Why is Prince to Monarch such a huge jump

[sterben]

I would check out Snaaty's write up as well:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=248435

I was in the same boat as you. I could do random leader on prince and win, using CE, SE, FE/trade, etc. I won with every possible victory method using random leaders, and I felt pretty confident.

Then I moved to Monarch and found it was a lot tougher. I fell behind in tech fast, had a hard time expanding, and often got invaded by more advanced armies and wiped out.

Then I grabbed Liz and tried out Snaaty's method and woah, I win. That early expansion phase is huge. Now that I was able to finally score a win, I've moved on to try other leaders who maybe aren't as 'easy' as her (Dutch and Americans so far), but using Liz helped me see what needed to be done.

Anyway, just a thought.

 

[semirami]

Huge jump for me is from Warlord to Noble. Prince to Monarch is the easiest jump for me. The most important change is free Archery for AI, not a very big problem for the human player.

 

[CivMcNut]

One of the things I learned about on here was using the Slavery Civic a lot in the early years to help keep even with the AI. It can be pretty useful in assembling that big army early that you need in order to win at higher levels. A lot of times you will trail in tech on Monarch. Don't let that get you down. I do run a CE but I usually make a comeback in science in the renaissance once the universities start popping in and I get Oxford Online in my big science city. The thing I learned from here that's helped me the most is to have a courthouse, granary, and forge in every city.

 

[Abegweit]

The thing I learned from here that's helped me the most is to have a courthouse, granary, and forge in every city.

A granary and a courthouse, sure. But why a forge?

 

[Florian]

I have a theory that even if you wait until you can win consistently on level X before going up to X+1, every other jump is going to be really hard. For me, the jump from Noble to Prince was hard. Then Prince to Monarch was easy (challenging, but I won my first attempt, and was 9-1 overall). Now I'm trying Monarch to Emperor and it's really hard again. Once I have Emperor mastered, maybe Immortal will be relatively easy. We'll see.

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

Huge jump for me is from Warlord to Noble. Prince to Monarch is the easiest jump for me. The most important change is free Archery for AI, not a very big problem for the human player.

Agreed. The noble jump was the biggest one for me. It just seemed like the AI was teching way too fast, and any time one of them would get a tech, they'd just all share it to each other for free.

 

[paulthebug]

A granary and a courthouse, sure. But why a forge?

Forge provides 6 happy if you have gold, silver & gem. silver is very rare and usually in horsehockey location. but gold & gem are usually gettable most of the time. 6 happy pre-calender is huge.

 

[Abegweit]

Ah. Happiness. I dunno 'bout you but I certainly have cities which have little or no potential for growth. Like the one that brings home the silver, for example. There's an order issue here too. I'm happy if my crappy cities have a courthouse by the time I get calendar.

 

[Archbob]

From Monarch to Emperor is tough for me mainly because I'm trying to get Cultral Victory, the AI tech rate and build rate and plus the fact that those aggressive Civs are just more . .. .. .. .. .y at emperor than at Monarch.

 

[mystyfly]

Forge provides 6 happy if you have gold, silver & gem.

You get 3 happy faces. The other three you get without the Forge.
I don't build forges everywhere because they're so expensive and add another -1 health.

 

[pigswill]

Maybe you go for granary and CH in every city and other health/happy multipliers (market, forge, grocer, harbour etc) depending on available resources when they start reaching pop caps.

 

[BigDaddyOttawa]

Being a somewhat veteran Civ player, I never found difficulties doing my jumps up to Prince. Noble to Prince wasn't hard per say, but I did find that at Prince level (when I first started) it was a bit of a challenge ensuring I made good decisions early.

So, I guess it may be partly that I really just didn't find any of the previous levels challenging at all, so this was the first real 'jump' I've had to take.

 

[TriPp]

So, I guess it may be partly that I really just didn't find any of the previous levels challenging at all, so this was the first real 'jump' I've had to take.

Exactly! Thats what i tried to say.

 

[BigDaddyOttawa]

Well, I just finished my first victory on Monarch.

Romans, Pangea, Standard, Normal

31694 was my score in the Hall of Fame. It was a diplomatic victory without me building the UN.

I bulldozed through the Amercians in an early rush and then had a drawn out war with the Mongols in the early mid. By the late mid, I had to crush the Vikings and gave the Spanish a good pounding too. The damn Spanish kept in and out of vassalage with Babylon otherwise I would have finished them off and gotten my domination victory much earlier.

Darius and Hammy were the only other two left, and both had a good sized tech lead on me from being peaceful most of the game (the Vikiings had declared war on each of them and I helped them out). Both of them would have beaten me to the Space Race had it gotten that far, so knowing I had enough pop for a domination but not enough land (that last 10% of land is so hard to come by), I decided to push up the culture slider, focus on increasing my population and getting Darius more friendly with me to change his Abstain votes to votes in my favor.

Finished the game in 1943.

I think I was actually TOO aggressive this game, and my late mid-game warring had me scrambling to catch up in tech.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the result. Yes, I was on a slightly optimal setting... but I think with the aggressive civs I got dealt I'm pretty happy with the outcome.

Well.. back at it with more Monarch games to get under my belt.

 

[rooban]

I just finished my first Prince victory a few days ago (my first cultural win as well).

Now playing Prince, huge, marathon, continents, Elizabeth. I seem to be doing good only when playing financial races Need to adress this issue more. Will try playing SE but not this game because although there were 10 civs beside me, by 2200 bc 5 were already gone 3 destroyed by me and 2 by barbarians (!!). I was able to pop several warriors from huts, promote them to CRII from barb, get BW and start producing axes. At one point all four of my cities went simultaniously uder heavy siege from barbarians. Half of my improvements were destroyed . Rebuilt and thinking of forgetting research and just going for an conquest win. It is still BC, but I lost a lot of time fighting off barbs.

 

[Xurr]

Finished the game in 1943.

I think I was actually TOO aggressive this game, and my late mid-game warring had me scrambling to catch up in tech.

Naw, you weren't too aggressive. It took you all the way to 1943 to finish it, which means you didn't get on the conquest thing early enough. I've seen domination victories by 1850 on huge maps. I'm thinking you are a wait til tanks and then conquer type. Try doing some conquering with swords->macemen->riflemen->infantry.

 

[BigDaddyOttawa]

Naw, you weren't too aggressive. It took you all the way to 1943 to finish it, which means you didn't get on the conquest thing early enough. I've seen domination victories by 1850 on huge maps. I'm thinking you are a wait til tanks and then conquer type. Try doing some conquering with swords->macemen->riflemen->infantry.

My fight with the Americans was with my swords only. With the mongols, it was a mix of swords and maces. Same with the vikings.

By the time I was ready for the Spanish, Izzy had vassaled with Hammy, who decided to share the tech for Infantry with her. So between her vassalage as well as me only having rifles to her infantry... it kind of ground my conquest to a halt.