a few midgame techniques for keeping up on Monarch

[Cort Haus]

But AU100A wasn't real Monarch/Emp/Deity as the AI was without it's bonus starting units. There was also a huge amount of nice land to expand into while the AI's were all cramped.

All my real Monarch starts have seen the AI swarming cities around my capital within the first 40 turns or so, leaving me enough land for a paltry few cities if I hurry. Forget a peaceful win, it's conquer or bust.

[Velociryx]

AU1 has not been my sole experience at Monarch. I struggled too, initially, until I refined my starting expansion and build paradigm. Now that I'm sharply focused around production, my problems on Monarch are a thing of the past.

-=Vel=-

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Velociryx
(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.

Six warriors isn't bad for a CS Slingshot! It does leave the military a bit thin, and can be fiddly, but was pulled off without tears by several other players including Monarch & Deity games in that AU. In your DAR you said it was expanding in the face of Spain & Mongolia, and forgetting to set the scientists that was the problem. Your Oracle completed very late as well, which would see the AI's much stronger at that point.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Velociryx
AU1 has not been my sole experience at Monarch.

I certainly gathered that, having read your strat thread. The point is not how to beat it, but that warfare is required at Monarch level.

[Velociryx]

Indeed....even when I use CS Slingshot (not often...it does not mesh well with my style of play), I tend to do it a good bit later than those who beeline straight for the key techs needed. I tend to focus on the fundamentals in the early game, and save the cushy niceities for later. This typically sees me fall slightly behind in the early goings, and then come roaring back once I get everything set up how I want it.

Re: Warfare....I've found that sooner or later, on pretty much any level of play, no matter how much ahead of the game you are, warfare will be a necessity at some point or another, and there's lots of ways to control when it happens. My usual tendency is to play nice and adopt whatever religion my neighbors have so as to keep them "tame" until I'm ready to strike. Then, I'll either adopt my own (usually confusionism), and thumb my nose at them until they declare, or simply adopt free religion and let them have a go at me.

However, I would agree with your general assessment that as you increase the difficulty level, warfare becomes more and more of a staple. On Monarch, I've found it still to be quite manageable. Emperor and Deity tho...quite so that it seems a necessity.

-=Vel=-

[Cort Haus]

Yes, I should have been more explicit and said that offensive warfare is mandatory on Monarch. I expect to defend at lower levels, but I think it's fair to say that it's not possible to grab enough land peacefully at Monarch to win the game. Diplo wins with small civs aren't the possibility they were with Civ 3, nor can you rely on the AI imploding during the late game world wars as per Civ 3.

I know some OCC players have succeeded at high levels, which is a great achievement, but OCC has different rules for the Nat. Wonders, so can't be compared.

Seeing as most players with some experience will be playing Prince or Monarch, I think there's a case for a finer gradation of difficulty levels around this area.

[Velociryx]

Here's where I'd say Monarch strikes a pretty good balance, actually. I've not had too terribly much difficulty re: offensive wars in Monarch, but on Emperor and up, I totally agree. Just too many advantages for the AI not to, and it really does push you down that path. I don't really like that, so I don't play much Emp/Deity unless I'm proving a point or experimenting with an idea (and for the same reasons, I don't like playing normal games much, either...give me Epic ANY day! Epic + Raging barbs, preferably. To me, that "feels like" the most believable, realistic experience.....others will no doubt disagree, but as it stands now, that's my preference. (Raging barbs because it FORCES you to think about military, and Epic because tech choices really MATTER--ie - it's gonna be a LONG while before you get to pick another tech, so you'd best choose wisely....that's not usually the case on Normal, with techs flying fast and furious in the early game...it dilutes the strategic importance of *selecting* any particular tech focus.

But...that's just me.

-=Vel=-

[DeepO]

Originally posted by cal_01
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.

Well, I don't agree. In most if not all of my Monarch games I will outresearch the AI in pure beaker output, as long as I'm let's say at least half the size as the biggest one (so not too far behind in points, but certainly not ahead).

The problem is, that if the AIs are trading (and they'll do so easily on Monarch), and you are not, they will race ahead even if your research power is the biggest of all. War is a good way of avoiding that, yes. But be careful to not get entrapped too: there might be a 3rd dog lurking.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Velociryx


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=-

Nationalism is nice, however you drafting as crazy seems typical for your playstyle... I tend to use liberalism to get me to cannons (at Monarch this should not be the biggest problem to achieve, see the next DAR of my AU game. You know, the one I might write tonight ). No poprushing, but a clear tech advantage: cannons rule if you can get them before others have cavs. And you don't need that much focus on production, even if I agree that any kind of shot-in-the-arm is extremely welcome.

Ah... cannon + city raider grenadiers... who would poprush to lose that? (city raider is not available as a promotion for grenadiers. However you can still build maceman, promote them, then upgrade them... voila: city raider grenadier. Against longbows, possibly muskets. No drafting can tip to that

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
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.

The one doesn't exclude the other. Situations might dictate what you can reach, though... but any continents / large islands map can give you a relatively builderish experience quite easily. All you need to do is to get rid of whoever starts on your island/continent, or lands there before you can claim all ground.

But still, I can keep up in tech, while not underdefending myself. I might get attacked because I show too weak, but I can have plenty of units, even without relying heavily on poprushing. I suspect that if I can get both approaches combined, I'm ready for immortal... I'm not there yet.

Pop rushing has not that high effect on research pace, so by focusing more on that to get even more units, I should be able to get both a research and a production example on Monarch. Emperor is more difficult: you can be ahead of the pack what tech is concerned, but only through careful manipulation of the AI, and at the expense of production. Or in a bigger empire, of course, but these are not so easy to get . I think the real challenge for me is going to be at immortal. But I said that each time before stepping up a level

DeepO

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by DeepO

any continents / large islands map can give you a relatively builderish experience quite easily. All you need to do is to get rid of whoever starts on your island/continent, or lands there before you can claim all ground.

Sure, but while wiping out all neighbours early can serve up a buildery-game for afters, it's not my idea of pure builder-play, which means a peaceful land grab, only fighting defensive wars, and not extending territory through conquest. That playstyle was viable on Civ 3 Emperor. Even though it wouldn't always win (especially if a big killer AI emerged) there was a chance.

In the few standard maps I've played on Civ 4 Monarch, I'm doing well to get enough room for six cities, let alone six decent cities - and even that's with a faster expansion focus than I'd like. That's the minimal number for the Nat. Wonders, but is not likely to have the variety of terrain and volume of resources to be anything but weak. If by skilled use of specialised cities, it's possible to turn a land-deficit around then fair enough, but is it possible? With the promiscuous AI-AI trading, it surely won't be enough to have even a slender chance of victory.

So, Monarch can be beaten by conquer-and-build, but not by peaceful-build.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
So, Monarch can be beaten by conquer-and-build, but not by peaceful-build.

The best I got so far, was starting of with about half the land as the biggest AIs. Up to that level, you can win a defensive, builderish game, especially if there are other continents/islands around you can settle some spots on later.

Also, I define the use of GAs as builderish as well: by focusing on them, you can 'conquer' 4 cities in many situations. It will piss of the AI, though, so you might need to bribe someone into attacking your closest neighbours or your playing too 'defensively' to keep the builderish advantage.

I'm not sure on Emperor, but I think it'll be possible there too. I haven't succeeded, nor tried it at that level yet.

DeepO

[Cort Haus]

Yep, culture-flips count as pure-builder, so Great Artists could be key here. A Parthenon strat , perhaps?

[Calvin Vu]

I once won a game on Monarch as Roosevelt without any fighting for the entire game !! That's really unusual.

However, most of the time, I simply play a defensive game, even giving old techs to any lowly civs who demand them and not adopting any religions which might make some neighbors go nut. If some civs declare war on me, then I will go on the offensive and take a few cities from them as a punishment and to cripple them for the rest of the game until I feel like invading and taking the rest, but the offence was not started by myself.

I got 43000 in score in my last Monarch game by voting for my own victory at the UN around 1796. The game started out peacefully until Monte got sore over the fact that I expanded so fast and took the marble resource with a fringe city AND then built both the Partheneon and Oracle in that little city just by chopping the numerour trees around the marble area, right under his nose, half a dozen squares from his capitol. After annihilating Monte in the very first war campaign, since I had a spare army left and wanted to pad my game score with the population, I also invaded America (a few big fat populous cities) and then moved on to the Mongol before finishing the game by voting for myself as the only UN voice .

In the current game, I almost played peacefully also, but with my neighbor Japan looking like it only waited to attack me at the drop of a hat without EVER wanting to do any trades with me, I had to build up my defence force. And since I already had a decent army which gave me 6th place in ranking (yeap, I play with my soldier ranking at 7th place almost all the time so 6th place means a big army for me in the early game), and since Saladin offered me a combined-force war on my Egyptian neighbor which had a mouth-watering city not too far from my border (it founded two religions and there was only one small/weak Egyptian city in between), I sent my elephants, catapults and axemen over. My troops eventually had to deal with crossbowmen on top of a hill but numbers win . The game started out not really that great (there were too few trees around the starting area to chop so my workers had to stand idly around for half a dozen turns to save those trees for the wonders later) but with the captured Egyptian city I now have founded 4 religions and already have 3-money collecting religious buildings from those. I'm pretty sure I can play the rest of the game defensively and still win since I'm pretty far ahead in tech right now and the religious buildings haven't kicked into full gear yet. (That is unless I decided late in the game to invade the neighbors simply to pad the game score with the bigger population).

The key to my peaceful successful play (and survival with 7th placed soldier ranking):
- do not get into the religious thingy in the early game unless all of my biggest neighboring threats have that religion and I want to please them. However, sometimes, the moment I switch to their religions then some of them will switch to some other religions so maybe it's best to stay out of it. It seems to me that the AIs are reasonably fair and pick fight with those civs which irk them the most rather than picking on the human player.

- give them the old techs unless the civ is far away and the request is particularly insulting (it's probably the game designer's hint that I've stooped too low ) like: "Do you want to cravenly lick my boots and give my what I want or heroically stand up for your last fight ?". Don't give away your newly-researched tech though !! Even when I'm in first place I still give away old techs to the 7th-placed Isabella when she asks for them, for example.

- techwise: I beeline for Alphabet (and never trade it away), built the GL (never missed it), get to Liberalism first, pick Nationalism as a free tech, use almost all scientists as super-specialists in the SS city instead of for a quick tech grab. My tech research always snowball into a bigger lead later in the game. I could miss any other build/research targets except those and I alway win simply with those, almost all the time by a space race, except in the last game.

- if I can get Stonehenge early then it can help carving out my territory and reduce the "close border" problem. Maybe I should try with the Creative trait sometimes and see if I can play the whole game peacefully. The AIs are more agressive though so there's no guarantee that they won't attack first !!

BTW, when I play as Elizabeth, I sometimes build a small but advanced army just for defence, and pick the Pacificism civic !! That seems to work well also. Favorite civs: Shi Huang and Elizabeth. Currently, I just want to see how big a score I can get to so that usually means padding population by invasion .

[MierinUDL]

I too would like to hear some strategies for playing a pacifist game on Monarchy (or higher). My general guideline for playing the civ games is never take an opponents city by force nor declare/intentionally incite a war. I havent had much of a problem through Prince, but Monarch level has really nailed me so far. Are there any maptypes/number of civs combos or leaders that seem more equiped to win this kind of game?

So far Ive tried on Monarch (epic speed) Elizabeth and Qin Shi Huang as my leader in Single Island per civ maps and Inner Sea maps. I generall chop liberally in the early years trying to keep in mind health/terrain changes as a result. It seems that I pretty much have to forgo either early wonders or fast expansion.

One thing to note is I have recently been playing with Tech Trading disabled- is this suicidal on the higher levels?