Monarch to Emperor

[UnOrthOdOx]

Too wide a spacing for my tastes, or needs some military camps in between a few of those. Definately more improvements than just roads.

NY should not be stagnate yet unless it's due to unhappiness, and if it is, that should be a settler/worker coming out.

Atlanta and NY need granaries if they don't have one, and make at least one a worker/settler pump.

[Dominae]

A couple of suggestions (more later):

1. You seem to have one "pump" city producing Settlers, but none dedicated to Workers. In fact all your cities are building military units. As I mentioned above, given your already advantageous position, you could probably work this into a win. But if you really want to "win big" (or catchup in a more difficult game), you'll want more Workers (as Arrian mentions). Three Cattle plus some Flood Plains around your capital area is a gift: use it to make more Workers and more Settlers. This will translate into a more dominating position later on. You already have enough units to defend yourself if one of the AIs decides to sneak attack you.

2. Horsemen seem like the right call here. You have 3+ neighbors to subjugate on your continent, and none of them are particularly dominant (for the moment). This means you can engage in oscillating war to prune each of them, or just plain and simple serial conquest to eliminate them one at a time. If one civ were stronger than the others I would recommend Swordsmen, since that's the civ you want to hit first, and Swordsmen are more effective when used in such a focused campaign. Given your situation, the Horsemen's mobility will serve you well.

Do not research Horseback Riding immediately, however. Instead, build a bunch of Chariots with The Wheel, then upgrade them (for 20 Gold each) at the opportune moment. This will let you have far more units than otherwise possible given your overall Shield output.

[Golden Bear]

Thanks folks for the feedback. Over night I played some more (of course) and have progressed to the ADs.

I should have read your advice first.

After wrapping up the Egypt war, I moved my SM south to Scandinavia. BTW, I have all these cities cranking SM without barracks because the war came when I seized the iron and then Egypt jumped in. I saw no recourse but to go to full military.

Anyway, I attacked the Scandanavians again. As I started to make progress, the Mongols declared on me. So again, I had to let the Scandanavians go with an early peace and turtle up on the Mongols. After I got peace, I went into Republic. The risky COL before Philosophy worked this time.

I went into builder/explorer mode for a while and this is where I think that I lost my steam. I crept up score wise will I built infrastructure. I got knights before anybody else and started building a few when...

Persia declared on me and, a turn later, Scandinavia conveniently did too. I got Babylon to treaty against Persia, which probably was a mistake. It led to Persia eliminating Babylon and gaining Leonardo's.

I ran Scandinavia off the continent and then did not see any point to continuing the war, especially since Mongols had declared on the fading Babylonians and had their Keshik (?) warriors all over my territory. I tried to goad them into war while they were next to my knight loaded cities, but they backed down. I built a captured worker barrier across the neck of land that leads to the Persians and now have the Mongol forces split into two pieces.

Is it too late to go war crazy? The Persians are the ones I want but I am certain that the Mongols will attack if I declare. I could go for the Egyptians first and then the Mongols and then the Persians. Or just damage the Mongols, eliminate the Egyptians and then finish off Persians and Mongols.

I made a bad mistake about forgetting to prebuild for Sistine and ended up missing it, and Leo's and everything.

I will post a save game and a screenie in a little bit.

[Golden Bear]

660 AD.

[Golden Bear]

Here is the 660AD save...

[vmxa1]

It won't load, I forget, but I suspect 1.20 is not compat with 1.22.

You must get a view of the world. How can you make plans with no knowledge of the lay of the land? Get embassies and trade maps if you have the tech.

If you want to get into a war with someone, I want to either get all the threats on my side or be prepared to take them all on.

IOW if I am not worried about them all joining against me, then I do not need to make allies.

Anyway I would prefer to take the civ that is next to me, even if they are not the most strategic one. Let me add their land and expand out.

Memphis and LA are on 60+ turn builds of libs? Do they have a barracks? Those are frontline towns and will be likely targets of attacks. Even if they are not, they are where you will send units to heal. Do they have a temple to hold or increase cultural borders?

I would either find something to build that can be done much sooner or put them on wealth. Workers is a possiblity. I hope you are no longer making troops in any city without a barracks.

Troops at this point in the game are just not of much value to me as regulars. That may be ok, if they are going to go against inferior units to get promoted. Actually I want those same promotions to be elites, not to vets.

I would surely have at least one army by now and be hurting the AI with it. It is hard to get an MGL with so many regular troops.

[Golden Bear]

Vxma, thank you for your ongoing commentary.

I'll swap the frontline cities into barracks. They all build temples as their first project at this point in the game and I garrison them with troops built elsewhere.

Yes, I have barracks in all my major troop building cities.

I also am tempted to finish off the Egyptians, but you can see the multiple large stacks of Mongols waiting for an opening. Maybe I can get them into a MA against the Egyptians.

I thought the documentation said that earlier saves will load in to 1.22, but my experience is the contrary. Sorry about that. I'll change after this game.

[Mace]

I am reading this thread. I think the Monarch --> Emperor jump is quite a jump compared to Regent ---> Monarch.

At any rate, the Mongol stack there would tick me off, I would have to take care of that problem. The Mongols are just salivating ready to pounce on you. You do realize that? heheh. In Memphis, LA, and Oslo I would get Barracks and (probably) city walls asap. Walls are cheap and can make or break, especially if you got rushed by 15 Keshiks.

then get a two large stacks of death going, with Knights, Pikemen, Trebs in a 5:2:2 ratio and go to it...

I have found that C3C doesn't reward peaceful play. Too bad. At higher levels, the peaceful builder finds himself without needed strategic resources and sheer size required for space race wins. On the other hand, if you militarily conquer your entire home continent, you'll be much better off in the long run--free to pursue the ending of your choosing.

[Golden Bear]

Hi Mace- what I ended up doing was doing a blitz war on the Egyptians first. This put me in a good position around the flanks of the Mongols. I managed to keep the Mongols intimidated by the power stat I guess and tied up with treaties.

Then I attacked the Mongol stacks while they were conveniently close. The Persians were next but I had problems sustaining the war at that point and once I had Leonardos didn't see the point. I then went overseas and did some luxury wars. I finished up with a domination victory around 1840.

After that, I went back to Monarch for a breather and played the French. Domination victory in 1685.

I agree. I think that the Monarch-Emperor jump is tougher than the Regent-Monarch. A lot more is dependant upon having good starting terrain, at least for me.

Thanks again to all the people who chimed in with thoughts.

The only question I have is about a suggestion to stay away from spearmen. As we know, there comes a point where warrior disappears as an option and that is where I start building spearmen. Should I do archers instead? They cost the same and cannot defend. I guess that the upkeep is lower, but spearmen can be upgraded continuously if necessary.

[vmxa1]

I am not sure the context for the spearmen question. I know that I prefer to not make them early in the game, because they cannot attack anything.

Also you see them being build with no barracks in the early ancient age and that means they are not worth upgrade IMO.

A spear to a pike and it is a regular? Ok, you can get a few promoted with luck, note that may not work. Then you end up with a 3 HP rifle/inf. Well until you get to the point that you can move them to a safe place they are not reliable.

That means none till you have barracks to create them. What I see a lot is that spearmen is going with a settler to a new location. It is later faced with a few barbs pillaging and cannot do anything about with any margin of safety.

An archer does not suffer so badly. It has a higher attack rating. It can give zero bombardment. So it can go out and kill that barb, especially if it is a vet.

It is not an issue for the upgrade as it will be a long time before it can become a longbow. At that point it will almost never be an offensive unit. Later it can be a guerilla and even a tow. These are very decent defenders or rather threats as defenders and still have that zero bomb ability. Plus I am not going to make all that many of them.

No units after warrior/archer should be routinely made without a barracks.

In any game with barbs played at emperor or beyond has to be concerned that warriors and spear cannot attack and win with any certainty. Yes neither can swords/archers and horses, but they will do much better. Spears are nice if they are attacked by barbs, but that is not going to happen very often, unless they come with numbers and then it could lose.

[Mace]

Good point about spearmen. I have gradually been weaning myself away from building any spearmen, esp. in the early game for the reasons you stated. Regular Warriors do well enough to make sure you don't get sacked, and are quick to build, so it's not much waste when you disband them later. (They're not worth upgrading to Mid Inf, imo.)

I have A LOT of old habits that I am trying to break...like putting a defender in each city...even interior cities. Now I leave them empty on AI games, as that unit's upkeep would be better spent on a Sword/Knight/Cav/Tank/etc. than it would be on a spear/pike/etc.

I have noticed that little micromanging things like that can make a big difference on Emperor and higher...

[Golden Bear]

Thanks for the clarification about the spearmen/archer thing. I had been trying it anyway in order to try to understand its strengths. It was certainly nice to be able to turn my "defending" troops into an early archer rush and overwhelm a impinging neighbor.

[Golden Bear]

More questions:
What is the build advice for a start without settler/worker pump potential. I'm having a problem getting my early civ booming without cows or wheat.

Middle game build order: I used to go Temple-Library-Marketplace-Courthouse for fringe but productive cities. However, I have been playing with Temple-Courthouse-Marketplace-Library. Any thoughts about which order is best? Or should I just mix them up?

And... my shortest CIV game ever:
I moved my settler one step over in order to look for better land. It happened to be next to a volcano which went off and killed the settler! 2 turns - I think that will be tough to beat.

[Arrian]

Build a granary (regardless of the food situation, I'd say). Seek bonus food nearby, and try to turn that site into a pump. Meanwhile, build a barracks and pump out some vet archers... and use them to whack barbs and/or harrass the AI. If you lack food, you may have to resort to more aggressive tactics.

I often go Courthouse - Temple - Market - Library. Especially if I'm not a religious civ. The sooner you have the courthouse up & running, the more you will save (in terms of shields/commerce) over time. Obviously, if there is a compelling reason for which you NEED that temple ASAP, by all means build it first.

-Arrian

edit: I should add that an aqueduct would get slotted in when necessarily & available. Thus, depending on the exact situation, a city might go CH, Temp, Aqueduct, Market, Library.

As vmxa1 says, it's best to tailor your build order to the specific situation.

[vmxa1]

Sorry, but I had to laugh at the settler being killed.

Hard and fast rules are not flexible enough. When you get to the point that you have the tech to build Courts and Markets, you have your core up already.

What the order is that you do things is not as important as when and why. My core does not need a court right away and is building more useful things (settlers/workers/troops).

Cities farther out cannot built courts quickly and I need to determine what they can do and when to do it.

If you are playing Monarch level, you can probably hold off on that temple and you do not generate enough income to benefit from a market.

If you are above monarch, you probably need to get a temple going no matter how long it takes. It depends on the size of the city and its grow potential. If it is not going to be above size 6, then you can find something else to build.

You want to evaluate the city to see if can justify any structure. Do I have enough income and luxs to get value out of a market? Will I by the time it is finished?

If you are getting tiles improved as needed and look at each build to see if it makes sense at this time, you should be fine. Just slapping up structures in some predetermined order, is going to be less helpful.