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**Son of David** · December 10, 2005, 03:08

Look out! I recently lost a Monarch game by the space race which I really thought I was going to win.

(Me, Egypt and the English were Hindus; Isabella and Saladin were Budhists. I kept good friends with my coreligionists throughout the game, and kept up in tech most of the time.)

I was utterly dominant by 1400AD but the AIs eventually zoomed past me in techs, building all the late wonders long before I could. Warfare was useless because it was expensive and because the AIs were several military techs ahead. And I just couldn't outbuild or outresearch them even with a bigger landmass.

I wonder if this is the price I paid for being militaristic throughout the game. I rarely took cities (so expensive to maintain they lower your ability to research), instead razing them to keep my opponents in check. But they still beat me.

Such a shame for the game to be so fun up until early industrial age. Hardly even get a chance to build units or fight wars. Just a crazy tech explosion and then there's no looking back. Neither building nor warring helped me out.

Almost feels like the game is unbeatable at Monarch under certain conditions (standard pangaea).

**cal_01** · December 10, 2005, 17:24

It's impossible to win on a straight tech race against the AI on Monarch+ unless you have an overwhelming lead or immense amount of beaker output. They have way too many bonuses.

It's the same mistake I keep making on Monarch: prolonged peace = lose.

On the other hand:
me in extended war = lose.

I was once leading the game, then Ceasar declared war on me. I promptly counter-attacked and insisted on destroying their entire civilization. Once I was done, I was last place.

**Son of David** · December 11, 2005, 15:58

Well, I've gone back down to Prince.

I can dominate the game and *actually have fun* at Prince level. Although it does seem much too easy.

I reckon the reason Monarch is so hard is because of the extra bonuses, not because the AI is very good at military combat or diplomacy. Thus, even a smaller AI empire once it is set up and consolidated can outproduce a larger human one because it does everything more cheaply and more quickly. ANd if you concentrate on attacking an opponent, all the other opponents get a chance to get even further ahead while you wage war against your opponent.

Monarch = requirement for very deep strategy and a very cool head.

**DeepO** · December 11, 2005, 16:28

Re: a few midgame techniques for keeping up on Monarch

Originally posted by LowLife
No idea if these concepts work on Emperor or higher of course, but so far so good on Monarch!

LowLife, so far, I found these guidelines to be true in about all the jumps in level I took. And from what I read, it applies on Deity as well.

Some others for Monarch:
- specialization!
- beelining (can get you in front of the race)
- from time to time, stop the game for half an hour, and simply look around. Try the strategy layer, and plan your next battle using lines and marks. Go back, look at what you've got (units), what you'll need, and how long it will take. See if you can shorten that time. And after half an hour of planning, continue the game... you will be a lot better.
- After the game, take the time to look back, and identify the good things, and the bad things. If you know what you did wrong, there's a good chance you won't make the same mistake again.

DeepO

**DeepO** · December 11, 2005, 16:32

Originally posted by cal_01
It's impossible to win on a straight tech race against the AI on Monarch+ unless you have an overwhelming lead or immense amount of beaker output. They have way too many bonuses.

What do you mean? Of course, you can only win a tech race if you have more beaker output... that's the definition of a race.

And you can be first in tech, quite easily even on Monarch (once you know how to). Further up, it's increasingly difficult to get ahead, the bonusses become too high (for me at least). But up to Emperor or so, efficient play should get you to the top.

Whether you'll have enough military to defend your empire is another question, but hey, at least you'll die civilized

DeepO

**Drachasor** · December 11, 2005, 16:55

Re: Re: a few midgame techniques for keeping up on Monarch

- After the game, take the time to look back, and identify the good things, and the bad things. If you know what you did wrong, there's a good chance you won't make the same mistake again.

Along these lines, playing many games on Monarch just for the first 4000 or so years (give or take) can greatly improve your early game techniques. Naturally some games are easier than others, but the more you play the better you adapt to poor starting positions and the better you take advantage of a good early position.

Also, you have open border agreements with who you want to be friends with as much as possible. Try to remain on decent terms with most of the people right next to you (so you only get in one war at a time). If you have land you haven't settled yet, then close your borders to an AI that starts to move settlers in. This will force them back to their country and it doesn't worsen your relations (that is, it gets rid of the open border bonus, but gives no penalty). Open them again a bit later, and play an open/close game until you have the place settled.

-Drachasor

**cal_01** · December 12, 2005, 01:04

Originally posted by DeepO

What do you mean? Of course, you can only win a tech race if you have more beaker output... that's the definition of a race.

And you can be first in tech, quite easily even on Monarch (once you know how to). Further up, it's increasingly difficult to get ahead, the bonusses become too high (for me at least). But up to Emperor or so, efficient play should get you to the top.

Whether you'll have enough military to defend your empire is another question, but hey, at least you'll die civilized

DeepO

Er. Maybe I should rephrase.

At any given time, you may have more beaker output than the AI. However, this is rare. Most of the time during peace, the AI will have many bonuses to easy outpace you in terms of growth.

Unless you were leading the rest of the Civs by at least 500+ points, they will overtake you easily in peace time.

As the original poster said, war is a great way to distract the AI from researching at its full potential.

Hmm. I've been doing some testing too, and I've found the following to be a good guideline for Monarch+ games:

Access to Copper or Iron dictates the early game..

Basically, if you have no copper/iron, you cannot wage an effective offensive campaign; nearly all offensive units need either copper or iron until Gunpowder. Likewise, without copper and iron, it's better to go for a defensive strategy instead.

What does everyone think about that?

**Blake** · December 12, 2005, 01:38

Well Horses and Elephants are good alternatives. I have waged war on Monarch without Copper, iron, horses or ivory. That would be attacking with heaps of pults and cover longbows. Pults really aren't bad on offense, cost-wise they do nearly as well as swordmen, or better due to collatoral, the longbows help protect them nicely.

You obviously need to make Fuedalism a high priority, both for the longbows and Vassalage. And construction ofcourse.

And it sucks for Aggressive civs to get stuck with bow-a-pult, because they miss out on free combat1, atleast until the gunpowder units.

In some ways I think it's better to go on the offense if you're stuck with longbows and pults, it's easier to knock out enemies when they are holed up in their cities, than when they are running around your territory pillaging, lack of spearmen really can suck.

And without Iron (for pikes) you might be screwed vs knights, since you literally can't stop them pillaging with your bows and pults, which again points towards going on the offense to acquire critical resources, before the lack of resources makes you uncompetitive. And lack of iron means no cannons.

Really, lack of resouces is one of the main reasons I go to war.

**KillerNuts** · December 12, 2005, 02:12

Access to Copper or Iron dictates the early game..

Basically, if you have no copper/iron, you cannot wage an effective offensive campaign; nearly all offensive units need either copper or iron until Gunpowder. Likewise, without copper and iron, it's better to go for a defensive strategy instead.

What does everyone think about that?

I disagree based on my most recent experiences.

I'm currently playing a game as Russia (Catherine) and found both copper and horses within my grasp. I decided to ignore the copper completely and try something new - horse archers. I began thinking about this in depth. Horse archers ignore first strikes. Given the AI's heavy reliance on archers for defense early on (Monarch level), I'd be sending 6-strength, 2-move units to tackle 3-strength units. Should be a devastating victory until spearman show up, right?

Well, first I went after Alexander. He was unfortunate enough to have no copper, which enabled me to avoid his unique unit. Took him out rather quickly, using 3-4 horse archers per city and 6 on Athens (which probably needed only 5, but I felt it was a small price to be certain.) My starting force was 13 Horse Archers, with two more in production.

Then, a little later (about 10 turns before longbows would appear), I decided to run against Roosevelt, who was in first place in score at the time. I assembled my previous force plus about six extra horse archers (no other units at this point, again since this was just a foray into the power of horse archers). He had built Chicago rather idiotically right next to Moscow's cultural boundaries, thus I could take Chicago AND move all my horse archers into the city on the same turn.

I nabbed Thessolonika (Culture converted to Roosevelt five turns after I captured it; I took a gamble at being able to keep it as Catherine and lost rather quickly) and Chicago on turn one of the war, using four hourse archers against two archers in each city. Easy captures, lost one horse archer total. On turn two, I captured New York, which had Stonehenge to my indifference, with a total of 8 horse archers. This was an overkill. It was defended by 4 archers and had walls, which told me that 6 horse archers would be plenty. Though it was in the way to Washington, so I figured I'd need the extra force in a few turns anyway. I had 7 left to continue on to Washington for turns 5 and 6, and an eighth joined up around turn 4. The Chicago and Thessolonika forces would try for the hilly/walled city Atlanta.

Washington fell, barely. I had enough horse archers (for a combined 48 strength) to take it even with a defending force of 4 archers and a spearman. Yes, the spearman was a pain. The archers fell quickly, but the spearman took out one of my 10 xp horse archers (combat 2 and melee) and left a second with .6 strength. Roosevelt had a large force of archers and a spearman three squares away, which gave me enough to place my 5 surviving horse archers in Washington to heal (medic promotions help alot!) and repel the onslaught.

Atlanta was too tough of a nut to crack. Obviously, had I brought along a couple catapaults, I would have scored a victory there too. But as I said, this was just a test game. By the time I regained strength and could bring 8 horse archers from Chicago and Thessalonika, Roosevelt got longbows. Needless to say, longbows in a city on a hill would have decimated my force, so I sued for peace, conscious that I had to beeline for military tradition to return to the offensive against the other 3 civs on the continent.

What did I learn?

Well, the horse archer is another very valid option for early offensives. Assuming you concentrate on building a solid economy, three cities with decent production, forests, and barracks will give you enough power to create a strong horse archer force before most civs can build the units to counter it. If you can catch a civ without bronzeworking or copper, you can deal a lethal blow with horsearchers. If everyone has the ability to build spearmen, you won't find too many cities with multiple spearmen on defense. Even so, barrack upgrades and a sufficient number of horse archers can come out triumphant.

Another interesting thing to note is the horse archer's speed. It makes a great pillager unit, it allows for a quick attack, and it can nab workers before the AI can move them to safety. Even if you're past the age of the horse archer (longbows and musketeers), pillage! If all you can do is damage the AI's economy (hit those towns hard!), you might be able to set the AI 10, 20, or even more turns behind you before they rebuild, a lead you should be able to keep the rest of the game. However, assuming you have the infrastructure to strike with a force of about 14-16 horse archers early enough, you'll have no problems taking out cities - fast.

Now, I imagine adding catapults and the occasional axeman (for cracking those spearmen) will greatly aid in areas where the horse archer is weaker. But, given the success I've had with a force of only horse archers, I'm convinced they're not only a decent replacement for swordsmen and axemen, but are, in fact, a very powerful alternative when facing heavily-archer defenses. Don't dismiss the horse archer.

Some things I did note, however, as a negative to having to rely on horse archers:

-The deadend tech path. Obviously, this is a big problem that is negated partly by a very strong economy (gold mines, I imagine, would help alot to make this fast). I justified it by using archers as my major defensive unit early on, and the fact that I started with hunting.
-Cost. 50 hammers (8+ hammers per strength point). Compare this to 35 for an axeman (7 hammers per strength) and 40 for a swordsman (again, about 7 hammers per strength). Though this is negated to some deal by its special ability to ignore first strikes.
-To maximize effectiveness, you really need to know who has copper and the bronzeworking tech. Hit those that don't to minimize losses and maximize gains. Those that do will likely have spearman in production as soon as you attack, so attack multiple cities on turn one.

To summarize:
Horse archers are a very powerful alternative to swordsmen and axemen in the early stages of the game. Not only are they fast, but they have a bonus against archers that will reek havoc on the AI's forces and can do a great deal of damage by pillaging. While they cost more and do have a counter in the spearman, alone, without any supplemental units, they can destroy enemy civs quickly until longbowmen arrive or the AI starts mass-producing spearmen.

**Son of David** · December 12, 2005, 06:42

I don't really find the early game a problem ....

Either I do as you suggested, KillerNuts, and rush everyone in sight, but end up broke from maintenance costs and behind in tech by the medieval age, or I attack my enemies one by one with periods of building in-between wars, starting with the strongest or with neighbours whose cultural boundaries are being a pain in the backside, and prune them one by one.

In the latter case I have a particularly instructive example and it is not even at Monarch difficulty - Prince actually. Caesar was no. 2 behind me in one game. So I crippled him. Left him with THREE cities. Later on in the game, despite having been well behind in tech up till then, suddenly he is several technologies ahead of me and even has riflemen. I have about 20 cities with universities, groceries, markets and banks - but he has outresearched me on PRINCE difficulty!

The situation was even worse with the Inca, who were the new number 2. They had gone, within the space of a few turns, from being one or two techs behind me to being WELL in the lead with electricity, physics, railroads, etc (but interesting not riflemen which suggests that Caesar wasn't simply receiving handouts from more powerful AIs).

It REALLY annoys me to slug away for hours at a game, then all of a sudden in the early industrial age the AIs magically end up half a dozen technologies ahead of me. It REALLY annoys me, and it's ten times worse at Monarch. I have a huge army, Versailles, forbidden palace, and an optimally re-situated Palace - and of course banks, markets etc everywhere. AND THEY STILL OUTRESEARCH ME WITH THEIR PUNY HALF-DOZEN CITY EMPIRES!

The only solution is to give up competing and just hammer with them hundreds of units and hope you win a domination before they build a spaceship, while you are still stuck trying to research industrialism. SUCKS.

**Velociryx** · December 12, 2005, 08:08

I'll add three to the list:

1) Production
2) Production
3) Production

The AI's main advantage lies in its research bonuses. A human player who is not averse to the slavery civic and some chopping can EASILY dominate the production race....so much so, that it's exceedingly easy to have a viable military WHILE building every bit of infrastructure your heart desires.

And don't discount Nationalism....once you're up and running, make straight for Liberalism (I've only not beaten the AI to it on one occassion, and grab Nationalism as your free tech. With a focus on food production, and a quick dash to gunpowder, you can be drafting Musketmen by the score while continuing to build Infrastructure. Add Theocracy to the mix, and you can churn out HORDES of top notch troops without ever even pausing in your peaceful build program.

-=Vel=-

**Son of David** · December 12, 2005, 08:43

Velociryx,

Do you reckon knights are still a viable force at Monarch and upwards? By the time I build any number, the AIs usually have engineering and pikemen dominate knights (even spearmen can be a problem for them). Seems like it's better to focus on building macemen, muskets and catapults until cavalry comes along. Knights feel a bit redundant.

**Cort Haus** · December 12, 2005, 09:39

I'm a bit disappointed that Firaxis decided that builder-style play is only permitted below Monarch level. On Civ 3 you had a chance of winning at Emperor without warmongery, but they've actually decreased the variey of playstyles in this respect.

As Deepo said, you can keep up in tech if you have hardly any units. but I don't find that enjoyable at all.

**Velociryx** · December 12, 2005, 10:15

Velociryx,

Do you reckon knights are still a viable force at Monarch and upwards? By the time I build any number, the AIs usually have engineering and pikemen dominate knights (even spearmen can be a problem for them). Seems like it's better to focus on building macemen, muskets and catapults until cavalry comes along. Knights feel a bit redundant.

I use them, and find them viable enough, though the Knight's main strength in the face of Pike-Heavy opposition is one of protection, harassment, and selective striking, all of which the Knight excels at (fast unit, can easily drive deep into enemy territory and pillage/pick off any wandering reinforcement units--when pressed, the AI will tend to regard its own borders as relatively safe, and you will often find straggler units (longbow, crossbow, etc), out wandering around individually, probably bound for some waypoint to combine into a single force big enough to pose a threat to you...very easy pickings for marauding knights).

On defense, a small core of Knights posted on your road network can make it so that you can run with lighter than normal garrisons, relying on the fast-moving knights to get to any trouble spots quickly and reinforce as needed.

And lastly, if you're planning to be the first to grab cavalry, building up a nice set of Knights in advance and bulking up on cash in the meantime can provide a nice kick to your attack force down the road....

-=Vel=-

CH: DeepO's experiences have not mirrored my own. I am playing and winning a builderesque game in AU1 (first time I tried it was my first experiment with using CS Slingshot, and it was a disaster...got doubleteamed by Spain/Mongolia while having a grand total of six warriors for defense. Second time, I played my way....production heavy, pop and chop, heavy infrastructure focus....total domination. Spain just declared war, and I just took her first city. 5th place, militarily, and rising rapidly. Planning to switch to Nationalism as soon as I get GunPowder and then....

-=Vel=-

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a few midgame techniques for keeping up on Monarch

a few midgame techniques for keeping up on Monarch

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