Help on Monarch - FP + Victim selection

[DaveMcW]

I stick with my earlier statement. After playing a builder all game you are not going to wipe out Japan *and* Mongolia before military tradition. So wipe out the Mongols with riders and the Japanese with cavalry.

[ducki]

Dominae - I can't really delay without either crippling my treasury or starving my citizens. I could trade for Theology and steal the Sistine immediately, but it will take my entire (upgrade) treasury plus all my Per Turn income. I've reduced research so that I'm at 20-30% research and 10% luxury, making Invention complete 1 turn before my (ex-FP) Palace prebuild in Tsingtao.
I'm being badly outpaced right now, so if I slow down much more I won't have much of a chance with my Riders, I don't think.

MB - As above, I've been building my treasury somewhat, am 90% sure I'll get Leo's, and have beefed up my defenses considerably. Now, do I build more Horses or hold off and build Riders in 20-30 turns once I get Chivalry? I just don't know how much they cost to upgrade.

I have:
10 Horsemen, 5 Archers, 11 Spearmen, 2 Swordsmen, 5 Pikemen, 3 Catapults, 2 Med. Inf.
I've come from having a "Weak compared to them" to "Average" according to my advisors.

Ningpo is where Theseus said to put an outpost, I decided to hope for an invasion base instead.

Other Civs have Chivalry and Theology, though I've been trying to keep Japan poor by selling him my map occasionally, lol, so he has neither, yet. I've sold Furs to Mongols, so hopefully I can keep him happy with me.

[Datajack Franit]

Chinan of course

[Konquest02]

It costs 80 gold to upgrade horsemen to Riders. Of course, if you can get Leo's it's only 40 gold per upgrade. It's still pretty expensive...

If you attack, I would watch especially Tienstein and Anyang, as their Samurais can reach them in 1 turn. They are therefore the cities the AI will attack first.

Good luck!!

--Kon--

[ducki]

Tienstien already has a wall and if I get SunTzu's by way of bad luck, I'll switch Anyang to either a wall or another pike.
Both are on hills, IIRC.
I'm more worried about Chinan, Hangchow and Ningpo, since my defenses are weakest there - spears, archers, and horses, IIRC, though I've almost got pikes stationed there.

Looking at Japan, I think they must have gotten the Great Wall, as there's a lot of walls around their towns. Argh.



DaveMcW - I didn't purposely play builder-style. I wanted war, I was just too far away. I guess I could start a war before Chivalry and just go wreak havoc on his Iron, roads, and irrigations.

[Dominae]

Some suggestions based on your screenshot (I still have no access to Civ3):

1. All productive cities should be building Horsemen at this point. Barracks are fine (but aren't you building Sun Tzu's?); Universities and Wealth(?) are not. Pikemen and Catapults are ok too, but you really want more Horsemen than anything else.

2. Wonder pre-builds are great, but there are times when "losing" the productivity of two major cities really hurts: this is one of them. This is certainly the voice of the Dark Side, but imagine how many extra Horsemen you would have if you had not started the Palace (and how much more useful those Horsemen would be at this point).

3. Are enemy Galleys buzzing around your coast? If not (or not much), take all your defenders out of your Northern cities and move them to the front. You're going to need them.

4. Ah, the lure of The Republic! Now you're tasting the economy of a representative government, but sooner of later you're going to have to switch to Monarchy. Your enemies are too big for you to conquer without dealing with WW. Many people still knock Monarchy for non-Religious civs, which I simply do not understand. It seems the right choice to me here.

5. Start concentrating on money. I recommend getting Invention then turning your Science to zero. Riders are your only strategy now, so prepare accordingly.


Anyway, that's what I would do at this point; there are surely other commendable courses of action. Please post your results, good or bad.


Dominae

[ducki]

Originally posted by Dominae
Some suggestions based on your screenshot (I still have no access to Civ3):

1. All productive cities should be building Horsemen at this point. Barracks are fine (but aren't you building Sun Tzu's?); Universities and Wealth(?) are not. Pikemen and Catapults are ok too, but you really want more Horsemen than anything else.

See # 5. I don't even have half the cash to upgrade my existing 10 horses.

2. Wonder pre-builds are great, but there are times when "losing" the productivity of two major cities really hurts: this is one of them. This is certainly the voice of the Dark Side, but imagine how many extra Horsemen you would have if you had not started the Palace (and how much more useful those Horsemen would be at this point).

I really thought I'd get the Library - that's where SunTzu's came from.
The Palace was an FP, but I was convinced to put it elsewhere. Now it's scheduled to finish 1 turn after Invention, hopefully locking up Leo's for me.

3. Are enemy Galleys buzzing around your coast? If not (or not much), take all your defenders out of your Northern cities and move them to the front. You're going to need them.

I see the value, I'm just incapable of doing that. Edit: I've already stripped my 2 defender towns to 1. That's as far as I can go with just 1 layer of cities.

4. Ah, the lure of The Republic! Now you're tasting the economy of a representative government, but sooner of later you're going to have to switch to Monarchy. Your enemies are too big for you to conquer without dealing with WW. Many people still knock Monarchy for non-Religious civs, which I simply do not understand. It seems the right choice to me here.

I thought the extra productivity would get me into the tech race. I wish I'd gone Monarchy now.

5. Start concentrating on money. I recommend getting Invention then turning your Science to zero. Riders are your only strategy now, so prepare accordingly.

See #1. I could have had Invention in half the time, but I'm coinciding it with my Palace build to steal Leo's, I hope. After that, yes, I'll buy Chivalry and kill, kill, kill!

Anyway, that's what I would do at this point; there are surely other commendable courses of action. Please post your results, good or bad.
Dominae

I'll keep you posted. I'll give another SAV right before the war, for those that want to try taking on Mongolia first.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by ducki
See # 5. I don't even have half the cash to upgrade my existing 10 horses.

In my experience, Wealth is (almost) never the answer.


Dominae

[Mad Bomber]

Ducki:

You are right about the horseman, you will not have enough ready cash to upgrade them unless you set science to zero. I would focus on Midevial Infantry and Pikemen combos until you get riders on line, and make sure you use the terrain to your advantage, no crossing in valleys, across plains ect. Set one city to produce Pikes and another to produce MEI's. Perhaps a third city should pop out an archer or catapult every now and then. Use the available horsemen for counterattacks until you have the cash for upgrades, upgrade the wounded first. For the rest follow Arrian's advice.

I went the route of Sistines, I got the wonder but it did little for me, I should have stuck with Sun Tzu's.

Edit:
A couple of comments;

1. you can get at least 3 additional cities out of your territory, I suggest you do so, in fact you may want to consider an ICS build layout.
2. You need to maximize production! You have several flood plain tiles in you cities so mine all of the plain tiles in those cities, and why is that cow sw of beijing irrigated? it should be mined. Also you have several forest tiles, use them to produce improvements in a few turns. (especially the furs, they can be deforested, then mined and you will not lose a single shield or food)

[ducki]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber
1. you can get at least 3 additional cities out of your territory, I suggest you do so, in fact you may want to consider an ICS build layout.

I'm already uncomfortable with the number of shared tiles I have in places, but recognize it as a necessary "evil". Bear in mind I'm still a builder and city-placement perfectionist at heart. These overlapped cities are a huge step for me. I surely can't do ICS - yet.

2. You need to maximize production! You have several flood plain tiles in you cities so mine all of the plain tiles in those cities, and why is that cow sw of beijing irrigated? it should be mined. Also you have several forest tiles, use them to produce improvements in a few turns. (especially the furs, they can be deforested, then mined and you will not lose a single shield or food)

Right now I'm maximizing Gold. I had to buy Chivalry because Japan finally got it, but I waited long enough that it was only ~300 gold, leaving me enough money to upgrade about 2/3 of my horses off the bat.
I've got several catapults, a few Archers a handful of MedInf, a couple of "extra" pikes, 8 or so Riders, another 6 or 8 horses, 2 workers and 1 settler for my Invasion Force.

Anyway, if I'd maximized Production over Gold, I might have gotten the Library, but I really needed the money for my Riders. Now that I've done a round of upgrades, I can switch to shields asap. The Cow was a Despotism leftover, but until I get a worker back up there, I'm stuck with it, otherwise, I'll have starvations. For now, most of my workers are ensuring I have roads everywhere along my Japanese borders.

I just declared war, but here's the save right before I bought Chivalry for anyone that wants to try taking the Mongols instead. Japan just got Chivalry, doesn't have money for upgrades, has 3 connected Irons, and should be semi-easy until they get some Samurai in the field. By then, I hope to have taken Nagoya, Kagoshima, and Izumo. Kagoshima simply because I don't want Temujin to get it if he joins in.

I bought Chivalry and upgraded on this turn.
Next turn, I declared war and moved to take Nagoya while moving some Archers to my back flanks due to a pair of Japanese Galleys on my NW shoreline. Gah!

[ducki]

Originally posted by ducki
I have:
10 Horsemen, 5 Archers, 11 Spearmen, 2 Swordsmen, 5 Pikemen, 3 Catapults, 2 Med. Inf.

Well, I was able to upgrade 7 or 8 of my horses at the start of the war, due to some serious tile micromanagement as well as selling my world map every few turns for as little as 1gold - every little bit I could get, every time I could get it. I still ended the war with only about a dozen Riders.

I made a pretty big mistake, IMO, with how I waged the war.

I wanted to take cities as fast as possible, and since Nagoya was within striking distance of Tatung and Tientsin, where most of my Riders were, I attacked with 1 at a time until Nagoya fell, then sent in a Pike.

Then I sent a couple of MedInf and a pair of Riders to Izumo as well as a small detachment to Kagoshima. My full strength Nagoya Riders headed for the Iron near Nagasaki. Kagoshima took 4 turns to take, as I had a staggered arrival of Riders, Izumo took 2 turns but left me badly wounded. I shuffled some Pikes around to get one from Tientsin to Izumo asap.

The plan was to use the minimum number of units to do the maximum amount of damage, but with 3 movement, what I should have done is concentrate on either Kagoshima or Izumo after Nagoya, not both.
Since Japan had 3 connected Iron, I should not have tried to cut just 1. I lost 2 riders and an Elite Med Inf and an Elite Sword on that ill-conceived mission.

When you have a mobility advantage, you don't need to separate your forces to strike in as many different places at once, as you can outrun the enemy to your next target.

Had I sued for peace as soon as Japan was ready to give me Theology along with it, I could have saved half a dozen units, including 3 Elites, and I could have used the majority of my GA on infrastructure instead of Riders and Pikes.

No leaders, low casualties, I call it mostly successful. The FP is almost done, and I'm 11 turns away from Leo's. If I get both Leo's and can deny either Japan or Mongolia Saltpeter, I believe I've won.

Here's the latest screen.

[BRC]

That looks good Ducki!

That was a pretty small army that you kept on-hand, especially with the Chinese. It was good to see that a small mobile force is sufficient for hit-and-run tactics, and for grabbing just enough territory to get your two productive cores. You've got it locked up now?? Good job.

[ducki]

I wouldn't quite say "locked up", but if I get Leo's I'm pretty sure I can take my whole continent, which should leave me sitting pretty for the rest of the game with a bit of work. I've got tech parity, now I just need a lead.

Unfortunately, Japan and Mongolia both have Saltpeter, but once my FP goes up, I should be able to seriously outproduce everyone else.

[Theseus]

Ducki... THIS IS IMPORTANT!

Japan and the Mongols need to be at war! Were you able to negotiate an alliance against Japan? If not, you need to go to war against the Mongols and bring Japan into it.

[ducki]

Mongolia was too expensive.

I have seen Mongol Horsemen, instead of Keshiks, though, so they are next on the chopping block.

I got Leo's, btw, so my cash troubles are greatly lessened.