I suck, need to vent.

[vmxa1]

Whoops I was so busy typing I forgot a few screens i took.

[snoopy369]

One question: SST, how do you time your GA? Your earlier one it sounded like it was mostly accidental. In Monarch you must be VERY careful to time your GA -- it's often an effective strategy against humans to try to lose to their Unique Unit so a GA gets triggered at an inopportune time. Make sure you have a good reason to trigger a GA -- either needing a tech jump or needing a ton of productivity really quickly.

[vmxa1]

As you see the six items I care about I am #1, only missing on land. It will be a while before the expansion would start in ernest.

IIRC antioch is soon to be able to make settlers and the two wonder cities will be able to as well. I have one city with a barrack to make troops and of course AC will be coming every 5 turns.

[vmxa1]

F1 view:

[vmxa1]

F8:

[vmxa1]

Another whole complex subject, GA's.

I have not triggered it as 1) in despot 2) too small. I would have used Immortls in a tight spot, but I now will not use them, except on barbs, if I can get away with it.

This was another reason to delay the GL, it as it could cause a GA for Persia. I don't know if it will or not, but I know it could.

If that happen in about 25 or 30 turns, I won't mind much. I am not use to having great wonders in the ancient era, so I forget what does what for what civs, except for China and Cleo.

[StainlessSteel]

Hurm

This is good food for though. I'll Start up a new game until I get a decent starting loc, then we can try that What do YOU consider to be a decent starting loc?

Few Questions, All floodplains(1wheat) and desert... restart? or is the chance of disease and lack of shields overcome by the FP+wheat ability to grow insanly fast?

Pop rushing? Any advice on this? I don't use it hardly at all, so I'm not familiar with what should and could be pop rushed.

SSR

[vmxa1]

SSR I should point out that the worker in the capitol is gong to chop the forrest for getting the barracks/markets done.

This is not just a way to get them out quickly, but will also allow me to mine those tiles in time for the next wonder build.

Since mountains yield no food and I have no food bonus I need to get two food form those tiles more than I need the shields. I can also hope that one or more will have a BG under the forrest.

In the end I may use one mountain for the extra shields, once I get to size 12.

[vmxa1]

This start was fine as you can see. It will slow you down to not have any bonus food, but no harm. Who can know from the start what is a great layout.

In general, I would like to see a river and one bonus food. Not be in the midst of jungles or mountains. But I can deal with it, if I am. It is just that for a friendly learning game, who needs it. Save it for an AU game where hardship is expected.

Also I do not have the patience to play really rough starts, I leave that to the truely great players.

Pop rushing is not my cup of tea either. I do in in some spots. That is what is good about civ, you cannot always do the same thing and must be prepared to think of another strat.

So if I am in a bind and need to pop rush a defender, I will. If I can pop rush workers or settlers from a captured city, I will (rare for me).

I recoqnize some occassions when you can profit from pop rushing, but I prefer to not use it in the main.

Remember it can lead to much unpleasantness and I cannot afford that in most of the games I will be playing. The second citizen is already born unhappy. This can lead to the use of pop rushing to keep the size down to under 3 or 4 all the time.

Flood plains, now you have me again. I am in the minority, in that I tend to not like them and stay away from them in the early game, if I can.

They are great for getting growth, but as I said in my games that can be a double edged sword. I just do not like any random events and sickness and vulcanos fall into that category in my book.

All you of the other bent, don't bother to disway me on the random events. To each his own and I don't like them.

Also you will be hard pressed to build things with little shield production. OTOH you could you it to crank out a bunch of workers and settlers and grab some better land.

[Jon Shafer]

Vmxa: I disagree with how you played some of the things in your game.

Yes, this is a fairly tough start. Persia isn't my #1 pick for civs, and having 0 food boni anywhere near the start is always tough. However, a couple of early Granaries (in cities #1 and #2) can help make up for that. Against a human or a higher-level AI it probably wouldn't be enough, but on lower levels it'll do just fine.

Also, I think you focused a bit too much on wonders. More time on Granaries and less on wonders would help you expand a lot faster and ultimately be much stronger in the long run.

Your attack of the Zulu is obviously a judgment call, so I won't discuss that. I kept them around for a couple reasons. First is that I have my own "house rules" that I won't initiate offensive warfare to keep things interesting. Second is that I liked them helping out with research.

I ended up triggering my GA while in Despotism. Rome tried to land a Settler-Spear combo in my rear with a Galley and I had an Immortal in the area, so I just went and wiped the team out before it could build.

Anyways, most important thing is the couple of early Granaries.

[vmxa1]

Yup, I think I said about the same thing. I suspect you can play the game a few ways and get to more or less the same place down the road.

Actually I only built two wonders, with one other started. Not sure if that is a big deal or not, but if you say so.

Anyway the good news for you is you have 12 cities. That bad news is you are now surrounded by Zulus.

I have Arbela doing the one wonder it is working on, if it can and two are cities making settlers and one troops, well two if you count AC's.

No chance to be surrounded by anyone. Zulus are gone. I played out to around 330BC and also got a war declared by Rome.

Happy boost for me and bad news for them. I do not have to use my Immortals to do more than patrol. I sent two AC's out and stomped a few units and one has already kill one of probably two defenders in a city.

That city is size one and will autoraze. So I will be able to pound Rome and not trigger a GA yet. IOW my prospects are rather good.

I was never fond of keeping civs around for research, so I won't miss the Zulu much. I will be expanding in a nice controlled way, if was to play on. Rome will not be able to expand any more as I will have AC's to stop that crap. I then will probably push them to the brink.

If I get an MGL, I would turn out their lights for sure. Of course I could swing Immortals in to do it anyway.

But as I said it was not played optimally and you can beat the AI a lot of ways at monarch.
Just pick one you enjoy and have at it.

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Yup, I think I said about the same thing. I suspect you can play the game a few ways and get to more or less the same place down the road.

Depends on how you play... if you don't balance things then you will end up behind in the end.

Actually I only built two wonders, with one other started. Not sure if that is a big deal or not, but if you say so.

The problem is that you basically only have 2 good cities and a wonder in each. That basically kept both cities busy on big projects while they could be producing Settlers and Workers. That's why my empire is so much more advanced than your own.

Anyway the good news for you is you have 12 cities. That bad news is you are now surrounded by Zulus.

Only if you consider a single city with 2 Impis in the tundra to be "surrounded." My southern flank is quite secure with the Zulus spread out. I have about 15 or so Immortals and could slice them to pieces in only a couple turns if I wanted, but that goes against my house rules.

I have Arbela doing the one wonder it is working on, if it can and two are cities making settlers and one troops, well two if you count AC's.

Problem is that you need cities producing Settlers and Workers pretty early on. Things grow exponentially as time goes on, so while you have 2 cities doing Settlers in your game, I have 4 doing so in mine. Which means I'll continue growing faster and faster compared to you.

No chance to be surrounded by anyone. Zulus are gone. I played out to around 330BC and also got a war declared by Rome.

Happy boost for me and bad news for them. I do not have to use my Immortals to do more than patrol. I sent two AC's out and stomped a few units and one has already kill one of probably two defenders in a city.

AI offensives on Monarch isn't a concern. Like I said, a couple turns and I could take the Zulus out if I wanted.

I was never fond of keeping civs around for research, so I won't miss the Zulu much. I will be expanding in a nice controlled way, if was to play on. Rome will not be able to expand any more as I will have AC's to stop that crap. I then will probably push them to the brink.

Maybe not, but it's a very effective tactic. Zulus are starting to fall further behind though, so the only reason to keep them around is in order to keep things somewhat challenging.

But as I said it was not played optimally and you can beat the AI a lot of ways at monarch.
Just pick one you enjoy and have at it.

Well, keep playing and we'll see where we both end up in a few millenia.

[vmxa1]

Hi Trip, not sure what we are going on about here. I don't think I disagree with what you are saying for the most part.

I am pretty sure I said at the start this was not the way to go for an optimal strat.

My only point was that once you elect to do it, it will get the job done at this level.

So how I about we declare you the winner and stop beating this dead horse.

[Jon Shafer]

Well, I'm trying to show SS an optimum strategy. Apologies if my comments seemed combative, I was merely trying to illustrate the differences for SS.

This set of screenshots is from 490 AD. I neglected Workers early on but managed to set up 4 Worker Pumps to help remedy that situation. It's particularly effective because of all of the mountains and no bonus food (So I build a ton of Workers, improve all the land, add back the Workers and use all the mountains instead of having to grow). I will shut the pumps off and then add most of the Workers back to the cities for a massive influx of pop. Need to get some more Aquaducts up though.

West half of empire:

[Jon Shafer]

East half of empire, which shows my other 2 Worker Pumps: