually open Victory Conditions and take a look what kind of victories are possible. You need definitely more land for any kind of victory in ym opinion, or I don't know if you could win Diplomatic Victory somehow but I doubt.

I don't know about your tech-situtation but considering your level and your cities I think you are doing very well. If that orange is Hannibal he usually like to build a lot of cottages and his land is quite small like yours so probably a good first target. You shouldn't wait too much longer. Stack of 20-25 riflemans and 10 cannons could do the job, wait for Infantry if you have to. If you have a stack of musketman or maceman somewhere you are doing pretty damn nice and saving money for upgrade.

btw, why you aren't running science slider at 100% with so much of gold.

EDIT: After second look I think you need a lot more workers. Cities on right and down are very undeveloped but fortunately there's enough forest to make an army if you don't have one. This game isn't lost.