How Frequently Do Experienced Players Beat Monarch?

[Arrian]

Hmm...

Well, I have to admit that I don't play to just win, so I don't know. I have quit out of many games I'm fairly sure I could have won. Some players take satisfaction/enjoyment out of scratching out a win from a terrible starting position such as SVC (though I don't know if what Aeson did counts as "scratching out" - man, he's good). I do not. I like starting in a nice place and seeing just how well I can do. So I developed my concept of Ultimate Power (tm), and seek it continually. Just winning won't cut it.

Further, despite being aware of its power, 2-tile spacing with nothing but barracks for a rush just ain't my bag, baby. I warmonger, but not like that. My cities are almost never closer than 3 tiles between them, mostly 4 (little to no overlap).

However, if forced to estimate what would happen if I played out every start on Monarch level, I'd say 75%. There are some start positions that I've seen that I think are simply unredeemable (pure jungle for 5 tiles in all directions, for example), and there are some risky moves I know I couldn't resist. The law of averages suggests that I'd pay for some of those.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Woah, jshelr, building an early temple as a religious civ does not cost you 6 units. Temples are 30 shields for a religious civ. Units are 20-30 shields depending on type. Personally, as someone who has built the early temples, I think it's worth it and then some.

Edit: I think this is particularly true in outlying 1-shield cities. Temples there are 10 turns and a pop point - *crack*. I only build veteran units, so I'm not gonna use poprushing to build my army, and I'm therefore not gonna get my army from the outlying cities.

Also bear in mind that the early temple has 3 benifits: 1) happiness, 2) border expansion, 3) culture vis-a-vis the AI.

-Arrian

[Catt]

Originally posted by jshelr
I've not built the early temple and don't have a clue whether it's worth the 6 or so military units a religious civ has to give up to build it.

Flipping has not been a big problem, but the additional culture might get you better deals on trade and more respect during diplomacy.

You should try a few games with the early culture just to get a feel for it. For a religious civ, it will never represent an opportunity cost of 6 units and even for a non-religious civ it probably represents an opportunity cost of no more than 4 in most cases (tougher decision, there). For a religious civ, it probably presents an opportunity cost of between 2 and 3 units -- 30 shield temple versus 10 shield warrior, taking into account "shield waste" of excess shields.

I am a big proponent of early culture, partly just as a point of pride, but also for its concrete benefits. I agree that flipping is not always a big problem, but I've found a strong cultural base helps tremendously in Middle Age and early Industrial Age wars -- the ability to take, pacify and hold cities easily means a smaller, more mobile, and more effective fighting force before the age of blitz units and Battlefield Medicine. It's definitely a matter of preference over clear advantages, but you should give it a try just to see what you're missing (and then you might very well go back to no early culture ).

Catt

[DeepO]

Yeah, those temples are always good, but in the last few games, I concentrated on just building that one temple. Of course, barracks are needed for rushes: with regulars you lose too many troops (and they cost a lot). As Arrian said, it only costs you 1 or 2 decent troops, or in my case 3 warriors (as most likely you aren't able to build archers or carts that early on). Now something can be said that early recon is better than early culture, and I somewhat agree here... but still, it has proven its use many times over.

As some of you might now, I play the culture game a lot, with flipping a bit of my specialty. The one thing causing that I very rarely lose a city to flipping is that single, extreme early temple... that is worth those few units

DeepO

[jshelr]

I think I'm starting to get it. First of all, the 30 turns cost for a temple is clearly too high, reflecting my tendency to put captured cities on temple projects that always take 30 turns. That's simply the wrong arithmetic. Arrian's right.

Moreover, some navel gazing revealed that I usually send a couple of settlers along with the stack to the early battle. That habit reflects flipping supression tendencies. If the early temple eliminates the need for those settlers, then it's clearly worth it.

I'll stand by the guys who say they win 99% of Monarch games, regardless of start or the settings. There is no way the modest Arrian will only win 75%. My little Monarch quest generated a 12 game win streak right from scratch, which is still going, although I've had enough of that. Chances of getting a 12 game win streak are about 3% if your win percentage is 75% -- and I'm relatively new at this game.

[Arrian]

jshelr,

If you say so Like I said, I've no idea. Perhaps someday I'll test it out, but right now I have no desire to do so.

Re: temples and captured cities:

- captured cities typically rush a spearman (regular, so what, I only really care about attackers) and then begin a temple. 10 turns later, another rush, temple in place.

- In the ancient era, I never raze. I have no need to.

- In the medieval era, I occasionally raze. I probably don't need to, but I will raze "core" AI cities if there is any doubt in my mind as to flip chances. This is particularly true if I don't intend to wipe them out quickly.

- In the industrial era, I will raze the core. To the extent that I'm still actually keeping cities, the peripheral cities don't need to be razed 'n rebuilt.

- In the modern age, I very rarely want anything I capture, but if I did, I would probably raze 'n rebuild anything within 2 rings of the AI's capitol. Essentially, I would enlarge the area I would consider "core."

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Early on, depending on your city-spacing strategy, Temples are either really important in all your cities or largely unecessary.

Temples only make 1 unhappy citizen content, which isn't a lot. Under Despotism/Monarchy, it's much more worthwhile to just put a military unit in the city if you're afraid of unhappiness. In addition, Luxury resources and the Luxury slider undermine the usefulness of the Temple's main effect. Of course, once your cities get really big (Aqueduct-size), you're going to need Temples to get to Cathedrals.

Therefore, the cheap border-expansion use of Temples is (in my mind) the deciding factor of whether or not to build them. If you're packing you cities in quite closely, you won't need your borders to expand; if you prefer to have have almost no overlap, Temples are a must (since you may not be able to access your most productive tiles).

Playing a Religious civ means that you can "afford" to space your cities further apart initially. I recommend against doing this for various reasons, but cheap Temples mean that you'll at least have access to all your land.

My realization that Temples weren't a must-have at the beginning of the game made me appreciate the non-Religious civs more, not to mention solidify my early-game war efforts.


Dominae

[jshelr]

Clicking sound is me adding a tool to the tool kit.

"Captured cities typically rush a spearman (regular, so what, I only really care about attackers) and then begin a temple. 10 turns later, another rush, temple in place."

[Arrian]

Dominae does have a point. I space my cities widely, so the border expansion part is key for me. Without it my cities are little islands, unconnected by culture. I build cities in what I consider to be the best spot in the long run, and this often means that a tasty bonus resource is out of reach until the borders expand. Accordingly, for my style, early temples are actually almost a requirement. If I stopped building them, I'd have to alter a lot of other things.

I do not dispute, however, the alternative method: closer spacing, barracks, units, kill.

I simply prefer wider spacing, temples, barracks, units, kill.

-Arrian

[Catt]

Originally posted by Dominae
Early on, depending on your city-spacing strategy, Temples are either really important in all your cities or largely unecessary.

Temples only make 1 unhappy citizen content, which isn't a lot. Under Despotism/Monarchy, it's much more worthwhile to just put a military unit in the city if you're afraid of unhappiness. In addition, Luxury resources and the Luxury slider undermine the usefulness of the Temple's main effect. Of course, once your cities get really big (Aqueduct-size), you're going to need Temples to get to Cathedrals.

Therefore, the cheap border-expansion use of Temples is (in my mind) the deciding factor of whether or not to build them. If you're packing you cities in quite closely, you won't need your borders to expand; if you prefer to have have almost no overlap, Temples are a must (since you may not be able to access your most productive tiles).

Playing a Religious civ means that you can "afford" to space your cities further apart initially. I recommend against doing this for various reasons, but cheap Temples mean that you'll at least have access to all your land.

My realization that Temples weren't a must-have at the beginning of the game made me appreciate the non-Religious civs more, not to mention solidify my early-game war efforts.

Building early temples obviously deviates from jshelr's opening which, IMHO, is basically a sure winner on Monarch level, and a near sure winner on Emperor level. If you keep at it until you essentially own the continent, you probably haven't missed much by avoiding early culture.

But I believe that the value of early temples lies not in the happiness effects nor the border expansions - those are nice bonuses, but not the return on investment I'm looking for from my investment of 30 (or 60) shields in the early game. The return I'm looking for on my investment is significant civ cultural strength.

Improvement cultural production doubles after 1000 years (not a measure of turns, but of years). A temple built in 1500 BC will very quickly begin producing 4 culture points per turn. The player that builds his first temple in 10 AD will need to build two temples to match the early temple's cultural output. But even that is not enough -- total accumulated culture is tough to make up for without an awful lot of conquest, and is the main factor in culture flipping. And because the important factor is relative culture, a few extra culture points early makes a huge difference in total culture points (when total culture points are low), whereas a crap-load of research labs late in the game doesn't have nearly the same effect. Several early temples basically guarantees you the cultural top dog spot until the mid to late middle ages, even if you fail to produce the largest empire through expansion and warfare.

With a very strong cultural base, I can march my knights up to that size 8 AI city; take the city; move my units in to heal quickly; crush resistance quickly; and move my troops out to the next target quickly, all with little fear of flipping. Without a strong cultural base, I take the city, garrison troops outside the city, watch my troops heal slowly, wait a long time for resistors to subside, and have to eventually leave a unit or two behind to retake the city should it flip. In the meantime, without a new force moving on a new target, the AI's counter-attacking forces are concentrating on my new prize and on my units garrisoned outside my new prize. Alternatively, I spend 30 shields and a pop point to bring along a slow moving settler, raze the city and rebuild -- in this case I take a rep hit for razing and I lose whatever structures might survive the attack (barracks, granary, marketplace, etc.)

It is extremely difficult to quantify concisely and precisely the effects of early culture because its benefits are not directly visible such as having an extra archer or two -- but you've got to try it and play with it for awhile to get a taste for it. Once I did, it has become extremely hard to go back to a low or no-culture early game -- just makes for a painful mid game.

Catt

[vmxa1]

Yes barracks are required for any rush tactics, but you do not need them in all cities. Once I start with Horse type of units, I really hate to have regulars. I skip barracks in some cities that are not going to be in any front line and are not going to be making troops.
Yes Arrain would not lose 75% on monarch, no one would who had just a few clues. He was only allowing for the odds of getting a truely horrid start location and trying something that back fired. That is probably a lot less frequent than 1 out of 4.

[Dominae]

Catt, I had not considered the long-term effects of relative Culture value. However, I've never felt that it was very significant (as you claim it is) in any of my games. This might be due to the fact that I never neglect Temples entirely, I just don't prioritize them. But, in my current game as the Zulus, I've built little or no cultural improvements thus far (I can't bring myself to build any Libraries as Shaka of the Zulus), and I'm around 600AD. I plan to win this game by domination, so I'll see how difficult it is to do without any early cultural presence.


Dominae

[Catt]

Originally posted by Dominae
Catt, I had not considered the long-term effects of relative Culture value. However, I've never felt that it was very significant (as you claim it is) in any of my games. This might be due to the fact that I never neglect Temples entirely, I just don't prioritize them. But, in my current game as the Zulus, I've built little or no cultural improvements thus far (I can't bring myself to build any Libraries as Shaka of the Zulus), and I'm around 600AD. I plan to win this game by domination, so I'll see how difficult it is to do without any early cultural presence.

It's not that you can't win without early culture, it's just that early attention to cultural strength offers some definite and welcome benefits later in the game. Without early culture, your later wars are longer, more costly (in terms of units) and, for some, more frustrating (flipping). If by 600 AD I've settled on a Domination win strategy, I probably wouldn't spend any shields on culture (but would take what I get from buildings I need to keep my civ humming and reach my goal) but would just put shields towards more units.

My central point is that we all probably build temples and libraries eventually, but the tactical decision to build them very early is one that I think can be very powerful but that is often overlooked because the benefits don't seem tangible.

The same concept applies to an early, despotic GA -- lots of players are awed by a Middle Ages or Industrial Ages GA because the productive power is amazing, but many despise a despotic GA. It's very difficult to look at your civ at the advent of the Industrial Age and trace back how much of your position is owing to the ultra-early GA that enabled you to secure a sizeable early empire. For the record, I generally prefer a MIddle Ages GA, but no longer significantly discount the power of a super early GA.

Another interesting aspect to this is how our own play styles adapt and change depending on our other play style choices -- jshelr, after some naval gazing, indicates that he often brings along a couple of settlers during wartime, which is something I almost never do (but can we all say AU 107 ) -- he can play without early culture at all and never notices it is missing because he compensates with an alternative play style in another aspect of the game; I generally compensate by building early culture and forego the settlers which costs me early military strength - both ways work just fine, and it is simply a matter of specific game circumstances and, to a lesser degree, personal prefences.

On another note:

I can't bring myself to build any Libraries as Shaka of the Zulus

Catt

[Dominae]

Catt, I'll definitely have to keep a lookout for the effects of early Culture. You're right in affirming that it's an "intangible" in Civ3, which is probably why I never gave it a second thought (I like my tangibles!).


Dominae

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
..., I can beat Monarch, say, 99%. The remaining 1% concerns a very bad start position, like in SVC, but this hasn't happened yet to me so far.

Shamelessly quoting myself. Well, it hadn't happened to me so far. Now it has.

I fired up a little training game, Standard size, Monarch, everything else random. I turned out to be Egypt and live together with Rome on this lovely island (see below). Snow, hills, mountains and small patches of unirrigatable (till Electricity) grassland and plains. What a paradise.

One horse resource (on Roman turf, of course), no iron. Oh well, I love Archers anyway . Rome is gone, I'm in the early ADs, in the mid of the ancient age and most likely awfully back in tech. I made it to Map Making recently, but hadn't luck with my galleys so far.

I don't know if I can win this one, but I'll try it. I don't have much time to play these days, so it may last a while.