How Frequently Do Experienced Players Beat Monarch?

[jshelr]

Report from the Monarch trenches.

In order to get even for something, my kids gave me civ III for Xmas. I had never played a computer game before, but got hooked. This note is a progress report that might help other newbies.

In the last few weeks as a test I've played monarch games on a standard map with everything random. This produced lots of wild starting positions and a great dose of variety. The goal was a winning streak -- no cheating, no restarts, a real test. It was fun.

Conclusion: Strongly worded: MONARCH CAN'T BEAT A PLAYER WHO HAS READ AND ABSORBED THE WISDOM OF THIS FORUM. I've played bridge and chess for years and I can tell you I'm no gaming whiz. But the following principles will beat Monarch nearly every time and this is far from the only way:

1. Build early cities close together. Two spaces between to achieve a city spacing that is one roaded move for a unit between cities. The reason is that ancient era cities don't need much space to crank out units, and that is all that counts. If the AI is very close on first contact, or you are lacking in usable turf (green or irrigated plains), build with only one space between. YOU ARE NOT BUILDING CITIES TO LAST FOREVER. Would it have made since for the US pilgrims to have built cities in Boston, NY, Washington, LA, and Dallas? Nope. Cull the herd and build modern cites later, if the game's not over by then.
2. Workers are the strongest units in your army. When in doubt, have too many workers and stay ahead of your expansion.
3. Build barracks. Don't build other buildings until your neighbors have been introduced to the concept that your are in charge. This is not a civ-specific idea. Even religious civs should wait for temples until the early wars are concluded.
4. The early rush always works. I don't do warrior rushes, but admire those that do. If iron or horses show up in my area, that's neat, not necessary. Archers are cheap and powerful in large stacks. You can produce a huge early stack of archers with a couple of spears on top. That concentrated force will take out anyone. The point is not that archers are the best way but EVEN ARCHERS WILL DOMINATE THE EARLY GAME. Swords and horses are luxuries providing fun and games.
5. AI settlers can't hurt you. Let them build settlers. Build military. It's who can hold ground that counts. The AI doesn't know when to stop expanding and build its military.
6. Don't do early research. Buy tech to stay one step behind your neighbors. Beat tech out of your neighbors. This process is the equivalent of the GL for the ancient era. Use your first leader for the GL and you may not have to research anything before chemistry. The gold will flow.
7. Writing is more important that iron working. If you are going to lose, it's going to be due to bad diplomacy. Pay demands so you can control the timing of wars. Bribe for alliances. You should hardly ever be so cocky that you risk getting double teamed in early wars. Since you don't need gold for research, what else is it for other than bribery??
8. Your target is to have your continent all to yourself before monotheism. If you have succeeded, build your cities infrastructure. If you have not succeeded, don't sweat it. In that event, it's time for the chivalry detour. Build knights and finish the job.
9. The human player has a huge advantage going through the turn to the industrial era. The AI does not understand the value of ToE. Depending on how close the tech race is, you should beeline for ToE and skip all optional techs to get there. You may have plenty of gold. If so, you can buy optional techs to try for wonders.
10. In the industrial era, the human player builds a much better economy than the Monarch, unmodded AI and takes the research lead unless circumstances have kept the human player very small. In those few cases where you have not been able to get enough land, perhaps due to an isolated island start, you should make sure you get sanitation early and build pop in your cities. This is because, when all else fails, the human player can research computers early, build research labs, and outpace the AI to the SS techs even with a very small civ.
11. As an alternative, if you have the size for it, the AI doesn't get MA either. While they beeline for nukes, you beeline for SS or for super tanks, depending on the type of win you want.

So, the series of Monarch games I've just played convinced me that the human player has layers and layers and layers of safety valves. Once you have developed the skills the guys on these threads describe, many games will find you dominating from the start and sailing smoothly. Some games you will start on the desert and have to walk 8 space through the mountains to find the first patch of buildable land. Even then, you can find a way to win nearly every time.

Many experienced players respond to the lack of downside risk by trying for artistic merit in their games. That is good if it works for you. Try for the wonders. Take some risks to achieve domination earlier. Don't do the early rush and see if you can win peacefully. They are all fun.

It's back to Emperor for me. The AI has more early size advantages, along with production and research cost advantages, to make losing a realistic worry.

[Harovan]

If I really want to win and play "full tournament strength" from the beginning (cold efficience, no hazard), 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.

But who wants to play "full tournament strength" all the time. A bit hazard is fun .

[punkbass2000]

I voted 90. Nothing's perfect.

[Jawa Jocky]

I voted 100% since it's closer than 90% for me.

I actually got bored of winning all of the time (back when we had monthly tournaments that always seemed to be on Monarchy) and started to play Emperor.

Then disaster struck! I played Banana Island on Monarchy and had several really bad breaks. It's still hard to admit it, but I lost

So the only Monarchy game I've played in months I've lost, but other than that I'm a 99% winner.

[alva]

unless finishing on a 1 tile island, I don't think I would ever loose on monarch.

[Datajack Franit]

Actually you could even win on emperor finishing on a 1 tile island by playing a OCC game- but I got tired of this game, I better wait for PTW (just forget about Deity if you care about your nerves )

[vmxa1]

Nice write. The only real point I would never go along with, is the close cities. You can easy have a normal spacing at Monarch. The spacing you suggest will work, but I think it is excessive, unless the terrain is just the worst.

[jshelr]

vmax1

Thanks and you are not alone on the spacing issue where I'm on the lunatic fringe, perhaps. Ditto the unwillingness to build anything but barracks.

My point is that you don't use the extra tiles you get from wider spacing until after aqueducts and that is well after the ancient age shooting usually stops. I should add that I like small cities until a full lux compliment is available from the ocean navigation techs. After that point, I believe in widely spaced cities too. So, lots of abandoning cities after emptying them for workers to build the RR network takes place. Then they rejoin cities after hospitals. Not much is lost.

[Catt]

Excellent post and excellent no-nonsense guide to whipping Monarch (or any level for that matter). I think my win percentage is about 99% if I truly focus on a win. Probably 90% - 95% if I play my normal game.

Coupla thoughts:

Originally posted by jshelr
In order to get even for something, my kids gave me civ III for Xmas.

My brother did the same thing to me.

Many experienced players respond to the lack of downside risk by trying for artistic merit in their games. That is good if it works for you. Try for the wonders. Take some risks to achieve domination earlier. Don't do the early rush and see if you can win peacefully. They are all fun.

This is the key point / insight that caught my attention. Building cities every third tile and only building barracks, units, and workers is a recipe for success, but becomes boring pretty quickly for me. I like to attempt to simultaneously build a military, "visit" neighbors as appropriate and develop a proud and uncompromising civilian infrastructure -- only the most dire of circumstances will take me down the alternate path of homicidal early conquest. My disinterest in most Deity games is that I am all too often forced into the ruthless win scenario which becomes tiring.

Catt

[planetfall]

Don't you hate it when you lose a "long reply" because of forum update problems? But, just discovered "long reply" in tmp, ah.

Originally posted by jshelr
Report from the Monarch trenches.

In order to get even for something, my kids gave me civ III for Xmas. I had never played a computer game before, but got hooked. This note is a progress report that might help other newbies.

Me too, but you seem to have advanced faster than I did. Also hooked. Big quandary is A) pick up PTW or B) learn monarch, advance to Emperor and then get PTW. Leaning to PTW in Nov. I sure could have used this guide before current and first monarch game.

How to play Monarch-- crib sheet
================================
01. plant close cities, 2 tiles apart, cull later
02. enough workers, at least 1/city
03. barracks, at least in all border cities
04. early rush, plan for this vs builder style
05. settlers can't hurt you, welcome them and on't panic
06. don't research, buy techs. Goal is to be 1 tech behind in Ancient Era and start own research in chem.
07. Use 1st GL for GLib
08. writing more important than iron
09. milestone: sole continent before monotheism.
10. Indust--Beeline for ToE
11. Indust--2nd Sanitation.
12. Modern-- 1st: Computers for Research labs


Comments on crib notes:
#1 Yes on close cities and culling. Not sure about 2 tiles apart. I used a close space with a temporary city on a new continent just for military: barracks & workers & military only. Well actually made a mistake and put a library there. Opps, suggest if plan on putting cities close you give them a unique name so don't build incorrectly. I'll try this by using a capital T at the beginning or end of the city name.

If use jselr's plan you will have:
{Key: X=permanent city, T=temp city}

_ X _ _ T _ _ X _ pre culling
_ X _ _ o _ _ X _ post culling

Note tile 'o' cannot be utilized by either non culled city.

Alternative:

_ X _ _ T _ X _ pre culling or
_ X _ T _ _ X _

_ X _ _ _ _ X _ post culling

This is kind of like the Borg plan, city T is started a bit later and with no culture to boost military. Post culling all tiles are still available for maximum production.


#2 Ratio of 1:1 {worker to city} is rough guideline. You actually need 2-5 extras to build your military transport lanes.

#3 Only the first military unit should be before barracks. In all other cases barracks come first.

#4 Will have to adjust if edited default distance between civs. For example, I increased initial distance between civs to 20 tiles so you don't have too early of a civ elimination game. Definitely keeps you jumping. Fall back is knight or cav force to turn other civ into lemmings.

#7 Another reason writing is more important. For high culture values for your civ you want both library and temples early in your empire.

#8 If not sole continent, at least good chuck of continent at natural choke point. In some games there is only one continent.

#9 Point here may not be tech acquisition as tech reservation and delaying techs to AI

#10 I would make Sanitation 3rd priority. 2nd I would want Rep.Parts for RR-2xspeed-Inf combination. Sanitation is not really needed as much for city size as for BM. You need 5 hospitals for BM. Lack of BM can really cramp your military options.

#11 Depends on winning options. I don't have SS turned on, so beeline is for Nuclear Power. The military production capability increase when you use Nuclear power plants is awesome. AI tends to use coal or hydro, neither of which are as powerful.



Ok, that's a few cents from a new Monarch player. Great topic and suggestions. Thanks Jshelr.

-- PF

[jshelr]

Just a couple of responses for PF.

You won't run into unusable tiles as a practical consideration in the post-culling civ.

I agree that Sanitation is down the priority list -- unless you are a tiny civ trying for a come-from-behind SS win. Then you need the pop asap.

Fission is first in modern era as a matter of course. Otherwise, you don't control the UN, which is a no, no. Next up are computers for a SS or and the modern armor route for a domination win. You can trade for techs in the nuke chain. I don't think you really need more shields at this point, so I don't push Nuclear Power much. That would be a good debate, though.

[vmxa1]

jsheir, I passed on the barracks as that case is debatable. The thing that you will lose for sure is the culture from the 1000 year old temples. By RR time I would have some useful structures in some of those cities such a libs, more culture going away. On deity, I may be wiling to go that route, especially if I want to just war and make troops or my land stunk.

[DeepO]

Well, it's been a while since I played a Monarch game, let alone lose one... I'm around 100% on Emperor. Deity is something else, but somehow, even if it is challenging, it doesn't feel as good as when I just started Emperor. There I'd say I got 50/50 wins so far... it's either be crushed before 1 AD, or slowly work your way up.

I agree with the points you make, apart from #3: The first thing I build as a religious civ is a temple, sometimes even right after my initial warrior (so without any explorers). I build it always before the second settler. The reason is that with that one very early temple, you will have enough culture to safely go conquering, it will take 2000 years before the next civ gets even on culture. So... no culture flips, or you have to get a very bad RNG number, in which case you won't mind either.

DeepO

[jshelr]

vmxa1

On the barracks question, my gut hunch is that it's cost effective to add the additional hit point and, anyway, vet units need only two promotions to become GLs. That last item clinches it for me. Otherwise, I would probably not even build barracks, but just build more regular units. Early rushes are so effective that I'm really more interested in the leader production end of the business than whether the rush will succeed.

By RR, I agree, your cities should be fully built up. The pure warmonger bit is just for early continent-clearing operations. As soon as you have humbled all neighboring civs into client states, or eliminated them, build everything, by all means.

You are right on the lost culture. That might mean flipping of captured cities is a somewhat bigger problem. The cures are razing and acceptance of flipping as only a nuisance. I think the game would be better if lost culture were really a big problem for someone focused on winning. But, IMO, it is not.

[jshelr]

DeepO

We posted simultaneously. You guys are talking about something I'm not qualified to judge. 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.

Food for thought. Thanks.

[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.