Monarch - I just can't win. (Background setup, Questions, long)

[Ethelwind101]

Hello folks

I've been reading all your comments from the experienced Civ4 veterans since the middle of December and thanks to your input I've been able to improve my play quite a lot, but been lurking on the forum since Civ2. Civ4 sure is different than the previous ones - much better and complex imho.

I have some questions to all you experts on Monarch and above level. These are near the bottom of this quite lengthy post. I'm assuming (hoping) I'm not the only one with such issues, and thus have explained quite detailed my beginning steps.


Background Info
Generally, ie. approx 80%, I can beat Noble contests on Terra Maps, Standard, Random civ.

Recently I've done the same for Monarch. However I never win, usually being destroyed at around 1600 - 1800. The last 2 games I got destroyed at 1968, and closed second losing the space race to the leading civ (India).

My main problems:
- I cannot keep up with the tech race, with at least 50% of the civs keeping ahead of me. If I trade for techs, I generally seem to help the opposing civ more and they pull even further ahead.
- I get overwhelmed by these races, who are sending 15-40 waves of riflemen, cavalry, tons of artillery. They repeat this 2-3 times, with me barely able to send a counter-attack before I have to ask for peace.

General process of the game
- Generally up to around 1500 BC Im in the pack.
- Then from 1500BC to 1000 AD, I usually can establisch myself somewhere in the middle.
- From 1000 AD to 1400 AD I can sometimes get around 3rd. (1500 versus 2200 score of the best civs). I'm a builder personality, so generally with cities equipped farely well and not building huge armies I can get closer to the leaders.
- From then on its more or less defensive, meaning I can usually counter attacks, but can't retaliate.

How do I go about it all.
- Scout or Warrior is sent out to scout and get as many huts as possible and possible find a useful location in the vicinity for the 2nd city.
- I start building a worker or workboat (if its 15 turns on standard, if longer I start with a warrior).
- I research the tech I need to work the resource(s) (ie. farming, animal husbandry)

- 2nd tech and following are generally along these lines:
Pottery (resp. first prereq), Writing, Bronze Working, Alphabet.

- Once worker is finished, I usually build a Warrior, afterwards a settler. I chop build the settler if enough wood is around.

- Once settler is created he sets up 2nd town and generally starts with a worker, except if it is a quick growth city then i first wait till size 2 building a warrior in the meantime.

- First city switches to Library after first settler is out.

- First city keeps growing (usually 2nd warrior or 1st archer).

- At some point (around 3-4 cities) I'm landlocked and cannot build any more cities. At this point I usually build a boat if possible and start searching for another continent, which interesting enough usually nets me about 3 of 6 cities on that continent. (Terra maps :P)

--> This is were I suddenly cannot keep up, because:
a) My army is way to small to get through 3-4 archers. I can field maybe 2-3 swordsmen, axemen, horse archer - with a max of maybe 4 attack units that aren't tied down to protect a city.
b) However I trade, suddenly the AI's get the better of me, and I'm behind in tech.
c) I rarely get iron, copper or horses - or its in a far away place in a city I cannot really attach to my fledgling empire.

Questions

I've read that some people put 2 scientists in library, and as soon as great scientist pops an academy.
-> Do you keep these 2 scientists always in the library, or just until academy is built. And afterwards only sporadically.

Generally I seem to lose research focus in the mid-game.
--> What is the key-sequence of your research, ie. (start to Writing, then CS, then Liberty, etc., only the one you focus on each age, before switching to next age)?

Do techs after switching age, become cheaper if they are in the previous age ? (I generally tend to get most if not all before switching the age).

--> Generally I build buildings before units, except if I need protection or attack force.
Do you manage your city manually each turn or do you just put in on production (ie. growth as far as possible and production of units, buildings)?

I generally build the suggested buildings, however my preference at start is (Library, Oracle (if non creative), Granary, Barracks)
--> What is the sequence of your buildings?

Do you ever switch to Wealth, Culture or Research growth in later stages of the game?

Are you able to to ever trade maps and if yes, how do you go about it ? Do you purchase them and then sell them back when you have the 'whole' map or do you just sell for what they offer.

Attack force
--> How many artillery do you send in when attacking a city? Do you first kill the walls, and then send them in one by one to weaken all the defenders. How many do you use (I generally use about 4-5)?
--> Do you include a worker in the stack for creating a +25% upgrade (if you can launch attack from your land)?

Thank you very much for your insights, ideas, comments and patience.

[Leifmk]

Hmm, Monarch is my current "sweet spot", that is where I seem able to win most games and have a blast doing it. In fact I solidly won a Monarch game on a Terra map just the other day. I'll give a quick summary of how I did it.

1) Realized the Old World was going to be pretty cramped, and decided to prioritize building a small but healthy empire while getting along with my neighbours. In this game I was lucky enough to found Buddhism and have several neighbours adopt it; if not, it could have been worth it to adopt someone else's religion for the sake of friendship. Trading away surplus resources is also good for peace.

2) In this particular map, the Old World was one continent with all the civs plus a handful of significant islands just offshore. In fact I only founded 3 cities apart from my capital, all on those islands. I stayed smallish in terms of territory, which meant my empire was cheaper to run. All four cities were put in good spots and were thus able to grow large and productive while research was set high.

3) Researched Optics and then went for Astronomy, found the New World fairly early, built up an army sufficient to kick barbarian butt. It is important to be a bit ahead of the barb at this point! Catapults and Swordsmen or Macemen suffice when the best the barb have is Archers and the odd Axeman. Sacrificing a handful of catapults in order to take a good city is worth it!

4) Until I'd taken the barb cities in the New World I was near the bottom of the score ranking; this was no longer the case. Now I concentrated on building up my infrastructure and researching for Military Tradition. After that I could start steamrolling everyone else into the dirt, starting with the weaker of the other civs and working my way up. It was even easier since I was playing Russia.

[Martinus]

When I play a single player game, I normally disable tech trading altogether - it gives the AI an unfair advantage.

[Leifmk]

Originally posted by Martinus
When I play a single player game, I normally disable tech trading altogether - it gives the AI an unfair advantage.

I feel exactly the opposite; being able to trade techs with the AI civs gives me lots of diplomatic leverage that I wouldn't want to be without.

[couerdelion]

Some thoughts on early game

I’ve noticed the tech trading that goes on among other civilisations and found that there were times when they would not trade techs if they thought I was advanced – despite being behind.

I tend to build the worker (or work boat) first if I have an easy resource to develop and then go for settler (in the case of a workboat) one or two turns waiting to build the settler, may also allow the city to grow to two and the settler build time might even be quicker. Most civs start with a warrior so for security, I would suggest a less expansive scouting strategy for this unit so that it can be available to escort the settler. Just scout the immediate area to pick the best spot for your second city.

Your medium term research goal should be to start getting specialists early in the capital which either means Priesthood (and possibly also founding a religion) or fast-tracking to Writing and the library. An early religion is a big advantage since you might also be able to convert some neighbours. You’ll have to ask others about this particular strategy since I haven’t enough experience of it.

Assuming that you don’t have Mysticism to start with, I would take Bronze-Working early because it gives you another alternative to keeping your people happy (through slavery) and allows chopping trees for production. After Bronze-Working I’d follow the simple pattern of researching writing, building library in capital, allocating two scientist (if you have enough food) and setting up academy once the scientist appears. If possible, you should keep the scientists there since your capital then has the “comparative advantage” in science.

The fast settlement of your second city should give you the start needed to grab the important city sites and at least get some resources to make the people happy and healthy for a short while (although happiness is important while unhealthiness is rarely serious). In the medium term you will be relying more on either getting to monarchy (which will encourage military build-up) or on trans-oceanic trading empire (which sometimes has to wait until astronomy)

Fighting wars, I can’t help much except to advise knowledge of the different unit strengths and weaknesses (another units strength) and to suggest that a well-organised and strong defence will beat most large attacks. Of course, you may sometimes be surprised by the scale of the opposing forces but then you will know better next time and plan accordingly - while taking account of their developments since the war. I think for the player more keen on building, there can sometimes be a tendency to forget important military techs.

Finally, practice and get to know all the areas of the game. The one biggest area of improvement here has been the increased level of complexity and the need to balance a lot more inter-connected factors. Above all, try not to get too concerned about individual cities at the expense of the civilisation as a whole.

[couerdelion]

I agree

Originally posted by Leifmk


I feel exactly the opposite; being able to trade techs with the AI civs gives me lots of diplomatic leverage that I wouldn't want to be without.

I agree although I am conscious that the multi-path tech tree makes it quite difficult to know what techs you have that your opponent doesn’t, and to maintain a healthy balance of techs known by your trading partners. Sometimes the deals will be poor but if you can repeat them to several nations then you should do well out of it – this was always a central strategy in my games of Civ3 at deity level.

Let’s suppose you have an option of trading a tech for something worth 60% as much. If you can make those trades twice as often as each other civilisation then you will be 20% better off out of the deals. If they can make deals among themselves without your involvement then you will fall a long way behind.

[Urban Ranger]

First, read this section. Look through the older threads.

This one is a must read

[Ethelwind101]

Thanks for all your input and the pointer to the other thread as well.

I've been following those suggestions, but the main criteria I seem to be missing in the short run is that I usually take the 2 scientists out of the library once the academy is built.

6 science is not much I suppose, but at that point it very likely hard to do without.

Since I usually get around 4 cities, but fall behind in tech its almost always a quick loss (1500-1700).
If I'm lucky and get 8 I usually get 2nd or 3rd spot, but since my tech rate at the beginning probably is to slow, I'm playing catch-up.

I'm gonna try and implement those suggestions, because it's just a bit thats missing and like one of you mentioned I tend to neglect the military because I'm behind for most of the game. (3-5 techs).

Of course, the first couple of times it was fun going down in a blast of glory. 3 30 stack ai-controlled hitting the biggest 3 cities simultaneously and taking them (even though garrisoned quite well) in 1 round was a laugh.

Thanks for your insights.

[Blake]

The most fool-proof way of winning maps where you have neighbors is the "catapult rush". You should be playing an Organized civ. I recommend Tokugawa, Mao or Washington. Alexander is also well suited. It will work for any civ though.

Basically start out normally, found at least 3 cities, get a fast academy. Get at least writing, pottery and bronze working then head to Construction (no need to get Iron Working even if you don't have copper, do get it after construction though).

Once at construction, simply chop a bunch of catapults, at least 6, be RUTHLESS with your forests, when you capture territory you capture new health resources, so forests aren't needed. For escorts use axemen or archers.

Pick a good victim, this will normally be whoever is closest. Good targets are wonders and holy cities, a holy city which has the shrine already is a real gem (you can check for shrines in the wonder info screen). Relative strength doesn't really matter, but it's best if your victim only has archers for defense.

Now simply take your big stack of catapults, roll up to a city, blast the defenses down, capture it. Takes like 2 turns. Wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am, that's how wars should be conducted. Take more cities from the AI. In most cases as you take cities the other AI's will smell weakness and will dogpile onto your victim to get their own slice. Anyway you should get about 2/3rds of their empire including their capital and any holy city. With the added cities you should be in the top 3.

At this point you stop conquering and solidify, your next research goals are Civil Service, Machinery. Keep amassing more units, especially catapults. Chopping a barracks and units in your recently conquered cities is an effective way to build up your military while focusing on infrastructure in your core cities. (more forest to chop is a nice spoils of war)

After a period of consolidation you should move on and prune your neighbors, this should be slightly before macemen (like when you have EITHER civil service or machinery). Take every opportunity to attack, for example if two civs declare war on each other you really want to jump on in. You do NOT want to be in a 1 vs 2 situation, so either turn existing 1v1 into 2v1, or try to bring an ally into wars you initiate. One of the main reasons to bring an ally in is that your ally then wont attack you. AI's really like dogpiling and staying on top of the dogpile is important. Fair fights in this era are also quite hard, longbows really bog down catapults, so stick with the unfair fights.

If you do get good momentum going you can easily get a large enough empire pre-gunpowder to reach #1. Make sure you can afford the expansion though, courthouses, cottages, banks, holy shrines, specialists, great people (settled), all are effective ways to pay for the expansion while continuing research. Really with an Organized leader it's impossible to break yourself with expansion as long as you build courthouses, but you do have to be aware of this possibility with other leaders. (Especially ones with none of Org, Philo, Financial)

The next serious war thrust should be with Chemistry. First, go grab Liberalism which you should be #1 to.
I recommend researching Chemistry, Scientific Method, Communism and run State Property, this will allow you to conquer with near complete disregard to upkeep costs. Upgrade your old city raider melee units to Grenadiers, build more grenadiers, build cannons. Crush everyone on your continent.

By this point you should be so far #1 that it isn't funny. Quit the game or win in whatever way you please, once you're firmly in #1 thanks to a large territory it's very hard to lose.

edit: I'm not saying that catapult rush is cheesey, overpowered or always the best option. Actually it's more like the lowest common denominator strategy, it doesn't matter how bad your situation is, catapults will usually let you dig yourself out. If you get them while the victims are still totting nothing stronger than archers and chariots then the catapults can even defend themselves and the escorts are only needed for garrisoning cities.

[joncnunn]

Re: Monarch - I just can't win. (Background setup, Questions, long)

I'd sugest winning at Prince first instead of trying to jumping from Noble to Monarch.

Basically Civ IV's ranks all seem to be one level tougher than the equivalent Civ III one:

Civ IV Noble = Civ III Prince = As close to zero handicap.
Civ IV Prince = Civ III Monarch = Slight advantage to AI
Civ IV Monarch = Civ III Emperor = First level where you really have to think hard to win.

Originally posted by Ethelwind101
Hello folks

Background Info
Generally, ie. approx 80%, I can beat Noble contests on Terra Maps, Standard, Random civ.

Recently I've done the same for Monarch. However I never win, usually being destroyed at around 1600 - 1800. The last 2 games I got destroyed at 1968, and closed second losing the space race to the leading civ (India).

[joncnunn]

On Tech trading: One key is "two-fers". Where you trade the same tech to either two people, or alternatively use the tech you just got in trade to aquire a 3rd one. (Note that in Civ IV, you have to wait til your next turn to trade techs you just got / get another tech requiring the same tech you just got)

Unforunately, this involves checking every single turn on high levels, but at least the F7 screen will show you this.

On being attacked when you don't want to be, try being the state same religion of your big neighbor. Or if your big neighbors have different state religions, adopt the no state religion option so they go after each other instead.

Unfortunately your list of questions all have the same answer:

it depends! There are a lot more factors to balance out in early game Civ IV unlike Civ IIIs early game stategry = REX!

[Urban Ranger]

Rapid early expansion is still important, however you must also do other things to win.

[Blake]

You can get away without rapid expansion. All you need is 2-3 cities and a stockpile of forests in order to tech to catapults (or swordmen and pray for iron) and chop a bunch of them out. Well I guess it's still rapid early expansion, but you're letting the AI found and develop the cities for you. You can get holy cities and wonders at a fraction of the investment cost, along with some freebie workers. War is insanely good value in this game.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Blake
War is insanely good value in this game.

Not as good as in I and II, though.

[Aginor]

Have to disagree on the notion that war is not as good as in previous iterations. While war itself may not be as 'efficient' as in prior Civs, the fact of the matter is that committing resources to traditional 'builder' priorities of city improvements and Wonders is nowhere near as efficient as in Civ I or II. Take the outrageous efficiency of J.S. Bach's Cathedral in both, Michaelangelo's Chapel in Civ II, and the Pyramids in Civ II. Nothing even beginning to approach this sort of power exists in Civ IV. Further, the impact of the early city improvements (other than the Granary) has been nerfed substantially (ie: Libraries cost the same but produce a 25% return on science rather than 50% - you have to commit specialists to being Scientists in order to get the sort of impact your Library had in prior iterations of Civ).

The direct consequence is that war is a much more appealing option than before, and that capturing enemy cities after resources have been invested in their improvement, growth and terraforming by the AI (given its production bonuses against your production outputs) is vastly more efficient than it once was. Thus, I suggest that attack rather than defense is now clearly the way to go.