OK, Emperor is ripping me a new one, repeatedly. I can win all kinds of ways on Monarch, but everything I try at Emperor just seems to be too slow to match the AI. I would be extremely grateful if some players who are successful, or at least competitive, on standard Emperor maps could play the first 100 turns or so of this start and compare their thinking to mine. (Please, no suggestions if you haven't played Emperor or if you only play with tweaked settings.)

The game is Standard Continents as Qin. I've played the first 50 turns and will post those as a spoiler next - I won't say anything except that the start is not degenerate in any particular way. Fairly middle-of-the-road. Here's the start:

http://www.sophrosune.org/civ/Emperor-Start/start.jpg

(Those are sugar fields next to the warrior, if it's not clear.)

Of particular interest to me is when and how people decide on their longer-term goals. While I think that coming in to the game with a strategy set in stone is foolish, I feel like I'm constantly reacting to what comes at me rather than taking control. I need to find the right point to assess the game and starting shaping events.

The save is attached. Thanks for any help you can provide.

Inside the spoiler box is a pretty detailed SG-style turnlog for my first 50 turns. The save after turn 50 is also attached. Comments welcome, but of course I'd prefer people play the start unspoiled first. I'll play the next 50 later today.


Turn 1 (4000 BC) - Warrior explores NW, settle Beijing in place, Beijing->Warrior, research BW to see copper and chop

3 (3920 BC) - Gold from hut, research to 100%

(Met Cyrus somewhere in here, didn't note the turn)

13 (3520 BC) - Beijing Warrior->Worker, Warrior explores S

15 (3440 BC) - W Warrior survives Lion attack, waits to heal on hill

17 (3360 BC) - Buddhism founded in a distant land

18 (3320 BC) - Learn BW. No copper in sight, as usual. Research the Wheel, for roads and pottery.


At this point, I don't see stone/marble anywhere in sight. Not many forests either, but lots of jungle. So I'm thinking that an early wonder will be a resource waste and that I'm better off heading to Iron Working reasonably soon in order to clear jungle and then get Metal Casting for cheap forges. Maybe that will get me enough production to field a reasonable army to beat up on Cyrus, who's always a big builder but has the advantage of early immortals.


23 (3120 BC) - W warrior is healed, sets off toward Cyrus.

25 (3040 BC) - Beijing Worker->Warrior. Cyrus adopts Slavery. Worker moves to chop 1S of Beijing - it's not clear to me that any chop location is clearly better than others.


I really don't like the expansion possibilities here. The dotmap (in the attached screenshot) is best I can see. The plan is to settle the SW site first, which gets cows, dyes, and ivory, and then backfill to the coastal spot by the fish. Eventually, try to settle in the western jungle, but I don't see any site there that could be immediately productive. Unfortunately, the SW site is right on Persepolis, so it's highly likely that Cyrus will get there first. And even if he doesn't, his culture will push on that city pretty hard. It's just about guaranteeing a fight with him, but that looks to be the way things will go anyway.


26 (3000 BC) - S warrior moves towards city site to keep fog and barbs away. W warrior starts moving around Persepolis to look for more contacts.

27 (2960 BC) - Learn Wheel, research Hunting - I'd rather go for Pots, but without Copper I feel like I have to start working towards archers. Fog-busting warriors aren't enough.

28 (2920 BC) - Warrior beats Panther, takes Combat I promo, and heals.

29 (2880 BC) - Beijing Warrior->Warrior. Worker moves to chop for a Settler. New warrior moves W to fogbust. Turn research down to 90% - still gets Hunting in 4, -1gpt w/12g in the bank. SW warrior reaches city site and will fortify.

30 (2840 BC) - Beijing Warrior->Settler. New warrior fortifies in Beijing.

32 (2760 BC) - Chop finishes, still 10 turns to a Settler, but there are only two forests left - I feel like I'll have to wait. Worker will move to irrigate the rice.

33 (2720 BC) - Hinduism founded in a distant land - I'm surprised it took so long. Learn Hunting, research Mysticism - we'll definitely need an obelisk for our new city.

34 (2680 BC) - Cyrus converts to Hinduism - he was the founder. That could be helpful, if I convert to keep him friendly for a while and then take him over along with the holy city.

38 (2520 BC) - Worker finishes the rice farm. I notice there's a forest tile just outside Beijing's radius to the NW - I probably should have chopped that. I'll head there now and use it for another worker while I'm waiting on Pots and Archers. Turn research back to 80%, still have Mysticism in 4, breaking even with 3g in the bank.

41 (2400 BC) - Beijing Settler->Worker. W warrior moves slightly to give the Settler an unfogged path - looks safe. Far W warrior barely survives a barb warrior despite jungle cover, will take 10 turns to heal. There's an absolute ton of land out here, but I still haven't met anyone but Cyrus. Crap, a barb warrior has shown up near my chopping worker - Beijing's warrior should be able to cover this, but it's going to delay the chop a couple of turns.

42 (2360 BC) - Odd, the barb wandered off. Beijing warrior will move one away in order not to get too far from the city. Learn Mysticism. Pots or Archery, Pots or Archery? I'm afraid - Archery in 11.

44 (2280 BC) - Settler reaches location. Chop finishes, worker will start on roads and improvements for Beijing. New worker (due in 2) will head to new city.

45 (2240 BC) - Shanghai founded. Work for only 1fpt in order to get the obelisk out 5 turns sooner. Our economy stinks - 50% research to break even, Archery in 11 again. This sucks. There's not a single tile I can work that would get the financial bonus, even if I had Pots.

46 (2200 BC) - Judaism founded in a distant land. Beijing Worker->Warrior - I'd like one more fogbuster for the south.

47 (2160 BC) - MM Beijing a bit so that it will grow at the same time as the Warrior is produced. That way, Beijing warrior can move S and we won't have any revolts.

50 (2040 BC) - Shanghai worker starts chopping a forest before I realize that I'll need it for the hammer-poor third city. Drat. I cancel the order immediately after, but that costs me 2 turns on the Shanghai obelisk. Not a huge mistake, but a stupid one.


50 turns have gone by, and I already feel like I have no momentum. I have a whopping 4 population points, no luxes for at least 15 turns, and a crappy economy. Seems even worse than other Emperor starts I've tried. And yet I don't see anything obvious that I could have done differently. Taking Pots over Archery is the obvious candidate, I guess. But I'm surprised that Barb archers haven't shown up already - they surely can't be far off. Frustrating...

I'm nothing special at Emperor - I've got one game ongoing where I'm holding my own, but that's about it. Anyway, here's what I did:

Edit: I updated it to 83 ;) turns. The 100-turn save is further down.



I didn't keep a log, so this is a bit more generic than yours.

Founded Beijing in place. Built worker -> warrior -> warrior -> barracks (partial) -> settler. Basically, after the initial worker was built, I got Shanghai to max size (4) as soon as possible before starting the settler. I chopped 1 forest to speed the settler, then went barracks (finish) -> worker -> warrior. I founded my 2nd city (Shanghai) in 2320 BC between the horses and cattle. Not an ideal city placement, but without mysticism I didn't want to wait 20+ turns to get those resources that settling on the coast would have meant.

My worker in Beijing pastured the cows, then mined the eastern hill, then farmed the rice, chopped a forest (for the settler), mined the other hill, then started roading (towards Shanghai.)

My initial warrior headed south, met Cyrus quickly (~3600 BC) and popped 2 goody huts (netting gold each time.) The gold allowed me to keep research @80-100% for the entire 50 turns. The first warrior I built headed West, and I met Julius Caesar ~2800 BC. I had several attacks from panthers/lions and I saw my first barb archer ~2600 BC (yikes!) He killed one warrior but lost to the 2nd. I've just managed (in 2000 BC) to get the horses connected for chariots.

Tech path: Animal Husbandry (to work the cattle/reveal horses) -> Bronze Working (forests/axes - but no copper :( ) -> The Wheel (roads/chariots) -> hunting -> archery (saw the barb archers and wanted *something* for defense)

Overall, it's not a great starting position. It's not bad, but the lack of nearby copper really hurt. Beijing is a pretty nice city location actually. 10 hammers at size 4 is nice, and you can build a settler there in 8 turns. Having Cyrus as a neighbor is a real drag though. You can see in my save that his culture is already crowding Shanghai. If I continued playing the game, I think I'd *have* to start a war with him or risk having my cities eaten by his culture. Sitting back peacefully probably means scrabbling around for scraps until someone comes to wipe me out. Unfortunately, the lack of copper means that an axe rush is out. That leaves essentially 3 options I can see: 1) chariot rush - probably ill-advised since the cities will have pretty good cultural defense, +40% or so bonuses by the time I get there 2) Go for IW and cross my fingers there's iron nearby or 3) go for HBR and rush with Horse Archers. Of course all of these options carry pretty big risks, but I guess that's what Emperor is all about. :D

EDIT: I saw you were looking for 100, so I played on a bit more:

Turns 50-100:

Now that I had horses hooked up, I started spamming chariots. Beijing produced non-stop chariots, and after it finished its barracks, Shanghai did the same.

I had a few more barb archers show up west of Beijing, but I took care of them with a couple of Woodlands I warriors. I also saw a couple of barbs to the south along the coast, so I sent my first chariot down there to investigate. I found a barb city (Assyrian) along the coast. The city had a cow and a gold mine in its initial city radius, so I decided I wanted it. Because these barbs seemed to be particularly stupid, they decided to send their archer out of the city against my chariots instead of defending. I took the city easily, making a total of 3. I also noticed, after I took the city, that there was a source of copper west of Assyrian. I built a settler in Beijing to claim it, but other events intervened before I did.

I set my research to Iron Working when I reloaded the 2000 BC save. It was a gamble that didn't pay off, but still proved useful. When I discovered Iron Working in 975 BC, I saw that Cyrus had 2 sources of iron. One, near Susa, was already hooked up. He had just hooked it up, since I had only seen a spear in one Persepolis the turn before I discovered IW. I knew that if I wanted to have a shot at taking out Cyrus, I needed to act soon.

I declared on Cyrus in 925 BC. My initial assault was on the iron resources. 2 chariots were able to take out the archer guarding the iron mine and pillage it. In the north, near Arbela, another chariot captured a worker mining that iron. My initial plan was to capture Arbela and Susa, but I saw a stack of archers moving to reinforce Susa, so I changed my plans. My southern thrust headed for Persepolis instead.

Persepolis was guarded by 2 archers and a spear, and when my chariots approached the city, the spear attacked (and lost!) I had 7 full strength chariots against 2 archers, and even that was close. I lost 5 assaulting the city. Cyrus had reinforcements (including a sword!) approaching at that point, so I razed his capital in 850 BC rather than risking him taking it back. I promoted the 2 victorious chariots with shock and managed to take out (hopefully) Cyrus's only sword.

Things didn't go so well in the north. :( I assaulted Arbela with 5 full strength chariots and failed to kill either of the archers defending there. I had to lick my wounds and pull my forces back pending reinforcements.

All in all, it's not going great, but I think I'm doing ok. I think destroying Persepolis really put a hurt on Cyrus - his score dropped by 150 points. I also stole 2 of his workers. I'll probably see if I can't fight a defensive/pillaging war for a few turns and see if I can get him to sign a peace treaty. That would give me enough time to get started producing axes, but it would probably take him the whole 10 turns just to get his iron hooked back up. With axes vs. archers, the war turns from a stalemate to a pretty solid thing. I don't necessarily want to destroy Cyrus, just take away his iron and make sure he's not a threat to me in the future.



Here's the 2000 BC save:

Thanks, Grogs! I'll hold off looking at it until I complete 100, which should be done pretty soon. I think I'm starting to see some angles here.

OK, finished the second 50.


51 (2000 BC) - Beijing Warrior->Settler - I may want to interrupt it for an Archer when that finally comes in.

55 (1840 BC) - Shanghai Obelisk->Barracks, though I think I'll interrupt it for an Archer.

56 (1800 BC) - Far W warrior finally makes another contact, with Caesar - he's in between me and Cyrus. Learn Archery, Pots in 17, ugh...

58 (1720 BC) - Shanghai worker starts new chop, Shanghai switches to Archer.

59 (1680 BC) - Warrior near Rome killed by Barb archer.

60 (1640 BC) - Shanghai Archer->Barracks.

63 (1520 BC) - Beijing Settler->Barracks. I think that the spot near the western cow and rice is more useful than I had earlier thought (see screenshot). Since the southern coastal site is nearly safe within my borders, I decide to go there instead. But I may need to let the Settler wait for a few turns until Pots is in, otherwise maintenance will be atrocious.

65 (1440 BC) - Shanghai Barracks->Archer

66 (1400 BC) - A distant civ completes Stonehenge - surprised it took so long. With much trepidation (over upkeep), I click Build City and now equal Cyrus and Caesar in number of cities. Pots in 16!!! Holy hell, I hope the nearly completed trade routes help with this.

68 (1320 BC) - Wow, the trade route gets me to Pots in 7. That's a relief. Get a worker going on connecting Guangzhou, which only needs one more road.

69 (1280 BC) - Hinduism spreads to Shanghai. That could be useful, though I can't see it being worth a revolution yet. I'll wait for it to spread a bit more on its own.

72 (1160 BC) - Beijing Barracks->Archer. Shanghai Archer->Archer.

73 (1120 BC) - A distant civ completes the Oracle.

75 (1040 BC) - I accept Open Borders from Cyrus - I've got nowhere to box him out of really. If he wants to spread more Hinduism, he's welcome to it. Beijing riots, because I forgot to turn off growth, but I'll have Ivory hooked soon. Beijing Archer->Worker. Learn Pots, research Animal Husbandry in 23 (!!!).

76 (1000 BC) - Take Open Borders from Caesar as well.

79 (925 BC) - Guangzhou Obelisk->Granary, health is tough right now.

80 (900 BC) - A distant civ completes the Pyramids. Yowch... Shanghai Archer->Archer. Shanghai warrior moves SE to explore what looks like another Persian settlement.

81 (875 BC) - Beijing Worker->Settler, I want to be ready to grab the 4th site if necessary. Caesar converts to Judaism.


OK, I can see some angles here. Cyrus is a strong builder, but a weak warmonger. If Caesar starts swarming Cyrus with Praetorians, I might have a good window of opportunity, especially since I'm next door to Persepolis. I can't imagine doing that without Cats, which are still a long ways off, but it seems possible.


82 (850 BC) - Ivory is finally hooked. Worker moves to chop some of what will soon be Cyrus's forests. I love doing that. The exploring warrior continues on to scope out Cyrus's territory.

(Shanghai Granary->Archer somewhere in here)

91 (625 BC) - Shanghai Archer->Archer, nothing else to build so at least let's make sure we have Archers w/Garrison all around. Beijing Settler->Granary. Settler moves toward the fourth site (originally the third, near the southern fish) and will fortify there until I can afford a new city (and have Fishing, for that matter).

94 (550 BC) - Confucianism is founded in a distant land.

95 (525 BC) - Learn Animal Husbandry, research Fishing. There are Horses right next to the proposed fourth city, not bad. But I sure hope there's Iron somewhere, too. There are more Horses a bit west of Guangzhou, but not really a very good city location for them.

96 (500 BC) - Damn. Lookout Warrior spots a Persian galley headed for my southern horses. I'll have to found city #4 in no more than another turn or two, even though I can't afford it and don't have Fishing.

97 (475 BC) - Shanghai Archer->Worker, since that fourth city will need work. Persian settler hasn't made landfall yet.

98 (450 BC) - Beijing Granary->Archer. Strange, the Persian galley is passing me by. I wonder where they're headed?

100 (400 BC) - The Persian galley has continued on and is now passing by Beijing. Maybe they're headed for the horses in the west, but why not do that via land?


Well, I'm now 100 turns in and last place in everything. I have 3 (soon to be 4) cities compared to Cyrus's 6 and Caesar's 5. I'm last place in every statistic. But I actually feel like I might have some sort of plan at this point - wait for the inevitable war between Caesar and Cyrus, and then backstab the Persians. That seems doable - even if he has Macemen by then, I'll at least have Cho-Ko-Nu's to work with. I think I have to take Writing next for Libraries, and then probably Iron Working, but maybe there will be some trade possibilities if I go for something like CoL instead. At least I have horses, which is a change of pace. Happiness is really a problem, though. Hopefully, I can trade my fish and cows to someone, but I see a lot of duplicates out there in the continent. Certainly it's still a tough road ahead.

Here's mine after 50 turns. I've checked other saves, it seems I have different plan :)

Fascinating. Not only did we take different paths, but the AI's developed quite differently as well. But that's probably just the RNG at work more than any effect of choices we made. I compared the games to see how various statistics stacked up, but they're nearly identical in terms of units, population, score, etc. The only significant difference in stats is that Grogs' turns accumulated 521 total beakers compared to my 484 - that extra hut (I only got 1) created roughly a 12% increase in total science over the first 50 turns. But the real differences between the turnsets are in the longer-term strategic implications. Grogs, I hope you can play another 50 before reading my spoiler, but if you'd rather not, I understand. Thanks for trying the game.

I hope some other players join in - I think this could be really instructive to lots of people (certainly is for me) without being nearly as time-consuming as a full-on Succession Game. Speaking of which, does anybody know of any Emperor SG's going on at the moment? They looked to be all < Monarch when I looked through them.

I think that your going for Husbandry first made more sense than my BW. There just weren't many forests around to chop, and the cows were known from the start. At the same time, I got Myst instead and that's going to make a difference, especially given our differences in placing Shanghai. As far as that goes, I think that my site is decidedly stronger. You'll have early horses, but are pretty much limited to only one more strong city along the northern coast. I'll have Ivory, a much needed lux, and more importantly made space for another city on the coast south of Beijing. Part of this is that your scouts missed uncovering the fish 2S of Beijing's rice, so it wouldn't have even looked like a good location. At the same time, if your site is pushing a war with Cyrus, then mine is practically smacking him upside the head. Also, if I had gone for AH first, which I really think makes good sense, I'm not sure I would have had the guts to settle Shanghai where I did because I would have wanted the horses. As I played it, I basically figured I wouldn't have horses by delaying AH so much later and was completely gambling on having Iron in my borders.

Wow, totally different plan indeed. And a lot stronger one from what I can see - I think your position, not having looked yet at the 100 turn save you just posted, looks the most promising of the three. Could you elaborate on your tech path? Thanks for playing the game - extremely educational.

OK, if I can read your plays correctly, you're basically taking advantage of the coast - by researching to Sailing, you're lessening the need for roads (instant trade routes), and thus don't need the Wheel or a second worker. That gets you a third settler/city while we only got two, and lets you research both AH and Mysticism as well. Extremely cool. And of course it plays into the financial bonus by opening up coastal tiles early. Is that basically what you're thinking?

One reason I asked about your tech path is that I'm curious about your military plan. At the moment, you're relying entirely on fog-busting warriors to stop barbs - you have no techs toward Archery, no copper, and the horses won't be in your borders for some time yet. I recently learned the value of fog-busters, but I guess I'm too fearful to go for so long with only warriors. Whenever I see that I'm without copper or horses (which seems to be always), I go for Hunting next.

And 100 turn save....

How do you that 'hidden' spoiler thing?

How do you that 'hidden' spoiler thing?
You use {spoiler}...{/spoiler} tags, but with square brackets.

I'd say the biggest difference (I have eight or so Emperor wins, and one Immortal) is that I always build a worker or workboat first, and concentrate on getting my food bonuses up and running ASAP.

Oops, I just realized (after looking at the date on Alexti's save) that 800 BC is 100 turns on *epic,* not normal. I guess I'll play 17 more and see if it goes south or not. ;)

Holy crap! At 50 turns, alexti2's start looked significantly better. At 100 turns, the difference is monumental, absolutely night and day. And it makes sense - I can see why those pieces fit together the way they do. Awesome.

@Grogs: I look forward to seeing that 100 turn save. But I fear that it's going to be a lot closer to my result than to his.

@alexti2: How much would your strategy differ if you had a different immediate neighbor?

Before I start I'll say that I'm still trying to get over the jump between Monarch and Emperor, and I normally play on Epic, but enough excuses here it is, my empire in 2000BC (http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/1866/2000bc4kv.jpg)


I was going to make a proper log, but messed up the turn numbers, so here's a rough description:
Settle on start location, build a worker. Start researching AH, as there aren't enough forests around to really take advantage of BW. Go exploring with the warrior. I popped a scout from the closest hut, which is a nice result, and sent them off in opposite directions (scout south, warrior west).
After meeting Cyrus I pop 2 more huts, one with gold, and one with a map, so I put the research up to 100%. Once AH was done I researched BW. The worker was done the same turn, and went to build a pasture on the cows. After that it was time for 2 more warriors, timed so that the 2nd would finish at the same time that Beijing reached size 3, when I started a settler, only chopping one forest.

After BW was done I researched the Wheel, and after that Pottery, switching to slavery the turn I got it. The build order after the first settler in my capital then went: Warrior--> Settler --> Barracks, starting a worker in Shanghai. I'd just founded Guangzhau in 2000BC, starting a warrior there (The starting warrior and scout both being dead by now). As you can see my research is down to 40%, which does not make me think too highly of the possibility of doing well here.



Edit: Arg, I've just realised what a mistake that 3rd city spot was after looking at Alexti2s 50 turn save:mad: :sad:
I'll play the next 50-100 turns either now or tomorrow afternoon when I get up

This is not someone's sick idea to get us to do his homework for him, is it? :P

I uninstalled civ IV and lent it to a friend... but I'll try and get it back soon. I have civ III sitting here, and I feel like I can't go back to it.

I've put the capital at the starting point. I wanted to stay on the coast and near fresh water and other alternatives would make too little production. I didn't want to gamble on lucky search and settled right there. I've started worker->few warriors->2 settlers. I think, I've built barracks somewhere in between (while waiting for the population to grow).

My first warrior quickly found Cyrus and scouted general layout of land. Research was animal husbandry (for the capital), then bronze working. Without copper, I've decided that I'm not going into an early war and my warriors have just established perimeter for defense picking hill/jungle spots.

The jungle in the middle was kind of protection me from quick early invasion, so I've just build enough warriors to discourage AI from attacking.

My next step was to establish decent economy. So I've found 2 cities on the coast (one fish-cow and another lake-cow-rice-hills). I've researched mysticism (for obelisks), chop-rushed obelisks in both new cities.

I continued research to fishing-sailing (which gave me trade routes with my own cities - they were working coast/lake tiles initially to pay off their maintenance). As I their borders expanded I was able to exploit resources and switch those cities into full growth mode. Meanwhile I've constructed lighthouse in the capital while researching masonry and then proceeded to Great Lighthouse (I needed to exploit industrious trait somehow, after all).

In the new cities, northern was designated as military center (as I got cows improved I could get hills worked, so this city looked good for decent production), so I've built barracks there. Southern city was designated as science city, but I've built worker and settler there and founded another city to the south west (cow+clams+ a lot of hills) which got also military assignment (Cyrus has managed to cover cows by his culture, but chances of getting it back are probably decent, anyway clams+hills work well for now).

I continued research to writing-hunting-archery-alphabet, so that my military city could switch to archer production and science city could get a library. The prospect of the capital didn't look too good, and I wanted to make it eventually into specialist city (with all that food), so I went for Pyramids (anyway, there wasn't many things I could build there). I've got beaten by couple of turns, but the gold will allow me to run 100% science for quite a while, so that's not too bad (I would prefer Pyramids though).

So I've done some tech trading and mostly caught up technologically with Persia and Rome. Now it's 8 turns to Compass (and harbors) and financially things look in a good shape.

Somewhere along the way I've done some good resource trades that allowed me to grow my cities.

That's the state of things at 100 turn mark.

My further plans:
- I don't plan to go to war until catapults, but I will keep producing units in my 2 military cities
- I hope to plant couple more cities along the coast (there're spots in the north and in the south). In worst case, I have some room within my current borders where I could hook some food resources and make another city.
- Compass will buy me mathematics, and then I'll probably be able to trade for few missing older techs as well. Then it's to the monarchy, currency and construction and feudalism. Perhaps I will be able to get one or two of them by trade. With hereditary rule and vassalage I will go into war mode and take over Persia (with lots of catapults). I will use the Great merchant (from Lighthouse) either to get a tech (if that's one I can trade to AI) or to finance my research.
- I need more scouting to decide whether I want to do invasion by sea or by land, and so, whether I need to build galleys or not.
- As my cultural borders grow, stand-by fishing boat will try to cross the sea and reach other nations.

Wow, totally different plan indeed. And a lot stronger one from what I can see - I think your position, not having looked yet at the 100 turn save you just posted, looks the most promising of the three. Could you elaborate on your tech path? Thanks for playing the game - extremely educational.



OK, if I can read your plays correctly, you're basically taking advantage of the coast - by researching to Sailing, you're lessening the need for roads (instant trade routes), and thus don't need the Wheel or a second worker. That gets you a third settler/city while we only got two, and lets you research both AH and Mysticism as well. Extremely cool. And of course it plays into the financial bonus by opening up coastal tiles early. Is that basically what you're thinking?

Yep, you're reading it right. 2F3C instead of 2F1C coast tiles is a real ace of financial trait, so I definitely want to use it. It also gives me flexibility of switching worked tiles between food, hills, forests and coast to time my research and construction in sync (and it gives me a headache of micromanaging it - city governor is useless for this purpose). Plus, I need coast to get harbors and hook sea resource which will give me a lot of income and health.


One reason I asked about your tech path is that I'm curious about your military plan. At the moment, you're relying entirely on fog-busting warriors to stop barbs - you have no techs toward Archery, no copper, and the horses won't be in your borders for some time yet. I recently learned the value of fog-busters, but I guess I'm too fearful to go for so long with only warriors. Whenever I see that I'm without copper or horses (which seems to be always), I go for Hunting next.

It depends on terrain. With so many jungle and hill tiles, fortified warriors are pretty good. I got a promotion on few of them (forest/jungle defense) from early attacks from animals and barbs (and some were built after barracks) and used those warriors to cover critical directions. They're something like 4-5 strength in defense (+20 promotion, +50 or 75 terrain +25 fortified). That's why I set them in a perimeter. And a bit later Cyrus protects me from barbarians on most fronts. So I postponed archery a bit until I got more important techs researched (and until my military centers are ready and with barracks).

If you're afraid of AI attack at this stage, it's very unlikely, they would lose too much troops trying to take your warriors in those jungles, it also takes a long time to get anywhere across this terrain. You just need to have enough troops so not to appear weak. Besides, I've not build a city in a Persia's sore spot (near ivory and dye), so they have much less reasons to attack me.

Now that I've done my math correctly, here's my 100-turn save. :D

It's pretty much what I said I would do in the spoiler section of the last post, so I won't elaborate on the last 17 turns unless someone really wants me to.

@alexti2: How much would your strategy differ if you had a different immediate neighbor?
Not that much. If I had aggressive neighbour I would build more warriors. I don't think running to archery early is justified. Warriors can get forest/jungle promotion which archers can not, so the difference between them at that terrain is minimal and I'd rather have more cheap warriors.

Before this game, I wouldn't chop-rush obelisks if I didn't have creative neighbour, but now I'm starting to think that chop-rushing obelisks is probably good idea with any neighbour. For 5-6 turns of worker (to get there and 3 to chop) you get quick culture expansion and don't have to compromise city location to get near the resource.

Here's mine after 100 turns


As soon as the horses were connected, and the rax done in Beijing I started building chariots. I saw a worker on the edge of Cyrus' territory (near Susa in my game) so declared war and captured it. I then sent a chariot to just generally cause a nuisance around Persepolis. Once I had 5 chariots I attacked Susa, to take the Ivory, losing 3 in the process (it was only defended by 2 archers, so quite a lucky result). I made peace with Cyrus after that, while I built more chariots, and chopped another of the forests near Beijing for a Library.

My research after I finished Pottery went: Fishing--> Mysticism --> Writing --> Iron Working (not finished yet, and I'm praying for iron to be somewhere close to me and away from the Romans ATM). Unfortunately I think the Romans might be getting a good tech lead, as they've founded Confuciansim.

My next target will be to make sure that the Persians don't connect any horses up, and then to capture their cities (there's 3 gold squares that I want at the south of the continent), hopefully using swordsmen, although it might end up being with horse archers:(

Edit: I don't normally research archery very early anyway, but after seeing this start it just didn't even occur to me to go for it early. Starting next to Cyrus I didn't imagine there'd be much room for barbs to spawn in early on, although it is a big risk, as even a couple of barb axemen could really do a lot of damage when all you have is chariots and warriors

Alexti2: That's a pretty awesome start. I do believe we took *exactly* opposite starts. Mine was pretty much geared to military and yours to everything else. I guess maybe I've been sneak attacked by Alexander a few too many times to try that peaceful of a start. The difference is telling. While my economy is falling apart, even with a gold mine being worked, yours is booming.

I have to agree with ch that your fishing->sailing->Great Lighthouse is really powerful. Did you manage to get all the 1st & 2nd teir techs through trade or were you able to research most of them on your own. I don't think I've ever come as close to tech parity with the AI's as you have that early in an Emperor game.

I'm dropping the spoiler boxes at this point - I doubt anyone not playing the game will read this far into the thread.

@colony: Yeah, Guangzhou misses the rice and a hill or two. alexti2 had the right idea going for production there. But not a huge deal. It still looks like a pretty solid start to me, better than mine in cities, though your economy is starting to tank just like mine did. (Later...) Just saw your 100-turn save - good work on the Chariot offensive. Nice, focused military strategy - you got yourself some Ivory, but you've still got your cities and cottages developing back at home. Looks promising - good balance between cottage builder and desperate warmonger.

@Grogs: Impressive. There's no way I would have had the guts to go for a chariot rush with only two cities behind it. Given how far you managed to push it, you must be a strong tactician. Your economy is looking pretty grim, though. Go, go, Pots!

@alexti2: It's usually more barbs that I'm concerned about rather than AI attacks, unless I'm next to Montezuma or some other nutjob. But I can see how this map in particular gives you lots of great defensive posts and that the ever-expanding AI will quickly deprive barbs of land. Like I said, I think I'm starting to really use scouting to my advantage now. I'm just not sure how far I can go without Archery. Looks like the answer is pretty far, at least in certain circumstances. I'm surprised you went for the Pyramids after the Lighthouse, but that explains how you got all that money (I was kind of wondering about that...).

Of the attempts so far, I definitely think alexti2's start is the strongest. I could say that just by comparing 100-turn saves, but what I think is more important is that his strategy plays right into Qin's strengths - the city plan, tech path, Industrious bonus to the Great Lighthouse, and Financial bonus all fit together like clockwork. Very elegant. And harbors are just going to keep the ball rolling. Grogs' start, even if the conquest yields good dividends later on, is making Qin into a warmonger he's not. colony's is solid, though still quite a bit behind alexti2's tech-wise in addition to having an enemy for a neighbor. As for me, I was just dorking around without a plan, as usual. And that got me nothing, as usual.

I learned a huge amount comparing these games - thank you Grogs, alexti2, and colony. Hopefully, some more players will give the start a try.

Wow, after looking at Alexti2's game the difference in the starting approach really does show:blush: . I suppose I still haven't managed to get out of my Civ3 approach to the early game yet (running out of room? go and start a war :rolleyes: ), and I think that might be part of my problem in adjusting to Civ4.

I guess maybe I've been sneak attacked by Alexander a few too many times to try that peaceful of a start.
Cyrus is a pretty peaceful guy, unless maybe you've got a religious conflict going. I really wasn't too worried about him. But that's why I was asking before about how/if alexti2's start would differ depending on neighbors. Tricky business, there...
I have to agree with ch that your fishing->sailing->Great Lighthouse is really powerful.
What's really cool is how it spins out into early builds and research. It's all about the trade routes - no need for roads = no Wheel = less workers = more settlers = more commerce. Beautiful.

Alexti2: That's a pretty awesome start. I do believe we took *exactly* opposite starts. Mine was pretty much geared to military and yours to everything else. I guess maybe I've been sneak attacked by Alexander a few too many times to try that peaceful of a start. The difference is telling. While my economy is falling apart, even with a gold mine being worked, yours is booming.

I think I have got a feeling on how much units you need to discourage your aggressive/peaceful neighbours from attacking you. With aggressive neighbour I'd build few more warriors. Probably 3 more. At this stage I don't want to get many inland cities from AI (they're still to small and it would ruin my econom), so even if I had military capability I wouldn't go for conquest (and because of that I haven't tried to build offensive force). I find it more profitable to wait a bit and let AI develop his cities (with his bonuses it will do it faster than I can) and when I will take them they will start to pay for themselves right away.


I have to agree with ch that your fishing->sailing->Great Lighthouse is really powerful. Did you manage to get all the 1st & 2nd teir techs through trade or were you able to research most of them on your own. I don't think I've ever come as close to tech parity with the AI's as you have that early in an Emperor game.
I think I've bought Iron Working, Pottery, Polytheism and Meditation and researched the rest myself.

@alexti2: I'm surprised you went for the Pyramids after the Lighthouse, but that explains how you got all that money (I was kind of wondering about that...).

Of the attempts so far, I definitely think alexti2's start is the strongest. I could say that just by comparing 100-turn saves, but what I think is more important is that his strategy plays right into Qin's strengths - the city plan, tech path, Industrious bonus to the Great Lighthouse, and Financial bonus all fit together like clockwork. Very elegant. And harbors are just going to keep the ball rolling.

When I went for Pyramids I was realizing that my chances to get them without stone wasn't very high, but losing wonder race is also sort of using industrious traits, because you're getting double money for the base production spent. I got a bit over 400 gold, that's roughly free Metal Casting - so I've sort of spent about 20 turns of production of my capital ot research Metal Casting. What other choice I had? To build warriors (which I didn't really need), or workers or settelrs (I needed neither at the moment), but they could have been held for the future. A bit later I would be able to build library. I think that 400 gold is a reasonable outcome when compared to these option, and if I actually got Pyramids, that would pretty much mean that the game was as good as won.

Not sure if you've noticed, that my plan also allows me to found (or conquer) any coastal cities in a decent spots without fear to bring my economy to the halt. With all those trade routes, such city can pay for itself. Another option (and considering Emperor level and industrious civ, very realistic one) to get Colossus for even better coast tiles.

{shameless plug}I have also put few ideas in that thread:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=148242{/shameless plug}

It's a fantastic challenge, there a pitty to start it only today...
I'll post tomorrow my 150 turn, it's a great chance to learn a lot from you, looks like a skilled GOTM :)

wow I really ate over-expansion here, the thinking behind it was to get city sites I really wanted based on the coast to maximize the Great Lighthouse. It's going to hurt for a little while but I'm hoping to wage a pillage war vs Cyrus to buy myself enough time to research HBR and then sue for peace to bring in the cavalry to take a few cities. I'm hoping I can turn it around but I might have expanded too quickly and suffered on early techs to recover.

If only I had my civ IV cd here I'd show you how it's done :(

I think I have got a feeling on how much units you need to discourage your aggressive/peaceful neighbours from attacking you. With aggressive neighbour I'd build few more warriors. Probably 3 more.
On that note...

I started another Qin game last night to see if I could apply some of the ideas from this thread. It was a different game in a lot of ways - I didn't have a coastal capital, so I couldn't take advantage of Sailing and the Great Lighthouse in the same way. But I tried to focus on commerce and trade, as well as make moves that played into my traits. I did have Marble, so I took relatively early Pots (prereq to Metal Casting), went Oracle->Metal Casting, had some cheap Forges up quickly, started on Colossus, discovered Alphabet before any of my four contacts, and had tech parity by 400 BC. Unfortunately, I also had Napoleon for a neighbor - he invaded me and kicked my butt in 375 BC just as I was hooking up iron and starting on a real military. :mad: I didn't even have Archers, as I was banking on Alpha to fill in my old techs. I'm wondering whether I just needed more warriors or whether taking Archery just before Alpha would have been a better plan. As it was, it seems that I had at least 5 turns on Alpha before the AI's.

Argh... back to the drawing board. I think it was a solid start - took good advantage of my traits and had a nice synergy between techs and wonders and economy. Just needs some tweaking to find that military balance you're talking about.

Hmm, if you're still interested in the other game I carried on for a bit, to see if I could get my empire into some sort of reasonable shape, and it's getting there, but all those chariots have really hurt my economy, and so is Organised Religion, but I'm slowly getting back to tech parity, although Caeser does have Feudalism (well a message came up saying he'd switched to Vassalage came up so I assume he has).

After I finished researching IW I started Alphabet, and immediately traded it to Caeser for Sailing, Hunting and Polytheism. After leaving Cyrus crippled with only a couple of cities left I got Archery, Meditation, Preisthood and Masonry for peace in 100AD. After alphabet I researched Maths, and then Calendar, getting Compass from the great scientist I got. I traded Compass for Construction, and extorted Monotheism off Cyrus. Since then I've just been building up some infrastructure, and waiting for Metal Casting and Currency to finish so I can get back to making money.

Edit: A couple of archers probably would've deterred Napoleon, and could have made the difference. Of course 5 more warriors could have done too, but it'd probably depend on whether he had axemen or not. I have definately learnt a lot from this game though, not only about early commerce, but also about chariots (never had a reason to use them before really)

mutax: I'll have a go at that game in a bit and see what happens. An isolated start on Monarch isn't exactly easy either though, especially with a non-financial civ.

I am impressed with what you guys can do on the emperor game starting on a cramped map. Just wondering if you can give a try to this lowly monarch game, it is Egypt starting on a remote island, with no possibility of early tech trading, you can post your save at 100 or 200 turn marks, and explain what strategy you would use to stay ahead or on-par with AI until optics.

Tell you what, I should have time on Monday to do this:

I am impressed with what you guys can do on the emperor game starting on a cramped map.
The game is coded to give you worse starts as the difficulty increases. That wasn't really noticeable to me until Emperor - I've just been playing 100-turn Emperor starts lately, and in 6 starts I never had copper. In only 2 did I have a pre-Calendar luxury. In 2 I had horses. In most of them I was jammed in a corner of the continent. The Qin game where Napoleon ate me was clearly the strongest start of all of them resource-wise, which is probably why I was doing so well (for a while). Lesson being that if you want to move up levels, don't get hung up about "good" starts, because they're few and far between later on. Just play what you've got.
Just wondering if you can give a try to this lowly monarch game...
Yay, Monarch! I can play that! But would you mind making a separate thread for it? I'd like to keep this one focused on Emperor.
...it is Egypt starting on a remote island, with no possibility of early tech trading...
For a fair look at strategy, you don't want to tell people that - it makes a big difference in early builds and tech (especially religion). If you do a good job scouting, you should find this out early enough to adjust - but leave that up to the players' ability to scout rather than telling them about it. I'll try to play the beginning as if I didn't know...
...and explain what strategy you would use to stay ahead or on-par with AI until optics.
Without being financial it's probably impossible to be ahead. In my experience, island starts are all about keeping a decent economy up, and that requires you to put some time in at the top of the tech tree rather than beeline to Optics. We'll see...

Not sure if it is too late to jump in on this but this is my turn 100 (can only get in a few turns at a time while entertaining the family). How do you get a nice turn log like that anyway? I have to just go by memory to tell you major events :(

On emperor starts I really like to go for Pyramids and I will sometimes on immortal if I have stone. On deity I have never managed it even with stone so I usually go a different strat, but I digress. So the first thing for me to do was to scout out and find a nice second city spot that I could use to chop the pyramids out if possible. Beijing only had 4 trees and I would need all four to get some early workers and settlers. Scouting westward with my warrior yielded a ton of jungle (ugh) but the south looked promising with a cow (and later to my delight a horse) and enough trees to maybe chop 75% of the pyramids.

Research path was bronze working, mysticism, fishing in that order. The 64 gold from that first hut let me set research to 100% for a while so that was a blessing. I met Cyrus within a few turns.

First city build was warrior, get beijing to size 3 by micromanaging swap between forests and sugar. At that point I started on a worker and bronze working was done by this time. First worker chopped south east towards a second worker. After chopping he went to irrigate the rice. Second worker when he popped started chopping for a settler. Had finished scouting out second city site at Shanghai so I fortified my first warrior there. Second warrior I had sent scouting the northern coastline and found a suitable third city site for Guangzhou.

Shanghai settled in 2440 BC to the south starts on obelisk. It will get chopped.

Second settler is chopped out and a warrior building in capital. No more trees. Hills mined. Researching Animal Husbandry then Masonry.

GuangZhou settled in 2080 bc working that nice lake tile obelisk started to be chopped out shortly.

1880 bc got masonry immediately swapped Shanghai to Pyramids (was building a warrior). Send both workers over to start chopping though one detours long enough to pasture up the horse and cow.

975 bc Built pyarmids swap to representation. Founded Nanjing this turn (could have done it earlier but wanted those tree chops to go towards shanghai).

375 bc current save lost out on great lighthouse so I have 130 gold or so researching towards alphabet.

Techs:

3360 Bronze working
3080 Mysticism
2840 Fishing
2320 Animal Husbandry
1880 Masonry
1560 Wheel
1080 Sailing
750 Pottery
675 Hunting
600 Archery
475 Writing

@snizzake: Wow, impressive expansion! You got yourself four cities in 50 turns, though your economy is clearly feeling the hurt. And 3 golds! And copper! Those bottom two cities are a real dilemma, though. Guangzhou (south near the gold and copper) gets you two very useful resources, but has practically no food. So you can't actually work the gold tiles to get that huge economic boost, even after Civil Service. Shifting it a little east would get you the cow, but that kind of screws up other things. Tough calls all around. I don't think I'd go for HBR and pillaging, though - at this point you have four solid cities and good resources, but you're also strung out all along the coast. Basically, your whole empire is going to be the frontline, and I don't think you can match the AI's production to deal with that yet. Also, I just really don't get the value of horse archers - they seem inadequate for taking culturally mature cities, and are totally countered by Spears, which everyone else probably has already. But I'm also a sucker for waiting until Catapults, which is probably too wimpy a play in a lot of circumstances.

@Islandia: It's never too late! And that looks to be a pretty good position at 375BC. Too bad the Persians nabbed The Great Lighthouse. Your start looks a lot like alexti2's, though a bit less tilted towards coastal trade - you have more workers and a much better road network. I think you'll be great tech-wise after Alphabet comes in. (Later...) Damn! I didn't see the Pyramids until I read your log. That's a huge boost. Get that whole Pyramids->Engineer->Great Library->National Epic snowball rolling. Very strong. Oh, as for the turnlogs I do it the hard way - switch out to Notepad at the end of each turn and write everything down. Very time-consuming, and it makes for dull reading I'm afraid. But when I was skimming the Civ4 SG's, I saw a bunch of turnlogs with identical, very pretty formats - it looks like maybe there's some kind of utility out there to process the game logs and turn them into a nice, human-readable form.

edit: Poked around a bit and found the utility - an auto-logger written by eotinb. Very neat. The thread is here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=141164).

@colony: At the moment, I'm fascinated by starts - going over starts in this way was what got me comfortable on Emperor in Civ3. But I'm cool if people want to keep playing out the game and compare notes.

I got your point, now my scenario is on a seperate thread.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=151165

On that note...

I started another Qin game last night to see if I could apply some of the ideas from this thread. It was a different game in a lot of ways - I didn't have a coastal capital, so I couldn't take advantage of Sailing and the Great Lighthouse in the same way. But I tried to focus on commerce and trade, as well as make moves that played into my traits. I did have Marble, so I took relatively early Pots (prereq to Metal Casting), went Oracle->Metal Casting, had some cheap Forges up quickly, started on Colossus, discovered Alphabet before any of my four contacts, and had tech parity by 400 BC.

Unfortunately, I also had Napoleon for a neighbor - he invaded me and kicked my butt in 375 BC just as I was hooking up iron and starting on a real military. :mad: I didn't even have Archers, as I was banking on Alpha to fill in my old techs. I'm wondering whether I just needed more warriors or whether taking Archery just before Alpha would have been a better plan. As it was, it seems that I had at least 5 turns on Alpha before the AI's.

Argh... back to the drawing board. I think it was a solid start - took good advantage of my traits and had a nice synergy between techs and wonders and economy. Just needs some tweaking to find that military balance you're talking about.
I think that was pretty good start, except you've neglected military a bit. I can't really comment on whether you got lucky or not here, because I mostly play on deity and there your approach is not particularly reliable (even with Marble, you also need Masonry, and AI beats you to Oracle more often than not). But on Emperor AI develops much slower, so your plan may work reliably. In fact, I don't how to beat deity AI reliably if you get inland start. From the coast some variation of archipelago strategy works, but not from the inland. I think, Islandia's strategy may be something to stick with if you start inland, it may also work on harder levels, though it's unclear how to keep the economy running when you start to get more cities (unless you're organized). Maybe by going for whoever constructed the Great Lighthouse first?

@Islandia: It's never too late! And that looks to be a pretty good position at 375BC. Too bad the Persians nabbed The Great Lighthouse. Your start looks a lot like alexti2's, though a bit less tilted towards coastal trade - you have more workers and a much better road network. I think you'll be great tech-wise after Alphabet comes in. (Later...) Damn! I didn't see the Pyramids until I read your log. That's a huge boost. Get that whole Pyramids->Engineer->Great Library->National Epic snowball rolling.
Islandia's plan has totally different underlying concept. Pyramids give representation, which means he can grow several large cities. This works particularly well with Bismark, because of expansive trait. Those city will form the core of the empire, and will be financing new cities until they grow to a reasonable size.

My plan centers on making any new coastal city profitable outright (and getting stronger earlier). Of course, those plan are not exclusive, you can get both concepts working. In fact both of us tried to get the second one done (and both failed :) ).

Great read! :goodjob:

- another "lowly monarch"

I am impressed with what you guys can do on the emperor game starting on a cramped map.

Just because a board is cramped doesn't mean you have a disadvantage at all.

Thanks for posting this (and to the others for contributing)! At first, I thought this might be some kind of prank like a WorldBuilder thing where you start getting into a serious game and then find someone has Riflemen from the get-go :p

---

In any event, I see some similarities but a radically different start strat.

From the start, I was able to see the coastal border to the north, so I elected to move my warrior SW, immediately exposing the hut there. I didn't like the start square because we were covering the only irrigatable square and I prefer the immediate river commerce with Financial. I could see a lot of the coastal boundaries and mountains, so I moved inland NW, exposing the cows and confirming the territory boundaries. I elected to settle NW of the starting space.

From there the game plays out very differently already. I don't have Alexti's coast, but I have a lot of real estate I can work and I'm inclined to Cottage Spam. I'm stuck at 80% research and selecting a worker reveals that researching BW leaves my worker with no useful tasks for several (6, I think it was) turns. I researched Wheel since I want Pottery and I want to hook up the cows ASAP.

My warrior uncovered a scout with that first hut which proceeded to expose the S/SW (meeting Cyrus and beating him to a 2nd hut for a useless map of the ocean). The warrior proceeded W, trudging through the jungle and only missing a 3rd hut by a turn :p Miscellaneous animal skirmishes in protected squares with no casualties.

I completed Wheel and seeing no reason to change, I pushed to Pottery. I completed my worker and mined the river hill since it draws commerce (faster worker/settler production also since it offers 4 units). I then roaded up the sugars and cow. I'm building my settler the old fashioned way. Upon completing Pottery, I cottage the sugars because they are 3 food and I can't work them for a good while yet. I focus on commerce over shields/food to keep research high and a single-digit treasury. I'm able to crank up to 90% research and sustain it. I switch to AH to work the cow.

Can't remember which finished first, I think AH. With the horses revealed, I pre-road to my new build spot 4 S of my capital. This gives me a coast, *improves* the tile I'm on and puts me 1E of the horses. I park a fog-buster on a wooded hill in the area and shortly settle at my designated spot.

I research Hunting->Archery for city defense (I see barbs and win a battle or two) and because I want Horse Archers. I research Mysticism to build an obelisk buffer in my new town and to make it possible to trade for religion techs.

My new city builds a worker, an archer which I run back up to my capital and then starts an obelisk. I intend to spam workers to help spam cottages and pre-road forests/jungles. I want the pops low and I'm going to need a lot of cutters.

Caesar shows up and we make nice with Open Borders. I turn around and get Cyrus to offer me open borders also (nobody has any religions available, but they've been founded late as others have noted). I wrap up Horseback Riding and belatedly research BW and learn the bad news.

I go to Fishing->Sailing since I want Compass & calendar and it's becoming apparent that there's no future inland unless my HBR tech edge overwhelms Cyrus. I know that he hasn't hooked up the copper, but I've no idea what the iron situation is, yet.

I chop the river forest for a settler and to place an interim cottage as I will be killing my sugar towns when Calendar comes and I don't want my economy to die out. Eventually, this square will probably be irrigated to spread farms if I can't do anything with the jungles..

Caesar offers me IW for HR. I see he's got Sailing (2 turns for me), Masonry, & Writing available, as well. I waffled here. IW has a lot of immediate advantages, but doesn't lead anywhere I can go in the near future. Masonry + Writing have the same cost and Mathematics would put me within spitting distance of either Calendar or Construction. This huge boost to catapults and the Great Lighthouse/libraries/plantations push me that direction instead. Hopefully, Caesar will be more inclined to harass Cyrus than me (crosses fingers).

At 775 (I missed my 800BC cutoff), I'm 2 turns away from building my 3rd city on the northern coast the hill cove next to the lake.

I'm still runnning 90% research on a balanced budget with a treasury of 11. I'm generating 32 coins/28 beakers, I've got an unhappy citizen in my capital, Pop 5 (a weak area in my game, I admit) and my new town is Pop 2. My terrain is over-developed for my needs but allow me some flexibility in switching to production for wartime. I've designated my capital for barracks (no shields in it yet) with the intent to start chopping/popping out Horse Archers for a rush on Cyrus. If I can bribe Caesar into warring with him to drive a stake in their relations, I might win Persepolis and all the intervening terrain.

---

That's the plan, anyway. Any thoughts?

Tried this out, the start isn't too bad. I usually avoid the coast but I decided to give it a try and look at the coastal wonders for a change of pace (I rarely build these).

The only major differences in my game is that I went a bit heavier on the cottages, notably I cottaged the sugar which is a big bonus before calendar. And also with a financial civ you may end up keeping them once calendar is reached, at least for a while.

The other difference and is that shortly after the 100 turns Cyrus sneak attacked my city by the ivory and dye. Which illustrates a problem in my game, I had no culture buildings and didn't research Mysticism to get the Obelisks. Because of that Cyrus pushed my border adjacent to my city and declared and attacked the same turn!

I wouldn't be overly concerned I doubt he can field many units and my economy is strong with 70% or so research and Great Lighthouse just completed. I've also traded away the bulk of my health resources for luxuries so my cities are in good shape size wise.

Another error I made was waiting too long for Archery so I'm building archers now and disbanding the warrior defense I had previously. I overbuilt warriors but they saw little barbarian action, one warrior and one archer.

I also explored quite a bit more than most of the other games, not much value there as I only managed to find two huts and got gold from both.

I'd like to thank Cleverhandle for starting this very instructive thread, and for all the posters' contributions. Happy new year to all :goodjob:

Interesting read. I won my last game at Monarch pretty easily; so I am now thinking about moving up to Emperor. Usually I try to get an early religion. But I noticed that the players that contributed didn't even try. Why? Is it because you get beaten by the AI because of their bonuses? Even when you go straight Mysticism->Polytheism->Masonry->Monotheism before inventing techs with which you can improve squares? (Depending on your starting techs and surrounding terrain you will probably postpone the building of you first worker a bit.)

Andre: Not starting with Mysticism, IMO, means no early religions on Emperor level. Even if you have Mysticism, it's a foot race for Bhuddism/Hinduism, and you're running with your shoe laces tied together - the techs will cost the AI less, and also you'll be researching at 80% while they're researching at 100%. That last part is a result of the civics costs. On Emperor, your civics cost 2gpt from the moment you found your first city. The second one will cost 2 more, plus 2 in city maintenance. Going for Mono with this start meant researching 4 techs, of which only Mysticism is useful on its own. If you fail to found Judaism, you're in a pretty big hole since you've ignored worker/military techs for 40 or so turns. Without bronze working, even the wonders that have opened up as a result of these techs (Pyramids, Parthenon, and Stonehenge) are really long shots.

Grogs is dead on.

In this start in particular, you have to pick an economic strategy to help counter your liabilities so you have some semblance of tech parity. I chose cottage spam (wheel->pottery) because it allowed me to switch my capital to commerce (I often use the AI for *suggestions*, before choosing the tiles I'm going to work).

That said, I'm probably going to have to admit I can't beat this start (yet). I've made several runs at it, now, and each attempt has provided completely different challenges.

Great thread!

Sorry guys, but you are wrong. I have started 8 different games on Emperor playing Washington (although his traits don't matter much yet). And in half of them I have founded both Hinduism and Judaism. In the other half only Judaism. And by building the Oracle you have good chance of founding Christianity as well.

Sorry guys, but you are wrong. I have started 8 different games on Emperor playing Washington (although his traits don't matter much yet). And in half of them I have founded both Hinduism and Judaism. In the other half only Judaism. And by building the Oracle you have good chance of founding Christianity as well.
And have you played out all of those starts to see where they take you? It's not that founding an early religion is impossible without starting Mysticism, it's the opportunity cost of doing so.

In most of my games I had a good start just BECAUSE of those early religions.

In most of my games I had a good start just BECAUSE of those early religions.

In emperor I tend to wait for my neighbour's religion to spread to me, and this has 2 benefits, nobody is unhappy with me for the entire BC years, and then I have one very happy neighbour once I choose his religion. With this happy neighbour you can get gifts and even have a defensive pact while trying to beat up the other unhappy civs. Andre, what you try in lower levels might not necessarily work in emperor or higher. The whole neighbour strategy will not work of course if he is cutting you off from the only expansion path. Anyway, I think religion in higher levels is only useful once you get theocracy for the civic that gives your units free XP, and of course the buildings that you build in-between other priorities.

Usually I try to get an early religion. But I noticed that the players that contributed didn't even try. Why? Is it because you get beaten by the AI because of their bonuses?
I don't go for it, because I think it's waste of time - there're better things to do and you can always buy that research branch cheaply afterwards.

Maybe a dumb question, but where in civ 4 do you guys find the screen shot option for these images?

Maybe a dumb question, but where in civ 4 do you guys find the screen shot option for these images?
I just do Alt-PrintScreen, which copies the screen to the Windows clipboard, and then switch to Paint and do a Paste. But I know that there are more clever screenshot programs out there that make things more convenient.

When trying to load a save I remember seeing a screen shot folder, so i had assumed there was a built in utility. Still hunting around a bit, I don't remember reading up on this in the manual. On the other hand, I still never figured out how to re-play a save.

That screenshot folder should be in your My Documnets\My Games\Civ4\ScreenShots folder, unless you changed from the default setup somehow. Again, with default settings, hitting the printscreen button will take a screenshot and save it in that folder. I've stopped using that method though. There are certain things that are visible in the game that don't show up in that screenshot, or at least didn't prior to 1.52. So I do just like Claverhandle, alt-tab out to Paint, and paste it in. This also lets me do any drawing I want on the pic (circling tiles of interest, dotmapping, etc.)

Could anyone post how your game progress in the later era? Were you able to get a victory or close defeat? I tried out this save game earlier tonight, Caesar declared war on me around 300 BC with two archers, and I was barely able to fend him with my warriors. Then for the next thousand years, I had to fend off his waves of horse archers, praetorians, and axemen. He wouldn't accept peace or ceasefire, I finally gave up around 700 AD since I was like ten techs behind Cyrus (he got longbowsmen in 300AD), and I was still using archer for defense, plus Caesar showed up in a ten units stack of praetorians, war elephant, and horse archers, and I only had 2 archers on my border city. I peeked in the world builder afterward, Caesar got like a dozen units garrison in his pretty much all of his eight cities. If I had field an army like that, the maintenance cost would've killed my research, seems that AI got quite an unfair advantage in emperor mode, especially after the 1.52 patch. Any thought on how to keep up tech wise, and not get plowed over by aggressive AI in the meantime.

I have not even come close to winning this. Find myself 5+ techs behind at 100 turns and at that point no one will trade, with at most 6 cities. Tried Alexti2's Lighthouse strategy but could someone post a game they've won here?

If I still have the save I'll keep playing it out. I was able to enlist the Romans into a war with the Persians but it got kind of boring so I stopped playing. I pretty much believe in order to win you will need to wipe out the Persians and possibly the Romans to use their land for your own devious purposes.

So I played this save till 1300's, managed to grab the stonehenge, great lighthouse, and colossus along the way. But now I am in the last place behind Caesar. What's more, my regular tech trade partner, Caesar, declared war on me (I am only saved behind Cyrus acts as buffer in between). Now I have no one I can have tech trade with. Meanwhile, my gallant knights conduct pillaging operating on Caesar, then heal in Persia, safe from Caesar's wrath. Attached is the save file. If civ experts out there can have a look, and give me some tips on tech path, terrain improvement, and game strategy, it would be much appreciated.

I was able to master the main continent with a few replays (but not using any of my resource knowledge), but around 1800 or so Russia arrived with a huge tech lead, an attitude, and troops to support a backwards ideology. I eked out survival until the AI secured a time victory, but could not have held out much longer.

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FWIW - I liked the 'sea approach' posted early in this thread, but I was unable to do anything with it that didn't end up with Cyrus driving a wedge in the middle. The dye/indigo city seems the linchpin of the scenario.

My best results came from a chariot rush on Cyrus's Persepolis, making friends with Caesar and letting him consolidate the rest of Cyrus's holdings while I out-teched him and cleared out the jungle. After that Rome's advantage was played out and he was *relatively* easy prey.

I built the horse city followed by the dye/ivory city. I was able to jam about 9 +POW chariots on top of Persepolis and reinforce it via roads. After sporadic Axeman resistance, I was able to trade Caesar for IW to match them and instigated a 2-front war. Without the culture spread from Persepolis, I was able to backfill territory easily enough.

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Has anyone secured a victory on this? Again, interesting start. Thanks!

I think I can feel confident about getting a victory. I took nearly the same route as Alexti, hitting that worker first and improving tiles while counting on fogbusters. Unlike Alexti, I did manage to get the Pyramids (I chopped at a distance initially and then came in HARD for them).

Pyramids has allowed me to grow 2 inland cities while my coastal units thrive. From there I was able to launch an invasion into Persia and grab his holy city in a bloody ass war.

I've decided that I will not go for a domination/conquest win, and am considering going for the space race. I think that victory condition is logical given the industrious trait.

I feel its a won game because I have tech parity, and I have now enough cities (8) that are developed enough (approx 7-13 pop) with enough hammers that hooking factory+power+university+Observatory+laboratory will be possible. I have one city that has forests nearly around it, and it will remain unchopped until I can build the space elevator. I'll chop rush that sucker a good bit, but in the meantime I am making sure it will produce enough to make it worthwhile.

With the space elevator, my industrious trait, and laboratories in every city, I think it will be a cakewalk.

I just better have some defense...thats the only flaw I can think of right now, my military may not be big enough...

More soon,

Brief summary: At 375 AD I have 5 cities, 2 religions and one seriously pissed off neighbor.

Attached is my save at 375AD and here is my story...

As a general rule, I like to focus my capital on commerce, in case I feel like taking advantage of beaurocracy at some point. So the initial plan was to first go for Pottery so that I could cottage all the sugar tiles.

After the captial, I planned to settle two production cities to kick out military. Cyrus was very close, and that meant ancient conquest. What I look for in my production cities is nothing more than a food bonus tile, and some hills.

First, I made a play for the Elephants, right near Cyrus' capital, founding Shanghai on a hill. Shanghai is in range of cattle, ivory and a couple hills. I figured the borders would spark tensions, and Cyrus would burn some units on my defenders (hopefully spears since he'll probably have immortals) who would be fortified behind city walls, on a hill. It turned out that he never once attacked the city defenders there, but hey at least I was prepared. Settling here also gives me an easy way into the heart of his domain.

The second city I planned to place west of Beijing, next to the fresh water and in range of Cattle, Rice and a couple hills.

After Pottery, I decided to go Bronze Working, then Hunting, then Writing. I would have been content building an army of axes and spears, however, seeing no copper nearby, I immediately went for Iron Working after Bronze. Wow, is all I can say about the iron situation. Both of my production cities would have iron! (I swear to god I did not open the world builder).

Initial build order in Beijing
Warrior (scouts nearby but returns to garrison)
Worker (builds cottages on sugar, then road to second city)
Warrior (move to second city loc ahead of settler)
Settler (production/military)
Warrior (send ahead of next settler)
Settler (a second production city)
Worker
Library. At this point Beijing was at size 4 and working 3 sugar cottages, with one scientist. (and something like 100 turns on granary...)

Production in Shanghai went Warrior, Obelisk, Barracks, then Swordsmans on repeat. Also tossed city walls in there after masonry.

Production in Guangzhou was Obelisk, Barracks, then I cycled spear/axe on repeat. These would escort my swords, and also garrison captured cities.

During the military build up, I chopped the forests at Shanghai toward several swordsmans, until there was nothing left to chop.

One thing I didn't do, which I might have planned for in other situations, was go for pillaging Cyrus' horses. They were really just too far out of the way and I didn't want to wait to build more units. I decided to just let his horses pillage and then kill themselves on my spearmans. It turned out that I ended the war right as his horses made it to my capital, and they pillaged one town there.

Research Path
The Wheel
Pottery
Bronze Working
Iron Working (only because there was no copper)
Mysticism
Hunting
Writing
Masonry
Animal Husbandry

I didn't keep a log, but I did note some highlights and plans at a few dates.

875 BC The research on that list finished and I started on Meditation->Priesthood->Code of Laws, so that I would be able to build courthouses and switch to caste system after I captured some cities.

350 BC
My war started as I dispatched 6-7 swords, 1 axe, 1 spear to take Cyrus' capital.

250 BC
Persepolis is mine. I lost 3 swords in the process. Persepolis is the Hindu holy city! :goodjob: No shrine. :mad:

50 BC
My raiders (4 swords, 1 axe) approach Pasargadae and discover a somewhat large defense of 4 archers, 1 spear, 1 horse archer. Raiders move to fortify outside in the jungle to await reinforcements.

1 AD
Code of Laws -> Alphabet (incoming free techs for peace)

25 AD
Pasargae falls to my mighty swords. Presto! Sugar plantations without Calendar! (when it's borders expand, that is unless his horse archers pillage them)

375 AD
Alphabet -> Monarchy
Raiders take Tarsus (fish).

At this point, my lands are being razed and I don't want to lose the free plantations or my towns back at the capital. Since I now have Alphabet, I sue for peace.

Cyrus gives up Polytheism, Fishing, Archery, 100 gold and 2 gold per turn.

Traded Caesar Code of Laws for for Mathematics.

One turn left for an Academy in Beijing.

[edit] Hah, got ahead of myself on the last part so I deleted it. I'm going to pick this up again after work tonight, then probably post more results.